Blog Task - Creating Hypertext and Hypermedia

Soufflé

Supposedly, the first recipe for soufflé appeared in Vincent La Chapelle's Le Cuisinier Moderne (1742).

The word soufflé first appeared in English in Louis Ude's The French Cook, 1813, and by 1845 was so commonly accepted that in Eliza Acton's Modern Cookery (1845) a recipe for soufflé was included as just another recipe.

Click on the minipixel to view Mark Bittman prepares an almost-foolproof chocolate soufflé.

Article Review

Click here for the article.

A. Citation of the Article

a. Title: The Use of Dialogue Journal Through E-Mail Technology in Developing Writing Interest and Skills

b. Journal: Malaysian Online Journal of Instructional Technology (MOJIT),
Vol. 1, No. 2, pp 14-23,
December 2004 [ISSN: 1823-1144]

c. Authors: Rafiza A Razak & Adelina Asmawi, Department of Language and Literacy Education,
Faculty of Education, University Malaya.

B. Summary of the Article

The article chosen is a literature review that focuses on the benefits of the use of 'dialogue journal' through e-mail so as to improve students' writing skills in English Language classroom. It also focuses on how its application can increase teaching and learning of English in Malaysian secondary schools. Additionally, the article discusses on the potential of e-mail, and how it can be an attractive teaching and learning medium that can help generate interest among the students and help to improve their learning.

According to Rafiza and Adelina, dialogue journals are written conversation in which a student and teacher or other writing partner communicate daily, weekly or on a schedule that fits the educational setting over a semester, school year or course. Students are given the freedom to choose on the topic that they are going to write and the styles and genres of writing are not restricted. The teacher plays an important role as an ongoing participant of a written conversation with the students instead of being an evaluator who corrects and comments on the students' writing. The teacher is required to give feedback regularly so that the students know of their progression.

One of the dialogue journals chosen is e-mail. E-mail, one of the many technologies that promote computer-mediated communication (CMC), is a computer-mediated format. It works asynchronously that allows interaction / communication at different times. Meanwhile, CMC refers to any communications that occur through the use of two or more networked computers.

CMC has several advantages. Firstly, CMC facilitates communication. Writing through CMC cultivates autonomy, equality and learning skills among students. Students have the freedom to choose what they want to write, thus encourages them to develop and revise their opinions. The writing now operates as a communication rather than a task that would be assessed by the teacher.

Secondly, CMC empowers students to take the initiative in determining their learning paths. They would gain a sense of personal power when they are given the chance to take hold of their learning style. In a way, the computers somehow help them to overcome their vulnerability for they can rely on their virtual correspondence.

And last but not least, CMC improves learning. Students nowadays merely write when asked to, simply for the sake of examination. Therefore, with CMC, particularly e-mail, it can attract the students' interest to write. When the writing has become appealing to the students, the learning would be more meaningful. Furthermore, the learning becomes interactive because they are required to deal and associate with people from the actual world.

According to Rafiza and Adelina, a number of researches have identified several benefits of using e-mail in language classroom. As stated by Warschauer (cited in Lee, 1998), e-mail enables the students to communicate with native speakers or other English learners from all over the globe. Hence, e-mail promotes real and natural communication.

Apart from that, e-mail motivates independent learning. When students are given the autonomy to take hold of the direction of the discourse, the freedom stimulates them to learn with a non-threatening manner.

Writing e-mail also encourages students' interest in communicating because they have authentic audiences that will respond to their writing. Some students find it difficult to meet the teacher for consultation prior to their shyness or lack of time. Thus, e-mail enables the teacher to interact with the students without having to meet each other. This way, students would find it easy to express their thoughts and communicate with the teacher.

A study conducted by Gonzales-Bueno (1998) on Spanish students reveals that e-mail dialogue journal serves as medium for students to practice English and communicate without fear of making mistakes. Nevertheless, the emphasis is more towards the contents and the development of the ideas in writing while the mistakes are tolerated.

In the review, the authors add that dialogue journal via e-mail promotes critical and creative thinking skills. When writing, the students are not only communicating with the authentic audiences, but also they are able to apply skills such as generating ideas, making generalization, drawing inferences or conclusions, arranging and sequencing. These skills meet up with one of the objectives of KBSR/KBSM in the school curriculum, which is to develop the students' ability to think critically and creatively.

Overall, e-mail dialogue journal exposes students to authenthic discourse. It serves as a tool for students to initiate their communication skills in a non-threatening environment as their mistakes would not be condemned or evaluated. Students get to develop their writing skills and expresses their thoughts freely.

C. Reaction

I find the article is relatively interesting. Unlike most of the school work assigned to the students, which is often being evaluated, dialogue journals give less stress to students. I strongly believe that when students are not being pushed in a threatening manner, the chances for them to be intrinsically motivated to learn are high.

ESL Website Evaluation

1. What does the application attempt to "teach"?

I have chosen Dave's ESL Cafe website as my ESL website evaluation. Dave's ESL Cafe is a website for ESL (English as a Second Language) and EFL (English as a Foreign Language) students and teachers from around the world. Basically, the website is attempting to teach grammar. Furthermore, it does not cover the four skills entirely, which are reading, writing, listening and speaking. Nevertheless, it touches a bit on speaking, which focuses more on pronunciation.


2. What sorts of things is the application user expected to do with regards to learning the content?

The website is for everyone, i.e students and teachers. For students, there are list of lessons pertaining grammar that they can do with regards to learning the content. The exercises on grammar can be found in 'Stuff For Students' section, where the texts to each lesson are hypertext-ed/linked to new links/pages.

These grammar lessons cover on adjective clauses, the tenses, prepositions, verb forms and so forth.

Furthermore, the website also hosts a forum for students to join and discuss. Not only they can discuss solely about English, they can also discuss about their family, interests, literature etc with other users. Indirectly, they make new friends when joining the forum apart from exchanging knowledge and information.

As for the teachers, they have their own section as well, that is 'Stuff For Teachers'. Likewise, the section is linked to other pages where the teachers too have their own forum for discussion. The topics discussed include adult and elementary education, ESL/EFL computer software, as well as activities and games that work well in the classroom.

The website also provides a forum for trainee teachers.

3. What sort of computer skills is the application users expected to have in order to operate/access/use the application?

Firstly, application users must have computer hardware knowledge. :) In order to operate/access/use the application, the users must know how to operate/use a computer first. Mercifully, Dave's ESL Cafe does not require a lot of computer skills for most of the features are hypertext-ed to other links/pages. The users can simply click on those hypertext-ed links in order for them to browse the website.

4. While you are "playing"/"accessing"/"assessing" the application, does it remind you of anything you do in a classroom, or with a teacher, or with a fellow classmate, or in self-study?

Apparently, yes. While I was browsing through one of the quizzes provided in Dave's ESL Cafe, I came across questions on Irregular Verbs. The lesson is somewhat familiar with the one I did when I was in form 1. The difference is that, back then, my English teacher used the traditional method, which was pencil-and-paper (or sometimes, it was merely chalk-and-talk).

I remember vividly the time when my English teacher, Mrs. Foong taught the whole class on irregular verbs, she kept giving us drill and practice exercises so that none of use made simple mistakes by writing ridiculous irregular verbs like 'runned', 'drinked', 'eatted', etc.

Similarly, I did the same drill and practice exercises on irregular verbs for my form 1 students when I did my practicum last semester. I took the questions from Dave's ESL Cafe and unfortunately, the questions were a piece of cake for them. T_____T

5. Can you pinpoint some theories of language learning and/or teaching underlying the application.

The website applies a little bit of the behaviorist approach for it promotes drilling and practice, especially on grammar exercises. The questions are mostly repetitive, thus encourage the users to do the exercises repeatedly until they get them correctly. In other words, the users do the exercises repeatedly until they remember/learn.

We can say that the users also learn the target language through discovery/trial and error.

6. How well is the constructivist theory of learning applied to the chosen website(s)?

According to Wikipedia website, constructivism is a theory of knowledge which argues that humans generate knowledge and meaning from their experiences. As mentioned earlier, the questions are repetitive. Thus, if the users answer the questions wrongly, they would always have the chance to redo the same questions. In a way, they are learning from their mistakes. These mistakes are the experiences they gain through the trial and error process, that is their failure leads to learning. Hence, they always construct new knowledge from their experiences.

Moreover, constructivism emphasizes on active learning. Dave's ESL Cafe requires the users to be more active with all the exercises provided and it also links up with Vygotsky's 'zone of proximal development' (ZPD) where some of the questions challenge the users' current level of progression. And when the users manage to complete the challenging tasks, they would gain confidence and motivation as well before they move on to more complex tasks.

7. In 1980s and early 1990s, there was a major debate on whether the computer was "master" of or "slave" to the learning process (Higgins and Johns, 1984). In relation to your evaluation -- was the computer a replacement for teachers, or merely an obedient servant to students?

Personally, I do not think that the computer is like a replacement for teachers or even merely an obedient servant to students. It is more like a tool that replaces textbooks or exercise books, where you can create your own exercises using your computer software knowledge (i.e Microsoft Word, Excel, etc) as well as do the exercises from the websites available.

In relation to my evaluation, I do not think that Dave's ESL Cafe is able to replace teachers for the website only helps the users (i.e students) to sharpen their knowledge by doing the activities provided. Also, these exercises from the website can be the students' supplementary homework. That's it, with a condition that they have a computer and an internet access at home.

Furthermore, the website also provides immediate feedback/answers if the students happen to answer the questions incorrectly. Therefore, for those who do not have the background knowledge of the content, they can learn through their trial and error without having the teachers' presence by their side.

8. Would you like to use the application yourself in your future work?
Yes? Give reasons:
No? Give reasons:

No, I would not use the application in my future work. My first reason is that, teaching has never been my cup of tea. Secondly, if I ever ended up teaching (more of like being a lecturer, not a school teacher ;p), I prefer to use the conventional way, that is using textbooks or reference books. You know, sometimes, in books, they explain better regarding all those grammar rules and whatnot. But of course, I would not mind referring to any English websites available someday.

Suggestions/Recommendations:

I would like to suggest that the website should incorporate more colours and images so that it would look more appealing to the users. For example, the questions provided for the quizzes and exercises (click here) are dully written. Mostly. With no pictures to aid the students. I strongly believe that students would learn better if visual aids are provided.

Nonetheless, kudos to the website for having 'Podcasts!' section where users can download lessons via videos. Additionally, the moderator also includes 'pronunciation page' where it comprises of video lessons of teachers from around the world teaching the correct way of pronouncing /r/ and /th/.

All in all, Dave's ESL Cafe is an interactive application. As mentioned earlier, the website does not only provides exercises on grammar lessons, but it also provides forums for both teachers and students to interact with one another.