Graham Davies

Marco asks: There are dozens of such sites. Do a search under "warchalking" with Google. One of the main sites - maintained by people who encuorage warchalking - is: http://www.warchalking.org/

Marco asks: Warchalking: Warchalkers make chalk markings on walls or pavements to indicate that there is an insecure Wi-Fi (wireless access) point nearby. The symbols not only mark the location of the wireless access point but also indicate the network type, name, and bandwidth. The markings are similar to the symbols used by tramps to communicate information to fellow itinerants about the friendliness of a place or its inhabitants. The term derives from the 1983 film War Games, in which a teenager uses software to dial randomly selected telephone numbers, eventually managing to hack into a military computer and start World War III. People initiated in the ways of warchalking recognise the symbols and then all they need to do is take up a comfortable position with their laptop, suitably equipped with a wireless network card, and get online using someone else’s bandwidth.

Marco Koene asks: It seems quieter today than at this time last week when the email service of one of my ISPs shut down for several hours on three consecutive days. I have been attacked by MyDoom around 100 times (to my knowledge) - but all the attacks have failed as I am well-defended. My two main ISPs filter known viruses as they come in. My email filter, MailWasher Pro, filters additional viruses and zaps them automatically. If any viruses get in via these first two lines of defence then Norton AV kicks in. In addition, my firewall ZoneAlarm Pro quarantines all attachments with an extension such as EXE, COM or BAT, changing the extension to something harmless until I am sure that I really need the attachment and then I can change the extension back. I work from home. I have to maintain all these safeguards myself as I do not have the protection of a business or education ICT environment.

Marco Koene writes re copyright: I am not sure. There is probably a huge loophole here: cf. the problems we have regarding spammers who operate from servers in countries that don't respect international law. Regarding copyright, however, almost all major nations follow the Berne copyright convention. The EU countries collaborate on IPR - the following Web page may be useful: http://europa.eu.int/comm/trade/issues/sec...y/survey_en.htm

David Richardson writes: This is one of the major problems associated with VLEs. Around one year ago I went to a presentation of a new VLE designed for secondary schools in a region of the UK. It was a typical one-size-fits-all application. As a modern linguist, I asked the presenter to let us see the French materials designed for A-Level students. In terms of functionality they were about as advanced as the programs that I was writing in the mid/late 1980s. I asked about the facilities for playing back and recording sound – e.g. so that students could hear a native speaker’s voice and respond to it in some way, recording and playing back their own voice to see how they sounded – a useful activity that we have used since the advent of the AAC tape recorder in the 1960s. “Oh,” the presenter said, “we haven’t incorporated that facility into the system. It’s a bit difficult.”

Electronic whiteboards are used extensively in the teaching of Modern Foreign Languages. We have sections on electronic whiteboards in Module 1.3 and Module 1.4 at the ICT4LT website: http://www.ict4lt.org Here are some relevant links taken from Module 1.4: Further information on interactive whiteboards Walker R. (2003) "Interactive whiteboards in the MFL classroom", TELL&CALL 3, 3: 14-16. Available at: http://www.e-lisa.at/magazine/tellcall/03_03.asp Promethean: http://www.promethean.co.uk Smart Technologies: http://www.smarttech.com Mimio: http://www.mimio.com Greenwhich LEA: A useful article entitled "Interactive whiteboards - a luxury too far?": http://www.g2fl.greenwich.gov.uk/temp/whiteboards Leicestershire Comenius Centre: http://www.leics-comenius.org.uk. Click on IT & MFL on the homepage. This will take you to section containing ideas on using interactive whiteboards, plus a case study. The Comenius Centre at Trinity and All Saints College, Leeds, maintains a website offering free resources for use with PowerPoint and interactive whiteboards - plus other free resources: http://www.tasc.ac.uk/depart/comenius/free.../powerpoint.htm See the index page at: http://www.tasc.ac.uk/depart/comenius/free...urces/index.htm REvIEW Project: Research and Evaluation of Interactive interactive whiteboards, University of Hull in collaboration with Promethean: http://www.thereviewproject.org. Supported by NESTA FutureLab: http://www.nestafuturelab.org Usable Software Company: Develops and sells interactive whiteboard software, including software for Modern Foreign Languages: http://www.usablesoftwarecompany.com

Has anyone considered using concordancers in English language teaching? These useful tools figure prominently in teaching MFL and English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL). Used in conjunction with a corpus, e.g. such as the COBUILD Bank of English, concordancers can extremely valuable tools, for example: - The teacher can use a concordancer to find examples of authentic usage to demonstrate a point of language, typical collocations, etc. - The teacher can generate language exercises based on authentic texts. - Students can work out rules of grammar and usage for themselves by searching for key words in context. - Students are encouraged to be sceptical about explicit rules. And if anyone tries to tell you that this sounds like the sort of work that goes on only at university level, don't believe them! Secondary school children are quite capable of making intelligent use of concordancers. See Module 2.4 at the ICT4LT website: http://www.ict4lt.org – this website relates mainly to MFL and ESOL but the same principles may be applied to English as MT. Concordancers are used extensively for creating glossaries and dictionaries. I use a concordancer to check my own writing style. It picks up my over-frequent use of certain words and is also helpful when used in conjunction with a thesaurus. A thesaurus never gives you enough authentic examples of usage to tell you how to use a word with which you are unfamiliar, but a concordancer does - providing you have a decent corpus of authentic texts. Concordancers can also be very useful in literary criticism. Let’s suppose, for example, you are writing an essay on animal imagery in Shakespeare. You can search for references to different animals in Shakespeare’s works using a concordancer and a Shakespeare corpus and find out what kinds of images they represent, e.g. I did a search under “greyhound(s)” at http://www.it.usyd.edu.au/~matty/Shakespeare/test.html (OK, I own a retired racing greyhound – hence the interest). I found: King Henry IV, Part i Act 1, Scene 3 HOTSPUR You say true: Why, what a candy deal of courtesy This fawning greyhound then did proffer me! The Taming of the Shrew Act 5, Scene 2 TRANIO O, sir, Lucentio slipp'd me like his greyhound, Which runs himself and catches for his master. Love's Labour's Lost Act 5, Scene 2 DUMAIN Ay, and Hector's a greyhound. The Merry Wives of Windsor Act 1, Scene 1 SLENDER How does your fallow greyhound, sir? I heard say he was outrun on Cotsall. Coriolanus Act 1, Scene 6 MARCIUS As with a man busied about decrees: Condemning some to death, and some to exile; Ransoming him, or pitying, threatening the other; Holding Corioli in the name of Rome, Even like a fawning greyhound in the leash, To let him slip at will. King Henry VI, Part iii Act 2, Scene 5 QUEEN MARGARET Mount you, my lord; towards Berwick post amain: Edward and Richard, like a brace of greyhounds Having the fearful flying hare in sight, With fiery eyes sparkling for very wrath, And bloody steel grasp'd in their ireful hands, Are at our backs; and therefore hence amain. King Henry V Act 3, Scene 1 KING HENRY V I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, Straining upon the start. The game's afoot: Follow your spirit, and upon this charge Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!' The Taming of the Shrew Prologue, Scene 2 First Servant Say thou wilt course; thy greyhounds are as swift As breathed stags, ay, fleeter than the roe. Timon of Athens Act 1, Scene 2 Third Servant Please you, my lord, that honourable gentleman, Lord Lucullus, entreats your company to-morrow to hunt with him, and has sent your honour two brace of greyhounds. Macbeth Act 3, Scene 1 MACBETH Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men; As hounds and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs,

Excellent idea! Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator are more or less the standard packages used in the graphic design and print industry. There is a cheaper, cut-down version of Photoshop called Photoshop Elements that contains most of the basic editing tools - and this is perfect as an introductory package for schools. My daughter is a partner in a graphic design business. She took Art and Design Technology as options at school and then went on to study at an art college that was forward-thinking in the use of ICT - she graduated in 1991. Her business has won some lucrative contracts with Electronic Arts, Fox, Virgin et al. For examples of what professionals can do with Illustrator and Photoshop have a look at her business's website: http://www.mdmcreative.com I think the Alien Resurrection campaign contains examples of their best work. Graphic design offers a worthwhile career! Photoshop is also one of the main packages used by MELTEC, Kingston University: http://www.meltec.org.uk MELTEC offers training courses in multimedia design and development.

Ulrike writes: The CEF is not at all well known in the UK - except in the ESOL community, because exam boards like Cambridge relate their exams (e.g. First Certificate) to the CEF. In some EU countries, e.g. Finland, the CEF is widely accepted as the standard yardtick. DIALANG has been advertised via the Association for Language Learning in the UK, but it is still largely unknown. In fact, language teachers are generally unaware of what is possible in language testing by computer. We have a module (No. 4.1) on Computer Aided Assessment at the ICT4LT website: http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_mod4-1.htm The administration for DIALANG is now based at the Freie Universität Berlin: http://www.dialang.org I was involved in DIALANG as a consultant during its early stages. It started off as a project at the University of Jyväskylä in Finland and then moved to Berlin.

Wireless networks sound great - I have considered installing one at home for my LAN of three (currently cable-connected) PCs, but what do you do to counteract warchalkers?

Ulrike writes: I presume that when you refer to A-Level you mean the Abitur. To which of the CEF levels does the Abitur correspond? There has been a good deal of debate in the UK concerning the correspondence between our national examinations system and the CEF. It is argued, for example, that a Higher GCSE grade here corresponds to CEF B1 - but I think this is optimistic. I used to teach on an international degree course in the 1990s that accepted students from the UK, Germany, France and Spain. The German students (aged 18+) always had a higher level of English than the French and Spanish students. Most of the German students probably had a CEF level of B2 in English. Students from the UK with a good A-level grade were just about up to the same standard as the students from our other European partners. The DIALANG tests are geared closely towards the CEF levels. I have tried a few DIALANG tests myself. I achieved C1 in German across three skills (Reading, Writing and Listening), which is not too bad for an out-of-practice retired teacher of German, and B1 in Reading Dutch. I studied Medieval Dutch (not Modern Dutch) at London University in the 1960s, and I obviously still remember quite a bit as I had to read critical texts in Modern Dutch. See http://www.dialang.org

It would be interesting to find out to what extent language teachers are aware of the Common European Framework (CEF) for Languages, a set of scales and descriptors relating to language proficiency that is widely used throughout Europe. Most language teachers in the UK seem to know little about it, even though it is mentioned - along with the European Portfolio - in several places in the important strategy document published by the DfES in December 2002: Languages for all: languages for life - a strategy for England http://www.dfes.gov.uk/languagesstrategy The diagnostic language tests - available free of charge at http://www.dialang.org - are closely geared to the Common European Framework. Reactions? Opinions?

The topic of trips abraod has figured prominently in the Linguanet Forum, on and off for the last two years: http://www.mailbase.org.uk/lists/linguanet-forum I havn't checked all the correspondence in the Forum but a common reason for teachers being unwilling to organise a trip abroad is that they may be singled out for blame if anything goes wrong, even if it's not their fault. There is also the money issue: teachers are not paid for extra responsibilities/time while organising such a trip, and the local education authorities are reluctant to pay for a replacement teacher to cover a teacher who takes a class abroad during term time. The phrase that is often used these days to describe school trips abroad is that they are "too risky".

David Richardson writes: Dead right! Once bitten… I must say, however, that in my experience as a language teacher at Ealing College we used labs successfully from the 1960s right up until I retired in the 1990s. It was all down to good content and using the lab appropriately, e.g. for training in simultaneous interpreting rather than just as a drill-and-practice machine. The serious work was done in face-to-face classes, and the lab was used for reinforcement under teacher supervision and for self-access – which is more or less how we used the computer labs that arrived in the 1980s. I love that sketch! I worked on a project in Hungary from 1991 to 1996. We showed a video of the phrasebook sketch to Hungarian students and they could see the funny side of it too. I learned some interesting Hungarian phrases from them too! We also used the dead parrot sketch, e.g. getting the students to note down how many different ways there are of saying “dead” in English: "late", "kicked the bucket", "deceased", "shuffled off this mortal coil", etc...

Organising school trips used to be so easy. When I started teaching in the 1960s school exchanges were part and parcel of school life. One school in which I worked in the 1970s sent the whole of the 4th year abroad for the summer term - four classes of around 25 children each. Two classes were sent to France, one to Germany and one to Denmark. They were replaced by classes from schools in France, Germany and Denmark. My first exchange visit as a student was to Göttingen in 1958 just after I had taken O-Level German. I stayed with a doctor's family in a house that was enormous compared to my parents' home - but we accommodated my German exchange partner thanks to my brother obligingly agreeing to sleep on a put-you-up in my bedroom. After three weeks staying with the German family my listening and speaking skills had improved 100% and I went on to get a good A-Level grade and continued studying German at university. I led my first school exchange as a teacher in 1970. I can truly say that the experience of my first exchange trip abroad determined my future career. That trip initiated my continuing love of Germany and the German people and, above all, demonstrated to me the practical usefulness of studying a foreign language. Why has organising exchanges been made so difficult? Is money the major factor? Is it because of the increasing tendency for parents to seek legal address when things go wrong? Are things more likely to go wrong these days? Should more money be spent on giving students the same sort of opportunities that I had rather than on ICT? It seems to me that the only experience of being abroad that many young people have these days is visiting holiday resorts of the “Blackpool-on-the-Mediterranean” type.

I sent a couple of messages to the ICT section of this Forum in a discussion centred on the pros and cons of Macs vis-a-vis PCs. I have appended them here in a slightly modified form as they may be relevant to Art & Design. Message 1: I doubt that my daughter Siân would have ended up in such an enjoyable and profitable line of work if she had not received good ICT training at school and at art college. She graduated from art college in 1991 - the year is a good indication of how forward-thinking her art college was at the time. The college was well-equipped with different kinds of computers, both PCs and Macs. Most of my daughter's friends from that era have done very well in professional life. Have a look at my daughter's website: http://www.mdmcreative.com I think the "Alien Resurrection" advertising material they produced for Electronic Arts is probably their best work: under Gallery/Advertising. I know of several schools in the UK that have art departments well-equipped with computers and that train their students to use packages such as Photoshop and Illustrator as well as more traditional art materials. I am currently a member of a team based at Kingston University: MELTEC http://www.meltec.org.uk The team includes art teachers who offer training in such packages. We also cover sound, video and other aspects of multimedia. Message 2: The key packages used by art teachers, e.g. Illustrator and Photoshop (which are more or less industry-standard) work in much the same way on a PC as on a Mac. In fact, although my daughter is mainly Mac-trained, we have run joint multimedia training workshops for teachers using PCs. Photoshop Elements is a package that we recommend to schools - it is a cut-down version of Photoshop, but it includes the essential features: http://www.adobe.co.uk/products/photoshopel/ Regarding video, there is a useful device marketed in the UK by Tag Learning: the Digital Blue Digital Movie Creator. It records up to 4 minutes of video and/or a number of still pictures (I can't remember how many) and includes editing software. Stop-frame animation is another feature - i.e. you can produce stop-frame movies along the lines of Nick Park's "Wallis and Grommit”. It’s very easy to use and ideal as an introduction to digital video both for teachers and students. It connects to the USB port and works on PCs and Macs. Price: around 120 euros. A companion product is Digital Blue’s microphone with a built-in storage facility, i.e. you can make a recording on the move and then upload it to a PC via the USB port at a later time. The software accompanying it includes a number of animation facilities. It's known as the Sound Morpher (aka as the Animation Station). You can record up to 4 minutes of sound away from the computer. This does not sound like a great deal, but in practice you will find that it is more than adequate for capturing dialogues, and of course they can be pieced together and edited in other ways using the Sound Morpher's own software or software such as AudioSurgeon. Price: around 55 euros. See http://www.taglearning.com/ (search under "D" for "Digital Blue") Both products form the backbone of the multimedia training courses offered by MELTEC (Kingston University): http://www.meltec.org.uk Teachers in the pilot schools following the MELTEC courses have produced some impressive projects using the above products. I’ve written a few notes that I use in connection with the MELTEC courses at: http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/lspinset.htm

I sent a couple of messages to the ICT section of this Forum in a discussion centred on the pros and cons of Macs vis-a-vis PCs. I have appended them here in a slightly modified form as they may be relevant to Art & Design. Message 1: I doubt that my daughter Siân would have ended up in such an enjoyable and profitable line of work if she had not received good ICT training at school and at art college. She graduated from art college in 1991 - the year is a good indication of how forward-thinking her art college was at the time. The college was well-equipped with different kinds of computers, both PCs and Macs. Most of my daughter's friends from that era have done very well in professional life. Have a look at my daughter's website: http://www.mdmcreative.com I think the "Alien Resurrection" advertising material they produced for Electronic Arts is probably their best work: under Gallery/Advertising. I know of several schools in the UK that have art departments well-equipped with computers and that train their students to use packages such as Photoshop and Illustrator as well as more traditional art materials. I am currently a member of a team based at Kingston University: MELTEC http://www.meltec.org.uk The team includes art teachers who offer training in such packages. We also cover sound, video and other aspects of multimedia. Message 2: The key packages used by art teachers, e.g. Illustrator and Photoshop (which are more or less industry-standard) work in much the same way on a PC as on a Mac. In fact, although my daughter is mainly Mac-trained, we have run joint multimedia training workshops for teachers using PCs. Photoshop Elements is a package that we recommend to schools - it is a cut-down version of Photoshop, but it includes the essential features: http://www.adobe.co.uk/products/photoshopel/ Regarding video, there is a useful device marketed in the UK by Tag Learning: the Digital Blue Digital Movie Creator. It records up to 4 minutes of video and/or a number of still pictures (I can't remember how many) and includes editing software. Stop-frame animation is another feature - i.e. you can produce stop-frame movies along the lines of Nick Park's "Wallis and Grommit”. It’s very easy to use and ideal as an introduction to digital video both for teachers and students. It connects to the USB port and works on PCs and Macs. Price: around 120 euros. A companion product is Digital Blue’s microphone with a built-in storage facility, i.e. you can make a recording on the move and then upload it to a PC via the USB port at a later time. The software accompanying it includes a number of animation facilities. It's known as the Sound Morpher (aka as the Animation Station). You can record up to 4 minutes of sound away from the computer. This does not sound like a great deal, but in practice you will find that it is more than adequate for capturing dialogues, and of course they can be pieced together and edited in other ways using the Sound Morpher's own software or software such as AudioSurgeon. Price: around 55 euros. See http://www.taglearning.com/ (search under "D" for "Digital Blue") Both products form the backbone of the multimedia training courses offered by MELTEC (Kingston University): http://www.meltec.org.uk Teachers in the pilot schools following the MELTEC courses have produced some impressive projects using the above products. I’ve written a few notes that I use in connection with the MELTEC courses at: http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/lspinset.htm

In this case it would make more sense to use a PC. The key packages used by art teachers, e.g. Illustrator and Photoshop (which are more or less industry-standard) work in much the same way on a PC as on a Mac. In fact, although my daughter is mainly Mac-trained, we have run joint multimedia training workshops for teachers using PCs. Photoshop Elements is a package that we recommend to schools - it is a cut-down version of Photoshop, but it includes the essential features: http://www.adobe.co.uk/products/photoshopel/ Regarding video, there is a useful device marketed in the UK by Tag Learning: the Digital Blue Digital Movie Creator. It records up to 4 minutes of video and/or a number of still pictures (I can't remember how many) and includes editing software. Stop-frame animation is another feature - i.e. you can produce stop-frame movies along the lines of Nick Park's "Wallis and Grommit”. It’s very easy to use and ideal as an introduction to digital video both for teachers and students. It connects to the USB port and works on PCs and Macs. Price: around 120 euros. A companion product is Digital Blue’s microphone with a built-in storage facility, i.e. you can make a recording on the move and then upload it to a PC via the USB port at a later time. The software accompanying it includes a number of animation facilities. It's known as the Sound Morpher (aka as the Animation Station). You can record up to 4 minutes of sound away from the computer. This does not sound like a great deal, but in practice you will find that it is more than adequate for capturing dialogues, and of course they can be pieced together and edited in other ways using the Sound Morpher's own software or software such as AudioSurgeon. Price: around 55 euros. See http://www.taglearning.com/ (search under "D" for "Digital Blue") Both products form the backbone of the training courses offered by MELTEC (Kingston University): http://www.meltec.org.uk Teachers in the pilot schools following the MELTEC courses have produced some impressive projects using the above products. I’ve written a few notes that I use in connection with the MELTEC courses at: http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/lspinset.htm Sorry for the digression – maybe I should have sent this to the Art section of the Forum.

I doubt that my daughter would have ended up in such an enjoyable and profitable line of work if she had not received good ICT training at school and at art college. She graduated from art college in 1991 - the year is a good indication of how forward-thinking her art college was at the time. The college was well-equipped with different kinds of computers, both PCs and Macs. Most of my daughter's friends from that era have done very well in professional life. Have a look at my daughter's website: http://www.mdmcreative.com I think the "Alien Resurrection" advertising material they produced for Electronic Arts is probably their best work: under Gallery/Advertising. In the UK the ratio of computers to pupils in secondary schools will reach around 5:1 in 2004. I know of several schools in the UK that have art departments well-equipped with computers and that train their students to use packages such as Photoshop and Illustrator as well as more traditional art materials. I am currently a member of a team based at Kingston University (MELTEC http://www.meltec.org.uk) that includes art teachers who offer training in such packages. We also cover sound, video and other aspects of multimedia.

I probably would use a Mac if I were not a partner in an educational software development and retailing business. Back in the 1980s my business used to develop educational software on several different platforms: BBC Micro, Arc, RM Nimbus, Mac and PC. It was a dreadfully time-consuming and expensive process, but it was not clear which of these platforms was the dominant one in education, so we could not ignore any of them. Macs had a nice little niche in Scotland and Northern Ireland and we used to sell a lot of Mac software to schools in those regions. By the mid-1990s it became clear that the PC was taking over. We continued to develop for Arc, Mac and PC, and then the Arc began to disappear. Finally, the Mac lost its foothold, even in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Our database of some 5500 secondary schools indicates that less than 5% are predominantly Mac users. The rest are predominantly PC users. The result: We have ceased to develop educational software for Macs because we hardly get asked for it any more. On the other hand, my daughter Siân runs an all-Mac graphic design business. Macs are the sine qua non in the print and graphic design business - great machines for applications in this area. All school art departments should have at least one Mac. Sound recording studios also tend to use Macs, I believe.

David Richardson writes: I absolutely agree. In my subject area, namely Modern Foreign Languages, we have been using various forms of techology ever since I first entered teaching in the 1960s. The language lab was hailed as the panacea, but it failed to make much of an impact on learning outcomes - not because the technology was at fault; it simply was not implemented effectively. Going back even further, we can see examples of all kinds of promises having been made about the latest technology: radio, cinema, the tape recorder, video etc. The boom period in ICT began in the early 1980s with the advent of the microcomputer, which opened up an exciting new range of learning opportunities for students of languages. The computer was hailed by enthusiasts as the panacea, but in the meantime many language teachers have become disappointed with what ICT (more recently in the guise of the Web) can offer. Oppenheimer sums it up: "In 1922 Thomas Edison predicted that 'the motion picture is destined to revolutionize our educational system and [...] in a few years it will supplant largely, if not entirely, the use of textbooks.' Twenty-three years later, in 1945, William Levenson, the director of the Cleveland public schools' radio station, claimed that 'the time may come when a portable radio receiver will be as common in the classroom as is the blackboard.' Forty years after that the noted psychologist B.F. Skinner, referring to the first days of his 'teaching machines,' in the late 1950s and early 1960s, wrote, 'I was soon saying that, with the help of teaching machines and programmed instruction, students could learn twice as much in the same time and with the same effort as in a standard classroom.'" Oppenheimer T. (1997) "The Computer Delusion", The Atlantic Monthly 280, 1 (July 1997): 45-62: http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/97jul/computer.htm

Concrete evidence is difficult to obtain, although a report on a research study conducted by BECTA, ImpaCT2, has produced significant data: http://www.becta.org.uk/research/impact2 The ImpaCT2 study shows that schools using ICT in the classroom get better results than those that do not, and there is a significant correlation between the use of ICT and good GCSE exam results in some subject areas. But in other subject areas there is no significant difference. My local comprehensive school (Cox Green) introduced ICT into the teaching of Modern Foreign Languages in the 1990s. Each week students have one hour per week in the computer lab, working on material directly relating to what they have been taught in class. Following the introduction of regular ICT sessions their GCSE exam results improved by 5% each year over a period of three years - and then levelled off. You can read the Cox Green case study in Module 3.1 at the ICT4LT website: http://www.ict4lt.org

Nor do I I sometimes describe myself as a Language Technologist, i.e as a person who has made a career out of researching and teaching about ICT applications to natural language and second language acquisition: machine translation, computerised concordancing, computer assisted language learning, speech technology, etc. We have a module entitled Human Language Technologies at the ICT4LT website: Module 3.5 at http://www.ict4lt.org Human Language Technologies is the term used by the EC to replace the former term Language Engineering and embraces a wide and growing field of ICT applications to natural language. Regarding computers and the printed word, there is no such thing as the paperless office, and I probably waste vast amounts of paper directly as a result of possessing a computer. I always print out longer texts that I find on the Web. There is a reason for this. Web guru Jakob Nielsen writes: Be Succinct! Writing for the Web, Alertbox for March 15, 1997: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9703b.html It was interesting to read the story in The Times (29 November 2000, p. 9) headed "King leaves Internet Readers in Suspense". Stephen King decided not to complete his Internet novel The Plant because - according to King - "it failed to grab the attention of readers on the Web". King found that a surprisingly high proportion of the readers accessing his site (75%-80%) made the "honesty payment" for being allowed to download chapters: "But", he said, "there are a lot fewer of them coming. Online people have the attention span of a grasshopper." The article points out "that digital publishing has a bleak future because it is an unattractive medium for reading long texts and it is difficult to stop breach of copyright". See: http://www.stephenking.com

I took early retirement from a full-time university teaching post in 1993. What joy! It was a good deal: a nice lump sum that enabled me to pay off the mortgage and make a few investments, plus an inflation-proved pension. While my colleagues continue to battle for salary rises I simply wait for the notification of the annual pension increase to drop through my letter box. I had a few tears in my eyes when I finally vacated my room. Most of my accumulated paperwork ended up in the recycling bins. I left a few mementoes to colleagues: lovingly tended pot plants, a collection of (mainly hideous) ornaments donated by visiting teachers from overseas, and books that had gathered dust for years. What I miss least are the tedious departmental and faculty meetings. I could never concentrate on a meeting for more than a few minutes – even when I was chairing it myself – and I used to play games to pass the time: a good example of such a game can be found at http://www.perkigoth.com/home/kermit/stuff/bullxxxxbingo/ I do miss the students, but I still do a fair amount of external examining and I contribute to regular ICT training workshops for teachers. More importantly, my golf scores have improved and I am now a reasonable downhill skier.

Adrian writes: Yes, that's the nature of the Web. Everyone is an instant expert As an experienced editor of both printed and online materials, I find the whole idea appalling and fraught with problems.