Positioning Topic

I have decided to focus on Computer Mediated Communication in the realm of Second Language Acquisition. I an particularly interest in how this process can connect language learners to native speakers. Most of the studies I have found so far have focused on asynchronous commutation view email or synchronous via text chat. I have found some recent studies that use Voice Over IP technology to connect native and non-native speakers.

I am interested in this topic because I believe the new communication tools of the Internet are opening up new opportunities change how languages are taught. Having lived in Taiwan and picked up some Mandarin Chinese, I believe interaction with native speakers in essential for learning a language.

Here are some the studies that I have found so far:

• Computer-Mediated Negotiated Interaction:
• This study had language learners engage in tasks together online and examined how the used language to solve problems.
• Conversations and negotiated interaction in text and voice chat rooms.
• "REFLECTIVE CONVERSATION" IN THE VIRTUAL LANGUAGE CLASSROOM
• Study of a language class the Open Universtiy in England.
• Task Design for Audiographic Conferencing
• Audiograhic Conferencing meaning audio/video
• Also at the Open Universtiy.

I am interested in what can be done to engage students in meaningful conversations online. Also what task can be created that will allow the students to interact and promote such conversations.

Online Examples of Paradigms

• Objectivism
• Prongo Games. This site mainly has drill games for kids. This is the page I looked at. I checked out the math quiz games. Pretty boring stuff really. Drill and repeat, drill and repeat.
  
• FBI Working Dogs This site by the FBI basically just list information about Service Dogs. Hardly any user involvement here. Just passes on some information.
• Constructivism
• Online Theremin Simulator. This is little flash animation that lets play with a virtual Theremin. You might not know what a Theremin is but you have probably heard one. It gives brief description but the real fun lies in making some weird sounds. It falls under Constructivism because lets to the user interact and explore in there own way. Here is
  another page from the same site, just cool.
  
  Figured how to embed this example on my page
  
  
• Architect 3d Studio. This site guides you through building a house. It give you advice along the way but you are able to built the house as you see fit.
  Here is screen shot of house a made by a 12 year old
  

Postioning in Field: Change of Course

Well if it is not to late I think I am going to change my idea for the "Positioning Yourself in the Field" assignment. I would now like to look into software, particularly online, that is used to teach Second Language Acquisition. I have done some hunting for articles and there seem to be good amount. I particular interested in studies that use online technologies to connect learners to acquire language. I have seen couple of that use online "Virtual Worlds" provide learners with a practice space for learning language.

I am interested in the potential of using Voice over IP in conjunction with "Virtual Worlds" technologies to provide language learning environments. As both these technologies are very young I am finding more information about using the technologies that proceeded them such as text chatting. This could get give me insight to methods the research used and could be used with my goals.

Constructivism & Objectivism

I read Chapter 6 about Epistemology and Design Learning Environments. I made chart comparing the two. Here. I think I would fall into the Constructivism camp myself. But I could see how Objectivism might be better suited to some subjects, such as accounting or history.

Weird is Objectivism totally out of fashion. The Blogger spell checker labels it a mistake.

Professional Development Part I

I was little confused and did PD part I assignment post last week here.

I think more specifically I will focus this semester on PHP skills. I would hope to practice them on something practical and useful for the college like a Moodle Module or some other web app that could be of use.

Skills I need for my Goals

Right now I am thinking I am going be an Educational Software developer. I know that is a pretty board field. Particularly I am interested online educational applications such as games and Learning Management Systems, LMS.
Here are the skills I think I need to work on:

1. For Online Educational Games
• Flash Animation and Action Scripts. I have seen a bunch of educational games out on the web in Flash. I am not sure these people doing this for a living or just for fun. I know that educational software is a huge market and it seems that CD-ROM's days are numbered.
• Java Applets I actually already have about 3 years in experience in Java but not in graphical applications. I figure my experience will make learning it faster.
• Game design and theory. I taking a game design class this semester. I planning on doing a Flash musical game as a project.


2. For Learning Management Systems




• PHP programing. It seems that many Open Source LMS systems are written in PHP . I particularly interested in Moodle which is used by the College of Education. I figure this is the most likely one that I have chance to get some real experience in while I am in school. It also seems to be widely used.
• The Sakai Project. This is another LMS system. It is written in Java so I might have easier time dissecting the code. It also has some pretty big universities using it.
• Blackboard Building Blocks. This is a system that allows you to develop add-ons for the Blackboard LMS system. I do not particularly want to work with their software but they seem to want to be the only player in the LMS area. They have been awarded a ridiculously board patent for Online Learning and suing one of their competitors.

Digital Divide Article

I remember someone mentioned the digital divide the first day in class as reason they were interested in Educational Technology. Here is article on new study about the digital divide. One thing I found interesting:

Overall, 91 percent of students in nursery school through 12th grade use computers; 59 percent use the Internet.

It surprises me that 32% of students are using computers but not the internet. This just makes me think projects like the call to provide free wireless for San Francisco are great . By the way there has been talk of citywide wireless in G'ville.

Are Blogs well suited to the Online Classroom?

In my previous post I asked the question "What makes a good Blog post? ". Now I am wondering if blogs are well suited for the online classroom. Don't get me wrong, I glad that we are using them in class, it's just as someone who is thinking of being an educational software developer I am wondering how this technology could be improved to better suit the educational environment.

Basically it seems that blogs are a technology that can enhance online education but if you were going to design this technology from scratch( or redesign it) for education it might have some different qualities.

Here some things I might add:

• A way for the teacher to have some editorial control over all blogs in a class.(More so for K-12 students)
• Prepackaged page that has feeds and links to all the blogs in the classroom.
• Ability for blogs to be set in class mode were only comments made class students as opposed to all web users show up.
• Ability for the teacher to easily analyze each student's usage of the their blog and their participation in other student's blogs.
• Ability to export all course blogs into one archived file for record keeping.
• Ability for the teacher to make assignments then have simple way to for the students tag a post or group of posts as related to the assignment.

What are some other ways blogs could be tailored for educational purposes.?

Center for Children and Technology

I have been looking around for the job fields in Educational Technology. Found this cool website, the Center for Children and Technology. They are involved in a lot of interesting Ed Tech projects. I look around there staff page to see what kind of background they had. Definitely looks like it would be a cool place to work.

What makes a good Blog post?

I was looking around at our classmates blogs and noticing which postings were getting comments. It made me wonder what makes a good blog post. I think for our purposes it would be different since we are trying to create class discussions on our blogs. Some of the things I am thinking of right off the top of my head would be: brevity, good title, questions to the reader, and a focus on a single topic. What do you think makes a good blog post for our purposes?