Chineseblast.com
This is an interesting site that attempts to do something similar to what I’ve been working on, which is to provide a space for language learners to collaborate on projects. It’s well designed and thought out, but it seems to be lacking what everything I’ve tried to do has lacked, and that is a greater degree of structure for projects. Most of the projects here involve translating media files, which is great, but it’s ultimately just translation. I’m trying to figure out ways that would take the same collaborative approach, but would also require participants to engage in using the target language to communicate to solve problems or create something new. Still, this is an excellent effort:
QuickTopic message board
QuickTopic is a good option to keep in mind when you’re looking for a message board / mailing list solution. Hosting your own message board is becoming more of a headache in terms of spam and security, and so using a hosted solution makes some sense, especially for educators who don’t live to maintain their web sites and collaboration applications. A couple of the nice things about using a hosted service are:
- You don’t have to worry about upgrading and patching
- If you do change your website server, your BBS is one less thing to have to worry about moving
- Somebody else is taking care of much of the policing of the application
I don’t think a hosted solution is always the answer. I still prefer to maintain my own Moodle, albeit on hosted web space (I have given up maintaining my own server, at least for now.) One reason I do still manage some of my own applications, such as Moodle, is because I have more freedom and configuration options when I manage packages myself, and that’s one thing you’re giving up when you go with a hosted service such as QuickTopic, although you can usually get some of that control back for a few dollars. Nonetheless, for straightforward, simple tools such as a mailing list, giving up some control is not a big blow. Here’s the link:
QuickTopic: free message board hosting (bulletin boards)
CSCLL: Away from language, towards communication
Problem: ESL materials that are supposedly designed according to a communicative framework nonetheless feel contrived, irrelevant, and just plain boring.
Problem: Activities that are designed for the purpose of language acquisition when language, in reality, is rarely acquired for the sake of language acquisition just as trees are rarely counted for the sake of counting trees and a cake is rarely baked for the sake of baking a cake. The missing ingredient is purpose. That purpose is what gives
motivation, which in turn drives attention. Modern ESL materials still try to create that purpose through information gap activities and the like that, for example, require a learner to find out what the other learner’s favorite TV program is or what day they were born on. Who cares!
Question: How can we create an environment or situation in which learners have a real-life stake in the outcome and that requires spontaneous and collaborative use of the target language? Some brainstorming:
- Social issues
- Problem based learning
- Debating & discussion
- Academic or work issues
- Problem based learning
- Debating & discussion
- Real hobbies (of which few people have more than a couple, and some none at all)
- Information sharing
- Project completion
- Family
- Love, romance, and of course, sex
But simply identifying an issue, cause, or problem is not enough. A specific deliverable needs to be identified, with a framework for reaching or creating that deliverable, including:
- Time table, even if flexible
- Defined process or procedure
- Tools available
- Roles of stakeholders
None of this is new, and it’s all very straightforward, and yet it’s a difficult nut to crack. Educational materials distributed for a mass market are almost by default irrelevant, watered down, and agonizingly
contrived. In order for learners to truly have a stake in an activity that will lead to incidental language acquisition, they need to have a role in determining the purpose of that activity from the ground up.
I think most language learning materials are designed in a backwards fashion. Developers first decide what language patterns and forms they think need to be learned, and then build a lesson around that, with actual content and subject matter the last element to be added, when in fact all authentic language exists to serve the subject matter; subject
and purpose are the source and core of all language.
When people talk just for the sake of talking, we call them annoying or perhaps mentally deranged. And yet, that’s what language learning materials often ask learners to do.
Perhaps instead of 『teaching language’, we should have students engage in truly meaningful, socially relevant, collaborative activities in the target language.
Delete those cookies to save money
The following article seems to imply that you can save money when shopping on line if you delete your cookies. (emphasis added)
Shoppers Naive About Online Prices | LiveScience
…Turow found a retail photography Web site charging different prices for the
same digital cameras and related equipment depending on whether shoppers had
previously visited popular price-comparison sites. He said grocery stores increasingly
offer personalized discounts and coupons based on a person’s shopping behavior.Amazon.com outraged some customers in September 2000 after one buyer deleted
the electronic tags on his computer that identified him as a regular customer
and noticed the price of a DVD changed from $26.24 to $22.74. The company said
it was the result of a random price test and offered to refund buyers who paid
the higher prices.
What is the task?
I was reading the following link and information on the parent site and my first-cup-of-coffee, 6:30-on-a-rainy-morning-brain started thinking that maybe I’ve been approaching the issue of computer supported collaborative language learning (CSCLL) content and activities from the wrong direction. Perhaps I should not focus so much on ‘language activities’, but more on collaborative work for purposes other than language learning, but work that would result in incidental language learning. This might include problem based learning or something similar.
pbWiki and FC10 prep
Site25 wiki / Fedora installation notes
PBWiki is a nice site to keep in mind. I’ve created a couple wikis on PBWiki, and although I use them very little, my appreciation for PBWiki is growing the more I visit the service. It’s refreshingly free of Google ads, at least for educational users, and it seems to have good security. After playing around a little with my own MediaWiki installation, I realized I wasn’t up to the task of configuring and monitoring it, at least I didn’t have a plan to use the installation that warranted all the time needed to set it up and maintain it. PBWiki is a good solution for a low-volume, educational wiki, and may work wonderfully for a high-volume wiki as well.
The above link is for a list of things to do when I upgrade to FC10 in a couple months.
PDF forms in Linux
The following link explains a somewhat rough solution to filling in problematic pdf forms in Linux. I don’t know why pdf forms are such a headache in Linux. I had no trouble filling in IRS forms using AdobeReader 8 on Fedora Core 8, but I’d say a majority of the time forms that are supposed to allow me to fill in fields do not work. The solution described in the article below, flpsed, does work, but as the article points out, it’s very rough around the edges. This is one of the few problem areas remaining for me with regards to my Linux desktop.
Linux.com :: A killer app: PDF Editor
flpsed
Another must-have Chinese tool
Fireinput allows you to input Chinese into online forms in Firefox. On Linux (FC8) it seems to work much better than SCIM. It’s lighter, and does a better job at inputing traditional Chinese. 真的不錯!
Chinese web input
My Chinese is lousy, but I do occasionally use it on-line to fill in forms and post comments. I use the SCIM input method on FC8. I used to use gcin, but it’s quite buggy and has fewer options than SCIM. The problem with SCIM is that its pinyin input method is developed primarily for use with simplified characters, as far as I can tell. For example, it does a very good job at guessing and completing text strings (phrases) in simplified, but not very good at all in traditional. I use traditional characters. Because my Chinese is not very good, I need to carefully check what I’ve written. I guess on many characters, and I need to use a tool like dimsum or a dictionary to check them. That’s time consuming. This is particularly true because with SCIM, I end up inputing in simplified just because it’s so much quicker, than converting that text to traditional. PAIN!
There are two excellent plugins for Firefox that have come to my rescue. The first is ChinesePera-kun. It shows pop-up definitions of words and phrases appearing in your browser. Wonderful stuff! The second is Tong Wen Tang, a Firefox plugin that converts characters in your browser between simplified and traditional.
So here’s my solution. I create a web page and save it to my desktop. On that page I create a form, and add a fairly large textarea field. Now, I can enter everything in simplified using SCIM. I can toggle on my ChinesePera-kun to check vocabulary. When I’m happy with everything, I can block it all, right click, and in the Tong Wen Tang menu, choose Input: To Traditional. Done!
I should point out that my speaking and listening is far better than my reading and writing, which is why I have this problem. Those of you who have learned Chinese from textbooks probably won’t have these problems. But, this is a simple and fast method for web-based (or any format) traditional Chinese input when you don’t have a good traditional Chinese input tool. And there really is no very good traditional Chinese input tool for Linux, as far as I can tell. If you know of one, please send it my way.
EDIT 080706: Now that I’ve found Fireinput, this is all unnecessary.
EDIT 080830: Also, TongWenTang has a function that allows you to change all your web input between simplified and traditional, so the method described above is really unnecessary.
Free (mostly) software
This site lists a good selection of free software that I’ve used for basic computer courses in the past. It lists just about everything I’ve used for courses. But, if I were to teach a similar computer course again, I would probably just direct me students to portableapps.com and have them put the essential software on a stick. It’s no longer necessary to load these packages on a computer lab! Still, this is a good resource.