Interview with Kevin Chen, italki (language learning): Innovators in E-Learning Series

Web-based techniques for learning languages are expanding, and social networking is proving to be one of the most effective approaches. italki.com has adopted an open platform approach, and the resources have remained free. In addition, it has recently added new features which encourage language learners to receive tutoring from native speakers. The italki.com platform allows individuals to create classrooms, and to charge a fee for tutoring. Keven Chen, co-founder of italki.com, discusses his vision for the future.

1. What is your name and your relation to e-learning?

My name is Kevin Chen and I co-founded italki.com with Yongyue Jiang. italki.com is a website that helps people learn languages. My ideas for italki came from my experiences trying to learn Mandarin Chinese in Shanghai. While I was studying, I had this thought that a language learning social network would be well-suited for solving problems like finding language partners and sharing learning materials. I also thought that a social network could become the foundation of something much larger.

2. What is italki and how is it different from other sites and services?

We've tried to make italki as community-oriented and free as possible. We're unique in this way. Many of our competitors have their own proprietary content, and some have a specific pedagogical approach. We're trying to be more like an open platform and resource center.


We believe our users should choose their own learning (or teaching) methodology. All of our content is generated by our users. The help that users receive from the website comes from other users. Users practice speaking a language with each other, and they answer each others' questions.

It's impressive to see how much help you can get on italki from people freely donating their time. People used to ask me "Why do users do this?" I'm not sure what the exact answer is. I guess there are a lot of good people out there.

3. What is your new marketplace feature?

The language marketplace is where we connect teachers and students for paid language instruction. Students can choose a teacher after considering their experience, academic qualifications, teaching style, lesson price, or whatever criteria they think is most important. Teachers can set a price based on demand for the language they teach and their own economic expectations. We hope that the language marketplace will give students that previously could not get language instruction the opportunity to learn. We also hope that the marketplace will give teachers in remote locations access to students around the world. We believe there is a lot of demand for language instruction that isn't being met due to geography -- and this is a problem the internet was meant to solve.

4. It's great that you're making it easier for people to share skills and expertise. There may be unintended benefits along the way. Can you think of what they might be?

We think there are many benefits that come from bringing together people from different backgrounds. An obvious one is that we hope italki can promote greater cultural understanding. You can learn a great deal more than just the language, when you talk with someone from another country.

Certainly you can make friends on the site. I think italki is a special kind of social network in that it isn't where you go to connect to your existing friends -- it's where you go to find strangers that are interested in sharing their knowledge and experience with you.

5. Here's a skeptic's question: Wouldn't it be just as easy for people to connect via voiceover IP and pay via PayPal or gift certificates? What are the advantages to being involved in the italki solution?

While that's a possibility, we see ourselves playing an important role in dealing with issues like customer fulfillment, dispute settlement, and financial transactions. By intermediating the transaction, students can use whatever methods they have to pay into the system. Paypal is convenient in many parts of the world, but unfortunately not all. In addition, italki helps to protect both the students and teachers from fraudulent behavior. The money is held temporarily by italki pending the confirmation process. Finally, teachers can build up an online reputation this way. As teachers use the system, their students are able to signal to other users on italki that the teacher is reliable and qualified.

6. What are some of the underlying pedagogical pillars that support your endeavor? What are some of your educational strategies and philosophies?

We're trying to avoid taking a stand on a specific pedagogical methodology. We believe every student and teacher has a way of learning that is best suited for them. Some users on italki use the site as a complement to their existing language studies at school. Some users have full-time jobs, and are using italki as their primary source for education. Undoubtedly, there are a broad range of goals and levels of commitment on italki.

In general, we have a belief that using a language in actual communication is a key part of acquiring mastery of a language. Language immersion is arguably the key benefit of living abroad, and we're trying to provide something similar to this --maybe you can call it "virtual immersion." Even a few sessions practicing a language with a native speaker can do wonders for listening comprehension, pronunciation, and general fluency. I'm sure students have witnessed the benefits of spending a summer studying abroad -- we hope to recreate some of that effect online with italki.


7. Interactivity, community, and engagement are great -- how about outcomes assessment? Do you have any way to help people with standardized tests of proficiency that they'll have to pass?

Outcomes assessment is something that is important, and we have some ideas for future features. In general, we rely on the community to create services for our members. For example, we have teachers that offer classes specifically devoted to standardized test preparation. There are also test preparation study notes that users have uploaded to the site. Again, we see italki as a platform, and hopefully our users can respond to the needs of the community.

8. Final question: any encouraging, visionary thoughts?

I imagine that in the future, people will find learning to be a lifelong process, and that learning a foreign language will be an essential part of every human being's education. Getting taught a language from a native teacher presently living in their home country will seem completely natural. The demand to learn languages will be completely satisfied everywhere -- from rare languages being offered in every high school and college -- to every developing country having access to all the teachers they need for international languages like English.

Just like for wikipedia, there will be open source language textbooks, collaboratively created, and free for everyone with an internet connection. These materials will be more than just text -- they'll come in video, audio, and every content format that can be stored online. And these materials will reach into every language pair, and even cover the languages that are in danger of extinction.

People learning foreign languages will immediately become a member of a community of students, teachers and tutors, who are interested in sharing their knowledge, their culture, and their time. Learning a foreign language will become an instant and natural gateway to having friends around the world.

It's a big dream, and I hope that italki can play a part in building that.

Interview with Gary Dietz, Elluminate -- Innovators in E-Learning Series

Welcome to an interview with Gary Dietz of Elluminate, a collaboration tool and platform that allows e-learning and training to bridge learning styles and to bring together diverse learners in effective, synchronous training that can be archived and used asynchronously.

1. What is your name and your relation to Elluminate?

My name is Gary Dietz and I am a Senior Product Manager for Elluminate. I am not the chief cook and bottle washer, but I cook and wash a lot of things.



2. What is Elluminate? What does it do? How does it work? Why do you believe in it?

Elluminate the company is focused on applying Internet technologies to help teachers and students teach and learn effectively, regardless of where they are. Elluminate is best know for Elluminate Live!, our main product.

Elluminate Live! maps the collaboration available in a physical classroom – things like talking, seeing one another, shared writing surfaces, break-out groups, shared web browsing, watching film clips – and delivers those same kind of highly interactive activities to groups of teachers and students regardless of whether they are in the same room, the same town, or a continent away.

Elluminate has other products that are concerned with planning for these live interactions, recording interactive sessions for later on-demand viewing, and for making Elluminate work with other eLearning environments like Blackboard and Moodle. I believe in Elluminate because after working in the real-time collaboration space for about 13 years, I have never seen a for-profit team so dedicated toward meeting the needs of a large swath of public and private educational needs.

3. What is the philosophy of Elluminate?

It sounds kind of corny, but our "No User Left Behind" philosophy really encapsulates what we all do every day in our roles at Elluminate. Yes, we are a for profit entity. However, we have a dedicated team of engineers, support staff, and marketing folks (many of whom have come from academia) listening to, and responding as best we can, to the needs of K-12, university, and corporate educators wherever they are and with whatever abilities they possess. Not only that, but for a small company, we have tremendous support for non-profit activities and organizations with over 100 organizations in our Community Partner Program such as NACOL, CIDER, LINGOs, CILC, and the NSTA. Also, our vRoom program allows free, unlimited use of a full version of Elluminate Live (limited to 3 connections at one time).

4. Who benefits from Elluminate? How? Why?

Students benefit from Elluminate, whether those students are K-12, university, adult, or professional learners. Look, it is easy to say that our product helps everyone who is exposed to it, but I won’t do that. What I will do is say that if you have a learner who is motivated (by themselves or their support system), the Elluminate Learning Suite of products will allow instruction to occur in many places and in many ways that would not have been possible without Elluminate. Do we do that alone? Of course not. But with teachers, administrators, parents, and public servants who realize that education needs to change, together we can learn what works best and implement best practices that bring true collaborative learning to more people in more places in ways equal to or better than traditionally available. And many times, at lower cost.




5. What differentiates Elluminate's products from free video conferencing with, say, Skype?

At the 41,000 foot level, most "real time collaboration" products connect people. How they do it, why they do it, whom they are doing it for, and in what context it is deployed is the difference.

At the top level, here are a few things. The Elluminate Learning Suite was designed with pedagogical tools specific to teachers and learners. Not as a consumer video chat tool (such as Skype, which is a great product and I use too) or a business to business "slideware plus phone" product like many other real-time tools on the market.

And it isn’t just the tools, it is the infrastructure. The Elluminate Learning Suite integrates into the way K-12 and University learning programs are designed – from single login to CMS/LMS centered to being able to handle dozens or hundreds of people in a session. And how the deployments are supported and how PD is provided is a major differentiator for an education focused company like Elluminate.

6. How does Elluminate encourage students and instructors to interact?

Elluminate as a company introduces features and free or for-pay professional development that critically examines best practices on how to use our, and others’, tools in classrooms with various constituencies. So, whether it is our free live or recorded moderator training, our free vRoom program, our free, regional Elluminate Community Conferences for face to face sharing, our Product Advisory Councils, our Centers of Excellence program, or the many free webinars we run every quarter, Elluminate is all about interaction between and amongst professionals and helping them interact better with their students. eLearning tools can be, but needn’t be, cold, monolithic, and inhuman. In fact, working exclusively online with student, teachers, administrators, and community members can, when done correctly, provide interaction that is likely more interactive than even face to face.

Let me use an example. Suppose a learner’s English skills are not as good as some of his or her classmates. By being able to participate online in real time not only are some of the "fear" barriers lowered, but additional channels of text chat, possible second language real-time closed captioning, and the ability to record and review later are available in ways that may not be so easily be made available solely in a brick and mortar classroom.

In my personal experience, groups of people who are too scared to ask questions in a brick and mortar classroom are more than willing and able to ask, via text chat or hand-raising in a virtual session.




7. Where and how does your vision encourage creativity, innovation, and leadership?

Our executive leadership is extraordinarily interested in changing the world through education. This is reflected in the makeup of our team and in our ability to address customer needs in ways that companies of a different size or a different vision would not be able to do. Don’t confuse that with lack of desire to be profitable. We certainly have achieved that and continue to require that. But profitability in this space is not achieved through myopic micromanagement or selling stuff that doesn't solve problems. It is achieved by unleashing people at all levels in the organization to solve small and large customer challenges. Our vision is to change the educational landscape, and we need to both listen to mavericks and lead them as appropriate.

8. Here's an extension of the previous question -- How can Elluminate help rebuild America / the world?

That’s a broad question, and I’ll make it even broader and rephrase a bit. We are an international company and we want to be part of the solution space of the challenges we have in delivering education to young students, engage university students, enhance adult learners opportunities, and bring lifelong learners new opportunities to enrich their lives. We strive to make a difference on a global level, particularly in areas where opportunities for communication, collaboration, and education have been sorely lacking.

Our Fire and Ice initiative demonstrates this quite dramatically. As far as the US is concerned, our focus on accessibility, in particular, addresses the No Child Left Behind initiative in a very powerful way. In fact, in South Carolina, where it’s now mandated that a distance education program contain 25% face-to-face learning, Elluminate has been recognized as meeting that requirement.

Only by distributing instructional excellence in better ways to places it already exists and by bringing instructional excellence to places it has never been will we together make the world a better place.

E-Learning Queen's "Corgi Big Bark Awards" June 2008

This month marks the inauguration of E-Learning Queen's Corgi Big Bark Awards. Created to recognize innovations in e-learning, the awards are a way to encourage people who have a dream and a vision, and whose energy provides very welcome inspiration and affirmation for all involved in e-learning.



The Corgi Big Barks are awarded to products and services that achieve a high score in the following categories:

* meets a need in a new way
* is easy to use
* encourages the user think of new ways to teach and learn
* makes one think of new ways to communicate / share / collaborate
* demonstrates a sense of whimsy, humor, beauty
* is practical and affordable
* promotes social responsibility

Elluminate Publish!
http://www.elluminate.com/
Elluminate consistently innovates in a positive and useful way, and the company updates its webinar and other collaborative tools in response to evolving uses of elearning technologies.
The new product, Publish!, is an authoring tool that streamlines the process of using webinars for instructional material for asynchronous as well as synchronous courses.



Revoluminary
http://revoluminary.com/
Revoluminary is a student-based initiative to encourage grassroots tutoring and mentoring efforts. Revoluminary contains classifications of tutoring offerings, a rating system, whiteboards, and other tools that encourage interaction. The flexibility, ease of use, and profoundly inclusive approach to tutoring and mentoring are to be commended.



Narrator Files: Sparrow Interactive
http://www.sparrowia.com/
Profesional voiceovers and stock photos may not seem like a very big deal until you find yourself spending days upon days trying to generate good audio and multimedia content. Sparrow Interactive has created an approach that will work very well with programs of all scopes and sizes, from training to graduate education.

Instructional Spice
http://www.instructionalspice.com/activityspice/
Custom flash activities. Activity Spice is an online application that builds custom eLearning flash activities to be inserted in whatever eLearning platform is in use. This is a web-based application, meaning that Activity Spice be accessed from anywhere. As a result, it can be used work, at home, or at the client location. In a matter of minutes one can have a flash activity customized and downloaded, ready to insert in a course. What used to take days now takes minutes.

LearnHub
http://www.learnhub.com/
Learnhub is a social learning network that gives individuals the opportunity to use a friendly interface to upload video, audio, pdfs, images and other course content, and then to schedule courses, tutoring sessions, and more.

Learnhub incorporates Web 2.0 applications and philosophy in a very clear and straightforward way, resulting in the empowerment of instructors and students. Individuals can form communities and share content. In addition, learners can charge for courses and tutoring sessions, participate in others' sessions, and rate their experiences.

How to Use Elluminate's New Program To Fast-Track Branded Online Course Creation

This is an expansion of an earlier post on how to fast-track the creation of online courses using recorded webinars. I’m applying the concepts to Elluminate’s new new product, Publish!, designed to help users do all the things in my May 2008 "wish list" post, and more. In my post, I discussed how archived webinars (using Elluminate, Adobe Connect, Neulio, LearnHub, etc.) can be saved and then used as the core instructional content for web-based courses and/or hybrid courses. Here's the article again, which has been updated to reflect Elluminate's new product, which is called Publish! (http://elluminate.com/publish/).

Recorded and archived webinars can have very high value as instructional material for online, hybrid, and web-enabled face-to-face courses. Further, well-designed and executed webinars can create an outstanding library of useful information.

The key to success is good planning. It is important to make sure that the following items are covered in the webinar:

1.The objectives of the webinar are clearly stated.
A bullet point list of topics, goals, and desired learning outcomes can help guide the participant.

2. The content is organized in a clear sequence, with a logical flow.
Powerpoints should be clear and not distracting. Avoid too many all-text powerpoints, and use engaging and meaningful graphics when possible.

3. Audience participation is encouraged (even when recorded, seeing audience participation is engaging) with use of polls, surveys, and interaction.
Pace the insertion of polls and audience participation so that they are presented in regular intervals.

4. Audio should be spontaneous, conversational, and related to the content.
Avoid reading the powerpoints. Respond to questions from participants in a clear, relevant, and respectful way. Encourage individuals to use their audio. If they text message their question, be sure to read their question aloud in order to record and capture it for the archived webinar.

5. Use high-impact images that reinforce the objectives of the webinar.
In addition to powerpoints, it is possible to incorporate video, maps, graphics, tables, and other high-impact media. Make sure that you are making the connection between the course goals and the presentation.

Discussion of virtual world library resources.

6. Encourage participants to respond, not just with text messages, but also with audio questions.
You may also wish participants to send links to their own sites and to information that others will find helpful.

7. Content is of high quality and relevant to the objectives of the webinar.
It is a good idea to go through an prune material that does not directly bear on the goals and objectives of the webinar. A distraction or a dash off into the wrong direction can be devastatingly time-consuming in a synchronous webinar format. It’s even worse if the webinar is being archived for future use. Editing out the digressions later can be a real headache.

8. Content is aligned with the level and needs of the participants.
Before you start do the webinar, get an idea of the participants. Who are they? What is their background? Why are they attending? Be sure to gather the information and keep it in mind as you prepare the material.

9. Quizzes, questionnaires, and other interactive elements are included.
Again, don’t overwhelm, and pace them well.

10. If the webinar is a part of a series or a sequence, the place in the sequence should be clearly marked.

Screen shot from an Elluminate webinar

A number of webinar providers have targeted the education market and have made their products effective for classroom learning. However, Elluminate is leading the pack at this point with a number of useful attributes:

Attributes of the most Elluminate’s Vrooms include:

1. Interactivity with multiple participants;

2. Interactivity includes polling, questionnaires, surveys, and quick quizzes;

3. Individuals can write, draw, doodle in whiteboard area;

4. Participants can chat with the group;

5. Participants can send messages to other participants;

6. The interface supports audio and video demos;

7. The interface allows the presenter to move graphics and slides at own pace;

8. A log of presenters with contact information can be made available;

9. The interface allows for orderly interactivity (raise hands function, mute, etc.)

10. A moderator / administrator can archive the webinar.

When utilizing the archived webinars, it is very important to not simply create a "wraparound" shell to house the content. Instead, it is important to create a lesson plan that incorporates effective flow, and has learning objectives as well as clear outcomes assessment. Follow the steps outlined above, and you’ll have high-quality instructional material that will form the foundation of an excellent course that is unique to your organization, and which builds your brand.

Elluminate Learning Suite - http://www.elluminate.com/press/learning-suite-2008.jsp

Elluminate Next > Bundle - http://www.elluminate.com/press/elluminate-next-2008.jsp

posted by susan

Useful book that will help you develop effective online and hybrid courses using archived webinars:
http://ccthomas.com/details.cfm?P_ISBN13=9780398077501

just for fun - new book for teens stresses social responsibility:
http://www.gooddeedssociety.com

LearnHub: Web 2.0 Social Learning Network with Courses, Tutoring, Content Sharing

LearnHub is a fresh approach to online learning that combines social networks and content management to allow users to create, use, and manage online learning (training, tutoring, mini-courses, reviews), all in an easy-to-use platform that encourages multimedia, graphics, and interactivity. What makes Learnhub unique is the fact that it contains an easy-to-use content management system that allows the user to create courses. Despite still being in its rollout phase, individuals and groups are using LearnHub, including such colleges as Athabasca University and several other Canadian, U.S., and global associations and learning organizations.

The flexibility of LearnHub allows an individual to take courses, host content, offer synchronous courses, and to provide synchronous tutoring services. The resources include a whiteboard, chat with threaded discussions, quizzes, downloadable pdfs, audio, and video. Courses can be free, or can have a fee associated with them. They can have fixed start and end dates, rolling start dates, or be completely open.

Tutor offerings are synchronous, live sessions between instructors and students including a whiteboard, video, audio, and document sharing. They can be free or have a fee associated with them. To participate, one should request a session, and the instructor sets up a time.

Upon first glance, the interface does not seem to be too far unremoved from social networking sites such as Bebo (http://www.bebo.com) that offer the opportunity to develop different channels for networks, and which encourage you to create your own content and share it in innovative ways using integrated web applications and other mashups.



The features of LearnHub differentiate it from other portals, start pages, or web application integrators. The focus on learning, the ability to take rate, and comment on content, providers, and learning experiences make it a unique service. Further, with the ability to charge (and collect) fees, the incentives for individuals to put their best possible content, and to take instruction to a level not found in free offerings.



It is important to keep in mind that at this point, LearnHub does not offer a full-fledged learning management solution. It does not have a gradebook, and some of the other features that one might expect with an LMS.

LearnHub allows one to record and archive synchronous sessions (as do web-conferencing programs such as Elluminate or Adobe Connect). This expands the scope of instructional materials. Those who have used archived webinars as building blocks for the instructional content in a course will appreciate this option.

LearnHub's communities and open structure encourage individuals to be creative about the type of ways to use the training and collaboration potential.

The flexibility, social networking, and overall ease of use make LearnHub a compelling option. Not only is it effective for individuals who may wish to offer training, it also encourages colleges and universities to supplement their face-to-face courses with the rich Web 2.0 environment offered by LearnHub. As in the case of the best Web 2.0 applications, LearnHub promotes interaction, collaboration, sharing, peer networking, as well as innovation in multimedia self-expression.

Here is an example of the content that has been placed in a video lesson module in LearnHub (beyondutopia):

Creating Online Courses from Recorded Webinars

An increasing number of webinars are archived and made available to individuals who could not attend the live event. The recorded and archived webinars can have very high value as instructional material for asynchronous courses, and with good instructional design, can lead to a very effective online course.

A poorly planned and executed webinar can be pretty tedious. On the other hand, well-designed and executed webinars can create an outstanding library of useful information. In some cases, it could even constitute the core content of an online or hybrid course.

Elements of Effective Archived Webinars:

1. The objectives of the webinar are clearly stated;

2. The content is organized in a clear sequence, with a logical flow;

3. Audience participation is encouraged (even when recorded, seeing audience participation is engaging) with use of polls, surveys, and interaction;

4. Audio should be spontaneous, conversational, and related to the content. Avoid reading the powerpoints;

5. Use high-impact images that reinforce the objectives of the webinar;

6. Encourage participants to respond, not just with text messages, but also with audio questions;

7. Content is of high quality and relevant to the objectives of the webinar;

8. Content is aligned with the level and needs of the participants;

9. Quizzes, questionnaires, and other interactive elements are included;

10. If the webinar is a part of a series or a sequence, the place in the sequence should be clearly marked.

Screen shot from an Elluminate webinar

A number of webinar providers have targeted the education market and have made their products effective for classroom learning. Perhaps Adobe Connect, Elluminate, and Webex are the most widely used.

Attributes of the most effective webinar programs include:

1. Interactivity with multiple participants;

2. Interactivity includes polling, questionnaires, surveys, and quick quizzes;

3. Individuals can write, draw, doodle in whiteboard area;

4. Participants can chat with the group;

5. Participants can send messages to other partipants;

6. The interface supports audio and video demos;

7. The interface allows the presenter to move graphics and slides at own pace;

8. A log of presenters with contact information can be made available;

9. The interface allows for orderly interactivity (raise hands function, mute, etc.)

10. A moderator / administrator can archive the webinar.

When utilizing the archived webinars, it is very important to not simply create a "wraparound" shell to house the content. Instead, it is important to create a lesson plan that incorporates effective flow, and has learning objectives as well as clear outcomes assessment.

Moodle and Elluminate: Powerful Webinar Functionality

Users of Moodle have reason to celebrate as yet another powerful tool which enables instructors and students to participate in live webinars and then to archive them for ongoing access. Elluminate, a provider of live e-learning and web-based collaboration tools, has made their products Moodle-friendly.

Instructors and online learning administrators often shy away from using Moodle because they believe that to add synchronous functionality will require extensive and costly programming and support. As is often the case with open-source course management solutions, developing functionality can be a challenge, especially if the product undergoes numerous updates or requires numerous plug-ins.



The difficulties of integrating open-source solutions with synchronous functions is one reason that Moodle users have not plunged headlong into trying to weave Second Life, There.com, or other role-playing collaborative interfaces into their Moodle room.



Granted, Elluminate is not a virtual world. But, the potential for collaboration, role-playing, and innovative interaction are definitely there. Further, Elluminate seems to have taken a lot of the pain, expense, and guesswork out of live collaboration.

Here is how Elluminate describes the process:

For users of the Moodle open-source course management system, Elluminate Bridge for Moodle™ enables you to easily and seamlessly integrate live, synchronous distance learning and collaboration into your coursework. Developed in conjunction with Elluminate by Moodle partners Remote-Learner.net and Open Knowledge Technologies, the integration module is available from the Moodle CVS repository.

The process appears to be very straightforward. Nevertheless, it would not be a bad idea to have good support manuals in hand. If you are an administrator of Moodle for your organization, it would be a good idea to provide instructor training, and also to have several demonstrations first.

As always, it is very important to look at what you're doing with the overall design of the course and to make sure that your activities and collaborations reinforce learning goals and objectives.

Symphony Kinematica

Workplace-Focused Language Courses: Keys to Effective E-Learning

It is becoming extremely important for workplaces to offer courses that allow employees to communicate across languages and cultures. In addition, many companies are finding that offering bilingual or multi-lingual service allows them to expand markets. While few companies can afford the investment on an immersion experience or intensive face-to-face course, many are finding that using e-learning (both web-based and mobile learning) is extremely effective Here are keys to effective language e-learning.

1. Identify and articulate precisely what you want to accomplish in the course. Understand the background, contexts, and needs of the learners. Prioritize the presentation of content so that it aligns itself with urgent needs of the course.

2. Good materials. Identify good books, video, audio to supplement elearning (web-based and mobile).

3. Situated learning. Make sure that the activities are placed within a realistic context, and use simulations, graphics, diagrams, interaction, and life-like scenarios whenever possible. This will assure that the learning is "situated" and situational. For example, a course on Spanish for Health Professionals should provide conversations and vocabulary for what one is likely to find in a busy clinic or hospital.

4. Problem-solving approach. Engage the learners by making the learning as experiential as possible. Use a problem-solving approach, which encourages learners to move beyond memorization of terms and vocabulary and to accomplish deeper learning. For example, in a class, Spanish and English for Construction Sites, you may wish to ask students to identify hazardous situations in a workplace, and the find a way to communicate it to co-workers, in Spanish and English.

5. Logical sequence. Make sure that the lessons are placed in a logical order. For example, a course on Spanish and English for construction sites might be organized around the way that learners are likely to interact in the workplace and on the job, as well as the sequence of actions. You may wish to identify various jobs and roles, first, and then the actions of each, and the tools used in each.

6. Scaffolding. Be sure that the lessons build on each other, and that you provide proper cognitive scaffolding.

7. Repetition, Practice, Enactment: Incorporate active learning, which includes repetition, practice, and taking an active part with the content. Focus on student engagement with the material, but make sure it is meaningful engagement. For example, in a course on Construction Spanish for workers and supervisors primarily from Mexico and central America, avoid texts and materials that are idiomatically dissimilar. For example, Spanish from Spain is distinctly different from that of Mexico.

8. Assessments in Same Form as Practice. It is amazing how many times students will learn through video, conversation, and speech, but when it is time for assessment, they are forced to take a text-based multiple choice exam.

9. Clear, Straightforward Learning Platform. The ideal elearning experience for workplace-focused language courses will include a combination of simulations, interactive audio, text, and graphics, along with dynamic interaction among the learners (audio and video chat, informal webinars with multiple presentation capabilities). Although complex applications are attractive, it is important to keep in mind the abilities of the learners and their own situations (infrastructure, hardware, software, wifi or high-speed internet connection availability, mp3 players, etc.).

10. Redundancy of Content Presentation. Not all users will be able to be connected to the Internet. They may not have constant and consistent access to high-speed connections. At the same time, they should be able to use the devices, players, and equipment that they feel comfortable with. This includes the use of mp3 players, video players, even cell phones and handheld (pdas, etc.).

11. Cultural Considerations. Language is more than just words. It is communication that includes and incorporates values, beliefs, traditional behaviors, and codes (both verbal and non-verbal). Needless to say, one could spend a lifetime working on the cultural differences between different groups. In-depth http://www.italki.comcoverage is not necessary. Nevertheless, it is good to provide the learners with key cultural points in order to facilitate and enable mutual understanding. The coverage should include discussions of values and attitudes about family, community, religion, personal relationships, authority, and tradition. In many ways, the writings of Hofstede can be found to be useful.

Useful Resources:

Rosetta Stone. http://www.rosettastone.com/ Extremely effective CDs and blended solutions. Excellent breadth. Not many courses are industry-specific.

italki.com http://www.italki.com Excellent resource for finding language partners, and other resources for learning languages.

Berlitz. http://www.berlitz.com/ Berlitz is a well-known and trusted source of language instruction techniques and materials.

Free Online Language Coruses. http://www.word2word.com/coursead.html Adequate, perhaps, for vacation traveling. It's a good start. Pretty skimpy in terms of what is really needed in the average workplace or job site. Relying on the average Lonely Planet phrasebooks and such will just cause hardships and problems if you're trying to communicate with your construction crew, food service employees, or health professionals.

Interview with Leah S. Piatt (New Series - Life in the E-Learning Organization)

Welcome to a series of interviews with e-learning and distance professionals. This week's interview is with Leah Piatt, Duke University, who is involved in corporate training and adult education.

What is your name, and what is your involvement with e-learning?
Leah S. Piatt. Relatively new to corporate training and adult education, I've been leading the way in our departmental work with e-learning. I've worked with Elluminate. I'm eagerly awaiting the day when I will get to actually moderate a class using this tool.

How did you get interested in distance education?
Some of our participants live and work an hour or more away from our training facility. We're really trying to alleviate travel and time obligations. I anticipate that e-learning will also help with the number of instructor lead classes we teach and bring about a more blended learning approach.

What is your favorite new trend in distance education?
I love the idea of continuing education via distance education. This could open up the amount of guest speakers we have both by eliminating travel time for the speaker as well as allowing someone who'd missed the session to hear the recording and view the presentation later.

What is your favorite technology?
Elluminate

What kinds of instructional materials do you use in elearning?
Power Point, Word, clip art, Snag-It, Captivate (soon, hopefully).

How do you use textbooks in e-learning?
We don't use textbooks, rather participant guides and job aids. These can be emailed before the session begins or converted to power point.

What is your favorite quote? or, what's a book that caught your eye recently?
quote: "While you teach, you learn." -- based on the words of Seneca the Younger, 4BC-65AD

book: The Primal Teen: What The New Discoveries About the Teenage Brain Tell Us About Our Kids --- Barbara Strauch