One person is fluent in English and the other, in Portuguese. Both settle on weekly meetings to talk, exchange information, and speak both languages alternately. This interaction and mutual interest in learning the other person’s language encourage students the acquisition of a foreign language through a reciprocal language learning method called “in-tandem”.

The group, coordinated by Professor Joao Telles Alves from UNESP (State University of Sao Paulo), campus of Assis and Sao Jose do Rio Preto, has incorporated the system into a distance learning technology, expanding the reach and possibilities for students to learn new languages.

Started in 2007 and scheduled for closure in April this year, the Thematic Project “Teletandem: foreign languages for all” supported by FAPESP, brings together postgraduate students from campus of Assis and Sao Jose do Rio Preto.

The experiment involves UNESP students and foreigners, who are interested in learning Portuguese. For this, UNESP has hired other Portuguese Departments from overseas universities.

Institutions from Germany, Argentina, Canada, United Stated, France, Italy, Mexico, Uruguay and Sweden are participating in the project. "A major problem we have found is that several Portuguese Departments abroad focus on literature but are not interested in learning the language", explains Telles.

UNESP students had formed pairs with students from foreign universities who were interested in learning Portuguese. Each pair had committed itself to collaborate in at least eight virtual meetings of two hours each – one hour for each language.

The students collaborated through a Skype interactive software called TAW for Skype, which was developed in Brazil by the company TalkAndWrite, from Santa Catarina.

Skype provides the communication channel for audio and video, while the application TAW for Skype offers a virtual collaborative framework, in which both participants can write, draw and edit simultaneously.

Teacher presence

At Teletandem the teacher follows the entire process, mediating the learning through periodic meetings with the pairs. It can be virtual or live meetings.

According to Telles, the teacher presence is necessary because students often use only 30% to 40% of the learning resources. "Moreover, it is the teacher who helps the students on the language explanations and suggests strategies in order to accelerate the learning process", says.

Advice is the right word. Unlike traditional methods, in Teletandem the teacher does not determine the route of learning, but makes suggestions and the students decide what to do.

Some sessions can be recorded and these resources help teachers to find out students’ problems and difficulties. “The teacher acts as a mediator, in line with a constructivist and Vygotskian view of development. The student is the center of the learning process”, explains Telles, stressing the difference between the in-tandem context and traditional education given in the classroom.

Since it is focused on the student’s performance, the program is based on participants’ autonomy and reciprocity. "This is one of the reasons this method doesn’t work as a compulsory subject at graduation level", he noted.

Another difference is that the tandem curriculum emerges from pairs’ relationship and interaction, and only afterwards brought to the teacher. In traditional education, the program follows the opposite direction: it is predetermined by the teacher and later applied in the classroom.

Cultural shocks

For the learning to be successful, the program applicants must go through previous orientation sessions. “At this point, teachers instruct students in cultural shocks to be avoided”, tells the UNESP teacher.

On the other hand, when friendships are built, the results are often surprising. Several students have become fluent in the language after two years of program. Telles highlights the social aspect of the project. "Teletandem allows students to learn a language and meet people from other countries with few resources", he said.

According to Telles, tandem learning method can be applicable even to regular schools, as long as the institution provides appropriated expertise as well as minimal infrastructure. At UNESP, laboratories are opened from 9am to 9pm, and computers are equipped with appropriate softwares.

The project was so successful that UNESP will keep the development of the interactive software through a partnership with the company TalkAndWrite. The intention is to make the program also work as a communication tool among participants.

Telles has been visiting several countries in order to present the research results and also disseminate the project experiences and results. "Teletandem is a means of access for foreign languages and democratization through communication technologies. It helps those who cannot afford to travel to study a language, to make foreign friends and to have enriching cultural experiences", he said.

Teletandem: http://www.teletandembrasil.org

Aujourd'hui je t'ai apporté un outil fantastique pour Skype, un attaché du film avec lequel tu pourras interagir et travailler dans des projets dessinés et écrits, avec jusqu'à 10 contacts en même temps.

TalkAndWrite est un plugin pour Skype qui te permet de travailler á côté de tes contacts dans un document commun de manière simultanée. Tu pourras dessiner, ajouter des textes, gommer, marquer et écrire dans un document tandis que tu parles dans un appel de Skype.

Pour que les participants de la conversation puissent interagir avec le document virtuel, le plugin TalkAndWrite devra avoir tous et chacun d'eux comme instalés pour Skype.

Il y a 2 versions disponibles de cette application, la version Basique qui est gratuite et il te laissera communiquer avec une limite de jusqu'à 2 participants, et un temps maximal de 10 minutes. En revanche la version PRO avec un coût de 12,50 € par mois, tu pourras communiquer avec jusqu'à 10 participants et sans limite d'aucun temps.

Source: http://gonlinemessengerf.blogspot.com

TalkAndWrite is pleased to announce this brand new version 5.1.0.206.

The main updates are:

• New interface – new design
• Themes option – you can choose the interface theme of your preference
• Speedy file transferring
• Full screen – hide participants and chat box to have a full screen
• Much more efficiency on your on-line meetings

To download new TalkAndWrite click here

As it is a version with mayor amends, in order to have interactive meetings, please make sure all participants have the same version installed.

Regards,


TalkAndWrite Team

Many freelancers depend on Skype for VoIP communication. Never has it been so simple to talk to anyone from any continent with one simple piece of software – and it’s free. Add to that SkypeIn calls for land lines, a nice interface and very good uptime, this little application is basically a godsend. It’s popularity makes it a standard – a standard freelancers can use to their advantage. Collaborating or doing business with different parts of the world is far easier when you can speak to people in realtime, without worrying about the phone bill.

As any application that has become a business standard, Skype too has a plethora of developers making great add-on applications to enhance it’s feature set. From audio recording to user-friendly voicemail, here are a few nice features you can add to the basic Skype setup…

What do You Think?

Recently quite a few new services have been released to help us collaborate remotely on documents. If you use Skype regularly, TalkAndWrite is the best of these services – it lets you work with your partners on a whiteboard-style app that integrates with Skype. You can draw, erase, scribble, type or just highlight while talking.

On the Record…

For podcasts or references, recording your calls can prove useful. Although Skype doesn’t feature recording as a default feature, there are some add-ons that will. For Windows, there is the Prettymay Voice Plugin. It costs around US$25, and can record all incoming and outgoing calls as well as save them as an mp3 or wav file. You can also play the records in other Skype conversations.

Pamela Call Recorder lets you record Skype calls for free as long as the recording is under 15 minutes per long call. The Professional and Business versions offer unlimited recording time, and cost US$24 and US$36 respectively. This plugin also lets you take notes during a call and features optional automatic call recording.

If you’re using a Mac, Ecamm has an application called Call Recorder that lets you record calls and video, and save the files as H264 and AAC (having the option to convert them to MP3 format later on).

Hold All My Calls.

Sometimes you just can’t be bothered to talk to people over Skype. On the other hand, you don’t want to leave Skype offline and miss an important call. The best answer is to setup voicemail. Skype can become your personal answering machine. Prettymay Voice Plugin and Call Recorder have this function. The more advanced versions of Pamela enhance the Skype standard voicemail so you can setup separate greetings and messages for different users. If you use Skype for both business and personal calls, this can prove truly useful.

Hello, John on the Line…

Freelancers aren’t loners. Whether outsourcing or collaborating we often work with other people. Sometimes for shorter or longer periods of time we can function as a real or at least virtual company. If your virtual team collaborates via Skype, it can be very difficult and time comsuming for one representative to talk to a client and report back to the team. PrettyMay offers a great application called Call Center which functions as any real call center. Incoming calls are limited to 30, but that is more than enough in this case. You call record calls, transfer them between agents and it even supports interactive voice response (IVR). IVR enables automatic routing of incoming call tasks. Press 1 for sales please. The Call Center does have a higher price though, US$15-50 per month or US$150-500 for a one time license. It is only available for Windows. Looking Sharp! Mac users may not have a lot of choices when it comes to Skype add-on applications and plugins, but Ecamm has developed a great application called iGlasses. It lets you adjust your webcam’s (iSight’s) video setting – the colors, brightness, even zoom. If you’re in the dark (for whatever reason – wink wink, nudge nudge), just use built in night vision. Maybe you want to put your iSight on the side of the monitor or mount it upside down? iGlasses can fix all that, letting you choose the rotation of your picture – how ever crazy it may be. You can use 3rd-party webcams as well as Apple’s very own iSight with this software, which makes iGlasses a bargain at under US$10.

These are just a few of the add-ons I’ve found useful when using Skype for business and pleasure. There are a lot more out there too, and if you use them well they can save you time and keep you looking professional.

Unlike the rest of the team, Ivan Brezak Brkan still has to balance his freelance interface design and new media writing/copywriting career with a busy university life. New media and blogs are his outlets of choice – and “new” marketing his passion.

Source: http://www.stumbleupon.com

TalkAndWrite reaches 3 million downloads for its application

The Brazilian company TalkAndWrite reached the mark of 3 million downloads during October. The application, which is now only 3 years old, is used worldwide for interactive meetings based on document sharing. Nowadays, TalkAndWrite is the only Brazilian company, together with another 14 companies across the globe which have been certified by Skype.

In order to celebrate this milestone, TalkAndWrite is re-releasing its website with new products and services. The biggest novelty is TAW Soft, a real time interactive software. “TAW Soft allows collaborative meetings on top of documents through a private chat, video, and audio channel, interactive whiteboard and file transferring, ensuring a lot more safety and agility to users”, says Bruna Rezende, TalkAndWrite co-founder.

She explains that TAW Soft allows several participants to transfer files, talk to each other, use a webcam, exchange instant messages and even write, draw, and highlight texts on top of the same document, while all users see these effects in real time.

An additional launch product from TalkAndWrite is TAW On-Demand, which is a development service that allows companies to choose new features and tools in order to better suit their specific needs. “TAW On-Demand is based on a communication system that involves VoIP, video, text chat and files collaboration; this service provides integrations to other systems, customizations or even inclusion of new functions”, clarifies Bruna.

TAW for Skype, the program which has reached the 3 million download mark, simulates the interaction of up to 10 participants working together on top of the same file, while talking via the text, and utilising video and voice channels. The application is available in 27 languages and it is most used in European and Asian countries.

In addition, the new website allows customers to login and access their purchase history, visualize active and inactive licenses, as well as utilize an on-line communication channel in order to communicate directly with a TalkAndWrite representative.

TalkAndWrite is pleased to announce its new website, totally redesigned to provide a better user experience. Feel free to share your opinion with us by using the contact form aside.
TalkAndWrite

Talk and Write is an online whiteboard that works as a Skype plugin. You can download it from the featured extras in the Skype extras manager. Once installed you can invite participants to join you in sharing the whiteboard.

It really is a great facility for all online teachers, presenters or for online meetings. I downloaded the free version first and decided definitely to go for the full version. As a teacher it’s perfect and easy to use.

Concerning the education of children, Talk and Write is a great means for children to develop their skills in the coordination of hand movements while learning to write and draw on-screen with a tablet pen, (with the help of an adult, of course). As children refine their motor skills, they are able to communicate by expressing themselves in writing, starting off with scribbling and moving on to writing and printing. Parents seperated from their children for whatever reason have no excuse for not helping with the homework. It couldn’t be easier! T&W has lined paper for helping to keep the handwriting straight.

I read on a blog a while ago about a Dad whose little toddler was looking for the mouse for the TV!! For the new generation this is the way forward.

I’ve opened all kinds of documents with ease and for me the best feature is the ‘printer’ – I don’t know if it’s meant to do this but you can print any page anywhere (from the web, from your desktop!) (exactly like screen capture) to the printer, it spools and opens in TAW and then you can save it as a jpg or png. Also anything you do/create/edit while online in TAW, like correcting homework, brainstorming etc. can be saved. So if you are working on a document, say in Microsoft Word, and you want to invite some collaborators to help, check, review or edit the document you can print, before going any further, to the TAW printer, it opens in TAW and you skype your colleagues to join in. And it’s Skype certified.

Here is a screen shot of the toolbar and a sample ‘Join the Dots’ quiz for children which can be completed on TAW. The possiblilities are endless.

Source: http://iteacher.limewebs.com/reviews-2/talk-write-for-skype/

We were introduced to Skype about a week ago and since then I’ve seen various weblogs on it. Working with another school about 20 minutes away from ours we’ve been using the add on Talk and Write with Skype to help mentor young writers.

WOW! What a powerful tool! My class are 11-12 year olds and our buddy skype class has 8 year olds. My colleague Simon got his students to write their stories on the Interwrite pad and saved them. He then sent the file through Talk and Write to us so that my student mentor for the day could read through the story. At a prearranged time, we called each other and got Talk and Write up and running as well. As the two students talked via Skype they were also able to work on the writing collaboratively, adding words, deleting words, adding new sentences etc as they went.

I’d have to say you definitely need to teach your students how to “mentor write”. They need to encourage and support the younger writer, gently teasing out new ideas. One of the strategies I taught my mentors was to offer their writer a selection of words to choose from. We will definitely continue this process and can see the difference to the writing immediately. It will be interesting to see the difference to the independent writing of the 8 year olds after several mentoring sessions. I’ll keep you posted on that one!

Source: http://teachingsagittarian.com