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Vance's: Papers / Cyprus 2001 Conference page / Plenary / Workshop

Internet applications in foreign language learning

Workshop by Vance Stevens

Implementing Call in EFL: Living up to Expectations

a conference at the University of Cyprus, Nicosia
May 5th - 6th, 2001

The opportunities for real language use on the Internet are being more and more utilized by language teaching practitioners as the variety of adaptable sites proliferates. This workshop will be a hands-on, exploratory overview of various kinds of sites and activities that facilitate language learning on the Internet. Participants will collaborate to evaluate these sites and activities on a scale of authentic, motivating, communicative.

Meet the participants in our cyprus2001workshop YahooGroup: http://www.vancestevens.com/papers/cyprus2001/workshop/cy2k.htm

Workshop particulars

• Date(s) and time(s): Saturday May 5: 15:00-17:00 and 17:30 to 19:30 / Sunday May 6 17:30 to 19:30
• Duration of workshop: 2 hours
• Expected audience: around 30 language instructor colleagues per session
• Expertise assumed: very little previous skill required - participants should be able to do basic tasks using a computer, be able to use email and word processing, and be able to use a browser to view documents at stored at Internet addresses, or URLs
• Expected outcomes: Participants will learn enough about the Internet to be able to use Internet-linked activities with their own students. The workshop will foster an appreciation of the community-building aspects of working with the Internet by establishing ways by which participants can collaborate professionally before and after the conference.
• What to bring: Participants are encouraged to bring with them to the workshop their email addresses and digital images of themselves, or have on hand a photo for scanning.
• Facilities anticipated: Internet-connected PC's in a lab setting, a means of displaying the teacher computer to the group, a firewall allowing chats, sound cards on computers, only 2 headsets (mics and phones) presenter has a pair of speakers
• Software required: MS Word, Netscape Navigator, Quicktime 4, Windows Media Player, Real Player 8, IE 5 with shockwave and flash plugins

Tentative Schedule

Introduction (20 min)

A brief explanation of the Internet, how it works, and how sites are linked to each other

What is a browser, and how does it work. Differences between IE and Netscape. (IE saves whole websites for example)

Discuss briefly: Why use the Internet?

Resources

• ICT4LT Module 1.5 Introduction to the Internet - 1. What is the Internet? http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_mod1-5.htm#anchor726522; also
• Kevin Hughes's Guide to Cyberspace http://www.maths.tcd.ie/pub/guide/guide.toc.html)
• Much more: http://www.vancestevens.com/intro2we.htm

How you can download things off the internet

• Zip files and installation file downloads, things that one is likely to trip over in the course of interaction,
• some of the protocols you can use (http and ftp in particular).

Tasks: Do one or more of the following

1. Explain to your group what a ZIP file is and how you use it.
2. Visit http://www.download.com and find a ZIP program. Save it to disk, then open a window and show us where it is.

time 00:20 hours

What's on the Internet? (30 min)

We'll have a look at a variety of sites, one or two representative samples from each area below. We'll have a look at them and suggest ways that teachers can use them. Teachers can refer to the "more information" pages for greater depth of information.

Meta-sites

Task (6 min): With a partner or partners, visit some of the above sites. Tell the group at large when you find something "cool".

Skills

Task (6 min): With a partner or partners, visit some of the above sites. Tell the group at large when you find something "cool".

Research

Task (6 min): With a partner or partners, visit some of the above sites. Tell the group at large when you find something "cool".

Communities

Task (6 min): With a partner or partners, visit some of the above sites. Tell the group at large when you find something "cool".

Delivery

Task (6 min): With a partner or partners, visit some of the above sites. Tell the group at large when you find something "cool".

time 00:50 hours

How do you go home and use it? (30 min)

ICT4LT Module 1.5 Introduction to the Internet - 7. Using the Web with language learners at http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_mod1-5.htm#anchoruseweb

http://www.netword.com/*whatIwantu2dotoday and the students always go to that url which you update each lesson

Bookmark files - Download a good bookmark file for Netscape by Peter Nichols (MLI) at http://www.vancestevens.com/mli/nichols_ntscp_bkmks.htm

Evaluation

Evaluation task 1: Surf the above site and agree as a group what form to use.

Evaluation task 2: Agree on one site from the list above ...

time 01:20 hours

Making your own web pages (30 min)

We'll briefly mention these possibilities, pointing out where more information can be obtained, without having participants do anything hands-on

• MS Word and
• Netscape Composer
• Hot Potatoes and Quia are mentioned at ICT4LT Module 1.5 Introduction to the Internet - 13. Creating your own Web pages at http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_mod1-5.htm#anchorcreate
• For the hard core participants, my tutorial at A tutorial on using HTML

It's useful to know a little bit about the very basics of html to be able to avoid wasting time in frustration when something goes wrong. Often, just a little knowledge of HTML allows you to make a quick and easy repair. Repairs to HTML can be made using any ASCII text editor, such as Notepad.

How you can download things off the internet

• by right clicking on an image for example.
• making screen dumps of web pages, pasting into paint or directly into Word
• save web pages with text and images and use them later

Tasks: Do one or more of the following

1. Maximize a web page, press Prt Sc, launch Word, press Ctrl-V to paste the web page image into Word, and resize it
2. Right click on an image, use File/Save As to save it to disk. Launch Word and import the image to your document.
3. Save a whole webpage (text and images etc) in IE and show where its components are located

If you like you can save your Word document as HTML and

time 01:50 hours

Community Building (10 min) to )

We plan these outcomes:

• We have created a master web page, where we put something up with people's photos, each person making a small segment about him/herself, marking the event of our participating in the workshop, to be left online so that people return to wherever they go, and show colleagues on their browsers, hey, I was here at this workshop, and here's my picture, and here are the other people who were there, and here's what we talked about ...
• We have formed a YahooGroup to enable us to stay in touch before and after the conference.

Meet the participants in our cyprus2001workshop YahooGroup: http://www.vancestevens.com/papers/cyprus2001/workshop/cy2k.htm

Discuss ways you can form web communities in your class, and why you would want to.

Task: After the workshop, visit this page on the Internet, complete any of the activities above and report your findings to the group at cyprus2001workshop@yahoogroups.com

time 02:00 hours

Bibliography

Bradin C. (1997) "The Dark Side of the Web", FLEAT 97 paper: http://edvista.com/claire/darkweb/index.html

Bush M. (1996) "Internet Mania", Multimedia Monitor. Philips Business Information Inc., February 1996. On the web as: INTERNET MANIA World Wide Web Technology: What's Hot and What's Not! http://moliere.byu.edu/web.htm

Davies G.D. (1998) "Exploiting Internet resources off-line". Paper presented at the Language Teaching On-Line Conference University of Ghent, Belgium, 8 May 1998. Online version "constantly updated" according to its author: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/GrahamDavies1/gdghent.htm

Davies, Graham. The Internet: an introduction for language teachers. 11 December 2000 updatehttp://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/GrahamDavies1/webintro.htm

Dudeney, Gavin. 2000. The Internet and the Language Classroom: A practical guide for teachers. Cambridge University Press.

Gitsaki, Christina, and Richard P. Taylor. 2000. Internet English: www-based communication activities. Oxford University Press.

Hughes, Kevin. 1994. Entering the World Wide Web: a Guide to Cyberspace http://www.maths.tcd.ie/pub/guide/guide.toc.html

Mansfield C. & McNeill T. (1998) Web skills for language learning, The WELL Project. Available at the website of the Web Enhanced Language Learning (WELL) project. It's a 32-page introductory booklet, written by Charlie Mansfield and Tony McNeill, University of Sunderland, and you can order it for about 65p from this page: http://www.well.ac.uk/wellproj/wellbook.htm

Walker, Ros and Sue Hewer. 1999. In Graham Davies (Editor) Information and Communications Technology for Language Teachers. ICT4LT Module 1.5 is on Introduction to the Internet. http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_mod1-5.htm
(Listed as Davies G., Walker R. & Hewer S. (1999) Introduction to the Internet, Module 1.5, ICT4LT: http://www.ict4lt.org at http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/GrahamDavies1/webintro.htm).
For easy reference, the contents of this module are listed here: 1. What is the Internet? 2. What is the World Wide Web? 3. Using your browser - navigating the Net 4. How to find materials on the Web 5. Selected websites for language learners and teachers 6. Evaluating websites 7. Using the Web with language learners 8. The virtual language school 9. Potential problems with using the Web 10. Glossary of Web terminology 11. Fonts other than English 12. Electronic discussion lists 13. Creating your own Web pages 14. Email for language learners and teachers Appendix: Viruses Bibliography and references Feedback

Warschauer, Mark. Heidi Shetzer, and Christine Meloni. 2000. Internet for English Teaching. Washington, DC: TESOL Publications

Windeatt, Scott, David Hardisty, and David Eastment.. 2000. The Internet, Oxford University Press

(C)opyright 2003-5 Vance Stevens

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