Teaching online

[kathyfelts]

I have been teaching online for a month and would like to share what I am learning and listen to suggestions about what other folks are doing.
I use a webcam, microphone and either Netmeeting or MSN to teach young learners in Asia. The system requirements are somewhat steep, but the most important is a cable connection (dial-up just is not fast enough). I have been using the Internet to teach for about 10 years. The improvements in resources happen fairly quickly. The incorporation of Flash into online resources has meant that material has become visually more appealing and more intereactive.
I will address three primary issues in the teaching I currently do as follows: interactivity, adaptation, and and tailoring class content to students' interests.
Interactivity
Making lessons interactive means that the students have respond to material in creative ways. One of my favorite sites for teaching ESL is www.starfall.com. The site includes a graded approach to teaching phonics and reading. After the introduction of a new vowel sounds through a short, somewhat animated story, students can test their new skills by making words.
Students can also interact with animated stories which allow them to make choices about the storyline. One of my favorites in this respect is the story, The Three Big Pigs, at www.magickeys.com
For students who have special interests, creating a Powerpoint presentation together offers a way to collaborate. Sometimes I make a presentation ahead of time and then have the student work with me to flesh out the content. I have done this in content areas such as math, art and science. This interactivity is enhanced through use of the "program sharing " capabilities of instant messeging. I have also had sucess with realtime science expereiments, such as testing the pH of various household chemicals using red cabbage juice. Using the webcam in this way helps connect the student to the material.
Adaptation of materials not specifically created for ESL
Early on in my teaching career, I learned that materials used to teach reading and the content areas - math, science, social studies, art, as well as materials that were not created as educational tools at all, were often of a higher quality than ESL teaching materials: they just needed to be repurposed. One of my favorite sites to use in this way is the BBC's Cbeebees. I often ask students to read stories online and then recall what they remember. I can use the whiteboard to write what they say. When I first started repurposing material, I thought that I needed to create specific English acquisition
activities into the lessons. These days, I do not do that because I find that it slows the pace of the lessons and the rate of langauge acquisition. Adapting material on the Interent for language learning for realtime, online learning is facilitated by the Interent phone capability, the incorporation of computer applications such as Powerpoint, and the use of the whiteboard, another capability fo instant messeging. Additionally, you and/or the student can use online bilingual dictionaries. The IMAGE part of a search engine is another way to illustrate meaning.
Tailoring content to student interest
Since I am teaching online primarily as a professional development tool, I have the luxury of having time to develop specific plans according to student interests. With one student, I spent about 10 hours creating a Powerpoint presentation about Pascal's Triangle. We incorporated geography, history, and reading into the lessons and in the end he came away with a good bit of content area knowledge. The key here is to focus on the messege(math), not the medium(English).
I look forward to feedback from others interested in this kind of teaching and learning. I am especially interested in hearing what other teachers have to say about technical problems, legal issues and and the future of online teaching with webcam and IT. I have spent good bit of time looking at the use of these new technologies in teaching and am forming the impression that these possibilities are the wave of the near future. Thanks.

[trebor]

Kathy

Thanks for this insightful information. Here in New Zealand we are also very interested in employing technology in the English language classroom.

I am not aware of www.starfall.com but will check it out. We use www.englishmaze.com, which all of our students - both young and old - absolutely love. You probably already know it, but if you don't, it's definitely worth a look.

Thanks

Trebor

[kathyfelts]

Hi Trebor,
Thanks for bringing up englishmaze.com. I knew about the site but had not checked it out. Thanks to your posting, I finally did. It does look good! I wonder if they have any plans to expand their offering of dialects. Do you know? How about adding video to flesh out the senarios? I hope you have looked at starfall.com. It is very different from englishmaze in that it is geared toward children and is phonics-based, whereas englishmaze is situational/functional material for the older folks. I like the basic idea, though, and have waited for someone to do it. I read in the Korea Times, that a camp was being set up in which students and teachers would role-play various situations - with props, I might add. Korea and New Zealand are both really out front in terms of language innovation! I noticed about 10 years ago, that - to my surprise (since I had never really thougt much about how important distance teaching is in NZ)- the material from from your neck of the woods is fresh and interesting. I still have a set of multicultural math books and posters that nobody will ever beat.
Tell us what you are doing in New Zealand. Sometimes I think we don't appreciate the diversity in English langague teaching.
Thanks, Kathy

[anithadeviv]

Hi Kathy,
Have you tried Compuetr Assisted Language tests developed by you specifically for speaking and listening?
Do you know any such research ....
I would like to have your suggestions.
I have tried three but could not include immediate feedback.
Thanks
V.Anitha Devi

[kathyfelts]

Hi V. Anitha Devi ,

I have used online reading tests in the past when it was easy to find free ones. I have seen ones where you can add audio files, but never took the time to create them from scratch. Lately I haven't had much need for them, but sometimes I have used released state tests
( in most cases you must ask for permission, but no one has said "no" yet). A good site to see those tests is:
http://www.edinformatics.com/testing/testing.htm

State tests may not be useful for everyone, but I have used the tests to help prepare high school students for state testing.
For students who have limited or no formal education, starting with the 3rd grade math and langague tests have worked well. Not only are the tests self-scoring, but some are online. Most give a breakdown according to the state's goals and competencies.
If anyone has links to online test generators that really work, please post them to this forum. Before posting I googled online test generators. Most were not free and the "free" one I found was really just a demo that only allowed one to create two questions.

By the way, what did you use the tests you made for?

Take care,
Kathy

[kathyfelts]

Hi V. Anitha Devi,
I spent a little more time looking for test generators and found Hot Potatoes. While I was at the Hot Potatoes site, I aso came across Quandary, which can be used to create interactive activities. Both are REALLY worth checking out. Just go to the site below and follow the links.
http://www.halfbakedsoftware.com/hot_pot_website.php
Best regards,
Kathy

[Erik Strommen]

Thank you for your helpful advice kathyfelts; it is nice to hear about teachers who are producing quality online experiences for students.

I have taught esl for the past five years, and now am wanting to do my work via online lessons. While I have a few students online, I am looking for more. Better yet, I would like to work for a company that is organized and professional-- any advice?

Thanks

[alanfoo]

hi Kathy,
i do find your work very interesting.

I read and understand that someone is interested to look for a test generator.

I have one created for free trial at www.visualgram.com
I do have a smart dictionary that goes with it too.
Actually perhaps, Kathy you can look into this system to complement what you are doing since it works offline rather than online.

regards
alan

[kathyfelts]

Hi Alan,
I see that you are doing more than just providing a test generator. You are incorporating an English-Malay, Malay-English dictionary into your product- is that correct? Please tell us some more about your work. I see that you are asking volunteers to do some writing for you. That sounds like it might be an excellent opportunity for some teachers who are interested in getting some background in materials development for use in a website.
I assume you are in Malaysia, right. Please tell us more about the use of computers in education in Malaysia. I think that we can benefit from knowledge about EFL in a variety of settings. Thanks for the
link to your site! I will be checking on your test generator soon.

[vadim]

Hi Kathy and all members of the topic,
My name is Vadim Kiryukhin. I’m a software engineer and founder LanguageTeach Technologies company based in San Jose, CA. We develop complex web-ready interactive language-related educational material based on customer’s content. Please take a look at our examples at
http://languageteach.com/example/
As you are creative persons I’m sure it will be interesting for you. Additional demo can be found at
http://languageteach.com/demo/french/
Though it has been done in French, it demonstrates how the whole lesson can be integrated. Because we are a small company, using the powerful and extremely effective tool, the development cost of the materials is very low and we keep our prices well under those of the market. We charge as low as $3.50 per standard page and $7.00 per complex one. We also offer free basic web hosting for our customers.
Besides the service we sell our software tool which we use for material development. For example San Jose City College uses our soft. Please look into
http://khanson.eslinstructor.net
to see how one of the SJCC ESL instructors develops her own material with the LT Development Tool: (we use http://eslinstructor.net as a host for our customers).
To get general information about our company please take a look at our web site
http://languageteach.com
To get more information about our LT Development Tool please look into
http://languageteach.com/help/

Please let me know if you are interested in any additional information about our development tool, service or company.

Sincerely,

Vadim Kiryukhin,
LanguageTeach Technologies.

[alanfoo]

Hi, Kathy,
[i]Sorry for the late reply. Have been very busy lately since school is about to begin in my country.

Am actively working along with our department of education to implement to all schools in the states besides arranging to provide the 130,000 teachers with our software.[/i]

Your comments
I see that you are doing more than just providing a test generator. You are incorporating an English-Malay, Malay-English dictionary into your product- is that correct?

Yes what I am providing is not just a simple test generator, but a solution to many problems I have highlighted in my web page at www.visualgram.com/problems.htm
We are still at the early stage of implementation and hope to achieve what we wish to achieve in 2005.
Meanwhile we welcome any party interested in our solution to partner with in any country. It should be especially interesting for third world countries where their budget is limited.

One of the area we are trying to get our project in is our current "Stop Smoking campaign". We are proposing to use our tools to reach out to students on the evils of smoking. Implant into them the evils of smoking before they taste their first cigarette. Let say " learn English through No smoking campaign."



Your comments
Please tell us some more about your work.

Our principal aim is to overcome many of the inhibitions now facing countries trying to use computers for effective eduation and to contribute to our environment of using less papers and inks in classrooms. I think our overall aim is very much explained in our web site at www.visualgram.com.

I see that you are asking volunteers to do some writing for you. That sounds like it might be an excellent opportunity for some teachers who are interested in getting some background in materials development for use in a website.

Yes, we are software developers not full time educationists (although formerly we were). We certainly welcome volunteers or even profit motivated authors to contribute materials that we can convert to our format for global downloads all will benefit. Yes there are lots and lots of materials available online already.
One thing for sure, most require the use of Internet to use them. Not everyone has Internet connection and even if they do, most cannot afford the dialup internet charges for the hours required to study online.
With our system, just one internet connection, the entire town can have it. Not dead text but animated multimedia modules. We have one module that explains what fraction is , is only 7 K byte in size. Another an animated 4 stroke engine is only 34 K in size. Once downloaded in seconds, they all run offline. So we do provide a very complementary role to those engaged in pure online tutorials or those whose contents must be in CD ROMs.
Our software however do not replace existing rich multimedia tools but rather complements them.

I assume you are in Malaysia, right.
Yes I am in Kuala lumpur

Please tell us more about the use of computers in education in Malaysia.

In Malaysia the Government had earlier embarked on a sizeable project we called smart schools. This involved up to 90 schools where computers play a heavy role in the schools. After the initial ho ha about this fantastic initiative, lately there has not been too much news about it. The government has recently initiated building computer labs of about 50 computers in many other schools in the country.
Now just as i have said in my web site at www.visualgram.com how can any student have effective access to sufficient computer time in school if there are 2000 students to share the 50 computers? 9 mins a day. We have a solution to this.

In Malaysia we had two major public listed companies attempting on pure online educational portal. Both folded in very quick time.

I think that we can benefit from knowledge about EFL in a variety of settings.

Yes I do think that there are many varieties of settings that suit many different set of people in the world. We are just one of many.

I think for those who wish to implement ICT in schools for EFL or other subjects they have first to consider how practical the entire exercise is.
For localised single lab environment with small number of students, many existing systems are find.

For mass education, I am afraid many fail to deliver.

Thanks for the
link to your site! I will be checking on your test generator soon.
You are welcome.
As the test generator is currently in the initial stage of implementation,
there are many parts we are still uploading to our site like instructions on how to use advanced features etc. let me know if you need help on how to use the test generator.
so if you want to try to create a simple immediate questionnaire using the age e workbook generator you can find the instructions in help or you can just click this link www.visualgram.com/help/makequestion.txt

Hope you like it.

Rgds
alan

[kathyfelts]

Alan,
First let me say that our hearts go out to the people of Malaysia and others in the region at this time. We who have not been affected need to remember never to take a day for granted.
I can see that you have put a great deal of effort into your project! I am glad that you made the point about your situation in Malaysia and its particular challenges. It is easy for us to forget that computer access is still limited or unavailable for many and your efforts to increase access are to be commended. As soon as I have time, I will use your program to make a survey about computer access in various countries and post it online.
Thanks and peace,
Kathy