Students engagement nicenet

Dear Donna and all

Overall:
I consider this week articles and resources very useful as they are making clear ways, instructions and methods of activating students learning while lecturing or presenting...

But: 
Communicative Approach of Teaching is well known and recognized worldwide now. And it's the same efficient both in small and large classes. 
Sure it could be CALL integrated if you and your students can afford it...

Furthermore, I'm sorry, but I consider practicing emails as a communication tool with may be more then 10 students or less - very tyring,inefficient and a bit outdated(http://tep.uoregon.edu/technology/engagement/inclassdisc.html).
The idea (Rick Rice and others) of using free forums (I could also recommend Lefora.com) or online chats (like f.e. Chatango.com) embedded into your wiki-site fit best for any group discussions. Size of class doesn't matter here.

As for web-based quizzes or Blackboard's (not available in ourlands so far),they still look more affordable and better to use with any number of students then proposed PPT-driven in-class games. Why? It's fun and may be amusing for 3-5 students. But if you have 40,70 or 100 and more?? Dividing'em in groups? 
In my experience, I would prefer web based quizzes after the class or module - with immediate automated evaluation. F.e. for my last 2 ESP courses (70 BE and IT students total), I prepared all tests and quizzes with Quia.com and assigned with deadlines. Some simple embeddable tests, polls and quizzes you can make even with googledocs! But in-class (F2F) tests or exams are still compulsory as add-ons to that.

The last point:
I'm obssessed and very optimistic with using podcasts, vidcasts, webinars and on-line stream TV conferencing with any gadgets you and your students may have. Better than web-reading for teaching anyway!
But, believe me, nothing goes without your basic course intranet website(better wikisite, not a blog!), where you can embed or link up everything and everybody, meet(forums, chats, comments),share and communicate, teach and learn individually and to all...

Kind,
Irina