Activity 10.1 - putting knowledge into practice

A report to second language instructors on how and why they might want to use wikis for second language learning. Possible issues to contend with and possible strategies to help overcome them. Concludes with a comprehensive bibliography for instructors to review as follow up to the handout.

Wikis and second language learning: What's all the fuss?

There is currently a lot of interest in wikis for educational purposes. What is a wiki? Is this interest valid? What is all the excitement about? A review of current literature suggests the following general reasons for this interest and its relevance to students.


A wiki is essentially a website that

• is easy to create, easy to author, easy to use (like an online virtual word processor) .. thus students of almost any age can help build
• supports dynamic content; this can come in many different digital forms (not just text but pictures, slide shows, audio and video as well) all of which can be added, arranged, edited, reviewed and commented upon by some, any, or all students ..
• promotes reflection , review and revision of one's work ; ..individual students can find, filter and assemble digital content that reflects their interest, and understanding of a class assignment .. and review, revise it if their ideas or understanding of concepts change as a result of interactions with their peers
• promotes collaboration with peers .. thus students can not only share their own understanding of a project but review the work of their peers to then learn from one another, negotiate understanding, collectively construct meaning and then work as a group to collate this work and then present it as a finished group presentation
• promotes tracking of development .. students can view a history of the wiki's revisions to track what revisions were made, when and by whom .. to make comparisons between iterations .. and track their development / learning
• is free and accessibile 24/7 .. thus students can work individually or as groups at home or at college
• can be made available to a real audience .. thus students can opt to present their finished presentations so that they can be shared with a real audience whether that be the class, the school, the region, the world AND invite that audience's reviews and comments

>(video)
A TV like commercial for why an educator might want to use a wiki. (alwaygolf, 2007)
Duration - 1:12 min


Wikis in second language learning

On a macro level, second language learning involves practicing and mastering a communicative process. Much of that mastery is realized through the creation of many presentations - initially short but gradually getting longer as the student masters grammar and expands their vocabulary. A wiki can support that development through its ability to


1. record revisions at any stage of the writing proces
2. invite students to work collaboratively at any or all stages of the writing process
3. support a variety of digital media that can be used to support a student's message
4. share the product of the writing process with a real and broad audience.


1) Revision / archiving

Students create writing presentations in a wiki much like they would in a word processor. However each editing of a wiki presentation is automatically saved as an iteration that can be viewed or even restored at a later time . As a result, that writing process is made much more transparent to a student then can be realized using conventional paper. Students can see the various iterations that led up to their final presentation to review the stages of their presentation's development. But these iterations can also be shared with friends, peers and instructors to invite their comment. As a result, a student can receive more frequent and potentially more meaningful feedback to reflect upon their work which can then be used to determine how to improve the effectiveness of their message. Thus students move closer to understanding the true focus of writing presentations - to ensure their message is clearly presented and its purpose clearly understood by an audience.

On a micro level, language development typically requires students to practice construction and discriminant selection of grammar, vocabulary and punctuation to learn how to clearly communicate in a foreign language. Wikis afford students the chance to review and build upon previous work. For example, beginners may be asked to construct simple sentences with the limited vocabulary that they have. As they learn more about new, more complex vocabulary, grammar or syntax structures, they can return to these simple sentences to add what they have learned to these earlier sentences to make them more complex.

Note how the same iterations recorded by the wiki can also help students to review what they have learned and identify where and how their learning took place. Thus for possibly the first time, we have the opportunity to help students develop the life long skill of learning not only a language but "how they learn" a language (Dealtry, 2004) .

2) Collaboration

This same writing process can also be done via small groups thus inviting still more learning opportunities. Here students can check their understanding of ideas by practicing and using new key words, grammar constructions and syntax with their peers, reflecting on their peers responses. Then students can collaborate with others in their group on the choice of these same language tools with the goal of finding the best way to communicate a desired message. Such a process moves students away from understanding language learning as memorizing and discriminating how to apply various vocabulary, grammar and formulaic writing patterns to communicate. Instead students come to understand language learning as a collaborative and communicative activity first. Communicating a clear message becomes their motivation to learn.

3) Inclusion of digital media

Thanks to social networking tools such as instant messaging, Facebook and YouTube, a significant part of today's student culture encourages the use and development of a number of digital communications skills - one of those skills is actually writing (Lenhart et al., 2008) . A wiki can invite students to include these same skills to support clear communication of their message. This brings into a formal learning environment, these student interests and skills. It also invites practice and discussion on integrating other communicative strategies such as the selection of fonts, graphics, sounds, photos and videos to support such messages. By doing so, students are not only more motivated but also learn the importance of aligning visual or aural messages with those communicated through their writing to again strengthen their message - a communicative approach that is highly relevant in today's society.

4) share their message with a real and broad audience.

Traditional presentation practice has been done by students for an audience of one - the teacher - or perhaps for a class of students but rarely further. With the help of a wiki, students can now review, reflect and refine their message to a point where they feel ready to present their work to a real and much broader audience. These audiences can now be in the target language, something that was much more difficult to realize before. These audiences could be more proficient second language students in the same school or native speakers in another part of the world. These same audiences can also be invited to engage in a dialogue with students on the message of their presentation. As a result, students learn through one of the most important forms of assessment - real feedback from a real audience on the effectiveness of their efforts to construct a purposeful and targeted message.


Typical obstacles to expect in realizing effective use of wikis

In order to be successful, second language teachers can typically expect to face the following technical and pedagogical challenges.To begin, teachers need to ensure that whatever wiki tool they choose, is easy to access and use. Students should not be faced with the need to draw away already limited time for language learning, to learn how to use the technology to realize their presentation. Teachers should note that the majority of wikis require users to apply wiki code to realize them. Fortunately some wiki utilities such as Wetpaint (Wetpaint) exist that make the need for knowing even this simple code unnecessary.

Teachers should also understand and support the principles of constructivist instruction to realize effective student collaboration. This entails realizing a clear alignment of group based, collaborative activities with sound language learning objectives and their assessment. Note also the importance of a clear rubric to outline how students will be assessed. The absence of a traditional linear sequenced activity structure may be daunting for some students not accustomed to the more open structure of group collaboration.. thus the importance of a clear rubric to outline to students what is required, and within what limitations. This almost always entails providing students with time and resource parameters, and inviting students to take time to understand and assess who their intended audience is.

The absence of conventional traditional teacher filtering of online content can also seem foreboding. The responsibility for control of content selection shifts to the student. Teachers can invite students to engage in this filtering information literacy exercise so that they learn to judge and take control of it themselves. While this can seem a daunting responsibility for students to assume, often students learn to take on the responsibility for filtering not because of the teacher's need for it but because of their intended audience's need for it.


Important follow up resources and examples

alwaygolf (2007) ‘Teaching with WIKI’, YouTube, [online] Available from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=related&v=mdOKUeT0O-o (Accessed 15 January 2009).

Dealtry, Richard (2004) ‘Emerald: Professional Practice - The savvy learner’, Journal of Workplace Learning, 16(1/2), pp. 101-109, [online] Available from: http://www.emeraldinsight.com.libezproxy.open.ac.uk/Insight/viewPDF.jsp?Filename=html/Output/Published/EmeraldFullTextArticle/Pdf/0860160110.pdf (Accessed 3 December 2008).

Department of Education and Training - Western Australia ‘Wikis in the Classroom’, [online] Available from: http://www.det.wa.edu.au/education/cmis/eval/curriculum/ict/wikis/ (Accessed 13 November 2008).

Ferris, S.P. and Wilder, Hilary (2006) ‘Uses and Potentials of Wikis in the Classroom’, Innovate: Journal of Online Education, 2(5), [online] Available from: http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=258&action=article (Accessed 7 January 2009).

Fryer, Wes ‘Teach Digital: Curriculum by Wes Fryer wiki / wikis’, Teach Digital" Curriculum by Wes Fryer | wikis, wiki, [online] Available from: http://teachdigital.pbwiki.com/wikis (Accessed 13 January 2009).

Lamb, Brian (2004) ‘Wide Open Spaces: Wikis, Ready or Not ’, EDUCAUSE Review, 39(5), pp. 36-48, [online] Available from: http://connect.educause.edu/Library/EDUCAUSE+Review/WideOpenSpacesWikisReadyo/40498 (Accessed 7 January 2009).

Lenhart, Amanda, Arafeh, Sousan, Smith, Aaron and Rankin Macgill, Alexandra (2008) Writing, Technology and Teens, Reports: Family, Friends & Community, US, [online] Available from: http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Writing_Report_FINAL3.pdf (Accessed 15 January 2009).

Lefever, Lee (2007) ‘Video: Wikis in Plain English’, Common Craft - Explanations In Plain English, [online] Available from: http://www.commoncraft.com/video-wikis-plain-english (Accessed 13 November 2008).

Leuf, Bo and Cunningham, Ward ‘For Teachers New to Wikis’, [online] Available from: http://writingwiki.org/default.aspx/WritingWiki/For%20Teachers%20New%20to%20Wikis.html (Accessed 13 November 2008).

Patterson, Reginald (n.d.) ‘Using Wiki - the Right Way - a knol by Reginald Patterson’, [online] Available from: http://knol.google.com/k/reginald-patterson/using-wiki-the-right-way/t7omkuodtii0/4# (Accessed 11 January 2009).

Peachey, Nik (2008) ‘Learning technology teacher development blog: Using wikis with EFL students’, [online] Available from: http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2008/05/using-wikis-with-efl-students.html (Accessed 13 November 2008).

Wetpaint ‘Group Project Wikis - Wikis in Education’, Wikis in Education, wiki, [online] Available from: http://wikisineducation.wetpaint.com/page/Group+Project+Wikis (Accessed 10 January 2009).

Wetpaint ‘Higher-Ed Wikis - Wikis in Education’, Wikis in Education, wiki, [online] Available from: http://wikisineducation.wetpaint.com/page/Higher-Ed+Wikis (Accessed 10 January 2009).

Wetpaint ‘Student Created Wikis ’, Wikis in Education, [online] Available from: http://wikisineducation.wetpaint.com/page/Student+Created+Wikis (Accessed 10 January 2009).

Wetpaint ‘Wikis in Education ’, Wikis in Education, wiki, [online] Available from: http://wikisineducation.wetpaint.com/ (Accessed 10 January 2009).

Wetpaint ‘Wikis in the Classroom ’, Wikis in Education, wiki, [online] Available from: http://wikisineducation.wetpaint.com/page/Wikis+in+the+Classroom (Accessed 10 January 2009).

Activity 7.4 - An example of self assessment

Source

Ogilvie, Karen (2008) 'Re(2): Activity 7.4 - Robin's self Assess', Open University - H808 aeb324 R self ass forum, 05 December 2008, 11:27 PM

I found Robin's presentation very convincing.. Key for me was drawing on evidence that most of us are already familiar with (so we have some "reasonable" proof that it hasn't been fabricated, perhaps "planted" ;-) ) and we could see the series of related activities evolving (if we were prepared to follow them). In fact the discussion boards offer us a wonderful ability to "follow" at least most of the progression.

However, I can also relate to Karen's earlier comment

Having said that, I'm not convinced that I fully understand what a 'principled appraoch to self-assessment is'... - Karen Ogilvie

Perhaps the principles need to be spelled out so that we're entirely clear about how Robin's self assessment is grounded.

The use of three pieces was significant. Is this intended to be a form of triangulation? I bring this up because I'm recalling my phone interview with Kathy Chang Barker (a Canadian expert on eportfolios) where I asked her a [ fcp://@oufcnt1.open.ac.uk,%231004824/IET%20H808%2008I/H808%2008I%20Tutor%20Groups/H808%2008I%20Annes%20Group/H808%20aeb324%20Ideas/%23156388667 ]similar question. and she came back to me with this answer.

What I'm still not clear on is the relevance of rating one's ability here. That appears to be so subjective .. almost out of the blue .. that it's practically useless to anyone other than oneself. What might be more meaningful to me would be a realization of a new learning objective that relates to this or came out of this exercise... and perhaps over time, one could use the attainment of the these various objectives as evidence of "above average" ability.

Activity 3.1 - personal & professional development objectives

What have I learned about my strengths and weaknesses?

Weaknesses?
On the whole I'm most vulnerable in a few key areas... researching new developments, issues and academic findings stands out as the most pressing one. When I think about it, I'm more of a "handson" learner .. and thus I tend to avoid it or at the very least only "do" it when something becomes topical enough that it requires learning more about it in formal ways. I'm not one to devote time to do it on a regular basis (and I'm now really curious how others address the same need for it) but the exercise of doing a detailed review of my job description made it pretty obvious that my current strategy won't be enough. I also realized the importance of promoting effective community building - something that I highly value and yet I haven't committed time and resources to learning more on how to effectively realize it in ages and certainly not much in the way of realizing it online.

It's now looking pretty obvious that in addressing these two shortcomings, my game as an Education Technology Specialist is raised .. and it should help feed the other "stronger cards in my hand".

Strengths?
I really wanted to avoid declaring myself an expert of anything. I'm not fond of the term because I don't consider it something that anyone should really be"annointing themselves with. Perhaps with the formal recognition of my peers on the same topic, I would feel more comfortable using the term.. but that hasn't happened anywhere often enough nor with much fanfare for me to do it. I've only learned since being hired how I have a reputation for making and using learning objects effectively. As a result, I managed to convince myself that perhaps I could be bold enough to apply the term "expert" for my effective use of technology / projects in teaching and learning. But only after carefully reviewing it and even still, I'm bound to be brown nosed by someone else out there. My grounds? A now 20 year period of relatively uninterrupted experience with and increased understandng of the use of technology in teaching and learning.

The matter of comparing myself with my peers brought up a number of other interesting problems and unearthed another set of issues. Our rather small department hardly gives me much of anyone to compare myself with and to go outside the University, I'd be hard pressed to know others of our ilke who I could meet to compare notes. Which raises the issue of professional "isolation" and the need to make a conscious effort to overcome this. Thus the only really viable option seems to be online communities. This theme is emerging more and more.

Activity 3.4 - choosing an ePortfolio system

Recall as part of the University's mission, that our student's expect to graduate as bilingual, it literate, global citizens and leaders. The eportfolio concept offers our undergraduates a number of opportunites to evidence their development in these core areas. As possible examples,

• language development via the collection of speaking and writing samples
• IT development via the production and assembly of evidence and in the design of the eportfolio to hold them
• global citizenship realized via the use of ICT tools to facilitate constructive dialogue with people from other cultures around the world
• leadership skill development via documentation of reflection on community based issues and their choice of actions

To support this we should expect to provide students with an eportfolio strategy that addresses the following four key points.

promoting reflection
Fundamental to any strategy's selection will be its ability to promote more than the collection of evidence but a reflection activity cycle (Richards) and host the lifelong and lifewide benefits that it brings (Moon, Richards). To realize this, students may need templates with guided focus questions that encourage them to inter relate concepts learned across their courses of study and to revist these themes throughout their undergrad studies.

flexibility vs structure
It should be flexibile enough to address changing student needs, levels of competency and choice. Undergraduates collecting evidence for the first time may require the highly structured environment as noted above(Stefani, 2005). Yet as students progress, they may wish to customize or even opt out of this structured environment to use the eportfolio strategy to meet other needs as they prepare to move on from their undergrad studies (Jafari).

Ease of Use
During their stay, students may differ widely in their interest in IT skills development. Note they may also need to communicate in both Arabic (L1) and English (L2) . Thus to support the portfolio strategy's development, it needs to facilitate the use of IT at these varying levels of interest and it must do so in two languages (Jafari) Thus the chosen eportfolio strategy needs to be easy enough to master and realizable in such a manner that it does not draw the student away from its prime purpose - to support documentation of evidence and to facilitate reflection.

collaboration
Per work by Vuorikari and Batson, the eportfolio strategy should facilitate interaction and sharing of knowledge with ones peers, advisors and instructors. To do so provides students with both immediate support and learning opportunites via the exchanges with peers. These have also been found to encourage the much sought after higher order learning, thinking and knowledge construction (Richards).

The current review of "off the shelf" eportfolio products leads me to conclude that few come close to addressing the mix of needs listed above. Many provide forms of structure but without much room for student customization at later stages of development (i.e. graduation). Little or no mention is also made of their ability to support the use of languages other than English.

In lieu of these shortcomings, I recommend investigating the use of the growing prevelance of web 2.0 tools such as blogs, wikis and aggregators. All such utilities are readily available and often for free. Some like blogs inherently support reflection, others like wikis support easy editing, high degrees of customization and personalization. Yet can be readily supported via the use of the same strategies noted above. Via the use of aggregators, mashups of these various tools and their contents are also possible (Batson, 2008) thus making them a much more attractive proposition.

Sources

Batson, Trent (2008) ‘ePortfolios: Hot Once Again’, Campus Technology, [online] Available from: http://campustechnology.com/articles/60933/ (Accessed 26 September 2008).

Jafari, Ali (2004) ‘The “Sticky” ePortfolio System: Tackling Challenges and Identifying Attribute’, Educause Review, [online] Available from: http://connect.educause.edu/Library/EDUCAUSE+Review/TheStickyePortfolioSystem/40485?time=1222282897 (Accessed 24 September 2008).

Moon, Jenny (2001) ‘PDP working paper 4: reflection in higher education learning’, document, [online] Available from: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/York/documents/resources/resourcedatabase/id72_Reflection_in_Higher_Education_Learning.rtf (Accessed 2 October 2008).

Richards, Cameron (2005) ‘Activity-reflection e-portfolios: An approach to the problem of effectively integrating ICTs in teaching and learning’, Murdoch University - Teaching & Learning Forum 2005, [online] Available from: http://lsn.curtin.edu.au/tlf/tlf2005/refereed/richards.html (Accessed 5 October 2008).

Stefani, Lorraine (2005) ‘The Role of CPD in Teaching Quality Enhancement’, pdf, Auckland, New Zealand , [online] Available from: http://64.233.183.104/u/LearningTechnology?q=cache:YRY_ajTIbh0J:www.alt.ac.uk/docs/lorraine_stefani_paper.doc+Stefani&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&ie=UTF-8 (Accessed 30 September 2008).

Vuorikari , R. (2006) ‘‘National policies and case studies on the use of portfolios in teacher training' - European Schoolnet 2006’, [online] Available from: http://insight.eun.org/shared/data/insight/documents/e_portfolio_teacher_training_final_10_05.pdf (Accessed 28 September 2008).

Zotero

What is it?

• Zotero [zoh-TAIR-oh] is a free, easy-to-use Firefox extension to help you collect, manage, and cite your research sources. It lives right where you do your work — in the web browser itself. Also funded by George Mason University (source)
  

Why bother? (the value proposition)

• I am finding the research tool invaluable for citing articles found on the web. For example, when I find an article I like, I can select a button to have citing information automatically included into one of my “libraries” (a folder than I author to put my citings in). It automatically inserts much of the information already for me (including the website URL, date of access stamp), and provides fields for manual entry of the rest.

  But it doesn’t end there. Here are some of other utilities built into it (similar to Endnote)
  

• Take a snapshot of the article

  I can use the “attachments” utility to take a snapshot of the webpage or document (a picture file)

• Add Annotations

  After that, I can add “annotations” to the snapshot

  • highlight key words / phrases in the webpage / document (these are saved for future reference)
  • add my own annotations over the snapshot of the webpage / document (these are saved for future reference)

  I’ve been using this annotation feature to summarize key sections of an article. These are saved “on / over” the actual paragraph in question. They can also be hidden with a click of a button. These summaries are in my own words and facilitate quick review of key sections of a text

• Notes Utility

  I can use the “notes” utility to add my own notes about the webpage / document
  With a click of a button I can have a text box open for me to author a set of notes on the article. I can even copy and paste text or links into that same note. I can author more than one note on the same article. I might author different notes based on different subtopics that I want to use for my research. I’ve been using this note feature to complete summaries of articles & titling notes by my choice of subtopics.

• Attachments utility

  I can go on to use the “attachments” utility to add attachments to the citing (in my case.. I’ve been adding links, pictures (screen shots of charts that are found in an article) the actual article to the citing

• Tags Utility

  I can go on to use the “tags” utility to add tags to any one of the many items that have been produced in these libraries (i.e. my entries, notes, links, pictures, attachments, related files, etc.) . I can do searches using these tags to look for relations between articles in my library or libraries. I use this to realize correlations between articles and to realize “reflections” that are drawn from my reviews of the many articles, notes, links, annotations on a given subtopic - tagged as per subtopic.

  I can go on to

• produce a “report” of a library. (I use this to share bibliographic and URL information with my online colleagues)
• copy citings (and all of the attachments) to create new libraries from existing libraries

.. and I haven’t even gotten to

• producing a bibliography in RTF or HTML
  
• exporting libraries to other programs (i.e. Endnotes)
• importing zotero libraries from other users
• how it can be integrated with MS Word (with plugin - just like Endnotes) for automatic insertion of citing and bibliographies
  

• how it supports over 30 languages (including Arabic, Chinese, & Russian)
  

How to set up Zotero

• There's a comprehensive "support" section on the Zotero websitewhich includes the following headings
  

• Getting started
• The basics
• FAQs
• History & Compatibility
  

.. and a set of screencasts to "show" you how to use its various features.

• built in support for 10 citing styles
• additional plugins are available for 41 others including the Open University's Harvard Reference format(source)
  

Support resources

• Zotero
• Zotero forums
  
• Zotero screencast tutorials
  

Activity 8.3 - Review of a podcast

My review and notes on an H808 colleague's podcast.

Original name replaced with Sue to protect privacy

1.1 Mb - 6:25 min

1) Sound Quality?
Desired qualities? Low enough sampling rate that it is fast to download, and does not demand more storage space on a computer then is necessary. Yet the sampling rate must be high enough so that it supports clear message delivery without drawing attention to itself. 16000 mono with a 32 bit sampling rate would seem a well suited choice for this. Unfortunately it is mildly undermined by the constant presence of a background hum which appears to compromise low pitch sounds. I also noticed that the recording balance in Audacity read minu 0.3 off the zero mark. I am not clear as to the relevance of this but from my experience such a change is an anomoly. Speculation on my part but the background hum may have been caused by the presence of a magnetic field coming from another piece of electronic equipment nearby or improper grounding of the recording device.

2) Broadcast quality? - well constructed / intelligible
Desired qualities? Podcasts succeed when they have the listener's "buy in" from beginning to end. Part of realizing this requires organization and structure similar to what most of us expect from radio programming. Part of this requires information to be succinct, and well sequenced so that its purpose is clear and focussed on the topic at hand. Sue shows careful attention to sequencing her podcast. She begins by providing fairly detailed background information on her educational context and how it contributes to her choice of the highly relevant elearning topic of - reflective writing - as the focus of her podcast. This topic is then explored in the remaining five minutes of the podcast through seven carefully chosen and sequenced question and answer sessions. Each question is presented by a colleague and then fielded by Sue using information gleened from the topic of reflective practice in Units 2 and 3 of H808.

While the introduction provided interesting background information on how she came to choose the topic of reflective writing for her podcast, the delayed introduction of her target topic may undermine listener engagement. A possible alternative here might be to make such background information available in optional text form as a preamble to the podcast or retain it but with a detailed printed time sequence script with a breakdown of subtopics in the podcast. The later strategy affords listeners the option to include or not include this selection in their listening.

3) Suitability? does it meet the needs of the intended audience
Desired qualities? A clear understanding of who the target audience for the podcast is. With Sue's podcast, the Intended audience appears to be key stage 2 to 5 educators in the UK who may be already aware of reflective writing but may not be so familiar with either the rationale for it or how to best realize it... though it is not entirely clear if by reference to "student" she is referring to teachers as students or teachers who are to facilitate reflective writing with their students. Questions are well selected and well sequenced to ensure a basic understanding of reflective writing and its importance.

4) Length? is it of an appropriate length for the subject / intended audience
6:25 minutes in 16000 Hz mono
Desired qualities? Of sufficient length to cover the main points of the topic and yet still short enough and to the point so that once the listener has bought into the importance of the topic, they choose to listen to the podcast in its entirety. Sue's podcast is short but rich in content. The seven carefully chosen and sequenced question and answer sessions serve as mini chapters for quick reference and future access. Such a structure (with the possible exception of the extended introduction), supported a high level of engagement from me.

5) Interest?
Desired qualities? Very subjective aspect of the review. Highly dependent on many variables - how relevant the topic is, how it is organized, how it is supported, how creatively it is presented, how enthusiastic the speaker is. My personal interest was in hearing how a colleague engaged with the task and how successful she was in producing what is likely her first podcast - something I can declare to being highly successful.

6) Academic quality? is it based on research / argument / opinion
Desired qualities? This is also problematic to clarify. A lot of this will be determined by the interests and needs of the target audience... of which I'm not at all familiar with. However, from my perspective Sue's podcast presents a distillation of academic articles on the subject of reflective writing in the easier to digest, question and answer format.

7) Suggestions for improvement?
Ideas that occured to me? More choice in how to listen to the podcast. For example, the current set up demands listening to the whole podcast. However, with an index of topics and subtopics and their timings, the listener can choose to commit the amount of time they wish to listening. This gives adult learners who are often time starved and task oriented .. a chance to quickly assertain the importance / relevance of one resource amongst many to warrant investing the time required to listen to all or part of a podcast. Another idea? Much of the podcast sounded scripted - something unavoidable certainly when doing it the first time - but this might be minimized more through the use of note cards thus making the podcast sound more authentic and convincing. Much of the power of a podcast to engage the listener comes through the emotive qualities of the speaker as well as the actual content. Another idea? Invite the opinion of the questioner to share differing perspectives on the same questions and by doing so, invite the opinion of listeners.

8) Suggestions for use - if it were part of an information source for practitioners, what brief notes would you put on the site to place the podcast in context
Ideas that occured to me?
I might include a brief abstract with time lines and with specific reference to sections of the podcast to target specific topics that may be of interest to target listeners. I might note the background of the speaker and interviewer and include a bibliography of important sources that were to help realize the podcast. Ideally I would also encourage the setup of an online discussion board to invite listeners to question, discuss or share points related to the presentation so that engagement with the presentation is not left to just passive listening.

Activity 9.2 - synthesizing educational use of blogs (suggestion)

from Jim Buckingham (January 6, 2008)

Suggestion

Wondering if the rest of you have encountered similar issues with the wiki here.
would like to suggest the use of

1) a better collaborative tool ?
The Open U wiki while basic and adequate for realizing this, may slow us down in realizing the task. Nigel's suggestion to use Google docs - likely a spreadsheet - is a good alternative on the grounds that it's easy to use, has limitless width, has a built in chat tool to facilitate collaboration, and supports "real time" revision (i.e. I can "see" another person revising whereas this one blocks out everyone until the person on is finished) . Another suggestion is a wiki in Wetpaint. I've set one up at this link to a wetpaint site and I've got a Google Spreadsheet ready to go .

• Google docs ..New development: now this page opens direct at this link (no gmail account needed?)
• http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pFZM7Vxc2GIEr9BpGoDRmWw

• caveat w/ Wetpaint .. people need to register to get on http://h808annesgroup1.wetpaint.com/ but once on can immediately begin editing

2) a communications tool to support interaction?
I think Google docs has a built in chat function which can be used alongside the spreadsheet.
With Wetpaint, I can add an easy to use chat widget next to the spreadsheet or we could use the discussion threads that are automatically included at the bottom of the page.

In an effort to support such a move, I'll try to copy what has been realized here into both of these options for now..

_________________________________

from Jim Buckingham (January 7)

Note

I'm not fond of simply posting and responding via the wiki (to put it mildly) . I am really missing some sort of a communications tool to be used alongside it.... to make decisions .... especially when we're all time starved. Latency between each other's posts makes this exercise seem like its going on for an eternity - sort of like "Chess by mail" (a bit of an exaggeration but if anyone has had the experience ... you would immediately "get it") .

Now that I've vented :-) ... Can't spend too much more time with this exercise ....