Professors Use Twitter in Foreign Language Teaching

Twitter -- the social media tool probably best known for celebrity rants -- is finding a more useful purpose in foreign language classrooms at the University of South Carolina.

Professors Dr.Lara Ducate and Dr. Lara Lomicka Anderson are using Twitter as a learning aid to inject a little fun and spontaneity into foreign language instruction.

"One of my main goals of using it in my French class is to build community," said Anderson, an associate professor in the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures who, with Ducate, an associate professor of German, says Twitter can get students talking outside of regular classes.

Anderson also has her students use Twitter to converse with native speakers at École des Ponts Paris Tech, a French university, to "keep the conversation going all the time."

Ducate used Twitter last fall in a teaching methods class to connect students with peers in foreign language teaching method courses at other universities.

"It was a way to let the students find someone who is also teaching their language and learning how to deal with their first semester as a teaching assistant," she said. "They were required to Tweet three times a week on topics like how things were going in their teaching. This gave them a chance to get a little bit more personal attention and also support from more than just me and their USC classmates."

Anderson and Ducate both focus their research on technology in the classroom. They've used discussion questions on Facebook, Skype long-distance chats, and e-mail. They've also worked with podcasting, blogs, and Wikis.

The appeal of Twitter is that it offers a good way for students to get to know one another, the two professors said.

"The students are doing all kinds of interesting communication outside of class," said Anderson, who found that after two semesters, students who had Tweeted with one another were "really well connected and their community was very tight."

She also felt she got to know her students better and was interacting with them more.

Ducate discovered that she could use the subjects of her students' Tweets as a jumping off point for class discussions.

Tweeting is also less intimidating for students who might not be as outgoing as some of their classmates.

"They end up writing more than they would be likely to say in class," she said. "It gives them another outlet where they can express themselves."

Another advantage of Twitter for language instruction is that Tweets are short.

"It's easy for them to write one sentence quickly that doesn't require a lot from a proficiency standpoint," Ducate said. "I think they're more willing to do something like that than having to write a longer blog entry or something that takes more time."

"It's short and it connects them with the outside world and class discussion by bringing in news items and other things they want to share," Anderson said. "Students don't see [Tweets] as homework quite as much because they're fun and allow them to talk about themselves, which they love to do."

So, You Want To Write An Editorial But Do Not Know How? by Jimmy Hall

Everyone of us naturally has opinions about many things, whether we dwell upon them or not. Occasionally we feel so strongly about something that we need to express ourselves in writing. This is the essence of what an editorial or op-ed is all about. An editorial or opinion column or letter to the editor is your outlet to share with the world.

The problem is that while everyone has various ideas about things, not everyone knows exactly how to formulate and convey them in an orderly written manner. That is what this column is all about, to teach you how to write an editorial or opinion piece that has at least a little bit of order and logic to it.

First of all, what is your opinion's subject? Politics? Religion? Current events? Sports? Do you know what you are talking about? Secondly, what is your exact slant? Anytime you express yourself in an editorial, you must confine your thoughts to a few precise points. Writing a little bit about everything related to the topic in the same piece is akin to writing about absolutely nothing. You must focus on limited ideas. Get the idea? The public has a short and limited attention span. Be simple.

Pick an interesting title first. Next, catch the readers' attention with a strong opening line or two, and show the reader that you are human and rational in the next couple of sentences; then, write individual short paragraphs about your three main sub-points. After this, provide a conclusion with a potential solution to the problem that you have explained. Simple enough, right? Maybe.

Amid the course of the editorial piece, it is important that you write with authority. What you type should be considered "as a given." It may be an opinion piece, but your readers must view what is printed as virtual facts. They need to respect you. Otherwise, what weight will your potential solutions carry? Is it your intent to just provide a minute or two of entertainment? (I hope not.)

Lastly, be prepared to catch feedback from your editorial piece. If you write it, readers have a right to reply. If you are not thick-skinned, this can hurt. (I know, believe me.) Furthermore, make sure to provide a way for readers to contact you about the opinion column. Do not hide in web-world. No one respects a person that can give their points of view, yet not accept sensible contrary ones back... Reply to all those that contact you! Whether it is on Facebook, in a magazine, or in newspapers, take your medicine. Believe it or not, most of your feedback will be good.

About the Author:
I'm Jimmy Hall, a freelance writer outside of Atlanta that specializes in business and corporate writing, website and webpage search engine optimization, general web-writing, professional projects, press releases, business letters, college coursework help, ad-columns, articles, and essays. I can help you or your organization at a reasonable fee or rate. Phone: 404-580-1501 E-mail: HJimmy577@aol.com
Webpage: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jimmy-Halls-Writing-and-Composing-Services/213480584583

Writing Is Therapy by Jimmy Hall

In a fast-paced world, true friends are a rarity, priced at a premium. Friends, mind you, not simply acquaintances. Furthermore, someone like myself, with no natural siblings and few immediate relatives, is at a further disadvantage regarding companionship. Boredom and loneliness creep-up quickly within a quiet home. That's when the act of writing truly functions at its irreplaceable best. Yes, that's when my craft begins to comfort me. Writing helps.

Alone with pen and paper or computer, I step into another world apart from the physical space my body inhabits. Like a lonely but curious child daydreaming in his room, my mind wanders to regions I otherwise wouldn't experience, joining unique people outside of my realm and sphere of contacts. Unlike the characters in books I could read by others, the ones I write are tailored to be exactly as I wish, and seldom fail to amuse or excite me as I create them. They place me in touch with myself, and must do so; I go into them.

Developing characters or depicting places requires much thinking and intra-conversation within the writer's mind. In essence I am not alone, for I'm talking to myself via the running dialogue and descriptions being expressed and presented. In addition, my creations take on an existence, and speak to me as

I form them; I am no longer isolated. Indeed, in what other arenas or areas of life can someone obtain friends at will and have them say precisely the right words in exactly the correct circumstances? Few, if any.

I think, perhaps, the reader often fails to understand this close but abstract relationship between a writer and his or her work. An alert one can sometimes grasp what the author is communicating, but usually fails to understand the writer's experience while creating it, unless the reader also writes.

The simple truth is that a book, story, article, poem, or play is the baby of the one who penned it. The initially lonesome writer joys in its conception, growth, and maturation, and later enjoys sharing this special child with others. The reader normally could not care any less about that bond. Regardless, the item's publication is the second and sometimes final season of happiness. Inevitably this joy also dissipates and the trials and emotions of real life return, and the need will arise to instigate the process once again. I personally know this to be true.

Surely writing will continue to lift my spirits, and those of thousands of others who share our mutual love of designing the written word. For quite a number of years this has been the case. Let's hope it continues accordingly, because writing is great therapy for the author and the end product provides a solid activity for the readership.

About the Author:
I'm Jimmy Hall, a freelance writer outside of Atlanta that specializes in business and corporate writing, website and webpage search engine optimization, general web-writing, professional projects, press releases, business letters, college coursework help, ad-columns, articles, and essays. I can help you or your organization at a reasonable fee or rate. Phone: 404-580-1501 E-mail: HJimmy577@aol.com
Webpage: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jimmy-Halls-Writing-and-Composing-Services/213480584583

Guidelines for Writing an Editorial in Your Corporate Newsletter by Jane Sherwin

Let's suppose you've just been asked to write an editorial for your company's newsletter. Your boss is overwhelmed with some new responsibility and has asked you to fill in. But, what are you going to say? And what is the best way to say it? This is, after all, an opinion piece, not just another news item.

Here are some key points that should help you get your editorial done right:

Know your purpose:

Start by being aware of the purpose of your corporate newsletter. Is it designed to attract clients to your services and products, or to reassure the world that you are in good financial shape? To bolster employee loyalty or provide helpful information to people in your marketplace? Your editorial should most certainly reflect your newsletter's goals.

Know your audience:

Next, get clear about who will be reading your editorial: Investors, employees, customers, vendors? Define your readers' interests, and think about content that will stimulate their interest, even if they may not always agree with you. You want to be sure that you are writing for the audience that you have, not the one you wish you had.

Get clear about content:

Now you are ready to start thinking about content. If it's an election year, would an editorial about politics and business be appropriate? Perhaps there have been safety issues in the news, so that an editorial about corporate responsibility would be timely. Are there topics or items you should definitely stay away from? It's a good idea to get in touch with your public relations department, if you haven't already, and see what they advise.

Word count:

As you begin to sketch out your editorial, be sure you know how many words your newsletter has room for. Unless you are a brilliant wordsmith, you'll want to keep your piece to no more than 400-500 words. You aren't doing investigative reporting, after all. As you write, keep an eye on your word count (there are simple software tools for counting).

Choose the right style:

Determine how personal your editorial can be, given the style of your newsletter-and your corporate culture. Does this assignment call for a folksy style along with a joke here and there? Is serious and plain and sober a better choice?

Use good models for ideas about style, openings and closings. Take a look, for example, at the op-ed pages in leading newspapers. A strong, brief opening statement will engage your readers and keep them reading. Avoid saying "I" and instead write about the company-for example "Our company has long believed" or "We firmly support." State your opinion clearly, so that people understand what you are talking about. And lay out the facts clearly, as well.

Proofing and reviewing:

Finally, be sure to get a colleague to review your draft for you-a second point of view can be invaluable. And take a couple of minutes to read your editorial out loud to yourself-this is a great way to see what you've missed in terms of tone and argument. Also, it goes without saying that you'll want your boss to take a look.

Who knows, your first editorial may turn out to be the beginning of a new career!

Copyright (c) 2010 Jane Sherwin. You may reprint this entire article and you must include the copyright info and the following statement: "Jane Sherwin is a writer who helps hospitals and other health care facilities communicate their strengths and connect with their readers."

Subscribe to Jane's free monthly e-newsletter at http://visitor.constantcontact.com/d.jsp?m=1101996057258&p=oi for short, powerful articles delivered directly to your inbox. Get practical tips on communicating effectively with customers, clients, employees and the public.

The Online Writing Lack-Of-Editing Debate by Lisa A Mason

There are some who write or read content on the Internet and find themselves appalled at the "lax" editing process that is often involved in said content. I've had my writing criticized for it, even just recently. This started off as an email in reply to one of these aforementioned "grammar snobs" but instead, I figured why waste my time? Some people just need to feel important and who am I to try to take that away?

But I am going to share it with you here because chances are, you've been part of this equation- either on one side or the other and you might benefit from some insight into the battle over online content and its quality and/or lack of proper editing before publication.

Here's the argument: Online writing is sloppy and those publishing this dribble should not be calling themselves "professionals".

This has been a longtime debate for as long as I have been writing for the Internet and while I certainly see the point (I used to treat it the same way when I first started), I have also learned that most Web writing is just not meant to be this way. I lose money when I nit-pick over every single word and spend hours editing something that isn't going to be up for a Pulitzer or even a publishing house.

When I produce ad copy, books, promotional materials and other business and corporate writing, there is a higher level editorial process that goes into it. Typically, there is also at least 1-2 other people who will read the copy and we all create a final draft together.

Quick articles and blurbs for the Internet don't require this type of fine-toothed-comb editing. While I don't encourage sloppy or unedited writing, there is a limit to how long I will edit a piece that is only paying a certain amount. And the point of the matter is that it really isn't necessary. I've seen major news networks like FOX and NBC make typos, particularly in news they are trying to get out quickly. The Associated Press often has typos or grammar errors in their news feeds due to their attempt to be the first to get it "on the wire". Sometimes these mistakes are corrected later and often, they are not.

Why? Well, because there is no point. The point was to get the info out there. Those who needed to read it, read it, and as long as the typo or grammatical error did not hinder the reader's comprehension of the story, it won't typically be changed. In fact, the average reader won't even notice the type of errors these Grammar Snobs so gleefully point out.

The average Net reader is on a 5th-6th grade level, with the exception of technical and some niche-specific sites and blogs. This isn't to say that all Internet readers are uneducated. Instead, it takes into consideration stress, work, TV and other distractions that the person has going on when they come to read your article or website. Chances are, they were quickly looking for something and they are usually in a rush. Therefore, their reading attention spans are around that of a 12 year old, regardless of who they are, their age or their educational level.

Using large, stuffy vocabulary turns the average reader off. They don't want to read fluffy, flowery content; they want simple, to the point information about the topic they searched for.

"Intellectual" types will see this type of writing as bland, simple or uneducated but 90% of the time, I am not writing to the intellectuals. I'm writing to the average Internet reader.

One recent insult I received was "What are you, in high school?" No, but the majority of my readers have a high school education and possibly some college. It's all about identifying your reader and giving them what they want.

I don't write so that I can puff my chest out and snub my nose at those less educated than myself.

I don't write so that I can join an elitist club and sit by a fireplace sipping cognac and smoking expensive cigars mumbling, "Here! Here!" when one of my snob-buddies makes a self-righteous comment.

I write to help others, to provide information; to get to the point. I write to answer questions, to share my experiences and opinions and I write to help businesses find success.

There are some who will call me a "sell out" or say that I am bringing down the quality of the industry but you know what? These people don't sign my paychecks.

My tagline for Web copy is "Curing Internet illiteracy- one website at a time!" and this is something I have vowed to uphold each and every year that I continue to work in this business. I am human and occasionally I make mistakes but my clients have always felt that I create better content than they would have if they were doing it themselves (and some of them had). They always find a value in my services and I am compensated very well for that value.

So if I get the occasional self-righteous blogger who wants to insult me and debate it every now and then, we can just chalk it up to a casualty of the industry and move on. If you don't like the way I choose to write and run my business, we can respectfully agree to disagree and I'll move on and keep banking my cash.

About the Author:

Lisa Mason is a freelance writer with a specialty in Internet content and SEO articles and the author of How to Earn a Living Writing for the Internet. She has written thousands of articles, hundreds of ebooks and thousands of website pages and related content in more than 10 years as a professional writer.

Author of 100 Days to Better Article Writing as well as other books, guides and articles on writing and writing online.

Powerful Email, Business Writing Training Remains Critical in Texting Digital Age

The primary written communications of an entire millennial generation that's now in the workforce consists of on-the-fly text messages -- "OMG dude, my boss is giving the most boring z-z-z presentation. R U going 2 night? :)"

Growing legions of smart phone users are adopting the same texting and email writing habits. User-generated websites, blogs, and other social media reflect the same weak writing skills. And, newspapers, which have cut editors, are filled with basic writing errors. All seem to ask who -- in an increasingly digital world -- really needs powerful business writing skills, observes Michael Whelan, president of Whelan Group Seminars, an internationally respected business writing and communications training firm.

"Business emails, decision memos, proposals, letters, reports, strategic plans, board reports, annual reports, white papers, speeches, PowerPoint presentations, and publications," Whelan emphasizes, "still demand professional, powerful written communications skills to achieve RESULTS."

What is Corporate Writing? by Pavan M Kumar

Most companies use "We understand your business" as a heading in their websites to tell their clients in what way they try to understand the business of the latter. When you start reading what has written there, most of the times you find abstract thoughts of the writer without exactly mentioning what and how they does it. Welcome to the world of Corporate Writing!!! If corporate writing means using big obscure words and writing lengthy sentences without exactly telling what they mean, then it is nothing but an indication to revise the content of the website with immediate effect.

Writing is an art. If you want to convey something, then out of all the mediums, writing ranks first among the equals. Through writing, you not only convey your thoughts but also make the reader feel and excite about your stuff. Everything depends up on the words and sentences you use to write for your audience. Even a one-liner can lit the light of knowledge among thousands and millions of people, if written perfectly.

While writing for web, you need to present your points in a neat, trim, and perfect way. The readers will not spend much time on your site if they do not understand what you have written. Do not use words, which are nearly absent in our daily conversations. If you feel that using complicated words gives your site a corporate touch, then forget about the clients and business. Since clients have to first, understand what you have written on your website; if you challenge their understanding by using complicated words and sentences in the name of corporate writing, then forget about bagging business.

Nobody have time to spend deciphering what your abstract and complex words convey. Corporate writing rules say to write simple and easy-to-understand sentences for readers' consumption. Because your company is big, there is no need to use big words! In fact, your words and sentence choices may affect your company's business.

Corporate writing always says to stick to short sentences, easy words, and no verbose phrases. Stick to this principle while writing any corporate stuff. At the end of your writing, there are chances that you may get a clear, concise, precise, and clarified piece of writing, which everyone can understand. Avoid jargons, clichés, and abstract words and phrases in your writing. Always keep your audience, to whom you are writing, in mind; otherwise, chances are there that you may lose the track of conveying your purpose to the right audience. Think about your audience and always question yourself what they already know and what they are supposed to know now.

In summary, always remember that corporate communications are there to serve a purpose but not to convey abstract thoughts!

3 Email Land Mines? in Business Writing: Haste, Privacy & Wrong Addresses

You're walking innocently across a field. Suddenly you stumble on a hidden land mine. Pow! Disaster strikes. This kind of event happens daily in organizations where people use email extensively. Elizabeth Danziger, author of Get to the Point! Painless Advice for Writing Letters, Memos, and Emails Your Colleagues and Clients Will Understand, 2nd edition, asked business people worldwide to talk about the Email Land Mines? they have uncovered. In a series of online articles, she shares the results of her research into this area of business writing.

The first land mine is: Writing in Haste. "Act in haste; repent at leisure," says the proverb. Something about the immediacy of email makes us feel pressured to respond immediately, often before we've fully thought out our response. In the rush to hit "send," we might respond before we have all the information we need, or before we've let negative feelings settle down. Most land mines could be avoided by simply not rushing to send out emails. For more on this land mine and ways to avoid it, go to article.

The second land mine is: Cherishing the Illusions of Privacy and Confidentiality. When we're sitting at our own work station, we develop the cozy feeling that "It's just me and my computer." Alas, this feeling is an illusion. In reality, emails last forever. They are stored on servers from which they can be plucked from oblivion by any IT person worth his salt. They can - and presumably will - be forwarded directly to the person whom we most do not want to read them. For more information and suggestions, go to article.

The third land mine is: Sending Email to the Wrong People. This is huge. One woman wrote of accidentally sending a list of reasons why a manager should be terminated directly to the manager. Another told of sending confidential deal details to a reporter whose name was similar to her colleague's. Yet another person told of receiving highly sensitive emails that are addressed to people whose names are similar to his. This article contains nine ways that people can stumble by mis-addressing - and this list doesn't even include hitting "reply all"! To read the complete list and see how to avoid disaster, go to article.

When Digital Meets Literate: National Grant Supports World-Class Authorship Studies

In a society filled with right-brain and left-brain worlds, Dr. Patrick Juola straddles both hemispheres.

A literary specialist, he works and plays in Java as fluently as he does in English, pioneering a trend to bridge the humanities and technology.

Juola, associate professor of computer science at Duquesne University, has put Java together so that it can dissect another language--human language--and examine word usage and speech patterns. The National Science Foundation ( NSF ) is supporting Juola's groundbreaking work with a second grant, $1.6 million.

With this three-year grant, Juola and researchers in the new Evaluating Variations in Language ( EVL ) lab will simplify his program, which determines authorship across a range of fields--from the forensic study of a suicide note to politically critical policies, from Indiana Jones-type questions of biblical authorship to teachers' work-a-day-questions of possible student plagiarism.

"This new research in a re-emergent field has the potential to really change the way basic scholarship is done," Juola observed. "Google made it obvious there is money to be made in teaching computers to understand language, and a lot of literary scholars paid attention."

This work overrides what Juola calls "a purely artificial gulf" that has separated sciences and humanities since a scholarly divide was fostered in the 1950s.

"There is a big movement recently to bridge that gulf now," Juola said, pointing to creation of the Office of Digital Humanities within the National Endowment for the Humanities ( NEH ) in 2008, which awarded him a grant in its inaugural year.

This summer, he also received the international Developer's Challenge Award at the Digital Humanities Conference and instructed the next generation of world-class scholars in authorship, attribution and language variation at the University of Copenhagen.

Duquesne, Juola said, is uniquely positioned to forge ahead in this field because its computer science studies are housed within the college of liberal arts.

In tackling authorship issues, Juola started with a very broad question: "Can we infer personality from writing?"

His answer is obviously affirmative. Millions of minute idiosyncrasies in speech and writing offer telltale clues about who we are, evident in decisions such as choosing the words "large" or "big" over "enormous." Juola's Sherlock Holmes-like software successfully connects these clues to decipher the author's identity.

Spelling and grammar variations, even what prepositions people use are on the program's radar. "Our research goal is to enable a computer to look at a piece of text and say, "Yes, this play was written by Shakespeare" or "Yes, this ransom note was written by a man in his early 40s," Juola explained.

Juola, an adjunct scientist in the new Human Language Technology Center of Excellence at Johns Hopkins University, sees programs like his as just the beginning for the field of digital humanities.

"This gives scholars access to more information by letting the computer do some of the rote work," Juola said. "How many Shakespearean plays can I read? The computer can do that in seconds.

"What happens with the information? That's where the human comes in."

Writing Tips - Decoding the English Language by Dr. Sandra Folk

Last night I was walking through my neighbourhood and passed a fruit and vegetable store. They had a sign out front advertising a real bargain: "Cherry Special, $3.49 a pound."

For a moment I amused myself by imagining they were selling a giant cherry. But of course it was just a case of someone not understanding the difference between singular and plural; what they meant was "cherries," plural, not "cherry," singular.

It made me think, not for the first time, how confusing the English language can be. And not just for non-native English speakers. All of us can find ourselves struggling to understand aspects of this tricky language.

There's a poem circulating on the internet called "English Is A Confusing Language" that sums it up perfectly - this is just an excerpt:

"We'll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,
Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice."

So funny, so true. There are areas of the English language that simply are not logical. So how do you make sense of English, and use the correct words in your writing? Here's the bitter pill we all must swallow: sometimes you just have to memorize.

There are many situations with English where this is true, but today I thought I'd just focus on three common areas of confusion:

1. Plural versus Singular: Many plurals are formed by adding -s or -es to the singular noun. House becoming houses, (not "hice!") for example. But singulars that end with a "y," preceded by a consonant, become plural by using "ies." Thus more than one cherry becomes cherries.

2. One Word, Various Meanings: There are many examples of this. Take the word "bar" for example. It might mean the place you go for a drink at the end of a long day. It might mean something you leap over if you are horse. What I recommend when one encounters a word with various meanings is to use it in a sentence, so that the context helps to make the meaning clear. For example: "There was a bar at the door to the pub, but I leapt over it so that I could get a drink at the bar. (And after that they barred me from coming back.)"

3. Same Pronunciation or Spelling, Various Meanings (a.k.a. Homonyms): A classic example - "sight, cite, and site." If you see something, it's in sight. If you wish to quote something, you wish to "cite" it. If you are camping, chances are you have a camping "site." Some people are so fascinated by homonyms that they keep lists of them.

If there are aspects of the English language that confuse you, please do drop me a line by commenting, and I can take it up on the blog. Or if you have any funny examples you'd like to share, send those in as well.

Meanwhile, I leave you with this example of homonyms from another neighbourhood stroll, when I passed a café with a sly sense of humour. The board outside their door advertised the following special: "Leek and Pea Soup." Try explaining that to someone just learning English!

Dr. Sandra Folk is a Toronto-based educational consultant and award-winning university lecturer. She set up The Language Lab specifically to help business executives and employees write and express themselves more effectively. Find out more at http://www.thelanguagelab.ca/

Short Story Writing Tips For Beginners - Use Vv Mnemonic, Get Published

by Sridhar Chandrasekaran

Are your verbs arranged sequentially while you write a story? Vv set is a mnemonic where "V" stands for Verb and the big letter V and small letter v visually symbolize the arrangement of the verb sequence. This succession could be representing anything that blows up in the beginning and narrows down towards the end of the story. It could be an idea, an emotion or an event that grows and fades. For instance, a narrative could be well thought-out from past to present, big to small, high to low or a set to a subset to absorb the audience consciousness.

Let us take 4 verbs that start with a bigger intensity and ends with a smaller intensity. For instance, "Run" is an intense verb when compared with the verb "stand". All other verbs such as rush, dash, jog, trot, walk would fall in between the verbs run and stand. Now, let us use them in writing a short episode to show a sequence of events of a character.

Tugging his loose trousers, John, a 20 year old hunter, ran hastily to save his life from this cruel untamed lion that fiercely dashed towards him in a thick Jungle. He altered his moving directions swiftly to brain tease the loin. After couple of hours of combating away from the eyesight of this ferocious animal, John thrived, ultimately. Soon, he was able to relax himself in a far-flung where he paused exhaustively breathing to calm himself from this horrendous nightmare.

In this incident, the highest intensity of "running" gradually comes down to "pausing" or "resting" meanwhile, the audience are taken on a roller coaster ride of intensely anxious emotion to a soothing restful frame of mind.

9 out of 10 novelists develop this kind of dramatic effect, striking dynamic feelings, to amuse the audience and occupy their mind till the end of the narrative tale.

View some of my light-hearted leisurely articles at squidoo

'I Can See Me' Webcam Research at K-State Helps Kids Improve Reading Fluency

An interest in technology and a desire to help elementary school students prompted a Kansas State University professor and two graduate students to turn to webcams to improve students' reading fluency.

Timothy Frey, assistant professor of special education, counseling and student affairs, wanted to help elementary-age students reduce the number of errors they make when reading out loud. He worked with two K-State master's graduates: Abby Houlton, now a special education teacher at Brookridge Elementary School in the Shawnee Mission school district, and Elizabeth Gruis, who teaches in the Manhattan-Ogden school district.

The project aimed to improve reading fluency, which involves processing words in a meaningful way. When fluency improves, usually comprehension also improves.

"With testing and assessments, we know that generally the earlier you can catch things and find potential problems, the better off a student will be," Frey said. "This really can help students pick up on error patterns and help prevent them from having further reading problems."

The researchers turned to webcams, instead of audio recorders, to help students improve reading fluency. With webcams the students could both see and hear themselves read, which the researchers called the "I can see me" procedure.

During a 16-week period the researchers worked with teachers at Brookridge Elementary School to observe 27 second-, third-, and fourth-graders who tested on-grade level. The research actively involved the students. During designated reading time in class, the students went to the computers and read a selected reading sample in front of the webcams. Afterward, they could watch the video and pick out any mistakes.

"The video really seemed to change how students were engaged," Frey said. "They didn't just hear themselves read anymore, but they could see themselves reading, which they really liked."

All three student groups improved reading fluency in impressive ways. After only three to five weeks of using the webcams, the second-graders improved from averaging seven errors per minute to four errors per minute. Third-graders went from averaging six errors to four errors per minute. The group of fourth-graders improved from an average of four errors to two and a half errors per minute.

"We were really interested in interventions that students can do themselves or that build metacognitive skills," Frey said. "Having the students build skills and learn to detect their own errors rather than teachers trying to fix them over and over again is really important for students."

When one student excitedly said, "I can see me!" the researchers adopted the name for the principle of improvement using the webcams. Researchers said the students seemed to enjoy reading in front of cameras, and even students who disliked reading would read with the cameras.

"The students' ability to analyze their own reading through a guided discussion was truly what amazed me the most," Houlton said. "When I look at the big picture of what this project did, it was that it made the students more accurate readers because they were more aware of the mistakes they were making."

The researchers plan to use the webcams with other groups of students, such as students who are learning the English language, students with cognitive disabilities or students reading at a lower reading level. Houlton has also planned to use the webcams to help students prepare for oral presentations and understand geometry concepts, such as reflection.

"The students loved that I could make a DVD of their reading to show to their parents, or even e-mail the video to their parents," Houlton said. "We also saved videos throughout the year so they could see their improvement from the beginning of the year to the end of the year."

The researchers are preparing their research for publication and recently presented their project at the conference for the International Society for Technology in Education. Their research will also be published in the society's November magazine, Learning & Leading with Technology.

Video available: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzlDr2f9zt0