Wiki

DEFINITION OF WIKI. Wiki is a piece of server software that allows users to freely create and edit Web page content using any Web browser. Wiki supports hyperlinks and has a simple text syntax for creating new pages and crosslinks between internal pages on the fly. Wiki is a Web site that allows users to add and update content on the site using their own Web browser. This is made possible by Wiki software that runs on the Web server. Wikis end up being created mainly by a collaborative effort of the site visitors. A great example of a large wiki is the Wikipedia, a free encyclopedia in many languages that anyone can edit. The term "wiki" comes from the Hawaiian phrase, "wiki wiki," which means "super fast." Advantages of using a Wiki. A Wiki is: Good for writing down quick ideas or longer ones, giving you mor time for formal writing and editing. Instantly colaborative without emailing documents, keeping the group in sync. Accesible from anywhere with a web connection. Your archive, because every page revision is kept. Exciting, immediate and empowering-everyone has a say.

BLOGS

What is a Blog ?? A blog is basically a journal that is available on the web. The activity of updating a blog is “blogging” and someone who keeps a blog is a “blogger.” Blogs are typically updated daily using software that allows people with little or no technical background to update and maintain the blog. Postings on a blog are almost always arranged in cronological order with the most recent additions featured most prominantly. According to Wikipedia a blog is a website in which items are posted on a regular basis and displayed in reverse chronological order. The term blog is a shortened form of weblog or web log. Authoring a blog, maintaining a blog or adding an article to an existing blog is called “blogging”. Individual articles on a blog are called “blog posts,” “posts” or “entries”. A person who posts these entries is called a “blogger”. A blog comprises text, hypertext, images, and links (to other web pages and to video, audio and other files). Blogs use a conversational style of documentation. To put it as simply as possible – a blog is a type of website that is usually arranged in chronological order from the most recent ‘post’ (or entry) at the top of the main page to the older entries towards the bottom.

Blogs in Education Blogs provide a communication space that teachers can utilise with students whenever there is a curriculum need to develop writing, share ideas and reflect on work being undertaken in the classroom. From an education perspective the availability and ease of use of blogging software makes creating blogs a viable classroom activity and a means for teachers to communicate with other teachers. Pedagogy & Blogging. B E N E F I T S Potential benefits as identified by learning specialists Fernette and Brock Eide’s and cited by Will Richardson in Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Webtools for Classroooms. • Can Promote Critical and analytical thinking • Can Promote Creative, Intuitive and Associational thinking • Can Promote Analogical thinking • Potential for increased access and exposure to quality information • Combination of solitary and social interaction. U S E S Following is an extensive list of ideas of how to use blogs in the classroom, excerpted from Anne Davis’s EduBlog Insights. You might like to create a reflective, journal type blog to… • reflect on your teaching experiences.   • keep a log of teacher-training experiences. • write a description of a specific teaching unit. • describe what worked for you in the classroom or what didn’t work. • provide some teaching tips for other teachers. • write about something you learned from another teacher. • explain teaching insights you gain from what happens in your classes. • share ideas for teaching activities or language games to use in the classroom. • provide some how-to’s on using specific technology in the class, describing how you used this technology in your own class. • explore important teaching and learning issues.

Webtools: Web 1.0; 2.0; 3.0

According to what we discussed in our Webtools session; Web 1.0 are personal or institutional sites based on http (hypertext mark-up language)to publish information. They are static web pages designed with frames and gig buttoms, and with a reduced need of being updated. According to Wikipedia Web 1.0 is a retronym which refers to the state of the World Wide Web, and website design style before the Web 2.0 phenomenon, and included most websites in the period between 1994 and 2004. Web 2.0 Web 2.0 facilitates communication, information exchange and colaboration under a dynamic environment where users participate in the design and production of the site. Readers are active and participate generating information and constructing knowledge. Wikipedia’s definition, “Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the Internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform”. Web 2.0 encourages creativity, communication and networking among the internet users. It is the read write networking platform where the internet users will be able to interact and communicate among each other.

Web 3.0 According to Todd Lucier (2009) web 3.0, refers to a supposed third generation of Internet-based services. that collectively comprise what might be called ‘the intelligent Web’—such as those using semantic web, microformats, natural language search, data mining, machine learning, recommendation agents, and artificial intelligence technologies—which emphasize machine-facilitated understanding of information in order to provide a more productive and intuitive user experience.what might be called ‘the intelligent Web’—such as those using semantic web, microformats, natural language search, data mining, machine learning, recommendation agents, and artificial intelligence technologies. . . According to some Internet experts Web 3.0 will allow the user to sit back and let the Internet do all of the work for them.[67] Rather than having search engines gear towards your keywords, the search engines will gear towards the user. Keywords will be searched based on your culture, region, and jargon.[68] For example, when going on a vacation you have to do separate searches for your airline ticket, your hotel reservations, and your car rental. With Web 3.0 you will be able to do all of this in one simple search. The search engine will present the results in a comparative and easily navigated way to the user.

The Current Situation of ICT in EFL

E-learning comprises all forms of electronically supported learning and teaching. The information and communication systems, whether networked or not, serve as specific media to implement the learning process. The term will still most likely be utilized to reference out-of-classroom and in-classroom educational experiences via technology, even as advances continue in regard to devices and curriculum. E-learning is essentially the computer and network-enabled transfer of skills and knowledge. Another definition of e-learning is: The delivery of individualized, comprehensive, dynamic learning content in real time, aiding the development of communities of knowledge, linking learners and practitioners with experts. Distance Education. Distance education is defined, as a formal educational process in which the majority of the instruction occurs when student and instructor are not in the same place. Instruction may be synchronous or asynchronous. Distance education may employ correspondence study, or audio, video, or computer technologies. Distance education is the practical subset of education that deals with instruction in which distance and time are the criterial attributes; that is, student and teacher (and other students) are separated by distance and/or time. Virtual learning. A virtual learning environment (VLE) is a set of teaching and learning tools designed to enhance a student's learning experience by including computers and the Internet in the learning process. A VLE is a virtual classroom that allows teachers and students to communicate with each other online. Class information, learning materials, and assignments are typically provided via the Web. Students can log in to the class website to view this information and may also download assignments and required reading materials to their computers. Some VLEs even allow assignments and tests to be completed online. Blended Learning. The New South Wales Department of Education and Training (2002) provides a simple definition: Blended Learning is learning which combines online and face-to-face approaches. Kurtus (2004) states: Blended learning is a mixture of the various learning strategies and delivery methods that will optimize the learning experience of the user. Classroom training sessions, Computer-Based Training (CBT) via a CD-ROM, Web-Based Training (WBT) can be combined as a way to train the learners. WBT can be on demand or at a specific time with an instructor and other students involved.

Digital Literacy

The notion of digital literacy is not new. Indeed, arguments for «computer literacy» date back at least to the 1980s. Yet as Goodson and Mangan (1996) have pointed out, the term «computer literacy» is often poorly defined and delineated, both in terms of its overall aims and in terms of what it actually entails. As they suggest, rationales for computer literacy are often based on dubious assertions about the vocational relevance of computer skills, or about the inherent value of learning with computers, which have been widely challenged. In contemporary usage, digital (or computer) literacy often appears to amount to a minimal set of skills that will enable the user to operate effectively with software tools, or in performing basic information retrieval tasks. This is essentially a functional definition: it specifies the basic skills that are required to undertake particular operations, but it does not go very far beyond this. Digital literacy is much more than a functional matter of learning how to use a computer and a keyboard, or how to do online searches. Of course, it needs to begin with some of the «basics». In relation to the internet, for example, children need to learn how to locate and select material – how to use browsers, hyperlinks and search engines, and so on. But to stop there is to confine digital literacy to a form of instrumental or functional literacy. The skills that children need in relation to digital media are not confined to those of information retrieval. They also need to be able to evaluate and use information critically if they are to transform it into knowledge. This means asking questions about the sources of that information, the interests of its producers, and the ways in which it represents the world; and understanding how these technological developments are related to broader social, political and economic forces. I found many definitions of Digital literacy but I realized that authors do not have a unique position about it. Probably fifteen years ago, it was easier to define what "Literacy" meant. Perhaps if we had said that literacy was the ability to read and write, we had been right.

The internet, computer games, digital video, mobile phones and other contemporary technologies provide new ways of mediating and representing the world, and of communicating. Outside school, children are engaging with these media, not as technologies but as cultural forms. If educators wish to use these media in schools, they cannot afford to neglect these experiences: on the contrary, they need to provide students with means of understanding them. This is the function of what some authors call Digital Literacy.

Welcome Message

I am Edgar Leon. I got a bachelor degre in Education English Major at Universidad Simòn Rodriguez. Currently I am working as an English teacher at Unexpo Luis Caballero Mejias in La Yaguara. I teach ESP to Engineering students of three different Majors: Systems Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Industrial Engineering.