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Blogs (continuation) Visit our BaW Weblog |
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Hallo, I'm not
sure where to begin with blogs, I have so many Q's as with anything
which is new & unknown. Firstly, since I have never made a web page
either, is a blog like a web page withan interactive element in the form of a kind of forum or discussion thread? that is
what the BAWblog which I visited seems to be, but that's to me,,,and I'm
probably missing a lot. I'm keen to know since I feel that some groups of my students at school are in great need of an exciting interactive project in which they can develop their views and opinions along with their language. I think that once I've got my mind around it plus developed the skills, a blog or two may be the way forward. Anyway, just to sign off saying again how great is ths group, exactly what I need now as a way forward at the stage I've reached with my teaching & learning, not forgetting the most important aspect which is the good e-company. speak soon, antonia |
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Regarding blogs, there are many questions to be answered
about them, and I think that the best way to get to know them is by
visiting those which have been created by some participants, in order to
understand how they can be used. The main idea is that blogs allows you to share comments, ideas, reflections on topics, keep pages you
have found interesting, and have others give you feedback. Personally, I have been using reflective journals in my f2f classes for years with the purpose of having the students reflect on their learning process, and this in turn, has helped me assess my own teaching practices. I have used Yahoo Groups for students to post their journals in the files section. All this can be done in blogs. Vance and Buth have shared the blogs they are using with their students and they are a great source of ideas. For a Bravenet blog you need to have a Web page, but there are many others (there is a folder in our links section with a list of them) where you only need to register for free and get one in a matter of seconds. In week four (Monday) Bee will be giving a presentation on blogs, write down all your questions and as she said she will try to answer them all :-) Personally, I think a blog is what you want it to be. Hugs from cloudy Spain, Daf |
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Antonia, Not wanting to get into Bee's territory ;-) , let me just quickly say what I think. A blog and a Web page are two different things with two different objectives. A blog is a sort of a public diary in which you can do such things as write your opinions and views about events, keep interesting URLs and significant quotes from them, etc, interact with students, etc. It can be quite interactive and dynamic depending on the possibility to post comments or not. Our BaW blog is becoming a dynamic place, isn't it? I'd say that a Web site (a set of Web pages) is more a repository of work done and in progress. Of course, it can have its own dynamics because people can interact with you to comment on projects you've done, things you've written, etc, and even ask you for help on some topic you've dealt with. A blog seems like a motivating tool for the kind of project you'd like to carry out with your students. However, if I were you, I'd keep on looking at examples of blogs that have been given in our list but, above all, I'd wait for Bee's presentation next week when you'll get additional info and uses, as well as answers to your questions, I'm sure. Have a great week! Teresa |
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Antonia, you ask a lot of relevant questions about blogs and I'm looking forward to see how our workshop will develop an eye opening inquiry in this domain that has become so popular, and to learn how Bee (Barbara Dieu) would help us get more familiar with the "uses and gratifications". To me, the access to a blog tool means that you have an easy and instantly updated webpage as an obvious advantage - with limitations because you might want to add more advanced content (such as just images or multimedia). Some blog toold allow you to use more advanced code, but you will need more insight in how to use it correctly, and then a HTML webpage might be simpler to manage. I've just paid a one year fee of 25 dollars to get full "Premium" tools at my blog at www.xanga.com and am going to explore its new potential - this blog is mine and has no student aspect, mostly used for my own memory and not updated very often, but over time I've found it was a quick and useful way to share some information and comment upon interesting webpages etc, related to my ongoing progression and research interests. Speaking of the Xanga tool as a user in demand for simplicity and stability, I've been very satisfied with it for two years.Besides, it is for mac as well as for windows. Have a look at http://www.xanga.com/susnyrop sus |
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Hi Antonia, A Blog is like a Forum but longer. I mean post are supossed to be longer (though sometimes it could be the other way around). However a blog is more similar to a webpage, more customizable (depending always on the kind of blog) and it is more similar to a publication. The good thing about them is that it is very easy to have things ordered chronologically and updating is very very easy... It could be also use as a perfect way to motivate students, better for the more advanced ones, I would say... better than the traditional way of asking them to write a compositon to be corrected by the teacher on the traditional topics... Here you are the ones that I have collected on my website: http://www.mariajordano.com/my_suggested_blogs/otherblogs.htm Kind regards, María |
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Thanks Dafne,
I'll take your advice and spend some time looking at blogs. I'll
also look at what yahoo groups offers...its all new to me, but I'm sure
that
within weeks i'll get 'the hang of it' and my students will benefit.
Today I believe that its definitely the way forward in education because
of the collaboration, interactivity ...etc. I'll definitely be there for Bee's event which i'm already looking forward to. BAW is really enhancing my life in so many ways! take care, --------------- Hola Teresa, |
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Posted by Kyi Shwin: Actually, I've created a blog of my own after visiting Sus's blog at . My blog is just about my paper written 2 years ago when I was start reading for my doctoral thesis. When I've read the paper again,it is found a little bit immatured. I'll create a new one later during this BaW session for teaching but you can visit my present blog at . February 9, 2004 @ 6:20 PM |
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Hello Kyi, good to see you here in the shared BaW blog, too. I wonder why your URLs are gone? And I see that there'sw no link in the Blog list for my good old blog at Xanga. Did you use Xanga for setting up your blog? Please share your personal blog URL with us some time soon. Sus |
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So how are things? Is everyone blogging colourless green
ideas or are you
sleeping furiously? Apparently everyone has become a pro because I have
not
received any questions until now :-) Warm regards from Brazil, Bee |
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Agata's and Teresa's Polish-Portuguese messages and photos
are a great
inspiration. It gave me an idea of trying to print some of this out onto
paper, and bring that into my computerless classrooms for reactions and
follow-up responses. It may be one way to bridge the gap of not being
able to use the
computer directly with kids in their own schools. P.S. That snowman is
superb! (It makes me so homesick, too, for New England!) Sus thanks for the claymation page. There are some great links there, for kids, too. I especially love the self-reflections. Lucy, your crafts projects with real books are in the same vien as what I do in the kindergarten. I haven't yet learned how to put up photos on the weblogs, and am just learning digital photography, but your weblog really inspired me to get going on documenting my learner's work. As soon as I learn how to do blogs and get comfortable in my Tapped In office, next month, I've decided to make my first blog on teaching EFL/ESL teachers how to do simple, hands-on animation with kids in their classes. I could even have some very interesting guest lecturers in over the course of the year. As I mentioned, I've got no time for the next month, but please keep me up to date, and don't lose my contact information from the particpants page. Jacira, I noticed your message on just having done claymation. I'll send you some info in a few weeks. (I'm supposed to be studying right now, feeling guilty about time spent reading these emails...but can't pull myself away). Would love to see what you've done! Thanks for the inspiration. Leah |
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Dear All, Before I had my connection crash, I had written another general entry to our Weblog (http://www.oocities.org/bawebhead/weblog.html ) where I comment on all your previous entries. I made some changes to the header of the blog, check it out! I suggest that we write there the questions we have for Bee regarding blogs. In that way they will be together in one place for Bee to refer to. Agata has posted some already :-) Bfn, Daf |
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Hi everyone: Does anyone know how to post pictures (upload pictures) to blogger? I've started using blogger but it looks very sterile. Don't know where controls are to upload pictures and build in places for comments. Am I missing something or what? Also, I would like to be able to reverse the blogging order. To make things go first to last rather than last to first. Of course, that may be what a blog is all about but still, I'd like to be able to do both. Any controls or blogging platforms that can reverse the order that anyone knows of? Gary |
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Hi Gary, As I've just discovered how to insert pictures in Blogger let me share my new knowledge :-) First: you need to upload your picture to the Internet. I have an account at school and I upload my photos there. They have their internet address then, sth like: http://www.wsl.edu.pl/~azetka/snowman.jpg Second: You insert a link to the picture in your "Post" area in Blogger. The link goes wherever you want the picture to appear. <img src="http://www.wsl.edu.pl/~azetka/snowman.jpg"> And that's all! Hope this helps, Agata |
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Thanks Agata for answering Gary's
query...I had explained it in the beewebhead blogger and was about to
explain, when you did it first...lol This is what being a webhead is all about...you learn how to do it from one person...and pass what you have learnt to the other so that we build and grow together sharing our skills. Dziekuje and you are becoming a real pro! Bee |
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Dear Bee, it was my pleasure! Ca³a przyjemnoœæ po
mojej stronie! I think it is great to share like this. And it is really a wonderful group where no questions wait unanswered. Best wishes, Agata |
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I've created a new blog for my Writing II Course this
Spring (starting this Monday). It's at http://aidenyeh.bravelog.com I want to invite other teachers out there to join my students and help them get a good blogging experience. You could also ask your students to join. My students, btw, are 3rd year Foreign languages majors, most of them are between 18-20 years old. I will add more links to my blog site and I hope to improve the lay-out and content within a couple of days. goodnight, er, morning from Taiwan, aiden |
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Dear Aiden it is great to have you with us in our workshop as a great example of another active Webhead who has shared so much with us - cool high tech experiments as well as pretty easy and simple examples on how to make students communicate online. One example is your powerful presentation from last year's TESOL conference that can be found at: http://www.oocities.org/aidenyeh/tesol/CMCandWebheads.htm ; some of us attended this from our computers while others were on site in Baltimore. yours, Sus PS I've added a little tag note to your blog; I just love those cute emoticons from Bravenet! |
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Sus, Bee and Daf, Thank you so much for your kind words :-) The kind of support and encouragement that you guys give just make me keep on going, going, and going (sounds like a battery commercial :-)) specially at times when I feel like i'm running out of batteries. I've got a question about using blogs. What I did the last time I've used it was to create one blog site for the class where my students post comments (similar to what I've created at bravenet). This way I could monitor 'who writes what'. Now, I'm thinking, should I ask them to create their own blogs, give them freedom to write and control their own sites? But with a class of 36 students, how can I do all the monitoring? Suggestions? Or, should I go on with what I've created now? aiden |
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Dear Aiden. Bee is asking participants to post questions to be answered in her presentation on Monday, some participants have posted them to our Bravenet BaW Weblog, but I am sure she will read your message here, and will talk about it during her pres, right, Bee? Personally and not being an expert at blogs, I think both ways are fine. It may all depend on how autonomous your students are or may be. You can keep track of your students' blogs by linking them to the blog you have created at Bravenet, as I have done with our particpants's blogs. They could leave a message on this blog when they have new entries. Another alternative would be to have them try for a couple of weeks on your blog, and then, like a good mama bird, send them to fly on their own. Hugs for a dear friend, Daf |
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Hi Aiden, As Daf said, I am collecting the questions so as to answer them during the presentation. I'd rather adapt to your needs than spend the whole hour talking about things you already know. In Beeonline 1 and 2 (http://beeonline.blogspot.com; http://beeonline2.blogspot.com ) you will see that the students have a common ground where they post and comment and their own personal journal which is linked to the class blog. Each of these has a different function. I have also given them rubrics to follow and they are marked according to them. See you tomorrow! Warm regards from Brazil, Bee |
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^ Mini_Webheads (continuation) |
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Hey Jacira, Leah, Dafne, Teresa, and Sus... Where shall we start in the creation of our Mini-webheads corner? This sounds fabulous! Cheers! Kate |
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Hi Kate, Have you created an office at Tapped In? That would be a good place to start your project on mini-webheads. You can store files, notes, pictures, and hold meetings with colleagues, as you learned in the tour. Keep us posted! Daf |
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Dear Kate,
Jacira, Leah, Daf and Sus (sorry if I'm missing out on someone), I'm also excited about the mini-Webheads corner, or 'BaW kids' corner', or 'Baw for kids', whatever. . .! We can start by creating a group in our computer email and send messages privately, independently of the BaW list, I mean. I have several of these groups. The latest one I called BaW and it includes the four moderators. I'll call mine/ours [baw4kids] - it allows me to associate baw with our level of students - and will include all of your names and your private email addresses, and myself. This way we will communicate and function independently of BaW, because there's no need to overload those not interested with our messages. However, we can report back to BaW now and then. For organization's sake, one of us could send out a message summarizing in short topics what has been accomplished and agreed so far, and then it may be easier to pick up from there. Those of us teaching can also say indicate the ages and level (of EFL) of the students, when that is the case, and how many we have. The average age of my students is 10, they're in 5th grade and in the 1st year of EFL. I have two classes of 28 students each. For CALL lessons, I divide them in two groups. I don't remember if it's been suggested, but I think Groupboard [http://www.groupboard.com/] would be a great idea to bring in. Sus and Daf have used it and can tell us more about it. These are my two cents. One other thing: yesterday I referred the email projects I've carried out and things I've written based on my experience. I thinks these writings may help you in case you're interested in working with email. You can find them by clicking on Projects in my home page. (The server where I keep my Web site was down yesterday, but has been back today). http://www.malhatlantica.pt/teresadeca/ You may also be interested in looking at my two Teacher-Student blogs, because they can give you ideas. -- Let's Blog! is practically over, because I no longer have those students http://www.malhatlantica.pt/teresadeca/school/blog7.htm -- Have Fun with English! is very much alive, because I started it this school year http://www.malhatlantica.pt/teresadeca/school/fun-with-english5.htm Have a great week and let's keep in touch with our BaW 4 kids! Teresa |
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Kate, you ask for a corner where to start a mini webheads project. Now that we're exploring the uses and aspects of blogging, I suggest that you start a blog that could be shared by those who are willing to join you as a startup team, and then go from there. This multi-owned blog could contain all sorts of inspiration, and maybe develop blogs or real homepages for each class. (like a parent with children?) I'm looking forward to see how your project develops and to visit your classes virtually in due time, as a storytelling cybergranny :-) yours, Sus |
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Hi all, I have been reading everything you have been telling about creating a Mini-webheads corner and the idea seems great, though most of my students are adults! The only thing I can share with you is a website that we began las year in order to work with children from 5 to 14 years (it is a kind of "campfire-without nights-" we organize every year for University Professors' children. http://www.uco.es/webuco/ceucosa/lenguas/multiactividad/intro_multiactividad2003\.htm I would also like to suggest one of my favourite pages of resources for teachers: http://www.countryschool.com/younglearners.htm Kind regards and wellcome to this week3. (Timeflies.... as Daf sais too). María |
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Dear friends, I just got this message from Kyi in Myanmar. We have two new members in our BaW4kids group: Kyi and Agata. Agata also sent me a private message a while ago asking if she could join with her ten-year-old nephew, who is in his 2nd year of English. I answered affirmatively at once. He's a perfect match for my students! :-) What's his name, Agata? We could post a 'welcome' message for him in our T-St blog. All the ideas so far are feasible and seem great. However, I think it would make it easier initially to chose one way or mode for communicating. Dispersal in several tools may not be good at this point. Up to this point in my baw4kids email group I have Agata, Dafne, Jacira, Kyi, Leah, Susanne and me. Am I missing anyone? We can start sending messages privately whenever you want. Bfn, Teresa |
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(message sent to Teresa) Dear Teresa, I've just asked for more detail about mini web heads corner not only because it's interesting but also it will be an extension during as well as after this BaW online session. I've some kids who are chatmania and they don't have any experience of collaboration. I'm sure they'll be very interested in the project. I'll now visit http://www.groupboard.com/. Let's get doown to business. regards, Kyi Shwin |
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but re. this message, I may have two or three 10-11 yr.old
students who would be interested. They are from school and although they
speak quite good English, they would benefit from text practice. Trouble
is that I only teach them a couple of times a week so asynchronous
communication would generally be better for them. A blog would be ideal
I think. What do you think? maybe its not what your group is planning
and don't worry at all if that's the case. speak soon, Antonia |
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Could you please include me in the mini-webheads group. I teach kids from 3 to 11, (without technology). I'd be interested to find ways of bringing these two strands (kids and technology) together. I'll probably just lurk initially as I'm up to my ears in work. Lucy Location: Germany Teach small groups of kids mostly just for 1 hour a week at kindergartens and privately. URLs: http://realbooks.blogspot.com/ http://people.freenet.de/mvhs-english/tb_kids.html |
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Hi, Lucy! You're very welcome to be a part of the exciting project! I think it's a great way to introduce your students to technology. You'll see their enthusiasm, I'm sure. One of my classes - the only one I spoke to about Agata's nephew this morning - was very excited with the idea of interacting with a peer from a 'mystery' country. I didn't tell them where Wojtek is from, that's why they asked in their message. The whole message was composed by them in class. They decided what sentences were best from the numerous suggestions. And all within the range of sentences they know. I had no intervention at all. They're looking forward to hearing Wojtek's reply in class on Thursday. I hope Agata has a chance to be with her nephew in the meantime. To get back to the (mini-)project, we (the moderators) are still waiting for suggestions as to how we should go about this - through the main list or privately -, how we should start or what tool(s) we should start with. We gave our suggestions, but we think the final decision should be made by the participants involved, because it's 'your' project, though we are very pleased and happy to collaborate with you. I hope you don't mind my sending a copy of this message to the list, because I think it's a great opportunity to get you all involved in the final decision about the kick-off of the project. Or maybe we can consider that my students launched it "unofficially" this< morning with their first message sent a few minutes ago. That'll make them feel VIP! :-) Let's hear your thoughts on this! Enjoy yourselves, Teresa |
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The baw4kids had its great start today and we immediately
got a new member: Agata's adorable 7-year-old Tommy. It seems that he read the message from my class to his cousin, Wojtek, understood it and was excited with the idea of contacting with kids from other countries. Since I was chatting with Agata at YM, I told her to have Tommy join the group. I'll say no more. Just look at the fabulous surprise! http://www.malhatlantica.pt/teresadeca/school/fun-with-english5.htm Please scroll down to 10Feb04 entry (about one screen or so) and read about "Good news today" and then "More good news today". Let's hope this will generate a chain reaction! Enjoy! I'm looking forward to your comments. :-) Bfn, Teresa |
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We have already exchanged some e-mails with Teresa's
kids. My two
boys are very excited and highly motivated! Both Teresa and I have
published our comments on the project in our blogs. You are welcome to visit mine at http://agatas.blogspot.com/ and write your opinions! Cheers, Agata |
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Hello to all of you who have already shown some
interest in the young ESL /EFL learners' communication project. Using
voice mail supported by text and photos is very powerful, such as Agata
has shown us, and the feedback from Teresa's class is very convincing. The blogs that Agata in Poland and Teresa in Portugal have used for this demonstrate a helpful and fast way of making visible and public the first contacts between kids in different locations. And I'm looking forward to see how you all - Jacira in New Zealand, Kate in Tanzania, Kyi in Myanmar, Lucy in Germany will decide to use this opportunity to develop and collaborate around these new learning opportunities for your young learners. There are no fixed limitations; you can begin small and grow more advanced when you feel like it. And I'm sure other Webheads will join you to help their kids experience this world of online friendship through a shared Language that we're all enjoying so intensely ourselves! I've just chatted with Daf (her internet provider will repair the connection in a few hours. ) As we have already signalised, we would both like to be included as participants in your project (I would even consider talking about juniors and seniors, signalizing that younger and older people enjoy working together). To me, this is an example on how like minded people can find new ways of helping each other realize their dreams, because of the online advantages. As Agata says, earlier one had to wait for weeks to send mail between Poland and Portugal, today we're separated only by a mouse click! Sus (who is looking forward to see her little grandchildren, who will grow úp as future webheads :-) |
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Dear BaW4kids, During my stay in Curitiba I came across a lovely project for kids which you can creatively adapt for your webchildren using the blogger and linking it to pictures and web pages. It's called Flat Stanley http://flatstanley.enoreo.on.ca/index.htm Warm regards from Brazil, Bee |
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Att: William Percy
Hi. I couldn't find your yahoo ID number in my files..Just wanted to alert you to the group on young learners which is forming. Would you be able to do anything with the kids at your kindergarten in Japan? I'll be joining, too, even though I haven't got the actual group of kids in my own classes, to join, yet. However, I will be inviting some bilingual children (of English teacher parents, little expatriates) to get involved. After next month, I'll be able to move into a more active, less passive mode! -Leah in Nagoya |
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Dear Bee, Flat Stanley is a very enjoyable and cute project gone international over a year ago, I think. I contacted Dale Hubert, its creator, while I was doing my sabbatical project on email in the classroom (2000-2001) and that's when he told me that he would be internationalizing the project. Curiously, more or less at that time I came across a very similar project between two Portuguese 4rd grades in different parts of Portugal. Both projects are described in my sabbatical -turned-book, because they are extremely motivating activities at the elementary level. Thanks for bringing it up, Bee. It hadn't crossed my mind. :-( I'll refer a couple of others as soon as baw4kids gets on its feet! Hugs, Teresa |
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I'm just going through mail from two days ago and would
like to comment on a
remark Sus made in this very nice and motivating message of hers. She says: ". . . you can begin small and grow more advanced when you feel like it." She's absolutely right. If you allow me, Sus, I'll simply say, "Start small!", as Ferdi Serim taught me back in 1996 in his inspiring book _NetLearning: How Teachers Use the Internet_. I followed his advice and started with 7 students in my first email exchange with an American class. Things went so well, and the experience was so rewarding, that the following year I ventured into a whole class. I finally arrived at my own piece of advice: "Start small and build on your experience!" Hope these two cents help Jacira, Kate, Lucy, Leah and Kyi start something small and gradually build a great collaborative intercultural project! |
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Dear Leah, The Poland-Portugal exchange has been great fun and very inspiring. I must honestly say that I never thought I'd be able to do with 5th graders in their first year of EFL what I've been doing. It's been a 'magical' time for me! Leah, the idea of printing the messages and taking them to your computerless classrooms is great! Keep it up! I did that during my three email projects and the students never lost their excitement. In fact, they were always asking if there were any messages and anxious to send theirs. Many of my 5th graders don't have Internet or email at home, and there's no access to email for students at school, so I started by asking them to write their messages on a piece of paper and hand them to me. But that seemed so unreal! I guess the thought must have been lurking in my subconscious, because one day I came up with a brilliant idea! ;-) I made a print screen of the email window, put two copies on an A4 page and had photocopies made. Now, every time they want to send a message, they ask me for a copy and. . . I guess it's the next best thing to sending one for real. At least they have a copy of the template and they love it! Teresa |
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Hi Teresa, Your encouragement is great! I like your idea of using a template and A4 paper. Perhaps there's a little psychic reception going on here, because just yesterday I drew a computer screen on cardboard, and designed a felt board screen to use for an an information gap excercise, with students passing the imaginary sent messages back and forth. :) One of the things I love about teaching children is that it often frees us up to try out very low-tech, 'crazy' ideas in a mode of 'playing' at the real thing. Also, it's good to remember the importance of content and literary skills leading up to technology use. I'll look for the book you mentioned, and also am ordering the one Curt Bonk mentioned in Tapped In on a One Computer Classroom as being perfect for large classes in China. Thanks! Leah Sullivan |
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Hi Leah! What a cute improvised simulation of the computer screen! I love it! I agree with everything you say about teaching kids. I find that teaching children can be very dynamic and we see results much faster (or lack of them .-(, in several cases). On the other hand, we can work in 'low-tech mode' and still please them and get them really involved in activities. As to the book by Ferdi Serim, it's from 1996, so, though it's a favorite of mine, maybe you can find something more up-to-date. Take a look at it at O'Reilly (publishers) and/or Amazon. Bfn, Teresa |
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I have a practical question for my CALL class and maybe
you can help
me. I have a 60 hour class to do online in a 3 month period, how do I
plan
this? In the past I found students were constantly writing me and it was
too time consuming, What are your suggestions and how do you calculate
it?
Thanks from Susan |
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Dear Susan, Regarding your question on the time to be spent in answering students messages in an online course, I will tell you from my own experience. If we are talking about asynchronous communication, it is a good idea to let students know in advance what they can expect in terms of receiving feedback from you. The usual time suggested is 24 - 48 hours maximum. Then, you select the time of the day when you are going to be doing this task (the number of messages and your feedback giving style will be crucial in terms of the time to be devoted to it). I like to set tutoring hours using chat, for which I post a schedule of the days and hours I will be available. Chat sessions let me know more about my students than e-mails or bulletin boards, and most of my students (teachers or undergraduate students) seem to like this mode too. If I have more than one student at the same time, and I am using YM, I invite them to a conference and have the session together. I have found this very beneficial because students contact each other, and many times when I am not around they rely on each other to solve their problems which makes them more autonomous learners. I try to encourage this in my courses. In fact, when I have designed group work, I do not intervene in the session to let them find solutions for themselves, they only call me if nobody in the group has been able to solve their problem (academic or technical). Well, I have given you my 2 € cents ;-), I would like to hear others’ experiences regarding this issue. Cheers, Daf |
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^ Learning Times Presentation |
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I've recently visited meeting room of LT. The system works
very well. And
I've tested my microphone with IBM ViaVoice too. I hope I have to learn
a
lot new things. Some of my friends (who are lecturers too) are
also very
interested in what we will do in this session. They will come along with
me, they said. But we are GMT+6:30 and, unfortunately, even all cyber
cafes will be closed at that time and I have to go to a friend's
residence to use the internet. But this is not a problem. But I'm still
checking alado. See you this week at LT, regards, Kyi Shwin |
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The live session with Jonathan Finkelstein will be taking
place within the
"Meeting Room" in the LearningTimes.org community at: http://home.learningtimes.net/learningtimes?go=185495 If you are already a LearningTimes member, simply "login" and then follow the "enter now" button to access the meeting room. If you are not yet a member of LearningTimes, simply click "Join" button that you will find at the link above so that you can create an account (it's free). Once inside the community area, you will see the link to the "Meeting Room" along the left hand side of the community. Jonathan |
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I'm really looking forward to this session, Jonathan is
very pro and very
helpful with clear explanations, step-by step - and he can even be
pretty
fun, too. I'm sure he will take care of a successful recording for all
of you who cannot be present, or who would like to see things done once again later, in your own pace. Sus |
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Hi, everyone -- I look forward to seeing many of you during the session I will be leading in the LearningTimes Meeting Room in about an hour and a half from now. (I have included a reminder of the login instructions below for convenience.) I'll take us on a tour and get us started talking about the role of online communities and community tools in learning online. I'd like the agenda for the session, however, to remain very flexible, and for our gathering to be as much about your specific questions, ideas and our group exploration and brainstorming as possible. So, look over the LearningTimes community, and think about questions you might have for me. If you can't make it today, send me your questions directly via email in advance, and I'll try to address them during the session; you can the tune in to the recording later and see if we addressed them. :) See you soon! -- Jonathan Finkelstein |
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Dear friends, Thanks to those who attended the presentation. We were 22 people in the session. Jonathan as usual showed us in a very creative way, the features in the Elluminate vClass. Some of us met there before the presentation and checked our mics and speakers in a friendly manner. Those who could not attend, do not worry, Jonathan will soon send the url to the recording of the presentation. You will be able to hear,read and see what happened in the session. I am really delighted with the active involvement of this group. Youare indeed a fabulous group of people. daf |
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Thank you to all who joined me today for my session in the
LearningTimes Meeting Room. I thoroughly enjoyed our time together. As
Daf has said, this is truly a fabulous group of people. For those who could not attend my session (or liked it so much you want to see it again!), you can access a complete recording of the session via this link: http://home.learningtimes.net/learningtimes?go=322746 If you are already a member of LearningTimes, just "login" and then click the "enter now" button for this recording. If you are not yet a member of LearningTimes, it is free: just click the "Join" button you'll see at the above link and complete the sign- up process. Then click on the above link to view the recording. If it is your first time in a vClass recording or live event, you may be promoted to download Java Web Start from Sun, which is required for vClass sessions. For fun, I have added a PDF file in the Week 3 files area of this Yahoo group featuring our group's renditions of: "What does a webhead look like?" For those who missed it, watch the first few minutes of the session recording to see how this collection of masterpieces came to be. :) By the way, during the session I mentioned the event we did last week with Thiagi <www.thiagi.com>. You can access the recording of that session right from the "What's New" page when you enter LearningTimes, or via this link: http://home.learningtimes.net/learningtimes?go=318073 After today's session ended, my colleagues at LearningTimes wanted to do something special and they conducted a random drawing for a free registration to the first session of Thiagi's online workshop series, which starts next Thursday at 1:00 pm New York Time. The winner was "elderbob". Congrats, Elderbob! If others are interested in attending, please contact my colleague john@learningtimes.org -- he has a special unpublished webheads discount just for this group. Again, thanks for having me as a part of your workshop. I look forward to continuing to explore and learn with you. Regards, Jonathan |
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The technology for playing back the whole lesson is
fantastic! I
feel like I'm really there, yet I can pause you so I can put the kids
to bed. It's even better than leaving a tape recorder in a lecture hall! Lucy |
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- Hello Jonathan (the LT squirrel herder), Well, I simply think you made this a fantastic intro session because of your creative imagination and ability to inprovise on the fly. I've been a participant in so many LT sessions and this was completely different - again! This amazing innovative facilitation strategy of yours seem to be driven by a certain emergence between yourself and the vClass environment; with a homemade term I will consider this your didac-technical expertise :-) Did you get a chip under your skin? - And hello to all our new voice chat enthusiasts, thank you so much for being patient with this new and a little tricky technology, I hope for you that you find it was worth the (eventual) trouble; being part of the LearningTimes community could be a very helpful detail of your professional development and ICT literacy. Webheads have been very warmly included in the LT sessions and given so many useful learning opportunities. This was just another :-) The icebreaker or house warming play with the shared whiteboard was a hit! For those who were not with us and did not yet, (as Lucy did) play the session recording - in this play, we were all told to "raise our hand"- usually this means that you wish to speak. You will then get a number in line. These numbers were now projected, four by four, in drawing squares, and we had one minute to illustrate "what do you think a webhead looks like". Well, see for yourself, Jotnathan saved the images in our Files folder. Sus |
| ^ On BaW | |
| Dear All,
I continue to be impressed by webheads and becomingwebheads Dot MacKenzie |
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I feel so priviledged to suddenyl be able to share with so
many new and interesting friends who are so generously sharing so much knowledge and so many skills... Best wishes and hugs, Antonia |
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Sure are a lot of interesting people in the
group and it's such a good idea to have pictures and intros together. What this technology can do! Gary |
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You know, although I had very little time to write or even
read my emails, I saw the YM screen the moment I connected my computer
early in the morning right after opening my eyes (computer next to the
bed...lol). Barely focusing, I would engage in a short chat with Poland, UAE, Italy, Spain .... before having my shower and going down to the lectures and presentations. It felt almost like having breakfast with the family before going out to school :-) Bee |
| I feel like I'm an active lurker in that I'm trying to
keep up with the Webheads but this month I have so much going on with my
own classes that just reading the mail and filing addresses and ideas
for future use is about as much as I can handle. Nevertheless, I do have
plans for blogs and websites and want to explore more of the ideas
presented as soon as my schedule loosens up. Once this six-week course
is up, will the website still be up and running and will we have access
to expert help when we get stuck? Jane Petring |
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Hi Jane, As you read in Tere's article, which I will comment on a different message, we got together in a session similar to this, led by Vance Stevens, but at the end of the session, we spontaneously kept communicating and doing things together, and it has been so until now. This year, we decided to let other teachers know about our community, and planned this workshop, with the idea that at the end of the 6 weeks, those who wanted to join Webheads in Action (WiA) would do so. That's why in the syllabus you can read that in week 6 we will invite you to join WiA. However, this Yahoo Group will not be closed, and the web page will be available with all the material we have been creating collaboratively. In Webheads we are always there for those who need it. So do not worry if you cannot keep with the pace of the workshop, take your time and come back to the material you are interested in at any time, and there will always be someone to lend you a hand :-). As I sometimes say, webheads are everywhere. Btw, I am learning to use dreamweaver and planning to restructure my web pages, so you see we are always learning new things. You can count on my help when you decide to go into web pages or any other tool I can help you with. In Webheads it is fine to lurk ;-) Cheers, Daf |
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Hello Jane, Thank you for the appreciative words about Teresa's inspiring article; I suppose she's still in school, so I'll give you a first answer to your questions, maybe Tere will have something to add :-) Yes, no worry! After all, this workshop was named Becoming a Webhead, because this is just meant as startup training and an appetizer to recruit fresh and active Webheads for our future sustainability. There will still be free access to all the helpful and memorable web pages that we create during this workshop (plus all those that have already been created and will be created by other webheads), and there will still be the discussion list and weekly participant get-together, invitations to collaborate in online projects and opportunities to explore online tools and environments! I do understand that the activity level may seem pretty high for some, and so happy to hear from one of the busy and active lurkers. Reading the discussion mail list and saving addresses for later reference can be a pretty time taking task in a busy school day. But remember, we enjoy having even short and precise messages of appreciation or just wondering about this or that ; each little sign of life out there, confirms us in our belief that our volunteer moderator work is making sense! We will look forward to hear more and help you in collaborative ways, if possible and desired, with your future blogs and websites; please keep in touch and ask ahead. yours, Sus N. |
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I had the same question about what would happen after our
class was over. Thanks for asking the question Jane. It takes a while for everything to sink in and for good professional development to be had by all there needs to be a support system. This is great class and offers an outrageous support network! I am so looking foward to being a Webhead. I have been in the air for the past two days returning to Tanzania... so I will quickly catch up on my emails. I am sorry if I have been delayed in responding to anyone. I also wanted to give feedback on the reading. I really have enjoyed the articles. It is nice to have such a well-rounded choice of activities to partake in. I printed out a bunch of the articles to take on the flight with me and so even though I couldn't be a part of the presentation, I was still in webhead mode. It is really contagious isn't it? I went back to visit a professor I had in my Masters program and I found myself excitedly sharing the webhead site with him, as well as all we are doing. Cheers, Kate |
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The future of the Webhead community? Well,
it'll be whatever the Webheads want to make of it! Imagination is the
limit, I guess. I sincerely hope that it'll continue to grow and that many more of us can continue to introduce colleagues into this wonderful world of online communications and, hopefully, make a difference, so that more and more students can benefit from these powerful tools. Susanne has already answered your last question as I would have. The BaW site will certainly be kept up and running - consider it a database that you can always go back to as well as refer to others -, and we will always be here to give all the help we can. Gladly! :-) Take your time, Jane. 'Digest' things, as I like to say, ask for collaboration to try them out tools. We'll be here, as will many of your colleagues taking part in this fun and exciting adventure! Have a great weekend! Teresa |
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Dear Dafne, thanks for the ecard and Happy Valentine to you. sorry, i have been lurking in the background here, reading the email messages and doing some of the readings, but not contributing much to the list. i missed the learning times session though, and was upset about it--i came in for the last few minutes. it was because i didn't know until too late that i needed to go in earlier and download the java webstarter. i actually went in days earlier and became a member. had i known, i would have downloaded the webstarter as well. anyway, i am glad to know that we can still do these activities after March 6th, for it will not be possible to do all now. best, Susan |
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I would like to apologise for not beign more active these
days. Now I am having problems with my mother board and it is most sure
that I will be without my
computer for a month, since it must to be repaired at factory.... I spend most of my time making back ups of everything and feel very bad... This is horrible! There is lots of work here that I wouldn't like to loss. I imagine all of you know.... See you soon, María |
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I have just talked to Dafne on YM and she asked me to
tell the group
that she has a problem with her Internet provider and cannot open web
pages. She can't access Yahoo Groups nor read her post. Let's keep
fingers crossed! And let's hope it is only temporary! Agata |
| Hi I have question here too. I have downloaded the
programme etc. I have even been inside the classroom [Elluminate] but as it loads all
the modules it gives me a message that it can;t configure audio.
Consequently I can;t hear or speak during the presentation. Is it still
worthwhile coming in? Going to bed now, it is 22.30 here in NZ and have to get up at 5am for this presentation....need my beauty sleep. Hopefully I will meet some of you later on. Jacira |
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Is this voice event only for windows (I've
got a Mac).
Leah |
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Leah - we are in the same time zone so if
you'd like some help with Yahoo or Elluminate. It's 9.00 pm at the
moment and I'll be online for at least 2 hours so send me an email if
you want to connect. OK? - Michael C. |
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Hi Jacira, Which browser do you use? Try to change or update it. You could also go to Control Volume within configuration and check that everything is all right. I have had that kind of problems too and finally I solved them. You know we are here to help you in the case you have problems. Anyway I not not sure whether I could attend the chat because I will be working. Kind regards, María |
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Leah, I'm so happy you're not afraid of asking ahead! Happy to tell you that LearningTimes is Mac friendly, so you will be able to join us for Jonathan's session. I'll do a quick search for the relevant help files for mac users and get back to you ASAP so you can install and test everything in good time before the session. Sus ------- Leah and other Mac users, |
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Hi Sus (and Michael and Jonathan), Thanks for offers of tech help and informative links and emails. It's taking more time than I've got to get this all together for this upcoming event. I'm stuck with needing 'Swing' for a download for the mac, and just can't put more time in searching on the Java sun sight. The Mac troubleshooting page from Learning Times is excellent! When I have time to go through it at a slower pace, I'll catch up later. Happy to hear that Jonathan is saving the recording for those who won't be there on-line. You are all so extremely helpful and must have enormous patience and endurance! Going to sleep! (Sorry for my endless emails). Thanks a lot. Enjoy! Leah |
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Hi! I dowloaded the Virtual Classroom but something went wrong and now it doesn't want to open again whatever I do. This is the message I get: "An error occurred while launching/running the application. Title: vClass Virtual Classroom Vendor: Elluminate Category: Download Error Unable to load resource: http://www.elluminate.com/web/download/4.1/vclass.jar" Is there a way to re-download it? I wanted to take part in the discussion today, but it seems I won't be able to... :-( Babi |
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Hi, Csibi (and anyone else who ever sees this with vClass)
-- The error you got seems consistent with your browser's cache being too full. Below are directions for different browser versions on how to empty your browser's cache of temporary Internet files. After you clear the cache, try to access the Meeting Room again. If you still have problems, write to help@learningtimes.net directly for assistance. Clearing the browser cache: To empty your Internet Explorer cache, empty the Temporary Internet Files folder. Select Internet Options from the Tools menu. Select the General tab and Click on the Delete Files button. To empty your Netscape Navigator cache, Select Preferences from the Edit menu. Move to the Advanced section, and select Cache. Click the Clear Memory Cache and Clear Disk Cache buttons. To clear your AOL cache, select Preferences from the My AOL menu.
Click
on the WWW button and choose the General tab. Click on the Delete Files
button. |
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I thought I would join you but had a class at that
time so could not leave the 30 fifteen- year- old "angels alone. I
tried to open the link below when I got home but could not hear or see
anything....has anyone had the same problem? How
do I solve it? http://home.learningtimes.net/learningtimes?go=322746 Help urgently needed :-) Bee |
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Bee, I just played it without problems, you need to
wait for a while until it starts to play. Be patient ;-) Hugs, Daf |
| Thank you Maria, I was at the meeting and it looked
exciting. But I had no sound. The moderator said that it could possibly
be a soundcard that needs updating. I might try that. My Browser is
Internet explorer and I think it
is pretty up to date. My comp system is pretty old though.
------------ I have tried to access the recording. At the presentation I did not
have sound due to the software not being able to configure my soundcard.
Will I be able to hear the recording? I have been to the site but
nothing happened. |
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Dear Jacira, As I told Bee, the presentation takes a while to start playing. I really hope you can access it. Daf |
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hello dear workshop, tonight I'm the unlucky one whose incoming mail server is out of order. Hope to get it back very soon, in the meantime I will go to bed REALLY early and read a good book! There's a lot of strikes today here in the Danish public transport sector - I wonder if that could that have any connection whatsoever :-) Now let me see if I'm able to post anything. bye for now, Sus |
| I HAVE DONE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have felt the WOW factor!!!! I have organised my comp and now have heard the presentation! This is just awesome!! Thank you all for being patient with me Jacira |
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| ^ About Different Tools | |
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I've just had a wonderful voice chat with María
Jordano. At present, it all
being new to me, the only words I can come up with to describe my first
voice chat experiences are : mind.blowing! Antonia |
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Thanks Dafne for the link to the Wimba guidlines and Monkey Survey Guidlines. I really liked the monkey survey site when I first saw it but thought it was a fee paying site, so I was really happy to discover from the guidlines that up to 100 survey responses are free. Fiona |
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I hope, and even have two "musts" planned for myself. I have to create two webpages, one for my personal site and another for professional use. In addition, I must create a weblog to post my research findings, pictures, and projects related to the sabbatical. Gary Carkin |
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I'm looking very much forward to learn more about your progression with webpages and blogs, as I'm also in the process of updating and restructuring my own online presence. Sus |
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Thanks for the Welcome, Sus. I got to look at your web page and was really impressed. I hope I can get mine to look so good! I feel I know you already from your web page. How's the gardening in Denmark? Ha! Gary |
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Hi Fiona, How are you? I read your message with interest. Is the monkey survey a way of making one's own surveys online? I'd love to have the link since every summer my IB TOK students at school create and run their own surveys as part of our human sciences module. Could you send me the link? Antonia. |
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Monkey Survey is the online survey creator we
used to create the survey our
participants completed in week 1. I have also used it in most of my
online
courses, for different purposes. Since I like to create surveys I explored different ones and made a page with the characteristics, advantages and disadvantages of some of these free tools, the page is this one: http://dygonza.esmartweb.com/surveycreators.htm Hugs, Dafne |
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Btw, have you visited our discussion board. Do not miss
it: http://dafnegon.tripod.com/discussionboard.html Write your opinions about the web tools we have used. You can start new threads if you feel like introducing a new discussion. Feel free to read past posts. I have used the discussion board to have people send opinions about the article I wrote about chat taxonomy, in that way, I could get feedback from the readers. Discussion boards are great tools to have asynchronous discussions categorized by threads. Bye for now, Daf |
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You'll be pleased to know that soon after your
presentation, Antonia decided to
explore Wimba voice email and sent me a very nice
message that I'm forwarding to the list with her permission. I was so thrilled with such enthusiasm that I hit the reply link and tried it immediately. Yes, it did arrive! Wow! This was my first ever true voice email! Thanks, Antonia! So, Jonathan, isn't Antonia also a real Webhead in action', as you are? Congratulations! Well done, Antonia! Teresa |
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Antonia has recorded a message for you. If you do not see a play button or if you are a Mac user, click here to listen to the message. You can also copy paste the following URL in your browser: http://cobalt.wimba.com:80/walber/vmail/read?mid=20.1.2004.2.12.7.1716931418&des\ t=tmvaz@mail.telepac.pt This voice e-mail will be available until April 12, 2004. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply with your voice - Reply all - New voice e-mail |
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Antónia You are a real webhead. Go on trying. I'm sure you will succeed. When I have a micro, I'll send you a voice message, too. Bye and congrs Luisa |
| ^ On Materials Design | |
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Sus presents interesting considerations on the design of visual material |
Hello and welcome Karen, I'm happy to have you wih us, and to learn about your project page. So I took a look at your slide show. What a precise and well managed text you have written there about how and why the advantages of the internet will promote the needed changes in your education system; I think this is true for all - not only in Puerto Rico. Did you create these 33 slides in Flash? I wonder if others think that ten seconds between each slide is pretty fast for reading the longer texts, as it was the case for me; well, I'm not a native English, but I'm pretty much used to skim online text fast. Then I decided to change the size of font; as I discovered that yellow on red background makes the small text harder for my eyes to read. My vision is not perfect - so that's why I notice this kind of detail; others might think I'm just being pricky :-) p://predu.tripod.com Sus (your co-mderator in Denmark) |
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Dear Sus and All, I think you present some interesting points in your message below. When designing web pages, power point presentations and any visual material to be displayed online, we have to consider how our material can affect our readers: combination of colors, size of fonts, speed of moving objects, among others, should be given special attention. This is an interesting article on the use of colors: http://www.firelily.com/opinions/color.html Some comments from it: "Color perception problems are more wide-spread than people think" "Do not assume that your users have normal color perception" "So what is safe? Black on white is the safest. White on black is reasonably safe, but other colors on black are risky. Any text on any mixed-color background is risky. Blue is safer than other colors, but blue on black is bad for other reasons. (Visual acuity is worse for blue in everyone's eyes; this is based on the relative density of blue cones being lower in the optical center of the eye.) Dichromats will not be able to see either red or green on black, depending on the nature of their color deficiency" Well, this is just to mention the issue on color for people with perception problems. There is also the issue of flashy colors and movement causing brain seizure. I think these are a very important themes to be considered when designing materials. Daf |
| ^ Moodle | |
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Good morning everyone. I am very excited
about today's introduction to LearningTimes in the Elluminate cyber
class room. I already belong to a couple of the groups at Learning Times
and I especially want to invite you to attend a "show and
tell" presentation that I will be making for the Learning
Collaboration Tools Working Group on February 24 at 5:00 PM GMT (1700)
in the same Elluminate Class Room that you will be in today. I will be
introducing "The Moodle", a course management
system (CMS), software package designed to help educators create quality
online courses. This free open
source software system is designed by Dr. Martin Dougiamas of Australia.
My session will be part live and part digitally reproduced. I have
already interviewed Dr. Dougiamas about some of the philosophical
underpinnings of
the Moodle software and will use that interview as the basis of my
presentation.There will also be an opportunity to share your thoughts
and
ask questions during the session. I am also pleased to announce that
plans
are afoot to have Dr. Dougiamas to return to the cyber podium in March
to
introduce the lasted revision to his software program. An exact date has not been set yet but I will advice the list of that March general session as soon as I know the date. In the meantime, you can familiarize yourself with the moodle by going to the official website at http://www.moodle.org . While you are there you might want to look at some of Dr. Dougiamas writings regarding Constructivism in education which will be the main focus of my presentation in February. You may also be interested to know that Moodle is now translated into 34 different languages which may make it a very appropriate tool for things that many of you are interested in doing. There is also a Foreign Language group at moodle, and I believe you can link up to it from the entry page on the web-site. Enjoy. You can access the meeting on February 24 by going to: <http://home.learningtimes.net/learningtimes?go=273086> Bob |
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Hi Elderbob, thanks for you invitation! I'm looking forward to that session. Is the meeting scheduled for 5 to 5.45 pm GMT? Best, Eva |
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Hi Bob, Thanks your kind invitation. I will be there for sure. I have visited some courses delivered in Moodle and I think it is a great platform, but I have not had the chance to know it in depth. I think you need to have your own server in order to install it. Is it so? Looking forward to your pres. Daf |
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That's a great question and one of the
few downsides to Moodle. You do have to have some server space in order
to load the program. However, since is is open source it occupies a
fairly small space (depending on what you want
to do with it) and it also allows you to be very interactive with it. I
am sure that it will not be the right tool for everyone, but for many of
you, having server space will soon become a part of the tools you have
at your disposal. Also, the group that I volunteered to present this
too, was more
interested in how this tool could be used for collaboration. I don't
think anyone ever asked about price or server space. I will certainly
make it a point to let everyone know this in the presentation. I think there is a BAW session coming up about free web pages, but I don't recall anything about server space or costs. That might be an area that might generate some discussion. I wonder how many members have some server space and how much and what they use it for? elderbob |
| ^ Teresa's Article | |
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Dear friends, I was very pleasantly surprised just now to find the article I wrote on WiA (Webheads in Action) a few months back published in the January 2004 edition of "Humanising Language Teaching" (http://www.hltmag.co.uk/), an online magazine edited by Mario Rinvolucri. It's called "Webheads in Action (WiA): An online community for professional development - from past to present". I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! http://www.hltmag.co.uk/jan04/sart10.htm Cheers, Teresa |
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Teresa, great article! Congratulations! I already feel
as if I were ready to write a similar one about BaW! Thanks again,
Teresa, Dafne, Susanne and Maria for your enthusiasm and support. Agata |
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Dear Agata, It's great to know that you feel equally enthusiastic about BaW! No doubt you're already going through an acute case of "the WOW factor" growing and growing. Thanks on behalf of the BaW team. And thank you for the enthusiastic words on the article. :-) Bfn, Teresa |
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Dear Teresa, this is indeed a very lively and first hand narrative of your experiences as a webhead from your very first steps in Tapped In (I was there with you and Daf, and I certainly remember that as well because we soon started to collaborate very actively). Yes, I can fully relate to your experiences as you are able to share them in this article. Congratulations, my dear co-moderator - it is always a pleasure to see when another webhead has got a chance to get published, and free online publishihng has a great advantage; it is so easy to share :-) yours, Sus |
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Congratulations on your article Teresa! It
describes so well the feelings so
many of us share!
Bee. |
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Hi Theresa I enjoyed the Webheads article and thanks for introducing me to a new on'line journal Fiona |
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I thoroughly enjoyed your article and it made me wonder
about the near future of the webhead community
Jane Petring |
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Dear Tere, I finally had the time to read your article (the news came when I lost my connection and I came back just for Jonathan's pres). So, last night I had the time to read it and enjoy with the vivid narrative or yours. Each paragraph I read was like a flashback of those intensive 8 weeks when we started a new in our professional road in life as webheads. Super work, dear :-) Since we joined webheads and started exploring tools together, there have been many products or artifacts, in CoP jargon, which have been produced by Webheads: presentations in conferences, articles, book chapters, thesis, dissertations, online courses, etc., which have been kindly reported by Teresa in the WiA index she mentions in the article, but since there is no link to it, I will share it with you, so you get to know more about webheads: http://www.malhatlantica.pt/teresadeca/webheads/wia-index.htm Congrats again, Tere! Way to go! Daf |
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I enjoyed your article "Webheads in Action (WiA): An
online community for
professional development - from past to present" and I already made
the link to
it in the community of practice for language teachers http://fordis.ese.ips.pt/linguas2004/recursos/listarr.asp?l=7 I launched some time ago. As a matter of fact I also publicised Webheads in Action in the NEWS of this community of Portuguese language teachers. http://fordis.ese.ips.pt/linguas2004/percursos/listar.asp Although I haven't been as present as I would like to in WiA, I consider these weeks of work have given me a great deal of information, which is very worthy for the community I moderate. Unfortunately I have missed last presentation made by Jonathan Finkelstein, although I became a member of Learning Times. It's really hard for me to follow our group's work, as I'm overloaded by work. Anyway I'm trying to take advantage of what I can learn with you all, and to make the most of the situation. Hugs Maria (Conceição) Brito |
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Hi, Teresa! I'm really happy to know that your article has been published "by Mario Rinvolucri". As you know, I was also there in that workshop and I could witness the interest that M. Rinvolucri showed in your work as a Webhead. And you deserve it, Teresa. We can't help feeling your enthusiasm (and expertise!) for these new technologies, and particularly for this Webheadgroup. That's what I felt when I read your article. It's you,Teresa! Congratulations! Love Luisa |
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Dear Daf, Isn't it great that we can go back in time 'in a flash' and relive great moments spent together when you, Sus and I (and several other Webheads) were excitedly and frenziedly exploring and trying out the tools in the WiA syllabus (and many others that resulted from mere curiosity and searching)? I'm so glad that Mario Rinvolucri gave me a chance to sit down, sort things out and put down in words as best as I was able my version of 'the Webhead connection'. |
| ^ Drawing Skills | |
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Believe me, it's been a big frustration of
mine all my life not being able
to draw more than a stick figure! More so after getting married to
someone
who picks up a pencil and can draw most anything! Wouldn't that be so
useful
in class? Come to think of it, my drawings are also useful. They can
make
kids laugh like crazy! :-) Tere |
| Hi Teresa and Webheaders A great book which is very different from 90% of the drawing books out there and will get you to draw is Betty Edwards, "Drawing on the right side of the brain". I had zero drawing skills before I bought this book. Now I don't practise enough but I know that I can draw and I believe now that anyone can learn to draw through practising what she teaches in this book. Paul |
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| ^ WebPage Creation | |
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Hi Folks: I'm going post these questions out to all. I'm jumping ahead a bit to week four and have started on a web page. After looking at Lycos and Bravenet, I thought geocities seemed the more simple, so chose that: http://www.oocities.org/garycarkin So, I'm building it and need some help. First, I wonder why my beard looks so frosty in the picture. Now everyone will REALLY call me Santa! The same picture on webheads info doesn't frost. What's up? Second. There must be a way to continue writing copy, but I can't find out how. I want to continue after the first column and add a third column to finish the page. How do I proceed? (I've probably overlooked something!) Third. I want to add more pages. How to I add and link? Of course, I can do it with the "favorite links" I suppose, but that seems cumbersome, I mean, one would have to build the second page, name it, and then put in the url to the links on the left. That's too cumbersome and there must be another way. If anyone knows the answers to these questions, I would be most grateful. Thanks! Gary Carkin |
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Great first web page!! I am really happy to
see that you are ready to start
building your web site. I still remember how proud I felt when I
finished my
first page. And all the questions you are posing now were also in my
mind when I
finished it. I am not an expert at web page creation, but with trial and
error I
have been able to learn to use different web page editors and be
comfortable
using HTML to create simple pages and edit the ones I create using these
editors. I will try to answer your questions within your message: First, I wonder why my beard looks so frosty in the picture. Now everyone will REALLY call me Santa! The same picture on webheads info doesn't frost. What's up? ** You have used the "wizard" creator in Geocities. It is a WYSIWYG editor (What You See Is What You Get). It is good for a first try, but you cannot do much to change what you get. ** Second. There must be a way to continue writing copy, but I can't find out how. I want to continue after the first column and add a third column to finish the page. How do I proceed? (I've probably overlooked something!) **The template you selected (Techie)only has two colums, and with the wizard you will not be able to add another one.** Third. I want to add more pages. How to I add and link? Of course, I can do it with the "favorite links" I suppose, but that seems cumbersome, I mean, one would have to build the second page, name it, and then put in the url to the links on the left. That's too cumbersome and there must be another way. **If you keep working with the wizard, you will have to follow that cumbersome procedure. Now, I suggest that now that you know what a WYSIWYG page, you move a bit forward, and start using the Page Builder editor in Geocities. There you can edit this first page, but you can also try to design the layout of your page with all the tools in Page Builder. It is not difficult, and you are able to play a bit with your page. You will find your pages in the "File Manager" but if you try to edit them from there, you cannot get them back to page builder. The best way to creat columns on a web page is by using invisible tables, but that will be another lesson. I have an idea. Why don't we meet at YM and I can help you with Page Builder while you create a page? Let me know :-) I can also tell you the basics of HTML to get started and you will see how easy it is to create a page like the one you have just created with the wizard.** Cheers :-) Daf |
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Dear Gary, I'm sure many people will answer your question about the webpage, but I thought why not give it a try. :-) I'm not sure if you can change the default setting at Geocities, but you can always upload YOUR OWN page, created on your computer, which (I think) makes things much easier. If you haven't done such thing yet, I recommend you to use Word (if you are a Windows user) or FrontPage. Those are the simplest webpage creators and you can easily insert anything (e.g pictures) and add new pages to it - linked to each other. If you are using Word, for example, you have to save it as a web page in File - Save as webpage. You can add links in Insert - Links. When you are ready with your page, go to Geocities and sign in. There is an Advanced Tool Box on the right and a link to File manager. Once you are in, you can start uploading your files. Don't forget to upload EACH file you added to your page (pictures, background pictures, sounds, etc.) There is another way to build a page, with Page Builder in Geocities. If you are using a modem, it may take a while to load but it is very simple, too. I hope it helped a bit. Good luck! Babi |
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Dear Dafne: Thanks so much for your comments! It really means so much to get feedback. I'm sure all of us, when we first start feel it's "ONLY me" that's having these problems. And it is good to know the answers. I'd LOVE to get together with you when I work further on the web page. Today is St. Valentine's Day here and I will be out with my wife all day. When I have a chance to work with the page builder a bit, experiment, and thus have lots of questions, I'll email you directly and we can arrange a time that will be good for us both. How's that? Bye for now... Thanks again. Gary |
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Hi Gary! "Change and growth take place when a person has risked himself and dares to become involved with experimenting with his own life." (Herbert Otto) Congratulations on your web page and blog! Way to go! Warm regards from Brazil, Bee |
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Hi Gary, Sure, whenever you are ready, let me know and we will get together to work on your page with Page Builder (PB), then we can give a try to Front Page, but I think that PB will work fine for you at the beginning. I use Front Page but it really drives me crazy because it generates tons of unnecessary tags, so I usually end up using its HTML editor. I will soon be moving to Dreamweaver but need to have the time to practice more with it, and as you know, we are all short of time :-( Babi suggestion of using Word is a good alternative when you are short of time, but it has the same problem Front Page has, but we can also try that. See you around, Daf |
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I know what you mean about Front Page. I have a beginning
knowledge of HTML but I want to move forward. I, too, want to learn more
about Dreamweaver. When you start working with it, I hope you will let me know. Maybe we can collaborate. elderbob |
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Great Bob, I will let you know. I like to
learn collaboratively :-) . Maybe there are others interested in joining
us ;-) Cheers, Daf |
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Daf and Elberbob, I'd love to join you. Nothing like learning collaboratively. :-) Teresa |
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My advice: move to Dreamweaver as soon as
possible...when I did this after
inumerous bungling and time consuming attempts using Netscape composer
and
Clarisworks (in 97), a whole new world with hundreds of dimensions
opened to
me. Do not wait. Go for it and start weaving your dreams! Download the 30 day trial version and then you can always buy the educational version, which is what I use and which gives you all you need to put a good site up. You will not regret it!.... I do not get anything for advertising for Macromedia , but they are good :-) Warm regards from Brazil, Bee |
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I moved to Dreamweaver last year and I recommend you to
all of you. It could be seem some uncomfortable at the very beginning
but then you'll realize it is much more better that Front Page. Kind regards, María |
| ^ Alado Presentation Agenda Full Presentation | |
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Hi, everyone! This is just to remind you of Andrew Pincon's presentation tomorrow, Feb. 15, at 14:00 GMT in the Alado Webheads Virtual Room. You'll find some background information on Andrew at http://www.oocities.org/bawebhead/chatsessions.html#AP To log in to the Alado.net, please click on http://www.alado.net/webheads You'll get to the Webheads Welcome page, where you'll find two links on the top left. First click on the "Alado & Tapped In" link to read a short explanation of the page you will be entering. Then click on "Login Information", read 'PLEASE NOTE' and follow Andy's simple and clear instructions. The final step is to enter your name at the bottom of that page (no password is needed) to get into this new environment. If you have any trouble, please go to the Tapped In reception and we'll try to solve your problem. We suggest that those of you logging in just for the presentation do so about 20 mins. in advance so that we can check out everything ahead of time. Mac users will need to stay at TI, because Alado does not work with Macs. Don't miss the session! Hope to see you all tomorrow, Teresa |
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Although i arrived late on Sunday due to family stuff,
lunch, kids' homework etc, i got enough of the presentation to be
extremely amazed and enthused by all that has been achieved. Can little
teachers as myself use alado? it all seemed quite awesome, but i
gathered that aiden is trying to use it as a platform in the classroom
using maybe only one pc? Any info welcome since I'm keen to unserstand
all the imlications to the ordinary teacher of a system like alado. Hope you all had a good W/E, Antonia |
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Antonia, Since you came in late for family reasons, I'm tempted to suggest that you waitfor the sound file - if I know Andy and Daf, it'll be up in a flash! - and then see what doubts have not been addressed, and. . . shoot! We'll all try to help you, including Andy, I'm sure. Agree? BTW, that's the sort of situation we'd like to see addressed by the group, because it'll be interesting to see what practical uses we can give such a tool at 'our' level, Antonia. Actually, that was a part of my final words to Andy. Hugs, Teresa |
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We had a great illustrative session at Alado
with our friend Andy, and his daughter Gabriela :-) Since 13 people signed up for the session, Andy prepared a room for 25, and we were short. Some people could not attend, or finally got in after some others left the room. We have created the database to know how many people will be attending the sessions and have our guests plan accordingly. I have uploaded a zip file to our Files section, "Events" folder with the recording of the presentation. You will find 2 documents. An html file with the whole session, and the wav file with the sound. I suggest you first click on the sound, when you see it is working, close it and click on the html file. Thanks a lot Andy! It was a great session, and as usual you were kind and patient with all of us. All the information provided has been very enlightening of the worldwide dissemination of Alado, and I am especially appreciative of the work done with disabled people. I am sure that your presentation has given us lots food for thought on the use of technology in our teaching. Warm Regards, Daf |
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Dear Andy, I second Daf's words and would just like to send my very warm regards to 'thank you' for the inspiring presentation with so much 'food for thought'. It's going to be challenge to think of more 'down-to-earth' but motivating ways of using Alado with our students, especially lowre levels. The challenge is on, everyone! Let's start the 'feedback' rolling in! I wonder what Gabriela thinks of all this when she's there next to you, Andy! Please send her my love. :-) Teresa |
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Happy St. Valentine's Day!!! |
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