Ask Olli is definitely a work in progress. Having just made a few big changes, it seems like a good time to look at what still needs work.

I uploaded some changes to the Ask Olli Search today that will really improve the quality of the results. It’s not even on Google’s scale, but you will now find the most relevant results at the top of any search.

The Economist yesterday opened the second in their series of education debates. The proposition this time around is about universities competing for students:

Governments and universities everywhere should compete to attract qualified students, regardless of nationality or residence.

Early voting is strongly in favour of the proposition by about 2 to 1.

The pro-side mostly argues that international students pay more than other students resulting in a financial windfall for the institution, and the mixing of cultures is beneficial to international and local students.

Second Life zapped my avatar today–totally fried it, and several times too! It was like something from a science fiction movie. I was wandering around different English study islands in Second Life when, all of a sudden, zap. An electric orange grid lit up and repelled my avatar, like force shields protecting Star Wars space craft from enemy fire, and displayed the message “No Entry” not once, but repeated hundreds of times across the screen.

But, magistrate, I was only curious, only looking around. I didn’t realise that I was entering a forbidden zone. Besides, there were signs inviting visitors to look around. I’m sorry…

The Second Life tutorials are done, so what next? I started by sending my avatar, Asa Mornington, out to explore rather aimlessly. I don’t recommend this; it got boring quickly. I found a lot of islands (Second Life is made of a bunch of little islands) that are still, I presume, under construction, because they don’t look all that complete. What I didn’t find while wandering aimlessly was a lot of people or
anything to do.

Normally I wouldn’t write about signing up for a service, but Second Life pulls one of my privacy pet peeves in their sign up procedure and they do a very crummy job of it. Well, if I’m going to write about the good, I’m going to write about the bad.

On the first registration page, they ask for your birth date and give a reason for requiring the birth date.

Please provide an accurate birthrate for your own protection. We ask your birthrate to verify your account if you ever forget your Second Life name or password.

The finishing touches are being put on the site. The last few little details are being looked after. Everything is finally coming together. Except for one thing: the Search parameters.

The problem with the parameters in the Search menu is that they aren’t all technically accurate. Have a look at the Course Format parameters in the screenshot. The first one, Webcam Lessons, is the one that I am having problems with and keep changing

CreativeU, in her “Pod People” Invade Middle School: iPods Get Kids Speaking English post makes a few interesting comments on a New York Times article about a middle-school that uses iPods in ESL classrooms.

I think the key to the program is getting the lyrics down for the students. Watching Spanish TV with Spanish subtitles and Japanese TV with Japanese subtitles helped me a lot when I was learning those languages. But without those extra clues provided by the subtitles, I got lost very easily. Once I got lost, I didn’t get anything out of watching TV.

There are a number of creative ways that you can use Simple English Wikipedia to study English. Lets get the obvious one out of the way now: read. Reading is good. Find an article that interests you and read it.

Okay, now for some more interesting ideas. As I mentioned in Part 1, anyone can write and edit Simple English Wikipedia. As a result there are grammatical errors in many of the articles. While this is not a good thing, it does present a great opportunity. When you read Simple English Wikipedia articles, try looking for any grammatical errors and fix them. This is a good exercise for yourself and it helps others who read the article later.

Its time for a beginning and beginnings are unique—there is only ever one of them. You can never undo a beginning—sure, I can go back and edit this post, but that’s cheating. And besides, a beginning is not about itself, but where it sends you. A good beginning propels you forward giving energy and direction, whatever the undertaking. And changing the beginning only hides the evidence—the opportunity for a good start having already been lost. No, beginnings are important not for their substance, but for how they pave the road ahead.