Wikis - the tyranny of the blank page

One thing oft repeated in the LCLC is that the instructor needs to initiate the structure, format, and content of a wiki. It is important for us to get the ball rolling. Without directly teaching students how to use the technology, modeling the kind of content we hope to see, helping them to better understand and exploit the advantages of the medium, or helping them to structure the wiki in an intuitive way - we can expect a lot of blank pages or artificial display content. These blank pages wouldn't be so different from the kinds of blank stares we would get from students if our only instruction to them in listening/speaking were "OK, talk". The media we choose should be ideally suited to the activity itself, and this marriage of activity and medium is one that needs to be evident to the students. The structure we are able to provide makes their production possible. Jazz allows for improvisation around the chords of a pre-existent melody. Most tunes start and end with this melody itself. For real collaboration in which the sum is greater than the parts, we need to hand out the sheet music and run through the changes. The rest should be up to them. For examples of formats that are well suited for wikis in language classrooms, please see our wiki page at http://wikilanguagelogic.wikispaces.com/

Project Proposal

For my project I would like to use either a Wiki builder or perhaps just Google Docs to facilitate a collaborative writing project. This would be designed to familiarize advanced level students with a writing genre (probably news articles). After reading examples of this genre students would work together to build an outline and divide up responsibility for writing the various segments amongst themselves. They would then be assigned one of their peer's a sections to provide editing feedback using a protocol established in class. I would also consider doing a genre of fiction asking them to do an exquisite corpse story. The ease with which students can collaborate, the ability to track changes and comments, and the ease with which students can edit one another's work would make this CALL tool preferable to paper and pencil alternatives. The task would be designed to encourage process writing, help students learn the conventions of the genre including lexical items and collocations, and to practice editing conventions that bring their attention to target forms.

Blog # 6-Jeffrey and Jessina's Google Reader in the classroom

Blog # 6-Jeffrey and Jessina's Google Reader in the classroom

RSS Readers for Extensive Listening-Google Reader

Google reader is a tool that can be used to post anything and share with anyone. So a teacher can post a reading, podcast, audio, photo, really any media, and then share with the students in the class. The students can access this from any computer, anywhere and then can also write comments and share the comments with the teacher and the classmates, what ever the teacher prefers.

You can subscribe to a number of RSS feeders online. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, it is basically a live feed of any new information. Here is a picture of what the RSS icon looks like;



You can also use the "bookmarklet" tool to book mark any internet page that doesn't have an RSS option, and you can include a note with what has been book marked.

The benefit of using Google reader in the classroom is the realia of the media used, interaction between the students, practice writing, discussion in the classroom, convenience, etc. One of the drawbacks might be whether or not students have access to a computer, but assuming that they do this is a great tool.

Below is the podcast of a dialogue between two teachers. One has experience using the Google Reader tool and is explaining the benefits and showing how to use this online tool to the other teacher.

Now that you've listened to the podcast, here are a couple of bookmarklets to get you started-> just drag them to the toolbar of your browser and you are good to go!

This one allows you to subscribe to feeds on a given page.

Subscribe...

This one allows you to share any page on the web with a note.

Note in Reader

Google's introduction to Google Reader can be found at http://www.google.com/support/reader/bin/answer.py?answer=113517

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Reading with CALL

In comparison to the number of English Language Learner resources available, there is a dearth of resources dedicated to Less Commonly Taught languages like Hindi. In an attempt to make up for the disparity of resources dedicated to Hindi, the US has started what it calls a "flagship" program at the University of Texas at Austin. Part of this effort has been dedicated to providing online student resources that employ techniques based upon recent pedagogical thought that are designed to enhance learning. One of these resources was created by Jishnu Shankar and can be found by clicking here.

Professor Shankar has created a series of slideshow presentations that use realia and enhanced text to teach vocabulary and grammar in context. He provides pre-reading questions, glossaries, comprehension questions, practice exercises, and enhanced text that helps bring learner attention to particular grammatical forms. The site features authentic texts like political cartoons, health posters, advertisements, and magazine articles. It offers materials for a variety of reading levels covering a good variety of topics. The choice to produce the materials in a PowerPoint format allows students or instructors to download particular items for future use.

Using this as a model, one could create slideshows that include audio and video portions. These could be provided within the document or by making hyperlinks to materials on the web. This kind of nonlinear PowerPoint allows learners to seek support when they feel they need it. This kind of interaction with the material should help reinforce the language addressed.

My Experience with CALL

I have used some form of computer for as long as I can remember. In 1981 my dad brought home an Apple II+, and since then I have lived as a digital native. I have always had some form of computer at my disposal (with one significant exception that I will go into later). In terms of my own relationship to technology, I quite often find myself feeling ambivalent. It is likely that this ambivalence will influence my understanding of CALL and its usefulness in a language classroom. The ambivalence stems from a recognition that the digital route is not always the one that is best suited to particular tasks, but that gauging whether it is more effective than conventional routes is not necessarily an easy task either. The question I am faced with is how to determine when the usually front loaded effort of setting up digital media will result in greater dividends in the long run. This in terms of teacher speak would be phrased as when does taking the CALL route result in better learning outcomes.

I work at the Language and Culture Learning Center and have helped develop how-to documents for instructors to use CALL techniques in their classrooms. As teacher, I have yet to use most these techniques in my own classroom. I recognize that using these methods often entails not only providing an example of the kinds of work I would like to see my students produce but also teaching the technology required to produce it. In many cases I can see how this will pay dividends in the long-term, but I feel that in other cases it is less clear.

Does anyone else struggle with this kind of ambivalence? Has anyone established some kind of litmus test to determine whether using CALL techniques will be more likely to result in better learning incomes than more conventional approaches?