Writingmatrix2008march

Slide 1: Writingmatrix: Engaging collaborative writing through social networking Presented March 4, 2008 at theTESOL Arabia 2008 Conference Dubai Men's College, Dubai, United Arab Emirates By Vance Stevens Lecturer of Computing, Petroleum Institute, Abu Dhabi, http://adVancEducation.blogspot.com / vstevens@pi.ac.ae

Slide 2: How you can find this presentation  VanceStevens.com is down right now but you can Google “Vance Stevens”  I’ll post the slideshare and handout links at http://writingmatrix.wikispaces.com  Or you can Google Writingmatrix Vance Stevens TESOL Arabia Dubai 2008 2

Slide 3: Becoming Multiliterate Requires changing  Attitudes  Practices in education  How we join the “conversation” (some examples)  Twitter http://twitter.com or Pownce http://pownce.com  Worldbridges http://www.worldbridges.net/  Webheads http://webheads.info My course on multiliteracies:  http://www.homestead.com/prosites-vstevens/files/efi/papers/tesol/ppot/portal20 Vance Stevens TESOL Arabia Dubai 2008 3

Slide 4: Ten aspects of paradigm shift 1. Pedagogy: 1. Heuristics: Didactic --> constructivist Client server -->peer to peer 2. Modeling: 2. Transfer: Do as I say --> AND as I do Informal technology is F.U.N. --> 3. Sharing: Copyrighted --> applied to professional practice creative commons 3. Directionality: 4. Trepidation: Push --> pull Will they find out? --> ok to say I don’t know 4. Ownership: Proprietary --> open source 5. Literacy: Print literacy --> multiliteracies 5. Classification: Taxonomies --> folksonomies Here, I first suggested multiple aspects of paradigm shift required http://www.homestead.com/prosites-vstevens/files/efi/papers/2007alexandria/web20arabia.htm Vance Stevens TESOL Arabia Dubai 2008 4

Slide 5: Classification: Taxonomies  Folksonomies Vance Stevens TESOL Arabia Dubai 2008 5

Slide 6: Content management vs. overload Keys to collaboration and control of information resources online  Syndication - understanding of RSS  Aggregation - add to above, understanding of tagging  Mashup - Putting it together in reusable learning objects This presentation  Explains these concepts in terms accessible to educators  Describes how the concepts were applied in Writingmatrix: a worldwide collaboration project Vance Stevens TESOL Arabia Dubai 2008 6

Slide 7: Syndication --> Aggregation --> Mashup RSS feeds generated by  blogs  listservs  podcasts  online journals  online newsfeeds  Technorati searches Vance Stevens TESOL Arabia Dubai 2008 7

Slide 8: Syndication --> Aggregation --> Mashup and any of these can be subscribed to in  Bloglines or  Google Reader  Pageflakes Vance Stevens TESOL Arabia Dubai 2008 8

Slide 9: Syndication --> Aggregation --> Mashup  Moodle blocks  Embedded videos in blogs http://advanceducation.blogspot.com/2007/10/vances-first-  Pageflakes http://www.pageflakes.com/vancestevens/13498617  Netvibes http://www.netvibes.com/webdesk Vance Stevens TESOL Arabia Dubai 2008 9

Slide 10: Writingmatrix: Introduction Initially involved bloggers in  Argentina  Venezuela  Slovenia Who utilized  tagging  social networking tools http://writingmatrix.wikispaces.com to enable the students to  locate each other's blogs  interact with selected individuals thus identified as being of similar age and interests. Vance Stevens TESOL Arabia Dubai 2008 10

Slide 11: Writingmatrix: Technique To achieve this, Students are  encouraged to blog their interests and concerns  tag relevant posts with an identifier unique to the project  Technorati then used to identify the posts of participants in other countries http://technorati.com/search/writingmatrix?authority=n&language=en http://screencast.com/t/M33ixayEN2J Vance Stevens TESOL Arabia Dubai 2008 11

Slide 12: Writingmatrix: Outcomes Students are motivated to form writing partnerships  Spontaneously without prior collaboration  in projects set by teachers collaborating in the project A final aspect of the project is to have students  explore areas of mutual interest through tagging some of their and each other's posts in Del.icio.us,  then discern who else is reading and tagging their posts Vance Stevens TESOL Arabia Dubai 2008 12

Slide 13: It works! Ronaldo’s comment on http://advanceducation.blogspot.com/2008/02/all-i-know-about-blogging-and.html Vance Stevens TESOL Arabia Dubai 2008 13