Links to CALL 487 wiki's

Erin http://ecrofford1.wikispaces.com/
Kristen http://kristen01.wikispaces.com/
Bailey http://blschmid.wikispaces.com/
Nicholas http://hynso.wikispaces.com/
Jeffrey http://jeffreycall.wikispaces.com/
Bill http://billtesol.wikispaces.com/
Lisa http://esldepot.wikispaces.com/
Christine http://christinemarieanderson.wikispaces.com/
Jessina http://jmbranyan.wikispaces.com/
Jesse http://heylookatme.wikispaces.com/
Christina http://cindovina.wikispaces.com/
Maria http://mariacall2010.wikispaces.com/
Hanan http://callhanan.wikispaces.com/
Aja http://badandworse.wikispaces.com/
Sabah http://sktesol.wikispaces.com/

Missing wikis
Jay
Deena
Kazuaki
Miglena


More examples of wikis courtesy of Ryan Hunter
http://depaulelanovel01.wikispaces.com/
http://depaulelanovel02.wikispaces.com/
http://depaulelanovel03.wikispaces.com/

Notes on Thursday, 2/25, class

Discussion of blog assignments requirements

• make sure you have a blog roll
• need reader-friendly format/fonts
• add tags for all postings!

Discussion of wiki use for writing feedback/collaboration
wikispaces demo

• http://collegecomp.wikispaces.com/
• http://introtolit.wikispaces.com/
• http://techproject.wikispaces.com/

Pbwiki demo

• https://eps4151200910016grpa.pbworks.com/
• https://hre47012008910013.pbworks.com/
• https://epsy40812008910007.pbworks.com/

In-class and homework activities

• Sign up for free account in wikispaces at http://www.wikispaces.com/
• Give your new wiki a name, click "edit" tab to start adding content
• On main (home) page of your wiki, write a short "about me" text, followed by a bullet point list of your main areas of interest in CALL
• Tweet the link to your wiki with the tags #MATESOL #wiki
• Start in class and finish at home--> Find who else in class shares your interests and post a comment under the Discussion tab introducing yourself on their wikispaces page. You'll need to read everyone's wiki to do this, but you only need to post on the wiki's that describe areas of interest that you share.
  

A question about toolbars

Recently one of my CALL 487 students emailed me the following question:

"Hi Terrie,
I was just surfing the interweb and came across this site: http://www.eslprintables.com/

I wanted to use some material from it but it asked me to register and then sent me a link to activate my profile/registration. It then said that in order to use the site I had to download their toolbar. My question is whether or not this kind of thing is common? I have declined to install the toolbar, but I'm not sure if sites do this frequently or why they might want you to do so...."

Here was my reply:
"Many sites give you the option to download a toolbar, but don't require it. Delicioius, Yahoo and Google, for example, do this. I generally don't download the toolbar because it seems to slow my computer down and clutter the top bar of my web browser. I looked around at the site and I think you were wise not to download the toolbar. There may be nothing malicious about the site, but there are other places where you can get the same kind of resources without downloading anything, and the eslprintables.com site looked a bit unprofessional....cluttered with ads and odd notes."

You can compare www.eslprintables.com to a site such as http://a4esl.org/ to see what I'm talking about. Just as we need to teach our students to be critical "readers" of the interweb, we also need to bring a skeptical eye to our own search for online ESL resources and CALL tools.

Do you have any examples of either excellent sites such as a4esl.org, or dubious sites such as eslprintables.com, to share?

Also, don't forget to tweet links to either sites you think teachers should steer away from or sites you think are useful resources (add #ESL and #MATESOL at the end of your Twitter post to make it easier to find).