Web 2.0: Liberating the learner Eric Baber Open University IATEFL BESIG Joint coordinator Any questions/comments? [email protected].

Web 2.0: Liberating the learner

Eric Baber

Open University

IATEFL BESIG Joint coordinator

www.ericbaber.com

Any questions/comments? [email protected]

• “Second generation of theWorld Wide Web”

• Term first popularised in 2004 by O'Reilly Media and MediaLive International when used as conference title

• Web 1.0: a medium. Web 2.0: a platform.

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Web 2.0

• Means of connecting people,allowing them to discover otherswith similar interests

• Community-building tools such as, Frappr, Facebook, Yahoogroups

• Leads to communities such as Webheads, ExtremeTechnoELT

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Social phenomenon

• Content creation no longer domainof individuals or organisations (e.g.lecturers, publishers)

• Collaborative content-creation and sharing is key: Wikipedia, Google docs, Flickr, del.icio.us

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Content revolution

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• One of many blog hosts

• Allows individual students andteachers to set up their own blogs (‘weblogs’)

• Can be used for disseminating information/ ideas, practising writing, reflective learning…

• Readers can comment on blog entries and other comments

E.g: Dekita Orchard, Mr. Paetkau, Anne Fox, Y.H.Chen, Leylop

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• One of many RSS readers(‘aggregators’)

• Allows a user to ‘subscribe’ (free) to a blog or other RSS-enabled website

• Informs you of updates to the blogs/ websites to which you’re subscribed

• Means you can save a LOT of time by not visiting sites with no new content

E.g: Bloglines, SharpReader, FeedDemonwww.ericbaber.com

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• Podcasts are audio files thatcan be downloaded via RSS

• Podcasts can be saved on computer, MP3 player, burned onto CD for later listening

• Good for listening practice, especially when accompanied by exercises

E.g. Listen to English, BusinessEnglishPod, Aiden Yeh’s Speech Class, PadPod

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Home

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Skype

• Enables synchronous onlinemeetings/ lessons

• Audio/video (video WindowsXP only), audio conference max. 5 people

• One-to-one/group text-chat

• With plugin Unyte desktop sharing & collaborating

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Webheads

• Community of language learnersand teachers interested in the useof communications technologies

• Free to join; very active e-mail discussion group

• Have held “convergences” for past two years – online conferences

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Liberating the learner

• Learners now have free and easyrecourse not only to English-languagecontent, but to other speakers ofEnglish (native and non-native)

• Host of communications mechanisms

• Can focus on a topic, with English being merely a tool

• Can focus on the process of learning English

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Any questions/comments? [email protected]

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