Developers' Showcase 2008

1	Daniela Munca, University of Mississippi	Blogs in the ESL Classroom “While working as an ESL Instructor in the ESL Program at The University of Mississippi, I created a class blog to communicate with my students, upload and share their projects online, post relevant links to other Web 2.0 tools and just encourage them to write creatively and share their ideas, essays and presentations with the rest of the world. I have designed a blog which is used as an online working space for my students, creating a link between my classroom and the world outside, giving my students access to authentic materials and creating a motivating environment for studying English. Our class blog is also an electronic portfolio, containing links to my students' essays, PowerPoint presentations, pictures and videos they uploaded using other Web 2.0 applications, like Teachertube, Slideshare and Flickr. Finally, we have been using our class blog as a cognitive tool to improve all the 'four skills' in English: listening (using podcasting), speaking (using Teachertube), reading (using Slideshare) and especially writing (online dictionaries, puzzle-makers, PowerPoint games). Even though my presentation is focused on working with pre-university Intermediate students, I will demonstrate how blogs can be used in any ESL class to teach any level, from beginning to advanced.”
2	William Zimmerman, College of Mount St. Vincents Institute for Immigrant Concerns, New York, NY	How to Create Online Educational Comics to Teach Writing, Storytelling “Participants will learn how to create their own comic strips using a new web site -- http:// www.makebeliefscomix.com . Adults and children learning English can create their own comic strips by selecting from fun characters with different moods and emotions -- happy, sad, angry, and write words for blank talk and thought balloons to make their characters talk and think. The web site provides story ideas and prompts to help users create graphic stories. MakeBeliefsComix.com can be used by tutors and educators to teach language, reading and writing skills, and also for students in English-as-a-Second-Language programs to facilitate self-expression and storytelling. The process of creating comics and then printing them out as a permanent record provide an excellent way to reinforce student learning. Some educational therapists also use the online comics site with deaf and autistic children, as well as trauma victims, to help them understand concepts and communicate. Parents and children in literacy programs can create stories together, print them to create comic books or email them to friends and family. The free, non-advertising site is now used by ESOL educators in 150 countries.”
3	Francie Christopher, Northwest Missouri State University	Lesson Plan Addendum: Strategies for English Language Learners “This internet-based program was designed to help regular education teachers understand and implement strategies, accommodations and modifications that will help their English language learners understand content. A research study concluded that mainstream teachers did, in fact, increase the number of strategies, accommodations and modifications in their content area classes when presented with this lesson plan addendum and resources linked to the Internet. The program was developed as part of a doctoral dissertation and supported by a U.S. Department of Education Title III Professional Development Grant.”
4	Larissa Olesova, Purdue University	Integration of Wiki and WebQuest into EFL Online Collaboration “The presentation will demonstrate the ways of how Wiki and WebQuest can be integrated into EFL online course for online collaboration. The online course "Reading/Writing in Business English" has been developed for two classes in two different cities in Northern and Eastern Siberia when they collaborated between each other in virtual teams and with the peers in the USA (NOVA, Virginia). The model of collaboration consists of several elements: online distant instruction from the USA, two in-class instruction in two different classrooms in Siberia, and online collaboration with students who were in the hybrid class at NOVA. Four teachers and 54 students collaborated online through Wiki and WebQuest. The online course has been developed through WebCT by using Discussion Board for weekly discussions between eight virtual teams in two different places who then sent their comparative-contrast essays as a team to their peers in the USA. Different types of online instruction have been developed for effectiveness of online team collaboration, teachers' collaboration, and students' collaboration. The presentation is for higher education and university instructions, EFL Writing, Business English.”
5	Andy Bowman, Intensive English Language Center, Wichita State University	MediaWorksheets "MediaWorksheets is computer program that allows teachers to combine audio and scripts into traditional cloze, dictation, or other interactive exercises. Its principal strength is flexibility and ease of use. It is appropriate for any level and most types of content will function with it. Students quickly learn how to use the application and work at their own pace. To create exercises, the teacher downloads or creates MP3, WMV, etc. and then manipulates edits the texts to the degree of difficulty required. For example, the worksheets may be configured to checks each keystroke, providing instant feedback. The activity is helpful not only for students needing listening practice, but those who have difficulty with writing. The same content or stories can be adjusted for multiple skill levels. Furthermore, lessons or exercises can be edited and grouped into themes or topics, according to whatever the students are studying. Creating the activities requires little computer experience, other than knowledge of MS Word and some basic file management. The presenter will review the use of MediaWorksheets and demonstrate how teachers can create their own exercises."
6	James Hunter, Gonzaga University	Student data tracking - database design issues “The presenter will discuss the need for systematic data tracking in ESL programs, especially those hoping for CEA accreditation, and outline the circumstances that led to the in-house creation of a student management database system. He will demonstrate the student tracking system and discuss the design and technical issues that could not be addressed by commercially available software options. He will show the sorts of descriptive and inferential statistical information that can be obtained from such a system, and discuss the implications for institutional research as well as day-to-day program functioning, leading to a more principled and data-driven decision-making potential.”
7	Vera Menezes, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil	Reading skills on the net “Ingrede is a one semester non-commercial English course on reading skills for Brazilian university students. Its name comes from Inglês (English in Portuguese) and Rede (Net in Portuguese). This course, sponsored by the Brazilian Minister of Education, was developed by a network of researchers from several Brazilian Federal Universities, under my coordination. The material is appropriate for false beginners and for students interested in improving their reading skills. All the instructions are in Portuguese and the students can access the course website or work with a CD-ROM whose content can also be copied to the hard disk. The units were developed according to the cognitive reading model, exploring the connections between bottom-up and top-down processes. The first unit aims at making the students aware of the reading process. The others focus on textual cohesion, non-verbal information, discourse markers, and reading strategies such as skimming, scanning, guessing and inference. Automatic feedback is a strong aspect of the material because it enables students to work autonomously. The weak aspect is the impossibility to anticipate the students’ doubts, so the group is now organizing a section on frequently asked questions.”
8	*CANCELLED* Pirruccello, Nuccia Silvana and Gianluca Tramontana, www.funteaching.com	ScribaLAB 2.0 (CANCELLED) “We designed ScribaLAB two years ago. Now it seems as if it is a twenty-year old project. ScribaLAB 1.0 is gradually becoming 2.0, with the integration of Web 2.0 Tools. You can find challenging and interesting topics, such as the interactive history of writing, or some writing games with suggestions for cooperative group activities in the platform or stimulus stories for teachers, teacher trainers and thinkers. Once you get into the Lab room, Mr Scrib, with his video-tutorials, will introduce you to your tools to gently let you write your contribution on topics of your choice. Topics range from children pre-writing experiences to creative or professional writing for students and adults, to web writing."