Discussion Groups / ESL Teaching / October 2005

We're going to launch our first online training module for ESL teachers
at http://www.eslsociety.com in the next week or week and a half.

The best part is, it will be free!

We'll be using a proprietary software that's separate from the website,
and need a bit of time to get all of that installed and tested.

Our initial training module will be very simple, as we're still in the
early stages of this process.  Hopefully, your login for eslsociety.com
will work, and you will automatically be registered once the teacher
education site goes live.

One thing we're looking for is people who can be teacher trainers.
There won't be any payment for this.  We're also not collecting a fee
from our users.

Teacher trainers will have special access and will be able to develop
their own courseware on our server.

Although this is not a paying position, there are several key benefits:

First, once the courseware is set up (and it's relatively easy to do,
and you don't need very much tech knowledge at all).

Second, you gain worldwide recognition in the field.  This is of
course, contingent upon developing a good training module, and we're
not going to approve anything that's sub-standard.

Third, publishing companies and companies that provide certification
can benefit by providing "scaled back" versions or specific modules of
their courses, and generate a large volume of pre-sold and
pre-qualified buyers.

Finally, we'de like you to forward this to anyone you think may be
interested in developing, teaching, or participating in free courses,
and want to emphasize that we WILL NOT be offering any certifications
(we want to make friends in the industry and provide benefit for
everyone, including cert. companies, not to wreak havoc).  This will
also be posted as a site blog, so you can refer people there.

To give you an idea of how the courses will work, here's a breakdown of
the features:
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Promotes a social constructionist pedagogy (collaboration, activities,
critical reflection, etc)

Suitable for 100% online classes as well as supplementing face-to-face
learning

Course listing shows descriptions for every course on the server,
including accessibility to guests.

Courses can be categorised and searched - ESLsociety.com can  support
thousands of courses

Most text entry areas (resources, forum postings etc) can be edited
using an embedded WYSIWYG HTML editor like on the main eslsociety site

Site management
Site is managed by an admin user

Plug-in activity modules can be added to existing Moodle installations

User management

Each person requires only one account for the whole server - each
account can have different access

An admin account controls the creation of courses and creates teachers
by assigning users to courses

A course creator account is only allowed to create courses and teach in
them

Teachers may have editing privileges removed so that they can't modify
the course (eg for part-time tutors)

Security - teachers can add an "enrollment key" to their courses to
keep out non-students. They can give out this key face-to-face or via
personal email etc

Teachers can enrol students manually if desired

Teachers can unenrol students manually if desired, otherwise they are
automatically unenrolled after a certain period of inactivity (set by
the admin)

Students are encouraged to build an online profile including photos,
description. Email addresses can be protected from display if required.

Every user can specify their own timezone, and every date in Moodle is
translated to that timezone (eg posting dates, assignment due dates
etc)

Course management
A full teacher has full control over all settings for a course,
including restricting other teachers

Choice of course formats such as by week, by topic or a
discussion-focussed social format

Flexible array of course activities - Forums, Quizzes, Resources,
Choices, Surveys, Assignments, Chats, Workshops

Recent changes to the course since the last login can be displayed on
the course home page - helps give sense of community

Most text entry areas (resources, forum postings etc) can be edited
using an embedded WYSIWYG HTML editor

All grades for Forums, Quizzes and Assignments can be viewed on one
page (and downloaded as a spreadsheet file)

Full user logging and tracking - activity reports for each student are
available with graphs and details about each module (last access,
number of times read) as well as a detailed "story" of each students
involvement including postings etc on one page.

Mail integration - copies of forum posts, teacher feedback etc can be
mailed in HTML or plain text.

Custom scales - teachers can define their own scales to be used for
grading forums and assignments

Courses can be packaged as a single zip file using the Backup function.
These can be restored in the case of a loss.

Assignment Module

Assignments can be specified with a due date and a maximum grade.

Students can upload their assignments (any file format) to the server -
they are date-stamped.

Late assignments are allowed, but the amount of lateness is shown
clearly to the teacher

For each particular assignment, the whole class can be assessed (grade
and comment) on one page in one form.

Teacher feedback is appended to the assignment page for each student,
and notification is mailed out.

The teacher can choose to allow resubmission of assignments after
grading (for regrading)

Chat Module
Allows smooth, synchronous text interaction

Includes profile pictures in the chat window

Supports URLs, smilies, embedded HTML, images etc

All sessions are logged for later viewing, and these can also be made
available to students

Choice Module
Like a poll. Can either be used to vote on something, or to get
feedback from every student (eg research consent)

Teacher sees intuitive table view of who chose what

Students can optionally be allowed to see an up-to-date graph of
results

Forum Module
Different types of forums are available, such as teacher-only, course
news, open-to-all, and one-thread-per-user.

All postings have the authors photo attached.

Discussions can be viewed nested, flat or threaded, oldest or newest
first.

Individual forums can be subscribed to by each person so that copies
are forwarded via email, or the teacher can force subscription for all

The teacher can choose not to allow replies (eg for an
announcements-only forum)

Discussion threads can be easily moved between forums by the teacher

Attached images are shown inline

If forum ratings are being used, these can be restricted to a range of
dates

Quiz Module
Teachers can define a database of questions for re-use in different
quizzes

Questions can be stored in categories for easy access, and these
categories can be "published" to make them accessible from any course
on the site.

Quizzes are automatically graded, and can be re-graded if questions are
modified

Quizzes can have a limited time window outside of which they are not
available

At the teacher's option, quizzes can be attempted multiple times, and
can show feedback and/or correct answers

Quiz questions and quiz answers can be shuffled (randomised) to reduce
cheating

Questions allow HTML and images

Questions can be imported from external text files

Attempts can be cumulative, if desired, and finished over several
sessions

Multiple-choice questions supporting single or multiple answers

Short Answer questions (words or phrases)

True-False questions

Matching questions

Random questions

Numerical questions (with allowable ranges)

Embedded-answer questions (cloze style) with answers within passages of
text

Embedded descriptive text and graphics

Resource Module
Supports display of any electronic content, Word, Powerpoint, Flash,
Video,
Sounds etc

Files can be uploaded and managed on the server, or created on the fly
using web forms (text or HTML)

External content on the web can be linked to or seamlessly included
within the course interface.

External web applications can be linked in with data passed to them

Survey Module
Built-in surveys (COLLES, ATTLS) have been proven as instruments for
analysing online classes

Online survey reports always available, including many graphs. Data is
downloadable as an Excel spreadsheet or CSV text file.

Survey interface prevents partly-finished surveys.
Feedback is provided to the student of their results compared to the
class averages

Workshop Module

Allows peer assessement of documents, and the teacher can manage and
grade the assessment.

Supports a wide range of possible grading scales

Teacher can provide sample documents for students to practice grading

Very flexible with many options.