Bull Framework, Phrasal Verb Video Dictionary and Article Trees – Another Reply

On the heels of Patrick’s informative email, came another gold nugget…. I should not have been surprised when a return email came from Elizabeth Hanson-Smith (see: http://www.geocities.com/ehansonsmi) on my “Grammar Screencast” idea plea… Elizabeth has been a wonderful supporter of many of my off-beat ed-tech thoughts!

Elizabeth points me to this resource:
Phrasal Verb Video Dictionary  [Website]. (2005). R. Drury, Georgia Tech. http://web.li.gatech.edu/~rdrury/600/oral/video/dictionary.html
saying: “Drury has the students create the videos to express the mean of certain phrasal verbs. The dictionary keeps growing of course, and while it may be most appropriate for vocabulary, a lot of grammar is contextual.”

Elizabeth also suggested I look into “Bull Frameworks” which she explains are, “very useful in composition classes for teaching the use of tenses and tense sequencing. (It) teaches students to use an "axis of orientation" in order to select the correct tense. You can display the Framework, and then walk through a short essay or newspaper report showing how it operates using different colored "pencils" in MS Word. This article by Norris includes the Bull Framework as a table: http://www2.gol.com/users/norris/conditionals.html”

And just to add to my ‘required research list’ Elizabeth added some thoughts on branching decision trees:
“Similarly, you could use the branching decision tree for articles, displaying the tree and then walking students through their paper with it to correct their errors. Sorry--I couldn't seem to find an online version of the article tree, but will keep looking.”
I’m wondering if ‘branching decision trees’ have anything to do with Reed-Kellogg diagrams… (oh my head is starting to spin…I should stop thinking how weird it is that multimedia development becomes the conduit for so much content learning for me!)

Another idea from Elizabeth could easily be incorporated to show ‘authentic use’ of grammar rules.  Elizabeth suggested “you could use the screen cast to show how "real" writers think about and edit their own work--it's the "think aloud" procedure with visuals rather than just a tape-recorder running”.

Boy, it really helps to have well-connected contacts!!
Thanks Pat and Elizabeth!