Irish Blog Award Nominations

I just found out that my blog has been long-listed by the Irish Blog Awards as one of the best technology blogs in Ireland. Now that they've made the list, I assume they're checking it twice. Wonder when I'll find out whether I've been deemed naughty or nice?

Check out the long-list here.

Palabea,net - language learning community

Palabea.net is a German site that aims to connect native speakers and learners from all over the world. Palabea is an open to everyone and is free of charge. It's a social network - so to get anywhere you've got to sign in, and create a profile before you can get on with business.

palabea.net - appearance
It’s prettier than livemocha.com. It uses a palette of cool blues and greens with grey on white. It feels fresh and light.

palabea.net - what you can do
Well…Palabea offers lots more than italki.com, and offers a very different service to livemocha.com. Livemocha.com provides a solid offering of social networking and a range of linear courses you can work through – but you can’t share audio/video/images or docs. italki.com just really offers social networking in a foreign language and the chance to upload materials. Palabea.net doesn’t offer a structured course, but there’s lots more to do, with content organised under four main tabs – my palabea, e-learning, community and news.

My palabea tab
Your private space where you can read docs, chat friends, watch video lessons, share pics and videos.

E-Learning tab
The tab somewhat off-puttingly named 'e-learning' is described as being “Your classroom - where you'll discover the possibilities of learning languages online with people from all over the world. Learn from other people while teaching them in your own language.”

And here’s where you can communicate with native speakers through video/audio conference and text messages or find a classroom. These are set up and run by users. Their biggest classroom is Let's Learn English and has 1038 members.

You can check out Palabea’s cool wee video app. Using your webcam, you can record and upload video instantly. It’s handy, but I want to know who's checking the video to see whether I'm saying Hola or swearing for Ireland? Palabea.net are serious about user-generated video – they encouraging content creation by offering 80GB ipod video player to the best video lecture submitted by a user.

You can also advertise as or find a teacher, translator, au pair, or host au pair family.

Community tab
Find friends online, video chat.

palabea.net- will you learn?
Hmmm. Not sure. I’ve not learned anything yet, but then I really do require the formal course approach that livemocha.com have taken. But they certainly look like they’re experimenting with every angle of connecting learners. It’s just a shame there is no structured learning materials.

palabea.net - did I make friends?
Yes. The learners at Palabea.net are friendly. I got 4 friendship requests by the first day. However, two of these were French students, and neither of them have done anything more than be my friend. The other requests came from people who want my help in learning English. I've also had messages from people who want to be penpals. So I'm not LONELY and I guess if I put in more effort, I would connect with more learners.


Other language-learning sites that use social networking platforms
Palabea.net is the third language learning community I've reviewed this year. Check out my posts on italki.com and livemocha.com to see what I thought of them. And check out my lingro.com post to find out more about 'open-source' language learning.

italki.com language learning community

I've signed up for a few more of these language learning communities that are built on social networking software. www.italki.com is the first up for review...

italki.com - what is it?
italki.com offers 90+ languages. The site's free and doesn't mention that it might move to a subscription model any time soon. But being a social network, you've got to sign up, give away the usual personal info, before you're free to explore.*

italk.com - appearance
Ok. So italk.com wins out over livemocha.com on this one. They're prettier. They feel younger. Their palette is pretty pink and cool grey on white white white. It's clean and simple.

italk.com - what you can do
Once you're signed up, you can find a language-learning partner or group to practice with. You can get answers to questions, and share and find resources.

italk.com - will you learn?
italk.com doesn't work for me. The site is a pretty much a social network for language learners, which is great. But they don't have any bespoke learning materials - the only content seems to be user-generated or skimmed from other sites.

For example, the Shared Files tab lets you search files uploaded by other members of the site. You can choose to view content by selecting the most recent, most liked, most viewed, most discussed and most downloaded. My problem with this is quality control. How do I know what's decent? Not having time to waste at the moment, I simply didn't touch any of these learning materials. I need to know what I'm learning is quality assured.

The Language Resources tabs leads you to what seems to be a search engine that pulls in language resources from the general web. Again, not knowing exactly what the content was, who authored it, or of what use it was, I simply didn't use it. And I wonder how they're dealing with the copyright issues of sharing and finding content.

So for learning materials, italki.com scores a big zero for me. Compare them to Livemocha.com, who offer you a social network integrated with learning materials. Ok, so the materials are sometimes inaccurate and I still question their instructional design methods, but the content is there, you're encouraged to take a course, you're tracked on your learning, your performance is rated on a leader board - even if no-one makes friends with you, you can learn.

italki.com - did I make friends?
No I did not. I messaged a few of the Irish language learners, but no-one's replied yet. No-one has asked to be my friend. I feel LONELY.

*I just wish someone, somewhere could create a little app that would let me fill out this basic info just the once, have it on my PC so I could upload it to all these sites. I'm sooooooooo tired of typing my name, address, DOB, favourite film and favourite funny quote of all time.

My top ten e-learning tools

I listed my top ten e-learning tools on the Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies. Check out the post here. Ignore the fact I look as though I am flexing muscles only an e-learning consultant could be proud of.

Livemocha - Language Learning and Social Networking

If your new year's resolution is to learn a language, you could check out livemocha.com. The site currently offers free learning materials for

- German
- English
- Spanish
- French
- Hindi
- Mandarin Chinese

LiveMocha describes itself as 'an exciting Web 2.0 startup' based in Seattle. They aim to 'ride one of the greatest macro economic trends of our time - globalization'. And they want to do this by leveraging social networking technologies.

As I write, Livemocha is in beta and aims to make money from ad revenue. However, they will add a subscription layer early this year that might cost $10 to $20 a month.

So does it work?

I'm not sure. I enrolled a few days ago to learn French. There are four French courses - 2 basic, 2 advanced. The two basic courses claim to provide 100 hours of learning. The advanced courses provide 30 hours each.

LIVEMOCHA LEARNING MODEL
I've just been through 6 basic lessons so far. The lessons follow a basic learning model:

- learn
- read
- listen
- magnet
- write
- speak

In LEARN mode, you see and hear new vocabulary, with images. In READ mode you read text, then select the correct image. In LISTEN mode, you listen to audio, then select the correct image. In MAGNET mode, you hear a phrase in your language, and you form a sentence using the words given to you.

In WRITE mode, you can use the vocabulary you've learned to write a short piece. You must then submit this to the learner community, where it will be rated. In SPEAK mode, you can record yourself speaking the vocabulary you've learned, and submit this for rating by the community.

HOW YOU LEARN
So technically, you're given a nice little model for learning. My problem is that you're expected to learn 40 pieces of information in each round. So you're given 40 slides which contain both new words and new words combinations.

It works fine for me, however, I studied French for years at school, and want to revise. I don't believe a complete beginner could cope with learning 40 new words/phrases from scratch. I mean, our brain usually likes to deal with no more than 7 new things at a time. Anything more than that slips down the back of the sofa...

LIVEMOCHA LEARNING CONTENT
I think that the write and speak modes are a great idea in principle. However, after covering basic vocab like 'it is, it isn't, she is, she isn't, girl, girls, flower, flowers', LiveMocha asked me to describe the first house I ever lived in. Which of course would require use of past tense and a wider vocabulary. This is frustrating and makes me think that the developers were lazy.

However, I submitted a few written exercises to see what would happen. I got email notifications that my exercises had been rated and commented on. And when I checked, I'd received useful corrections on the mistakes in my work.

I can't rate how useful the social networking side of the site will be for my learning. It interests me however and hopefully I can blog more about it later.

LIVEMOCHA - LANGUAGE LEARNING AND SOCIAL NETWORKING
I think that the social networking side of Livemocha works. It's easy to make friends. It's easy to contact people. The site is well supported with tutors. But then we have pretty much cracked social networking online: we all know how to connect people and get them talking.

The harder thing to crack I think is the formal learning aspect. And I'm not convinced by Livemocha right now. I'll keep plugging away (and will admit I'm strangely motivated by their leader board, which rates me in comparison to other learners). But I'm already bored by the templated content. And as much as I can network socially, I can't create my own learning materials, or add content. It's a closed learning experience.

LIVEMOCHA - THE VERDICT
Livemocha is currently disappointing me. The locked-down web 1.0 (or textbook) learning experience is linked to the fantastic potential of social networking. I wouldn't pay for content at this stage, but if things change, I'll be sure to blog about it.

Still - it's worth signing up while it's free to have a poke around!