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Objectives |
In 1996-98, I successfully tested the feasibility of web-conferencing with
a group of final-year students. This year (1998/99), about fifty students
were using a web-conferencing tool during their German writing classes and
for self-study. The aim was to establish whether this technology helps
advanced language learners to acquire writing skills.
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Implementation |
"WebCrossing is a server that runs on a Web site. It allows anyone with a
standard Web browser to post and view messages on that site. People can
post messages to the Web site, and respond to postings made by others."
http://webcrossing.com/new303/product-summary.html
The messages are written in a message box that is part of the webpage
learners have loaded in their browsers and are viewed by participants as
part of automatically created webpages.
"The Web server uses the Common Gateway Interface (CGI), an
industry-standard protocol, to work with Web Crossing. You don't need any
special knowledge to install Web Crossing and to use CGI; the installation
script will set up everything you need." (ibid.) "Getting the basic Web
Crossing server up and running to this point is very straightforward, and
generally takes no more than 5 to 10 minutes." (ibid.)
Our WebCrossing server is running on UNIX (web) server. Students access it
with any web browser (normally installed on a PC). The WebCrossing
discussion space is administrated via a web browser. The lecturer (sysop)
can e.g. restrict access, edit all messages, sort and view them by
student's name, and download discussions.
More information on WebCrossing can be found at http://webcrossing.com
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Outcome |
The tool - WebCrossing - is free for educational users (bronze license)
and easy to install on a web server. Maintenance (adding new users,
backup, lost passwords etc.) is done via an intuitive web interface.
Students just need basic word-processing skills and familiarity with a web
browser.
About fifty students (second and final-year students of Applied German,
Mathematics and German, Computational Linguistics and German,
International Management with German) registered without any problems with
the server and used the tool throughout the academic year for most of
their writing activities in class (1 hour per week) and for self-study.
Only the conversation features (i.e. no real-time chatting) of WebCrossing
have been used. I set up folders for each writing project (three per year
and group) and discussions for each writing tasks. The types of tasks
were:
- material gathering (e.g. useful facts, subject-specific vocabulary,
meta-communicative phrases for essay writing, secondary sources
(bibliography and Web resources);
- drafts of text fragments (e.g. introduction, annotation, summary,
proposal, conclusion);
- collaborative writing (re-telling of a story from the point of view of
different characters in the story, text commentary from different points
of view, summary of sections of a huge text).
Any piece of text posted to the server could be (and at times was)
commented upon by other learners or by myself and was (when necessary and
useful) corrected by myself. (Learners could not change the contribution
of another learner, the lecturer (sysop/discussion host) could.
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