Create a language course of your own and take it with you.

[Jan Tucker]

Hay Mia and all, Do you want to check out my model website at
http://nativepeople.net/moodle? I've got some Hot potato quizzes, with sound
bites [see Cherokee I and II], some are drop and drag others are sound
flashcards. Some are in the Cherokee font with sound bites. Though I need
some help translating the directions since everything comes out in the font,
when I use it... lol. How do you say delete in Cherokee, I've used 'yes' for
'next' and 'no' for 'Delete' with the flash cards [note you can delete the
ones you've learned? The grading comes out all wrong still, I need a
Cherokee speaker who is a programmer.  Anyway, its all still experimental,
but I'm making progress learning how to set up and use the Moodle courseware
and hot potatoes features with the courseware. I'll be ready soon to go more
public, and am ready now to invite other teachers who want to try out online
learning software for teaching language and culture. I'm ready for anyone
who wants to try out the software and learn along with me, experimental type
teachers WELCOME!

What I have figured out is that this website can be a wonderful supplement
to a live course. I just finished taking Cherokee I online LIVE and have
designed this course now based on the lesson plan of the live course adding
practice opportunities and all the resources I can find needed to learn. For
example, in the first week I've put the syllabary voice file and the
viewable syllabary in resources, and provided directions, so a student can
come in and open up the viewable syllabary and listen to the spoken one at
the same time. Then I've instructed them to see and say it along with the
native speaker. I could make some more practice quizzes for this first week,
but I haven't had time!!!!!

I've been experimenting also with the oCherokee software for typing Cherokee
without having to memorize the key board and find it works just fine except
in certain three letter syllables like tsa, tsi, and the qua...quv group. I
think it's a programmatic problem since dla...dlv all work. Cherokee II
starts Jan 9th live, and there will be more work with the syllabary. I'm
doing this participant observation language learning myself, so that I can
see what it's like to learn an indigenous language from the student's
perspective, and design an online course to support and promote learning of
that language.

I invite now other experimental teachers to come in and design a course for
their language. The beauty of this model right now is that it is portable,
so that anything a teacher designs can taken with them to their own website.
If they like the software then the teacher can use Moodle open source
courseware for free. The software and course a teacher builds is
downloadable, and there is a really great supportive developer and teacher
community of international scope using Moodle. I have used the community
many times to solve problems as I have been learning myself how to create
and manage a website, administer the courseware, and design the content of a
language course.

So, I invite interested experimental type teachers to contact me
jtucker at nativepeople.net, and I'll make a shell course on my site, so YOU
can create your own language course online, enroll students in it and teach
it.

Jan

-----Original Message-----
From: Indigenous Languages and Technology
[mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU]On Behalf Of Mia Kalish
Sent: Tuesday, December 27, 2005 1:04 AM
To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
Subject: Re: [ILAT] Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (fwd)


This is curious, because right now, streaming audio is a proprietary format,
and not many people have readers. It also has the ugly behavior of loading
after all the rest of the action has already happened.

I think it's okay to have a language where you can specify simultaneity, but
making it happen with streaming audio may be a whole 'nother kettle of fish.


Mia

-----Original Message-----
From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU]
On Behalf Of phil cash cash
Sent: Wednesday, December 14, 2005 8:28 AM
To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
Subject: [ILAT] Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (fwd)

14 December 2005
Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language
http://www.managinginformation.com/news/content_show_full.php?id=4549

The World Wide Web Consortium has released "Synchronized Multimedia
Integration Language (SMIL 2.1)" as a W3C Recommendation.

With SMIL (pronounced "smile"), authors create multimedia presentations
and animations integrating streaming audio and video with graphics and
text. Version 2.1 features include a new Mobile Profile and an Extended
Mobile Profile with enhanced timing, layout and animation capabilities.
"Today, W3C makes good on the promise of first class multimedia
presentations for the mobile Web," said Chris Lilley (W3C).

http://www.w3.org/TR/2005/REC-SMIL2-20051213/
http://www.w3.org/2005/12/smil-pressrelease.html.en
http://www.w3.org/AudioVideo/