Reflection on Group Project3

Judging from Dr.Wang’s feedback and our own experience, we did a pretty good job in Project 3. The purpose of this assignment is to find at least two synchronous and two asynchronous communication tools that teachers can use for free. We tested almost each function of each website/tool, including Tokbox, Tapinya, Wiki Space and Ning. Actually the experiencing of these projects was of lots of funs; at least I myself think so.
We scheduled several online meeting. Based on the experience of using online communication tools, we used the old way to get everyone together, the Google chat. We spend one Sunday evening to have discussed our “vision and mission” and has fixed the four sites to evaluate. The criteria that we used to decide these tools was that we need to cover both synchronous tools and asynchronous tools and compare their features so we can play with them and say, “it is good for a teacher like me!”
We took a lot of time playing with these tools. I spend most of the time in Tokbox and Ning because I find the interface was well-designed and they have very enriched functions. Tokbox is a video communication service that provides video calls and chat, video mail, video conferencing, video blogging tools and instant messaging for free. Adobe Flash is needed in order to use the system. It is supported by most browsers but not all. For instance, it was not working very well in my Google Chrome browser. I tested the IM chatting, video message, the video greeting cards, the video chat, as well as the public post. After setting up the account and my hardware, I was able to start a video chat with my friends from the contact list on the right, and can create video message and greeting cards with the recording function. After the message or card has been recorded, it allows me to either send it to friends, share it online (on Face book, MySpace, etc.), or discard and re-record. However, it could not be saved on the personal page as posts or archives. The public posts, however, allowed me to do that. I recorded a video and posted it on my home page, and enabled all friends to view it. It did not show up in my page automatically according to other group members that I had already added as friends, and I had to send the link to them so they can see the video. I had lots of funs at this site because of its rich features to communicate and also its well-designed interface.
Ning’s interface is a little busier when you first log in. And the different concept inside it was even more confusing. At least I was confused by the personal page, and the social networking site page your created, I assumed them to be the same page according to my experience using SNS. Plus, Tim created our group’s social networking site and named it “Group 3 IT648”. After logging in and joined this site as a member, I tried all the features provided. At first I was confused by the “My Page” here and my personal home page. I even created a social networking site and named it “Rongfei”, and had incorrectly considered it as my personal page, as well. So joining Group 3 IT648 and having a page there, created the “Rongfei” site and meanwhile having my own personal home page in Ning made me lost at the beginning. Later I realized what I did were three different things. In Group 3 IT648, I tested the following functions.
I also spend some time tried Tapinya and Wikispace. Every site has their own hightlights except that Tapinya has not any more exciting synchronous chatting features after you have experienced Tokbox beforehand. Wikispace allow you to edit the page and upload files, and it does not have very busy interfaces such as Ning. I think Wiki is very suitable for the purpose of developing a course site or educational blog.
As to the Educational use, we have been discussion a lot and all took it down in our project paper. Since these sites has lots of diversified features, both synchronous and asynchronous, we have been think a lot of usage such as IM tools to contact the instructor, better topic discussion tools compared with Google chat, replacement of online Learning Management System (LMS) such as blackboard and so forth. The point I value the most is the thought to utilize these tools in foreign language teaching and learning domain, because the diversified feature could ensure the effectiveness of communication, and communication between L2 learner and target –language speaker was highly valued due to the communicative language teaching methodology (CLT). Plus, these are all free, and internationally accessible tools, which could become a bridge to connect language learners from different cultures and regions of the world. This idea has finally led to the topic of my term paper, in which I planned to examine telecommunication tools in foreign language teaching and learning.

I originally planned to upload our project paper to Google doc until I realize that it would not allow me to upload any file that is beyond 500KB in size. So... Let's see whether I could upload my term paper there or not. >.<