| 
  • If you are citizen of an European Union member nation, you may not use this service unless you are at least 16 years old.

  • You already know Dokkio is an AI-powered assistant to organize & manage your digital files & messages. Very soon, Dokkio will support Outlook as well as One Drive. Check it out today!

View
 

FrontPage

Page history last edited by Jose Antonio da Silva 16 years ago

 
Welcome to my Wiki!

 

The main goal of this page is to discuss issues that are relevant to any of my friends, students, colleagues and others that feel interested in giving their contribution to this online community. Collaboration is the key to this page. Feel free to add any comments you want or ask for permission to add a thread of your own to be discussed.                

 

 obj = new Object;obj.clockfile = "8010-yellow.swf";obj.TimeZone = "BREST";obj.width = 150;obj.height = 150;obj.wmode = "transparent";showClock(obj); 

 

 

Best wishes

Jose Antonio

 

 


 

My Adventures as a Skype Conference Host

 

 

The Idea

 

I have always used Skype in a one to one basis. Chatting with Moira, she suggested the possibility of having a conference call. I said “Sure.” The problem was that she suggested that I would be the one hosting the conference. I kind of panicked a little, but I thought to myself “I think I saw an icon that says conference and I think that (with Moira’s help) I can do that. She was the one that had the idea. She told to start contacting people.

 

Inviting People

 

First, I sent some messages through Skype adding some people to my contact’s list. Then I sent some messages inviting them to take part in the conference. I think only Monica Veado answered to my skype request. I knew I needed more people, it was my first cyber “cocktail party” and I needed some more guests. There is nothing more embarrassing than an empty party. Besides that, I had even remodeled my cyber house (I upgraded my Skype to 3.0 “wow”) now I could accommodate eight people on my cyber cocktail party. The fear of having an empty house made take a drastic measure, I decided to post a message to the group inviting everyone. The risk would be to have too many people. I thought to myself, “All right, we can split the group or to move to Yahoo Messenger if it happens.

 

 

The Conference

 

I explored the skype conference call icon before starting. I logged in fifteen minutes before the assigned time. Moira suggested that I start operating in the conference mode. The first trial was not successful. I was making a regular call. Again Moira was very helpful and guided me through it. Finally, I managed to get a conference call mode. I took my time and it really was easy. I learned that there is no hurry to get things done. It was really like receiving guests and getting everything ready for a party. Guests arrive you go open the door, invite them to come in, greet them. The other guests will do the rest. Then the other participants got in (Monica Veado, Nina Lyulkun, Teresa d’Eça, Susan Nyrop). Things ran smother than I had expected. Of course, I have to learn more about moderation trying to give the floor to speakers and conduct appropriate turn taking. Just like in any f2f meeting, we first did some small talk and then we moved to discussing more practical issues. I tried to do my moderator’s job and mentioned some points of Teresa’s article that caught my attention. Teresa spoke a little about her experience with voice and text chats. And then the other participants asked questions related to the topic and discussed issues related to chats and their application in language learning.

 

 

 

The Glitch

 

Well, Murphy’s Law came into play in this part. The chat session was in full swing and then, all of a sudden, I got disconnected. Of course I was deeply frustrated. It was as if I had told everyone to get out, even worse, it was as if I had decided to leave without saying good bye. Of course, I called the telephone company and complained. It was kind of weird because I was refusing to accept the fatality and vulnerability that is many times inherent to technology. I told the technical support guy at the other end of the line “That is outrageous, I was having a… a… (here I hesitated) conference with some friends (dear friends) and then I get disconnected and it is not even raining…” For me it was more than a conference, because it was so informal and so exciting and such a good learning experience that had abruptly interrupted. Now that my connection is back to normal, I feel pretty happy about the episode and the whole experience. E-learning is no different from any kind of learning experience and has its ups and downs and the tech glitch really did not matter after all.

 

Farewell to BaW07 and the beginning of a new journey

 

 

slide errorPlugin error: That plugin is not available.  

We were together for six weeks. When I think about how much I have learned I have the impression it lasted a year. When I think about how much I will miss the whole experience it seems no more than a day. What I have learned goes beyond anything I could imagine learning in such a short period of time. We have explored conference tools, chat tools, voice tools, blog hosts and a series of other possibilities for teaching and learning. I have been sometimes overwhelmed like many of my colleagues, many times overwhelmed with joy and enthusiasm. It was worth and it becomes more valuable as the plans for using what I have learned unfold as we approach our graduation ceremony. My gifts are my happiness in being part of this and this flickr with screenshots taken during some of our events that I am embedding now that  I had some time.

 

 

 

 http://boxstr.com/files/1307941_hxwag/Memory%20game%20-%20Vocabulary.html

 

 

 

Comments (9)

Anonymous said

at 1:41 am on Jan 28, 2007

Thanks for the invitation to your wiki, Jose :-)

Keep up the good work!!!

beijinhos,

Daf

Anonymous said

at 10:57 am on Jan 28, 2007

You are truly a born webhead!

Anonymous said

at 8:50 pm on Jan 28, 2007

Great job Jose!
Cris

Anonymous said

at 10:54 am on Jan 31, 2007

Thanks, Jose. It will be my pleasure to participate in your wiki. Beijos. Paula

Jose Antonio da Silva said

at 11:23 am on Jan 31, 2007

Thanks for taking the time to comment on my Wiki Paula. Beijão

Anonymous said

at 2:13 pm on Jan 31, 2007

I can see you have done a great kob working with these new tools. Honestly, congratulations.
Victor Hugo from Lima,Peru

Jose Antonio da Silva said

at 5:48 pm on Jan 31, 2007

Thanks, Victor. I do think this workshop is so inspiring and the whole group of people is so nice tha it makes you want to give something back. Thanks again.

Anonymous said

at 9:10 pm on Jan 31, 2007

Wow, Jose! Your wiki looks great! How did you manage to change the skin? I hate that awful default green. And how did you turn on the comments? I love it!

Jose Antonio da Silva said

at 9:25 am on Feb 1, 2007

Hi Nina,
Thanks for your kind words. To change the skin, you should go to settings on the top right hand corner and then you will see on the side bar on the left the option SKIN. If you click on it, they will give you three other options to choose from.
Good luck and big hug
José

You don't have permission to comment on this page.