Collaborative Instructional Processes in Language

Technology Christopher Jones

Ryan T. Miller Rosa Bahamondes

Marc Siskin

Overview

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•  Course concept and implementation •  Initial technical assumptions and toolkit •  "You the man!" - Course leadership and daily

activities •  Project examples •  Reflections •  Outcomes

Course concept / rationale

•  Confrontation of extreme dynamic nature of technology domain

•  Corresponding need for acquisition of process, rather than specific content

•  Empowerment primary student outcome goal •  Self- and co-constructed knowledge outcomes •  Multiple expert-student configurations

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Course implementation

•  Major class activities – Evaluating existing technology-based learning objects

and applications – Creating digital media and integrating it into instruction – Managing technology in an instructional environment – Creating and deploying learning objects based on

principles derived from instructional design and second language acquisition

– Guest participants (Tim McNamara - oral assessment, Maxine Eskenazi - speech technologies)

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Course implementation

•  Shared instructional functions – Discussion leadership – Technology training – Technology mentoring –  Intervention scheduling

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Student-selected technologies

•  Student-selected technologies:

•  Student-led activities: – Comparison/evaluation of existing implementations – Peer teaching and mentoring – Possible ways to use in our instructional settings

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•  Podcasting •  Asynchronous CMC •  Synchronous CMC

•  Microblogging •  Second Life •  Authoring system (Hot potatoes)

Typical class period

1.  Student-lead discussion of readings 2.  Student-lead workshops to introduce a new

technology 3.  Practice using technology to begin to create

language-learning materials for our respective courses

4.  Updates on progress on projects - video, audio, courseware evaluation, learning object

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Listening exercise

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Student-developed web pages

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Software evaluations

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Learning objects

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Student blogs for course

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Course blog content •  Personal experience: Learning by doing and

questions about the process

•  Comments related to readings

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"I ended up recording (and re-recording) the audio files for my audio production in a locked closet in a locked room at home at 2 a.m. to avoid/reduce any outside noise. That seemed to work well, and I've been able to...normalize extra loud sounds thru audacity."

“This week’s readings are about the application of SNSs to foreign language learning. It was interesting to learn that the term Web 2.0 doesn’t necessarily imply innovation in technology, but rather is about rethinking ways to utilize pre-existing technological tools for foreign language education.”

Course blog content •  Questions/comments about how to use

technologies for educational purposes

•  Sharing of web sites of interest and short evaluation

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(about Twitter) “I wonder if there are other ways to incorporate students' online L2 production into in-class activities, and if doing so would make students more interested in using the technology or make the use of the technology seem more relevant.”

“I just found a website about Content Based Language Teaching with Technology (CoBaLTT), which I think very useful for designing our learning project, so I would like to share it with you all.” (goes on to provide characteristics of the site)

Course blog content •  Blog postings became more content-driven

•  Interaction in both the virtual world and the classroom

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“After reading the article by Blake, we find similar results to what Chenoweth, Jones and Tucker (2005) found; beginning students are able to perform orally at about the same level of proficiency in either DL, hybrid or classroom-based classes. Would the same format of DL or hybrid render the same results for intermediate or advanced learners?”

Post: ”Yes, I learned that filming takes time... It seems a couple of other people mentioned about it, so I don't have anything to add.” Comment: ”I hope everyone doesn't have this problem! We'll see pretty soon...”

Reflections: Chris

•  Student engagement generally superlative •  Personal (instructor/guide) satisfaction high •  Caveats:

– Lambs to market - sending students to commercially generated software environments (Web 2.0, ie Facebook, Twitter);

– Relative value of struggle in TELL (ex. templates vs. Kompozer vs. manual html generation).

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General personal objectives: •  Get acquainted with the technology •  Develop the ability to evaluate technology •  Create a final project that would help me in a course in Chile

Reflections: Rosa Results: •  Improved proficiency in different social networks (impact on my research). •  Facebook project in CMU Spanish class. •  Evaluated Spanish on-line course at CMU. •  Developed a simple web page that helped to show how to develop different activities to teach Spanish to future ELE teachers.

Reflections: Ryan

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Initial goals: •  Learn about advantages of technology in FL/SL classes (i.e., how can tech. improve instruction, rather than just make it different) •  Gain experience in creating content using currently-relevant tools (not just knowledge about) •  Gain ability to evaluate tech. with a critical eye – relation to SLA theory

Outcomes: •  Evaluation of commercial ESL web site – relate to SLA theory, based on CALICO review guidelines •  Application to own teaching context (EAP writing)

o  Creation of materials to supplement Blackboard (more flexibility) o  Advantage over previous paper & pencil HW: Interactivity and instant feedback

Outcomes

•  Acquisition of process, rather than specific content

•  Empowerment as a student outcome goal •  Self- and co-constructed knowledge outcomes •  Multiple expert-student configurations

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Thank you!

Questions?

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Contact: Christopher Jones: cjones@andrew.cmu.edu

Ryan T. Miller: rtmiller@andrew.cmu.edu

Rosa Bahamondes: rib@andrew.cmu.edu

Marc Siskin: msiskin@andrew.cmu.edu

Presentation : http://ml.hss.cmu.edu/mlrc/presentations