To Consume, or to Contribute?  free learning materials for users' consumption  Improving web technologies  increasingly possible for users to not just consume, but also contribute, materials.

User Contribution: an alternative web experience  Under structured guidance (templates), users can add content to website by just entering text in text boxes.  more effective learning takes place on the web if learners are involved in the creation process and if they take up the responsibility for learning themselves.

The Early Nineties & Basic HTML  the first stages of web page production was mostly about the provision of links to websites.  basically plain texts on web pages to present theme-based language lessons  a small number of HTML tags.

The Winds of Change  hard coded vs. generated hyperlinks  Common Gateway Interface (CGI) generated web pages  URL pattern for a BBS forum can look like this: gi?action=topics&forum=IOWA&number=4&Days Prune=1000

Database-Driven Websites “URL” of the word "innovation" in the Newbury House Online Dictionary looks like this: Newbury House Online Dictionary  hd.heinle.com:80/plwebcgi/fastweb?state_id= &view=nhd&docrank=1&numhitsfound=2 &query=innovation&query_rule=%28$query%29& docid=9522&docdb=nhd&dbname=nhd&Templat eName=doc.tmpl&setCookie=1

To Hyperlink, or not to Hyperlink?  not difficult to put a link to the BBS forum or the word innovation (or innovate) using the above URLs.  but not practical, reliable and not generally perceived as URLs

The Needs for Change  no turning back of the web wave  pressure coming from institutional administrators  pressure coming from learners

Facilitator of Change: A User- Centred Model of Web Design  takes the authority to dictate the creation of web contents away from the webmasters  calls for a change in the roles of teachers and learners on the web, from the traditional consumer role to the new contributor role.

Sample User-Centred Websites  Trackstar provides step-by-step detailed instructions and interfaces that help teachers to organize and annotate web sites into lessons. (  Some other websites with similar services are WebCT (  Blackboard.com ( etc.

IOWA  Interactive Online Writing Assistance  a web-based instruction tool for language teachers (and learners) and offered as a free service

WWW Technologies: CGI, Java and JSP  IOWA provides users with different levels of access rights and associated interfaces to add content to a website  a CGI generated bulletin board system (BBS), a JSP generated interactive vocabulary database, and an essay sharing system.

Server Security and Access Rights  , IP Number Ban List and Private Forum Access  Flood Check and Logging/Displaying IP Numbers For Posts

IOWA Main Page

Services Provided by IOWA  The first service offered at IOWA is a web-based bulletin board system. It started with just one discussion forum and has grown to over twenty.

Post Message Interface  To post a message, users simply type in plain text in the text boxes and the resulting message looks something like this:

A Bulletin Board Message The name of the writer is displayed in the left column. The message itself is shown in the right frame. Above the message there are icons that users can click to look at the writer’s profile, to reply, and to edit it.

Interactive Vocabulary Database  User-generated, with JSP programming  user entries will be checked by teacher editors, who can then decide to “activate” the entries or not. A screenshot of the VocabDB section is shown below:

VocabDB

Searching Vocabulary Database  VocabDB allows users to search the database, by prefix and suffix  Users can also look for words containing a certain string of letters  Users can also choose to retrieve words of a particular part of speech

Browsing the Vocabulary Databse  Users can browse it either by parts of speech, or by the alphabetical index. There is also a scrolling applet that displays the most recently added words.

Adding Words to VocabDB After a user has logged on, s/he can use the interface on the right to add words to the database.

A Vocabulary Entry  After a user has typed in a word to define, selected the part of speech, and entered the description / definition, a web page like this will be generated as soon as s/he clicks the “save it” button.

Teacher Editors and Activating Entries  Words added by users don’t show up in the VocabDB section until activated by a teacher editor.  Once a user is assigned teacher editor status, s/he can activate his/her own students’ entries. The lower half of the interface is shown on the right.

Essay Submission System  Besides posting messages and adding words to the site, users can also choose to submit whole essays. They do that through the section called Submit an Essay, which has this interface:

Submit an Essay  all a user needs to do is to fill in the text areas with plain text. The required fields are Topic and Content. Before typing (or copying and pasting) the essay into the Content area, a user should first select the category of essay he/she is posting from the selection menu.

Reverse Concordancing ( RC )  links words activated in the vocabulary database to their occurrences in essays submitted by any registered user to the site  Allows users to type in or copy and paste in passages, to see what words in them also exist in the vocab database, which will then be turned into hyperlinks to the database

RC Interface

To Consume, or to Contribute?  an alternative web experience not possible for traditional media  Share, give, make a difference!