Dan Craigdan@danielcraig.com

Seoul National UniversityLanguage Education Institute

Individualized Instruction

Web 2.0

Syndication/Aggregation

An Approach to Delivering Content

Courses designed for general needs Keeping up with heterogeneous classes Unique Students = Unique needs

Struggle to accommodate many difficult learner needs (Tomlinson, et al., 2003)

Resources for group needs and individual needs (Henry, 1975)

Proactive & Reactive

Individualization of resources and (some) activities is the rationale for the approach that I will talk to you about today

Coined in 2001 (O’Reilly, 2005) to describe post-bubble technologies.• Web as platform• Harness the collective intelligence of users

(crowd-sourcing)• Applications are run on data. Data is king.• Applications are never finished (perpetual beta)• Keep the programming simple• Applications run on multiple devices• Rich user experiences

These technical insights are important, but mean little to educators

Web 2.0 is more of a social movement than a technology.• From closed systems to open systems• From individual to social• From consumer to producer• Arguably a change in our perception of the

world in which we live and our place in it.

Web 2.0 has no ONE, good definition Web 2.0 enables users to:

• Produce and consume content• Comment on content• Share content with others• Syndicate content for easy distribution

Some popular Web 2.0 technologies:• Blogs – Blogger, EduBlogs, WordPress• Podcasts - Grammar Girl, Breaking News English,

English as a Second Language Podcast• Wikis - Wikispaces, Zoho Wiki, Wetpaint• Photo sharing sites - Flickr, Picasa, Photobucket• Video sharing sites - YouTube, Google Video, TeacherTube• Online social networks - Cyworld, MySpace, Facebook,

italki (language learning), and Soziety (language learning)• Social bookmarking - del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, diigo• Aggregators - Google Reader, Bloglines• Personalized start pages – Netvibes, PageFlakes, iGoogle

Web 2.0 technologies supply the content for the approach that I will describe today.

Syndication• XML Syndication or “feeds” (RSS & Atom)• Text-based representation of content• Script tags for better parsing of content

(audio, video, etc.) Aggregation

• Application collects & organizes feeds• Ability to mix (or “mash”) content to fit your

needs.

Syndication and Aggregation are the means for delivery and organization of content in the approach that I will talk about today.

Uses free, online services to organize and distribute targeted content to learners.

Encourages flexible, responsive practice

Encourages students to take control of their own learning.

Use a service that provides syndication for individual “tags” or keywords. (del.icio.us)

Populate del.icio.us with Web-based resources• Tag resources for optimal distribution• Standardize tags when possible:

Class name (e.g., web2esl) Skills areas (e.g., writing, grammar, speaking, culture,

etc.) Types of content being linked to (e.g., audio, podcast,

video, quiz, blog, etc.) Student names of pseudonyms

Demonstration of posting in del.icio.us

Demonstration of a tagged page Demonstration of a feed

Demo Video (2 minutes)

Students must use a kind of aggregator (Netvibes) Load aggregator with feeds

• OPML• Manual• “Share” with a program like Netvibes

Some suggested feeds to start off with• Your class blog feed –

http://web2esl.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default • The class del.icio.us feed - http://del.icio.us/rss/web2esl • Their personal page feeds –

http://del.icio.us/rss/web2esl/samplestudent • Skill area pages – http://del.icio.us/rss/web2esl/writing,

http://del.icio.us/rss/web2esl/grammar

Demonstrate use of Netvibes Demonstrate adding a feed to

Netvibes

Demo Video (2 minutes)

Use it• Use it as main form of communication• Start from the first day of class• Be consistent

Record it• Note everything in your feeds: blog, del.icio.us, or elsewhere.• Build an online repository of resources

Enforce it• Make it clear that they will be responsible for this information

and that this is not optional/extra.• Schedule activities or assignments using the class or individual

feed.• Post quizzes and other activities that they are required to do

(and are graded on).

Extremely flexible approach.

Not bound to any one product or service.

Most new products/services come with the ability to syndicate. The sky is the limit.

Focus on the functionality (technology) offered by the services, NOT the services themselves.

Focus on the concept of developing learning networks through connecting with content and people.

Focus on the fact that the more you grow and tag your repository, the easier it gets to find, process, and disseminate that information.

Thank you very much!

Any Questions?

Dan Craigdan@danielcraig.com

http://iucall.blogspot.comhttp://www.danielcraig.com