"Rethinking Language Learning Resources"

Sesimbra, Portugal

28 - 30 April 2003

Meet the Webheads in Action

Teresa Almeida d'Eça

29 April 2003

the 17th conference logo is, as far as I can remember, the first APPI Conference logo to have anything to do with computers! Well, for someone who has been presenting about information and communication technologies in education for the past seven years, this is quite a sight, believe me!!! And it is most appropriate for a conference that will be dealing with a challenging theme: "Rethinking Language Learning Resources".  Congratulations to the organizers of the Conference!

Equally appropriate will be the introduction of the Webheads in Action, because we are an online community who has been extremely active in experimenting with new learning tools and rethinking their role in language learning.

who are the webheads in action? We are an international group of EFL/ESL teachers who work together online to develop professionally. We are a multicultural community who speaks different varieties of English and an open community who welcomes other participants. But we are also a support group for those interested in learning and doing Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC).

where do the webheads in action come from? We come from all over the world. We spread far and wide throughout the five continents, as you can see in WiA Worldwide, a map I created during this year's training program. If you place the cursor over each pin, you will see the names of several of our members. And if you observe the map closely, you will notice that the greatest concentration of members is in Europe and the Middle East, a curiosity we still need to explore and find explanations for.

how and when did they come together? The Webheads in Action met in cyberspace through a TESOL-sponsored event in January 2002. "I first heard about these two-month online sessions in mid-December [2001 through a mailing list]. My antennas popped up immediately. Knowing that I wouldn't be at TESOL 2002 Conference, I wasn't about to miss this opportunity to explore different (a)synchronous communication tools. When we are part of a community, involvement and commitment are easier. We're motivated and driven by curiosity, personal, academic and/or professional development, as well as by a group dynamic" (Webheads and Me).

what did we do? We did an eight-week online training program with the aim of learning how to build a solid online community while learning to use and work with different state-of-the-art synchronous and asynchronous communication tools and apply them to the EFL/ESL classroom. Though we were working on a volunteer basis and would get no certification at the end, we had an intense and well laid-out weekly syllabus based on different topics each week. We have been together since then.

how do webheads in action communicate? We communicate through our Yahoo Group run by Vance Stevens, the group moderator and also our program coordinator. A Yahoo Group has numerous practical features for a community such as ours: a Members section where a roster of all the subscribers is kept with as much or as little information about each one as (s)he considers appropriate; a Photos section where each one can upload pictures; a Messages section, or mailing list, that automatically stores all the messages sent as well as keeps a record of the monthly flow; a Chat that we replaced by Yahoo Messenger; a Files section where we can upload and store any type of document; a Links section where we can have folders with links to relevant group materials; a Database that we used for the first time this year to prepare for our TESOL 2003 colloquium and found it quite useful (it is possible to create different records, and edit and delete them); finally, a Calendar where we announce important events, as was the case with this presentation (it allows for 'reminders' to be automatically sent on preset dates, which is very practical). Our YG, or Communications Center, as I like to call it, allows us to be in permanent touch with one another and with all the different group events going on. Our life would certainly be very complicated without it.

On a daily basis we communicate through email. We reached a total flow of close to four thousand messages (at the moment of writing) in sixteen months! In our peak season, January through March, which corresponds to the training period, the message flow can topple the five hundred a month mark, while during the low season (June through August) it can drop to fifty messages a month.

The threads are extremely diversified. They can range from technical matters to ongoing topics, such as CMC (Computer-Mediated Communication) and CoPs (Communities of Practice), or even personal matters. After all, we have created strong professional and personal bonds. Webhead Arlyn Freed created a database of our 2002 discussion topics where you have a comprehensive picture of the subject-matter covered.

But Webheads also communicate synchronously on a weekly basis. We have a two-hour chat every Sunday at 12:00 GMT at Tapped In. There is never an agenda for these two-hour sessions, but we never seem to fall short of topics. On a busy Sunday there can be several crisscrossed conversations going on causing what seems like 'chaos navigation' (expression coined by Webhead Susanne Nyrop) for the newcomer. However, once you get 'into' it and used to it (it doesn't take long), seeing text scroll down your screen sometimes a little over the speed limit (!) will not cause any disturbance. The trick is either to concentrate on your own thread or scan the text from time to time. This strategy is particularly useful when you are multitasking (doing a few things at the same time).

what do webheads do during a two-hour chat? Sometimes we stay at the same platform and talk about anything that comes up, other times we commute between chat platforms such as Yahoo Messenger and iVisit for text, voice and image, or Wimba Voice Direct for voice aided by text, as can be seen in a page about a jam session with guitars and singing (Chris Johnson in Germany, Michael Coghlan in Australia and Vance Stevens in Abu Dhabi, UAE). Each of these platforms has enormous potential for language learning: text chat for reading and writing activities, and voice chat for listening and speaking.

On some Sundays we can deal with more specific things: first attempts at using webcams or an online presentation. Carnival was a joint venture and first online presentation for Dafne González (Spain), Susanne Nyrop (Denmark) and myself during which we projected different pages about Carnival in Brazil, Portugal, Spain and Venice, called our colleagues' attention to special celebrations and pictures, answered questions, made comments, drank 'virtual' caipirinha and had fun! I imagine it is hard to 'imagine' all this. You have to experience it! On the other hand, we can practice e-moderation while discussing a topic such as What's in a Name? with Aiden Yeh's students in Taiwan.

These weekly chats have played a very significant role in our ongoing socialization process and have been the basic ingredient in the strengthening of our personal bonds. It is through them that we have come to know one another better.

But our professional bonds have also grown along these months. How? Well, through the Sunday chats when we experiment with and test communication tools and by being available to demonstrate how they work. With a community reaching across many time zones (this WiA world clock created by Susanne Nyrop gives quite a good idea), there is always someone available to lend a helping hand. At any time during the week we may collaborate with colleagues whether in demos (Using Voice Online with Michael Coghlan in Australia) for other colleagues or in showing how a tool works. Curious coincidence, as I was writing this part of the paper, I was logged in to Wimba Voice Direct (a chat voice tool) when in came Fernanda Rodrigues to try it out for the first time. I gladly interrupted what I was doing to help her and at the same time took the opportunity to check if everything was in order for the voice conference with the Webheads in Action during my APPI conference presentation. This is nothing new to us as participants, but it will only be my second experience as presenter.

Participating or presenting in online conferences has been a common activity for us as a community from the beginning: TESOL Arabia 2002; Vance Stevens's Internet Fair Classics session during the TESOL 2002 Conference in Salt Lake City; Tapped In Summer Carnival 2002, a twelve-hour non-stop virtual marathon of presentations and discussions by educators in several fields during which the Webhead trio Dafne Gonzalez, Susanne Nyrop and myself presented a Cooking Lesson; Crosscultural Communication Online; and several events this year, though there are no pages with the highlights yet.

The creation of Web pages is another facet of our work, no doubt, a different form of interaction between members and materials, nonetheless, communication! As soon as we joined the Webheads in Action, we noticed that Vance Stevens created Web pages to document most everything we did and commented on. We found this to be extremely useful: it is a fabulous repository of our community knowledge as well as our 'collective memory'. Well, following on Vance's footsteps, some Webheads started creating different artifacts to document what we do, tools we experiment with, including our feedback on them, and experiences we go through. At a certain point I felt that we were losing track of this fabulous database, because several of us were contributing to it and the files were scattered throughout different servers. Thus, I felt an urgent need to try and get control of the situation by organizing a page where I would concentrate as many links as possible to the numerous documents dispersed in cyberspace. I undertook the task and came up with the WiA Index, a page organized by topics, page name with link and a brief description of the content. It gives quite a comprehensive idea of what we have done since January 2002.

While preparing the content and moderation of week 3 of the Electronic Village 2003 training program, which would deal with communication tools that facilitate online interaction, I had another idea. I thought it would be appropriate to launch the week by showing everyone how far we spread out geographically, yet how close we are in terms of communications - just a click away! Thus the Webheads in Action map I referred above.

As the theme of this year's training program was Communities of Practice online: Reflection through experience and experiment with the Webheads community of language learners and practitioners, Webhead Chris Johnson, who is doing his Ph.D. dissertation on a case study of the Webheads in Action, produced different diagrams to help us all better understand some of the underlying concepts of CoPs. These are just a few examples of work we have carried out.

However, I started out by saying that Webheads have engaged in thinking and rethinking language learning resources, so I would like to show you some examples of online learning produced and implemented by Webheads who didn't know how to create a Web page a little over a year ago: NKFUST's Listening and Conversation Class with Michael Coghlan (Aiden Yeh, Taiwan); English for Science (Buthaina Al Othman, Kuwait); Valencia Modernist Architecture: An Online Unit (Dafne González, Spain-Venezuela).

As you can see, collaborative learning is always implicit in almost any move that Webheads make and it certainly is exciting to learn by doing and practicing with colleagues and not always truly conscious of how much we are learning. Webheads practice what they will then implement with students whether face-to-face (case of Aiden and Buthaina) or online only (Dafne's case).

why did we become a community of practice? Well, first I must explain that we got along so well and achieved so much in such a short time that we decided to put deadlines aside and stay together to this day! What ingredients contributed to this great recipe? A dynamic and ever-present coordinator, a motivating syllabus, learning collaboratively by doing and practicing, permanent interaction and mutual support. These ingredients generated great trust and strong bonds that have made us a community of professionals who preach what they practice.

what is our added value? Professional development in a motivating, exciting and fun way, a strong sense of 'belonging' to a solid community of practice, and a broad and diversified scope of learning.

Before concluding, I would like to show some comments from Webheads taken from our portal page:

• "This Webhead class is excellent, I really feel like I can use my personal experience for the benefit of others." - From a Tapped In log, Feb 5, 2002;

• "Exploring with fun! Communicating with fun! Learning with fun!' What better way is there?" - posted to the evonline2002_webheads list, March 8, 2002;

• "We are so lucky to be part of Webheads, this resourceful and sharing group of human beings who have introduced us to the wonderful world of e-learning." - posted to EVOnline moderator training list, Nov 2002;

• "allowing people to lurk , not forcing the members to participate actively, is something I suppose means respect for each one’s pace, style, personality" - posted to evonline2002_webheads, Jan 31, 2003;

• "You have all contributed to my personal development as examples of “can do, will do” people. I am amazed at your skills, energy and dynamism and impressed by your talents and output." - posted to evonline2002_webheads, Feb, 2003.

Whether communicating synchronously, asynchronously or through Web pages, our work is intimately related to language learning resources. We have been doing groundbreaking work in the field of EFL/ESL for the past year. It is time consuming, but very gratifying, because everything we have done can be (in some cases, has already been) applied in the face-to-face or online classroom. I am convinced that these new communication tools will bring about great changes in language learning, so it is certainly worth giving them a try!