Entry 19 IDT14156 Beatty 2010 Ch4 Eight CALL Apps

In reading Beatty's chapter 4, what surprised me most was the sensation of a distant past being described when in reality the book was written only 4 years ago! Needless to say this says a lot about the level technological advancement reached in such a short time. Some of the apps mentioned seem to be immutable and permanent e.g. Word without these adjectives necessarily adding a negative connotation. Games have also been always present and their development has been so constant that it is easy to remember the first consoles and how now the latest models keep changing by the hour. Their potential for language learning is huge while the key I believe is to understand how to harness all that power and be able to find a way to transfer it to real situations as argued by Jane McGonigal in her TED talk 'Gaming can make a better world'. I particularly like Beatty's statement on p61: 'The idea of game rests in the perception of the user, not the description of the developer, the pedagogical model or the label used by the teacher'. The implications are tremendous for educators as there is often a mismatch between our idea of 'fun' and the students' perception mentioned here so this begs the question: how can I conciliate my idea of 'fun' with that of my learners? Introduction of quiz-like games such as those one can create on Quizlet e.g. this Guided Discovery quiz I have used with trainees.

 

PDAs also seem to be part of the past with tablets now widely available offering countless options and mobile phones offering the same or very similar characteristics of a portable computer. I now have a Samsung GalaxyS5 and often use it in the same way I would use my laptop, especially when working offsite, and this was simply unimaginable even 4 years ago. Literature is now also widely available in digital format and the benefits of hypertext make it more accessible, attractive and understandable to all for the digital age turned it into non linear 'richer' adventures. This year for example my institution bought subscriptions to Oxford Bookworms Digital Library where one single license provides access to 100 books for a year. Now, how feasible and realistic it is that one student will read those 100 books is another matter as the licenses are single user ones. 10 years ago CDROMs were popular extra resources that came along with course books, now text augmentation is the norm and often teachers are seduced by bells and whistles of immediate entertainment offered in the guise of a coursebook. Along these lines, corpora, the availability and user friendliness of online concordancers open a sea of opportunity both in and outside the classroom. MOOs on the other hand, although not new as a concept to me, they are unexplored territory whose definition make me thing of Second Life and Virtual Worlds in general, but for which I have no feelings and as a teacher if I do not believe in it, it will be very difficult to sell it in the classroom.

References

Beatty, K. 2010. Teaching and Researching Computer-Assisted Language Learning (2nd edition). Pearson Education Limited.

Entry 18 IDT14156 Blake 2008 Ch3 CALL and Its Evaluation & Ch4 CMC

There are several central ideas which capture my attention throughout Blake's Chapter 3 Call and Its Evaluation. These are related to feedback and how important it is in relation to machine generated input in response to the students' interaction with the computer. The ultimate goal being that of offering 'feedback customised to each learner' p52 and how the efforts in iCALL and CALL seem to be directed towards this idealistic goal and lead to CMC as part of Kern and Warschauer's (2000) third phase, integrative CALL with this objective apparently having been met via the power of agency. Another idea is that of the computer seen as a tutor or as a tool in Tutorial CALL (Leyvy 1997 and Hubbard and Bradin Siskin 2004 in Blake 2008), which for me could easily be both as considered by Blake p55 as whether it is one or the other would be determined by the level of guidance needed by the user, the student, rather than by the program itself. In my opinion, this in turn would be in line with a more pedagogically driven view of CALL as the determining factor would be the student and not the technology thus turning it into a means to an end.

The next idea was 'Authoring Tools' and more specifically Hot Potatoes as I used the program for a short period of time about 6 years ago. Unfortunately, I must agree with Blake p58 in that it is rather restrictive to the set of formats available as well as burdensome because of download requirements. Nowadays, that is 14 years after it was developed at the University of Victoria there are lots of hassle-free web-based (no-download-required) applications which offer a lot more flexibility than Hot Potatoes e.g. Quizlet, Mobile Study, SMILE, Classmarker, and Quia to name just a few which offer the same if not more possibilities and are definitely 'hotter'. Interactivity as a key concern and goal of CALL also called my attention as it is closely related to ASR which for me it represents artificial interactivity as opposed to the authentic interactivity LMS/CMS such as Moodle offer now and which personally as a learner myself make me think of the drill-and-kill concept (p50) and guarantee immediate withdrawal rather than sustained interaction. I believe we are still away from the type of idealised iCALL hypothesised in the article and that a focus on feedback (recurring idea) is more beneficial for all involved as argued by Heift (2004 in op.cit.). 

As far as CALL evaluation is concerned I feel I am biased as being an educator and teacher educator I feel the format for CALICO Journal reviews shown (p66) based on Burston and Hubbard's views should put the Learner Fit first, not third, rather than put the Technical preview first because of the implications and also because all technology should be integrated not because of what it is but because of how it enhances the learners' experience and curriculum. I also agree with Chapelle's concern with the teacher as a professional making informed decisions, however, I think that if the teacher knows their students then the focus would still be on them rather than on the teacher thus making them agents of their change.

Blake soundly suggests that CMC (synchronous or asynchronous) 'potential benefits of collaborative exchanges' (p70) are dependent on the decisions made by the teacher and the tasks assigned than the place where these take place. I found the labels first and second generation ACMC tools interesting and how much space is given to Voice Boards which are now (6 years later) a common feature in Moodle via the Poodl allowing for voice messages in a forum and are so useful for giving feedback as mentioned in (p.73). In terms of SCMC, my personal experience of synchronous text-chat has been very positive both with teachers and students as it has raised the level of methodological pros and cons awareness in the former and the importance of communication in the latter, especially with the introduction of netiquette protocols (p76) and behaviour in line with Payne's (2004:159 in Blake op.cit.) benefits of written SCMC. I particularly like Swain's forced input (p84) as on reflection this has been reported by students and teachers when on SCMC IRC-style chats.

I particularly like Warschauer's concept of 'telecollaboration' as a much simpler term for 'intercultural CMC', but find it confusing when said to be applicable to 'any language course at a distance or not' especially when the prefix does imply 'distance'. I would argue that telecollaboration nowadays has gone a long was in the form of 'pen pals' projects around the world so it could be said that MIT's 90s Cultura project (p94) has yielded fruit. Along the same lines and from my own experience of online moderation, I could not agree more with O'Dowd (2006:139 in op.cit.) rejection of the concept of the NBLT teacher as a 'guide on the side' as feedback from participants to my online courses have alluded to the fact that they have been given 'space' and this helped them try things out before asking for help only the tutor could provide.  Finally, Blake's closing paragraphs remind us the recurrent idea in the literature that the mere existence of the tool will not bring about the benefits; successful CMC happens  thanks to careful planning and these are the result of a teacher's labor. In my own words, this simply means that the only formula that works is P+i(t)=Pt where pedagogy + input on technology equals pedagogy-driven technology.

References

Blake, Robert J.. Brave New Digital Classroom: Technology and Foreign Language Learning. Washington, DC, USA: Georgetown University Press, 2008. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 27 October 2014.

Entry 17 IDT14156 Bax's CALL - Past, present and future: a critique of Warschauer

Do you think Bax's criticisms of Warschauer are valid? If so, in what way(s) does his approach deepen our understanding of the history of CALL?

First of all, I found Warschauer's introduction paper to CALL less accessible than Bax's in terms of description and definition of terms. Also, I somehow managed to position and identify myself and my own practice at different times throughout his article. For instance, I strongly agree with Bax when he says that 'CALL will be normalised when computers are treated as always secondary to learning itself, when the needs of learners will be carefully analyses first of all, and then the computer used tom serve those needs' (p24) and this statement positively reassures and reflects my own practice as described in my reflections to the question posed by Cecilia on whether our teaching was driven by technology or pedagogy here and which briefly addressed a set of self determined criteria applied to potential technology in my lessons. In light of Bax's argument and my previous reflections then I would say that if I have not reached normalisation yet, then I am on the right track and this is comforting. Also, I fully agree that in my local (not own) context at least, technology is more often than not considered a magic wand rather than, as Bax (p26) suggests, for the role it can play in the classroom with principals and state school teachers asking for advice on the app which will make their students' English improve overnight. 

I would also agree with Karina that the inconsistencies in Warschauer described and supported by Bax are distracting but also contradictory. I particularly find Warschauer's implication that 'language in authentic social contexts is post communicative' (p19) confusing as providing authentic social contexts for communication is still clearly part and parcel of teaching and reflected in most course books and my own practice. I feel the same as Victoria in regards to the need for a new categorisation which I believe to be more accurate or at least clearer and more in line with my own understanding and practice of CLT in a fortunate private sector school context which offers me the possibility to experiment with, implement and be an active part in the 'normalisation' process of CALL. 

References

Bax, S. 2003. CALL - past, present and future [online], Article from Science Direct, Online at http://moodle.nottingham.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=1017647 [accessed: October 21, 2014]

Warschauer M. (1996) "Computer Assisted Language Learning: an Introduction". In Fotos S. (ed.) Multimedia language teaching, Tokyo: Logos International: 3-20 Online at http://moodle.nottingham.ac.uk/mod/url/view.php?id=1017646 [accessed: October 21, 2014]

Entry 16 IDT1415 Bennett et al. and Bayne and Ross' Critique of Prensky's Digital Personas

Although I clearly agree, as can be seen in my previous post, with the dissent from the idea of a simplistic binary: digital immigrant - digital native as it is called by Bayne and Ross (2011), I also believe that their critique is slightly over focused in the social implications of Prensky's metaphor. I fail to understand why professional development as prescribed by a technological advancement agenda has a harmful effect on teachers. Is not professional development an integral part of a teacher's DNA? Are we supposed then to teach all our lives without keeping abreast of advancement around us? Why is such professional growth then seen under such negative light? Professionals in the health sector continuously upgrade themselves as new viruses and medicines are discovered, studied and better understood for the good of the community. Why then expecting teachers to go along with technological advancement which can be put to the service of our students is to be avoided? I personally believe that more than a requirement set by the environment it is our obligation as teachers, as educators to be knowledgeable and prepared to address the needs of an ever changing world and students. I disagree with McWilliam's (2002 in Bayne and Ross 2011) deficit model and the idea that there is 'unlearning' to required in order to develop technological skills. My own past experience as a lecturer at university level tell me, on the contrary, that the unlearning needed is more related to how 'lecturing' often does not fully take into account students and therefore the deficit model applies not so much as to the lack of technological wisdom, but to the lack of a better understanding of how to reach out to those students who seem to continue to evolve while teachers remain immutable in front of them. I was once told by a colleague at the beginning of my teaching career almost 20 years ago, that all the preparation they required was to look at the page of the course book as opposed to all my cutting up paper, finding flashcards, asking colleagues to record role plays with me on tapes I bought out of my own pocket and the like. A great friend but still a colleague who had failed to move on with the times! 

I can fully identify with Clegg's (2003 in Bayne and Ross 2011): 'to embrace new media enthusiastically or to stand aside and watch its inevitable unfolding' as the choice educators have today. Also, it is safer to simply adopt a stance which is nuance-free and does not require 'binary oppositions' with negative connotations such as Fenwick's (2000 in op.cit.) educational colonising process and how digital immigrants are then put in a position of 'asylum seekers' with the related implications. Why cannot we simply be open minded, try and understand what and how these technological advancement can enhance our own professional lives rather than see it all as a potential threat? Or is it that for some such change simply translate into having to actually get out of their comfort zones and do some work?

Also, Bennett et al.'s (2008) suggested 'moral panic' seems to be a much more appealing stance for educators and more adequate term supported by the lack of empirical evidence available to support a case for a real state of affairs. Kvavik, Caruso and Morgan's study (2004 in Bennett et al. 2008) report a mere 21% of students creating their own content for the Web and a smaller percentage failing to match the expected skills of the so called 'natives'. Two more Australian studied also support the same trends while also showing a relation between differences amongst technology use based on 'socio-economic status, cultural/ethnic background, gender and discipline specialisation'. It is also reported how large-scale surveys have shown that although there is a lot of 'activity' between school-aged children this regards homework tasks and social communication which are not indicators of Prensky's 'Digital Wisdom' (2009), but rather a use more in line with Kvavik et al.'s (op.cit) wanting 'natives' skill level leading to believe that Howe and Strauss' (2000) 'Millenials' are more a questionable ideal than a wide spread reality.

References

Bayne, S. and Ross, J. 2011. 12. 'Digital Native' and 'Digital Immigrant' Discourses. A Critique. [Online], In: R. Land and S. Bayne (Eds.), Digital Difference: Perspectives on Online Learning. Sense Publishers. 159-169, Online at http://moodle.nottingham.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=1017632 [accessed: October 13, 2014].

Bennett, S., Maton, K., and Kervin, L. 2008, The 'digital natives' debate: A critical review of evidence. British Journal of Educational Technology. Vol 39 No. 775-786.

Prensky, M. 2009. H. Sapiens Digital: From Digital Immigrants and Digital Natives to Digital Wisdom. Innovate. Online at http://moodle.nottingham.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=1017631 [accessed: October 13, 2014]