Death of the VLE?

There has been a good deal of discussion in various forums on the Web about the downside of technology, for example the overuse of PowerPoint. Some time ago I Googled for “Death by PowerPoint” and got around 375,000 hits, leading me to sites that criticised the excessive use of PowerPoint in presentations both in the business world and in education. This is not to say that PowerPoint presentations are worthless, rather it is a warning not to regard technological innovations as a panacea.

VLE’s are often in the news these days and, like PowerPoint, are often hailed as a technological panacea, so I decided to Google for “Death by VLE”. I got about 87,000 hits. I have always felt that VLEs – like the language lab of the 1960s – were designed to put learners to sleep, and I cannot see that they will ever be in serious competition with the many exciting Web 2.0 developments we have seen in recent years, so the high number of hits for “Death by VLE” did not really surprise me. This reference came at the top of the Google hit list:

Stiles M. (2007) "Death of the VLE? A challenge to a new orthodoxy", Serials, the Journal for the International Serials Community 20, 1: 31-36. Here is the abstract:

“The VLE has become almost ubiquitous in both higher and further education, with the market becoming increasingly 'mature'. E-learning is a major plank in both national and institutional strategies. But, is the VLE delivering what is needed in a world where flexibility of learning is paramount, and the lifelong learner is becoming a reality? There are indications that rather than resulting in innovation, the use of VLEs has become fixed in an orthodoxy based on traditional educational approaches. The emergence of new services and tools on the web, developments in interoperability, and changing demands pose significant issues for institutions' e-learning strategy and policy. Whether the VLE can remain the core of e-learning activity needs to be considered.”
Source: http://uksg.metapress.com/index/55K7732DTHRQ6GK1.pdf

Interesting, eh?

EUROCALL 2008, Second Life, Lively by Google

A Pre-Conference Workshop (PCW) on Second Life and Lively by Google will be taking place at EUROCALL 2008, 3 September 2008. I have created a Word document that explains the preparation you need to do in advance of the workshop and what we will be covering in the workshop. The document can be downloaded from the ICT4LT website, Section 14.2.1 of Module 1.5:

http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_mod1-5.htm#secondlife

The document will remain at the ICT4LT site after the workshop and will be added to and amended from time to time.

During the EUROCALL 2008 conference there will be opportunities for online chat in the EUROCALL HQ in Second Life and also in the Lively room that we have created. Here are the URLs:

Second Life:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/EduNation%20III/9/29/22/

Lively:
http://www.lively.com/dr?rid=-5085702628635910660&edit_room=1

The EUROCALL 2008 conference will also incorporate a Virtual Strand, as in 2006 and in 2007, to enable online participants to get a flavour of the conference. Registration for the Virtual Strand is free of charge:

http://virtualeurocall.googlepages.com/home

Graham Davies
19 August 2008

SLanguages 2008 Online Conference - Free!

SLanguages 2008 Online Conference - Free!

The SLanguages 2008 Conference brings together practitioners and researchers in the field of language education in Second Life for a 24-hour event to celebrate languages and cultures within the 3D virtual world.

This second annual event is entirely free and takes place on the EduNation islands within Second Life. Take a tour of the venue:
http://www.slanguages.net/venue.php

Starts 18.00 GMT, 23 May 2008Ends 18.00 GMT 24 May 2008
Further information and registration form at:
http://www.slanguages.net

The ICT4LT site contains an intro to teaching and learning languages in Second Life, with a brief report and screenshots of the SLanguages 2007 Conference:
http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_mod1-5.htm#secondlife

Computer Mediated Communication Conference, 17-19 April 2008

The first conference organised by EUROCALL's Computer Mediated Communication Special Interest Group (CMC SIG) will take place at the University of Padua, Italy, 17-19 April 2008.

In an earlier contribution to this blog (7 November 2007) I wrote about setting up EUROCALL's new HQ in Second Life. I shall be giving a presentation about the HQ in Second Life at the CMC SIG conference - from a distance (i.e. in the UK). It's nothing spectacular - just a tour of the HQ, which is located on EduNation III island in Second Life. The HQ can be used for real-time meetings and presentations to small groups, e.g. PowerPoint and video presentations and slide shows. Here is the EUROCALL HQ SLURL:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/EduNation%20III/9/29/22/
You may find me lurking there sometimes in the guise of Groovy Winkler.

David Richardson and his colleagues will be giving a presentation at the conference entitled "Practicing proficiency in virtual space - a case study of cross-cultural collaboration in language learning", which will also be delivered at a distance (from Sweden) using Second Life. David has posted messages concerning his Kamino Island project, which focuses on oral production, in the EUROCALL CMC SIG discussion list at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CMC_SIG/
You can read more about David's oral production project at:
http://www.humsam.hik.se/distans/existstud/op/index.htm

Further information on the Padua conference can be found in the CMC SIG discussion list (above). The main contact person in Padua is Francesca Helm. Contact her via the discussion list.

Participating in conferences at a distance is now established practice. The Consultants-E, a business based in Barcelona, manage the EduNation islands in Second Life, where they are running a series of seminars entitled EduCation@EduNation:
http://www.theconsultants-e.com/edunation/edunation.asp

We focus on Second Life in Section 14.2.1 of Module 1.5 at the ICT4LT website:
http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_mod1-5.htm#secondlife

EUROCALL has incorporated a virtual strand into its last two conferences, 2006 and 2007. The archives are here:

EUROCALL 2006 blog:
http://eurocall2006blog.blogspot.com/

EUROCALL 2007 virtual strand, which includes streamed videos of the keynotes:
http://vsportal2007.googlepages.com/

EUROCALL 2008 in Hungary will also include a virtual strand - details to be announced later:
http://www.asszisztencia.hu/eurocall/

Regards
Graham Davies

Copyright - new tricks to catch you out!

A colleague drew my attention to the following article at the website of the Computer & Technik Magazin, which summarises a TV broadcast on 16 February 2008: http://www.heise.de/ct/tv/artikel/103344

For those of you who cannot read German, here's a brief summary: A couple in Germany, Marion and Folkert Knieper, have put together an online cookbook with lots of photos taken by Folkert Knieper, e.g. the sort of photos of food that teachers like to use in their worksheets, blogs and online worksheets. The online cookbook includes a lexicon and has lots of links to other sites - which puts it high on Google's hit list if you are doing a search. So you search (in German) for an image of tomatoes, carrots, a cup of tea, etc. You find the image in the cookbook and add it to your website, blog, or online worksheet. Now here's the catch. Folkert Knieper uses the image search facility in Google to find his own photos. Bingo! The photo that you have added to your website turns up. He then asks you to pay for it and takes you to court for breach of copyright if you refuse. In Germany the law on copyright is much the same as it is in the UK. If you take a photograph and publish it on the Web you automatically own copyright in the photo unless stated otherwise. Apparently, Folkert Knieper is making hundreds of thousands of euros out of this venture. Nice little earner, eh? It could catch on...

Selling digital photos is a growing business these days:
http://www.cameradollars.com/?hop=linguaglot

EUROCALL HQ in Second Life

EUROCALL now has an HQ in EduNation III, Second Life. The building is still empty, but it will be furnished it during the next few weeks. If you have already downloaded the Second Life software and wish to locate the EUROCALL HQ click on the following SLURL or just paste it into your browser's address box:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/EduNation%20III/9/29/22/
This will enable you to teleport to the front porch. Turn right round and you should see the EUROCALL logo on the wall next to the front door. Click on the door to open it and then have a look round. It is possible to hold meetings and run training courses, etc in the EUROCALL HQ (and many other places) using voice chat, text chat and visuals (PowerPoint, videos, etc), but there doubtless many more interesting things that can be done.

Just a reminder that if you are new to Second Life then there is an expanded Section 14.2.1 in Module 1.5 at the ICT4LT site that should help get you up to speed:
http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_mod1-5.htm

EUROCALL 2007 Conference

I just got back from the EUROCALL 2007 conference at the University of Coleraine, Northern Ireland – followed by a one-week holiday touring the North-West of Ireland. It was one of the best EUROCALL conferences I have attended since EUROCALL first became an official professional association in 1993. This year’s conference included a more elaborate online Virtual Strand than last year’s conference in Granada, Spain. As well as the conference blog and the Blobber text chat facility, this year’s Virtual Strand included the Yaplet text chat facility, live online presentations in text chat, and podcasts in which conference participants expressed their impressions of presentations that they attended. The plenary keynotes and panel discussion were streamed and are also archived. An asynchronous discussion list has also been set up. All the details are here:

http://vsportal2007.googlepages.com/

The blog, to which you will find a link at the above URL, will remain active for some time.

It is often said that if you return from a conference with three new important impressions or ideas then the conference has been a success. These are mine:

1. Bernd Rüschoff, talking about wikis in his plenary presentation on Web 2.0, pointed out that an analysis of the answers given by the audience in the German TV version of “Who wants to be a millionaire” were predominantly right. He reflected that the criticism levelled at wikis such as Wikipedia may be unjustified, as collective knowledge is increasingly proving to be reliable.

2. The video that Gràinne Conole showed in her plenary presentation of the student living in a high-tech house and using a variety of digital devices as part of her everyday life left a lasting impression on me. Teachers need to be aware that the new generation of students feel completely at ease with new technologies.

3. Uschi Felix – who declared her intention to retire from academic life this year – warned us that students will not be impressed if they are confronted with “boring old technology” at school or university. On the other hand, they often react negatively to teachers who think they are being trendy by using Facebook and other social network sites that are popular with young people. Students often perceive such sites as “their” property, which they want to keep for themselves.

All in all, this was a great conference. All the sessions that I attended were good. The weather was kind to us, we observed a perfect sunset from the venue of the Gala Dinner, were entertained by the Altnaveigh House Band, the best Irish/Scottish band (with a fabulous dancer) that I have ever heard, and we danced ourselves to exhaustion at the Céilí, to the accompaniment of the highly-accomplished traditional music band, Craobh Rua (Red Branch).

Just a reminder that the main EUROCALL website, which contains information about previous and forthcoming conferences, can be found at:

http://www.eurocall-languages.org/