cesl teachers

2012-01-10T14:25:00.002-08:00

Pictures from an era

2011-12-17T15:21:00.000-08:00

We love all CESL teachers & capture their images whenever possible. If you object, however, let us know!

Sarah Chang & Baby Grace, Halloween 2011

2011-12-06T20:49:00.000-08:00

Leah McSorley

2011-12-06T20:41:00.000-08:00

New static web system

2010-02-22T07:39:00.001-08:00

You may have noticed, today, a new web site with new links, unfinished, yet much simpler and without the extensive links that we are used to.

CESL no longer supports those links; they are being removed to other sites where they can be maintained independently. CESL's new site is designed to show accurately the things that are important to prospective students and agents: the schedule, the costs, the forms, etc. All other traffic will be directed to the weblogs or the moodles.

Much of what used to be an extensive support system for students, teachers, etc. will be moved as soon as possible, and you will be kept informed as to where it goes. If you have problems finding something, write and maybe I can help you find it! -Tom Leverett

new web sites

2009-05-22T10:34:00.001-07:00

SIUC has now switched the entire cesl webpage system. Instead of http://www.siu.edu/~cesl, we are now http://cesl.siuc.edu/. Old webpages like http://www.siu.edu/~cesl/students/rock/eap2.html are now redirected automatically to http://cesl.siuc.edu/students/rock/eap2.html.

There are a number of results of this, and things to remember. First, the weblogs aren't affected. They are on Blogger (Google territory); they didn't change. CESL has about 40 weblogs (all have blogspot in the URL) but over 300 webpages. The webpages all changed.

First, you should change all your bookmarks. SIUC has said they will redirect indefinitely, and probably they will. But the new URL is the real one; the old one is gone, really. Try to use the new one. And remember- it's SIUC, not SIU!

Second, business cards? Brochures? Messages? Links? One at a time, we have to change them all. It's not so bad if we do it a little at a time.

Finally, help CESL keep an eye out for broken links, etc. This huge number of pages is in constant need of upgrading and repair in general. Any way anyone can help, please do! We'd love to link to you and your country, just on general principle, anyway!

-Tom Leverett, CESL webmaster

SIUC reunion in Denver, 2009

2009-04-05T20:48:00.000-07:00

I put much more of the reunion people on the siuc linguistics weblog, where we could document who showed up at the reunion itself, what they said, etc. It was a big year for Salukis, what with the President of TESOL showing up, a proud Saluki.

But I added this little bit to document a few other people I saw and met in Denver- former Salukis. If you wear SIU-Carbondale on your coat lots of people stop to talk to you and I actually knew a few of them already.

Margi Wald, who taught here in the 90's, runs a writing lab at the Univ. of California-Berkeley, and is editor of several newsletters; she helped me get perspective on students' problems dealing with grammatical errors, especially after they have moved into academic classes.

Ditlev Larsen, who also taught here in the 90's, is now a full professor at Winona State University, in Minnesota. He came to one of my writing presentations.

Leah Miller, from National Louis Univ. in Chicago.

One man from the early '60's is now about ready to retire from his school district near St. Louis, but not ready to quit traveling. He remembered SIUC fondly, and especially the baseball teams, and their early moves to different fields.

One woman said she was on a high-level accreditation team when it occurred to them, all three, that they were all graduates of SIUC and its program.

There were actually many more, besides even those who came to the reunion.

Going to Denver?

2008-11-24T08:04:00.002-08:00

Graduate Student Forum,
at TESOL, accepts proposals

photo shoot, Sept. 2008

2008-09-22T19:07:00.000-07:00

Pictures from Floyd Olive's retirement party

2008-06-20T12:07:00.000-07:00

northbound

2008-02-29T11:59:00.000-08:00

Congratulations to Cheryl Ernst, Kara Lawrence, Lou Coyne and Andrea Burnett-Deas- on their way to Chicago to present at the
Illinois TESOL BE Conference in Naperville...also to Susie Noeth, our Marketing Assistant, who is Outstanding Marketing Senior.

web report 2007

2007-11-01T13:28:00.000-07:00

CESL Website & weblog report
Aug. 2007

The CESL weblogs are underutilized, as evidenced by high-level writers’ general disfluency and lack of attention to detail like punctuation, spacing, etc. The strengths of weblogs really are that they can be used to make students used to writing, reading and communicating actively in online & written media, but students here are sometimes able to pass writing classes without doing this, and this is unfortunate, given the increasing importance of writing fluency in the modern world. Although the web has become increasingly important and even dominant as a source of information for people internationally, as a way for programs to represent themselves and advertise, and as a medium for people to communicate, CESL teachers have been extremely busy and perhaps hesitant or too time-pressed to integrate it successfully into their classes. The CESL Today newsletter, presumably taken from every level’s work, is frequently taken from only one or two levels’ work; this is most likely because teachers are too busy to scout out the process sufficiently to feel comfortable with actually imposing it upon students. Now, with a Writing Assistant (10 hrs./wk), this may become easier.

Nevertheless, the website and weblogs have had a busy year. CESL has about 50 weblogs, which have now been reorganized (New Blogger forced organization by e-mail address) into three kinds: active, inactive, and teachers’; one can find logon information for each one by clicking on the dog in the template, and the password is the same for all of them. Teachers can have their students contribute to a single class weblog, or go through the process of ensuring that each student has one, and put class material on the personal weblogs. I have found that the process does take some class time, but that students do read each others’ work; students do benefit greatly from using writing as a medium successfully, to communicate to each other and to the public; and students also benefit greatly from the attention to detail required to successfully master spacing, punctuation, spelling and general typing and computer skills that are necessary to use weblogs successfully. It is only by making these habits that we really teach them; this is impossible to do with a three or four essays/term.

From a management point of view, the process of updating weblog templates and template links, monitoring comments and posts, and using the weblogs to provide material for CESL Today is laborious, but again, students read these weblogs; they appreciate the skills they get from using them, and they enjoy being able to find their work, and their weblogs, sometimes years after they have left CESL, though they are free to delete them when they leave. The fact that they master online formatting of research papers, with properly formatted appearance, linked references, and linked abstracts in a separate central location is admired by other programs and makes CESL look professionally ahead of the curve. Although requiring students to master online presentation adds to our teaching load, so did communicative methods; both philosophies basically said that a language is of little value if it can’t be used successfully in the medium the student will most frequently need.

The static website has over 300 pages, some outdated or carrying broken links, but most carrying useful language learning resources and teaching resources; keeping it up-to-date is a constant and time-consuming task, and its reputation and usefulness means that I receive 5 to 10 messages/wk. requesting links, many of which I’m too busy to research and/or respond to. Thus I’ve been working on making the system more streamlined and simple. This problem was made more difficult a few years back when new pages were made for a dozen or so of the front pages, thus rendering scores of internal back-links invalid. The most severe of these problems, namely links to outdated schedules, etc., have been corrected, but there are still layers of duplicate pages that need to be simplified, pared down, and made internally clean, with no bad links. I appreciate being alerted to any pages that have dead links or are unusable (see below). A few years ago we were told to put new templates on all pages, no old logos permitted, and given burdensome restrictions on what appeared on SIU server space, but most of these have been lifted, with a minimum of requirements still holding for all pages and a much more sensible policy in place. Nevertheless there are still a few old pages that have neither been deleted nor brought up to requirement, and this process is almost complete.

In addition to providing a showcase for student work, a forum for student communication and community development, and a usable place for students to find sites to learn language and find authentic materials, the web also serves as one of CESL’s primary marketing tools, and is certainly the most important window to parents and friends who may never come here or relate to SIUC/CESL in any more direct way. The main CESL website gets up to 80 hits/day, from all over the world, but oddly enough, few of our own students go through it to find what they need; this is partly because few of our computers are set with the homepage as their opening page. Believe it or not, they generally start with Google, spell CESL correctly or incorrectly, and go from there. From a marketing perspective it’s also important that SIU CESL and its webpage are linked from scores of directories, many of them free, which must be updated and monitored regularly. But the main factor that makes CESL and its pages appear when people Google us, for internal reasons or to find a place to learn English, is good useful content that people enjoy reading and want to link to; to this end we always expand in areas that have drawn interest in the past, and we encourage students to link out to their other pages, as well as link back to their CESL weblogs from their other pages. A large and actively used web is its own best marketing tool, as “freshness” also has a high value in the search index ratings. Students generally have MySpace or their own country’s version of it, so it’s not a matter of teaching them how to set up a personal site; they undoubtedly have several already.

One of the recurring headaches of the web management business is picture storage, as we wait for the new “server,” which could be renamed “Godot.” CESL now stores pictures on two free servers (2 Flickr accounts and one MSN), one almost full, but we hesitate to put more pictures on our main SIUC server space as we were told a couple years ago that we were more than double over capacity already, and pictures have become very large. For marketing, large pictures are good, but fortunately the front office has taken on storing most of these. For web purposes it’s more relevant to discuss how to help CESL students store and find what they need to use, to put on their own weblogs, but they are generally better at this than we are. I appreciate the steady stream of pictures of CESL activities, many of which go in CESL Today or onto the weblogs as permanent documentation of good times here at CESL in summer of ’07; it’s easy to put them on the MSN site where everyone can share them, but pointing us to your own site is just as good in terms of making them available, since these free sites are share-sites. One exception to this is Flickr, which now says that to use their picture on an external page you must link to Flickr- but as owners, we can download these pictures anyway, and put them somewhere else; in addition, Flickr is useful for being able to store larger (clearer) photos. So in general we are beginning to use the Flickr accounts more heavily for those purposes. The LMC has offered its server to us (in reality, there does not really seem to be a shortage of “server space”) but we haven’t taken them up on it yet, always thinking that our own is around the next corner. This is still a possibility, though.

The increasing importance of the web in the presentation and marketing of any department makes it urgent that departments pay close attention to the time and energy they put into the web, and allot some professional resources toward upgrading their appearance. But though I often tell people in the Linguistics Department (whose website is as complex and unruly as ours- about a tenth the size, but ten times more political)- that I do their page in my free time, I actually have very little time for the above tasks either. For that reason I ask for help with the following:

1. Take ownership; learn to upgrade weblog templates yourself, and monitor class weblogs, so that if they are not always perfectly grammatical, they are at least in a constant state of being used, being made better, being appreciated, and being added onto. People do read them, so crude comments, which occasionally are made, should be eliminated by the first person who sees them. Although these days I’m about the only contributor to the CESL Teachers, CESL Students, CESL Alumni and Ling. Alumni pages, there’s no reason it has to stay that way. These are all intended as community weblogs.

2. Keep sending pictures my way, or better yet, upload them onto public space where everyone can use and appreciate them.

3. Remember that the class weblogs are for CESL, personal weblogs are for students. I find myself directing much of their work online- if they can’t use it to communicate- what good was it? There is much here that could be shared, enjoyed, and discussed- but isn’t. Why not?

4. In general, my biggest problem is that we live on Mac/Safari while most of the rest of the world is on PC/IE or some other computer/browser combination. Thus many things that we get used to enjoying and using, here at CESL, look hideous on other systems, and I often don’t know it, sometimes for months at a time. I need help being alerted to pages that look bad in other computer/browser combinations. If necessary I can run over to a PC and see what things look like there, but not if I don’t know it’s a problem.

5. Similarly, links go bad, or worse, get bought by porn warehouses and converted to nefarious or commercial uses. We avoid links to purely commercial interests in general and are getting more strict about this, rather than less. If you notice a slimy operator that is linked directly from our pages, let me know and we’ll get rid of it. A smaller web is easier to manage, and in general there’s no point duplicating sets of links, making links to listening resources, for example, when we can simply link to other ESL/EFL professionals, who are doing a much better and more consistent job at linking to listening resources.

6. You are basically responsible for your own representation on the web. I go through these paragraphs once a year (changing “for 15 years” to “for 16 years” or simply replacing it with “since 1991”, trying to simplify). But I can’t and won’t change the representation of your position, your research interests, or your title, etc., nor will I run out and take a better picture, or even find the first one. This generally is done now, in late August, so don’t feel bad if you’re a little behind; take your time and get what you want.

Here are some projects I hope to consider for the future:

Activity weblog: should be updated or possibly filled with pictures in the body, with the updated schedule always appearing in the template. I’m working with Kasandra on this.

CESL history: It would be nice to document this more carefully.

Special Group weblogs: I know they have pictures. It’s just a matter of collecting them, and putting them in the right place. For example, I Shou.

Homepage in different languages: a shelved but still useful project.

Flickr disaster

2007-11-01T09:32:00.000-07:00

Flickr has declared our account "inactive" and cancelled out some photos. This is a disaster but we're working to repair it. We may have to rely on other photos for a while; sorry about the ones you're missing!

2007-10-20T22:15:00.000-07:00

Chris Baughman, Cheryl Ernst, Diana Trebing

Julie Bird, Lou Coyne

Laura Zee & Lisa Ruhlen

Julie Bird & Max Stinnett

more cesl photos

click on the dawg

2007-06-15T14:17:00.000-07:00

I've started a new organizational trick.

Because New Blogger requires e-mail addresses now for log-ins, CESL was organized into at least three sets of weblogs: active ones, inactive ones, and teacher's ones (including this one). There are also some others: Newstalk ones, and possibly more. It is difficult keeping track of them, let alone telling people the log-ons all the time. So now you can Click on the Dawg in the template, and find out how to post to any given weblog.

Fortunately, the passwords are all the same.

Fortunately, security has not been much of an issue.

Hopefully, it will stay that way!

SIUC reunion, Mar. 2007

2007-05-22T11:04:00.000-07:00

I forgot to bring a report to this weblog. At TESOL, the SIUC reunion was held, unfortunately, just as the SIUC basketball team was losing its tragic Sweet-16 loss at the NCAA tournament. Nevertheless we Salukis were proud of our team, and proud to be there at that moment.

The list of SIUC Ling. alumni is being updated, and as a result, lots of people contacted us when we sent out the message for the reunion. We heard from Norb Heuther, Denise (Zutter) Cevela, Nelly (Corbit) Smith, Danielle Barter, Kim Andrus, Margi Wald and Kevin McKelvey- all wish good tidings to Salukis!

John O'Neil and Rene Paulin wrote to say that Mike Trepiak had died. We will remember Mike, who helped us with the web pages in early days.

Liz Janssen says hello!

2007-03-16T14:56:00.000-07:00

A link to her photos is here.

2006-12-14T14:11:00.000-08:00

The CALL Interest Section of the international TESOL
professional association is pleased to offer the
opportunity to participate in the Electronic Village
Online (EVO) 2007 season. This is a professional
development project and virtual extension of the TESOL
2007 Convention in Seattle, WA. The intended audience
for this project includes both TESOL 2007 participants
and those who can participate only virtually.

You do not need to be a TESOL member to participate in
a free, six-week, wholly online session of the EVO,
Jan 15 -Feb 25, 2007. Please visit our Announcement
Web page to select one among the various offerings.

http://evo07sessions.pbwiki.com

Gabe Greenspan

2006-10-30T09:32:00.000-08:00

Former CESL teacher Gabe says hello from Taiwan, where he's started a new and interesting weblog. Take a look!

Congratulations, Jessica & Scott!

2006-10-13T14:36:00.000-07:00

A belated congratulations to Jessica and Scott, who got married this summer. Jessica has returned to us and is now a lecturer....Scott will be arriving soon.

Gabe Greenspan

2006-08-21T14:15:00.000-07:00

Gabe Greenspan writes to say that he has a job at Southern Taiwan University of Technology in Tainan. Good luck, Gabe!

Welcome to Chloe Marie!

2006-08-21T09:30:00.000-07:00

Mandie has shared these pictures of her baby, Chloe Marie Colon....CESL welcomes the newest member of its family!

Marie

2006-07-14T12:06:00.001-07:00

Marie Poteete, former undergraduate assistant, is in South America with Trip...here they are:

You can keep track of their trip here.

Good luck, Marie!

Richie Brown

2006-07-14T12:06:00.000-07:00

Richie and his wife are moving to New York City....will keep in touch!

Podcasting

2006-02-24T19:57:00.000-08:00

The following is from Sharon Svec, who helped me make the first CESL Podcast today. Basically we recorded a simple listening exercise, which we hope to put on the web so that students can download it to an iPod or use it at their convenience. This is more information about what a podcast is.

RSS is Really Simple Syndication
an RSS file must be made to work with the podcast.

http://www.twocanoes.com/vodcaster/
http://www.feedvalidator.org/about.html

These are two sites that were recommended to learn more about RSS and how to upload podcasts.

https://www.libsyn.com
This site is a syndication provider.

So podcasts use RSS feeds. This is the same technology that drives
blogs. This is the same technology that is used, for example, on the
CNN website. On the left menu of the home page, there is a link for
RSS feeds and for Podcasts. I believe the main difference between
these two links (other than possible content) is that podcasts are
subscribeable.

I encourage your faculty to subscribe to some podcasts, or at least
explore the world of, and then to think about how they can incorporate
this into their classes. An especially useful facet of the technology
is that students can use a podcast of the class lecture as a
supplement to learning. So they can attend the class, then review the
lecture later on a podcast to revisit subjects that may have not been
completely grasped initially. Also, documents, such as pdfs could be
'cast.'

A podcast is generally subscribed to (usually free) so the user does
not even have to download the 'cast' every day, the software will
download it automatically once subscribed.

I strongly recommend these two links for your faculty.
They are very straight forward and clearly outline the educational
benefits of podcasting.

http://www.apple.com/education/ipod/lessons/
http://www.apple.com/education/ipod/

I would also recommend that anyone who has iTunes follow these steps to experience a podcast:

1. go to Music Store on menu at left of iTunes interface
2. Then click on Podcasts which will be listed as a link on the left
side of the music store.
3. Scroll in the window until you find the search engine and search
for: SIU

MCMA has some podcasts up already!

Or most appealing will be for 1st time users to search WHATEVER
interests them. There will likely be a podcast that will relate.

http://www.apple.com/itunes/
here is the link to download iTunes for free: Windows or Mac

YOU DO NOT NEED ITUNES TO EXPERIENCE PODCASTING (but it's highly recommended)

http://www.podcast411.com
quicktime and windows media player will play podcasts as well.

The podcast 411 link provides alot of information about podcasting.

... WOW that was a mouthful.

Welcome to 061

2006-02-04T19:59:00.000-08:00

...and Happy New Year.

-We are considering getting into Podcasting...know anything? Stay tuned to the main ceslstudents website.

-there was an orientation in which teachers were encouraged to make weblogs...watsamatter? too busy? Weblogs are good for your soul.

-Trying to organize the listening on the web...this may go onto weblogs also. You will be given directions...how to download a file. How to open up Real One from the Applications folder (in the LMC). How to then open your file & listen. How to make a listening ex. and put it in the file!

80 things to do with your weblog

2005-11-07T21:36:00.000-08:00

(feel free to contribute or comment-see message below)

1. Link to all your friends in the template.
2. Link to all your favorite sites in the template.
3. Put the best picture of yourself that you can find in the template.
4. Use the present perfect progressive tense a lot.
5. Post pictures of your pets, or of your recent trip to Murphysboro or Marion.
6. Post about some cool place you've been on the web, and link to it.
7. Contribute to the political dialogue.
8. Make the world smaller by writing about someplace like Benin or Laos that you know a lot about.
9. Speculate about why tornadoes always seem to flatten trailer parks.
10. Tell people you'll link to them if they'll link to you, then do it.
11. Reorganize or alphabetize your friends or favorite sites in the template.
12. Put pithy sayings or quotes in the template.
13. Complain bitterly about some total stranger, or about your lover.
14. Post about something that happened to you one day on the way to the ATM machine.
15. Join and link to weblog-directory sites that make your site more "powerful" by linking to it.
16. Find out how much your site is "worth", and see if it's "worth" more than your car.
17. Find out where the people who read your site are located and go visit the map often.
18. Point out all the cool stuff your class has done on weblogs and point people to it.
19. Rename your weblog in a fit of upheaval. Then rename it again.
20. Change the subtitle too. Over and over again. Use the present perfect progressive tense.
21. Redo the "About me" section; include a cartoon character as yourself.
22. Change the settings. Regularly.
23. Mess with the color of the fonts or the size of things. Make ticker tape, scrolling text, and blink.
24. Put enough pictures of your area in the template or the header to give people a sense of what it's really like.
25. Use the "Edit Post" function like a file cabinet and tuck away ideas that you intend to work on later.
26. Find cool things on other peoples' weblogs and see if you can do that yourself.
27. Test the limits of free speech and see if anyone notices.
28. Post research ideas and see what fellow researchers think about them.
29. Hide poetry in the template code.
30. Post haiku brazenly and out in the open, see if anyone notices.
31. Link each syllable of your haiku to something. Then link the commas, dashes, etc.
32. Tell everyone the log-on and the password and see if anyone uses it.
33. Start new weblogs for different aspects of your personality, for example, your creative work, or your obsession with Star Wars , etc.
34. Colonize the "free servers" by starting a weblog at each one. Make them point around in a big circle.
35. Go visit your different weblogs and follow numbers 1-34 on each one.
36. Reorganize the function of each weblog according to what might work better.
37. Post stuff in other languages.
38. Make all your pictures into links.
39. Make secret doors that go places that are interesting. Make punctuation into trap doors into cyberspace.
40. Make things that look like advertising but aren't.
41. Make stuff blink so nobody looks at it. Then put something important in there.
42. Make changes deep in the archives where nobody will ever see them.
43. Write entire novels deep in the archives where nobody will ever see them. Compose entire papers out of sight.
44. Invent your own writing system: start leaving out vowels. Or adding extra ones.
45. Make your url's say something interesting.
46. Go look at your weblogs on other computers.
47. Connect to important people and see if they ever find you.
48. Make it appear like you just ran a paint brush across your weblog.
49. Make it appear like you just bled to death on your weblog.
50. Make it appear like someone else bled to death and you tried to clean it up.
51. Make it seem like someone got really angry with you over something you posted.
52. Deny that you ever had anything to do with a certain rumor.
53. Leave "Post removed" and "comment removed" tags all over your weblog.
54. Try to figure out how to deal with "comment spammers" without just running them off entirely.
55. Distort pictures so viewer feels like his/her mind is being bent.
56. Do extensive self-promotion for no apparent reason.
57. Make things you've written open source/free use, as if they're in high demand and it's easier that way than tracking down copiers and making them ask permission.
58. Make your background clear-looking so that it appears that the words are floating through space.
59. Let your friends know that you've been reading their weblogs.
60. Let your children know that you've been reading their weblogs.
61. Let your wife/husband know that you've been doing something else besides reading other people's weblogs.
62. Upload photos as you walk around town.
63. Put a survey on your template so that you know, for example, who your readers think will win the Super Bowl.
64. Criticize your favorite sports team for their most recent trade.
65. Scorn FEMA for their handling of Katrina.
66. Try to find all those weblogs that you set up around cyberspace. Try to remember their logons and passwords.
67. Post a live weather map with a storm system passing through the area.
68. Put a movie of a crocodile eating a duck on there.
69. Make a national anthem play the moment your weblog is opened. You choose the nation.
70. Do the same only with a country song. Drive away the serious people.
71. Post a virtual tour of your favorite city.
72, Post a virtual tour of your least favorite city.
73. Put snapshot pictures of other people's weblogs on your weblog.
74. Delete your entire blog regularly and see who gets angry or even notices.
75. Post your artwork or career work and get feedback.
76. Provide people thousands of miles away with a view of your life that they'd never get otherwise.
77. Link to the blogs that are about as far away from you and yours as they could possibly be.
78. In the corner, put the weather, but of someplace you'd rather be than where you are.
79. Make a memorial of someone who died who was important to you.
80. Explain why you celebrate Guy Fawkes Day.

updated 3-06
(More? Just write...-TL, 11-05

update

2005-11-04T20:20:00.000-08:00

Welcome to 056! Time marches on. This weblog is not main street. But here are some developments:

1. Check out the virtual cigar. Congratulations to Colin and Lourdes!! Hope it's still lit when you finally come around to check it out...

2. Welcome, Liz!

3. Some pretty nice virtual tours of New York City...you can take that virtual carriage over there on the left. But you'll notice there are a lot of summary-responses interspersed in there. We're still learning the difference between the class weblog and the personal portfolios...

4. Once again, weblogs score at TESOL...people want to know how to use them, do them, etc.

5. Tom (yours truly) & Jessica are working on an online conference presentation, This is your class: this is your class on weblogs!...come visit the site!

6. I'm studying teacher's relationships with learning with the new media...do we use the LMC much? at all? are we using it to its full potential?? is that possible? etc. any input is welcome.

Weblog Workshop, Anyone?

2005-09-27T19:49:00.000-07:00

Since all the CESL teachers have some time available on most Fridays, how about meeting in the lab to work on weblogs? I'm still learning how to make pictures look good in my weblog, but I've gotten pretty good at the basic stuff. If you want the help I can offer, or if you'd like to help me with my pictures, meet my in the lab this Friday afternoon. I'm also going to invite my students to come by so that we can learn together.
~Jessica

welcome back!

2005-08-22T20:55:00.000-07:00

Wonder what you missed? If you haven't been checking the weblogs, maybe I can help you...

-cesl students did a number of projects on weblogs, including one on the violent deer incidents that very strangely affected Carbondale in June. Some of these were group weblogs and came off the Newstalk weblog in 054; also take a look at Carbondale Halloween, the WalMart controversy and cellphones & driving....

-upper level students are perfecting the art of making online portfolios, but need some work in linking references. The bad news is that having macs forces us to learn basic html in order to do this. The good news is that html is a universally simple and useful language and we're all language teachers.

-I've been working on mobrolls. Take a look at my homepage. Soon I'll put one on the students' page, or maybe this one. What do you think?
Got this idea from Joi Ito.

-Students did an interesting project on web design in AE2....take a look! Interested in colors & culture?

-Tom Leverett

group weblogs

2005-07-02T20:57:00.000-07:00

I've spoken before about the possibilities of weblogs: they can be used as journals, as community builders, as portfolios. We use them for the second two, mostly, here. But I've found another good trick that I like, and I'm trying to perfect it. The student group weblog. Some of the ones my students did come off of the Newstalk 052 weblog. You will notice that some people happened into some of them and commented on them, which is not unusual. They wrote about news events and gave their opinions; they entered the conversation. More power to them!

A colleague wrote in to a discussion board a comment that I've been mulling over: "if you want them to really be free with their opinions, let them take assumed names..." I think this is good advice. Not that we should require it, only that we should allow it.

As for contributing to the weblog scene itself, we should require that. Participate! It's a community, just like a class: what good does it do you if you're just aloof? I think everyone should grab a handle on it and make a good page. It can be done...

Help CESL

2005-06-16T21:28:00.000-07:00

The Help CESL page has become the center of a number of projects, because eventually we'd like to see a number of these things done, and they have to have some visual representation before people can move forward on them.

For example, the foreign language pages are laughably machine-translated (garbled), but until we see how bad they are, how can we make better ones? Some don't even have the new template; others, like the Arabic one, are just dreams, or gif files sitting in my e-mail. Now, if someone wants to run with it, maybe it can get done.

Take a look! If you have ideas for this page, let us know...the idea here is to use our resources more effectively, to make a place where, if alumni are interested and want to get involved, they can easily find something to do. If people are willing and able to help, at least give them a shot at it.

For the web marketing survey (in its planning stages also), what kinds of questions do you think we should be asking???

New things

2005-06-12T20:44:00.000-07:00

There's a new teacher poetry site...I highly recommend it!

There's a new alumni site...as soon as we get organized (and get ways that alumni can help us, by linking up to us, etc., we will start contacting them)...

There's a POETRY CONTEST...please encourage your students!

More stuff is moving onto the weblogs these days...as well it should!

Have a good 053, and a good summer!

-TL

TESOL Arabia

2005-04-15T09:15:00.000-07:00

My friend Vance Stevens is at the forefront of leading a worldwide community of teachers to use the web and share what they're doing and learning. The latest is TESOL Arabia (he's in Abu Dhabhi) where he is doing a live webcast this weekend. More information about blogging is here even if you don't participate.

http://www.homestead.com/prosites-vstevens/files/efi/papers/tesol/arabia/tttt2005/blogging_now.htm....take a look!

-Tom

Pictures

2005-04-07T14:19:00.000-07:00

A new movement is afoot to organize our picture-collecting ability. We have been somewhat random up to now. The biggest problem is the proliferation of so-called free picture servers, which store pictures but only make them available to certain people. Thus you can see them on your home computer but nobody else can. Or, the server provides it for a while but then takes it away. Now you see it, now you don't.

The foolproof answer is to put it on the SIU server, where we will always have it, but that's laborious and time-intensive.

We are trying to have a CESL account at the Yahoo picture site. It apparently makes pictures available to everyone. Logon cesl052april (cesl052 was taken!!!!!) password: you guessed it! If you have pictures, try it!

John may be wandering around with a digital camera...the best way is to just get started! 051 was really weak on the pictures; the ones we collected, we just couldn't keep. A picture's worth 1000 words; it speaks every language; and we want others to see what we're up to...this can only help us!

Welcome to 052!

2005-03-22T08:34:00.000-08:00

At the start of a new term, it's good to reflect...ah yes, it's good to reflect any time, true. But anyway, let's look back.

First, take a look at the best LOGO and best weblog winners. Look at the dazzling variety of interesting material in the classes which will be represented on the web version of CESL Today as well as the print version, which you should have seen already. This is what's good about 051.

I'd like to see more pictures, pictures that we could pick up and use throughout our pages. I'd like to see community contributions clearly distinguished from online portfolios; put the academic work in the portfolios. I'd like to see weblogs used for the wide variety of purposes they could be used for; there really are many. The big three are: Personal journals, Community builders, Academic portfolios. So far we've mostly used #2 and #3. Personal expression is big too. It would be nice if
everyone felt comfortable presenting themselves in the new media.

One other thing. I've become a regular blogger- seeking things to write about, feeling personally accountable to my audience, presenting myself (in separate blogs) both professionally and creatively, and I've noticed that it has really changed me in a positive way. As I do research on the phenomenon I've found comments that have resonated: about how a weblogger becomes more disciplined, self-aware, and self-confident. I'll share some of these comments as I find them, but what is remarkable to me is that days after I read them, I find them sticking with me, as I've become more aware of what I'm thinking as I write.

Spring comes...things are popping...the Salukis didn't make it this year, but they gave us a good run.

GO SALUKIS!

TESOL 2005

2005-03-16T09:32:00.000-08:00

As part of a TESOL 2005 presentation, I'm trying to put together my thoughts on how the weblog situation has evolved here at CESL. There are a number of good things about weblogs and what we've gotten through them; I believe our students have become more confident, more fluent technologically, and more aware of each other and each of their classmates' ideas and work. It is in all senses a community, rather disorganized at times (like now), rather chaotic, but vibrant, alive, and working toward expression that is very enlightening in many ways.

But the presentation is really about the teachers, and the degree to which they (you) either were sold on the idea, or not, and what could be done to improve that. If you have any ideas, let me know. It's an ongoing process. I'd be glad to share what I've put together; it will be linked from here in coming days.

-Tom

Online presence

2005-03-04T10:23:00.000-08:00

It sometimes takes a while to develop an interest in making your entire online presence as professional as everything else you do. Thus we sometimes start weblogs and months or even weeks later have the time AND interest to learn the skills needed, in some cases, to upgrade their appearance. In my case this is still an evolving process.

A good place to start is here. This was given to me by Kurt Larsen.

Rebecca Blood
Ten tips for a better weblog.
Rebecca's Pocket, Mar. 22, 2003.

It's not directed specifically to teachers, but it will give you ideas on where to start and on some of the possibilities.

One of the best all-around ways to develop skills in this area is through my friend Vance Stevens, who has started an amazing worldwide online community to develop the use of technology in classrooms worldwide. His most recent article on online presence for teachers is here:

Stevens, V. (2005, Jan. 10).
Establishing and maintaining a web presence: A guide for educators.

This has links to things he's doing: one is an online tutorial for teachers leading up to the TESOL 2005 in San Antonio. It's a good way to develop skills at your own pace!

-Tom

Chungbuk Students Hit the Stage!

2005-02-17T17:49:00.000-08:00

Several of the Chungbuk National University students currently here at CESL are performing tomorrow night at SIU's annual International Festival. Check out the "Southern Spotlight" for more details about the festival. The CBNU students have put in many hours rehearsing their singing and dancing. They will perform in conjunction with SIU's Korean Student Association.

Jessica

Why have a class weblog?

2005-02-06T13:47:00.000-08:00

My favorite part about working with class weblogs in addition to personal weblogs is that you can compare how different individuals approach the same topic from unique perspectives. I recently read sixteen essays about the same experience (a class trip), and I can't find two identical responses. Putting these varied accounts together on one weblog creates a kind of mosaic effect, and I hope it is one other readers will also enjoy.

Jessica

Making weblogs

2005-01-28T09:30:00.000-08:00

I am available to help CESL teachers and students create and use weblogs.
Office Hours: M-R 11-12, F 10-12, or by appointment; Faner 3235 or LMC
Students may also see me during these times for writing assistance.
-Marie

CESL Conversation

2005-01-28T09:21:00.000-08:00

Currently an English conversation table meets Tuesdays and Thursdays, 3:30-5:00, in the International Lounge of the Student Center. It would be great to have English Speakers join us as volunteer conversation partners. If you or someone you know might be interested in participating please contact me. An hour every week would be greatly appreciated and we can work around your schedule. Also please remind CESL students about the conversation table. Thanks for helping me get the word out.
Marie

teaching teachers

2005-01-14T13:34:00.000-08:00

This weblog was recently submitted as part of a TESOL CALL-IS Internet Fair proposal. It's not that it's the greatest weblog or even the best part of our system; it's more that it is the only one that gets close to the process of education in use of weblogs that we've been trying here.

The proposal is in the names of Laura Halliday and me (Tom); I submitted it recently.

Though our success in actually teaching teachers has been mixed, I can at least say that I've learned a lot about it, and have something to share.

-Tom

weblogs in the classroom

2005-01-13T09:03:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone had a good break and a good New Year. Welcome back. If you are looking around for stuff to help you get a fresh start, here you go:

Here's an article that tells a little more about what we're doing:

Weblogs for use with esl classes, by Aaron Campbell. He also has links to his own weblogs for his own classes; I think you'll find this interesting.

By the way I'm looking at other servers since we've had some trouble with Blogger.com. The more I look, though, the more I'm inclined to stay where we are. For more info about this search visit me here.

See you soon! -TL

article

2004-12-10T07:51:00.000-08:00

Read this....

'Blog' wins place of note in lexicon and consciousness, Roanoke (VA) Times.

week 7

2004-12-10T07:43:00.000-08:00

Another term drawing to a close...we have some virtual tours, a lot of music; in sum, a mixed bag, success and failure, fear and conquering of fear; professional English and somewhat haphazard, technology-induced missteps. The process is one of learning to present in both a new culture and a new medium, and it's more difficult for teachers who are not comfortable in the new medium and in some cases have no intention of becoming that way....but hey- it's a new world...we who have entered at a time when we have to write "a href" in order to make a link will soon be the old-timers.

For an all-around interesting group of students, this time go to AE1 and start going into students' weblogs; there's good music all over the program; the best virtual tours are still coming, but Istanbul and New Orleans in my book are pretty good...take a look! Mine is Carbondale, but I'm still working on it...enjoy!

Week 5

2004-11-16T11:42:00.000-08:00

Welcome, Kurt, and thanks for the pictures. One is on the left. Others are coming.

Thanks, Shalaigh and Marie, for hard work on the music assignments. There's some great music out there. And some pretty good Virtual Tours popping up too. I'm working on Carbondale....

Have a happy Thanksgiving, everyone...

Music assignments

2004-11-09T13:42:00.000-08:00

Students are enjoying putting their music assignments up...each class is different, but slowly we're finding out a lot about them, and I think they are enjoying going into each other's worlds and finding out about different bands.

A couple of issues have come up. Apparently in blogging it's very easy and common to swipe pictures. I just swiped one of my sister and put it on my own blog just a little bit ago, but the question is: is this ok? I assume there are some people who would mind. We should perhaps warn students about this.

Second, we have a matter of perspective. It's true: most teachers have lots of objectives already, are behind on any given syllabus; feel it's all they can do to teach their students what they have at hand. To teach blogging complicates matters because first, it's presentation, like oral presentation or writing, but it's in a new media; second, it involves technology that's not easy, to say the least. When the writing assistants know more than we do we always look a little bad, I think...but hey. At some point you have to say, I'm an old-timer, I'm going to look bad no matter what. So what if I don't know how to upload an mp3 file?

Welcome Catherine...

Cheers and have a good November....a good turkey too.

Great weblogs

2004-10-18T11:04:00.000-07:00

With the end of the term it's time to reflect on what has passed before us.

There really are a number of great weblogs out there, and they reflect a number of things.

The first is that CESL students are gaining technological proficiency, whether it is being able to upload a picture, or make a link, or even make a paragraph look good in a new medium.

The second is that a number of them have made entire portfolios....these represent the finished product of a lot of work. In other words, each paper shows how they struggled, rewrote, found sources, made a reference, etc. So in that sense these papers represent what we can do academically as well as what we are proud enough of to show the world.

Finally, CESL students had fun learning and travelling around, which is beginning to be reflected in their various posts and in CESL Today, which is drawn from the weblogs.

On to another term! Feel free to post here; this is yours too. Welcome Richie! I'll get you linked in a minute!

;-)

Weblog contest

2004-10-08T07:45:00.000-07:00

Thank you to the editors of the poetry contest...results will be published soon. There is also a best weblog contest, which may have some minor prizes, and which will hopefully encourage personalization and good design technique to emerge in the future....one can only hope? Actually I think some of our students are much better at this than they're letting on...I can only hope that they will feel comfortable enough to share their skill and show off a little...in English. What I meant to say was, you're a teacher, you have an opinion and an eye for design, give us your input as to which one you believe is best....

045

2004-10-05T11:51:00.001-07:00

As the term comes to an end I can see that different weblogs are turning out different ways, and that's not all bad. I think that as the students get into it, some will use them more, and others will consistently shy away from them. Getting people permanently connected and permanently used to expressing themselves in public is difficult even for native speakers.

The poetry contest appears to have been a success; just read the poems. The questions we should be asking are: To what degree are our students reading more, participating more, communicating with each other more, becoming more aware of the changing world that we're living in? Are these weblogs helping them learn this kind of participation? How difficult has it been to teach them to use passwords, upload, make links, etc.?

Then again, how many of us are still working on these things?

We'll see how many of them are beyond us, and maybe we'll see how far beyond.

Welcome...

2004-09-13T14:25:00.000-07:00

to GE and EAP1, the newest classes with class weblogs. They
each have links to various students, so it's beginning to
get interesting to "forage" around for interesting things to
read. I encourage everyone to make one, and enjoy it. We'd
like to see what you have, what you write, what you link to.

I've added links to the classes on the sidebar. If you want
to link to them yourself, just go in there (click on "template,"
scroll down), copy the link lines, and put them on your own.
You may have to experiment a little to be sure you have them
in the right place. Each of us has learned how to do this...
the hard way. But eventually, you can link to the classes...link
to CESL places...link to your friends...even link to some good
music! That's what other people do!

Take care and happy weblogging!

Teachers' weblog

2004-08-27T12:10:00.000-07:00

This space is an attempt to make teachers more familiar with the process of weblogging, which is another way of communicating except that you don't have to cut trees to do it. When you make weblogs you can make them entirely private, like a diary, or private for a class, like a class yearbook, or public in a limited way, or very public.

You can learn how to make them here. The undergraduate assistants will help. Be easy on them, though; they're just learning too! We made this weblog so that they and you would have practice posting, putting things on, taking them off, changing the template, etc. Feel free to change it! Password is below.

Weblogs are useful in many ways. Here are some links to get you started....

Blog-EFL
ESL/EFL Weblogs
EdBlogger Praxis
Blogger.com

Welcome to 'blogging'...

2004-08-26T11:17:00.000-07:00

This is a place to learn more about making weblogs and using them in ESL/EFL. Feel free to contribute. Password is "Fanerhall"...

We'll try to put links on here to show each other what we're doing, etc.