Vance Stevens: Community Building Tools for Online Language Learning

CTELT 2000 Alternate Assessment
4th Annual Conference
"Current Trends in English Language Testing"
May 10-11, 2000
Zayed University - Dubai Campus (UAE)

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Community Building Tools
for Online Language Learning

A presentation by Vance Stevens
Amideast Consultant and CALL Coordinator, Military Language Institute

Conference website: http://dbm.hct.ac.ae/sponsors/ctelt2000/info.html
This presentation: http://www.netword.com/vance@ctelt2000

The presenter aims to bring together numerous language-oriented teaching and learning communities in a demonstration of how synchronous communication tools freely available on the web can facilitate the formation of such communities, contribute to their cohesiveness, and further their educational goals. Several such communities have been invited to attend this presentation.

The communities are:

Those in attendance at the conference and physically present at the demonstration
The members of the presenter's online class, Writing for Webheads, http://www.netword.com/webheads. This purely online and volunteer community of learners and teachers has been together for two years and still ongoing.
The members of a professional listserv recently formed by the presenter and his colleagues online: Teaching for Webheads, http://www.netword.com/teaching4webheads
Members of NETEACH-L and TESLCA-L, who were sent a blanket invitation to join the presentation

Plan for this demonstration / workshop

GMT	Time in Dubai	What should happen ...
Before 10:30 GMT		Vance will set up for the presentation and go online to chat areas via dialup from personal laptop
10:30 GMT	2:30 p.m	Gatekeepers are due to convene in the chat areas (see below)
		Vance presenting in Dubai will explain the tools to the audience there and join the chats as he can while Gatekeepers and visitors converse in the chats. If computers are available at the presentation site which are not blocked from chat at the firewall then the audience can join the more accessible chats such as Homestead and HearMe. Otherwise, the focus will be on Vance's computer projected at the front of the room.
11:15 GMT	3:15	Short break at the conference, but computers will remain online
11:30 GMT	3:30	Conference presentation will move into workshop mode if computers are available to accommodate this. Visitors to chats will continue to be entertained.
12:15	4:15	The presentation and global online conference chat will be brought to a close

The tools used in this convergence of communities are:

ICQ for finding each other online, http://www.mirabilis.com
The text chat site at: http://www.homestead.com/vstevens/ - This is a browser based chat site, easy to reach, and works fairly well for a broad base of user. It was created simply by starting a web page at http://www.homestead.com, using the web page builder there, and dragging the chat icon onto the page.
The voice chat site at: http://www.chariot.net.au/~michaelc/hearme.htm - This page was created by visiting http://www.hearme.com and registering to receive the code by email. The code was pasted into a Notepad file, saved as html, and stored on the web. Anyone can use it by visiting the url using a PC and a 4.0 or better browser (on first visit, you install the plugin and grant the security clearances). You also need a sound card but if you don't have a mic you can interact in the text chat area
The Palace chat site - This is a chat client available from http://www.thepalace.com/products/client/index.html , and we visit a Virtual Schoolhouse, efi.virtualscholar.com on port 9998, made available by http://www.coterie.com. This has proven to be a highly suitable and enjoyable learning space for our online class members.

Gatekeepers

We have learned from previous experiences how to better greet visitors, so there should be someone in the chat areas we will use to welcome visitors as they enter. The gatekeepers are:

In the voice chat, Peter a Teaching for Webheads list member in Tokyo
In the text chat, Choi Hae Young, a Writing for Webheads student in Korea
In The Palace, Maggi , a Writing for Webheads teacher in Germany)
Michael, another Writing for Webheads teacher in Australia, will also be keeping an eye out in the voice and text chat areas as will Maggi in Germany and Vance in Dubai.

There is more information on these materials available from: http://members.tripod.com/vstevens/efi/software.htm

For reports of other Webhead events of this nature: http://members.tripod.com/vstevens/efi/reports.htm

This update: May 10, 2000
Vance's email: vstevens@emirates.net.ae