Storytelling 101

Storytelling 101

I actually published this by accident the first time. I meant to push it to my presentations blog (http://snupresentations.blogspot.com). I decided to leave it here, though. It speaks not just to those giving presentations, but also those of us who stand in front of classes every day. Teaching is more than pushing information to students. It is participating with them in the quest for knowledge and creating good stories together.

Nice presentation on making good presentations. Emphasizes the need for a good story behind the presentation.

Most academics seem to think that they just need to push the information out to the audience and that these types of presentations are for business or just "non-scientists". This is certainly far from the truth. You want people to remember your presentation and, in fact, remember you (conferences are more about networking than exchanging ideas). I'm sure that you remember good speakers much better than poor ones...which do you want to be?

Storytelling 101

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: sherlock rockstar)

Skypecasts as a mediator of authentic communication - ALAK 2007

Just got back from a wonderful conference. The Applied Linguistics Association of Korea (ALAK) put on a great show at Sookmyoung Women's University today.

Jungtae Kim and I participated in the CALL Fair. We put together a little presentation on the use of Skypecasting in language learning. If you have used Skype, you know that it is a great program, but have you used the Skypecast function? Most people haven't, but it has great potential for autonomous learners and even more formal classrooms. Take a look at the presentation and abstract below. Then follow the link to a quick video on setting up a Skypecast.

Of course, I have to be completely honest. Skypecasts were down today and even last night when I recorded the video. They have been down a lot lately. However, I'm sure that they will be back up and running, but even if they are not there are a few similar sites out there that can be used in a similar manner.

Here is our presentation.

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Here is our outline.


Here is a link to a video that we created on creating Skypecasts: Video

Please don't hesitate to contact me with any questions or suggestions

Dan

Using Web 2.0 Technologies to Deliver Individualized Instructional Resources to Language Learners

Korean Association for Multi-media Assisted Language Learning (KAMALL) 2007 Conference

Below is a copy of my presentation for Saturday, November 10 at Korea University in Seoul, Korea.

Here is the presentation.

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Here is a copy of the presentation slides with my notes (.pdf file via Scribd)


Here are the files associated with this presentation.


Don't know where Korea University is? Here's a map.

View Larger Map

Please, let me know if you have any questions. Leave a comment here and I'll be sure to get back to you.

Dan

Why & how to use online message boards

James Trotta
Jason Ham

Teaching English in Korea ESL Blog

Learn English grammar online (discussion forum)

Forum is open to the public

Started out by doing grammar tasks (go find this form used out in the Web) then moved to student-directed topics (whatever you are interested in) and then moved to prompting culture topics.

Polling is good to get students going on the topic. I think that this is a good method, good suggestion, that I hadn't thought about before.

They pay NES $.20 per post to reply to learners' postings. Great idea, though James did say that it was coming out of his pocket. I don't think anyone is going to make a living off of it, but it is a small motivation to participate.

Using Ning for language classes

Using Ning for Language Classes

Joshua Davies
Donaleen Jolson

Sunday 12:00-1:20

This was one of the highlights of the conference for me. Not because I didn't know about Ning before. I was planning on using it for classes, and potentially as a portal, long before this presentation. However, it was great to hear about someone using it and how they use it.

This post is linked to some general information and the presentation is embedded below.

final2

Using blogs to improve writing fluency

Terry Fellner

Matthew Apple

Maggie Lieb

Saga University

10:30-10:50 AM

Looked a writing fluency. Established fluency = word count + lexical frequency + comprehensibility

Focused on increasing writing fluency.

• Enlarge active vocabulary (from passive to active)
• Increased exposure to vocabulary
• use of blogs
• concordances
• Movie trailers
• Grammar games
• Diamond ranking (Fellner, 2005)

Used daily topics, in a 7-day course,that were emailed to the students. They were restricted to 20 minutes for a blog posting. They then commented on classmates' blogs.

They wrote more (though that is a little fuzzy). They did control of typing speed (great idea). They tested on first and last day.

KOTESOL 2007 - Forums 2.0: Getting the most out of online forums

Forums 2.0: Getting the most out of online forums

Thomas Pals
Michael Shawback
Mark Sheehan

Shizuoka University of Art and Culture

9:00-9:50 AM

They encourage students to post on forums anonymously, though teacher has admin function that allows for identification. They developed a module to do this.

They use Proboards, which is a free (self-hosted) system.

Most of what they talk about is the description of the systems and their methodologies for use. They have a very rich discussion board, with a lot of topics and good participation. However, they look like they have serial discussions, which aren't very good for critical thinking. More cognitive support is necessary to take learners to the next level of engagement.

They are also using the forums to connect cohorts over the years. Nice usage of the technology, in my opinion. I'm interested in doing the same thing with a social network like Ning.

Overall, it looks like a very good application and it seems to be modifiable.

Some links:

• Proboards
• Example
• Homepage

Presentation Movie

KOTESL 2007 Presentation » SlideShare

KOTESL 2007 Presentation » SlideShare

Here is a copy of my presentation on slideshare. You might have to manually advance it to get it started. I don't think the embedded video (in the presentation itself) will play.

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Overview of Web 2.0 Technologies Used in the CALL Course

Overview of Web 2.0 Technologies Used in the CALL Course

This video is a more in-depth look at some of the technologies introduced to the CALL class (though not all were actually used by them)

Web 2.0 Collage

Web 2.0 Collage

This is the collage of Web 2.0 sites that I show at the beginning of my presentation at KOTESOL.