Symposium: Language, Literacy & Technology
Auckland, New Zealand, 18-19 May 2007
This 2-day CALL symposium, entitled Language, Literacy & Technology, was organised by Unitec in Auckland, New Zealand, and brought together a wide range of language educators currently making use of, or interested in making use of, technology in their teaching. An associated wiki, CALLsympNZ, provided a contact point for an initial exchange of information and views prior to the conference, with more content added in the period since the event itself.
The keynote speakers included:
- Mike Levy, who spoke about the importance of not just seeing the technology wave but perceiving the underlying current. He suggested that, amid all the hype, we should be selective and focused in our choice of technologies, ensuring that they are always aligned with our learning goals.
- Terry Locke, who focused on a now more traditional but very robust technology, the asynchronous discussion board, examining it as a particular kind of rhetorical space which may contain hidden biases in terms of the way students are positioned and limits set on the construction of their online identities. He suggested that asynchronous online discussion may be more favourable to a constructivist approach than face-to-face discussion, but warned of cultural issues in norms of interaction and politeness. He also stressed the need for educators to “redesign in real time” in response to the needs of students.
- Cynthia White, who argued that participating in new online literacy practices means taking on new roles and that students need to learn to negotiate new identities in this context. She suggested that there are more cultural aspects to the social constructivist approach online than we might intially expect.
My own paper was entitled Unmodern or postmodern? The human dynamics of the social web and explored how seemingly “unmodern” ideals and values persist in the postmodern era and are fostered and facilitated by web 2.0 technology. I argued that, as language and literacy educators, we should be exploiting the “unmodern” potential of web 2.0 for forming connections and building communities through language.
Along with Mike Levy, Cynthia White and Giedre Kligyte, I took part in the panel discussion in the final plenary session, where we attempted to draw together the main themes of the conference and then responded to questions from other participants. It seems to me that during the conference two main themes emerged, both of which might best be expressed as questions:
- Should we be using digital and web-based technologies in language teaching? The answer is a combined yes/no. Numerous presenters indicated that they were working in blended mode, combining the most appropriate of the new technologies with older “analogue” approaches and materials (if I can use that expression). There are certainly times when analogue technologies are just as appropriate, if not more appropriate, than recent innovations. However, that’s not an argument against e-learning, which brings me to the second question; assuming that new technologies are sometimes more effective, then …
- Which new technologies should we be using in language teaching? Over the two days of the conference, there were papers and workshops touching on technologies ranging from blogs to podcasting, m-learning, and virtual worlds; the conference itself, as mentioned above, had an accompanying wiki. The answer to this second question may again be a combined one, since all these technologies have their advantages for different purposes in different contexts. The key, to echo the point made in Mike’s opening address, is to start with the learning goals and then select the technologies which best align with these.
The fact that these kinds of questions are being raised suggests to me that a stage of maturity is being reached in the field of CALL. There’s no doubt, as was amply demonstrated at the conference, that many of the new technologies can deliver dramatic pedagogical benefits – but we need to constantly ask ourselves whether new technologies are appropriate in a given context and, if so, which ones promise the greatest advantages. E-learning isn’t a replacement for face-to-face learning, but it can certainly complement it – and, in the process, stretch the teaching and learning processes in new directions, bringing new benefits and new challenges.
Tags: e-learning, CALL, web 2.0, language, literacy
I liked what you said, Mark, about the fact that e-learning can ‘stretch the teaching and learning processes in new directions’. I’m interested in how we react to this as teachers – which Cynthia touched on in her session. Exciting or scary times?
And are our students ready to be stretched? Prensky’s suggestion that we should be doing ‘new things in new ways’ – is that in the virtual reality dimension or actual potential? I’d like to think that I’m working on discovering what new things/new ways means for me in my teaching, but the contextual/institutional constraints are frustrating at times.
Karen, thanks for your comment. You ask whether these are exciting or scary times. Both, I think! Most exciting new developments are scary at the same time because they take us into unfamiliar territory and oblige us to rethink long-established and widely cherished practices. Of course, it’s in the process of rethinking our educational practices and, following on from this, redesigning them, that we sometimes run up against the contextual constraints you mention. But if institutions are to change, the momentum has to come from somewhere … including from educators who are exploring the pedagogical possibilities offered by the new technologies.
You really make it seem so easy with your presentation but I find this topic to be really something which I think I would never understand. It seems too complicated and very broad for me. I am looking forward for your next post, I will try to get the hang of it