This blog is defunct, as you may have noticed. It is part of a system that is being saved. For more information, go here.

Using and maintaining the weblogs

I'll be honest with you: I've retired, so it's really up to CESL what to do with these weblogs. In their heydey they were wonderful, colorful, interesting and alive; people from the public read and appreciated them, and commented; our students interacted with them and with each other. People put pictures up and they documented our times, much like Facebook does now.

I don't want to delete them altogether, for that very reason: they document those times, and they are interesting. In order to keep them alive, I have to basically shut them off to spammers, who would like to comment on every single one of them, and yet still make it so you can scroll through them and find good things, or look at pictures of those eras.

The following is a guideline if you (someone from CESL) would like to actively use them, change them, or even delete them. I will make my arguments for using them first. But even if you choose to leave them around and not use them, they will serve as a kind of scrapbook of the era, namely 2000-2010. The ought decade. Please do. I'm still attached to them sentimentally.

We put lots of things on them: student work, congratulations to graduates, whole research papers with abstracts, links to student weblogs which had student writing, etc. The purpose was not only to share with each other and with the program, but also to share and interact with the public, and actually publish important work. I always believed that having a real audience elevated a piece of work, and made issues like plagiarism more pertinent. I won't belabor the point, but the weblogs were wonderful for this; I still consider them a success.

I'll say another thing about SIU classes actually publishing things for public benefit. Yes, I have trouble with the porn-spammers who could come in and, as a comment, leave a link to some porn site. I think SIU should avoid any connection with such people, and have worked hard to keep these guys off our sites; hopefully I've been successful. I need your continuous vigilance, though; I can't do it alone. One time I let a student put our class movie up on YouTube on his ID, then I couldn't clear it of comments that I didn't approve of; I think we in CESL must constantly either not allow comments or make them so we read them before they actually appear. I believe I have successfully done this on all our weblogs, but I'm not sure. It is better to delete the weblog, then let commenters comment freely and not be able to monitor. That's the main reason I've set up this guide.

CESL weblogs are set up on three different IDs: cesl07@hotmail (teachers), cesl06@yahoo (newstalk & miscellaneous), and ceslstudents@yahoo (main one, with alumni, etc.) The passwords for all three are the same, a well-known building all one word. Virtually any weblog, you can scroll down to the saluki, click on it, and learn how to get into it. Recently Google has become more sensitive, though, and required my cell-number for verification; I gave it to them, and now you may have trouble getting in. If you do, let me know and I'll transfer the account; I really don't mind. If it lets you log in, choose the weblog you want to publish in and publish away. I trust any CESL employee to do what is best for CESL here; I always have, and have never been let down.

Inside the "Settings" settings you'll see where you can control who comments, control who can post, control the template, control the title of the blog, etc. It's yours now to do as you wish.

Pictures from an era

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

Sarah Chang & Baby Grace, Halloween 2011

Leah McSorley

New static web system

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

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