Panel: Issues of On-Line Distance Learning

Biographical Notes

Chair: Dan Granger, CSU, Monterey Bay •
Dr. Granger is the Director of Distributed Learning and Extended Education at CSU Monterey Bay.

Maurice Gendron, CSU, Fresno •
Maurice Gendron is a Professor of French at California State University at Fresno. He has two-way video conferencing for language course instruction used on an extensive basis within the CSU and from CSU Fresno to satellite campuses in Visalia and Medera. His instruction experience has included elementary Russian, French Phonetics, and French Literature.

Ron Bergmann, The CSU Strategic Language Initiative •
Ronald Bergmann is currently serving as the Technical Services Manager for the CSU Strategic Languages Initiative where he works to develop emerging technologies in language teaching and learning. Ron was the Language Laboratory Coordinator at California State University. Monterey Bay where he facilitated the acquisition and installation of a Tandburg language laboratory.

Walter Oliver, CSU San Bernardino
Walter Oliver, Professor of Spanish at CSU San Bernardino, has been using technology in his research and teaching since he was a fellow in a National Endowment for the Humanities Seminar on the use of mainframe computers in humanistic teaching and research in 1972. He uses the internet extensively in all of his classes. The intermediate level Spanish class he created using the e-mail murder mystery that he co-created with Terri Nelson, "Un misterio en Toluca," published in 1997 by Heinle & Heinle, was one of six finalist in the Paul Allen Foundation contest to pick the best on-line class of 1998. He has a special interest in the use of web-based technologies for the teaching of film, literature, and linguistics.

Professor Rasul M. Penjwini currently works at the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (DLIFLC) in support of the Video Teletraining Program (Arabic. His specialty is in Second Language Acquisition, Arabic Phonology, Socio-linguistics, Second Language Evaluation, and Translation Theory. He received an MA in English from Indiana University at Bloomington and a PhD. in Applied Linguistics from the University of South Carolina at Columbia.

Dr. Craig Stroup, San Jose State University
Craig Stroup is the Coordinator of Academic Programs for San Jose State University's Online Campus. He hasan MAster's degree in creative writing, and a Ph.D. in American Literature and Rhetoric from Florida State University. At San Jose State, he advises faculty in the pedagogy of online teaching and course design, and helps to administer the Online Campus. He is currently helping to develop an online TOEFL course through SJSU's Studies in American Language program

Abstract

For foreign-language educators to develop an interactive language program online requires planning and training. The proposed presentation will explore areas of training that will range from we-site design, curriculum development offer a nonresident program, copyright issues, embedded choices for students, what sites to send students for information gathering, a variety of proficiency-oriented activities, meaningful feedback for correct and incorrect responses, and proficiency level considerations. It will also emphasize the importance of familiarity with html tags, what each tag accomplishes, and with the consideration what makes a web site effective and what doe s not.

Method of Presentation:
The presenter will make use of a PowerPoint presentation. Handouts will be made available.

Anticipated Benefit to Participants:
Increasingly more teachers of foreign languages consider putting foreign language programs online. It is crucial to know how to design an effective interactive program without creating an electronic page-tuner.