Tag Archives: dynamic content

Learning with the Web

You are right, Matt, that the web is the place/space for much learning to take place. In modern languages, for example, there is nothing in our classrooms and hardcover books that can replace some of what the web can do. Conversely, some of what is done in hardcover, physical books and in our classrooms cannot be found elsewhere. The task is to be clear on what’s what – on what the web allows us and our students to do/explore/learn/think about that we could not in any other way in the past and what the “older” tools and materials and spaces allow us to do as well.

The web has fulfilled the thirst and yearning of some language teaching professionals for access – access to languages and their cultures and subcultures and regional and national and extra-national cultures, to the sounds and sites of those cultures, to the public and private spaces in those cultures to which we have access through the web, to ancient parchments and old architectural sites, to manuscripts and books and pictures of the authors and their families and friends and spaces and penmanship and so forth and so on, to the ways in which current generations of human beings are accessing those ancient to current communications and verbal interactions and responding to and speaking with them – through print, online print, visuals, video, sound, and talk, translation and interpretation. The web provides all human beings access to worlds of cultures, if they only know 1) how to access them and 2) how to interpret them in effective and productive ways.

The web provides context. It provides food for our ears, eyes. Two of the senses are stimulated, as is the cognitive sphere, and perhaps the emotional as well. Maybe even the physical, as body changes occur depending on our emotional states. It does not provide taste, touch, or smell – yet (:-)?). It is not exactly like “being there.” On the other hand, it is breadth – lots of possibilities for accessing things and people that “are there.”

For modern language students it can – and it is coming – be the portal for getting to know people from the places where the language is spoken, for speaking face-to-face with those people, for developing networks with those people – for personal satisfaction and also for positive change – groups working together across the world on sustainability, for example.

If used well, the web can help us do simple, yet profound, things. Take, for example the images sites on search engines. If you plug into a search engine in other cultures and languages, type in a word or phrase in that language, you will see what visual concepts the native speakers in those cultures have in their heads. You will see what comes to mind. Take, for example, sitzen (‘to sit’). If you go to google.de and click on Bilder (‘Images’), you will see how German speakers visualize sitzen, and in what contexts they publicize those ways of seeing the concept. You can see nuances that are culture-specific in the German word for ‘youth,’ Jugend. You can type in a word or phrase in the regular web search portal and find out how that word or phrase is used in written, maybe even spoken discourse, at least some of the time. You can hear how real native speakers use the language in various regions and various contexts.

And that is only a small bit of what students can do. What we need to teach them is how to navigate, and to be sensitive to possible intention and how to interpret that on the web – just as we do when we teach them to analyze older or newer language, literature, texts of other sorts, etc.

Adding Value and Battling Staleness in Online Classes

Think back to some of the best courses you took during college. What made those courses so great for you? Well, other than the ones that were an easy A – what made them interesting to you over other courses? Probably one factor was an interesting instructor. Many instructors like to just read from the textbook or (even worse) a PowerPoint.  You know for a fact that their class is probably exactly the same this semester as it was last semester and the semester before that.

In other words: BORING!

The classes that most students end up liking are taught by instructors that are talking to them about current events and new information related to their subject. The course that you get this semester is slightly different than the one last semester. In other words – there is a a greater value in showing up to this course, because it will be interesting and relevant (and slightly different from what your roommate learned last semester). The instructor is reading and researching the subject and keeping you up to date on the course subject.

But… can this be done online… where classes are usually canned and solidified months before the first day of course?

Through the modern miracle of technology, the answer is yes – if you plan ahead.

You are probably teaching a course in a subject that you like. That means you are also probably reading blogs, articles, journals, and other websites related to that subject.  What if your students could follow you as you do all of this reading? What if they could research with you – and this research became the course content? What if they discussed what you read that week, instead of some canned, stale question you stuck in a “discussion board” months ago?

Technically, this is possible with a blog. But do you really want to log in and create an entire blog post for every article, blog post, etc, etc. that you find… several times a week? Sound too tiring to you? Well then I have two words for you:

Social Bookmarking

You have probably heard of sites like Delicious and Digg.  Did you know that you can use these sites as the content for your course? Ditch the pre-processed cheese html zip file, pdf, or (shudder) audio lecture recording and go flexible, relevant, and easy.

Here is one idea: create an account in Delicious. Then come up with a tag just for each class – edtc3320, for example.  Then install a Delicious bookmark plug-in for FireFox or Chrome (if you are using Internet Explorer, well… I am sorry).  You can then send your students to the page for your specific class tag, and they can use whatever RSS reader they want to follow you. You can even create multiple tags for different classes.

As you come across different articles and links that would apply to your class – bookmark them in delicious and tag them for the class you want to read them. Maybe even add a second link of ‘edtc3320week1’ or whatever to help students organize them better. Delicious lets you write short comments on each link – so let students know why you bookmarked the link. Then add a discussion question for each link. For your class discussion, tell students that they have to answer at least one question raised during each week’s readings.

But don’t ditch the blog just yet – you are the content expert, so you have great insights to add to everything you read, and delicious has a short limit on comments.  So blog about what you want, and then bookmark your blog post in Delicious. It gets added to the flow that students have to read each week.

Dynamic content, active learning, reflection, and rapid course design all in one neat package! Want to be really fancy? Get a RSS feed widget, and then insert that in to your LMS course for the students that don’t get RSS. They can just click on the content page and it will be there for them in the walled garden… errr… Learning Management System.

Want to see what this could look like? Well, as I find resources I like online, I have created a Delicious tag just for the Soundings readers to follow:

http://delicious.com/grandeped/bpnsoundings

Follow me in your favorite RSS reader to see what this could be like.

{this post is being cross-posted at EduGeek Journal]