Technology Luncheons
From LRC Faculty Development Lab
Contents |
December 05, 2007
"Building a Community: The use of BLOGS in Hindi"
by Gautami Shah
One of the challenges facing academics is how to provide space for a healthy exchange of ideas amongst students in the limited amount of time we have in the classroom. This is even more pronounced in language pedagogy where expression in the target language is key, but often limited due to the large size of a class and finite meeting time. In this presentation I shall share some thoughts about the strengths and limitations on using BLOGS in language pedagogy to provide space for an exchange of ideas between students and to build a community of language learners and users. I shall discuss particular hints about how to address the challenges and opportunities in the implementation of the same. I shall share feedback and examples from students in first and second year Hindi.
"New technology applications and changes in the program of first year Spanish"
by Jose Narbona
Last semester we decided to change the textbook for our first year Spanish. That meant having a transitional semester using two different textbooks in Span101 and Span102. Our former website was the first problem we had: how to make changes without getting a very confusing space on the web? The opportunity to implement these changes in our program in a more efficient way came with a new edition of our Summer Technology Workshop last May: new ideas and possibilities were developed thanks to Dreamweaver and Fireworks, a new project using blogs and podcasting was born (currently in use) and some Wiki pages were created to collect and organize resources for the program.
"Web, cinema and literature in my Italian virtual book"
by Fabiana Cecchini
this presentation will show how web cinema and literature can contribute to the study of Italian language and culture at the intermediate and advanced level. I will show how I incorporated the use of the Rice Extemplate and wiki in my advanced Italian course and the Rice Extemplate in my intermediate Italian course. The presentation will focus on how the instructor can use the Rice Extemplate as a presentational tool during class time, and outside of class, how the Rice Exmplate can help the practice of the language in a given context. In my advanced Italian course the wiki has been an useful tool of collaborative writing to encourage students' production from the point of view of content.
April 18, 2007
“Wimba as an Online Tool to Assess Pronunciation and Speaking in Chinese”
Chao-mei Shen
This project discusses how Wimba was used as an online tool to assess students' pronunciation and speaking in intermediate non-heritage Chinese courses and examines how pedagogically effective the speech-recording program is by tracing and comparing two students' Wimba assignments over the course of two semesters.
"Promoting Cultural Exchange in CMC with a Word Association Activity"
By Peggy Patterson
The 21st century technology has provided our students with even more opportunities to communicate with native speakers in other countries using Computer Mediated Communication (CMC). My students have participated in CMC projects with students of English in Argentina and Mexico for several years. We planned the Tandem Language Learning activities so that our students could communicate with a native speaker in the target language as well as learn something about their tandem partner’s culture. In order to incorporate and promote a cultural exchange of ideas in the tandem language learning project in which our students were participating, we created a word association activity that could be done online. The Word Association was adapted from the CULTURA activities created at MIT by Furstenberg, English and Maillet found at the following website: http://web.mit.edu/french/culturaNEH/ . My students have participated in this activity with students in Argentina and Mexico in the past two semesters. In this presentation I would like to explain the activity, show examples, and discuss how we incorporated it into our TLL project.
“Cultural Evolution: Cultural Documentary in Lijiang, China”
Meng Yeh
Cultural Evolution （文化演进）is a documentary produced and filmed in Lijiang, China by two Rice students, Jo Kent and Christine Chen in summer 2006. They lived there for eight weeks, participated in volunteer opportunities, conducted interviews and filmed 40-hours of footage. The documentary focuses on views of minority groups and various generations in Lijiang on the cultural and social changes in the past 20 years. This presentation will first demonstrate the major themes centered in the documentary through samples of the film. Second, I will discuss how the documentary is integrated to the curriculum to enhance cultural understanding and improve language proficiency.
December 6, 2006
“Korean Culture and Society through films” J. Won Han
By using movies as "text" the students will learn to distinguish the culture-specifics that are shown in the movies and ultimately, will develop a skill to read the subtle symbolic cultural manifestations in various forms for better interpretation and understanding of the movies. Eventually, the students will learn to compare and contrast the Korean culture with the Western, namely, American, and to relate the specificity to universality. In addition, the students will have a hands-on experience, exploiting the technology, by doing a team project in the latter part of the semester. In addition to reading material, the students will be highly required to participate in discussions.
“Online Tools to Assess Pronunciation and Speaking” Jose Narbona
CSL faculty members use several tools to help students practice pronunciation and speaking: Tell Me More, ExTemplate with Wimba, and E-portfolios. Jose Narbona will discuss the use of TMM and ExTemplate with Wimba and share with us results of students progress and students feedbacks for 5 sections of Spanish 101 and 2 sections of Spanish 102.
“A content-based, Nano-Japanese, a tiny detail for global needs?” Hiroko Sato
A new course, Nano-Japanese integrates language and technology. This presentation will show not only how this hands-on course will be taught using technology but also how the course is designed to help students develop language learning as part of their research in science and technology. Using Wiki students will actively participate in creating a technical dictionary and contribute short essays on their research, accessible via a database both in Japanese and in English. The project was undertaken during the 2006 LRC Summer Workshop and the NanoJapan summer program. NanoJapan is a " U.S.-Japan Cooperative Research and Education" grant funded by the National Science Foundation. (NSF0530220)
April 26, 2006
December 2, 2005
VIDEO "Use of Titles and Subtitles in Conjunction with Student Audio/video Projects” Marshall McArthur
This presentation provides examples of how student compositions can be coordinated with audio, video, and subtitles to share work with other members of the class. Use of Pinyin in subtitles illustrates that such projects can be recycled and used as material for lower level Chinese classes where students have less facility with characters. Examples are taken from a third semester class for heritage students, in which students wrote and recorded compositions, and then combined the script and audio into a short video. At the technology luncheon, attendees will experience the method first-hand since the content of the "talk" is entirely presented through viewing titled video.
http://lang.rice.edu/mcarthur/techlunch/presentationlong.rm
“Online Chinese Tutorials” Meng Yeh
My presentation focuses on a 10-minute online tutorial that I developed during the two-week LRC Technology Workshop in May 2005. The tutorial is designed to help students review the set of sounds, zh/ch/sh/r, in Mandarin. This set of sounds is particularly challenging for students since English does not have these sounds. The online tutorial, different from the notes in textbooks, provides images, audios, animation and immediate feedback that are effective in assisting students to practice pronunciation. The lesson includes explanation, demonstration as well as exercises, which are designed using Dreamweaver, CourseBuilder, Flash, Fireworks, and Audacity software. Online Chinese Tutorials is an ongoing project. I plan to establish a website containing a list of tutorials on various topics. These tutorials will offer students a quick review or help them prepare for a new lesson.
“Hindi Through Songs” Gautami Shah
Songs are an important tool for language instruction. In particular, Hindi film songs are ideally suited for classroom use since they usually involve extensive yet relatively simple lyrics. Furthermore, their popular and catchy tunes provide an additional mechanism for students to memorize vocabulary.
In Summer 2005, at the Rice University Center for the Study of Languages (CSL), Language Resource Center (LRC) summer language workshop, I initiated a website to implement this idea. The project demonstrates how one can provide web-based materials to assist the use of songs from popular Hindi cinema in language teaching. The website is structured in four hierarchical layers.
One layer shows the lyrics with links to the actual song (audio and video). A second layer explains the vocabulary. A third layer provides an "unscrambled" version of the lyrics, in other words, a link to lyrics in a grammatically coherent word order more accessible by students at the elementary and/or intermediate level. Finally, a fourth layer explains the grammar encountered in the song.
April 27, 2005
Video “Hebrew eTerm Projects and eBook for Beginners”
Tiqva BarOn
Hebrew students’ eTerm Projects, 101 and 201 students wrote an essay which they posted on the Internet. In addition, they included recordings of their impressions and pictures. Students’ projects can be seen at http://lang.rice.edu/tbaron/ under Projects - ePortfolio.
The e-Book shows the students how much they can convey with the limited vocabulary that they have. The texts in the e-Book supplement the textbook used in the classroom. Students can download the texts and accompanying exercises in a printable PDF version, and listen to the audio files that have also been created for them on the web. Cultural elements such as common colloquial expressions, slang, humor and daily life in Israel are woven into the texts. The texts motivate the students and inspire them to study the Hebrew language in context. They can be accessed at http://lang.rice.edu/baron
“Exploring Chinatown: Integrating Language, Culture and Community”
Meng Yeh
This presentation focuses on the design and objectives of Exploring Chinatown, a project for the second-semester Chinese classes in the spring of 2004 and 2005. The project is designed with two goals in mind. First, students gain an understanding of the Chinese culture and community through visiting Houston’s Chinatown and through interviewing people at the Chinese organizations. Second, this project provides students with the opportunities to use and improve their Chinese through writing and discussing their experiences exploring Chinatown. Although Culture and Community are two of the National Standards (1996) set for foreign language learning, not much implementation of these two standards can be found in the literature. The current project demonstrates an effective approach for integrating Culture and Community in a language class. This project also creates an online space, using SMIL and Wiki, in which students can easily present and share their experiences.
“Tandem Language Learning (TLL) through WIMBA”
Peggy Patterson
Communication in writing through the Internet between students living in different countries and speaking each other’s languages (TLL) has been a great success in my Spanish language classes. Both synchronous communication using various CMC programs such as MSN or AOL Instant Messaging and asynchronous communication through e-mail were well received by my students. This semester I have taken the TLL a step further and incorporated spoken synchronous communication between two countries. The students of Spanish in my SPAN 302 class have chatted using WIMBA: Voice Direct with students of English at Monterrey Tech in Mexico. The professor in Mexico and I divided the students into groups and they chatted with each other via the computers in their respective computer labs. In addition we scheduled a video conference so that the students could see each other, introduce themselves and make a brief presentation in their target language about their respective university and/or country. This project has been a pilot study with positive feedback from the students. I hope to incorporate these synchronous spoken chats into the syllabus in future third year Spanish classes.
December 1, 2004
Proficiency-based Student Portfolios in Japanese by Hiroko Sato
Students of Japanese language at Rice University can utilize their language skills while incorporating Japanese cultural components depending on their proficiency level. Students can better their proficiency level both in language acquisition and their proper use in Japanese culture by taking courses in Japanese. With reference to a wide range of methods on how to teach cultural components incorporating with language skills at all levels, I present two projects conducted by students in the first and third year, namely JAPA102 & JAPA302 on the Internet. With this project, students are provided opportunities to show their products of Japanese in their e-portfolio at each level in their Japanese language acquisition. Tech Notes: You can access Hiroko's presentation page here.
German Web Biographies by Christa Gaug
German Web Biographies combine cultural learning with the acquisition of the four language skills. The use of technology in this project enhances cultural and linguistic learning by integrating internet research and the creation of a web page in the target language as well as the use of Wimba for recording interviews in German. Students choose a personality from German/Austrian/Swiss history or current affairs—fields have included literature, music, philosophy, politics, and mathematics. In the research phase, which emphasizes reading, students explore web pages and texts in the target language. In the presentation stage, students write their own short biography about the person and post it as a web page to be shared with all their fellow students on the same level. The focus shifts to speaking and listening in the final stage when students take on the role of the person they chose. They first record a self-description by using Wimba and then answer questions from a colleague in a recorded interview. The project was developed by Rick Spuler and Christa Gaug for German 102. Tech Notes: You can access Christa's presentation page here.
Digital Portfolios in Commercial and Scientific Spanish: Content-based language courses oriented for future professionals by Jose Narbona
Commercial and Scientific Spanish are two courses closely connected to the professional aspirations of our students. In these courses, a series of progressive steps throughout the semester lead to the creation of a personal digital portfolio. This process allows the students to present relevant work created for both courses to prospective employers, arranged in a professional way on a webpage format. Some examples of the material presented include PowerPoint presentations, commercial letters, business reports, papers, resumes or news summaries. Additionally, the exercise integrates a variety of skills in the target language (technology, writing, design) and motivates the students to make the transition from traditional classroom tasks to marketable skills. Tech Notes: You can access Jose's presentation page here.
April 21, 2004
video The Effectiveness of Online Listening and Reading Exercises Meng Yeh & Chao-mei Shen
(Click to download powerpoint presentation: Meng Yeh Chao-mei Shen)
We will present two research projects assessing the use of technology for Listening and Reading comprehension exercises. The first study examines the effectiveness of the implementation of an online Chinese Listening Workbook as compared to that of the original workbook format based on quantitative and qualitative data from the student's and instructor's perspective. The second project examines the results of two comparable groups on a series of online reading exercises to explore the effectiveness of Narrow Reading Approach. We will show samples from both studies, discuss results, and provide technical explanation. Both projects use ExTemplate, a Rice web authoring tool. Tech Notes: You can access ExTemplate 2.1 here. Please contact Claire Bartlett for you account.
On-line Exams for first year French Brigitte Crull, Natalya Stepnova, & Emilie Dejonckheere
For the first time in CSL, students enrolled in two sections of French 102 have been taking their exams on-line. Developed by two teaching assistants under the supervision of the first year language coordinator, the exams aim to test all language skills at the appropriate level. Natalya Stepanova and Emilie Dejonckheere will share their experience from development to implementation, and will discuss results of the tests as well as reactions of their students. Tech Notes: You can access ExTemplate 2.1 here. Please contact Claire Bartlett for you account.
Enhancing Student's Written Discourse with CMC: Intermediate Chinese and Spanish Chao-mei Shen & Jane Verm
(Click to download powerpoint presentation: Jane Verm Chao-mei Shen)
Can students improve their written discourse with Computer Mediated Communication? Will students become more capable of reaching beyond simple sentence to short paragraph discourse in writing with CMC? The presenters will report their findings to address these questions through their studies in second semester Intermediate Spanish and Chinese classes. One group of students uses CMC to discuss a topic whereas the other group orally discusses the same topic in class. The written discourse analysis will focus on such areas as content, syntactic structures, and discourse organization. CMC tool, Bulletin Board System, and its effectiveness will also be discussed. Tech Notes: You can access Language Exchange Bulletin Board here.
December 3, 2003
”Use of TV commercials through ExTemplate in Korean language class” Hyung-Jin Lee
College students in our time are more responsive to Internet resources in language classroom, which lead many language instructors to turn to Internet to supplement lesson planning. In the process, organizing materials that are available on the Internet and properly presenting them to students has been a crucial point. This has been the case in my Korean classes. As the current Korean textbook does not come with any video learning material, I need to find various types of online multimedia resources related to each lesson, and I have found that among others, learning process through TV commercial available on the Internet has appropriately met students' educational need and goal in my class. This learning process has been carefully prepared through ExTemplate which not only provides students with an easy and carefree access to the material but also help them identify specific direction and goal of the learning process. I will present how I start lesson planning, choose appropriate segment, prepare a learning guide for students from studying new vocabularies to writing short descriptions about the product advertised, and situation in the specific segments.
”A Hebrew e-Book for Beginners”
Tiqva BarOn
Most textbooks at the novice level lack texts due to the fact that the students know very little. This is especially the case among the less commonly taught languages which require the learning of a new alphabet limiting the possibilities of expression and performance even more so. Texts, mainly dialogue, are typically short, uninspiring, awkward and boring at times. In order to overcome these shortcomings, I created an e-Book that supplements the textbook we use in class. I use the vocabulary in context in order to demonstrate the use of the individual words and to enhance sentence structures and patterns. Cultural elements are presented and woven into these text as well. I post them on the course web page, and they are accompanied by exercises and audio files. Audio files are a way in which I overcame the problem that students have with an un-pointed text in the Hebrew Language at the novice level. The purpose of this pilot study is to create an e-Book that can be accessed on the net and provide additional texts for teachers and students to use and benefit from.
“Tandem Language Learning using Computer Mediated Communication (CMC)” Peggy Patterson CMC provides language students with an excellent opportunity to interact in Tandem Language Learning (TLL). TLL involves the interaction of two individuals with different native languages that are learning each other’s native language. This semester, fifty students of Spanish at Rice exchanged e-mail, contributed to Bulletin Board forums, and participated in conversations using Instant Messaging with fifty students of English in Buenos Aires. In addition to the CMC, about half of my Rice students made a video of “Life at Rice” for the Buenos Aires students to see on-line and the Buenos Aires students provided pictures and a voice message on-line for the Rice students to see and hear. This use of CMC has provided the Rice students with exposure to the Spanish of native speakers, new vocabulary, and the culture of Argentina.
There will be a special demonstration also, “Preview ExTemplate 2.1 - The Latest Release” by Clair Bartlett, Director of Language Resource Center.
April 25, 2003
Noon - 12:50 p.m. RH 123
Presenters
video
Richard Spuler Of Readers and Directors: Making Sense (and Films) of Texts For some time now we have been more or less comfortable with the notions that reading is a process of negotiating meaning and, consequently, that meaning isn't simply some external object to be defined, but is rather "an effect to be experienced" (Wolfgang Iser, The Act of Reading). In the fall semester 2002, I tried to apply this postulate to a reading task in German 201. The project involved a series of specific steps over several weeks that took students through an imaginative engagement with the text and the possibilities of its adaptation as a film. I'll describe the phases of this project: from summaries, concept papers and letters to imaginary producers, to detailed storyboards and and video shoots. The presentation will includes examples of student work (the best part of the whole thing!). Tech Notes: • Project web page - http://lang.rice.edu/german/lunch/ • The movie is available from LRC’s video server ‘rtsp://cinema.rice.edu/video3/german/toedlicher_sand.rm’. • iMovie is bundled with most newer Macs. • iMovie application is also available at Faculty Development Lab. • To learn more about iMovie, go to ‘http://www.apple.com/imovie/’.
Lilly Chen and Chao-mei Shen Online Chinese Placement Test As the Chinese program offers two tracks of classes, i.e. "heritage" and "nonheritage," to better accommodate individual student needs, we sometimes run into problems when students are not placed into their level-appropriate classes due to insufficient assessment of their language proficiency in all four modalities. The new Chinese placement test, capable of evaluating students' performance in listening, speaking, writing, and reading, aims to rectify the placement problem and provide an online tool for assessing Chinese learners' levels in all four areas. Our presentation will provide a rationale for testing designs, explain the scoring system, demonstrate tasks along with test results, and share our plans to seek ACTFL certification and promote our placement test nationwide. Tech Notes: • Conclusion page is available at ‘http://lang.rice.edu/chinese2/placement/plc/index.html’. • Placement Test/ExTemplate information page -http://babel.rice.edu/extemplate/information.html
Ombretta Frau IL TELEGIORNALE I will talk about my use of the bulletin board for Ital 202 and my goals for it. We started the semester with me as a moderator, but somehow it has developed into a student run event and i have stopped posting my comments in it. It is structured as follows: each student does an oral presentation on a topic we are covering in class. The presentation is based on an original article taken from an Italian newspaper online. After the presentation and discussion in class, we continue at home, with each student reading and commenting the article in question and also commenting on some of the other students' opinions. Each entry is for everybody in our class to read and this kind of peer review forces students to pay extra attention to their writing. Then, I print each entry and grade it on paper. I think it has worked for me and I am planning to repeat the experiment in the future. Tech Note: • URL of this Bulletin Board Service (BBS) is ‘http://128.42.191.229/LangEx/index.php’. • You must be a registered user to log in. To register, click on the ‘register’ icon. • Each forum group requires group membership to view and post. (These settings can be changed.) • This BBS supports all the languages taught at CSL. • To implement this BBS in your course for the fall, contact Language Technology Consultant (langtech@rice.edu). You must also attend pre-semester workshop on August 22 at noon. It will take one week to completely set up for a course.
Dariusz Skorczewski Teaching Polish Language and Culture on the Web. A series of Multimedia Exercises for Beginners. Many of us know the tremendous possibilities offered by computer technology in creating virtual "real life" situations in which students can be immersed to learn and use the "real language" along with studying the culture. In my "Virtual Tour of Warsaw and Cracow", a series of interactive, Web-based exercises, students learn to give and receive directions, use public transportation, and get around the two major historical cities of Poland through image, text, and embedded audio clips. This project is funded by CARLA (Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition-University of Minnesota). Tech Note: • These exercises are made with Dreamweaver MX with CourseBuilder extension. • CourseBuilder is available for Dreamweaver 4 and MX. You can download from ‘http://www.macromedia.com/cfusion/exchange/index.cfm’. • To use non western language, you must use MX. • Dreamweaver MX and 4 are available at Faculty Development Lab in Windows and in Macintosh environment. • LRC will not offer database support for grade keeping in CourseBuilder project. For exercises requiring database grade keeping, please use ExTemplate. • You can find this presentation at ‘http://lang.rice.edu/dareus/Warsaw_Cracow/index.htm’.
December 6, 2002
Noon - 12:50 p.m. RH 123
Presenters Brigitte Crull
Tell Me More and its contribution in learning French
Ombretta Frau
Italian approach to Harvard's all-university Course Web Site System
Meng Yeh
Using video interviews conducted by the instructor to create Chinese ExTemplate exercises.
