TESL 4340 – CyberSpace

1. TESL 4340 –CyberSpace Dr. Sunny Jeong Email:spjeong@uic.edu.hk Web:http://uic.edu.hk/~spjeong

2. Introductory Stuff • Have Fun! • Please turn off your phones! • DO interact with me!

3. Outline • Understand the term Cyberspace • Know how it can affect and benefit our lives • how language learning have developed in cyberspace • Virtual Learning Environment • E-learning System • Mobile Classroom

4. What is Cyberspace? • 'Cyberspace' is a term coined by William Gibson, author of 'Neuromancer' • It is the imaginary space we pass through when 'surfing' the Internet

5. What is Cyberspace? • “the global domain of electro-magnetics accessed through electronic technology and exploited through the modulation of electromagnetic energy to achieve a wide range of communication and control system capabilities”

6. Cyberspace Today • Gibson's term has now become a reality, thanks to improvements in: • Communication Networks (faster Internet)‏ • Hardware (faster, bigger storage)‏ • Software (allows for complex applications) • We are always pushing the boundaries of what we can achieve with the technology available

7. Affecting Society • Thomas L. Friedman outlines the affect Cyberspace (and what it offers) in his book 'The World is Flat' • He describes how it affects us as individuals, but more importantly how it has changed the face of businesses worldwide • Of course, Educational area also has been affected by this change.

8. Cyberspace and E-learning • E-learning is defined as instruction delivered on a computer via internet or CD-ROM (Clark & Mayer, 2007). • E learning commonly refers to training delivered electronically in an organizational setting while Online Learning is used to differentiate courses delivered via the internet in educational settings • According to a Gartner report, e-learning market has been increasing by 15% every year

9. Cyberspace and E-learning • E-learning allows you have a class anywhere you are • Even with your mobile phone, you can participate in a cyber classroom • Thousands of web sites and applications for e-learning

10. E-learning web sites • Edu blog (http://edublogs.org) - Based on blog platform • Elgg (http://elgg.org ) – using social network • Wikispace (http://wikispaces.com ) – based on wikipidia • Digication (http;//digication.com) – offering online classroom to users • Chinesepot (http://chinespod.com ) – specialized in Chinese learning Nuvvo(http://nuvvo.com ) – bidding online educational contents

11. Edublogs and Digication

12. Drawbacks of E-learning • The quality of the electronic-based training, as in every form of training, is in its content and its delivery. • E-learning can suffer from many of the same pitfalls as classroom training, such as boring slides, monotonous speech, and little opportunity for interaction. • The beauty of e-learning, however, is that new software allows the creation of very effective learning environments that can engulf you in the material.(Lee Ann Obringer )

13. Summary • We defined the term 'Cyberspace‘ • Studied what was required to turn Cyberspace theory into a reality • E-learning and cyberspace • We explored E-learning websites and found out E-learning’s pitfalls