Over the last week I have been working on some different projects in the lab which have forced me (or perhaps rather

The program for the ITAS network (Swedish national network for ICT in academic language education) for the fall is now more or less completed. We will meet on three different occasions in three different types of virtual environments with voice communication. Each gathering will have a certain theme and we’ve invited international experts to contribute with their views on the topics.

The first meeting will be in the graphical 3D environment Traveler, that some of the network members use for distance education. Peppi Taalas, CALL-expert from Finland, has agreed to join us there, which is great, since her research is closely related to the topic we’ll be discussing: “The learner community: Fostering a good climate for language learning at a distance”. As a preparation I’ve suggested that the network members should read some sections in an online book entitled “The Online Tutoring E-book”. It seems to cover a lot of aspects concerning the learner community and the role of the moderator/tutor/mentor.

The other two themes we’ll use are “International exchange projects and intercultural communication” and “The use of everyday technology in language education”. If you have any suggestions for relevant (preferably online) literature, please let me know!

My fiancé works as a traveling salesman. He has a very nice car and a very nice cell phone. That’s not a very good combination. Twice he’s been stopped by the police because he’s been driving too fast while talking on the phone. Once this resulted in the withdrawal of his driver’s licence. Working as a traveling salesman and having no driver’s licence is not a very good combination either. Of course, loosing your driver’s licence is a quite light punishment when considering what actually could happen if a moose, or a little child for that matter, would choose to jump up on the road in front of him. In addition, my fiancé sometimes has problems keeping his hands on the wheel while talking on the phone. When he gets excited about something he simply has to gesticulate while talking, no matter that the person he’s talking to cannot see him. Talking on the phone, speeding and not keeping your hands on the wheel is definitely not a good combination.

This is no doubt a question of presence. My fiancé sometimes gets so involved in conversations when speaking on the cell phone that he experiences some kind of break in presence from the situation in which he’s physically located at the moment. We probably all have similar experiences from talking on the phone on the bus or at the store. At least I do. Even if I try to keep quite when among strangers, I sometimes forget about this and start talking about personal issues, or start wandering back and forth in the store, in the exact same manner as I would in the living room of my apartment.

I would argue that trying to persuade people to use hands free when driving is a much too simple precaution. Even if drivers can keep their hands free, their hands will most likely not end up on the wheel (at least not if the driver is an emotional and involved converser that uses a lot of gesturing), and the biggest problem, that of whether the speaker is present in the car or in the distance conversation, will still pertain. However, it would be difficult to forbid people from using cell phones in cars, at least in Sweden, since Swedes (and others I bet) have become so used to this way of spending their time at the wheel. At least it would be close to impossible to forbid my fiancé’s use of his cell phone while driving. He spends so much time in his car and this is a great opportunity for him to use traveling time to get some work done and to catch up with old friends. The trick here would be to find a means for communication that demands less presence on behalf of participants (in this case drivers). The use of low presence technology might be an issue worth pursuing, since situations clearly do exist where this lack of presence in communication is a good thing.

Clarification: My fiancé’s also the very the best fiancé imaginable, if this little entry would lead you to believe otherwise. If it has not become apparent yet, one of the things that we (well, mainly I) argue the most about in our relationship is how (fast) to drive. When we went on a trip through Europe last summer we tried to solve this by signing a contract on how much we could speed on different roads, only to find that, of all people, I was the first to break our agreement .

Stephanie has now posted the paper that we wrote for BlogTalk. It will eventually be published in the conference proceedings, but for now you can check out this pdf version.

I’ve included our abstract (or rather our proposal) in the extended entry.
(Oh there is more…)

Steph and I will be giving reports from BlogTalk 2.0 and CATaC’04 at today’s HUMlab seminar, which begins at 15.10. Steph will do her part (BlogTalk) in English, whereas my part (CATaC) will be in Swedish. If you want to you can follow it at a distance through the stream, which can be accessed once the seminar starts.

I have spent some time reading parts of Jenny Preece

I just found out that the proposal I sent in for the Nordic Eurocall conference in Odense has been accepted. This means that I will present the theoretical background and some preliminary findings for the first part of my thesis in the middle of October. Looking forward to it, and hope to see some of you there!

In my coursework on language history I have now progressed from Old English to Middle English. I have read some Chaucer (the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales), and for today