Weekly Activities  

Week Two

Jan. 21 – Jan. 27

Blogs & Tags for collaborative learning and information sharing for ESP / EAP

Co-Moderators: Buthaina Al Othman, Christine Parkhurst, and Debra Lee

• IntroductionI to blogs – types of blogs and some ways to use them for ESP

• Watch the video, Blogs in Plain English, by Common Craft at: http://dotsub.com/films/blogsinplainenglish/
• See this week readings at Resources page

• This week use the blog site for comments instead of email through yahoo groups. Join us in blogging.

  Web 2.0 for ESP Blog - To learn how to comment, click here for detailed instructions. To learn how to create your own blog, click here and scroll down past the commenting instructions for detailed instructions on how to create your own Blogger blog.

   

  Activity 1 - Please do the following tasks

   

  •  Start your own ESP blog in 3 simple steps, using Blogger.com. Watch Blogger's tutorial through the video, by Chris Abraham
  • Post your comments, questions, or feedback to this session blog at http://evo08web2foresp.blogspot.com/ 

• Introduction to Tags / labels / keywords - this session tag is: web2foresp08 (Please add this tag or keyword web2foresp08 to your blog entries) 

• Technorati, the Internet search engine for searching blog posts by tags

        Activity 2 - Please do the following Tasks

• Go to Technorati.com and look for the search box there, ( usually on the right top corner of Technorati site)
• Enter the Tag or Lable, web2foresp08 in the search box, and then see what results you get.
• Try to enter other key words relevant to your ESP area, and then see what resukts you get.
• Finally, go to http//evo08web2foresp.blogspot.com to post your comment or feedback on this learning experience with ideas or ways you may integrate this technology in your ESP classes.

This week Guest Speaker is Vance Stevens - Vance's blog is at http://advanceducation.blogspot.com/

For more detailed information on this event, please go to Guest Speakers page.

Please see required and recommended readings for Week 2 at Resources page

Recommended Reading:

Institutionalizing Web 2.0 for Learning in the Arab Region, by by Vance Stevens. In this paper, Vance elaborated on the advantages of using some Web 2.0 tools, like blogs, Tags, and Technorati, and ways to utilize them in formal education for sustainable Development.

More of Vance's published papers and presentations can be found at http://www.geocities.com/vance_stevens/papers/index.html