By Rudolf Ammann · January 17, 2008
It’s happening here on Dekita as we type: Social Media in English Language Teaching (SMiELT) is a six-week workshop sponsored by Tesol CALL IS and conducted as part of the Electronic Village Online (EVO) sessions. It runs from January 14th to February 24th, 2008.
The course is designed for teachers who already have a level of familiarity with blogs, wikis and related technologies and who would like to review, extend their technical/pedagogical knowledge and develop a critically reflected understanding of social media, focusing on their use and implications in language teaching.
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By Aaron Campbell · September 21, 2006
A reader recently enquired about creating student blogs for homework puposes, wondering if we could shed some light on the issue and provide some practical tips on how to go about it.
If teachers so desired, they could allow their students to submit writing assignments via weblogs, so that they and other students could comment and discuss. Practically, they would accomplish this by having their students sign up for their own individual weblogs (at Blogger or Wordpress for example). Then, teachers would run a central class weblog that both highlights examples of excellent student work and maintains links to student blogs in the sidebar. Teachers could keep track of new student posts by subscribing to student RSS or atom feeds in an aggregator (like Bloglines), while displaying the same aggregation publicly for their students and others to read. This is how I would do it.
There is another issue teachers ought to consider, though, and that is the question: Why use weblogs for homework submission? A discussion forum or Learning Management System (LMS) would be more appropriate, for such applications maintain privacy, centralize control, and are better designed for the structured activities of a well-defined group, like a classroom of students.
Weblogs, on the other hand, are better suited toward public, dispersed conversation. They are designed with personal publication in mind. They emphasize individuals and their relation to a community, which is a unique construct for each individual. In a sense, weblogs give learners freedom to express themselves and to create their own personal communities centered around topics of their interest, what some have been calling a Personal Learning Environment (PLE). This is what makes weblogs unique from more structured forms of online communication.
In my opinion, if teachers are going to replicate the traditional classroom model of command and control online, they should do it in a private space with a discussion forum or LMS, like Moodle or Blackboard. If however, teachers want to explore a more open, constructivist approach to online communication and learning, one that encourages self direction in the learner, then weblogs are more suitable.
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By Rudolf Ammann · May 29, 2006
This has been coming together for a while—at least since we first mentioned aggregating student feeds a few months ago. After a bit of tinkering it has come together, and here’s the Dekita Orchard.
The Orchard aggregates feeds from EFL/ESL students worldwide and picks up where the Dekita Exchange leaves off. While the Exchange compiles an up-to-date list of courses in which EFL/ESL students participate in the live Web, the Orchard takes a selection of courses from that list and aggregates their feeds, thus providing easy access to the students’ work both here on Dekita and through a number of merged feeds that you can subscribe to in your feedreader of choice.
You may need to click around the Orchard a bit before you get comfortable with how it works. The left sidebar lists all the student feeds picked up by the aggregator, sorted by course. You can click on the folders to collapse the list if you choose.
The Orchard’s front page displays the most recent entries from all feeds. Click on a course link in the sidebar for the latest entries from that class, or click on any individual feed link for the latest entries from any individual student.
Dekita’s aggregator aims to provide a view of what EFL/ESL students are writing now, therefore we do not permanently archive entries and will remove old posts after a few weeks. You will need to make any comments at the original sites themselves, and point any links to any of the aggregated entries to the respective permanent archives back at the original site.
The Orchard is likely to remain a work in progress for quite a while. Your criticism, questions and suggestions will help us make it better.
And as an afterthought: if you’re not sure you understand what any of the above is about, you might find Dave Shea’s What is RSS/XML/Atom/Syndication? an enlightening read.
Also, in anticipation of a rich harvest our own Bee has gone all fruity. There will be fruitcake.
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By Barbara Dieu · April 30, 2006
We would like to invite you to stop by for a recap while we drink together a glass of virtual champagne to celebrate Dekita’s first anniversary!
On April 30th, the site was launched during Vance Stevens’ presentation “Blogging in online communities of practice: Impact on language learning and teacher professional development” held in Doha, Quatar.
I remember a long and afflicting moment before the presentation scheduled at 7 am GMT – 4 am for me in Brazil and 4pm for Rudolf and Aaron in Japan . At 3, I signalled to Rudolf, who was still working on some code, that the Dekita server had gone down. After a flurry of sulky emails, connection was fortunately re-established just before the event and the rest is history.
The ship sailed off to the open sea and anchored in some ports along the way. One of the first was an activity at the Dekita Flickr group, where EFL students from Brazil and Japan chose colorful Joseph Stufer photos as headers for our site. Around the same time we kicked off the Dekita Exchange in an effort to keep people informed of EFL/ESL courses around the world in which students are encouraged to engage in conversations outside the classroom setting by publishing on the read/write Web. From there, we went to work on writing a review on Elgg over the summer, presenting some of our ideas at the first ever Webheads in Action Online Convergence in November, and following up with a paper for the proceeds, to be published in June. At the end of the year, we accepted an Edublog award for Best Group Blog 2005.
Recently we’ve been exploring the idea of Language Learning Ecologies, and are now currently discussing how best to use RSS/Atom feeds to enhance access to student voices and make finding the right conversation partners more likely. As more classes participate in the Exchange, we hope to find more effective ways of facilitating P2P interaction.
As always, we most appreciate the support, feedback, and comments of teachers and students from around the world. It is your increasing input and participation that has allowed Dekita.org to steadily grow. We thank you from the bottoms of our hearts and look forward to our second year. Full speed ahead!
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By Aaron Campbell · April 22, 2006
Jill Walker just posted some good ideas on how educators should be using the social aspects of the Web with their students. She lists:
For me, the fourth and sixth points are particularly important. Students need a good model to follow, and naturally they’ll look to the teacher for that. Also, blogging is not about merely presenting, but also engaging with the ideas of other bloggers. When students come to understand that experientially, they’ll benefit more from the process.
Jill also mentions the ethical issue of having students participate in a public space, suggesting that teachers have students blog psuedonymously. Since I am working with young adults, I raise their awareness of the potential consequences of publishing, and let them decide for themselves whether to use a psuedonym or not. With teenagers, though, I wonder whether we should insist that they use a psuedonym.
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By Aaron Campbell · March 17, 2006
At Dekita, we’ve been working with the P2P metaphor of network architecture as an aid in conceptualizing the type of open, dispersed, informal, and process-oriented approaches to language learning that we strive to practice and understand better. P2P situates the language learner in an environment devoid of fixed hierarchical structures, empowering her to build her own network of human and learning resources. Simultaneously, she serves as tutor to some, peer to others, and apprentice to many. Her social network grows in complexity in proportion with her ability to communicate well with others, for the existence of P2P networks hinges on the vibrancy of human relationships that compose them.
While the P2P metaphor focuses on the interaction of unique nodes in an open network, another metaphor is helpful in conceptualizing the resulting communties that form: ecologies. In biology, the field of ecology is a holistic one, emphasizing the patterns of interrelationships between organisms and their environment. These patterns are never fixed, but rather are constantly shifting and adapting according to new circumstances. Relationships arise organically based on mutual need, and dissapate as necessity dictates. Nothing is static; everything is fluid.
When we apply the ecology metaphor to learning, we get the concept of learning ecologies, about which both John Seely Brown and George Siemens have written. Technology, as Siemens explains, creates fluidity between knowledge and people, resulting in a learning ecology with the following characteristics:
The role of technology is that of enabler, while that of the teacher is facilitator or gardener of the ecology, “releasing learners into this environment.” When it comes to language learning, our role is to induct our students into these ecologies, while making sure they understand how to best use the technology to make connections and communicate. Once they have experienced for themselves what is possible, they are then positioned to care for their own lanugage learning needs beyond the confines of the institution and its school calendar.
Although in theory language learning ecologies are diametrically opposed to traditional classroom structures (with their set curricula and pre-determined periods of study) the two can co-exist peacefully. Indeed, having dozens of students in a classroom presents us with an opportunity to introduce large numbers of young people to these online communities as part and parcel of their language learning activities. The venture into learning ecologies is an immersion in the experiential realm, where students put to use what is being studied in the classroom in creative, expressive, and personally meaningful ways.
It is our responsibilty to ensure that our students are well prepared to meet the linguisitic and cultural challenges that await them in the near future. I believe that we are doing our students a great service by striving to find ways to connect them to relevant learning ecologies, showing them how to navigate and build relationships, and being there to encourage and mentor them throughout the process.
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By Aaron Campbell · February 07, 2006
The purpose of Dekita Exchange is to inform the public of “EFL/ESL courses that take a P2P approach in which students are encouraged to engage in conversations outside the class setting.” One of the main benefits of the Exchange is that teachers can locate classrooms in other countries with whom their students can immediately begin interacting, by commenting on their weblogs, Flickr accounts, 43 Things list, etc. The virtues of giving and receiving comments are perhaps best captured in a recent post by Anne Davis, who writes:
I’ve blogged before about comments. They make such a difference It’s the connector for our students. It also provides so many teachable moments. It provides “thinkable” moments for them. Some of our best classroom discussions emerge from comments. We share together. We talk about ones that make us soar, ones that make us pause and rethink and we just enjoy sharing those delightful morsels of learning that occur. You can construct lessons around them You get a chance to foster higher level thinking on the blogs. They read a comment. Then they may read a comment that comments on the comment. They get lots of short quick practices with writing that is directed to them and therein it is highly relevant. Then they have to construct a combined meaning that comes about from thinking about what has been written to them in response to what they wrote. It’s such a good way to begin the process of teaching reflective thinking. I like to see the progress the students make. They start off with statements such as “I like this blog.” We get to expand their thinking and they begin to take note of the the delight of language and then reasons for writing become more apparent. They have ownership.
Read more about the Dekita Exchange and how to join.
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By Rudolf Ammann · January 25, 2006
We’ve just completed some renovations around Dekita.org. In addition to the RSS feed for entries, we now also have an RSS feed for all comments posted. Plus, on every individual entry page there will now be an RSS feed for the comments posted to that particular entry. All feeds should auto-detect in whatever application you choose to pick them up.
Happy subscribing!
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By Aaron Campbell · January 22, 2006
Learning happens naturally as the human being grows. Fueled by curiosity, it is a process directed toward that which the learner desires most. As educators, we should trust this natural process while cultivating a nurturing environment in which the learner can grow best. In P2P approaches, we encourage students to call upon the authority within and take charge of the direction that their own learning takes. For example, when using weblogs with second language learners, it is important to give them the opportunity to decide the topics about which they are to write. To repeatedly ask students to write on weekly topics of the teacher’s choice is to direct their intellects toward subjects that have no connection to their own hearts. It becomes yet another exercise in the discipline of academic study, which bores a lot of people. If we want our students to be excited about learning, let us begin with their passions.
Take Yuki, for example – one of Rudolf’s students – who recently started playing the electric guitar and joined a band. With Rudolf’s guidance, he did some word searches on ‘electric guitar’ at Google Blogsearch and Technorati, and after exploring a bit, came across an intriguing post and commented on it. From there, he began conversing with a guitarist in Michigan who shares his interest in J-pop. Yuki is far more likely to continue cultivating relationships centered on playing the guitar than he is on topics that his teacher chooses for him. With persistence, Yuki can continue meeting people who share his passions in life, while improving his ability to communicate in English. He might even forget he is learning English altogether.
Let us celebrate the passions that lie within each learner and allow them to flourish freely within our classrooms. And when it comes to the use of P2P technologies, we should urge our students to write about what truly interests them, and to find conversation partners who share the same interests. In this way, we can allow that vibrant curiosity native to the learner to arise in ways typically reserved for informal situations outside the classroom, while being there to advise, help, and encourage.
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By Aaron Campbell · December 19, 2005
We were touched to have been nominated for an Edublog Award in the category of Best Group Blog 2005. Having won, though, is an even bigger honor. Thank you to all who voted and who have supported us in myriad ways this year! Also thanks to Josie Fraser and James Farmer for all their hard work in putting the awards together.
What is most special about the Edublog Awards, for me, is the way they introduce us all to exciting new weblogs, while allowing people who participate in the nominations and voting to enjoy giving recognition to the ones they most appreciate. And yet, as Bee mentioned earlier, the real rewards come from the sustained commitment of all participants in the edublogging community toward conversation, collaboration, and idea-sharing that enriches everyone’s understanding and practice. For as the use of weblogs and other social webpublishing tools continues growing in the field of education, we all have reason to celebrate, for meaningful – possibly even revolutionary – change is taking place.
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