Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Posting 5: Concordance

Article 1 (by: John Flowerdew) Concordancing is a means of accessing a corpus of text to show how any given word or phrase in the text is used in the immediate contexts in which it appears. By grouping the uses of a particular word or phrase on the computer screen or in printed form, the concordancer shows the patterns in which the given word or phrase is typically used. Concordancing has a variety of applications. One of the earliest of these was in the field of lexicography and dictionary making. This work has resulted in the Collins Cobuild dictionary, in which the entries make use of authentic concordanced examples. Concordancing has also been used in the field of stylistics and literary research, as well as in purely linguistic research. Typically, these applications depend upon large corpora of text which in many cases run to millions of words. This paper will not concern itself with these areas, but will focus on the application of concordancing in language learning, where smaller corpora can be employed, with particular emphasis on classroom teaching, learning, and curriculum design. In addition to use by classroom teachers and by learners, a number of other concordancing applications related to various aspects of curriculum development have been made. One such application is in syllabus design. In line with ideas set out by Sinclair and Renouf (1988), Willis and Willis (1988) have developed a complete general English syllabus and set of course books based on concordancing. Another area of the curriculum where it has been suggested concordancing can play a role is that of testing. Butler ( 1991) has promoted the idea of cloze tests based not on complete texts but on single line concordances. Each question in such a test would consist of a number of concordance lines with the same word deleted. A further application of concordancing is in the field of error analysis, or interlanguage studies. Concordances based on corpora of learner data can reveal the typical features of learner language from different language backgrounds and at different stages of linguistic development. Article 2 (by: Elke st.John) Concordancing is a tool that has been used extensively by linguistic and literary researchers. A concordance is a list of the occurrences of either a particular word, or a part of a word or a combination of words in context and it is drawn from a text corpus, which is presented in context. A corpus is a large body of text often in electronic format. Linguistic and applied linguistic researchers are not the only group who can benefit from the use of concordancing as a tool for language learning (i.e., as a means of exploring the meanings and uses of words in their authentic contexts. A concordance program enables research into the lexical, syntactic, semantic, and stylistic patterns of a language. Concordancer and monolingual text corpora (comprising only one language) have already been employed by both the language teacher and learner in classroom exercises. Typical exercises using a monolingual English corpus have included vocabulary building and the exploration of the grammatical and discourse features of texts. Besides that, in a well-known quote, Johns advocates the DDL (Data Driven Language) approach. The advantage of this approach is that, in a classroom situation, it enables the teacher to play a less active role whilst at the same time exposes the student to authentic texts like those found in a monolingual corpus. What distinguishes the DDL approach is the attempt to cut out the middleman as much as possible and give direct access to the data so that the learner can take part in building his or her own profiles of meanings and uses. The assumption that underlies this approach is that effective language learning is itself a form of linguistic research, and that the concordance printout offers a unique resource for the stimulation of inductive learning strategies -- in particular, the strategies of perceiving similarities and differences and of hypothesis formation and testing. REFLECTIONS: The benefits of concordance will enable learners to be truly autonomous and responsible for their own learning because searches are learner-initiated that it can be guaranteed the learning corresponds to learner needs. Also, by searching into language use, learners able to develop an overall language awareness. Besides that, in using the concordance as a source of input for teaching, teachers can generate authentic instances of usage to present to students when teaching a particular language point. In addition, the students will become more aware of a need for data, information about how the language is used. Such awareness may arise from a more communicative task such as writing a report, language-oriented exercise, vocabulary or grammar exercise and others. URL: http://sunzi1.lib.hku.hk/hkjo/view/10/1000064.pdf http://llt.msu.edu/vol5num3/stjohn/

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Posting 4: EBSCOhost (Two Articles), Article on ICT e-learning

The definition for EBSCOhost is it offers customizable basic and advanced searching supported by Boolean logic, enhanced subject indexing and journal searching to assist patrons in performing thorough investigations of their research topics. With links from the full record display to related articles by subject, magazine issue or author, patrons can further explore their topic. In addition, EBSCOhost allows patrons to print, e-mail or download multiple articles. EBSCOhost offers a range of advanced searching features. Results can be limited or refined by various criteria including subject, author, journal, date, peer-reviewed status and full text availability. In addition, researchers can build upon their search terms by using EBSCOhost's search history and search builder capabilities.
Two articles on EBSCOhost are Public Relations In Schools and E-Learning Programs In Higher Education.
For Public Relations In Schools, This article presents an overview of public relations strategies and concepts for public schools. The role of public relations in public education began with higher education applying public relations methods used in business to promote their programs with competitors. Public relations involves far more than publicity. "Educational public relations" means genuine cooperation in planning and working for good schools with the community. Collaborating with internal and external publics becomes a two-way process by means of the flowing of ideas between school and community. Through thoughtful design and engagement public relations builds the basis for mutual understanding and effective team work between the two. Educational Public Relations is a planned, systematic management function, designed to help improve the programs and services of an educational organization. It relies on a comprehensive, two-way communication process involving both internal and external publics with the goal of stimulating better understanding of the role, objectives, accomplishments, and needs of the organization. Educational public relations programs assist in interpreting public attitudes, identify and help shape policies and procedures in the public interest, and carry on involvement and information activities which earn public support and understanding (National School Public Relations Association, 2002, p. 2). Initially, the role of educational public relations was simply a form of publicity. Some even viewed it negatively as propaganda. The higher education institutions were competing for students and program recognition as well as financial support. The goal was to inform the public about their activities, specific benefits, and programs and since they were patterning their approach to public relations after the business arena, they did not solicit feedback from the public regarding their institutions. This was referred to as the one-way model of public relations. "In 1950 the American Association of School Administrators (AASA) reported that if the public is to support education, education must be visualized as an investment. The best way to accomplish this was for the public to receive accurate and well-reported information from the schools" (Maher, 1997, p. 8). Education is not a "stand-alone" entity. It is an important element for a thriving community and the future of our society. School leaders and boards are established to oversee the education process. However, the entire community is responsible for supporting the education of their children. Educational public relations was initially and is still today the means of providing our citizens with an understanding of the education system and its needs as well as seeking their involvement and support in maintaining and developing quality programs and opportunities for the students.
For E-Learning Programs In Higher Education, This article will focus on the e-Learning industry, which has become an integral part of our society and education. Potential markets have emerged in elementary and secondary education environments as well as in postsecondary institutions and corporations. Learning institutions must look at the trends affecting many of their students, faculty, administration and services. As a result of the emerging trends, seven distinct models of organizational structures in higher education have surfaced. These models will serve as a foundation for different trend references and as an illustration of how different types of educational institutions develop strategic plans for implementing distance education into their programs. Globalization has changed the way people look at education. Given the use of technology and knowledge workers, society is always in constant change. As new products and services are developed, it is essential that organizations, especially higher education institutions, are capable of keeping pace with the demands of students. Technologies like e-Learning can assist in streamlining and improving the organizational processes and systems within higher education institutions. Additionally, even workforce employees can benefit from e-Learning technologies, as they facilitate the learning experience in a knowledge-based economy. The interaction received through e-Learning and distance learning provides users with many benefits that are not offered in a traditional classroom setting. By participating in distance learning, students are able to complete their curricula at their own desired speed. The learning process remains comfortable with eLearning because students can advance to different subject matter when they see fit and can avoid any pace pressures that may come with classroom learning. In customary education settings, students must continue learning at the same pace as their peers. However, this system can intellectually hinder the students because those who advance quickly through a topic must stay at the same pace with those who may need to spend additional time with the same topic. Distance learning avoids this conflict and focuses instead on the needs of the individual student.
Furthermore, for ICT E-Learning, it discusses a catalyst for enriching the learning process and library services in India. In short, The advances in ICTs have decisively changed the library and learning environment. On the one hand, ICTs have enhanced the variety and accessibility to library collections and services to break the barriers of location and time. On the other, the e-Learning has emerged as an additional medium for imparting education in many disciplines to overcome the constraint of physical capacity associated with the traditional classroom methods. For a vast developing country like India, this provides an immense opportunity to provide even higher education to remote places besides extending the library services through networking. Thanks to the recent initiatives by the public and private institutions in this direction, a few web-based instruction courses are now running in the country. This paper reviews different aspects of e-Learning and emerging learning landscapes. It further presents the library scene and new opportunities for its participation in the e-Learning process. How these ICTs driven advances can contribute to the comprehensive learning process in India is highlighted. Reflections: The two articles on EBSCOhost are basically about the importance of education in terms of the communication, e-learning programs and other aspects as well. For articles on public relations in schools, public relations management procedures provide an effective means of informing and receiving input from the community to attain results and achievement. It is important that parents, businesses and the community understand the educational process along with the purposes and goals of programs to provide a quality education for the students. For e-learning programs in higher education, the e-learning industry uses the internet and other technologies that allow individuals to learn from their jobs, homes or schools. Besides that, e-learning, offers real-time learning and application of critical knowledge. Thus, individuals will be able to access the information at anytime and anywhere. As a result, the education as well as training and development function can be convenient and globalized. URL: http://www.lansing.lib.il.us/catalog.html

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Posting 3: Search Engines

Basically, search engine is a program that enable each of us to search for websites on certain information we want. A search engine also shows the various available links to the articles or all sorts of information we are looking for. Apart from that, we are discussing the similarities and the differences between four search engines that are google scholar, mamma.com, eric digest and yahoo.com.
One of the similarities between these four search engine is all the search results are in electronic text form. In order to look for the articles or information needed, we have to access through the internet before we can get those information. Besides that, they do provide the option to find more than web pages, however, using on the top of the search box on the these home page, you can easily seek out information, images, articles etc. from across the web.
In fact, there are differences between these four search engines. Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles, from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations. Google Scholar helps you to identify the most relevant research across the world of scholarly research.
For Mamma.com, it is a "smart" meta search engine — every time you type in a query Mamma simultaneously searches a variety of engines, directories, and deep content sites, properly formats the words and syntax for each, compiles their results in a virtual database, eliminates duplicates, and displays them in a uniform manner according to relevance. Meanwhile, Mamma.com helped to introduce metasearch to the Internet as one of the first of its kind. Due to its quality results, and the benefits of metasearch, Mamma grew rapidly through word of mouth, and quickly became an established search engine on the Internet. Mamma.com's ability to gather the best search results available from top search sources and to provide useful tools to its users has resulted in its receiving multiple Honourable Mentions in the Best Metasearch category in the annual Search Engine Watch Awards.
For Eric digest, it is an online digital library of education research and information. Eric is sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences(IES) of the U.S Department of Education. Thus, eric digest do provide a comprehensive, easy-to-use, searchable, Internet-based bibliographic and full-text database of education research and information. Eric continues to explore new approaches to enhancing and expanding services to the user community. Through collaborative efforts and with feedback provided by the eric user community, the eric program continues to enhance online services, expand access to full-text materials, and increase the number of journal and non-journal sources indexed in the Collection.
As for Yahoo.com, it is the owner of the world's most popular Web site, which takes a more multidimensional approach as it strives to be all things for all people — a one-stop destination for recreation, work and research. Yahoo also takes a more practical approach to technology, first identifying what people want and then building or buying a product designed to give visitors one less reason to leave its Web site — already the world's most popular online destination.
REFLECTIONS: The four search engines offered the differences and the similarities that enable us to access through the information needed. They basically stressed more on academic besides other information like news, games, sports etc. For education purposes, these search engines especially eric digest or google scholar provide ready access to education literature to support the use of educational research and information to improve practice in learning, teaching, educational decision-making and research. Thus, they also designed to provide an overview of information on a given topic plus references to items providing more detailed information.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Posting 2: How Blogging Can Assist Language Learners To Improve & Enhance Writing Skill

If writing is considered an art, then blogging might be seen as a way of using words to come up with an art. Because people who are into blogging are “artistic” on their own sense: they carefully choose words that would best describe their feelings, sentiments, wishes, desires, and everything. Back in the mid-1990s, blogs were first introduced as weblogs that refer to a “server’s log file.”Since then web logging turned into blogging and gradually saturated the virtual community, making the Internet a viable source of greater information. With the onset of blogging in the industry, personal journaling had been a common ground for people who wish to be known all over the world. However, not literally famous as this is not a case on being popular or well-known personality. Generally, blogs are created for personal use. Like a journal, people can write their daily adventures, sentiments, and whatever ideas they want to express online. Blogs can also provide teachers and students writers with an engaging, rich writing space that requires no technical knowledge of HTML, while offering access to an instant publishing press. Blogs provide a space for writing that is two parts online journal and one part class discussion tool. They provide a forum, inviting commentary and discussion in addition to a long list of writing skills (e.g., concise language, strong voice, idea play). Blog characteristics particularly relevant to instruction include: 1. Economy. Blogs demand precision. The well-developed blog post requires no scrolling. It is a brief, targeted set of words that communicate an intended idea. Student writers have to get to the point from the start of the post. 2. Archiving. Each posting is dated and archived by week or day, depending on how the user preferences are set. This allows readers (and student writers) to explore how ideas unfold and connect over time. 3. Feedback. The comments featured on a blog encourage peer review and sharing. Instead of opening select passages for periodic (and often teacher selected and driven) feedback, the blogs initiate a process of interactive communication beginning with the initial post. Here, student writers receive immediate response, making the writing relevant, responsive, and real. In commenting, students analyze for ambiguity and are challenged to read for a writer’s purpose. 4. Multimedia. Blogs allow writers to post images and even record sound files. Blogs open student writers to multiple means of communication. 5. Immediacy. As soon as students publish a blog posting, their entry appears on the Web. This generates an immediate sense of accomplishment, and it permits the feedback and response loop to begin immediately. 6. Active Participation. Practical constraints of time and space prevent students from sharing ideas as they occur in classroom discussions. Blogs provide a communication tool in which each student can participate in that learning community, posting, connecting, seeing, reading, thinking, and responding in a contagious rhythm that leads to greater participation within the thinking space of the classroom. Used appropriately, electronic writing spaces can enhance motivation and teach real-world skills. With a new teaching tool in the arsenal, the next task becomes how to best employ it to support reading and writing in the classroom. Ten Instructional Activities Teachers are savvy at adaptation. We know how to take an instructional method or tool and rework it to fit our unique instructional spaces and needs. The instructional use of blogs requires this kind of rethinking and re-seeing. The following 10 instructional activities involving reinvention and adaptation of blogs for the classroom are built on standards-based, effective classroom practice. Literary Activities 1. Character Journals. This strategy challenges student writers to write as a fictional character. Posts require students to sound and think like that character, allowing space to complete a lower-stakes activity that explores voice and synthesizes higher-order understanding of what is happening in that reading. 2. Character Roundtable. This is a team-blog extension of the character journal. Here, multiple students make posts as multiple characters about a larger guiding question or theme. For example, one such “gathering” or conversation might involve Jay Gatsby (The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald), Willie Loman (Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller), and Walter Younger (A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry) discussing the American dream. 3. Open Minds. Using paper, this strategy requires that students draw the outline of an empty head that is then filled with images representing what the character would think or know at a given time in a selected reading. Brought into the blog, student entries could post both multiple images and reflective writing. 4. Think-Aloud Postings. Content postings reflect student analysis and response to assigned readings. This captures the same types of content that a student would orally express when conducting a traditional read aloud. 5. Literature Circle Group Responses. Traditional literature circle “reports” are completed on handouts or worksheets. By posting to a blog, student participants would not only be placing information and ideas into the greater class community for consideration, but they would also be provided with a reflective space that works beyond the constraints of the handout responses. 6. Nutshelling. This strategy challenges students to examine a paragraph and extract a line that holds the most meaning or presents an interesting starting place. In working with blogs, students review previous entries, select a rich line, and paste it into the body of a new post. They then begin their writing from there. This “nutshell” serves as the prompt for additional reflection and elaboration. 7. Devil’s Advocate Writing. In working with argument, blogs can house an interactive, multi-participant dialogue that pushes the reasoning within posts. In some ways, this might function as a precise, online debate. In another use, it might be a testing ground for the ideas students develop more fully in later writing. The fusion of the two allows students to locate the flaws in their argument, add depth to their original writing, and strengthen their reasoning. 8. Exploding Sentences. As Gloria Heard explains in The Revision Toolbox, this strategy challenges students to revise sentences. In working with blogs, students “explode” sentences from earlier posts by slowing them down, adding rich, descriptive detail. 9. Photo blogs. A photo blog is a blog that incorporates images. Print text is fused with visual imagery as students annotate and write captions leading the reader through the blog and the narrative conveyed by the images. 10. Story blogs. With a creative writing focus, a class-constructed story blog allows for writing and grammar instruction. With a nonfiction focus, the story blog becomes a class-written essay. This provides not only a model of how writers work but also a lower stakes entry point for students to write. REFLECTIONS: The aim of writing blog is actually to help you to improve your writing skills. From what I have read on the information given, I found writing a blog can be very interesting and enjoying. Of course we have the write something that will be able to capture people’s attention. In order to make someone read your blog, as what the information given, one’s must be creative. By writing blogs often, one’s creativity not only will be increased, at the same time also practicing their writing skills. Thus, in order to become a better writer, you need to read a lot to broaden your horizons, deepen your knowledge and get some fresh ideas as well. Besides that, blogs do provide a multi-genre, multimedia writing space than can engage visually minded students and draw them into a different interaction with print text. Furthermore, when reading blogs, you will pick up things that might inspire you and help you to improve your writing skills. http://itlab.coe.wayne.edu/jalshaibani/docs/reading%20writing%20blogs.pdf

Saturday, March 7, 2009

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Posting 1: Reading For Instruction

Ten Myths of Reading For Instruction
By: Sebastian Wren, Ph.D. Michael Pressley, in his excellent book, Reading Instruction that Works, concluded with a discussion of what he considered to be Dumb and Dangerous. Claims about all of the points he made were quite compelling, but one wonders if these are his "top ten" picks for the most dangerous myths about reading instruction. Curious readers are directed to his book to review his "top ten" list (the book is well written and highly informative), but here we will examine a second perspective of the most damaging myths and misconceptions about reading for instruction. Let us begin with a myth that Pressley did not mention, but which is arguably the most pernicious myth currently influencing reading instruction: Myth 1- Learning to read is a natural process It has long been argued that learning to read, like learning to understand spoken language is a natural phenomenon. It has often been suggested that children will learn to read if they are simply immersed in a literacy-rich environment and allowed to develop literacy skills in their own way. This belief that learning to read is a natural process that comes from rich text experiences is surprisingly prevalent in education despite the fact that learning to read is about as natural as learning to juggle blindfolded while riding a unicycle backwards. Myth 2- Children will eventually learn to read if given enough time This is arguably the second most pernicious myth, and it is closely related to the first. Many who claim that reading is natural also claim that children need to be given time to develop their reading skills at their own pace. We should always address instruction to each child's zone of proximal development, we should not simply wait for children to develop reading skills in their own time. Myth 3- Reading programs are "successful" It is extremely common for schools to buy a reading program to address their reading instruction needs, and trust that the program will solve their school's literacy issues. Typically these programs require a great deal of commitment from the school, both in terms of time and money. Research has repeatedly indicated that the single most important variable in any reading program is the knowledge and skill of the teacher implementing the program. Myth 4- We used to do a better job of teaching children to read Nothing illustrates this better than the National Assessment of Educational Progress (the NAEP). This assessment has been given to children across the country aged 9, 13, and 17 since 1970. Student performance at those three age levels has not changed substantially in over 30 years -- us great insights into why some children have difficulty learning to read, and the next frontier in reading education is to help teachers understand and apply that research information. Myth 5- Skilled reading involves using syntactic and semantic cues to "guess" words, and good readers make many "mistakes" as they read authentic text Research indicates that both of these claims are quite wrong, but both are surprisingly pervasive in reading instruction. The semantic and syntactic information are critical for comprehension of passages of text, but they do not play an important role in decoding or identifying words. Good readers make virtually no mistakes as they read because they have developed extremely effective and efficient word identification skills that do not depend upon semantics/context or syntax. Myth 6- Research can be used to support whatever your beliefs and lots of programs are "research based" Unfortunately, it is true that a lot of people do selectively search and sample the research literature, citing only the research that seems to support their pre-conceived notions. Often research results are skewed or biased to appear to be consistent with hypotheses proposed. All of us need to adopt a bit of healthy skepticism, and we need to demand that a substantial research base be provided as evidence to support claims. And we also need to learn to pay more attention to the research evidence. In short, we should always remember the researcher's credo: "Remarkable claims require remarkable evidence." Myth 7- Phoneme awareness is a consequence (not a cause) of reading acquisition The evidence showing the importance of phoneme awareness to literacy acquisition is overwhelming. Still, there are some that are not convinced. Some claim that teaching children to develop phoneme awareness is not necessary or even beneficial. The research evidence, however, does not support this view. First, it is quite clear that phoneme awareness is a necessary prerequisite for developing decoding skills in an alphabetic writing system such as English. Second, phoneme awareness instruction can be very authentic and natural. Teachers can use music, tongue twisters, poetry and games to help children develop phoneme awareness. Myth 8- Some people are just genetically "dyslexic" The belief in an underlying genetic cause for dyslexia ignores the fact that reading and writing simply have not been around long enough to become part of our genetic make up. It was long argued that when a disparity existed between a person's intelligence and their reading skill, the person should be described as a "dyslexic." The term "dyslexic" eventually became a catch-all term used to account for people who failed to learn to read despite apparent intellectual capacity and environmental support. The three reasons people have difficulty developing basic reading skills are: 1. They have difficulty developing decoding skills, 2. They have difficulty developing language comprehension skills or, 3. Both have difficulties developing decoding skills very often arise from difficulties processing sounds in speech (phonological processing skills). Myth 9- Short-term tutoring for struggling readers can get them caught up with their peers, and the gains will be sustained Pull-out programs for reading instruction are extremely common in schools. Typically in one of these programs, a highly trained teacher will pull individual students out of the classroom for short, intensive, one-on-one instruction sessions. After a few weeks of this intensive intervention, the students are exited from the program, and they resume normal classroom activities. Myth 10- If it is in the curriculum, then the children will learn it, and a balanced reading curriculum is ideal This is only a half-myth. Clearly, if something is not a part of the curriculum, then children are very unlikely to learn it, but just because a concept or skill is taught, there is no guarantee that every child will learn it. Standards are starting to shift from an emphasis on what is taught to an emphasis on what is learned, and curricula are starting to make the same shift instructional strategies. Reflections: The reading text was basically about how to achieve success for all children, teachers and others to become extremely sophisticated and diagnostic in their approach to reading instruction. Besides that, it could make them responsible for providing ongoing, job imbedded professional development and coaching for the other teachers that can develop expertise in reading theory. By learning that, it could also provide explicit systematic instruction for all reading strategies. The use of knowledge will also employ an abundance of diverse, interesting texts for reading for instruction.
URL: http://www.sedl.org/reading/topics/myths.pdf