Keiko Schneider, Saboten Web Design Albuquerque, NM
Email: kschnei@sabotenweb.com
Handouts: http://www.sabotenweb.com/conference/AZLA2000/
Arizona Language Association Conference, Tuscon, AZ, 9/22/2000
Summary of the presentation
As the terms "dot com" and "internet" penetrate our daily lives, the movement to offer classes on-line seems natural. Institutions can receive more enrolment by attracting non-traditional and remote students. This presentation will discuss pedagogical and technical challenges that foreign languages and LCTL (less commonly taught languages) face. There will be mention of various products in the presentation, but we are not endorsing any commercial products whatsoever. The information is given only for audience's convenience.
Terminology
ASCII: Definition NetLingo.com http://www.netlingo.com/
American Standard Code for Information Interchange (pronounced: ass-key)
The worldwide standard for the code numbers used by computers to represent all the upper and lower-case Latin letters, numbers, punctuation, etc. There are 128 standard ASCII codes, each of which can be represented by a 7 digit binary number: 0000000 through 1111111. This is also used to describe files that are stored in clear text format. Some rather inventive individuals have developed what is known as ASCII art, a lowbrow art in a high tech medium, using only the ASCII character set to create images.
Asynchronous. Definition http://www.outreach.utk.edu/weblearning/
A type of communication that occurs with a time delay, allowing participants to respond at their own convenience. Literally "not synchronous"; in other words, not at the same time. Asynchronous capabilities give learners access to course materials, including readings, embedded and streamed multimedia, and external Web sites. They also let learners participate in facilitated discussions, and complete assignments individually and collaboratively.
See also Synchronous.
BBS/Bulletin Board/discussion board: Definition NetLingo.com http://www.netlingo.com/
(Bulletin Board System or Service)
A dial-up computerized meeting and announcement system for carrying on discussions, uploading and downloading files, and generally obtaining online information and services. BBS also refers to a congregation gathered electronically via a modem that allows the users to post messages. They began as informal communities but now include political, commercial, adult, etc., categories. There are many thousands of BBSs around the world, most of that are very small, running on a single PC or Mac clone with 1 or 2 phone lines. Some are very large and the line between a BBS and a system like CompuServe gets crossed at some point.
See WebBoard
Blackboard (CourseInfo) http://www.blackboard.com/
At Blackboard.comSM, you can teach online for free, take distance-learning courses, utilize 239 discipline-specific resource centers and customize them to match your own classes, share tips and information with other online teachers and students, and much more. Right here and right now - on Blackboard.com.
See Courseware/infrastructure
Chat: Definition http://www.outreach.utk.edu/weblearning/
Generally refers to real-time, text-based conversation between two or more individuals connected online. As you type, everything you type is displayed to the other members of the chat group. Some implementations provide for private communications between individuals, most packages provide for a group chat (i.e. everyone sees everything). Some chat software now features voice-enabled chat.
Courseware/infrastructure
Online courses can be loaded into and used as the main "shell" or "classroom" for the course.
See WebCT, Blackboard (CourseInfo)
F2F class:
An acronym for face-to-face class. A class that teacher(s) and students meet physically in the same place in the same time in a traditional manner. Often used to contrast with online class.
Global IME: http://www.microsoft.com/Windows/ie/Features/ime.asp
International communication keeps getting easier, thanks to high-performance Microsoft Global IME 5.01. Now you can input Chinese, Japanese, and Korean text into Microsoft Word 2000 documents, Web forms, and e-mail messages on any language version of Windows 98, Windows 95, and Windows NT 4.0. And it's easy. Just launch any language version of Word 2000, Internet Explorer 4.0 or greater, Outlook Express 4.0 or greater, or Outlook 98 -- then select Global IME from the taskbar, and you can write the language
KanjiKit 2000: http://www.pspinc.com/lsg/ Japanese Support Utility Software
KanjiKit 2000 is more than Japanese Support Utility. You can not only browse Japanese Web sites; also you can send and receive e-mail in Japanese, and type Japanese on many popular applications. KanjiKit 2000 has significantly improved inside and out from its predecessor.
LCTL (Less Commonly Taught Languages):
Languages other than English, French, German, and Spanish
NetMeeting http://www.microsoft.com/windows/netmeeting/
Windows 2000, available in February, contains NetMeeting version 3. The Windows real-time collaboration and conferencing client is an easy to use Web phone as well as a tool for corporate productivity.
Netscape Composer: http://home.netscape.com/communicator/composer/v4.0/index.html
Netscape Composer is an easy-to-use tool that makes creating HTML-based documents as easy as writing a memo with a word processor. HTML, or Hypertext Markup Language, describes how words and images should be displayed on a web page or in an email message. Like a word processor, Composer uses fonts, styles, paragraphs, and lists, and includes an integrated spelling checker.
Good tutorial: http://www.olentangy.k12.oh.us/Resources/Composer/Composermain.htm
See WYSIWYG editor
PureVoice: http://www.eudora.com/purevoice/plugin.html
Introducing PureVoice Technology's first Internet application: A Player-Recorder for voice messages that you can use with your email software.
There's a Plug-in specifically for Eudora software, and a separate application for other email products. And they're FREE of charge!
QuickTime: http://www.apple.com/quicktime/
QuickTime 4.1.2 is the latest version of Apple's complete technology for handling video, sound, animation, graphics, text, music, and even 360-degree virtual reality (VR) scenes. A gateway for rich media including images, music, MIDI, MP3 and more, QuickTime lets you experience more than 200 kinds of digital media with your Mac or PC and it offers unparalleled quality, ease of use and functionality.
Sound Forge® XP 4.5 http://www.sonicfoundry.com/products/NewShowProduct.asp?PID=6
Sound Forge® XP 4.5 is the streamlined version of Forge® 4.5. Sound†Forge†XP is a great introduction to software media content creation. Use its powerful audio processing tools to create high-quality audio for your multimedia presentation or Web site. Record your own audio, then enhance it with any of over 25 powerful digital audio effects and processes. Import a video file and add audio with complete frame accuracy. With Sound†Forge†XP, you can cut, copy, and paste your way to striking multimedia files.
Synchronous. Definition http://www.outreach.utk.edu/weblearning/
A type of two-way communication that occurs with virtually no time delay, allowing participants to respond in real time. Also, a system in which regularly occurring events in timed intervals are kept in step using some form of electronic clocking mechanism. Synchronous capabilities add a living, breathing dimension to online learning. Generally includes tools supported by standards-based data, audio, and videoconferencing, like whiteboard, application sharing, and question-and-answer. See also Asynchronous.
Two-byte (double-byte) character: CJKV Information Processing Page 8
"… in 1978, (and) employed the notion of using two bytes to represent a single character." Japanese, Chinese and Korean are encoded this way.
Voice chat: See Chat
WebBoard http://webboard.oreilly.com/
This popular web-based discussion and chat software is used in virtual offices and classrooms, corporate intranets, and hundreds of online forums. Easy to set up and administer, WebBoard's familiar format lets users share information immediately and effortlessly.
See BBS/Bulletin Board/discussion board
WebCT: http://www.webct.com/
WebCT is a tool that facilitates the creation of sophisticated World Wide Web-based educational environments. It does this in three ways:
1. It provides an interface allowing the design of the presentation of the course (color schemes, layout, etc.)
2. It provides a set of educational tools to facilitate learning, communication and collaboration.
3. It provides a set of administrative tools to assist the instructor in the process of management and continuous improvement of the course.
See courseware
WYSIWYG http://coverage.cnet.com/Resources/Info/Glossary/
(What You See Is What You Get) A catchphrase from the old TV show Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In that became a desktop publishing byword,WYSIWYG (pronounced "whizzy-wig")refers to any technology that enables you to see images onscreen exactly as they will appear when printed out. As scalable screen and printer fonts have become more sophisticated, and as graphical user interfaces have improved their display, people have come to expect everything to be WYSIWYG. But it isn't always the case--and certainly wasn't in the 1980s, when this term was first applied.
Points to be Covered
Internet use in general
Students live in it, the society grows with it, excitement, new way of getting info, communication
Small globe, authentic materials -> heaven for foreign language teachers
Security concerns
What is the difference between Enhancement and Re-engineering?
Online delivered foreign language class: Is it natural and easy?
What we take granted in F2F class
Two communication modes Synchronous and Asynchronous:
(See terminology section for WebCT, Netscape Composer)
Multilingual computing
We are the only department that absolutely requires foreign language capability on English system
Non-ASCII problem
Imperative to have audio components
Internet is visual, language is also audio, synchronous communication S-S and T-S
(See terminology section for QuickTime, Voice chat, and Pure voice) Phone
(See terminology section for LCTL)
LCTL Summit September, 1996 at University of Minnesota
ENROLLMENTS AND COMMUNICATIONS
#1 Enrollments
#2 Reasons why students take LCTLs
#3 Communicating with other LCTL teachers
TEACHER EDUCATION
#4 Current preparation/training for LCTL teachers
#5 Preparation/training of LCTL Summit participants
#6 Current preparation/training for MCTL teachers
MATERIALS AVAILABILITY
#7 Textbooks
#8 Other curricular materials used
#9 Other curricular materials desired
DELIVERY SYSTEMS
#10 Governance/administrative organization for LCTLs
#11 Technology
#12 Non-traditional teaching situations
Other non-technical (?) challenges
Less funding, less voice, but more need for special software, more memory (more money on hardware and software?)
What the internet and online class can help:
#1 Enrollments
Online classes that can be taken from anywhere. Students' convenience and Institution's revenue opportunity
#3 Communicating with other teachers (Importance of collaboration)
LCTL listserv
http://carla.acad.umn.edu/lctl/listservs.html
LCTL-T, a general discussion list for teachers of any less commonly taught languages
Celtic-T, for teachers of Celtic languages
Dutch-T, for teachers of Dutch
Hebrew-T, for teachers of Hebrew
Hindi-T, for teachers of Hindi
Korean-T, for teachers of Korean
Nordic-T, for teachers of Scandinavian languages
Polish-T, for teachers of Polish
SenseiOnline for Japanese
http://www.sabotenweb.com/bookmarks/about/senseiOnline.html
FLTEACH http://www.cortland.edu/www/flteach/flteach.html#subscribing
#7 Textbooks
Normally it is not economically feasible to publish. Publish on the internet!
#8 Other curricular materials
Share on the Web (Prof. Omoto's WebRing project)
Courseware like WebCT and Blackboard (CourseInfo) offer powerful test tools, but if you don't use them or they are not Japanese capable and your textbook publisher doesn't have any interactive exercises, you may need to create your own.
Generally Java-based applications that let you make exercises instantly without Unicode have problems with non-English, non-ASCII problems
Wonderful Exercise makers that don't work with non-ASCII languages.
http://www.quia.com/ Quia!
http://puzzlemaker.school.discovery.com/ PuzzleMaker ?
http://web.uvic.ca/hrd/halfbaked/` HotPotaotes
WebCT not officially supporting non-Roman characters. Chat doesn't work with non-Roman characters. Blackboard (CourseInfo) only shows non-Roman character as Web pages. BBS and Chat don't work with non-Roman characters.
Helpers
Windows 2000 (2K)
KanjiKit 2000 that makes most applications Japanese capable under English 9x system
(See terminology section for KanjiKit 2000)
(This is all good for developers if the institution provides, but students?)
Global IME with Japanese capable e-mail and browser (See terminology section)
Global IME is known to work with MS Messenger, Netscape Communicator 4.72 or later as well as selected Microsoft products. Excel and PowerPoint need to be copy and pasted from Word 2000.
Online exercise makers that DO work with non-ASCII languages.
http://school.discovery.com/quizcenter/quizcenter.html Quiz Center
http://www.funbrain.com Funbrain
http://deil.lang.uiuc.edu/JS4ll/templates/
JavaScript Templates for Language Learning (Japanese OK)
http://clear.msu.edu/dennie/matic/ Game-O-Matic
http://lang.swarthmore.edu/makers/index.htm Makers
- CJKV Information Processing by Ken Lunde, O'Reilly ISBN 6-36920-9224-7
- CNET Glossary http://coverage.cnet.com/Resources/Info/Glossary/
- NetLingo.com http://www.netlingo.com/
- Untangling the Web: Nonce's guide to Language and Culture on the Internet
ISBN 1-893022-50-1By Carl Blyth http://www.onlang.com
- Web Based Learning Resources Library http://www.outreach.utk.edu/weblearning/