ALAK 2008, Seoul National University

Today was a busy day.  I participated in a rather long CALL Fair and gave a paper presentation.  I think that the CALL Fair went well, but the paper....not so much :)  However, I'll post some of the materials here just in case you'd like to take a look.

CALL Fair

My CALL Fair presentation was titled, "Online social networks for specialized language learning environments."  It was mainly focused on using Ning to quickly and easily set up an online social network and demonstrating the functions built into Ning sites.  I also spent a little time (more with some than others) discussing other options.

Here is the proposal (.doc)

Here is the presentation that I put together, but didn't really use. 

Online Social Networks For Specialized Language Learning Communities

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: alak korea)

I chose, instead, to take them directly to sites to see for themselves.  I put together a quick and dirty site at ALAK 2008 Test Site that you are free to play with.  I'll leave it up for a least a little while.  I also showed them my class Ning site, which is closed to the public, LiveMocha (a language learning online social network), and Teach the People (Facebook application), as well as a few other sample sites (see notes sheet for collection of sites).

Paper Presentation

I don't think my paper presentation went nearly as well.  In "Changing Learning Theories," I really bit off more than I could chew for this one.  I have an ambitious goal of doing an overview of Behaviorism, Cognitivism, Constructivism, and Connectivism as well a potential applications of Connectivism to language learning teaching and learning.  Did I mention that I had 20 minutes to do this in?  I had to rush through too much and I didn't explain the newest theory on the block, Connectivism, well enough for the majority who had never heard of it.  I should have just cut out the other learning theories (assuming that the audience had some knowledge of them) and focused on Connectivism and language learning.  Oh well, take a look at the presentation for yourself.  I put quite a bit in the notes, so be sure to check those out.

Paper (.doc)

Learning Theories

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: learningtheory theory)

Feel free to chime in with any comments, suggestions, criticisms, or just to say hi.

That isn't really your friend: hijacking users in Facebook and how to protect yourself

This won't come as a surprise to many of you, but Facebook has become the land of opportunity for bad folks trying to load nasty things onto your computer. I have had 3 Facebook friends send me messages that were obviously either simply spam or hijacked sites with downloaders (scripts that load bad programs onto your computer) and I've seen Wall postings on scores of other friends sites that were obviously the same. Now, I have personally received Facebook mail, chat, and Wall messages in this vein.

Some news reports on the topic: 1, 2

I like to think of myself as rather tech savvy, but I nearly click on these links too. I would never do that in my email, but Facebook is a place where we are all friends, right? And I'm not even a teenybopper with 400 friends, most of whom I hardly know; I know all of my friends in Facebook well. This is why I feel almost obligated to click on a link that they send. This is something that those bad folks are counting on and we all have to retrain ourselves.

Below is an edited and slightly expanded copy of a message that I sent one of those friends who asked how she could protect herself. The advice below is certainly not extensive, but I believe that it does cover the basics. If you have anything to add, please do so in the comments.

What to look for:

(1) Messages with just a link and no description (which means that when you send links to other people you should include descriptions).

(2) Links to websites that are not major media/tech companies or something that you know is your friend's website. Websites like CNN, MSNBC, Youtube, Flickr, and so forth are ok. Sites like geocities, msnspaces, and other sites that host free websites are not a good sign.

(3) Messages that just sound spamish--"Whoa! You gotta check this out," "I can't believe what this chick did," and the last one I got was "Someone posted a video of you being bad." (I almost fell for that one).

(4) Bad spelling and grammar. Now, you may have bad spelling and grammar yourself, but if you don't think that your friend does, don't click on it.


How to protect yourself:

(1) Most of these direct you to a website that has a script that loads something bad on your computer. This almost always comes through your browser (likely Internet Explorer), though it could come in through a host of other programs like Acrobat, Flash, or any other software on your computer that has a vulnerability that is not patched. Therefore, make sure that all of your software is updated. Most new applications have a "check for updates" option under the "Help" menu. It is especially important to have Windows and MS Office fully updated. This is where most of the bad stuff gets in.

(2) Drop Internet Explorer. It's just not worth the trouble. Firefox is the best out there in my opinion. It's also one of the safest (though nothing is perfectly safe).

(3) Invest in a good antivirus suite and keep it up to date.

(4) Make sure your firewall is turned on. It likely is, but make sure. If you are running XP service pack 2 or higher, the default is to have the firewall on.


What to do if friends report that you are sending strange messages in Facebook (and you really aren't):

(1) Contact all of your friends and tell them not to click on any links that you send, at least for a while.

(2) Change your FB password and possibly your email password that is associated with the account (they could have used that to get access through the password reminder function).

(3) Contact FB and tell them what's going on.

(4) Check all of your computers (home, work, and other) to make sure they are updated (especially the antivirus program) and run a scan.

What if a friend sends me one of these messages?

(1) Let them know immediately. They can likely stop them by simply changing their password. A little more work might be necessary if their computer has been compromised, though.

Am I safe now?

Not really. It might be that none of this works. Websites like Facebook are notoriously easy to hack for someone with a bit of energy and an ounce of know-how. It's really a numbers game, because you are always hoping that it's someone else and not you :) In the end, you just have to be a little careful and follow some basic rules and you will be a lot less likely to be a victim.


------------- UPDATE 11/15/2008 --------------
I just happened to run across Facebook's help section that makes people aware they what you are experiencing is likely a known virus (on your machine, not theirs). See Facebook info here on the Koobface worm. They point you to a Kaspersky notice that has much more information.

The short of it is that when you follow links to a bad site, it prompts you to download the most recent Flash application, but it's really a nice little virus that attacks both Facebook and MySpace sites.

How does it know your password? It doesn't have to. You're likely logged in already, which gives it access to everything it needs. It pillages your contacts and sends out a bunch more posts to the nasty Web page to infect more people. Really, if it weren't so nasty, I'd have to say it is genius.

------------- END UPDATE --------------------

Facebook | Teach the People | Recently Changed Communities

Facebook | Teach the People | Recently Changed Communities

WOW! This has real potential. If you can get your students into Facebook (and access it from school), this could be a real challenger to Ning and other online social networking apps focused on learners.

Don't get me wrong, this is not an LMS. This is an online social networking service that works on top of Facebook and provides functions that teachers might find useful. However, with the increased availability of widgets and the ability to embed them in Teach the People provide for an environment that could be just about anything you want it to be.

I've only set up a site, I haven't tested it yet. We'll see if the performance lives up to my first impression.

Review of LiveMocha in the KAMALL Newsletter 2008

Review of LiveMocha in the KAMALL Newsletter 2008

The link above is for a review I did of LiveMocha. The space requirements limited what I had to say quite a bit, but I said what I needed to say.

Now that I think about it, I'm not sure why I was asked to write such a short one. It's a Web page! I'll have to talk to them about that. Not to mention, there are no links in the final version. Glad I included full URLs for each.

Enjoy.

Dan

Goodbye to Small Talk

Recently, I've been thinking about the effect of having so much of our private information online. It's not what you may think, though. I haven't been thinking about the use and misuse of my personal data (though that's an important area of concern as well), but rather I have been thinking that all of these publication outlets, particularly micro-publishing (primarily via social networking applications) are replacing small talk in our interactions.

You may be thinking that this isn't such a big loss. Who cares if I don't discuss the weather with everyone I run into today. However, it goes well beyond that. Between updating our profiles, photo and video sharing sites, and Twitter (or similar application), we are, in a sense, outsourcing our small talk to these spaces. These are the pieces of conversation that we get to know one another over. These serve an incredibly important purpose in our social interactions. What happens when the the normal path of disclosure and discovery is routed through a Web service?

I'm not really saying that this worries me, but it is certainly intriguing. Does this have the same result that database searches had for finding research? Will people forgo the getting to know you small talk for quick searches for people with qualities/interests that they are looking for? If so, what does that do to the diversity of our contacts? Is this the beginning of the era of group think?

Just some questions that I'm asking myself.

Dan

Young warned over social websites

Young warned over social websites

These articles drive me crazy sometimes. A really valuable message is couched in fear of online social networks.

These same problems exist in every electronic medium. There is a persistent record. We will very likely see old Facebook videos used as evidence against Presidential candidates 10 or 20 years down the road, but we are more likely to see something pulled out of the Internet Archive well before that happens, since that is where the evidence exists on the pre-Facebook/MySpace crowd.

To say that this is a problem with online social networks is just ignorant. This is a problem with ALL form of publication (the Web is just a big publication machine).

We need to educate learners (of all ages) on how present ourselves online. We teach our children how to say please and thank you. We teach our children not to talk to strangers. We even teach our students not to run around naked outside. How about teaching children to respect others in online interactions, not to give out identifying information to strangers, and no to post potentially embarrassing materials online!

This is obviously not common knowledge and the blocking of these sites just removes the possibility of addressing these issues in schools.

Dan

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

How To: Use Social-Networking Technology for Learning | Edutopia

How To: Use Social-Networking Technology for Learning | Edutopia

Nice article in edutopia about using social networking for learning. It's always good to hear some good suggestions rather than just, "Shut it down!" :)

Dan

Ning: A Social Network for Adults | Edutopia

Ning: A Social Network for Adults | Edutopia

I've been hearing a lot about Ning lately. I might even try to incorporate that into class, if possible, this semester. This is very similar to listservs in the topics covered, but the tools and groupings are more similar to other online social networks such as MySpace and Facebook.

I just recently joined. See MY PAGE. This is for the "Classroom 2.0" group that I joined.

Ning isn't just 1 social network. It is a platform for creating your own social networks build around your own interests. You could even do one for your classes that will keep students connected to the class beyond the boundaries of a single semester or school year.

Check it out and see how you like it.

Dan

The Social Bookmarking Faceoff

Social Bookmarking. I'm not too into it yet, but I'm getting there.

Social Bookmarking has two major components. (1) online bookmarking - the storing of you bookmarks online. (2) social sharing - your bookmarks are shared with others and the technology facilitates this sharing.

Here is a comparison of popular services from the Read/Write Web blog. It's nice to see that there are more options out there, but I've only heard about one of these.

The only one that I've used is del.icio.us (http://del.icio.us), which I've had mixed feelings about so far. I'm just getting to better understand how to use it best. (http://del.icio.us/danielcraig). The feature that I like the best is that it shows me how many other people have bookmarked the same site that I did.

Check these out for yourself in your spare time (if there's any).

MySpace in foreign languages due out this summer

MySpace in foreign languages due out this summer

Is this a good thing or not for you foreign language teachers (learners) here in the States?

It is a rich, yet highly criticized, social networking service. It can provide a great deal of access to the L2, but, at the same time the same concerns will likely follow it into these languages.