thomas leverett

while i was busy

2009-12-18T07:00:00.000-08:00

Vascellaro, J. (2009, Dec. 18). Groups file Facebook Complaint. Wall Street Journal. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748704238104574602262735234366.html. Available 12-09.

Kleinman, Z. (2009, Dec. 3). Children who use technology are 'better writers'. BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8392653.stm. Available 12-09.

Australia's cyber-predator threat. (2009, Dec. 18). Stuff.co.nz. http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/3176693/Australias-cyber-predator-threat. Available 12-09.

Diaz, S. (2009, Dec. 14). Google, Facebook in URL shortening: pioneers should keep innovating. ZDNet. http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=28492&tag=nl.e539. Available 12-09.

Bennett, D. (2009, Dec. 13). FreeHarvardEducation.com: Does anyone own what universities teach?, boston.com. http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/12/13/freeharvardeducationcom/. Accessed 12-09.

Whittaker, Z. (2009, Dec. 10). Facebook will never get privacy right. ZDNet. http://blogs.zdnet.com/igeneration/?p=3588&tag=nl.e539. Accessed 12-09.

Un-Facebook yourself. (2009, Dec. 14). Wired.
http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Un-Facebook_Yourself. Accessed 12-09.

interview on technology and communication, 12-17-09

2009-12-10T10:11:00.000-08:00

The following are my responses to questions provided by a reporter from a high school newspaper in Lake Zurich, IL. I assume her article will appear in that paper. I don't want to beat her to the punch, but the well-written questions provoked a number of ideas which I wanted to save; when that happens, I save them here. Sorry! Good interview; I hope it's useful to someone, and particularly to young people in northern Illinois.

What is technology's overall impact on communication?

Technology has given us more media to use to communicate, and made instant communication worldwide possible, common and routine. This will have a stunning impact on world events, but we haven't seen the total effect of it yet; it's all too new.

It is not quite accurate to say that we are communicating more poorly because of things like texting which seem to be denigrating the quality of written English. We are communicating more, and we are getting used to new media which may make misunderstandings more common, until we develop sophistication with the systems. For example, it's easy for people to get angry at e-mails they read, but slowly people are learning to write more nuanced e-mails, and use emoticons effectively, so that that happens less or is less severe.

How does technology impact the importance of face-to-face communication?

In many ways people use technology to avoid face-to-face communication. They have proven to prefer texting to actually calling, and many times they will admit it's easier to leave a message, and just avoid the direct exchange. This doesn't make face-to-face communication less important, though, it just makes it less necessary. For example, in education, everyone is afraid of the arrival of online education. But online technology offers the ability to see people, miles away, at every minute, so we haven't lost all that much in terms of important personal contact. As we get more used to this though, we'll find that face-to-face communication is more enhanced, more important. Think of what happens when you meet people who have been your Facebook friends for a while, but who you haven't seen. Your relationship is better; you know each other better; and, seeing them face-to-face, you can tell that these relationships are different from the way they used to be.

How does technology change our verbal communication?

I think oral communication will become more like written is today; for example, we'll have a world-standard English, and the importance of dialects will change. This started with television, by the way; before that, each geographical place had its own unique sound. Now, television English rules, in the US anyway. And soon, this will be more global. There will only be a few languages, and each of them will have a standard form, and everyone will know the standard form of at least one of them.

Do you think technology has made communication more casual?

Technology has made the casual use of writing much more common. In my generation, writing was far more formal, more serious. What was written, was always true, and thought out. Now, there's chat, and texting, and Facebook, and all this informal and immediate writing. And this writing is far more casual.

Is emotion hard to convey through technology? If so, how?

E-mails are misinterpreted, as I've said. We have to become more adept at conveying subtle emotions in the new informal writing situations. Emoticons (like smiley face :-) or tongue out :P ) help us but are frequently misinterpreted. LOL has a million meanings and is also misinterpreted. Some of this misinterpretation is because people are new to chat and have to get used to a new language. So, in a way, it's like you just learned French, and someone asked you if emotion is hard to convey in it. Yes, because emotion is subtle, and even in speech, we go around and around, trying to be discreet & indirect.

Do you think it is hard to express our emotions in a healthy way through modern technology?

Oh, yes. People have to learn to think carefully before they fire off an e-mail response, or put a four-letter word into Facebook. They have to remember that just because it seems casual, it is of course permanent and easily recreated, especially by enemies and potential employers. People often associate chat rooms with the more vulgar or seedier aspects of life- sex with strangers, scammers, phishers, etc. and that's because those are the people who found them first. But chat, twitter and instant messaging are tools that have proven to be extremely useful to everyone, and healthy people will use them in healthy ways; in addition, everyone else will learn to be healthier, especially when they notice the permanence of what they say and do, which is really much more pronounced than it was, say, in the telephone era.

How do you think technology has made it more difficult to create/foster lasting relationships?

I think it has made it easier. I deal with international students who now can Skype their parents every day if they want; that means they can see them, and talk to them as they see them, whenever they want. Facebook has made it so that if you have a friend at the age of five, you can stay in their life forever. This allows us to make and keep friends free of the geographical restriction of having to be in the same area, stay in the same area, or visit regularly, which becomes harder and more expensive when you have children.

I think there are a lot of shallow things about the new technology; for example, I find it hard to express how I really feel on Facebook or Twitter, to 300 "followers." Technology in that way encourages a kind of ongoing, shallow connection, and everybody wants to tell you what they had for breakfast; spammers are all over our e-mail and will hit you every time you turn around. But this doesn't hurt my ability to have more meaningful relationships with the people I love; on the contrary, the technology makes those better, as long as I can use it well and carefully. My parents have found Skype and our whole family, which is spread from England to New Mexico, is much closer as a result. We see each other all the time. We don't value meeting each other any less, just because we can see each other on Skype; we're using Skype to plan a reunion, and it's better and easier. The last time I went abroad, phone calls were 8 or 9 dollars a minute. Now they're free, and we can see each other. I am in closer contact with classmates from high school, college, and graduate school, and am better friends with them as a result.

By the way you hear about these internet romances where people meet each other on Twitter, Facebook or e-mail boards, etc. and then, much later, meet face-to-face, get married, etc. I don't think these relationships have any worse chances than any others. My guess is that they have about the same 50/50 chance of success as any other marriage. They sure started and bloomed in a different way, though. You can't discount the differences in the way we communicate as being not important; they are important. They do change relationships. They have lasting impacts on culture and the way we do things. But it's not all bad; it's clearly both bad and good, and if it weren't at least partly useful, we wouldn't even bother with it.

I think that there is some concern in the schools that some kids are using texting or, worse, video games, at the expense of developing meaningful relationships. This concern is justified, and, if it is possible for these kids to avoid communicating entirely, they might. In my day this more often happened to avid readers, but it was a concern for even them. If you become awkward socially, it affects you all your life. I have encountered 100-words-per-minute chatters who are so free with the foul language that, when faced with a formal essay, they are more or less paralyzed by their realization that they are like a fish out of water. In this sense, the availability of other media has deprived them of the practice they need talking and writing. The same was said of television, by the way, and was true to some degree. We are influenced by what we see and what we come to consider normal, and if this excludes normal face-to-face communication and relationship building, that's a problem for everyone. But you can't blame it on the diversions, unless those diversions are allowed to totally replace normal social development.

By the way, there were more than a few people who thought the advent of the telephone would be the downfall of civilized society as we knew it. There was serious opposition all over the place to the idea of talking to people without seeing them. This was only 80 years ago or so, so I'm sure you could find people who could talk about it. Lots has changed in 80 years, including a divorce rate that went up to 50%. But is that the phone's fault? I don't think so. I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens next!

fame

2009-12-08T14:29:00.001-08:00

I didn't tell you this, but I'm a fiddler too- this is from a recent performance at the Alternative Gift Fair. I've collected pop art from the original photo here. A little excursion into the self-indulgent world of stardom! But a picture is definitely good for a blog, every once in a while.

published article

2009-12-08T14:24:00.000-08:00

Leverett, T. (2009, Sept.). Zoom in, zoom out. Global Study Magazine 5, 3, London, pp. 38-39.

I will let you know when this is available online.

grammar-checkers cont'd

2009-12-01T10:42:00.000-08:00

I have widened the scope of the grammar-checker project, and have become very interested in several aspects of the grammar-checker problem, namely:

1. What influence does constant interaction with a green-line producing program (or even the red-lining spell-check) have on human perception of a second language? How does it affect learning? Clearly it helps their learning in some ways and hinders it in others. I can tell you that what I've learned so far is more or less here although fresh developments at the SIUC web emporium have rendered almost all our sites impractical at least for the time being. You have to tolerate bizarre templates to get to the content. Other things I have written on the topic are at c, b, and a.
2. If computer grammar programs can so quickly and relentlessly influence human behavior, why don't we just harness them to create perfect language learners?
3. What are the results of the work people have been doing to improve these programs? I'm just moving into this territory, btw; can't answer this one at all, yet. But, as concordancers get involved, the equation is definitely more interesting.
4. What is the most appropriate response on the part of teachers?
a. Recommend the best of the programs, show students how to access them and even expect or demand that students use them (this btw is what many people do about spell-check)
b. Ban them entirely from computer labs, and expect students to disable them on all computers used for class papers; give tests on computers with disabled grammar-check, or better yet, in pen and paper;
c. Assume that the default grammar-check on most Word programs are what our students are and will use most of the time, and work with them on their use of this or what we know of this; teach them, for example, to interpret the grammar-check's "Fragment" message properly. If students ask, show them the preferred settings (if we have a mutually agreed-upon choice)
d. Ignore them entirely. Pretend they don't exist.
e. March fearlessly into the future. Before they invented books, people used to memorize entire sagas, what would today be 600-page books. Humans have lost that ability. But who cares? Why do you need to remember anything you can look up in Google?

OpenSIUC

2009-11-22T20:28:00.000-08:00

I went to a Forum on Thursday (Nov. 19), partly because two nice young people stopped by my office personally in Faner and invited me. I was interested in this topic anyway, though, and though I can't say I've totally sorted it out, I can at least give some background and point out a few interesting facts.

openSIUC is an online repository of scholarly work; it is supported by SIUC and its administration, the best I can figure, because it increases visibility of the faculty, and expands the impact of its work. It is part of a movement to open up access to information that has been spurred on by dynamic changes in the way information is accessed in general. The traditional journals in many fields are being pressured; because they are not online, their information, and their citations, are in effect hidden.

I missed David Shulenburger's speech, but I can guess that it was somewhat like this one in which he encourages faculty to open up and give the taxpayers what they paid for: the fruits of their labor. Many other faculty readily agree. They not only see the benefit of having everyone access their work right away, but also don't see the point in hiding what is in effect a search for truth anyway. So why wouldn't we just go entirely Open Access, as some other universities have done (or tried? I'm not sure)?

The obvious losers in this picture are the traditional journals, which have apparently been overcharging libraries (the figure of $2000/yr. came up), although that situation is complicated, since journals are often bundled, and the recession means people are losing left and right. But time is a factor too: even though it traditionally took two years for an article to be published entirely, electronic transfer has moved that up; still, as my friend SM said, people are expected to post conference papers these days; also, people want their work to be seen by as many as can, as soon as possible; this encourages idea exchange and saves time. To the question of what will happen to peer review, one answer was that this speeds up the process, but doesn't replace the process.

I have certainly noticed in the fields I'm most interested in that there have been lots of new online academic journals; they jockey for position, based on what they can publish; there is therefore a variety spanning from reputable to less reputable; they as a class are getting all the citations, because people are at their computers and just grab what they can find, often, especially when finding the original or the best source isn't of utmost importance. I myself rely almost entirely on online sources, mostly because I don't have time to walk over to the library, and do most of my writing at night, when I can't.

Wait a minute, say the traditionalists. Free is not a business plan (true)- the traditional journals will go out of business (maybe), as newspapers already have. There is no blind peer review, if things are online already (true- but some say there is no blind peer review anyway)...and finally, in some fields, so much of what is online is low-quality, free, pedestrian, etc. The "good" journals are the traditional ones...Yes, but, in my eyes at least, a wide variety is opening out, and since places like openSIUC put academic weight behind "online" and "free", more and more really good things are "online" and "free". It is now possible to do fairly good and pretty thorough research on many topics online, and this trend is generally increasing, not decreasing. I'm not saying anything profound here, just noticing which way the wind is blowing. An e-Print archive (http://arxiv.org) is part of this trend, apparently. Entire textbooks are online in most fields; this could eliminate the huge overpricing/monopoly/constant renewal problem we've faced for years with the textbook industry.

It's an interesting world, and it's apparently not sitting still.

apply now!

2009-11-16T09:41:00.001-08:00

I will be the first to say that when I pointed out an error of the SIUC web system (letting an ApplyPage link go bad on hundreds of templates), the SIUC web people, or somebody, actually fixed it! This all happened in the space of about a week.

Thank you.

For every potential student who, on an impulse of whatever kind, chooses to apply to SIUC, a link will now take them to an appropriate page. I am not sure if or whether my comment caused this, but in any case good things happened...it restores my faith in the large and (sometimes) impersonal institution.

Go Salukis!

another term flies

2009-11-18T21:21:00.000-08:00

As I sit here, we are heading into a Thanksgiving break, and then, another Christmas break, which is really quite long, and gives us a little time to breathe, as teachers who really only have this one season. But I also would like to reflect a little on trends in the field, and what is happening around me.

First, I am lucky, I'm sure, to still be working in a rapidly contracting world, where jobs in particular are flying, and everyone, it seems, is looking for new and clever ways to make a living. I'm surprised more of them don't end up in places like China, Brazil, or Ireland, where they still have an economy and they hire bright people to do cool things. I frankly don't know what will happen to esl/efl around the world; the crashing dollar has traditionally been good for our field, but a complete lack of jobs elsewhere in the country might not be so great.

Second, the rapid gain of technology in all fields is of course both a curse and a blessing. Who has really integrated it successfully? The divide between the online teaching world, and the brick-and-mortar traditionalists, is getting wider, coming to blows even. Teachers are threatened by those who are willing to "do it online" for cheaper, and from any corner of the world, like Phoenix, or 'Smith University.' I actually am not so quick to criticize the quality of online instruction, or quick to ridicule the traditional teachers' fears; both are valid, and there is no way to reconcile them, really. Any talk about a "New Academy" (I've copied the link below a few posts) is a little early; nobody's changing, or if they do, it's over their dead bodies, pretty much. Administrations see the future and try to push teachers into "online development". Teachers see the future and dig in their heels, doing what they've always done. And I'm speaking even for myself, a leader in the technology-integration area. When I'm out of time, and the chips are down, I do what I've always done. It's "teaching" as I know it, and, I'm always short of time.

The static web, and the blogs, for that matter, have the look and feel of foreclosed houses. I've become impatient with my own inability to get around and fix all the broken links, update wherever possible, keep things shiny and useful. The world moves onto Facebook and Twitter, and we, left behind in our old pictures and ancient design, have nothing to say, except, "we've been here forever." The blogs feel so much like "old media" that I have trouble presenting them to students as "fresh;" they, for their part, don't seem to mind, but I have less time to ask them, and we have trouble just getting their skills up to the point where they can really use English with each other, and they of course are seeing things a lot more in terms of tests, and particularly the TOEFL, which they need to pass yesterday if not sooner.

This talk about the "New Academy" being all more collaborative, also, doesn't sit well with me. I like collaboration; I'm all for it, and feel that when we work together we get the best of all our skills combined. But, I find it hard to set up and maintain. I think there are thousands of wikis out there that are, basically, blogs with 1 1/2 users; actually, there is lots of real collaboration out there too, but I'm not sure a single busy teacher like me really has access to ways to make it work in our favor. My own way of storing information, literally on blogs and static webpages, is hopelessly outmoded, but I haven't had time to explore diigo or even exploit twitter for all it's worth. The collective wisdom is rich and many-layered; but, the free moments of a teacher under pressure are so scarce, it's all I can do to produce my students' grades.

The program has a new Moodle; this is good; we were not doing well in getting Blackboard or getting our students to have access to it. The Moodle is interesting. I, however, have been too busy; I scarcely know it. I'm interested though. If my students can have instant access to all their grades, everything that's happening, everything I know or have to say, why shouldn't I give it to them? I do, after all, teach them English first, teach them how to make sense of this world, second. Sense, that is, as I know it, best foot forward, showing them our world. Our rapidly changing world. Have a good break; I hope you get some rest.

Barone, C. (2009). The New Academy. EduCause. http://www.educause.edu/Resources/EducatingtheNetGeneration/TheNewAcademy/6068. Accessed 10-09.

Grammar checkers for better or worse

2009-11-15T17:51:00.000-08:00

Writing teachers are used to the ubiquitous spell-check and the oocasional odd but inapproriate results of its consistent use. They are not prepared, however, to recognize the results of consistent grammar-check use, in two respects. First, grammar-check, even in its most primitive forms, altered the learning and perception of its esl/efl users. Second, dramatic improvements in recent years have changed what technology can do for writers, thus changing both the writer's and the teacher's challenges; for the teacher, the biggest problem is whether to teach to the student's own skills, or to accept the technology as a permanent part of the medium. This session looks at what is default on most computers, what is available and increasingly common on the market, what it does for and to students, and what exactly teachers can do about it.

A CALL-IS Internet Fair proposal
It's what I've been working on; some of
it is here

2009-11-10T22:29:00.000-08:00

Schaffhauser, D. (2009, Nov. 10). Social networking exploding in enterprise networks. Campus Technology. http://campustechnology.com/articles/2009/11/10/social-networking-exploding-in-enterprise-networks.aspx. Accessed 11-09.

Evangelista, B. (2009, Nov. 9). Study: Social networks, Google Docs becoming business applications. SFGage, San Francisco Chronicle. http://campustechnology.com/articles/2009/11/10/social-networking-exploding-in-enterprise-networks.aspx. Accessed 11-09.

Kolowich, S. (2009, Nov. 5). Tweeting in class. Inside Higher Ed. http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/11/05/twitter. Accessed 11-09.

The Twitter Experiment- UT Dallas (2009, May 2). YouTube. http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/11/05/twitter. Accessed 11-09.

Whittaker, Z. (2009, Nov. 3). Google Wave: Has potential, but let loose too soon. ZDNet. http://blogs.zdnet.com/igeneration/?p=3221&tag=nl.e539. Accessed 11-09.

applyPage

2009-11-10T21:56:00.000-08:00

In January 2004, or sometime around then, SIUC tried to make uniform all the departmental webpages by instituting a template requirement; we were to put a red and white striped banner across our main page; it had various links in it, including link to SIUC proper, search, the applyPage (Apply Now, it said), athletics, jobs, etc. Interior pages could have a vertical banner that was simpler but also redder, and had the same links, basically.

Web designers across campus complained that the colors were hard to work with, and in fact, SIUC would not tell how they made the red, so the webmasters had to find other dull colors that made it look good, and not try to match it. They had chosen the design from among many, but it still was unpopular. The clocktower logo that appeared within it turned out to be popular, though; even today people are using that clocktower image in creative ways, and it serves as a fairly good, popular logo for the university and its web designers.

The red-and-white banner page, however, never went over well, and ultimately the university let it go, and gave web designers the freedom to make their own pages without being trapped within the maroon template. Most departments have done so, I'm sure.

There are still hundreds of pages with the banner template and the vertical-bar template, however. Our department has two banners and three or four hundred vertical-bars alone. It's mostly because we haven't upgraded old pages to better templates.

The "Apply Now" links on these templates stopped working in 2007. Perhaps the university web system was reorganized, or a system was initiated that did not honor the capital letter in the link URL. In any case, on our pages at least, anyone who clicked "Apply Now" got a 404 message; this has been going on for a couple of years, apparently. The button at the bottom of the banner template (also saying "Apply Now" is dead also. You would think they'd put a redirect on the applyPage, and send people over to the new one, which is simply applypage.html; redirects are not impossible, apparently. You would think they would warn us, webmasters of the various departments, also. Not that I have time to fix 400 pages, but I'd at least like to know if the main ones have dead links. I had mistakenly considered that banner to be taken care of; it was, after all, imposed upon us.

No such luck. By the way, I can't imagine a good way to solve SIUC's enrollment crisis. We definitely need to get more people to apply to our programs; it would be good for us in general. If they could apply by clicking on those buttons, that would help, I'm sure. Maybe somebody could apply themselves to this situation.

more happening

2009-11-02T14:42:00.000-08:00

Diaz, S. (2009, Oct. 27). LA votes to "Go Google"; pressure shifts to Google and the cloud. ZDNet. http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=26641&tag=nl.e539. Accessed 11-09.

MacManus, R. (2009, Oct. 29). Google Wave use cases: Education. ReadWriteWeb. http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_wave_use_cases_education.php. Accessed 11-09.

Baskin, K. (2009, Nov. 1). My Profile, Myself. Boston Globe Sunday Magazine, boston.com. http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/magazine/articles/2009/11/01/my_profile_myself/. Accessed 11-09.

Dawson, C. (2009, Oct. 26). More e-readers- more misconceptions. ZDNet. http://education.zdnet.com/?p=3282&tag=nl.e623. Accessed 11-09.

no irony intended

2009-10-30T14:36:00.000-07:00

Acohido, B. (2009, Oct. 28). Unstoppable new phishing attacks blanket Facebook, Twitter, Hotmail. The Last Watchdog, http://lastwatchdog.com/unstoppable-phishing-attacks-blanket-facebook-twitter/. Accessed 10-09.

Newgarden, K. (2009, Sept.). Annotated Bibliography- Twitter, social networking, and communities of practice. TESL-EJ 13, 2. http://www.tesl-ej.org/wordpress/past-issues/volume13/ej50/ej50int/. Accessed 10-09.

of interest

2009-08-18T13:35:00.000-07:00

Google

Stripling, J. (2009, Aug. 12). Life in a Google book search world. Inside Higher Ed. http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/08/12/google. Accessed 8-09.

Arnold, S. (2009, Aug. 18). Google in Jeopardy. Beyond Search. http://arnoldit.com/wordpress/2009/08/18/google-in-jeopardy/. Accessed 8-09.

Iskold, A. (2009, July 6). Free: It works, it cries, it bites. Read Write Web. http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/free_it_works_it_cries_it_bites.php. Accessed 8-09.

Social networking

Hegna, J. (2009, Aug.) Guidelines for educators using social networking sites (draft). Blue Skunk blog. http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com/blue-skunk-blog/2009/8/7/guidelines-for-educators-using-social-networking-sites.html. Accessed 8-09.

Cheng, J. (2009, Aug. 14). Facebook privacy: A guide. Ars Technica. http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2009/08/meshing-social-networking-and-privacy-on-facebook.ars. Accessed 8-09.

Matlin, C. (2009, Aug. 16). Facebook cornering the market on e-friends. Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/15/AR2009081500040.html. Accessed 8-09.

Shields, M. (2009, July 6). Nielsen Online: Kids flocking to the web. MediaWeek. http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/content_display/news/digital-downloads/metrics/e3iba9a089c3eafb2f5d6bc4f0c7444e166. Accessed 8-09.

some cool new stuff

2009-10-21T12:49:00.000-07:00

Kennedy Manzo, K. (2009, Oct. 16). Twitter lessons in 140 characters or less. Education Week.
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2009/10/21/08twitter_ep.h29.html?tkn=SSXCbUYFvnfdVEOpPoN8%2ByuYf6MZg15e2zdf. Accessed 10-09.

Rusbridger, A. (2009, Oct. 14). The Trifigura fiasco tears up the textbook. Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/oct/14/trafigura-fiasco-tears-up-textbook. Accessed 10-09.

Chen, S. (2009, Oct. 19). Facebook, Twitter users beware: Crooks are a mouse click away. CNN.com. http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/10/19/social.networking.crimes/index.html. Accessed 10-09.

The Young and the Digital. (2009, Oct. 15). Facebook activism. http://www.theyoungandthedigital.com/research/facebook-activism/. Accessed 10-09.

Barone, C. (2009). The New Academy. EduCause. http://www.educause.edu/Resources/EducatingtheNetGeneration/TheNewAcademy/6068. Accessed 10-09.

more coming!

more on twitter & edmodo

2009-10-23T10:05:00.000-07:00

Classroom 2.0. (2009, Sept. 15). Edmodo. http://www.classroom20.com/forum/topics/edmodo-1. Accessed 10-09.

Edmodo: Microblogging for the classroom. (2008, Sept. 2). Box of Tricks weblog. http://www.boxoftricks.net/?p=403. Accessed 10-09.

AcademHack. (2008, Jan. 23). Twitter for Academia. http://academhack.outsidethetext.com/home/2008/twitter-for-academia/. Accessed 10-09.

Arequipa, Peru

2009-10-27T11:47:00.000-07:00

Leverett, T. (2009, Oct.) Reading strategies for teachers and students in the new millennium. Workshop, Oct. 5-10, Universidad Catolica de Santa Maria, Arequipa.

This workshop invited teachers from the Arequipa area and concentrated on methods of teaching reading, including ways of using new technology like weblogs and edmodo. We ended up discussing the Extensive Reading philosophy and how to incorporate its philosophy into various kinds of classes. For example, some teachers complained of having classes full of young teens, with very little motivation to read more than a sentence, or remember difficult vocabulary: what to do? Another problem: textbooks with exams lashed onto them, which students find boring or too dull. Can the teacher reach outside of those textbooks? Can the teacher support them and find material to feed into them, thus ensuring that their students do better on the crucial exams?

More on these topics later. If you wish, peruse the links or the edmodo that I set up; I would like to develop this later, soon in fact, but it may be the pinnacle of reading research that I accomplish for the time being.

New Jersey

2009-10-28T09:48:00.001-07:00

Leverett, T. (2009, Oct. 24) Integrating chat into the writing class. Invited talk, New Jersey Higher Education ESL Conference, Montclair State Univ., Montclair NJ.

This was essentially the same as my presentation at TESOL in Denver; I was asked, in Denver, if I could come to New Jersey to give it. New Jersey was stunning in its fall colors, and my hosts were generous and friendly. Teachers were eager and somewhat stunned to hear about both weblogs and chat; how could one really use these? But I showed them, and showed what we did. Also, although I welcomed the opportunity to have and use the "backchannel," there were no takers. ESL teachers don't, apparently, bring their hand-helds or twitters to conferences such as these.

The script this link opens up to is a rough draft of my talk, but it is connected to the rest of the presentation also. I would like to update it; I'm running out of time.

Miranda's presentation

2009-10-28T10:52:00.000-07:00

Ma, Sin I (Miranda). (2009, Oct. 27. Web-blogging in ESL writing: Weaving a class into a community. Saline Room, Student Center, SIUC. Based on class weblog at http://f09ling101.blogspot.com.

Miranda's presentation was well-attended; the room held only about twenty, but there were people leaning on the wall behind the last row, so it was standing-room only and crowded. She had put her students in charge of making assignments and then basically turned them loose, allowing for a freer environment and lots of lively exchange. When asked whether it improved their more formal writing, she said that it did clearly make them more fluent; they write more and without worrying as much about the outcome. She was asked how they were graded, and how they were put in groups; she was asked if she gave corrective feedback in a public place. When she said that she had berated them a little for making so many typos, they complained that they didn't capitalize "I", for example, because they were used to typing on Word, which always did it for them. The weblog was therefore a rawer, more informal environment, and they just accepted that for what it was and wrote a lot. One teacher, L.H., even commented that the blog could thus be used to wean them from dependence on spell-check.

She was asked if a teacher who set up a blog had more of a burden, and she agreed that she did; but, she thought it was worth it. I don't include all her answers here because I didn't take very accurate notes. But, what interested me was that there was great interest from the community in what she did. People remained leaning on the walls throughout the presentation. Good job, Miranda!

2009-10-23T10:13:00.000-07:00

busy busy

2009-09-28T12:16:00.000-07:00

It's a busy time, because I've been invited to Peru and am trying to pull together a a workshop on teaching reading. On the web, it has put many of my reading resources in one spot; live, I'm in much shakier ground. Much as I love the idea of going to Peru, it's going to be hard, and it will keep me busy and out of my usual haunts for a couple of weeks.

Then, after that, it's off to New Jersey for the NJ ESL Conference in Montclair, where I'll give my TESOL presentation, basically as is, to a state ESL conference, and see my sister, a world-famous musician.

My observation, irrelevant as it may be, is that Peru and New Jersey are roughly the same shape. I'm not sure what that has to do with anything, though.

More later...sorry for the dearth of posts.

who vandalized the wild grasses?

2009-09-17T06:47:00.000-07:00

Actually, my guess is that the university itself did it. Here they were, growing all during the construction of the new library; distracting us with their wild and flagrant beauty. But the construction is over, and the powers that be are concentrating on controlled, rigid landscaping. The parking lots (now paved) are filling up. Maybe somebody complained about a snake.

One battle lost in the war to re-establish some balance between wild nature, and rigid landscaping. I myself side with the snakes- they after all keep the mice and rats at bay.

amazing stories

2009-09-11T11:11:00.000-07:00

They look amazing to me, anyway. Scroll down.

here's a guy whose job I covet

2009-08-24T12:37:00.000-07:00

http://education.zdnet.com/?p=2970&tag=nl.e623
I'm going to Blogsville- C. Dawson

http://education.zdnet.com/?p=2967&tag=nl.e623
Industry fight against Google hurts education- C. Dawson

http://education.zdnet.com/?p=2913&tag=nl.e623
Is crowdsourcing a better choice for grading?- C. Dawson

http://education.zdnet.com/?p=2907&tag=nl.e623
Facebook pages for schools- C. Dawson

http://education.zdnet.com/?p=2887&tag=nl.e623
Ridiculous lawsuit against Amazon- C. Dawson

http://education.zdnet.com/?p=2863&tag=nl.e623
Kindle draws fire at AZ State- C. Dawson

As you can see, I'm an avid follower of Christopher Dawson, who seems to find topics that I'm invariably interested in. They are short, and informal, but well-written, and people chime in with lots of comments (these often lead to interesting sources as well). If Mr. Dawson retires, I would be interested in doing what he's doing (obviously).

siuc web conference

2009-08-11T07:38:00.001-07:00

It was my pleasure to attend part of the Web Conference, held at Rehn Hall on Mon. Aug. 10. Since my wife is out of town and I had childcare only in the morning, I could attend only in the morning, and even yet only part of that, since it was the first day of vacation and we, young boys and I, had trouble getting out the door early enough.

So, I missed the first part of the one that was probably most useful to me, about css stylesheets. The presenter, from housing, introduced csszengarden, a site I really like and one that hopefully will introduce me a little better to stylesheets.

The fact is, my web skills have grown hopelessly out of date, with no time to take classes or learn such things as stylesheets, javascript, etc. I have time for pop art, but no time for classes. Sometimes I'm made more aware of this just as I stand around and talk to other designers, many of whom are also doing it basically in their free time.

One thing you pick up is people's attitudes; for example, how to deal with fringe groups. It's one thing to worry about the blind, they say; of course you're going to have to go out of your way. It's another to worry about people on an IE5 on Mac. What do you owe them? If they're less than 5%, don't worry.

There's a push to open-source design; I confirmed my son-in-law's advice that everyone moved from tables to divs a few years back. it hasn't improved much; in some ways divs are just as bad.

Nevertheless, I was lucky to be here, and lucky to learn, and I knew it. The second presenter was from the school of journalism and taught how to be aware of and stay aware of the words that would be picked up by the searches, and displayed therein. A headline writer, she was aware of global traffic, local people, site visits, attraction and such; she was onto Jakob Nielsen and the accessibility guidelines; she reminded us of description text; she gave us the image of trying to pick up academy-speak on an iPhone (the kid moves the phone farther and closer, and squints); and how to make academy-speak into blunt powerful headlines & bullets (there are magic bullets, she said). Like poets, she shoots for big meaning, small words; she has a scorn for "click here" left over from the old days. Invite the reader to experience, she said. We can tighten, she said; we can put it in steps, even if it's the Woody shuffle. A silence hung in the air, no questions, while the one I had (how do you get away with a url like that?

Finally, Curt Wilson, who turns out to be an old friend of mine, and his talk on security. This went from SQL injections, to the different kinds of attacks; cross platform, etc. Keep updating your apps, he said. Adobe Reader is the newest one to attack, he said. When there's something to protect, that's when you need to worry about security; we at SIUC have a lot to protect. I had to leave this early, again for childcare reasons; I was in awe of his ability to know the difference between these kinds of attacks; it's a science, is all I can say.