SWALLT Online Conference Friday Sept. 12 Noon-1(PST)

Did you miss last month's WorldCALL conference in Fukuoka, Japan and want to catch up on all the current trends in language learning and technology? Interested in how other campuses are approaching streamed media and course integration? Just want to check in with your colleagues after the long summer and hear what we're all up to?

Please join SWALLT panel of experts Harold Hendricks, BYU, and Mark Kaiser, Berkeley Language Center, online Friday, September 12, 2008, from from Noon-1 PM PST (1 - 2 PM MDT) (8 - 9 AM Hawaii)and learn more about how SWALLT Online Conferences will develop this fall. Felix Kronenberg, Pomona College, and Gus Leonard, CSUMB, will be your hosts and introduce this new series of meetings for Fall 2008.

Please connect to http://connect.csumb.edu/swalltsept08/
Be sure to run the Audio Setup Wizard from the Menu Meeting | Manage My Settings after you've connected.
You'll want to have a microphone on your computer and a headset to minimize audio feedback during the open mic portion of the meeting.
The meeting will be recorded and available as a video afterward if you're unable to join us live.
The 'back chat' portion of the presentations depend on you and your lively interactions--so be prepared to use the text chat feature as our panelists share!

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If you have never attended a Connect Pro meeting before:

• Test your connection: http://connect.csumb.edu/common/help/en/support/meeting_test.htm
• Get a quick overview: http://www.adobe.com/go/connectpro_overview

Live UStream coverage of the digital narratives workshop

Link will be posted soon to the archived session.

"Managing the Three Phases of a Production-Based Collaborative Movie Project (SWALLT 2008 live blogging)

Very interesting and useful in that it has a focus on the process and organization of multimedia production projects. Useful: having a good plan and steps to follow. Important: presentation and evaluation of projects often overlooked but very important; how can students take ownership and be proud of their work otherwise?

Presented examples are great, nice, clean, yet simple editing. Fairytales are the content, as always a wonderful topic in language teaching and learning.

I also like that David does not have a powerpoint with bullet points (they are on the handout where they belong!) but instead media examples. 

Content production enables learners to practice language in a meaningful, dynamic way. They take ownership, and today's technologies are making it easier than ever. They also reflect many learners' realities and are a useful secondary skill in the 21st century. But production itself has to be in the target language.

Perhaps some of you might want to comment on the use of English subtitles. I know they are popular with students, but are they useful? I try to always stay in the target language.

Second Life with James and Kathy

What is SL? Start with Ohio State produced video
Social Environment used for learning!
links to http://karlkapp.blogspot.com/
also SLED for education
sound and visuals are 3D--distance is important!
Social network is possible; conference calling is possible for 4 Ss.
text chatting possible.
18 minimum age.
Ragnar Holliday may be my new name...
SLOODLE and other LMS tools are a possibility http://sloodle.org/

Group called 'teaching spanish in SL'

Harassment and abuse discussed. Reminder that teleport will allow you to get away.

AIML artificial intelligence is available. But Macs handle accented characters better (in scripts--no problems in chat rooms, etc.).
--ideas: scripted dialog students can interact with: store clerk, etc.

Maali Beck is our host

Now we're going in and the blog will suffer... See you at Isabella's!

BS keynote Part 2

After the video break:
Student use of technology: they use technologies that form a normative means for communicating, collaborating, and playing with peers. Create informal learning spaces.
Do we need to be there with them? Should SPanish 101 be in Facebook, just because my students are there? What tools and communicative strategies are used there? Can we ask our students what they want?
Video from michael wesch @ kansas state on conflict between what students are doing and what we're asking of them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o
Bell Hooks quote on letting go of old ideas. Fear is good with doubt and questioning, but not when it paralyzes.
Teaching is one of the last professions where we can close the door! How can we start to open the door?
Blogs wiki's etc.
Oops. Gus will facilitate questions--got to go

Sawhill Keynote notes from Gus:

Barbara Sawhill, Oberlin College
"From Knowledge Management to Knowledge Sharing: Language Learning Technologies In A Brave New World"
Plan for presentation is to move from teacher-centric to student-centric. move to conversation and hold dialog for 15 minutes.
No 1-flavor to resolving this tension of supporting and integrating technology into the language classroom. Many ways this professional role is described--see iallt.org statement of professional responsibilities http://iallt.org/iallt_documents/IALLTProfessional.pdf to continue the exploration of the roles we play.
How are we seen from the outside? Silos? See AACU report on the mystery of what is not known about what we do. Better known from the outside than on our own campus.
Why do this work? See CNN video clip.
How to change what we teach: See Swaffar " Remapping the Foreign Language Curriculum. http://apps.facebook.com/facebookshelf/books/1252359/janet-swaffar/remapping-the-foreign-language-curriculum-an-approach-through-multiple-literacies-teaching-languages-literatures-and-cultures
Are we creating mini-me's? creating more PhDs and creating more silos? Or are we contributing to the wholeism of human studies?
BS: Embracing the system about to break is a system ready for change!
"Teaching languages is not dialogic, it's polylogic."
Who is in charge in this environment? BS shows slide with multiple connections and paths from student to student and even to teacher...
Where does control come in? How do we separate student needs and wants from passions and goals? How to take the course in a direction that meets them both.
Teaching is not like playing baseball... it's more like playing frisbee! Keep the frisbee aloft, passing it from one to another--participating and flowing, not starting and stopping, counting runs and errors.
Step 2: find technology to emphasize social nature of learning. Noisy, collaborative, chaotic, etc.
So are ed-tech systems a contradiction in terms? They help maintain control, form barriers to collaboration, manage learning, and allow people to organize...
Technology is a medium, not a means.
Good technology never fixes bad teaching, but actually exacerbates it. Technology is not = pedagogy.
Fear 2.0 video. (Bryn Mawr production) http://geekymom.blogspot.com/2008/01/fear-20-video.html
End of Part 1.

10th Annual Digital Stream conference underway

Look for blog updates over the next few days, and follow the conference via twitter (http://twitter.com/digitalstream/with_friends and http://twemes.com/ds2008).

Fall 2008 Meeting Location Sought

SWALLT is seeking offers to host the Fall 2008 Conference and Meeting among our member campuses and schools. We have finally completed a 'sweep' of our major locations--AZ, NV, UT, HI, NoCAL and SoCAL in the last 5 years. Will your location be next? Contact gus_leonard at csumb.edu if you'd like to host the conference yourself or co-locate us with another ongoing language-related event we have a rich history of that with AZLA, DigitalStream, FLEAT, Hawai‘i TESOL and CALICO/IALLT)!

Upcoming SWALLT Meetings

For the past 5 years, SWALLT has held its Spring meeting in conjunction with the DigitalStream Conference on the CSU Monterey Bay campus. Members have provided presentations and workshops. The tradition of sessions will continue this year, however this will not be our official meeting.
Instead, SWALLT will co-locate with the upcoming CALICO/IALLT conference in San Francisco, March 20-22. We will hold our business meeting Friday evening, from XXpm. See CALICO/IALLT program for details.
Agenda to be updated soon.