Target Audience: Secondary, tertiary.

Language Proficiency: Intermediate to advanced.

Learning Focus: Reading, writing, web search skills

Technology Needed: Web browser software and access to a bulletin board or web-based conferencing site.

Instructions:

Overview: Business language trainers are using web-based conferencing tools to encourage communication among learners, and businesses themselves are using "bulletin board-style" programs to get closer to the hearts and minds of their customers.

Task: In an International Business Research class or another course involving learner research projects, each person in a research project team can post a particularly helpful URL and a brief description of the kind of information he/she found at the site. This creates an automatic link to the site, which is then accessible to all learners in the course. The entire list of links then serves as a useful annotated bibliography for all students in the course.

Expanded Options:

• Each person on the research project team posts sites that are controversial (or misleading, or poorly constructed, or another focus of choice), rather than "helpful."
  
  
• Instead of, or in addition to the helpful URL, individuals post information about themselves. Depending on the capabilities of the conferencing system, this might include a resume, personal narrative, one or more photos or images, and/or a sound recording.
  
  
• In lieu of a URL, individuals or teams post a business-related "mystery" image (an unfamiliar but eye-pleasing logo, picture of an unusual product, marketing icon, etc.). Through online discussion, others in the group try to guess the answer. Answers are eventually provided in the form of an URL.
  
  
• Individuals later summarize the contents of a given discussion "thread" (topic) and submit it in a memo, report or email journal entry.

More Resources Related to this Topic:

APA and MLA have informational sites on their respective styles. Purdue University also provides examples through OWL, APA and OWL, MLA. In addition, sites such as the following offer other kinds of bibliographic tools and resources. Note: As with spellcheckers and other online tools, bibliography help tools are not a replacement for knowing up-to-date standards for APA, MLA, and other bibliography formats. However, they can get you started in the right direction.

BibMe.
http://www.bibme.org/
Helps with formatting and provides space for saving bibliographies.

EasyBib.
http://www.easybib.com/
One of many free online bibliography creation tools.

Kay Westerfield, Global Communication Consulting,kwesterf@uoregon.edu