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C&IT Centre

No 4, Feb 95, Pt 2

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Open University, Institute for Educational Technology:
Workshops and Courses on Open/Distance Learning

Unless otherwise indicated, the workshops are one-day events:

• April 26th Teaching with audio and video in ODL
• April 27th Supporting your learners
• May 23rd Getting started with ODL
• May 24th Assessing your learners
• June 14th Writing materials for ODL (1-day workshop)
• June 14th/15th Writing materials for ODL (2-day workshop)

For brochure, please contact:

Brenda Parish,
IET, The Open University
Milton Keynes MK7 6AA  
Tel: 0908 653055, fax: 0908 653744
email: [email protected]

EUROCALL 95, Valencia, 7-9 September

Have you registered? 15 May is the deadline for the reduced conference fee!

For further details and registration forms contact:

Dr Ana Gimeno
Departamento de Idiomas
Universidad Politenica de Valencia
Camino de Vera s/n 46071 Valencia, Spain
Tel +34 6 387 7530 ext 5300/5301
Fax +34 6 387 7539
Email [email protected]

THES online

The Times Higher Education Supplement has set up its own gopher at the URL gopher://gopher.timeshigher.newsint.co.uk. Details of the gopher structure can be found in the Multimedia supplement (ppvi-vii) of the 13 January issue. Contents include:

• a summary of the contents of the current issue (the full text is to become available via a commercial online service at a later date);
• job listing;
• book reviews and lists of new books;
• a bulletin board

There is also a WWW home page (though not yet a full Web server), URL: http://www.timeshigher.newsint.co.uk

Internet resources for language teachers

Over the last few newsletters details have been given of a number of internet resources which may be of interest to language teachers in higher education. They are listed on our Home Page and we would welcome feedback as to their usefulness.

APSA-L: American Portuguese Studies Association List

APSA-L is a new list devoted to the subject of literatures and cultures of the Portuguese-speaking world, especially Brazil and Portugal. It is hoped that this list will become a useful resource for dialogue about these subjects. Although associated with the American Portuguese Studies Association (APSA), the list is not restricted to members of the association. English is the preferred language of discussion in the conference, but posts in the Portuguese language are also accepted. Members are currently online from all over the world, including the United Kingdom, Portugal, United States, Brazil, France, Canada, and other major countries. To subscribe to APSA-L send an email message to:

[email protected]

and include in the body the command:

subscribe apsa-l

Owner: Paulo de Medeiros [email protected]

Using and Accessing Databases as a Resource in Language Teaching

TELL Resources Workshop, University of East Anglia, Saturday 26th November 1994

The workshop, organised by CTI Modern Languages on behalf of the Resources team of the TELL consortium, was attended by teachers of French, German, Spanish, and English as a Foreign Language in the higher education sector, together with staff involved in teacher training and in providing advice on the use of technology in the humanities. Dr Marie-Madeleine Kenning (UEA) opened the morning session with an introduction which covered the large scale development in databases post 1990 and the store of authentic material they represent. She described the particular interest she and her colleague Marie-No�lle Guillot (UEA) have in learner strategies and cognitive processes in relation to database use. The databases are not of themselves dedicated to language learning, and ways of using them for language learning need to be developed.

The main activities of the morning enabled the participants to become familiar with a variety of commercially available databases.

French databases Le Robert Electronique, L'Histoire au jour le jour and Le Monde on CD-ROM were networked and Marie-Madeleine and Marie-No�lle ran a tutorial session designed to give an overview of their contents and capabilities. They then drew conclusions about the mechanics of running such sessions where students need to work at their own speed and the need for written instructions. Throughout the rest of the day, participants were able to have access to the programs, for hands-on familiarisation.

Gabrina Pounds (UEA) gave a presentation on the Italian newspaper database Il Sole 24 Ore CD-ROM, demonstrating its search functions and the ease with which texts could be downloaded. Dieter Beier (UEA) followed this with a presentation on the German database Der Spiegel auf CD-ROM, which provided an interesting contrast with the previously encountered databases. The screen representation was a facsimile of the magazine itself. This graphical representation, whilst providing information about the context and layout of individual articles, meant that the text search facilities of the database were limited, and the downloading of text files was not as simple.

Paul Hickman (LSU, Southampton) described his work in compiling the French Periodicals Database. This had previously been available as the French Resources Database but had been further developed with TLTP funding under the TELL Consortium. The program allows search of article titles from a variety of magazines, with facilities for word search, date-limited search and search within various topic categories.

After lunch Marie-Madeleine and Marie-No�lle built on the overview gained in the morning session to describe the generic approach to database resources for language teaching being developed at UEA. Suggestions for strategies for searching, selecting, developing skim reading skills, etc are presented to students with examples drawn from particular databases, in the hope that students can apply the generalised understanding gained to other examples and other databases. Originally developed in the form of paper-based materials, the tutorial is being developed as a software tool, Medialogue, under the TELL Consortium. There will be three versions of the program, with examples drawn from French, German and Italian datatbases. The first half of the French version is complete and was available for demonstration and use.

The afternoon hands-on session provided opportunities for teachers to look in more detail at all the databases encountered, and to examine some others, such as Die Frankfurter Allegmeine Zeitung auf CD-ROM and the CD-ROM Bibliothek.

The use of KWIC (Key Word in Context) concordancers on the texts downloaded from databases had been referred to throughout the day and participants were given the opportunity to experiment with the networked copy of Microconcord and text files on floppy disk. KWIC concordancers can be used for the purpose of clarifying various points of interest to the language learner or for generating exercises for language teaching. During the hands-on session, the UEA presenters described examples where students themselves were encouraged to use a KWIC concordancer, eg to investigate the differing contexts of two words which were often confused by the language learner, or to investigate the usual position of certain words in the target language.

Overall, the workshop provided an opportunity to gain insight in to a pedagogical approach which places more emphasis on students taking responsibility for their own learning, and which fills a much-needed gap in the provision of language learning activities for more advanced students.

For further details of Medialogue and other materials from the TELL Consortium, please contact Jenny Parsons at CTI Modern Languages.

 

Microcosm news

For the past 18 months copies of Microcosm release 2.x have been distributed free of charge for testing and evaluation purposes. Microcosm release 3.0 is now available and has significant new features:

• Text Viewer also supports RTF (Rich Text Format)
• Graphics Viewer also supports JPEG (JPG) format
• Link Editing Tools
• Drag and drop interface to incorporation of new documents
• Significant enhancements to configuration tools allow new applications, linkbases and documents types to be created in a few simple steps
• Upgrade 2.x applications to release 3.0 in a few simple steps

Microcosm can be obtained for 895 pounds for a single full authoring licence. In addition, reduced functionality 'reader-interactive' licences, are available for 195 pounds.

UK educational users may purchase Microcosm via CHEST. Contact your local CHEST representative or MLS Technology Ltd for details. Order forms and further information can be obtained from MLS Technology Ltd, PO Box 458, Southampton SO17 1XU, tel (01703) 595053 e-mail [email protected], or alternatively via the World Wide Web at the URL http://cosm.ecs.soton.ac.uk/

Discovering Microcosm Workshops: 21 March 1995 and 28 April 1995

Venue: University of Southampton

The Interactive Learning Centre at the University of Southampton is holding a one-day workshop for those interested in Microcosm, aimed at complete beginners, on the 28th April 1995.

Microcosm is a multimedia information management system running under Windows. Through an open hypermedia design, documents that are registered with Microcosm are cross referenced to present an integrated view to the learner. Documents may be text, audio, video or images as well as applications such as Guide,Toolbook,or Visual Basic programs, in addition to standard tools such as Databases and Spreadsheets. In this way Microcosm works as an integrated digital resource manager. Participants will gain an overview of the philosophy of Microcosm as well as hands-on experience as a user. For details of price, time and registration contact:

Rhonda Riachi, Association for Learning Technology
University of Oxford,  13 Banbury Road,  Oxford OX2 6NN
UK, tel 01865 273281, fax 01865 273275, email [email protected]

Hypermedia at Work: Theory and Practice in Higher Education

10-12 January 1995, University of Kent at Canterbury 'Hypermedia at Work' defined as its aim 'to bring together those who are new to hypermedia with those who are already developing and using hypermedia materials.' This aim was apparently fulfilled with the gathering of around 90 delegates with varying degrees of experience in the field, coming from both sides of the Atlantic. The conference was perhaps most noteworthy for the variety of topics addressed in not only the keynote lectures, but also the parallel sessions devoted to workshops and the presentation of papers. Applications for a variety of disciplines were demonstrated in the early evening poster display sessions where there was an opportunity to 'have a play' and talk to the designers.

Keynote Presentations

Keynote speakers were Professor Wendy Hall (University of Southampton), Professor Peter Brown (University of Kent), Professor Terry Mayes (Heriot-Watt University), Elli Mylonas (Brown University), and Professor George Landow (Brown University). Wendy Hall gave the first keynote 'Making Hypermedia Work' which charted the past, present, and future of hypermedia. Historical background and an explanation of the technology was provided by way of excerpts taken from a 1990 Horizon programme 'Hyperland'. With respect to the future, issues such as integrated hypermedia systems, the provision of intelligent agents to work out links to be followed up, virtual reality interfaces, and 'buttonless' systems where documents would be indexed and links computed automatically were raised.

Peter Brown's presentation 'Creating Educational Hyperdocuments' discussed the economic viability of the hyperdocument. The main point which came out of this address was the problem of portability if a good quality application is to be shared with other academic institutions. Professor Brown went on to give an informative account of how best to prepare documents to minimise the effects of this problem.

Professor Terry Mayes' presentation, 'Learning Technology and the Groundhog Day', referred to the periodic cycle of enthusiasm and activity brought on by the introduction of a new technology in teaching. Nothing ever seems to really change, hence Groundhog Day. Whilst putting forward the argument that this time the outcome may be quite different due to a variety of factors, for example, increased student numbers, learners who have grown up in the television and computer age, and the advanced nature of the technology, we were urged to bear in mind the importance of ensuring that such materials are pedagogically sound, affordable, and sufficiently well developed for them to be of real use.

Following the psychology emphasis of the aforementioned keynote, Elli Mylonas provided us with an entertaining account of the development stages of the Perseus project entitled 'Design by Exploration: an Academic Hypertext.' Here we were taken through demonstrations of Perseus during several stages of development. The aim of the presentation was to give an insight into the difference between how software ought to be developed and this 'accretive design', which is how in reality it often happens. Professor George Landow, while providing a definition of multimedia and the electronic book, gave an impressive demonstration of how hypermedia applications can be used to encourage students to make connections and see multiple points of view. Such systems allow students to share their work, make annotations, and comment on each others work. One student's animated interpretation of Brecht's 'My brother was a Pilot' was particularly stirring.

Papers and Workshops

I attended a multi-disciplinary group where Dr Roger Rist of Heriot-Watt University spoke about the current developments in the TLTP funded IMPACT project. Staff have been involved in developing their own courseware material, many of them on a release basis. Materials produced so far are soon to be evaluated.

Dr Clive Betts of the University of Exeter gave an entertaining presentation concerning the best way to manage one's own hypermedia project. This was directed more towards how it ought to be done rather than the creative chaos referred to by Elli Mylonas in her keynote.

Qing-gang Zhang of South Bank University spoke about a project currently underway to combine the use of concordancers with Hypercard to help Chinese EFL students to develop their metacognitive skills by the use of different reading strategies. A database of reading texts is provided, which are then run through a concordancer and accessed via Hypercard.

The paper sessions the following day gave us the opportunity to hear three diverse talks: Jean Anderson of the University of Glasgow showed us how materials prepared for the STELLA project were converted into effective Hypertext systems, Dr Mike Forrester of the University of Kent discussed the findings of a study to determine learning styles in a hypertext environment designed as a complement/ alternative to a lecture course in FORTRAN programming, and Dr John Pickering of Warwick University spoke to us from the point of view of someone with a sceptical interest in using hypermedia in higher education.

I attended workshops: 'Media Capture' given by Dr Stuart Lee of the University of Oxford, and 'From Hypertext to Multimedia-Concepts through to Implementation' presented by Hassan Khan of the University of Greenwich; these covered media capture techniques, hardware, and software for the Mac and the PC respectively. Both of these sessions were highly enjoyable making the process seem very easy.

Poster Displays

Both days were rounded off with Poster Displays, where participants could get their hands on a variety of hypermedia applications. From a CALL point of view there were two particular applications of interest. The first was a hypertext authoring package for the creation of listening comprehension tutorials for Spanish. This was written by Dr Frank Lough, lecturer in Spanish at the University of Kent. The package, written in PC Guide, contains a collection of listening comprehensions which are assessed by a series of multiple choice questions. It is designed to provide scores and feedback depending on the student's level of success. Unfortunately, the second application, materials in French and German for science and engineering students produced for the TLTP-funded CKS (Cambridge, Kent, Southampton) project was not available for demonstration, but Mr Paul Coggle of the University of Kent provided a colourful display comprising background information on the project and screen dumps of the Guide materials.

To sum up, the conference was well organised, varied, and highly informative, providing an excellent opportunity for anyone interested in hypermedia to exchange views and gain a valuable insight into many aspects of this technology.

Dawn Ebbrell

University of Hull

New ITTI Products

All prices in pounds sterling

Advice on choosing an Authoring Package

A handy reference document for those beginning the task of choosing a tool for creating their first Computer Based Learning lessons. Price:- UKHE 3.75; non UKHE 3.75 plus p&p.

Using and Designing Databases for Academic work: A Practical Guide

These booklets are self-teaching guides for academics and researchers who need to create a relational database. They have practical, 'hands-on' instructions aimed at beginners. Price:- 10.00 including postage, packing and a disk for Access and Paradox for Windows; 8.50 including postage, packing and a disk for Paradox for DOS and Ingres.

Evaluation 1: Planning, Developing and Testing of Courseware

This booklet is one of a group of publications produced as part of the "Establishing Multimedia Authoring Skills in Higher Education" (EMASHE) project, funded by ITTI. The publication, Evaluation 1, deals with the planning and evaluation of courseware during the development phase. Price:- UKHE 5.00 pounds; non UKHE 5.00 plus p&p.

The Use and Capture of Images for Computer-Based Learning

This publication takes a look at the evidence supporting the view that illustrations enhance the learning process and suggests appropriate ways of using images and discusses the issues involved with the preparation (capture, manipulation, storage and delivery) of photo-realistic images for use in the creation of computer-based learning material. Price:- UKHE 8.50; non UKHE 8.50 plus p&p.

Network Training Materials

A revised version of Unit 2 of the Network Training Pack is now available. Revisions in this version include additional slides in the presentation: Slicing through the Maze to cover Client-server, URL's, Hypertext, Compression etc. of files.

Further information and orders:

Mrs Jean Burgan
UCoSDA, Level Six, University House
Sheffield S10 2TN
Tel: 0114 272 5248 Fax: 0114 272 8705
Email: [email protected]

ITTI Home Page

CTI Modern Languages Campus Visits

Since the beginning of 1995 CTI Modern Languages has visited:

• The University of Bradford
• University of Wales, Swansea
• University of Bristol

Visits provide an opportunity for language teachers to try out for themselves a wide range of language learning software. If you wish to discuss the possibility of CTI Modern Languages visiting your institution, please contact Jenny Parsons at CTI Modern Languages, or email [email protected]

Recent Software Donations to CTI Modern Languages

Accent (Demo) (Accent Software International)
A First Overseas Trip in English (Prototype) CD-ROM (IBM Japan)
Alabjad (Demo) (John Butt, King's College)
Au Bout du Fil 1 & 2 CD-ROMs (Libra Multimedia)
CALLGEN Vocabulary and Grammar for Spanish Beginners (University of Calgary)
Creatorial (Independent Software Lucerne)
Desktop English v 1.30 CD-ROM (Sanderson CBT)
�D�game? 1 & 2 CD-ROMs (Libra Multimedia)
Eastern European Fonts (Gordon Burgess)
First Class (Demo) (Softarc Inc.)
Interactive Assessor (EQL International)
Itembanker  (Eurocentres)
Japanese DOS & Windows  (IBM Japan)
Japanese for Beginners  (Prototype) CD-ROM (IBM Japan)
Kalinka (Demo) (Language Technology Centre)
Kapian: Chinese Flash Cards (Phil Mosier)
Let's Talk Together!  Vols I & II  Basic English Course CD-ROMs (IBM Japan)
Lingua (German & Italian) (Language Support)
Masha (Demo) (Language Technology Centre)
Mastering German Grammar (Replacement Donation) (Dr R F Holt, Bond University)
Question Designer for Windows (Question Mark Computing)
Ruf' Mal An 1 & 2 CD-ROMs (Libra Multimedia)
SpanVerb (Demo) (John Butt, King's College)
SpeakWrite Series 2 (French & German) (Demo) (Quadrant Learning Systems)
Spnumgen (Demo) (John Butt, King's College)
Student (Demo) (John Butt, King's College)
The First 50 Phrasal Verbs (Independent Software Lucerne)
Tick-Tack Everyday English/Greek (Primrose Publishing)
Travel Talk English-French/German/Spanish  CD-ROMs (Libra Multimedia)
Universal Word (Prestige Network)
Windi Dictionary (LAN version) (Helios Editions)

Forthcoming Events

10-13 April, Cambridge: CAL 95

Information: CAL95 Conference Secretariat, University of Cambridge Computing Service, New Museums Site, Pembroke Street, Cambridge CB2 3QG, Tel 01223 334600, Fax 01223 334679

13 May, Saltburn: On-line Language Learning

Information: On-line Bookings, Association for Language Learning, 150 Railway Terrace, Rugby CV21 3HN, Tel 01788 546443, Fax 01788 544149

11-23 June, Princeton University: Electronic Texts in the Humanities: Methods and Tools

Information: CETH Summer Seminar 1995, Center for Electronic Texts in the Humanities, 169 College Avenue, New Brunswick NJ 08903, USA, Tel +1 908 932 1384, Fax +1 908 932 1386, Email [email protected]

19-23 June, Middlebury: CALICO 1995 Annual Symposium Computers and Collaborative Learning

Information: CALICO 014 Language Centre , Duke University, Box 90267, Durham, NC 27708-0267, USA, Tel +1 919 660 3180, Fax +1 919 660 3183, Email CALICO @acpub.duke.edu

7-14 July, New York: Reconstructing Language & Learning for the 21st Century

Information: NCTE Professional Development Services, 1111 W Kenyon Road, Urbana IL 61801-1096, Tel +1 217 328 3870 x 203

11-15 July, Santa Barbara: ACH/ALLC International Conference

Information: Eric Dahlin, Email [email protected]

23-28 July, Birmingham: WCCE 95

Information: WCCE 95 Conference Secretariat, Margaret Street, Birmingham B3 3BW, Tel 021 428 1258, Fax 021 428 2246

13-16 August, Sweden: The Fifth Nordic Conference on Computer Aided Learning

Information: Per Lindholm, Department of Medical Informatics & Educational Development, Karolinksa Institutet, S-171 77 Stockholm, Sweden, Fax +46 8 336826, Email [email protected]

7-9 September, Valencia: EUROCALL 95

Information: Ana Gimeno, Departamento de Idiomas, Universidad Polit�cnica de Valencia, Camino de Vera s/n 46071 Valencia, Spain, Tel +34 6 387 7530 ext 5300, Fax +34 6 387 7539, Email [email protected]

10-12 September, Exeter: CALL and the Learning Environment

Information: Daphne Moreton, Department of French, Queen's Building, University of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4QH, Tel 0392 264222, Fax 0392 264377, Email [email protected]

11-13 September, The Open University: Milton Keynes: ALT-C 95

Information: Professor David Hawkridge, Institute of Educational Technology, The Open University, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, UK, Fax 01908 653744, Email [email protected]

16-18 October, London: Language Engineering Convention 95

Information: Mrs Dion Bassett, Concorde Services Limited, 10 Wendell Road, London W12 9RT, Tel 0181 743 3106, Fax 0181 743 1010

29-31 October, Milano: VIIth Annual Conference of the European Association for International Education

Information: EAIE Secretariat, Van Diemenstraat 344, 1013 CR Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Tel +31 20 2727, Fax +31 20 620 9406, Email [email protected]

9-16 February 1996, Melbourne: XIVth World Congress of the 'F�d�ration Internationale des Traducteurs'

Information: Congress Management, Fauth Royale & Associates Pty Ltd, 15 Cooper Street, Surry Hills NSW 2010 Australia, Tel +61 2 211 6711, Fax +61 2 211 6608

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C&IT Centre, Language Institute, University of Hull, Cottingham Road, Hull  HU6 7RX, UK
Tel: +44 (0)1482 465872, Fax: +44 (0)1482 473816, Email: [email protected]

Site maintained by Fred Riley, [email protected]
Last updated 15 December 1998