2008年12月31日 星期三

http://llt.msu.edu/vol6num3/brandl/default.html

In Klaus Brandl’s article, he mentioned that the popularity of using Internet in recent decade. Internet is not just for student to idling around, but is a good resource for both teachers and students to learn well and conveniently. As the promotion of Internet, the WWW world is just like a treasury of knowledge. The class could even be held on the Internet in any kinds of way. Like in Second Life, it’s also a miracle of the development of Internet. The students could be the players and had the meeting with teacher online. The Internet now could provide many techniques for learners to learn online, including voice and text, even the visual aspect.

Due to the development of Internet, that enables teachers to have alternatives on their lectures. The author divided the ways into three parts. It is a approach from teacher to student-centered process. First is “teacher-determined lesson”. Namely, the teacher would select the materials for students to learn and lecture by the teacher himself/herself. The students just accept what teachers teach them. In my opinion, most students would be passive if they get used to accept new knowledge.

The second process is “teacher facilitated lesson”. That is the teachers assign a certain topics and select some of the materials for students to read and listen.
In this way, students would try to realize the texts themselves that would enforce them to think instead of just accepting by others. That would increase the interactions between the teachers and the students for they both got some ideas to share with each other.

The third approach is “students-determined lesson”. For instance, the final project of online English learning is kind of this approach. The students decided their own topics of the project. And collect the materials according to their themes. The teacher now just provides the guidance for the searching of materials on the Internet. This would give students much more freedom to choose what they are really interested in.

Before the promotion of internet, the way tends to be “teacher-determined lesson” because of the laggard access of information. The approach is just like the process of Internet development.

Online text-based facility

http://llt.msu.edu/vol7num2/kotter/default.html

When playing a role in Second Life, I met a lot of people from the countries around the world. The common language we use to communicate is English. Some are native speakers of English but some are not. When we were in the conversation, I found that I tended to use those sentences “Do you mean…?” or “What do you mean by…?” These are kinds of negotiate of meaning. When there was something I don’t understand I would keep asking until I figure it out.
English is not the language we use in our daily life, thus it would generate some misunderstands during the conversations, both for native and non-native speakers. Text chat through the Internet is a good way for learner to improve the language and do the peer interaction when chatting with another. In these situations, the learners would work hard to figure out the real meanings so that he/she could avoid the misunderstandings due to the use of language.

However, a thing always gets two sides. When the learners are chatting online in the text chat room, the number of speakers is a big problem. People could not afford to talk to too many speakers at the same time. Indeed the effects would decrease when the numbers are over than someone could bear. According to the research, two to five is the average.

Despites text chat room, E-mail message is one of the text-based facilities. It is convenient to make the content more complete and the system would take the record for the learners. However there comes a big problem that I always get is that people would not make sure whether the receiver would get the mail or not.

Online text-based facilities now become a new good way for language learners to get resources online, because they would contact with many other learners, so that they would start to think what the correct answers is. Finding out the mistakes is find of learning itself.

Voice chat generate more repair moves

Jespon, K. (2005). Conservations--and negotiated interaction--in text and voice chat rooms. http://llt.msu.edu/vol9num3/jepson/

When we discover there is something wrong when chatting with other people, what would people mostly do? In Kevin Jepson’s experiment, the members were divided to take two kinds of chat room: text chat and voice chat. And the results found that voice chat would generate more repair moves.
Both text chat room and voice chat room are the online tools that enable people to chat with strangers. In other words, the participants would not know the background of those people in the chat room. Here is the question that because of the reasons that the participants are not familiar to each other, the participants would reconstruct the inner code between their conversations. It is quite different when we talk to someone that is totally a stranger to us than talking to a friend. The conversations between friends would not generate more repair moves than the conversations between strangers. There may be some mistakes but we could still understand the meanings the speakers want to convey because the interlocutors and the speakers got the consensus of the code in a certain degree. But as to the strangers, the speakers would spend more time to confirm the meanings.
In voice chat, the speakers would hear the sounds of each other, which would increase the number of repair moves. The voice chat would not take the record during the process, unlike the text chat, the words would show on the screen and the speakers could go back to check the sentences again. And there may be some problems of pronunciation.
The key point is that the speakers are faceless so that people would not dare to make sure what the exactly meaning is. And due to the aspect of technique, the equipment would play a key role that affect the result of repair moves.

2008年12月10日 星期三

SL

As a newbie in Second Life, at first I just went to the places that the teacher told in the class. But actually that is not enough for me to satisfy my curiosity. When I was fooling around in the beautiful campus of Princeton University, a message was sent to me. It was cherry’s invitation for me to teleport to her place. That is indeed a wonderful function in Second Life, whenever you got lost from your friends, you would be saved by this function.
Cherry just called me and wanted to say hello, she suggested me that going to Freebie Beach where I can get more free clothes there. She told me that in SL, the outlook is very important. See, that’s a new me!







I met a man in sexy land, he just opening a club, he asked me if i would like to work for him or not. The job is dancers and escorts. But I think he can’t speak English very well. But I did not give any repair moves because he looked a little bit strange. So I chose to teleport to other place. If he looked good, maybe I would reconsider. Here I agree one thing :It’s true that appearance is important for a people in SL.






Domagoj Hofmann: are you looking for a job ?
wienie Sweetwater: no actually
wienie Sweetwater: just being here to take a look
Domagoj Hofmann: Iam openning a club today
Domagoj Hofmann: I need dancers and escorts
wienie Sweetwater: but i'm not a good dancer
Domagoj Hofmann: I have poles for that
wienie Sweetwater: actually i'm a newbie in SL
wienie Sweetwater: gotta go, bye

In Second Life, the problems I might meet so far is that the speed of typing English is quite slow that I could not follow the speakers of local chat. And some the text chat would just used simply a word or several words to stand for a long word or for special meanings. I think I should get used to it and learn how to used this simple words so that I would improve in typing. In SL, we almost are in the environment of text chat. In general situation, the number of repair moves in text chat is far less than in voice chat. But I think in SL, because of the reason that we are not familiar with the people who talked to us, so that we would use many repair moves to make sure what do they mean it by talking this way.

In Second Life, I can choose to be myself or to be a totally different one because nobody would know which is the real characteristic. There are no social constraints in SL. People there could somehow throw away those so called “morality”. You can be any kind of person you want. That’s what we cannot do in the reality.

2008年12月9日 星期二

Fooling around

The time I used to log in SL is always at the mid night; actually there are not many people here. Tonight I just came and fooling around. I key in the words “island” and search. That popped an interesting place called “sexy island”.
I teleported to that place and took a look on the basis of curiosity; In Sexy Island, people can danced there and buy a lot of outfits there. But the outfits are associated with sexual desire because they are too sexy!
People there are good at dancing. It was amazing that they could move, dance and do the actions just like the real person.




The Online Meeting

After the first look in Second Life, our group had to meet the TA of Online English in Second Life. There are four girls in my group, Amanda, Cherry, Iris and me. Thanks that we had to discuss our final project before the meeting, we decided to meet each other at Princeton University. That is a beautiful, I wonder whether the real Princeton is such beautiful or not.


Because we were all newbies in SL, so we looked just like the original model that we selected at the first, and I even lost my outfits. So when we met each other, we were all busy in changing our out looks.


The meeting with TA was so cool that real people can sat together, discussing and chatting without going out but just control a virtual character and can do a lot of things. During the meeting, Iris could not figure out how to sit, she tried many times and even sat on my body!

TA: Iris, Don’t be brutal to your classmate! Are you ok, Wienie?
Wienie: haha, quite hurt


Actually, I did not feel anything at that time cause the virtual would not tell me that she was hurt! This was my first experience of taking class on line. Though the use text chat in English is not so proficiency as the use of voice chat, it’s still a gorgeous meeting! And it’s quite strange that while we were having our chat, Derek was sleeping right on the rostrum…

After the meeting, Amanda, Cherry and me went to Freebie Heaven to check whether there are any goods to get. When we finished our shopping, a man came to Amanda and me.

“Do you know how to have sex in second life?”

We both did not know how to responds just simply said
“No, I don’t know. I’m newbie here”

Well, may be it’s a goal in second life, when we got more familiar with Second Life, maybe that’s the thing we can try!

2008年12月2日 星期二

First Try in SL

I choose Second Life to be the following online activity for it sounds more interesting than the other two options. Another reason is that the professor played Second Life in the class as demonstration for student to know the access to Second Life.
The first try of SL is the day before our first meeting with the TA in the SL. I down loaded the software and registered an account. Then started my “Second Life” adventures!
The appearance at first is not so beautiful and fashion as the other players in the SL, therefore I visit Freebie Heaven where the Professor suggested that we could get something good for free from there. “Teleport ” is a good function in SL, no matter where the player wants to go, just key in the words and search, you would be sent to your destination. After a lovely shopping in Freebie Heaven, I bought a plenty of clothes and could not wait to change my appearance; however I was not familiar with the functions in SL, when I took off my cloth and skirt, I could not wear on a new one. That’s really embarrassing because I could do nothing but just fooled around only with a black bra and black underwear. Finally I put on a white and a dark blue pants, but before I wore like a normal woman, there have been many strangers came to me and said something like that “Hello, sexy girl”.
The following picture is my appearance after put on clothes.



This is my first adventure in SL. It’s more than an online game; in SL there are many situations and things you would face as well as in the reality. And in SL, the player can also satisfied some of their desires and dreams that are impossible in the real life, such as “teleport”, I have been always thinking a thing like that!

2008年11月4日 星期二

...

The Museum website was so great that help me to know more about the establishment of Disney Land. It is not only the histories of Walt Disney masterpieces, but also the collection of our childhood memories.

I am exciting and can’t wait to see Bolt’s coming! I think it’s not simply an animation for us, there would have some lessons that will teach us in the content.

Review 5. “Bolt” is coming!

The crew of Disney now is exciting, waiting for the super dog to hit the world! This is the newest animation that would display on November 21st in America. Bolt is the leading role in the movie, and he is also acted as a popular character in American TV show in the film. He believes that he is a dog that has psychic power. So in Bolt’s life there are full of adventures and challenge. Another attractive point is that the super big star, John Travolta voices Bolt. That is a big attraction to me I confess.



Bolt starts his adventures by the accident of getting lose. In order to find his way back to Hollywood and his master, Penny he starts his travel from New York. During the trip, he met a female cat called Mr. Mitten and a hamster in a plastic ball. This is the story about how Bolt handles the troubles that he met in his way home with the help of his new friends and discovered the fact that he doesn’t have superpower at all. The film will hit Taiwan on December 19!

Review 4. The Museum.

http://disney.go.com/disneyatoz/familymuseum/index.html

In the readings recently, I discovered another place for me to search around and around. The blogger provided the Walt Disney Family website for readers to get more information about the founder Walt Disney. When I first clipped into the website, I was addicted to the enchanted place. It took me all the night to search the website. The website collected almost all the thing that you would imagine, including Walt Disney’s family, his good friends and his partners. Family for Walt Disney was important than everything else. In his daughter’s words, Walt Disney was just as an ordinary people, though he built such a big enterprise, he dedicated to entertaining people and got a great deal of ideas that created many wonderful things for people. But at the end of his life, he went back to his family to be an ordinary human being. A considerate husband, a wonderful father and grandfather. This is Walt Disney. He was just like a normal people.
The Website also listed the history of Walt Disney’s battle of his business and the masterpieces in early period. Despite those famous animations, one of the masterpieces was the establishment of Walt Disney Land. One day when Walt Disney and his daughter rode the bicycles and passed by a fair amusement park, he was thinking that one day he might establish a world that children and parents are safe and happy when they walked in the land. Therefore, in 1955 Walt established the first Disney land, a safe, clean and imaginative amusement park, which is full of dream. The website also provide the link that enable the users to get to Disney website of different countries in the world. And that is the most attractive part that Disney would always satisfy me. The website would be differed according to different countries, and they got their own features and they are made fine and delicate. It would really take a lot of time to search everything you want in the website, but I think it would satisfy your aspiration for knowing the truth and the history of the animations, which are the memories of our childhood.

Review 3. The Famous Super Star.

The founder of Disney Land, Walt Disney built the wonderful dream world for children around the world, and then started the magic miracle till nowadays. Walt Disney was originally enchanted with animations. In 1922 he established the first company, Laugh-O-Gram film. The first creation was a cartoon version of Little Red Riding Hood.



Then he started to create another new project, which is quite famous called “Alice’s wonderland”, but before he finished the new project, he declared bankruptcy of Laugh-O-Gram. Then he moved to California and continued his unfinished work, he sold the ideas to others but the buyer did not create as Walt’s original idea. The idea was presented as a series of cartoons. There were nearly 31 Alice comedies through 1925 and 1926.


The most famous and can be the representative when we think of Disney, the first thing that would come into my mind is the lovely mouse. Yes, it is Mickey mouse. The main reasons why Mickey would be so popular is that his attractive characters, optimistic, cheerful and resilience, which was just like the reflection of Walt Disney. According to Charles Solomon, an animation historian, “Ub designed Mickey’s physical appearance, but Walt gave him his soul.” But the attractive characters are not enough, what made Mickey known around the world is that Walt decided to give Mickey Mouse a voice. This was a big breakthrough at that time. The first one is “Steamboat willie”, it attract a lot of attention when it was displayed at New York’s Colony Theater. The New York Times gave comments to the Mickey trend, “an ingenious piece of work with a good deal of fun” Since then, the name Mickey Mouse had been going to trap everyone’s heart!

Review2. Writing Style of the Dream Land.

This is the blog that would post almost all the information about Disney Land. The authors who are responsible for this work are more than one. As a super big enterprise around the world, it is important to manage the advertisement so that Disney would get the most. The Blog is a kind of method for Disney to put their news to the people around the world. The categories of the bolg including many aspects of Disney, such the new facilities that the land would set, the new animations or movies that are going to display this month, the sponsors of the hotels in Disney land…etc.
The authors had to write this news into words and composed them into an article; the writing style should be differed according to the quality and the purpose of the news. For example the posts that are talking about the movies and the new cartoons, the author would write the article in a more relaxed, free and easy tone. As to the posts that are mainly about the administration or even have some relations to the politic, the tone would be more calm and serious. The authors could offer many types of news for their readers, readers also have the right to select whether they would read the context or not. As to me, as a reader myself, I would mostly put focus on the posts about the entertainments instead of the part of administration for the reason that “reader would select what they are interested in”.

2008年10月21日 星期二

Skype and Language Learning

Annotation: Skype and Language Learning
The author in the article mentioned many advantages of using the new technologies, Skype and Podcasting are now widely be used in different fields such as for commercial and business purposes. Compare to the telephone and mobile phone, skype is much more cheaper. The most important is that the quality of skype is quite good because the quality depends on the speed of network. The inventions of skype increase the opportunities of chatting between people, and for it is free so that more and more people would like to use skype in order to save more money. It is a good way for language learners to improve their speaking through skype because it can also provide the images of the speakers, so that the learners would not feel that they are talking to a screen or a machine. It is just like a face to face talking.

2008年10月7日 星期二

Review1.The dream land.

http://thedisneyblog.com/
This is a blog that would have post about the children’s land of dream: Disney land. The author of the blog would update the news of Disney land, including the advertisement of new cartoons and movies, the cooperation of their hotels, the activities the land are going to carry on. The blogger also put some pictures and videos from youtube that enable readers to get more from during reading.

Why I decided to choose Disney blog is that Disney is a dream for children and even for adults. The stories of Disney are so impressive to me, especially the fairy tales of princesses. There are not only the romantic and creative plots that attract me so much, but also the beautiful melody and the delicate paintings that I would never forget in my life. The following pictures are some classical tales in Disney:







These four are the most famous symbols among the fairy tales of Disney. The Disney Land located in Tokyo has a Cinderella Castle in the land, that is the landmark of the land. The visitors can see the castle from everywhere in the land. This is the beginning of my peer of this Disney blog!

The Intergration of Internet-based Materials.

In this modern world, there the human beings create more and more hi- technologies that make the world become more connected. The population of using Internet is a big progress for human beings because people can get a lot of information from the world and share their knowledge with the world simply just with this little magic line.

Now students are easy to do much more self-learning whenever they want to enhance their English ability. The reading materials that were put on the Internet are easy for students to obtain. As long as they type in the key words, they would search plenty of information they need. Sometimes they might get some free service from some websites that allow students to download the sources on the websites. This is another good way for students to gain resources besides library. There are many merits of doing online readings. The article might provide the function that when the readers run into some questions in their reading, they could click the word or the sentence, then there would pop up the window which is going to explain and solve readers’ confusions, that is the so called hyperlink. That would increase the efficiency of learning. And the materials are easy to carry, these are not like the books, they could be save into a PDA or MP4, that enable the readers to do the reading all the time.

But it does have the opposite aspects. The problems of plagiarism would arise because the materials are too easy for people to gain. The basic limit is that not everyone has hi-techs that would provide readings all the time. The Internet gives us many kinds of information, but students sometimes could not select which is the correct information and which is the right information they need. Here then somehow creates kinds of confusions.

2008年9月30日 星期二

Blog style v.s 1.5 generation

Bloch, J.(2007). Abdullah's blogging: A generation 1.5 student enters the blogsphere.
http://llt.msu.edu/vol12num2/emerging.pdf

In the article, there are some main view points that facou on the issues that the learning of 1.5 generation, the problems of plagirism, the relations of bloggings and academic writings.Now the population of bolgging has bought some adventages and weakness to students.

Nowadays, the accesses to the platforms of bolgs are free to gain, here people can share their feelings and ideas by putting their works on the sphere. Also it also creates the bloggers’ own writing space from the readers. There’s another potential problem that emerged from the trend. That’s the damages of plagiarism.

In the author’s discussion, he divided the forms of blogs into two type, that are issues-oriented blogs(discuss social and political issues) and identity blogs (discuss person issues). In the issues of 1.5 generation student, they discover that students of these specific generation get different backgrounds from those international students. They might be influenced by their own learning experiences. When they are writing, they may focus most on the problems of grammar but that somehow gives limits to the writings.

As to the writings about personal issues, the focus should be changed to another aspects from the point of grammar. Many blogs are containing that kind of literacy that the readers can see more oral and personal style that would make readers feel comfortable and relaxed during the reading.