dani lyra's List: elearning

Listening Plus: A Social Approach to Learning English Online
Carla Arena
Casa Thomas Jefferson Binational Center, Brazil
<carlaarenagmail.com>

Introduction
The potential that e-learning holds in a learning environment is widely acknowledged. However, some educators in the online community believe that the benefits of using a Learning Management System (LMS) might be reduced due to issues related to ownership of content and considerations about the controlled aspect of “closed” environments—called walled gardens—in which students interact in an institutionally-controlled space that reproduces the predictability of a regular, face-to-face classroom. However, the role of an LMS in an online course doesn’t have to replicate traditional learning transposed to an online environment; it could be a virtual learning space that is a starting point, a road map to guide students and lead them to autonomous, meaningful, connected learning that results in tangible outcomes. Our work demonstrates that an LMS can be matched with Web 2.0 tools to enhance students’ production and enable them to collectively share their findings and their learning paths. Thus ownership, audience, and availability of resources are taken into another dimension not institutionally bound, but collectively appropriated by the students with the facilitative guidance of an e-tutor.

The five-week online EFL course Listening Plus, devised by teachers at Casa Thomas Jefferson, a Binational Center in Brasilia, Brazil, was designed with a student-centered approach in which oral comprehension and production were enhanced through individual work. It was also designed in order not to lose sight of the essential elements in an educational setting of interaction and the group’s sense of belonging. Moodle, the open source LMS, was used to give guidelines and set tasks for the students, as well as to be a central point for communication and interaction within the group (http://thomas.org.br/online/). Moodle was therefore the starting point—the road map for students

Inez summary - elearning

s template is designed around four sections.  Of course, once you break it apart and see how it’s built, you can add as many sections as you like.  I also used a couple of fonts from the free Google web fonts I mentioned a couple of weeks ago: Airstream and Arvo.

If you want to change the images in the sections, that’s easy to do.  They’re just shap

favourite six activities that I use regularly when teaching online courses. By online, I mean here that both myself and the students are doing the activity 100% online and at a distance from each other (not in a computer room together, or me using a connected IWB in class).

re we'll have a lot to learn from one another with such a great, diverse group. 
Remember that our class will be really profitable if we both do our jobs, I'll do my best to prepare exciting lessons full of practice and interaction, and you should focus on your learning in our online space at http://www.cambridgelms.org
Ready?

See you next Thursday, 
Carla