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The ICT4LT website is a collection of training modules in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) for Language Teachers, the outcome of a Socrates project funded in 1999-2000 by the European Commission. The English-language version of the ICT4LT website is now updated regularly as a labour of love by Graham Davies, Emeritus Professor of Computer Assisted Language Learning. The sections in Italian, Finnish and Swedish have not been updated since the EC funding period came to an end in December 2000. The ICT4LT site is now managed with zero funding, so please do not approach us with requests for financial support. ICT4LT is not an accredited course, and you cannot register as a student, but feedback is welcomed and will be carefully considered as we continually revise the contents of the modules. Access to the ICT4LT website is free of charge to all visitors and will remain so for the foreseeable future. If you wish to send us feedback on any aspect of the ICT4LT site or ask specific questions relating to ICT and language learning and teaching, use our online feedback form by clicking here: Feedback. Contents
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The ICT4LT project teamThe original ICT4LT project team (1999-2000) consisted of eight individuals based in the following institutions:
Scroll over to the right for information on the individual members of the original ICT4LT team. The team has now been disbanded, but the English-language version of the ICT4LT website is still updated on a regular basis by Graham Davies, academic coordinator of the ICT4LT project. Aims of the ICT4LT project The main aim of the ICT4LT project was to provide Web-based training materials in ICT for teachers of Modern Foreign Languages. It was also planned to develop the materials into an accredited online course, but funding ran out before this aim could be achieved. The materials are, however, still valid as a free resource for teachers and teacher trainers. The project was built upon a number of national and EU-funded projects which the partners had successfully completed, in particular the New Technologies Sub-Group of the Thematic Network Project (TNP1) in the Area of Languages, which was initiated by the European Language Council: http://www.celelc.org Two members of the ICT4LT project team, Peppi Taalas and Graham Davies, were participants in the Socrates-funded TALLENT project, coordinated by Angela Chambers, University of Limerick: http://www.solki.jyu.fi/tallent Philosophy
of the ICT4LT project Target
audience It must be emphasised that ICT4LT is not an introductory course in Information and Communications Technology. Such courses are already available, e.g.
It is expected that visitors to the ICT4LT website already have qualifications that include a foreign language and a basic knowledge of ICT, i.e. including:
See the next section. ICT "can do" lists and Questionnaire A downloadable Word document containing a set of "can do" lists is available if you click here: ICT_Can_Do_Lists. The document is designed for:
Questionnaire When we initiated this project we designed a Questionnaire for visitors to the website to help them to analyse their own situation and their ICT training needs. The questionnaire is still available here: Questionnaire. We are no longer gathering data about visitors to the ICT4LT website, but the questionnaire may help you identify your training needs. We are still interested in your views on the site: Feedback welcomed. The ICT4LT blogVisit the ICT4LT blog at: Learning tasks and discussion topics Learning tasks and discussion topics are inserted at appropriate points in each module of the ICT4LT website. If you wish to air your views, ask questions or discuss the materials, please use the Feedback form. You may also consider initiating a discussion in one of the following discussion lists: EUROCALL: Linguanet Forum: Working on- and offline: reading from the screen Web guru Jakob Nielsen writes:
Source:
Be Succinct! Writing for the Web, Alertbox, 15 March 1997: See Nielsen's other articles on Writing
for the Web: The Web is unlikely to replace the printed book as a means of presenting large amounts of text. This is not to say that text on the Web is a bad thing. The Web is superb as a means of delivering text that can then be printed. It is also quicker to search the Web for information than visiting your local library, and once you have found a text you want to read you can use your browser to search for keywords within it. It was interesting to read the story in The Times (29 November 2000, p. 9) headed King leaves Internet readers in suspense. Stephen King decided not to complete his Internet novel The Plant because - according to King - "it failed to grab the attention of readers on the Web". King found that a surprisingly high proportion of the readers accessing his site (75%-80%) made the "honesty payment" for being allowed to download chapters: "But", he said, "there are a lot fewer of them coming. Online people have the attention span of a grasshopper." The article points out "that digital publishing has a bleak future because it is an unattractive medium for reading long texts and it is difficult to stop breach of copyright". See: http://www.stephenking.com You should therefore not feel guilty about printing out any of the pages at this site and sitting down in a comfortable armchair in order to read them. It's the sensible thing to do - and better for your eyes. To print a page, just use the File/Print facility in your browser. Copyright issuesIf you download or print a copy of any material from the ICT4LT site, please pay due respect to copyright. See the ICT4LT Copyright notice at the foot of this page and on all other pages at this site, and see our General guidelines on copyright. Dead links: linkrotThe English language version of the ICT4LT
site contains over 1000 links to other sites. Checking these links
on a regular basis takes a good deal of time. Up to 5% of the links
listed at the ICT4LT site move or disappear each month, but we do
a regular automatic link check using the excellent Xenu Link Sleuth
program, which is available free of charge at We mention the topic of broken links in Section 6.3.3, Module 3.3. This phenomenon is sometimes referred to as linkrot (see Glossary). Linkrot is a growing disease: see Jakob Nielsen (1998) Fighting Linkrot at: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/980614.html After we have identified broken links with Xenu Link Sleuth, they have to be retraced manually - mainly by backtracking to homepages and using local or global search engines, combined with a bit of intuition. If you come across a broken link and know where it has gone please let us know: Feedback. You may be able to retrieve the contents of
a dead link by entering its URL into the Web Archive (the Wayback
Machine) at http://www.archive.org A further problem that we have identified is
that domain names regularly change hands, especially when a site goes
dead. Unfortunately, this can lead to so-called cybersquatters
(see Glossary) grabbing the name and
using it for other purposes, e.g. for a site containing offensive
material. We have had two experiences of this, which Graham Davies
documents on the following Web page: Felix (2001:353) makes the following important points: Care needs to be taken when other people's sites are included if malfunctions are to be avoided. We therefore suggest the following precautions:
Wise words! Regarding the first of Uschi Felix's points, we expected educational and government sites to be among the most stable. How wrong we were! In terms of stability, these are the worst offenders in our experience. Their webmasters simply cannot resist moving the furniture around every few months. Restructuring is a permanent process, it seems, and very few webmasters in educational institutions and government organisations leave clear indications of how their site has been restructured. We therefore make a special plea to these webmasters: Please leave redirection instructions at the old URLs for a period of at least six months. Commercial sites and sites managed by private individuals are likely to be the most stable in our experience. Regarding the second of Uschi Felix's points, please make sure you pay attention to copyright. Just because the material is on the Web it doesn't mean that it can be distributed freely to all and sundry. See Copyright issues. Regarding the fourth of Uschi Felix's points: This is where ICT4LT can help! Graham Davies, Academic Coordinator of the ICT4LT Project, ran a workshop on Second Life, with a contribution by Lesley Shield on Lively, at the EUROCALL 2008 conference in Hungary. The section on Second Life in Module 1.5 has been updated and expanded, and a tutorial for beginners can be downloaded in Word format: Section 14.2.1, Module 1.5 Useful Web links and Bibliography Our Resource Centre contains a short list of Web links relating to ICT and Languages, as well as a comprehensive Bibliography. Graham Davies's Favourite Websites page contains a larger list of web links that are regularly updated: http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/websites.htm General guidelines on copyright As a reaction to numerous enquiries relating to copyright issues, we have added a page entitled General guidelines on copyright. Visits to our site - some interesting facts Site visits: requests
for pages Order of popularity of ICT4LT modules The Glossary of Terminology and the Resource Centre are in constant demand, occupying consistently high positions along with the top five modules. These are the 16 modules in order of popularity.
The five most popular downloads
Countries of origin of our visitors - continually updated How do people find us? Using the Google and Yahoo search engines mainly,
but a number of other sites refer visitors to us. These are the sites
that regularly refer visitors to ICT4LT. You may wish to have a look
at these sites to see what they have to offer to language teachers:
Bibliographical referencing: how to refer to ICT4LT Several people have written to us asking how they should present bibliographical references to the ICT4LT site. Hard-and-fast conventions regarding the bibliographical referencing of Web pages are only slowly emerging. This is what we recommend: 1. If you refer to the English-language version of the ICT4LT website in general you should reference it thus: Davies G. (ed.) (2008) Information and Communications Technology for Language Teachers (ICT4LT), Slough, Thames Valley University [Online]. Available from: http://www.ict4lt.org [Accessed DD Month YYYY]. 2. If you refer to a particular module at the ICT4LT website, e.g. Module 1.5, you should reference it thus: Walker R., Hewer S. & Davies G. (2008) Introduction to the Internet. Module 1.5 in Davies G. (ed.) Information and Communications Technology for Language Teachers (ICT4LT), Slough, Thames Valley University [Online]. Available from: http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_mod1-5.htm [Accessed DD Month YYYY]. The publication date of the printed versions of Modules 1.1 to 1.5 was 1999. Modules 2.1 to 3.5 were published in their printed versions in 2000. Module 4.1 has not been printed. The Web version of every module is updated at least once a month. If you are citing the Web version of the ICT4LT site look for the revision date and information regarding copyright and bibliographical referencing at the bottom of each page. See our Copyright notice. The ICT4LT website contains numerous links to external websites containing information that we consider relevant to ICT and language learning and teaching. Some of the external sites are managed by educational institutions and some are managed by commercial enterprises. We make every effort to check that the links to external sites function correctly and we also check that the contents of the sites to which we make the links are appropriate to the aims of the ICT4LT project, but we cannot ultimately be held responsible for the contents of external websites. We will remove immediately any links to sites that are found to contain inappropriate or offensive material or to sites that appear to be in breach of copyright. If you are a website owner that does not wish a link to your site to be made, please contact us and we will remove the link. Feedback in this connection is welcomed. Felix U. (2001) Beyond Babel: language learning online, Melbourne, Language Australia. Reviewed at: http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/FelixReview.htm Levy M. (1997) CALL: context and conceptualisation, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Feedback If you wish to send us feedback on any aspect
of the ICT4LT website, use our online Feedback
Form or visit the ICT4LT blog
at: The Feedback Form is accessible at the bottom of every page at the ICT4LT site. Copyright noticeDocument last updated 20 November 2008. This page is maintained by Graham Davies. © ICT4LT Project 2008 under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works, UK, England & Wales Licence.
The ICT4LT homepage was designed by Graham Sedgwick at Electric Easel: http://www.electriceasel.co.uk Please cite this Web
page as: You are welcome to link to the homepage of this site at http://www.ict4lt.org. Downloading or linking to any page at this site other than the homepage implies acceptance of these conditions. See also our General guidelines on copyright. |
These were the individual members of the original ICT4LT team:
Roberto
Dolci
Peppi
Taalas
June
Thompson
Fred
Riley
Eric
Brown (formerly CILT)
Paul
Davey (formerly CILT) |
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