Social Sciences at Hunter College (CUNY)



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TECHNOLOGY MANUAL FOR FACULTY

INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST EDITION (May, 2000)

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This manual is part of an initiative started by Alison Rice, Academic Director of the IELI, to promote faculty awareness and skills in educational technology. Without Alison’s support and interest, this project would not have started.

Several people at Hunter have been very helpful in the writing of this manual. Members of the Hunter College Office of Computing and Instructional Technology (OICIT), Clarence Feng, Frank Lopez, and Michael Nesbitt have all been patient, efficient and enormously informative. Nancy Guerrero of the Hunter College Reading-Writing Center responded to my questions, as always, knowledgeably and patiently. The IELI faculty have a true friend at the Reading Writing Center.

This manual, like almost everything to do with technology, is a work in progress. I hope that faculty will offer feedback and suggestions and news of new ideas so that future editions of this booklet can be cutting edge.

In this edition, I think that faculty will be relieved and delighted to learn of the vast resources of technological help and training that are available at Hunter. Those are described in Chapter one. Also of interest to faculty will be the use of WORD to comment on student papers that can then be returned to students by email or on diskette. Again, not state-of-the-art technology, but extremely helpful. That’s in Chapter 6.

This manual will be updated as often as necessary and will be on the World Wide Web at

It will be found as a “course” called IELI000 (that’s IELI and three zeros). The password is ieli. It should be available on the Web by June 5, 2000.

Anthea Tillyer. May, 2000

1. TECHNOLOGY RESOURCES AT HUNTER

1. Services, help, and training

a. Hunter faculty computer help and training

b. Hunter College Technology Help and Advice

c. Help from Zabar interns

2. Hardware and computer services

a. Hunter College email

b. Hunter College web server for courseware

3. Places equipped for work

a. The Hunter College Faculty Resource Room

b. The IELI Faculty Room (10 East)

4. Software resources for faculty

5. IELI & ESL resource people who can help

2. LEXIS-NEXUS; THE BEST RESOURCE OF ALL

3. USEFUL URLS AND OTHER ONLINE RESOURCES

A. URLS

a. News and statistics

b. Movies, songs, pop culture

c. Short stories

d. Literature

e. Prepared materials for ESL learners

f. ESL Writing materials/handouts

g. ESL Quizzes/tests

h. Resources for teachers (jobs, discussions, etc)

i. ESL Bibliography Sites

j. Articles online

k. Sites for downloading free ESL software

B. Other Internet resources

a. For teachers

b. For students

Page 1

Page 3

Page 4

Page 5

Page 6

Page 7

Page 9

4. USING/ADAPTING MATERIALS FROM THE

INTERNET

A. Downloading and formatting

A. Making exercises

C. Software for making quizzes/tests/exams

D. Copyright issues

5. Teaching with the Internet

Thomas Hunter labs

6. Using with non-Internet technology

Thomas Hunter Hall

Using “regular” software (MS WORD, etc)

writing comments on student papers

7. How to put your course/course materials online 1. Preparing documents in html

2. Putting your course description and course

documents online – where and how

3. Putting student papers/portfolios online

Some IELI sites to see

8. Getting/upgrading a computer and email/Internet service to use at home

1. Reasons for buying a computer

2. General guidelines for buying a computer

3. How and where to get a computer

4. Other things that you will need

NOTES

Page 19

Page 26

Page 33

Page 40

Page 47

Page 48

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This chapter will focus on the locations, hardware, software, and personnel resources that we can use for preparing materials or tests and quizzes. It is divided into the following sections:

1. Services, help, and training

2. Hardware and computer services

3. Places to work

4. Software resources for faculty

5. IELI & ESL resource people who can help

1.

1. SERVICES, HELP, AND TRAINING

a. Hunter Faculty Training

Hunter holds frequent training sessions for faculty, and has a complete technology array of classes in the summer. To find out about the classes and to register, go to:



Michael Nisbett, coordinator of computer training 650-3443

HN C104 mike.nisbett@hunter.cuny.edu

b. Hunter College Help and Advice Contact Numbers

Help Desk -- Problems, Work Requests, Central Information

HN 109 helpdesk@hunter.cuny.edu 772-4636

Jim Barry Supervisor

c. Zabar Interns

Through a generous gift from Hunter alumna Judith Zabar and her husband, Stanley, the Office of Instructional Computing and Information Technology (OICIT) is able to provide Hunter faculty with assistance in learning how to integrate computers and Internet technologies into their curricula (such as how to create and put up web pages). A limited number of qualified students

interns, called "Zabar Interns" will directly assist faculty in learning how to create a course web page.

Faculty members who wish to work with a Zabar Intern are expected to be familiar with the Windows environment (Microsoft Windows 95/98), word processing and e-mail (Eudora, pine). One specific objective of the Zabar Intern program is to enrich the in-class experience by using the World Wide Web ("The Web") for posting effective information such as course descriptions, assignments, related web sites, class lectures, course topic discussions, notes, and course syllabi. For information on how to apply, see next page.

To apply for a Zabar Intern, submit a one-page proposal to Michael Nisbett, OICIT, Room 109N, stating your goals on the integration of Internet/WWW and related technologies into your teaching curriculum. If known, also please indicate the applications/tools that you will need, a

target date for your project completion and the projected number of hours you expect to need the assistance of a Zabar Intern (maximum 20 hours).

2. HARDWARE AND COMPUTER SERVICES

a. Hunter College email

To get a Hunter College email account, you need to have a “sponsor”. In our case, the sponsor is Don Linder. You need to get a form from Vicky Henriquez-Bernal at 68th Street, get it signed by Don, and then take it to Clarence Feng in HN 1001K. It might soon be possible for Don to submit the form by email, but it’s not an option right now (6/2000).

Clarence Feng 650-3270 HN 1001K clarence.feng@hunter.cuny.edu

b. Hunter College web server for courseware (see chapter for details)

You can put your course materials up on the web. You apply to:

Clarence Feng 650-3270 HN 1001K clarence.feng@hunter.cuny.edu

If you want to put your courseware on the web, you need to contact Clarence, who will give you an account on the ERes system. This is a system that is especially designed to help faculty to put things up on the web and makes it very easy to put things up on the Hunter web server. Clarence Feng will also give you some rudimentary instructions. You should also contact Mike Nesbitt (see above), who offers additional training and help.

CUNY and Hunter have bought the license to , a well-developed system for putting courses online. It may be that the ERes system will not be used for much longer (after June, 20000). See Chapter 7 for information about

3. PLACES EQUIPPED FOR YOU TO WORK IN @ HUNTER

The IELI faculty room is a good place for us to work, but there are lots of resources on campus too. However, perhaps the most peaceful place to work is at home, seated at your own computer (see chapter 8 for the skinny on buying or upgrading computers). There are also machines in the library and other areas of the school where there are machines just for Internet access or email. And there are machines in Thomas Hunter Hall (4th floor), in labs that are primarily for students and where there are often classes. This section of this chapter will focus on the best resources in terms of places to work on computers

a. The Hunter College Faculty Resource Room

Location: HN C104

Machines: 13 PCs and 1 I-MAC

Programs: Photoshop and Acrobat, Quark Express + all the usual

Internet access: Yes

Scanner: yes (2)

Multimedia Yes

Laser printer: yes (for both MAC and PC)

Color printing: Yes

Help/instruction: Yes, lots, all the time

Hours: 10AM – 8PM (M-F) No weekend hours.

Contact person: Mike Nesbitt (Coordinator of Technology Training

for Faculty and Staff 650-3443 HN C104

Notes: This room is wonderfully equipped and well maintained. It is seldom crowded and never noisy. There is usually lots of help available, especially if you call ahead of time.

b. The IELI Faculty Room (10th Floor, East Building)

The IELI Faculty Room (10th Floor, East Building)

Machines: 2 PCs

Programs: MS Office 97; Netscape, Internet Explorer, WordPerfect 8,

Telnet, TN3270, Hot Potatoes, RealPlayer7

Internet access: Yes

Scanner: No

Multimedia: No

Laser printer: Yes

Inkjet: Yes

Color printing: Yes

Help/instruction: Yes

Hours: 8AM to around 7:30PM (M-F) and 9AM around 2:30PM (Saturdays)

Contact person: Julie Falsetti

Contact number: 212 (628-3641) jfalsett@shiva.hunter.cuny.edu

Notes: a. The room is often extremely noisy and crowded, so it can be very

hard to concentrate on serious work

b. This room is shared by a lot of people, including some who are not

faculty, and it is not always possible to use the machines when

you want to

c. If you have work that demands serious concentration, this room

is not appropriate.

(See chapter 8 for information on buying a computer for home use)

4. SOFTWARE RESOURCES FOR FACULTY

Being a member of the Hunter faculty entitles you to use certain software for which the college or CUNY has bought the license. Many of the licenses are for use on-campus only, but you can use some of them at home for free too. The most valuable of these permissions are, for us, the Eudora email program and the McAfee anti-virus program, both of which can be used at home.

Also available for faculty is the chance to buy the right to use some software programs – including Corel products, but not Microsoft - at home at greatly reduced rates. To see the titles and the entitlements, go to



The person to contact is about software licenses is

Frank Lopez Coordinator 650-3291 HN 116 frank.lopez@hunter.cuny.edu

As described above, the Office of Instructional Computing & Information Technology (OICIT) offers training in many kinds of software.

5. IELI & ESL RESOURCE PEOPLE WHO CAN HELP

At the IELI, Julie Falsetti is our point person for instructional technology and she will help.

In addition, Anthea Tillyer (the writer of this manual) will be happy to try to help, especially with web-page creation.

The people at the Office of Computing and Instructional Technology (OICIT) will also be pleased to help, but they are overloaded. See the sections 2 and 3 above.

Nancy (Enercida) Guerrero, the supervisor of the computer labs in the Reading Writing Center (Thomas Hunter Hall) is really helpful with issues regarding her labs and is happy to help with the software that is available in the TH labs. In addition, she has some lab techs (work-study students) who are often under-employed and can offer help in the labs. You need to contact Nancy ahead of time, though, either by phone (650-3952) or email (eguerrer@shiva.hunter.cuny.edu). Since many of our classes are scheduled in the labs, it is worth learning how to use the software that is on the machines there and to get help from those there who know how to use both the software and the machines. For a list of the useful software, see Chapter Five – non-Internet resources.

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It is a little known fact that all of us at CUNY have complete access to Lexis-Nexus, a fantastic news and law database that is completely free to CUNY faculty and can even be accessed from home once you get your loggin.

Nexus is a database of newspaper articles from all the major newspapers in the world for the last 20 years. And Lexis is the same thing, but for law journals and cases. Obviously, the Nexus resource is probably the most useful for us, but the Lexis one is fascinating too.

If you know how to search a library catalog, you can use the keyword search system of Nexus. If you are at school, most machines, including the ones in the IELI faculty room, can access the CUNY Lexis-Nexus database, but if you want to use it from home, you have to get a special login and configure your Web browser to set up a "proxy server" on your machine. This sounds infinitely more complicated than it is. It is really pretty easy, and CUNY will send you the instructions when you get your Lexis-Nexus loggin.

Here’s how you access Lexis-Nexus from school:

If there is a Lexis-Nexus icon on the screen, click on it. If there is no such shortcut available, do the following:

Go to: then select “Licensed Resources” and then Lexis-Nexus.

After you have got your home loggin and have configured your browser, you will follow the same instructions to access Lexis Nexus at home. Here is how to get your access loggin: Send an email to: WEBBH@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU

Give your full name and social security number and say you teach at the IELI at Hunter. Of course, say that you want a Lexis-Nexus loggin.

They’ll answer quickly with the loggin, password, and your instructions for configuring your browser. Then you can embark on the most fascinating and time-gobbling activity on the web! See chapter 4 for ideas on how to adapt these materials for use in class.

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There is tons of material on the Internet, almost all of it in English, and lots of it expressly for teaching or learning English. This chapter will focus on

A. Places on the web that are good sources of material

B. Non-Web Internet resources for teachers and students

The resources on the World Wide Web are listed by their addresses, their URLs (pronounced U-R-L), which stands for Uniform Resource Locator.

A. ON THE WEB

The following are some URLs that are particularly useful to teachers of English as a second language. All of them are alive and working as of this date, June 2000, but life on the Internet is transient, so you might find some changes. You will also soon learn of new addresses and exciting professional venues. The following are organized by topic rather than by whether they are professional resources or sources of material for teaching. The URLs in this list are divided into the following sections:

1. News and statistics

2. Movies, songs, pop culture

3. Short stories

4. Literature

5. Prepared materials for ESL learners

6. ESL Writing materials/handouts

7. ESL Quizzes/tests

8. Resources for teachers (jobs, discussions, etc)

9. ESL Bibliography Sites

10. Articles online

11. Sites for downloading free ESL software

12. Professional Organizations

|1. News and statistics - Great for writing, reading, and oral skills classes: |

| |

| |A news commentary site |

| |All the newspapers of the world |

| |Short, easy stories and graphs |

| |All the news that’s fit to print |

| |Good for high levels/TOEFL |

| |Good as always for all levels |

| |The United Nations – good graphs |

| |People-centered graphs/statistics |

| |NYC Convention & Visitors Bureau |

| | |

|2. Movies, songs, pop culture | |

| | |

| |The best movie database |

| Good, but hi-level lang. |

| |Serious reviews |

| |Video resources for teachers |

| Song lyrics |

| Soccer |

| |Boxing |

| |Baseball |

| |CBS, New York |

| |NBC, NY (for schools) |

| |ABC, NY |

| | |

| |Public television |

| | |

|3. Short stories | |

| |New detective stories weekly |

| |Good stories & a chance to write the autor |

| | |

|4. Literature | |

| | |

| |Complete Shakespeare |

| |Mark Twain and others |

| |All literature |

| | |

| | |

|5. Prepared media materials for ESL learners | |

| | |

| |Daily lessons, to go with CNN news broadcasts |

| |BBC – great stuff |

| |Voice of America |

| | |

|6. ESL materials/handouts for teaching Writing | |

| |The best! |

| |Good handouts |

| student.html |For students, self-access |

| | |

| |Hunter Reading/Writing Center |

| |The CUNY Write Site |

| | |

| | |

|7. ESL Quizzes/tests/grammar | |

| | |

| | |

| | |

| | |

| | |

| | |

| | |

| | |

| | |

|8. Resources for ESL/EFL teachers | |

| | |

| |By far the best |

| |Lots of everything |

| |Former USIA |

| |Glitzy and fun |

| | |

| | |

|9. ESL Bibliography Sites | |

| | |

| |French and English |

| |Portuguese & English |

| | |

|10. Articles | |

| | |

| |J. Leloup and R. Ponterio’s article on |

| |self access L Learning |

| |Excellent article Evaluating Internet |

| |Research Sources by Robert Harris |

| | |

| | |

| | |

|11. Sites for downloading free ESL software | |

| | |

| |Absolutely super site! |

| |TESOL CALL site |

| |Really good too |

| |X-word puzzle shareware |

| |Free demo crossword |

| | |

| | |

|12. Professional organizations | |

| | |

| |TESOL |

| | |

| |International Assoc for Technology in Education |

| | |

| |Intl. Assoc of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language |

ADD SOME FAVORITE URLS OF YOUR OWN HERE:

B1. EMAIL AND NEWSGROUP RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS:

1. IELI-L

IELI-L is an email forum for teachers and administrators to share questions, answers, and comments on topics related to the IELI and teaching here. To join IELI-L, send an email message to majordomo@shiva.hunter.cuny.edu

In the body of the message, type only this:

Subscribe IELI-L your email address

2. TESL-L Electonic List

Tesl-l is an online discussion and help forum for teachers of EFL and ESL. It was founded in 1991, making it one of the oldest academic lists on the Internet and certainly the first one dedicated to our field. It currently (mid-2000) has 28,500 members in 157 countries. TESL-L is one of the five

largest interactive “lists” (email discussion forums) on the Internet. It also has several special interest branches, one of which (TESLJB-L, the jobs and employment issues branch) has 6000 members. TESL-L is an old-fashioned resource in that it is conducted entirely by email, without graphics, colors, or fancy stuff. It is this way to serve the largely international membership, many of whom do not have consistent web access. Joining instructions are as follows:

To join TESL-L, you send an email message to

LISTSERV@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU

In the body of the message, type four words: SUB TESL-L your full name

For example: SUB TESL-L Bill Clinton

2. NETEACH-L electronic list

NETTEACH-L is an online (email) discussion forum that focuses on teaching with the Internet. Although much of the discussion centers on ways to tech ESL/EFL, the list also deals with teaching other languages and other

subjects. To join NETEACH-L, you send an email message to listproc@ukans.edu

In the body of the message, type four words:

sub NETEACH-L your full name

For example: SUB NETEACH-L Greta Garbo

3. Hunter-L electronic list

This is a forum for the entire Hunter community and is a useful source of information on what is planned and happening at Hunter.

To join, send a message to majordomo@shiva.hunter.cuny.edu with

following command in the body of your message:

subscribe hunter-l your_email_address

4. Although the following is a URL (a website) it is the entry way to an interesting set of teachers’ email lists, called “discussion rings”.

5. FL-TEACH electronic list

This forum is for teachers of all languages as a second or foreign language. To join, send an email to LISTSERV@UBVMCC.BUFFALO.EDU

As the body of your message, type 4 words:

Sub FLTEACH-L your full name

Example: SUB FLTEACH-L Maurice Chevalier

6. SLART-L (Second Language Acquisition and Teaching list)

The name of this list adequately describes it.

To join, write an email to LISTSERV@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU

In the body of the message, type four words:

SUB SLART-L your full name

Example: SUB SLART-L Joe Blow

7. The Linguist list

This is an old and highly respected electronic (email) discussion forum. You can join by going to

B2 ONLINE RESOURCES FOR STUDENTS

1. Schmooze University – a MOO (a kind of early version of virtual reality) that was created and is run by our own Julie Falsetti. There’s lots for students and classes to do, but it is much better if they can type.



2. Student lists – email discussion lists for students from all countries and at all levels. There are several groups that students can join, depending on their interests or how the teacher would like to direct them. For information go to:



3. Other resources for students are included in the in the list of useful URLs (above) for teachers.

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This chapter focuses on how to adapt materials that you have extracted from the Internet and how to make them suitable for classroom use with students.

1. Downloading material from the Web

2. Creating classroom materials and activities

3. Software for ESL materials – free from the web!

4. Copyright issues

A. DOWNLOADING

The World Wide Web holds many wonderful materials for teaching, and sometimes it is possible to print out what you find on the web and take it directly to class. However, most of the time, web materials need to be downloaded to your machine and formatted or prepared for use with students. Download means to take something from the Web and place it on your own computer. Once it is on your computer, you can do what you want with it, as long as it is not protected by copyright (see later in this chapter for copyright issues).

There are many ways to manipulate text to enhance its pedagogical value. First, a word of advice: Use Internet Explorer for this purpose, not Netscape. For some reason, when you copy things from the Netscape browser window and then paste them into a document – even notepad (“textpad” on a MAC) – on your own computer, it frequently brings with it certain formatting idiosyncrasies that make the document hard to reformat or else very messy.

To download materials from the Internet, you go to the page that you want to save to use in class. Then, you use the “save as” option in the File menu of the browser, assign a name and location (on your machine) to the file, and press OK. Your file will then be downloaded and saved on your machine, ready to manipulate. It will be in HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) format. You might find it easier to try to save it as “text”, which will remove the html from it. Either way, the formatting of the downloaded file is sometimes disorganized and the whole file looks different from the way it looked on the Web, especially if you are using Netscape. If this happens, the original file was probably invisibly encoded with a variety of options by the original creator of the file. If the file looks strange to you, or has a mind of its own, you need to re-save the file in a “text” format to remove the encoding. There are two ways to do this: one of them requires you to re-save the file on your own machine in a different file type, either as a word processing document or, preferably, as text only; the second option requires you to

retrieve the file from the Internet again, but using a slightly different method. Here are the two ways of reformatting your file:

a. In your word processor, select the SAVE AS option in the FILE menu and select a type of format in the box marked Save as type: . You can try to save to the standard format that you usually use to save files on your machine. For example, if you are using Microsoft Word, you would select Save as type: Word document and press OK. Then, close all the files. Do

not save the downloaded file in any other format, even if prompted by the machine. When you reopen the saved file, it should look better than it did before. If it doesn’t, it means that the file is still responding to hidden encoding placed there by the original author in its original format, so you need to re-save the file in a way that removes all hidden formatting and encoding from the document. This format is called Plain Text. Re-save the file like this: Go to the SAVE AS option in your FILE menu, but this time, when prompted for a name for the file, be sure to select the plain text option in the Save as type: Plain text part of the Save as…. dialog box. Then press OK. This will remove all formatting from the file, and you will have to recreate it the way you want it, but the recreation will be easy because there is no hidden encoding in plain text documents.

b. You can avoid all these problems of formatting and hidden encoding by simply copying your file to a plain text environment. This is the second download option.

Some people find this method cumbersome, but many use it exclusively. The first step is to highlight the parts of the document on the WWW that you want to download and use. Then select COPY from the EDIT menu. Open your word processor and PASTE the copied text onto an open document. Sometimes the formatting is so interrupted that it is unreadable. As a result, many users find that pasting the formatted text onto the NOTEPAD/textpad on either

the MAC or the PC is a good solution. Any text that is pasted onto the NOTEPAD will automatically be converted to plain text.

To open the NOTEPAD on a PC, go to the START button and then select RUN. Type in notepad in the box like this Open: notepad ▼

After notepad opens, you can paste your text on the screen and save it. It will be a text item that can then be manipulated and formatted in your word processor.

Whatever download method you use, you do NOT want to save your file as HTML, which is the format used for the World Wide Web. Also, it is important to remember that once you download a document from the WWW, it is separated from its site, so none of the “links” that the document used to have will continue to exist (unless you also download the documents to which the file was linked and create new links inside your own new document).

B. CREATING CLASSROOM MATERIALS AND ACTIVITIES FROM INTERNET DOWNLOADS

Once you have your downloaded file in a format that you can manipulate, you can create various exercises and activities with it. Some of these activities are:

a. Make a cloze exercise: In the software package Hot potatoes, there is an excellent program for making cloze tests. It will take about 5 minutes to make a cloze from any piece of text you choose. See Section C of this chapter for information about Hot Potatoes.

b. You can also create a crossword puzzle. Hot potatoes has a crossword puzzle maker, but there is a better one, called Crossword Compiler, which is available in a demo version from

Crossword Compiler is not expensive to buy if you decide to purchase the full version, which has many more features than the demo, of course. For more information about these software packages for teachers, see Section C of this chapter.

In the meantime, let’s look at some really easy and interesting things that can be done with material that you bring down from the web (or, indeed, any text that you have on your computer). The activities listed on page 22 can be done with materials downloaded from some of the “Useful URLs described in

Chapter 3, as well as with newspaper articles from Lexis-Nexus (Chapter 2) or from any other material that you have on your computer:

Suggestions for classroom activities and materials

a. A reverse cloze: In this kind of exercise, you ADD a word to every other sentence or every sentence. The students have to identify which word is the extraneous one and remove it. Research indicates that this type of exercise is actually a better indicator of language ability than a traditional cloze test is. Several researchers believe that traditional cloze tests are more an indicator of intelligence than of language proficiency.

b. A comparative text activity: In this activity, you choose two pieces of writing on the same topic, one positive and one negative and have students compare them and summarize the reasons given for the positions taken. Movie reviews are excellent for this activity, which is helpful for illustrating ways of expressing opinion and argument in English.

c. Another comparative text activity involves articles and stories on the same topic from two or three newspapers (especially if the newspapers are from different countries but in the same language). Using the Amsterdam News and the Boston Globe, for example, gives good contasts. Don’t forget the Straits Times (Singapore) and Indian newspapers (for example) if you want to focus on international issues. These contrasting texts and views are

excellent sources of reading materials that can be used as a basis for writing or discussion. In particular, language learners love to read about their own country from the point of view of others.

d. Punctuation and spelling exercises: Of course, Internet materials can easily be manipulated to create activities and practice in punctuation and spelling. For example, you can open the file in your word processor and then, using the Find/Replace option in your Edit menu, remove all commas in a piece of text and replace them with a blank space. If you do the same with periods and/or capital letters, you have an excellent activity for students. Since you have the original copy of the document as well, students can check their own work when they finish, which makes the activity fun and non-threatening.

e. Articles For an activity on the use of articles using fresh and topical material from the Internet, you can again use the Replace function, setting

the program to find all the instances of the or a in the text and then

replace them with a blank line. The students then work individually or in

pairs to place the correct article in each blank.

f. Spelling: The Replace function in a word processor also works for individual letters within words. You can set the program to remove all the final letters S from the words in the document (S + space) and to replace them with just a space. In this activity, students have to consider issues of singular and plural and present tense verbs, replacing the letters S in appropriate places only. The activity is interesting because the materials are fresh (the day’s news or information about a popular star, for example).

C. SOFTWARE FOR ESL MATERIALS – FREE FROM THE WEB!

The best-known software for creating language teaching materials is called Hot Potatoes (), which is actually a group of five programs, each of which creates a particular kind of exercise, quiz, or activity. There is an excellent cloze exercise creator, for example, and multiple choice quiz creation programs. They are very easy to download and use, and they are FREE! Hot potatoes is loaded into the machines in the IELI faculty room, and also in the machines on the 4th floor of Thomas Hunter Hall.

Enercida (Nancy) Guerrero, who is the lab supervisor in the Reading/ Writing center of Thomas Hunter Hall, is well-versed in Hot Potatoes (as are some of the lab technicians there) and will be glad to help you create exercises to load onto the machines there for your students.

Hot Potatoes has a crossword puzzle utility, but it is a little cumbersome because you need to set up the actual words on the grid yourself. But there is an excellent crossword puzzle program available in limited demo form for

free, Crossword Compiler. It is worth buying the complete program, which costs $29. What is excellent about this program is that you simply list the words you want to include and write the clues, and the program creates the grid and the layout. There are also some word lists that come with the program. The web address for the program is

D. COPYRIGHT ISSUES

You have to be careful of copyright on the Net. There is no provision for educational fair use, and whatever is on the net belongs to the person who wrote it, and you can’t use it unless it is noted as available for use. Quite a lot of material on the web has a notation that the material can be downloaded and used as long as credit is given and/or the URL is noted on the item when it is distributed. It is also illegal to remove from any web materials the copyright notation or mark. So you shouldn’t mess with stuff that is protected unless you get permission.

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This chapter will focus on using the Internet with students, either by using email with students as an adjunct to classwork, or by using the Web or another Internet facility in class. The chapter is divided as follows:

A. Email/bulletin boards with students

B. MOOs/IRC (chats)

C. The WWW for reading, writing, and oral skills classes

A. EMAIL WITH STUDENTS

Many of our students already have email addresses, but many of them don’t. Not surprisingly, the students at higher levels tend to be more Internet-savvy. If you are going to use email with students, all the students in the class need to have an email address. The quickest and easiest way to get an email address is to go to or . In fact, the process of actually filling out the form to get the email account is a good ESL activity in itself (providing that it is done in English, of course) and reporting on the experience is another good activity for writing and oral skills.

Once your students have email addresses, they and you have access to many more areas of the web because for some – even free – sites, you need to enter your email address in order to be given access.

Caveats:

If you do not usually give out your phone number to your students, you need to think carefully about giving out your email address. At the very least, you probably need to set some ground rules. For example, you might not want your students to forward to you every joke that they read on the Internet or every virus scare. You can soon be totally overwhelmed with pointless emails. One suggestion is to give the students written advice about what you will and will not accept in terms of email, and many teachers find that telling students that they (the teachers) refuse to accept any email that is forwarded - not original – greatly reduces the amount of nuisance mail and the number of problems.

If you have students submit homework by email, you need to be careful of viruses. Make sure that the students send the homework saved in .rtf (“rich text format”) type. This is because .rtf can be read and written by all machines and all word processing programs and also – and most important – because it is almost impossible to send a virus by .rtf.

Make sure that your students know their responsibilities in terms of anti-virus software for their home machines and that they understand the importance of keeping the software up to date.

Students often need some guidance in how to write email. Some of them have never written any kind of mail in English, and are not familiar with what is acceptable and what is not. This is a great teaching opportunity!

Email activities

Obviously, one of the best writing activities is writing! And writing email is writing. But email style shouldn’t be confused in the students’ minds with “real” writing. They need to learn both styles and need to know the difference between them.

Here are some email activities you can do with students; it really isn’t appropriate for students to spend one whole class hour a week simply doing email, but allowing students access to their email at the beginning of a class in the lab will certainly help to make your email-based activities successful. Students can also use the labs outside of class to check on their email, and there are machines at the public libraries and in the Hunter College library too. On the next page are some ideas for class-related email activities.

Here are some ideas for using email with students in class:

1. Have students write email to the authors of the books that they are reading.

2. Have students join the student discussion “lists” that are run out of Latrobe University in Australia. They can do the email outside of class and write or give spoken reports on their experiences to the rest of the class. For information go to:

3. Create a class discussion list and encourage students to continue their oral skills discussions online. To create a Hunter College list, contact Clarence Feng at 650-3270 (HN 1001K) clarence.feng@hunter.cuny.edu

You can also create your own lists for all your classes – for free – at the following address:

The advantage to using egroups (over using Hunter’s facilities, for example) is that you have total control over it and can do it on your own time.

4. Encourage students to start an egroups list, particularly as an “alumni” list.

5. Have students make believe that they are a character from the book that you are reading in class; then have them send email as that character to another character from the book.

6. Have them submit their homework as an email attachment. This is very useful because you do not have to try to read handwriting and because you can collect the homework even on days when there is no school. See Chapter 6 for hints on how to comment on emailed homework.

Be careful with emailed homework, though. If you print it out, the cost of the paper, ink, and depreciation will be yours. Printing also takes a lot of time.

7. For writing classes, you can have a “round robin” activity where each

student starts a story, writes three sentences, and then sends it on to the next student in line, who will also add three sentences, and so on. After all the emails have been to all the students, each of them has done quite a bit of writing. And the results are fun.

BULLETIN BOARDS

Several of the sites mentioned in Chapter 7 – including Hunter’s own web server, ERes – have bulletin board facilities. Students enjoy these because they can post questions and comments for each other and their teachers. Two ways in which a bulletin board is preferable to an email group are that using a bulletin board doesn’t fill up anyone’s email box and you can’t get viruses from a bulletin board because the material remains on a remote computer (it is not introduced into your local machine).

2. MOOS AND CHATS

A MOO is a kind of primitive virtual reality. An “environment” is created with rooms or areas and visitors can go from room to room and meet other visitors. The name is a combination of MUD ( = Multi-user Domain)

and Object Oriented. In order to benefit from a MOO and in order to remain welcome in the MOO of their choice, visitors need to be able to type fast and well because the communication is written. All conversations are typed and many Internet types have little patience with slow or poor typing. So the first order of business is to make sure that your students can type (see Chapter 6 for typing software). You can take your class for a MOO visit when you go to the computer lab with them, and then they can continue their visits later outside of class.

The best known MOO for ESL/EFL students is SCHMOOZE UNIVERSITY, which was created and developed by Julie Falsetti several years ago. The address is

IRC: By far the most popular activity for young people on the Internet is IRC – Internet relay chat. This is another activity in which the user needs to be able to type well and fast. The “chat” consists of “talking” by typing. Users can meet lots of new people and it isn’t hard to see that if the “talking” is in English, this is a source of English practice and enjoyment. Several online sites have chat options, and the students know most of them.

One thing is sure: you should not “take” your students to a chat room that you have not first investigated. You do not want to be held accountable for

some of the harassment and viciousness that can happen at some chat sites. In order to find out about chat, go to:



3. USING THE WWW FOR READING, WRITING, AND ORAL SKILLS CLASSES

Our classes have access to the World Wide Web in the labs in Thomas Hunter Hall. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that the access is so unreliable and slow it is not useful for classes. Therefore, teachers can’t depend on giving classes that depend on heavy web use. It will be frustrating to the students and the teacher. There are lots of wonderful learning opportunities on the Web, but the slowness and unreliability of the connection on the machines in Thomas Hunter makes it impossible for us to take advantage of most of them. Moreover, there is no sound capability for the machines in the TH labs, so you can’t take advantage of the web-based listening materials that are available for language learners. For these reasons, MOO, IRC, email, and bulletin board activities are worth trying. There are some Web activities that will serve

our classes reasonably well, as will a few of the web-based activities. Here are some observations about going on the web in Thomas Hunter Hall with students:

1. Take advantage of the faculty training sessions that are offered by OICIT (see Chapter 1) so that you are fairly proficient before you start to work with students in this medium.

2. Be sure to have students working in pairs at machines. Otherwise, the activity will be an isolated one and very little English will be communicated.

3. It is essential to go to the lab with a clear Web plan in mind. Just having students search for something, for example, is bound to create frustration because of the slowness of the machine. Besides, there is not much English in searches. Check the recommended URLs in Chapter 3.

4. Consider using the experience in the lab as a basis for reporting back – either in writing or speech. That way, students can stay at one or two spots on the Web, which will accommodate the slowness of the machines.

5. Always have a back-up plan for your class that is planned on the Web. You might not have access to the web when you get to the lab.

6. Consider using access to the Web only for a short time in each class and then to access a class bulletin board or class site.

Student Web pages:

One way to use the web is to have students create Web pages in class. For this, they will have to use .htm/.html (see Chapter 7 for how to do this). Students can create web pages “offline” and then load them. Geocities is good for this, as is the student area in (see Chapter 7). Moreover, students can plan/write/create their pages in a “regular” class and for homework, so the need to access the Web is minimal; they only need access in order to “load” the pages. If an IELI teacher would like to go this route and have students create web pages, it is important to get help during

the first few classes because it is hard to supervise 18 or so students in a lab when they all need help. Call Enercida (Nancy) Guerrero, the lab supervisor, to see if she can arrange a lab tech to help. Nancy is at 650-3952 or email eguerrer@shiva.hunter.cuny.edu

Blackboard,com (see chapter 7) has a very nice facility for students to create their own web pages.

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This chapter will focus on various ways to use non-Internet programs, both in the classroom and to comment on student papers. There are quite a few interesting and helpful programs in the Thomas Hunter labs, and it is worth finding out how to use them with students because they can be very motivating and the students enjoy working on computers. The chapter is divided into two sections:

A. With students in Thomas Hunter

B. To comment on student papers

A. USING PROGRAMS WITH STUDENTS

In Thomas Hunter Hall, the machines are loaded with various programs that can enhance our classes, all skills.

There are typing tutor programs. Since our students need to learn to type, and since learning to type requires reading and following instructions in English, this is an activity that teaches both English AND an essential skill. Look for Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing. It is worth using in class and also assigning it for homework. These are come of the programs you can try:

1. Hot Potatoes: As mentioned in Chapter 4, this software allows teachers to create quizzes and tests (including cloze tests) to put on the Web. Nancy (Enercida) Guerrero will be happy to advise on creating these things. Call Nancy in advance to see if she or a lab tech can teach you how to use the software to create quizzes and activities for your class. They can be loaded onto the lab network so that they are there for your students to access any time you or they want. Nancy is at 650-3952 or email eguerrer@shiva.hunter.cuny.edu. Obviously, these kinds of activities will be useful for grammar classes, as well as reading, writing, and vocabulary building. There is not much for an oral skills class to do with Hot Potatoes programs, though.

2. Given enough notice, Nancy and her work-study lab techs will create some online quizzes for you if you provide her with the reading material and the questions and answers. If, for example, you would like an online cloze test for your students to do when they get to the

lab, give her the text from your reading book or wherever, and she will prepare the cloze and load it onto the machine.

3. There are some reading programs that Nancy can show you with interesting vocabulary-building strategies and games. Go to the START menu, and choose Reading Applications. Some of the activities are a little old fashioned now and some have been replaced by the Hot Potatoes applications.

4. Look at the reading program SEEN. This program was originally designed to help students develop skills in writing book and other literature reports. It not only helps with writing, it enhances critical thinking skills and literary understanding.

For IELI students and teachers, the SEEN program can be used with reading, writing, or oral skills classes. In each case, the procedure is more of less the same…the group reads the book or watches the movie outside of class and then goes to the lab to answer the questions about the book or movie in SEEN. If it is an oral skills class answering questions about a movie, for example, the members of the class can work in pairs or threes at the machines, which will give them lots of chance to negotiate their answers to the questions that the machine asks about the movie. Since the answers that the students come up with are later placed in a short report that is generated by machine (and can be posted to a class bulletin board), students can keep a record. They can print out the report and turn it into an oral report for a later class. Reading and writing students can type in answers about the book they are reading and later use them to create a written report.

The questions in the SEEN program are incisive and creative, and lead students to thinking and speaking in depth about their reading. However, if a teacher doesn’t like the questions that come with the program, the teacher can provide new ones. Just give your prepared questions to Nancy Guerrero, and she will load them for you in advance. Be sure to try out this program with your classes.

C. DIGITAL COMMENTING ON STUDENT PAPERS

It is no secret that students will more readily revise and edit their writing if they can do it on computer and take advantage of work-processing capabilities. Moreover, if students turn in their work typed, it is easier to read and less tiring for teachers to work on, so it is desirable to encourage

students to word-process their assignments, especially their academic essays and book reports. In addition, if our students are going to continue to study and work in the USA, the ability to use a word-processor is a must, and we should help them to develop this skill and insist that papers be turned in neatly word-processed.

However, the use of the word-processor has another very valuable side-effect…if the student emails the paper to a teacher as an attachment, or if the student gives the teacher the work on a diskette, the teacher has a great opportunity to respond to the student paper in an especially helpful way; the teacher can use the COMMENTS option of WORD (Word Perfect has a similar option).

Using COMMENTS allows the teacher to “mark” a student paper electronically and gives the student an opportunity to comment on the comments. This system is quicker than comments by hand and also gives the student a clearer picture of which comment relates to which part of the paper.

On the next page, there is an example of how it works, using a student (Level 2) paragraph; as you can see, there are a lot of errors in it. Commenting on and helping with this kind of basic writing is notoriously tedious and inefficient.

| |

|In my life I see many differents countries and differents peoples I think New York as more |

|classes of people that the others countries. |

HOW TO MAKE DIGITAL COMMENTS

1. Open student’s paper (which you received on a diskette or as an email

attachment) in WORD on your computer.

2. To make comments, go to INSERT and then to COMMENTS. If you

prefer, you can press alt I, then M.

You will see the screen split into two frames, the one at the top

containing the text that you are working on, and the one at the bottom

ready to receive your comments. See box 2 in the illustration on the next

page.

3. To make a comment, put the cursor after the word that you want to

correct or comment on, then go to INSERT and then to COMMENTS (or

Alt I, then M). The word will become highlighted and a number will appear

where your cursor was and the same number will appear in the comments

frame at the bottom of the screen. You start typing your comment in the

frame.

4. To comment on a whole sentence or paragraph, highlight the whole thing

and then go to INSERT and then to COMMENTS (or alt I, then M).

5. To make a voice comment, put the cursor where you want the comment to

appear on the paper and then click on the icon of the cassette tape in the

comments frame (see box 3 in the illustration on the next page). Be

careful with voice comments:

Unless you know that your student’s machine has sound capabilities, don’t put anything important in a sound comment. Just a greeting.

If you are going to send this file as an email attachment, keep in mind that this kind of sound file is really big and will not travel well if you make a long comment. If you are going to send the paper back to the student as an email attachment, be careful with the voice comments. Keep them short.

To view the comments, the student can run the mouse over the comment numbers that are on the document. Each one will pop up with your comment (see box 1 below). However, if the student wants to print the comments or view them all at once, he will have to open the document, then go to VIEW and then COMMENTS (or alt V and C). To print, the student must be careful to select the COMMENTS option in the lower left corner of the print dialog box.

The student and/or classmates will be able to reply to your comments way you wrote them. When the student/students type in their comments on your comments, their initials will be next to their comments, which will also be numbered.

The rationale:

What is the advantage to this kind of response to student papers? Apart from being quicker (when you get used to it) and legible, the student can respond to the comments in a formal way.

Moreover, if the papers are exchanged by email or on diskette, they won’t get lost and are already in a format that lends itself to creating a class magazine or a class web page.

The COMMENTS screen

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If you don’t like the COMMENTS feature, there is some other software that you can try. It is software specifically for marking ESL/EFL student papers. It is useful because it is all set up so that you just press a button for “Wrong word”, “Spelling”, etc. If you are interested in this shareware program, which is produced by Creative Technology called MARKIN, go to

. Cict.co.uk/markin/

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Introduction

This chapter focuses on some of the ways in which teachers at the IELI can experiment with creating materials to put on the Internet and then actually put them on the Web, whether course descriptions, whole courses, or some materials for courses. The important thing to remember is that there is a lot of help and training available at Hunter (see Chapter 1) and that there is no reason to go it alone or to avoid trying these new media just because you don’t know how to start.

There are courses and seminars and one-to-one help offers at Hunter, so no faculty member should feel unable to respond to the challenges of the Information Age (or Frustration Age).

This chapter will focus on the issue and challenge of whether and how to put course descriptions, handouts and more up on the Web. Chapter 8 is divided into four sections:

1. Preparing documents in html

2. Putting your course description and course documents online

3. Putting student papers/portfolios online

4. Some IELI sites to see

1. PREPARING DOCUMENTS IN HTML

The language of the World Wide Web is HTML. HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language. It looks funny and unreadable if you do not use a browser such as Netscape or Internet Explorer to read it with. On the next page, there is an example of HTML, showing what this sentence and the previous one look like in HTML.

However, there is no need to someone who wants to put courses and documents on the web to learn HTML because there are good HTML editors to do it for them.

On the other hand, HTML really is very easy to learn, so if you enjoy a challenge, learning a little HTML can be fun and useful. In fact, knowing some HTML, or at least the general rules of it, can be helpful in dealing with the HTML editors that are available. So, even though it is not necessary to know HTML in order to create quite attractive and serviceable web pages, it can be helpful to learn some.

On the next page is a graphic to show how “raw” HTML looks:

How HTML looks. The sentence in this sample is:

“The language of the World Wide Web is HTML. HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language. It looks funny and unreadable if you do not use a browser such as Netscape or Internet Explorer to read it with.”

1. HTML The language of the World Wide Web is

HTML. It looks funny and unreadable if you do

not use a browser

to read it with. This is what HTML looks like

Some people get intimidated when they see “raw” html, and they think that they can’t possibly learn it or do anything on the Web. But that’s a myth. Read on.

The good news is that you do not need to know any HTML at all in order to create web documents because there are several excellent HTML editors to do the work for you. In fact, the man who invented HTML (and the World Wide Web), Tim Berners-Lee, is on record as saying that in his opinion no one should bother with learning HTML and that he thinks learning it is a waste of time for most people.

The other piece of good news is that there are several places on the web where you can practice your skills before you try showing off your efforts to other people.

Finally, it can’t be repeated often enough that there are faculty development classes at Hunter where you can learn how to create web pages. See chapter 1.

Two good HTML editors:

a. Microsoft Word. Create your document as usual and then save it as a .doc file. Then save it again as .htm or .html (same thing).

b. Netscape Composer (better than Microsoft Word). In the Netscape browser (known as Navigator) go to the Communicator menu at the top of the screen, and then select “Composer”. Then you just create your document in the same way that you would create any document.

To make hyperlinks in either of these editors, you highlight the word that you want to link from, then go to insert and then (hyper)link. You can link to another of your own documents or your can link to an external URL. Hyperlink means that you “jump” to another place or document when you click on a particular word.

Don’t forget that when you are creating documents for use on the WWW, you need to make the fonts in your HTML bigger than you would use for a

“normal” document because people are reading it farther away from their eyes and on a flickering screen. Remember, too, that one of the great joys of the Web is the ability to use color.

Although it is not hard to create a simple htm or html document, you really do need a little help to begin with. A 2 or 3-hour course should do it for you.

By all means, use the help that is available from the Zabar Interns (see Chapter 1) and/or take any of the excellent faculty training sessions that are organized for this purpose. Again, see Chapter one for sources of help.

Later in this chapter, there will be a description of how you can create pages on the web without even creating HTML!

2. PUTTING YOUR COURSE DOCUMENTS AND COURSE DESCRIPTION ONLINE

You have a few options here:

A. The Hunter College Server:

Once you have your course description in HTML, it is ready to put “up” on a website. At Hunter, the standard way you put your course description up is to get an account on the ERes system, which is a rather primitive but effective system for faculty to put materials online on the Hunter web “server”. As noted in Chapter One, you need to contact Clarence Feng in order to get this account. Clarence Feng (650-3270) HN 1001K clarence.feng@hunter.cuny.edu

This account will give you control over your material and if you want, you can put a password on the page(s) you put up so that only the people you choose can look at your stuff. ERes has a “bulletin board” feature that is very popular with students, who can log in and leave messages for you and/or the whole class.

B. Commercial educational hosts:

If you would like something easier to use than the Hunter system or if you would like to try out a system that will let you put your own private courses online and charge for them, then and WebCT might be for you. In any case, it is worth looking at them.

• will provide you with a complete site…places to put your course description, handouts, assignments, student web pages, your roster, your grades and lots, lots, more, for as many classes as you like for as long as you like. And it is FREE! It really is worth a visit. Moreover, for $100 you can put a course up on

the server and charge for it. They will advertise it and collect the fees, including the credit card charges.

• will also provide you with a complete educational site and, like , it doesn’t have advertising. However, WebCT only allows you to use it for free for three months. It is an attractive environment, too.

• is free and allows you as much room as you like to set up classes on the web. However, it is a very primitive system and rather hard to use, with very little technical support.

•

This site offers free service for educational use. At the IELI, Kate Szur has used this format with success for her classes that are scheduled in the Thomas Hunter labs. This is one of the sites for which you do not have to know any HTML; you just type in what you want to say and the site’s own software creates a good-looking page for you. To learn more about it, contact Kate. (szurka@) 718 597-8377

C. Commercial websites that are free but do carry ads

There are quite a lot of places that will “host” your materials on the web. They are not specifically for educators, but they serve their purpose well. Geocities, in particular, is extremely easy to use and is one of those sites that require no HTML knowledge at all. If you use an Internet Service Provider such as AOL or CompuServe, you will probably be able to create web pages as part of your package. Here are some sites that do not require you to pay:







3. PUTTING STUDENT WORK OR PORTFOLIOS ONLINE

Students love to see their work and pictures online. We all know that publishing student writing is strong motivation for our student writers, but putting the writing up on the web is even more so! Indeed, students are so delighted to be able to invite their friends and family in other countries to view their work that they edit and polish their writing with no prodding from the teacher. And this is good publicity for the IELI. Clearly, then, it is beneficial to the students and the program for teachers to put student work up on the web. Nevertheless, this takes a lot of time and planning. Here are some things that you need to think about:

1. Unlike traditional class “magazines”, the materials on the web can’t be handwritten because you have to scan it to put it into the computer (“digitize” it). Scanned handwriting is considered a graphic or picture, which takes up a lot of space.

2. Some of our students can’t type or don’t have access to a computer. Who is going to do the typing and when?

3. Web sites look much better if there are photos on them. Unless you have a digital camera, the only way to get pictures on the web is to scan them to your computer. This is not hard, but it is time consuming.

4. Putting pages on the web takes time and planning, so you need to start from the beginning of the semester, and you need to get the students involved.

Here are some IELI faculty sites that are worth a visit. We hope that in future editions of this manual, there will be many more faculty sites to show off.

4. SOME IELI SITES TO SEE

If you would like to look at examples of IELI course descriptions and materials online, go to Sheryl Branham’s site at:

•

An example of student papers online can be found at Anthea Tillyer’s site for her level two writing class:

•

Then there is the IELI Home page at:

•

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Chapter 8 will cover issues related to acquiring and maintaining a computer at your house. This chapter is about the expensive and sometimes frustrating and confusing issue of buying a personal computer. The chapter is meant to offer guidelines, not panaceas. One thing is certain, though, that with the exception of RAM memory (see explanation below) adding to and upgrading an older computer (more than 4 years old) is about as successful as adding air conditioning to an old car, and for the same reasons.

This chapter is divided into four sections:

1. Reasons for buying a computer - do you need one?

2. General guidelines for buying a computer

3. How and where to get a computer

4. Other things that you will need

1. DO YOU NEED A COMPUTER IN ORDER TO PARTICIPATE IN INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNOLOGY AT THE IELI?

The short answer is no, you don’t need a computer. And obviously, it is not a requirement that faculty have their own computer in order to participate in instructional technology. We at the IELI have two good computers in our faculty room, and we have a magnificent faculty resource room at Hunter. So why would anyone want to spend a lot of money on something that has a mythically short life before obsolescence sets in? Convenience, the same reason that many people like to have an automobile in New York, in spite of the cost and in spite of good and cheap public transportation. It is convenient to have your own computer at home, and most people find it fun, too.

Moreover, unlike most automobiles, all expenses related to the acquisition, maintenance, repair, care, and feeding of a computer are tax deductible for teachers. Also tax deductible are paper, printer ink, and the costs of Internet service providers.

Evening teachers at the IELI do not have access to the computers at 68th street since they do not teach on campus, so for evening teachers, there are few choices when it comes to using computers. For them, getting their own computer will probably be a necessity if they want to participate in the age of instructional technology at Hunter.

2. SOME GUIDELINES FOR BUYING A COMPUTER

A. Think long and hard before accepting someone else’s old war horse. Think of it as accepting someone else’s old car. It can cost you more in time, trouble, and hassles (if not in money) than buying a new one in the long run.

B. Don’t ever think that any computer has too much memory or storage space, or that you will never need such a big machine. The truth is that modern software uses a lot of memory and shows no signs of ever using less. Take RAM, for example. RAM (random access memory) is the sort of temporary “buffer” memory that allows you to have more than one program open and working properly at the same time. The truth is that while the size of computers is decreasing (some of them are smaller than a textbook now), the size of programs is increasing. Moreover, it is not just the programs that are getting bigger; our content is getting bigger too. We are using pictures, music, movies, and colored and highly formatted documents, all of which take up much more room than the old black and white text. These days (June 2000) you really can’t operate effectively on the computer with less than 64 MB (megabytes) of RAM, and even 64MB will limit what you can do. 128 MB of RAM is really what you need. Although the “speed” (megahertz) of a particular machine is often touted as the most important attribute, in fact it is RAM that will determine the speed and ease of your work on a machine.

Still, the speed of a machine’s processing capability is important too. Today (June 2000) new machines have 700 megahertz, but there are 1000 megahertz (= 1 gigahertz) on the market too, and soon even those will be considered slow. However, without sufficient RAM to allow you to open large programs and to manipulate pictures and so forth, speed is not useful. Put your money in RAM!

C. The RAM of most machines can be upgraded; many have an upper limit of 256 MB of RAM. It’s not a good idea to get a machine that cannot be upgraded to at least 256 MB. If the RAM cannot be upgraded, then you are stuck. You can replace the hard drive and install various other components, but if you can’t get enough RAM, the machine won’t do what

you want and need it to do. Most machines that can be upgraded can be upgraded very quickly and easily (by you) once you have the RAM chip to add. Check the addresses in Section 3 of this chapter for where to find good values and fast delivery of RAM that you can add yourself

D. Your hard drive is where your programs and content are stored when they are not being used. These days, nothing less than 2.5 gigabytes will do a good job for you. New machines are selling with 15 gigabytes and up.

E. Laptops are great – for travel - but many people find that the small screen and keyboards are tough to use on a regular basis. On the other hand, you can run a laptop with a “regular” keyboard and a “regular” monitor too, and still have the convenience of a laptop when you want to travel. One disadvantage to laptops, though, is that they are considerably more expensive than desktops.

F. Remember that if you do email and get on the Internet at home, your telephone line will be busy at that time, and call waiting won’t work if you are on the net. If you do not live alone, you will have to consider the impact of this on your living arrangements. You might have to get an extra line just for your Internet use.

G. A modem is also a must. As of this writing (June 2000) most people in New York City still connect to the Internet by dialing up to a service over regular phone lines. So they use a “regular” modem. More and more users are taking advantage of cable, wireless, and services called DSL, but the familiar modem serves well too. You should not get one that is slower than 56 K (56,000 Kilobits – of information – per second). You need this speed to download large files such as pictures.

H. Another expense will be the acquisition of software. Chances are that your computer will come with the basic stuff, and for many people this is

enough. But if you want to buy software, you will find that it can be pricey. This doesn’t mean, though, that you should try making copies of software owned by other people. It’s an infringement of copyright and it’s a good way to get a virus.

One example of why it’s not efficient to copy software instead of buying it is the update situation with anti-virus software. Most new machines come with anti-virus programs these days. But these – Norton and McAfee are the most well known – are only as good as its most recent update. You have to update them (for free) regularly from the software manufacturer’s web site. If the serial number that is on your copy of the software has recently been updated from another machine (by the original purchaser of the software, for example), the update will not work and your machine remains unprotected against viruses.

These days, going more than 3 weeks without updating your anti-virus software is plain stupid. Not having an anti-virus package in your computer at all is more than stupid. These programs are really efficient and they are not expensive. In fact, faculty can get McAfee for free from Hunter, which has a general license for it. Contact Frank Lopez, 650-3291 HN 116 (frank.lopez@hunter.cuny.edu) for more information.

J. MACS are great for beginners and for people who do a lot of graphics and so forth. But quite a lot of programs are not made for Macs. On the other hand, people who have Macs LOVE them and will not be parted from them, a level of attachment that is not common among PC users.

K. Don’t forget that you will need a printer. It’s not worth getting one that doesn’t print in color because the difference in price is slight. You can get a very good ink-jet printer for under $200 and in many cases, they are thrown in with a computer as a sales incentive. And don’t forget that the printer will need ink cartridges and paper. Ink cartridges cost a minimum of $20 and last for about 200 – 300 sheets, sometimes more.

If you don’t want to spend on a printer just now, you can always save your lessons on a diskette and print it out at Hunter.

3. HOW AND WHERE TO GET A COMPUTER

Read Thursday’s NY Times “Circuits” section. There are lots of good deals there. The back page of the main section of the New York Times on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays has ads for J & R Computer, a store that has a wide range of machines and some very good buys. In addition, there are some good stores in New York with lots of good deals:

Stores in New York that often have good computer deals:

J & R Computer

COMP USA (all over town)

Gateway

All these stores have websites, so you can see what bargains they are offering before going to the store. Of course, you can also buy computers online. However, the prices are not significantly better than buying in a store (if you shop carefully) and you have to pay for shipping and arrange to

be home to receive the package. These latter factors pretty much cancel out not having to pay sales tax and the convenience of online shopping.

One of the best ways to get a computer – in terms of value for money – is through the educational purchasing section of the major computer makers.

You go to the website of the computer maker you like, preferably after scooping out the displays in local stores and finding the machine that you would like to buy. Every computer manufacturer has educational discounts. Go to the education area of the manufacturer’s website and choose “personal educational purchase” (as opposed to “institutional purchase”). There will be some requirements in terms of proving that you are involved in education, and the machine might have to be delivered to the school, but the discounts are definitely worth the hassle.

For additional RAM

The following companies are fast, reliable, and very inexpensive. They will usually get the chips to you within 36 hours (and no sales tax!)



4. OTHER THINGS THAT YOU WILL NEED

A. An anti-virus program: One of the most important pieces of software to have is a virus protection package. Your new computer might come with one already loaded, but if it doesn’t, you need to buy one immediately. Moreover, you will need to update the program at least once a month, probably more often. The updates are usually free, and you get them from the Internet site of the company that made the software. The updates are necessary because new viruses and worms appear every week, and the newer viruses and “worms” are more destructive than the old ones. Viruses and worms are programs, written by an anti-social person, which will destroy files or parts of your computer. You can get them and spread them by email without even knowing, and you can get them from the World Wide Web from unprotected sites.

McAfee and Norton are the two most popular anti-virus programs. And you can get McAfee through Hunter College for free. However, no virus program will help you unless you keep it up to date.

A CD-ROM player or recorder

These days, all new programs come on CD-ROM or from the Internet, so it is really inconvenient if you do not have a CD-ROM player and it

is not worth buying a computer that doesn’t have one. It is possible to buy external CD-ROM players to your system. They cost about $200 and attach to the printer port, USB connection, or card slot. On the

other hand, if you call or write to the software manufacturer, they will send you diskettes to use to install the programs you buy. DVD is another exciting option, but right now it is not a necessity and it definitely drives up the price of the computer.

A printer

You can save work and bring it to the IELI teachers’ room to print out…but what about weekends and holidays? What about if you are an evening teacher? What about vacation time? There is no doubt that it is much convenient to have a printer than not to have one. These days, a good, color ink jet printer can cost as little as $200, and it is

a worthwhile investment. There are also deals in which a printer is thrown in as an incentive to make you buy a computer. The down side a printer is that it can be expensive to feed. Inkjet cartridges are expensive, and laser printer cartridges even more so.

An email account/address*

The first item of business for teachers who want to get involved in educational technology is to get an email address. Here are a few things to consider when choosing an email service

Things to consider when getting an email account/address*

a. Security and privacy: Who has access to your mail? Under what conditions? Is your name sold to third parties for marketing purposes? Is the service often hacked? What is their privacy policy? What is their policy toward harassing messages or “spams” (unsolicited and unwelcome messages)?

b. Commercialism: Will your email messages carry ads? How

do you feel about this? The “free” services all have ads along the bottom of the message. Depending on your

correspondents, this could look unprofessional. You also have no choice about what is advertised on your email messages.

c. Accessibility: Can you use telnet or some other way (such as the World Wide Web) to get into your account when you are away from home? In general, IELI teachers are frequent travelers, so the issue of picking up email while on the road is an important issue for us.

d. Capacity: Email “boxes” have finite space. You need to know how much space you have and how much you need.

5 MB is a good amount.

*A Hunter email address? Here are the advantages:

a. Hunter messages carry no ads

b. Hunter messages look professional

c. Hunter accepts telnet from anywhere

d. Hunter is pretty good about virus protection

e. Hunter has zero-tolerance for hacking and spams

f. Hunter email is pretty secure

g. It’s free

Disadvantages to a Hunter College email address

a. Hunter has little technical support

b. Hunter mailboxes are fairly small

c. The email user interface is old-fashioned and somewhat

hard to learn

d. Hunter doesn’t have dialup service – you have to arrange

your own

e. You lose the account after you leave Hunter

f. Hunter doesn’t provide “dialup” service

How to get a Hunter email account

To get a Hunter College email account, you need to have a “sponsor”. In our case, the sponsor is Don Linder. You need to get a form from Vicky Henriquez-Bernal at 68th Street, get it signed by Don, and then take it to Clarence Feng in HN 1001K. 650-3270 clarence.feng@hunter.cuny.edu.

E. Internet services/email at home

For around $20 a month you can get a service that will connect you to the Internet by phone from home and give you email, a web page, and telnet accessibility without advertisements; the most prominent of these are:

AOL CompuServe

An additional strong point in favor of this kind of service is that they have Internet dialup service almost all over the world for a local call

wherever you are. This can be a money and time saver when traveling, especially when traveling overseas. In New York, there is a wide choice of Internet service providers, and some of them are cheaper than AOL or CompuServe.

However, you have to be careful to check that they have technical support and that they offer you connections in other cities if you travel at all. It can be frustrating and expensive to try to get onto the Internet when you go to a new locale. It is surprising how hard it can be.

Once you have an Internet dialup service from home, you can use the email account that comes with the service, or you can have a web-based email account, or both. You can also access your Hunter College email account from home if you have dialup service because you can use a program called telnet to connect to the Hunter machine. There are many choices for email.

There are also lots of “free” email and Internet dialup services, but the price you pay is that your email carries ads for the sites. Also, while most of these services have local dialup numbers in most US and Canadian cities, they have no presence overseas. Here are some of the “free” Internet service providers:







There are also free web-based email services, which means that if you have access to the World Wide Web you can pick up your email anywhere in the world. This web-based email is therefore very convenient because you can pick your email up anywhere, as you can get on the World Wide Web. The best known of these web-based “free” email services are:

• Juno ()

• Hotmail ()

• Yahoo ()

If your email is web-based, meaning that you log into the World Wide Web to read and send your mail (rather than though Microsoft Outlook, Eudora, or some other method), you will obviously need to have Netscape or Microsoft Explorer on your machine. This is usually not a problem because IE at least comes bundled with most machines (hence the Microsoft anti-trust case) and is available for free from the Internet anyway. If you use an Internet Service provider, they will probably provide you with their version of one of those browsers. But it is your responsibility to keep the browser up to date, which you do by logging in to the browsers home website every so often and downloading the updates and “patches” (corrections to problems that have been found with the program)

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3. You click here to record a voice comment

1. This is the pop-up comment that appears if the reader runs a mouse over the number

4. This indicates that there is a voice comment here. To listen, the students clicks on it.

2. This is the comments frame, which can be printed out

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