Workshops in Online Tutoring, Mahdia, Tunisia

Hello, everyone!

I tried posting the message below on July 29, but it didn't work. In the meantime, Vance helped me out. I hope it works this time and that you will still see it before the end of your workshop. Here it is:

I am Teresa Almeida d'Eca, a Webhead in Action.I've been following your work through Vance's portal page and two blogs. And I see that you're enjoying it. No wonder! I did too when I joined the 8-week online workshop he gave in 2002! In fact, we enjoyed it so much that we stayed together and created this fantastic online community of practice (CoP).

Take a look at some of our work at
http://www.malhatlantica.pt/teresadeca/webheads/wia-index.htm

I maintain this Index page. If you click "Courses, classes..." and look for 'Workshops', you will see that I have already included the pages for your workshops. BTW, I liked going through the 49 photos. You're all working a lot!

I hope you will join the Webheads in Action. I'm sure you will feel 'welcome' and will enjoy the type of collaborative construction of knowledge we are always involved in. There are so many fascinating and exciting activities to do! :-)

Best,

Teresa

CLick here to open the photo below in a new browser window

This illustrates why we need to link to images at stable urls such as those you create when you upload your photos to Tripod. The image link here is directly to a picture at Ofoto. To get the link we opened the photo at Ofoto and right clicked on it, copying its url from 'properties'. The first time we viewed the blog the link worked and the picture displayed. Now all I see is a broken link. This is why you need to upload your photos to your own web space and link to their more stable urls.

Thanks, Lamia, for your posting. The following link is for Mukhtar

http://necc.edweblogs.org/2004/archives/000130.php

We spent the morning talking about rationale for the course and examining my teacher resources. While I was talking some students were busy creating blogs:

Mokhtar Ounis -
http://mokhtarounis.blogspot.com
http://mokhtarounis.buzznet.com

On Saturday July 26 we are being treated to a series of presentations by Tunisian teachers reporting on their projects. I decided to 'blog' my notes (record my notes in my WebLog).

Abdulmalek presents Spread Your Pens
http://www.edunet.tn.tnelt/projects/perso_site ...

Writing stories and writing poems
Story completion _ Read the beginning of a story, select a thread, write its completion

Some 50 or 60 students uploaded stories linkable from a page, with illustrations provided by the students

A second project had students email poetry in text with request for associated image, posted at young poet's corner, certificates awarded at the end

Dalel showed Mourad's ELT corner
http://www.edunet.tn/tnelt/projects/mourad/exerc.htm

A beginner website with Hot Potatoes crosswords, quizzes, etc
Also has set of old tests, pictures of clipart by themes, like animals
favorite links

and Primary School English Clubs
http://www.edunet.tn/chabakati/EspEns/...

http://www.edunet.tn.tnelt/projects/perso_site/tataouine/michleoui/index.htm
Flash and course builder developed site
writing, grammar, flash zone, Welcome to english Lessons, update notices done with flash announcement

http://www.edunet.tn/depinteg/projectstic/secondaire/projects/anglais/pro_index ...

ONline magazines
Besma's at http://www.edunet.tn/tnelt/mags/besma/index1.htm
Dalel's ?? http://www.edunet.tn/tnelt/mags/first_net ...

at http://www.edunet.tn/tnelt/ Resources / ICT experiences
Olfa Bougacha, Talking about Music
listening activities, listen to song and do exercises (gap filling with Lean on Me) Hot Pot integrated with HTML and media play
Discussion of this activity
teacher chose popular song so difficult lyrics didn't matter
teacher moved around the room making sure that all students on task
integration of skills, assisted by computing teacher (two teachers, one with computer skills, one concerned with content)

AbdulMalek showed
http://www.edunet.tn/tnelt/ict_exper/bac/test1.htm

Lamia is a novice with ITC having had only one training course in Malaysia
She presented pictures depicting stage of life, problems with drugs, loneliness, etc (aimed at teenagers)
Students choose titles for the pictures (vocabulary like stress, depression, self esteem, personality traits) Say sentences about yourself (students express themselves straightforwardly, to the point)
uses http://www.mgprojekte.mgjever.de/1circle/7.html

I have really enjoyed working ith this group of difficult and demanding and challenging Tunisian students. I think we reached a point where we were seeing eye to eye and intellect to intellect.

Last minute items:

To do screen captures you press Im écran or print screen; then
start / programs /accessories / paint
and paste to paint
you then must manipulate the image to make it smaller

make note of project Guttenberg
http://www.gutenberg.net/

Please send me addresses of your buzznet blogs

http://hraddaoui.buzznet.com

http://souhir.buzznet.com

A survey was created at Yahoo Groups for this course. Members of Yahoo Groups can create surveys. Ours is here:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mahdia_2004/surveys?id=1320918

One disadvantage of YGroup surveys is you only can ask one question and you can only poll your group members. If you want to create more comprehensive surveys you can try:

Survey Monkey: http://www.surveymonkey.com
Survey Share: http://www.surveyshare.com

Blogs are very good for getting your thoughts up for a class to see quickly. It's better than using chalkboard because later you can copy your notes elsewhere on your computer.

Today SATURDAY I'd like to look at Concordancing as tutorial feedback. I have a page on Text Analysis (cached at Google)

The concordance program:
http://www.edict.com.hk/concordance/WWWConcappE.htm

Here,
- set Search String equal to / starts with / ends with / or contains
- Select corpus
- Sort on the words either to the left or to the right

LESSON FOR TODAY
Is to create a gap fill excercise where sets of blanks must be filled in by the students. I have an article describing this technique here:

http://lightning.prohosting.com/~vstevens/papers/1991_johns_king/vocabex91.htm

(1) First we need a short list of problem vocabulary; for example
in time
on time
fill in
fill out

(2) Run concordances on the words in question

FIRST - select an appropriate corpus

When working with concordances as with any computer-based activity you plan to use with students, it is important to preview the activity first. I have done this and determined that the corpus from The Times newspaper TimesFeb95 has good examples of the items I am looking for.

SECOND - sort left or right as needed

If comparing IN TIME with ON TIME sort left.
If comparing FILL IN with FILL OUT sort right.

THIRD - decide whether to set Search String equal to / starts with / ends with / or contains

For IN TIME and ON TIME set Search String equal to
For FILL IN and FILL OUT set Search String to starts with
This way you include FILLS, FILLING etc.

(3) Select 3 or 4 descriptive contexts for each gap

(4) Create your exercise

Thanks for your message. This is one way for us to interact online. However this way is very limited. Postings tend to appear here without much organization and will often go unread. A better way to interact I think is through the YahooGroups sites; for example http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mahdia_2004

Buzznet let's you upload photos to your posts. I started a buzznet blog at
http://mahdi2004.buzznet.com.

I can post to Buzznet by addressing an email to mahdi2004.tunisia@buzznet.com. The subject of the email becomes the title of the post and the body becomes the blog entry. Make sure you attach a photograph (jpg), because Buzznet is all about your photos.