Actively Engaged Online: Digital Literacy

Showing posts with label Digital Literacy. Show all posts

Monday, August 15, 2016

The Blogging Cookbook for College ESL Teachers

Download your copy of The Blogging Cookbook for College ESL Teachers by Nicholas Walker and Helen Hefter.

Learn HTML while Blogging

The Blogging Cookbook for College ESL Teachers is intended to be self-explanatory. By following the directions, you will be able to create a web-log website (blog) that could prove useful and profitable to you. The examples are all relevant to ESL/EFL and will generate traffic, which will attract readers, advertisers and revenue to your blog. The principle goal of this cookbook, however, is to provide you with the confidence and momentum you’ll need to continue blogging and learning HTML, a basic web-programming language used extensively on the internet.

In this book, you will find the steps to follow to produce a 13-post blog of your own. The first three sections will simply introduce you to a free blogging platform called Blogger.com. Blogger is a Google property. It is free and easy to use. After a year of blogging, Blogger will offer to integrate AdSense advertisements into your blog, which will allow you to start making money from ads. (Remember that ads pay for content, so if you see an ad that interests you on someone else’s blog, click it. It will send the blog writer a small commission.) College students are usually chronically hard-up, so the fact that blogs can generate income is something worth mentioning to students. The next section is merely an illustration of the common HTML tags. The remaining sections will provide you with a number of adaptable mini-projects to include in your blog. Finally, the last section lists some resources that will help you learn more about HTML and blogging with students.

All of the mini-projects in this cookbook use HTML rather than the what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) compose-mode of Blogger. The reason for this choice is to provide you with HTML resources that you can use elsewhere, like Wordpress, Moodle, email, or any website that allows you to use HTML code. Also, I have found that simply by looking at HTML code you can learn a fair bit of HTML programming without having to take a course or rely on programmers. Basic HTML is pretty obvious: <b> means bold, <i> means italics, <strike> means strikethrough, <br> means break, etc. Take the time to look at the tags. You will get the hang of it very quickly.

Yours to Share and Adapt in Accordance with Sharealike 2.5

Remember that you are free to share the code, text, and images in this Blogging Cookbook for College ESL Teachers with your students and colleagues. You are also free to reuse and adapt any part of this document provided that you credit us, the original authors, Nicholas Walker and Helen Hefter. We also ask (but cannot insist) that you retain the links in the various mini-projects to our websites: VirtualWritingTutor.com, FieldRelated.com, BokomaruPublications.com, and Actively-Engaged-Online.blogspot.com. These links send a weak signal to Google and Bing to rank our websites a little higher in their search results. That helps us get our message out about our projects.

You can add your name as co-author to your adapted or expanded version of this document and even charge money for it, but you must retain the Sharealike 2.5 license on derivations. For example, you may want to add instructions for creating an account on Wordpress.com or Tumblr.com. Please do. Just add your name under our names on the first page. Remember that you can change the cookbook and pass it on, but you cannot prevent others from further adapting and expanding this document, too. Sound fair?

In any case, we hope you find The Blogging Cookbook for College ESL Teachers useful to you and your students.

Nicholas Walker and Helen Hefter
August 15, 2016

Friday, August 12, 2016

How to use your own web address for your blog

Instead of having a blog with a URL like Actively-Engaged-Online.Blogspot.com, imagine having your own domain name of your own invention with a .com or other extension. It is easy and affordable.

Change this: ~~yourblog.Blogspot.com~~

To this: www.YourWebsite.com

Step 1: Navigate to Hover

Hover is a domain registrar that can find and register domain names with a variety of extensions.

Step 2: Think of a Domain Name you would Like

Simply, type in a domain name you might like for yourself, and click search, like this. For example, I would like people to find my blog by typing in "www.ESL-excellence.com" so I typed in "ESL-excellence.com" and clicked the search icon.

Step 3: Register the Domain Name

I was lucky and the domain name I wanted was available. To buy it, all I have to do is click on the plus sign and pay.

Step 4: Link the Domain Name to Your Blog

After buying your domain name, the next step is to make it point to your Blogger blog. Navigate to your blogger account and click on your blog. Then, click on settings.

Step 5: Navigate to Settings

After buying your domain name, the next step is to make it point to your Blogger blog. Navigate to your blogger account and click on your blog. Then, click on settings.

Step 6: Enter Your New Domain Name

Now, simply enter your domain name into the field on Blogger, and click save.

Step 7: Enter Blogger's Details on Hover

Blogger will give you CNAME and other details associated with your blog. Copy the information exactly into the appropriate fields on Hover. Hover has people who can help you with this step if you get stuck. It's not as difficult as you might think. Once your info has been entered, your readers will be able to navigate to your blog using your www address.

Thursday, August 11, 2016

Free ESL Grammar Checker

The Virtual Writing Tutor is the best online grammar checker for ESL learners.Find out how you can add digital literacy training to your CEGEP ESL course with Bokomaru Publications.

MP3 Voice Recorder

Monday, May 2, 2016

Hypertext Narratives Arranged by Field of Study

French speaking students here in Quebec are required to take two English courses at junior college (CEGEP). The first is a general, competency-based course matched to their proficiency-level. We have four proficiency levels, which I call false-beginner, low-intermediate, high-intermediate, and advanced. The second English course at the same proficiency level is intended to build on the first course by having the students read, write, listen and speak with a link to their fields of study. To that end, I have been asking my low-intermediates to write listicles, glossaries, new-top summaries, and hypertext narratives. I also ask them to create a YouTube walkthrough of a field-related website and a walkthrough of their own hypertext narratives. The tasks and supporting readings and listenings can be found in Actively Engaged Online (Walker, 2015). If you are interested in using any of these tasks with your students, leave a comment and I will be happy to share some resources with you.

Hypertext Narratives for College ESL Digital Literacy

A hypertext narrative is a cross between a computer game and a story. The reader is invited to make choices that influence the outcome of the story. I provided learners with a template, and they filled in the blanks. Some decided to simplify the structure of the story and write longer passages. In every case, there should be a story and hyperlinks that lead to different outcomes.

Some of my colleagues view the learning needs of their students as being similar to their own first language learning needs 20 or more years ago. In my view, not only are the needs of second language learners strikingly different from their first language counterparts, but the need for digital literacy and lifelong learning strategies must be integrated into all four skills. If they don't learn digital literacy from us, who is going to teach them? Their 17th Century French Literature teachers? Their Philosophy teachers?

English is the language of the internet, and teaching students how to write and speak online will provide learners with a chance to continue developing their English skills beyond the confines of our courses. To that end, I ask students to create Blogger and Youtube accounts, and use the VirtualWritingTutor.com and FieldRelated.com to help them get feedback on their errors and vocabulary.

Examples of Hypertext Narratives Arranged by Field of Study

Here are a few examples of hypertext narratives written by students. I asked them to work cooperatively to share ideas and help each other integrate workplace and field related vocabulary into at least one branch of their stories. The links to the stories are organized below by field of study. I created 3D book covers to make navigating the various fields of study easier. Leave a comment, share, or like this blog post if the mood takes you.

Accounting and Management #1
Accounting and Management #2
Accounting and Management #3
Accounting and Management #4
Accounting and Management #5
Accounting and Management #6 (very weird and innovative!)
Accounting and Management #7

Geomatics

Criminology 1
Criminology 2

Business Management #1

International Relations

Literary Studies

Psychology (very simple but still a hypertext narrative)
Psychology (very simple but still a hypertext narrative)
Psychology (44 scenes)
Psychology (44 scenes)
Psychology (3 scenes)

Youth and Adult Correctional Intervention cover

Sunday, January 24, 2016

51 Listicles by Field of Study

Listicles for College-Level ESL

The word "listicle" is a combination of the words "list" and "article." You have seen them before. They pop up all over the internet with titles like "5 Best" or "10 Top Reasons" or even "100 Ways to..." Each listicle is a blogpost organized around a prioritized list and is essentially a series of paragraphs where the heading declares both the topic of the paragraph and its rank in a prioritized list. As such, listicles attempt to persuade the reader to do something or accept an opinion based on a list of justifications.

Below is a list of listicles arranged by field of study. These blog posts were written by my students at Ahuntsic College in the context of their 101 B-block course in September, 2015. The goal of the assignment was to provide a number of reasons to choose a particular field of study. As their first writing assignment, they represent each student's first foray into blog writing.

The Listicle Assignment

As part of an effort to promote digital literacy, I required a number of features that are common to listicle blog posts. I asked that they add an image related to their field with the appropriate attribution, so I recommended that they search Wikimedia Commons, a repository of share-with-attribution and public domain images. I also asked for headings, a minimum of 350+ words, and the elimination of all errors using an online ESL grammar checker. Though the grammar checker system did not catch all of their errors, my intention was to train them to use a revision strategy that would serve them in the future when they no longer had access to an ESL teacher to proofread their writing. Finally, to promote group cohesion and productivity, I gave a point for having received a comment on their blog post. To get the point, they had to find someone to read their articles.

The Listicle Evaluation

Evaluations were easy to do. Students did two anonymous peer evaluations of classmates' listicles after submitting a link to their own listicle using a Moodle plugin on Labodanglais.com. To ensure the reliability of the peer assessment, I used an illustrated checklist--the same checklist I used when I did my evaluation. I find that using binary assessment criteria ensures that the number of requests to explain scores and feedback is zero. See below for a screenshot of part of the checklist I used.

Reflection

Considering that so many of my students are not headed directly to university, the academic essay did not seem to be the best choice of writing assignment for this student population. The listicle, however, has qualities that can serve both academic and non-academic stream students. It is structured, persuasive, and requires paragraphing and revision strategies. In this way, it allowed the students to work toward the 101 b-block writing competency while exploring and reinforcing their own motivation for their choice of program.

More importantly, the task is authentic. This type of blog post is a common discourse model in the blogosphere. Learning to do it will help learners develop their own content marketing strategies that should serve them in business and further education. The conversational tone of the listicle supports speaking fluency, making it a worthwhile writing task for a course with the stated goal of "a degree of fluency" since overemphasizing formal registers has been found to reduce integrativeness in second language learners.

There are other reasons why students should write blogs in their Cegep ESL courses, but if you are already convinced, there is a textbook for blogging in Cegep 101B or 102B that you can try.

Accounting and Management Technology

By Chisholm, Hugh, ed.
(Encyclopædia Britannica 1911)
[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Business

Joe Mabel [GFDL
(http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)
or CC-BY-SA-3.0
(http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by-sa/3.0/)],
via Wikimedia Commons

Communication

Listicle

Dental Hygiene

Listicle

Diagnostic Imaging

By liz west from Boxborough, MA
(CAT scan Uploaded by Jacopo Werther)
[CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by/2.0)],
via Wikimedia Commons

Medical Records Management

Paralegal Technology

By Peregrine981
(Own work) [Public domain],
via Wikimedia Commons

Physical Education

Listicle

Police Technology

By SPBer (Own work)
[CC BY-SA 3.0
(http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by-sa/3.0)],
via Wikimedia Commons

Prehospital Emergency Care

By Mtlfiredude (Own work)
[CC BY-SA 3.0
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)],
via Wikimedia Commons

Listicle

Psychology

Radiation Oncology

Listicle

Social Science

Video Game Design

Listicle

Youth and Correctional Intervention

Listicle

Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Hypertext Narrative Walkthroughs by Program

Introduction

Hypertext narratives are fun to read. They invite the reader to make choices at key moments in the story that affect its direction and change the outcome for the protagonist. For the reader, this added interactivity gives the story a game-like feel that makes you want to read it again to see what would have happened if you had chosen a different path. For the author, the hypertext narrative unleashes new avenues of creativity and hypothesis-testing in the narrative mode. It situates thinking in the context of a life, and asks the all important question, "What if..?"

See this hypertext narrative template.

Hypertext Narratives for ESL

In language learning, the hypertext narrative holds a special promise. Not only does it afford interesting opportunities for learners to develop their digital literacy skills, skills that will prove more and more valuable as technology elbows its way into every field and profession. The hypertext narrative also situates meaningful language use. If language is best learned through the exchange of meaningful messages in a meaningful context--because situated, meaningful language practice facilitates the recall of target structures when those situations are encountered again in real life--the hypertext narrative provides an effective way for learners to visit a range of situations using their imaginations that would be difficult otherwise to simulate in the classroom.

Talking about these hypertext narrative projects by asking and answering questions helps the learners link what they have written with speaking, and it gives learners practice talking about their work, a skill worth developing in future job interview and academic contexts. Recording the talk as a YouTube video is has become a popular and authentic way of communicating with the world beyond the walls of the classroom these days. Indeed, video recording a message affords additional opportunities to reflect on aspects of one's own performance and try again in ways that face-to-face interaction does not provide nearly so well. Since the learner has a choice to turn the camera on herself or on the screen, self-conscious students can focus as much or as little as they wish on how they look to others.

For teachers concerned that learners should develop their moral and ethical thinking, what better way than to invite students to use their imaginations and visit the various consequences of a range of life choices and their alternatives to see how they might play out? Consider how a pedagogical essay asks the learner to take a position and defend it, or a debate explores the "for" and "against" of moral choice. A hypertext narrative goes further by inviting the author to consider the chain-reactions caused by choices and how so quickly we can be swept away by their consequences.

About these Hypertext Narrative Walkthroughs

Whatever their pedagogical value, my students enjoyed flexing their creative muscles by thinking up moral challenges for their protagonists. See for yourself. Here is a gang of new hypertext authors talking about their hypertext narratives. You will have to listen carefully for the URL if you want to visit their blogs and read their hypertext narratives for yourself.

I have arranged the various walkthroughs by program and field of study. You can search for a particular field-of-study using Ctrl + F on your keyboard, or you can scroll down alphabetically. The ones that deserve special attention are marked with an asterisk. Find them quickly by typing Ctrl + F and *.

Please, leave a comment at the bottom of this page to share your thoughts on this new form of college-level writing. I can attest that it worked for me. If you want to try it with your students, leave a comment or order an evaluation copy of Actively Engaged at Online from Bokomaru Publications.