calico2009

Social Language Learning: RSS-based Personal Learning Environments Esperanza Román-Mendoza George Mason University eromanme @ gmu.edu http:// eroman.wordpress.com http:// www.slideshare.net/elearningxxi/calico2009 CALICO 2009 Arizona State University March 13, 2009

Contents

Concepts and definitions

Personal Learning Environments

Social Web

RSS / Content syndication

Integration in the FL curriculum

Present practices

Future practices

Personal Learning Environments

Concept and definition

Systems that help learners take control of and manage their own learning . This includes providing support for learners to: set their own learning goals; manage their learning, managing both content and process; communicate with others in the process of learning. (Van Hamerlen, 2006)

Beyond Learning Management Systems (LMSs)

E-portfolios

A collection of authentic and diverse evidence, drawn from a larger archive, that represents what a person or organization has learned over time, on which the person or organization has reflected, designed for presentation to one or more audiences for a particular rhetorical purpose. (EDUCAUSE NLII quoted in IMS, 2005)

Mashup Personal Learning Environments (MUPPLEs)

Social Web

Concept and definition

Multiplicity of terms: web 2.0, read-write web, social web, user-generated, live.

Variety of definitions:

See, for instance, Hinchcliffe, 2005 and MacManus, 2005 for repositories of definitions coined at that time : http:// web2 . socialcomputingmagazine.com / review_of_the_years_best_web _20_ explanations.htm and http:// www.readwriteweb.com /archives/ web _20_ definiti.php

Controversy about the concept and the terms.

Semantic web.

Development

Different degrees of integration/usage

Social Web state of mind

RSS / Content Syndication

Content syndication is the process by which a reader chooses to periodically receive content published by a given source by means of a subscription.

Markup language: XML

Two leading XML dialects ATOM & RSS

Rich Site Summary, Really Simple Syndication or RDF (Resource Description Framework) Site Summary

Content syndication has been around since 1997. RSS since 1999.

Documents enabled for syndication via XML are called feeds , news or news feeds

News aggregators: Google Reader, Bloglines

Start pages: MyYahoo, iGoogle

Social personalized start pages: Netvibes & Pageflakes

RSS Sources

Blog posts and comments

Wiki edits and discussions

Podcasts and videocasts

Microblogging updates

Lifestream entries

News and other regularly updated information.

Results of queries performed in repositories, search engines, directories, and databases

Tags created by users (for instance in Delicious, Amazon, Flickr, Gmail, YouTube)

Almost anything, by converting it previously with tools such as Page2rss or Feedity

Aggregators / SPSPs

Easy to manage

Share with friends

Comments

Favorites

Stable platforms

High learning curve

Tools to create personalized start pages and share them with the Internet community or with a group of people.

Not necessary to create a personal profile

Not necessary to provide information about followers and friends.

Collective editing

Widgets

Technical glitches

Aggregators Social personalized start pages

Google Reader subscriptions

Sharing option in Google Reader

Wikispaces-based writing course. Wikipedia team project.

Subscription to Wikispaces edits

Course pagecast template. Pageflakes

Sharing option in Pageflakes (group pagecast) Sharing option in Pageflakes (public pagecast)

Integration into the FL curriculum

RSS-based activities provide opportunities for best practices in e-language learning--as defined in Chinnery (2008):

productive, informative, collaborative, communicative, aggregative.

Students gain more control over their learning process.

“ Students teach their teachers to understand what they have accomplished using social web tools and how it relates to their learning goals.” (Wilson, 2006)

But are students really so familiar with social web tools?

How big is the digital gap between digital-savvy teachers and FL students?

Gradual, simple-step implementation is the way to approach this task. (Wilson, 2006)

Are our students ready to gain control over their learning process?

Technological Skills

Data gathered via

Survey on technological skills (Gizmo.com)

Journal entries

Class observations

Class discussions

Comments on course evaluations forms

Students do not question the use of technology in the classroom. For the most part, they accept the role of technology in the society and know they need to be up to date with technology.

But they have limited flexibility when technological problems occur.

Students are worried that their grades can be affected if they don’t have the necessary technological skills or infrastructure to perform the task.

When given the opportunity to choose, students are very conservative in terms of their preferred tools to present their work.

Institutional Support

Most institutions provide support for commercial LMSs and leave open the opportunity for instructors to use other non-institutionally supported social web services. –Do we want institutional support?

Not all classrooms are equipped with the necessary tools to let students work independently, though supervised, in their projects at their own pace. – Do we need to teach in smart classrooms?

Institutions are reluctant to set up requirements in terms of hardware, Internet access, and digital skills necessary to enter the university because it can affect enrollments.

Preliminary Survey Ages Internet Access Internet Access Frequency

Preliminary Survey What Internet services do you regularly use?

Preliminary Survey Blogs Wikis Social tagging

Preliminary Survey Social networks Podcasts Videocasts

Scenario I: Spanish Civilization & Culture

Challenges:

Too much content to cover

Students are still struggling with learning the language

Students have difficulties making connections with an unknown culture

Actions

Do not rely on data memorization

Provide opportunities to apply language skills to real communicative practices

Design activities in which learners learn from each other

Assign projects that produce useful, publishable deliverables.

Final project

Each student is in charge of studying a particular comunidad autónoma , is required to post a blog entry with the answers, can check other students’ projects (even the teacher has one) and provide feedback in a centralized, Pageflakes-based web site.

http://www.pageflakes.com/eroman/26088536

Scenario II: Spanish for Heritage Speakers Challenge Actions SPSP Activities Complete text and references: Rom án-Mendoza (2009)

Scenario II: Spanish for Heritage Speakers Challenge Actions SPSP Activities

Conclusions

RSS has great potential as “channelizer” of information, and significance for learning processes in which content syndication enhances accessing, filtering, and repackaging data of all sorts.

As the information produced and consumed by students and teachers in any learning environment is diverse in format, size, nature, and periodicity, to mention only a few variables, so are the possible educational applications of RSS in collaborative or individual assignments and projects, peer assessment, learning portfolios, service learning, and professional development, among many other uses.

In a world in which the volume of data exceeds the capacity of users to sort and receive it , learners and teachers alike will benefit from a sound use of RSS.

Conclusions

The modular nature of Pageflakes provides a level of customization that helps address the needs of a diverse student population. By introducing flakes like Notepads or Chat Rooms Widgets, teachers and students can produce and receive feedback immediately and contextualized. Sharing of resources becomes also easier, and the use and development of multiliteracy skills is also encouraged.

By asking students to access diverse feed-generating sources, organize and select information, FL students will be exposed to FL and communicate with native speakers in ways probably never explored by them before.

Although there are increasingly more social web services that rely on oral communication, the current web is still text-based. Communication via blogs, wikis and chats requires the written language, and by asking FL students to be producers of information, we are encouraging them to use FL in new environments, with which they are already familiar in English.

Students projects and portfolios will enhance not only students’ knowledge about the subject matter but also that of the teacher’s. Students and teachers (and hopefully the community) will form a learning community from which all participants will benefit.

References, Sources and Bibliography

Barrett, H. (Last update: March 4, 2009). Electronicportfolios.org. http://electronicportfolios.org/

Chinnery, G. M. (2008). Biting the hand that feeds me: The case for e-language learning and teaching. CALICO Journal, 25 , 471-482. Retrieved December 26, 2008, from https://calico.org/page.php?id=5 EDUCAUSE Learning Iniciative. (Last update: Fall 2006). E-Portfolios. http://www.educause.edu/ELI/5524

IMS (2005). IMS ePortfolio Best Practice and Implementation Guide. http://www.imsglobal.org/ep/epv1p0/imsep_bestv1p0.html

Román, E. (2008). Manual del Módulo “Tendencias Actuales del e-learning 2.0. Madrid: UNED. http:// www.ciberuniversidad.com/elearning /

Rom án-Mendoza, E. (2009). “RSS and Social Personalized Start Pages: Optimizing E-language Learning through Content Syndication, in Anderson, L & Lord, G . The Next Generation: Social Networking and Online Collaboration in Foreign Language. CALICO Monograph Series.