Language teachers and learners need to be ready to use online video in a pedagogically-sound way for developing comprehensible input and output in our language classes.
Following the Web 2.0 philosophy here is the Powerpoint of my Paper presentation at this conference so everybody (delegates and virtual participants) can view it and leave some comments.
Saturday, 8 September 2007
Impressions, aspirations and thoughts from the panel discussion
As you will all be watching the panel discussion either in real time or later on as an archive, I thought I will post more ad hoc impressions rather than document what is being said. Do join in at some point or another.
Bernd's point about a new era is definitely true. The somewhat random surfing for information is a fad from the past, technology enhanced learning is more about joint knowledge construction and use of the various media for a purpose.
I definitely agree with Gràinne in that our big challenge at the moment is two-fold: to do methodological explorations to find, develop and come up with new/combined methodologies that will be better suited for our research in our current complex settings. We also need to do serious development in the approach to designs for learning so that they would be manageable but at the same time incorporate a variety of multimodal learning affordances.
Uschi said the word that is the key in all learning: learning has to be meaningful for the learners.
This was a VERY good panel discussion! I am leaving so much of the essence out that you'll simply have to watch the recording if you haven't already done so!
Bernd's point about a new era is definitely true. The somewhat random surfing for information is a fad from the past, technology enhanced learning is more about joint knowledge construction and use of the various media for a purpose.
I definitely agree with Gràinne in that our big challenge at the moment is two-fold: to do methodological explorations to find, develop and come up with new/combined methodologies that will be better suited for our research in our current complex settings. We also need to do serious development in the approach to designs for learning so that they would be manageable but at the same time incorporate a variety of multimodal learning affordances.
Uschi said the word that is the key in all learning: learning has to be meaningful for the learners.
This was a VERY good panel discussion! I am leaving so much of the essence out that you'll simply have to watch the recording if you haven't already done so!
Uschi Felix's plenary
This is an important post! It records Uschi Felix's announcement that she is retiring after this presentation and has chosen to make her last appearance at EuroCALL. She does not believe in speaking if you have nothing left to say!
So, the streamed/archive of this presentation is something you really need to see.
Peppi is going to add another comment about the presentation, but I wanted to say a big thank you to Uschi for raising the profile of the use of technology in learning and for being a good friend.
Thank you Uschi.
Now to listen to the presentation and to anticipate the koalas...
So, the streamed/archive of this presentation is something you really need to see.
Peppi is going to add another comment about the presentation, but I wanted to say a big thank you to Uschi for raising the profile of the use of technology in learning and for being a good friend.
Thank you Uschi.
Now to listen to the presentation and to anticipate the koalas...
Friday, 7 September 2007
The Wednesday Gala Dinner
The magnificent sunset
The treat
We had a great night in perfect surroundings, didn't we!
I would have liked to upload a few pictures of the magnificent Altnaveigh House Band and the lady dancer, but usually it is a copyright issue with performing artists, and I don't want to violate their copyright. :-)
But they were amazing!
Speed Bumps for Authentic Listening Materials
Marty Meinardi, from the Dublin Institute of Technology, talked about a very important issue, namely the [English] language learners' difficulties in finding a match between the sound they hear and the words they know. When native speakers of English speak very fast, the speech becomes messy, and this makes understanding difficult for the learners Special attention should be paid to this in teaching.
Marty quoted Swan, who has written that "if students are exposed only to scripted material, they will learn an impoverished version of the language, and will find it hard to come to terms with genuine discourse when they are exposed to it". Listening exercises are often read aloud from text by actors and are not authentic. So there is a great demand for "real" language to be used in listening exercises.
There have been programs that can slow down sound files, but they have been created for music purposes and mostly don't give good results with speech. A new algorithm has been developed at the DIT for slowing down speech. It looks at the sound pattern and can slow down speech down to 40 % of the original time without the speech sounding too odd (although it sounds a bit sleepy). But at 80 %, even the native speakers consider the quality very good and natural.
According to Marty, the slow-down tool can be used to facilitate the processing and retrieving formulaic sequences and chunks which the native speakers usually speak at a faster rate. This way these highly important elements of fluent speech become more accessible and "learnable" to the students.
Marty quoted Swan, who has written that "if students are exposed only to scripted material, they will learn an impoverished version of the language, and will find it hard to come to terms with genuine discourse when they are exposed to it". Listening exercises are often read aloud from text by actors and are not authentic. So there is a great demand for "real" language to be used in listening exercises.
There have been programs that can slow down sound files, but they have been created for music purposes and mostly don't give good results with speech. A new algorithm has been developed at the DIT for slowing down speech. It looks at the sound pattern and can slow down speech down to 40 % of the original time without the speech sounding too odd (although it sounds a bit sleepy). But at 80 %, even the native speakers consider the quality very good and natural.
According to Marty, the slow-down tool can be used to facilitate the processing and retrieving formulaic sequences and chunks which the native speakers usually speak at a faster rate. This way these highly important elements of fluent speech become more accessible and "learnable" to the students.
Archived plenary sessions now available...
You can now view the archived plenary presentations by Bernd Rueschoff and Gráinne Conole at http://www.eurocall2007.com/conference_format/virtual-strand/archives.html
One Laptop Per Child Project
One Laptop Per Child
Presenter: Todd Kelsey
One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) is a non-profit organisation aiming to help children in the developing (and developed) world gain access to educational materials and to explore, experiment and express themselves. A significant need for a wide range of (free) language learning materials in a variety of languages has been identified.
Todd showed us a prototype of the small, colourful, XO child-friendly laptop which is being developed as part of this project and which it is hoped can be made freely available under the OLPC initiative.
Todd pointed out that the equipment and materials designed for use by children could also be used by adults in developing countries.
Todd is currently looking for partners willing to be involved in this initiative, especially donating content materials to be made available under a Creative Commons Licence.
Further information at:
http://www.laptop.org
http://wiki.laptop.org
Presenter: Todd Kelsey
One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) is a non-profit organisation aiming to help children in the developing (and developed) world gain access to educational materials and to explore, experiment and express themselves. A significant need for a wide range of (free) language learning materials in a variety of languages has been identified.
Todd showed us a prototype of the small, colourful, XO child-friendly laptop which is being developed as part of this project and which it is hoped can be made freely available under the OLPC initiative.
Todd pointed out that the equipment and materials designed for use by children could also be used by adults in developing countries.
Todd is currently looking for partners willing to be involved in this initiative, especially donating content materials to be made available under a Creative Commons Licence.
Further information at:
http://www.laptop.org
http://wiki.laptop.org
LANCELOT: An online teacher training course
This was a symposium session, led by Gary Motteram, University of Manchester, UK, focusing on the EC-funded LANCELOT language teacher online training project. The aim of the project is to develop an online course for training language teachers to use the tools found in virtual classrooms. The course combines both synchronous and asynchronous elements.
The session opened with a demonstration of a synchronous session with a number of members of the project in various geographical locations joining us live.
The software used for conferencing is Macromedia Breeze – now Adobe Connect.
Intercultural Competence (IC) and Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC) are important features of this project, with trainees being helped to take potential differences into account when planning and delivering their online lessons.
Heike Philp joined us online from Germany, talking about the technological tools used in virtual classrooms: Web conferencing, instant messaging, audio conferencing, whiteboarding, screen sharing and Web touring, etc and how these tools are used.
We were then joined online by Daniela Arghir, who talked about her positive experiences following the LANCELOT course as a trainee. She is a teacher of EFL and Romanian.
This is the project website, where more information can be found and from which the materials will be launched:
http://www.lancelot.at/
The session opened with a demonstration of a synchronous session with a number of members of the project in various geographical locations joining us live.
The software used for conferencing is Macromedia Breeze – now Adobe Connect.
Intercultural Competence (IC) and Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC) are important features of this project, with trainees being helped to take potential differences into account when planning and delivering their online lessons.
Heike Philp joined us online from Germany, talking about the technological tools used in virtual classrooms: Web conferencing, instant messaging, audio conferencing, whiteboarding, screen sharing and Web touring, etc and how these tools are used.
We were then joined online by Daniela Arghir, who talked about her positive experiences following the LANCELOT course as a trainee. She is a teacher of EFL and Romanian.
This is the project website, where more information can be found and from which the materials will be launched:
http://www.lancelot.at/
From tags to riches: Improving Webquests with Web 2.0
The Make Your World webside was created to help students learning English through a socio-constructive task-based approach. This inspiring presentation described a study of how students can make use of Web 2.0 technology in Webquests. There are some useful resources under the link Technology: http://turizm.comu.edu.tr/staff/bart/projects/travel
Podcasts 3, 4, and 5
Here are podcasts 3, 4 and 5. Hope you find them interesting and they help bring the conference closer. Your feedback is welcome!
http://www.eurocall2007.com/virtual/archive/vs03.mp3
http://www.eurocall2007.com/virtual/archive/vs04.mp3
http://www.eurocall2007.com/virtual/archive/vs05.mp3
http://www.eurocall2007.com/virtual/archive/vs03.mp3
http://www.eurocall2007.com/virtual/archive/vs04.mp3
http://www.eurocall2007.com/virtual/archive/vs05.mp3
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