KOTESOL 2007 Presentation

Dan [email protected]

Seoul National University,Language Education Institute

Shijuan [email protected] Indiana University

Technology Overloadin Teacher Education

What is CALL?60s-70

Computer-Assisted Instruction (CAI)

Behaviorist theoretical foundation

70s-80sLab work and collaborationCognitivist theoretical

foundation

80s-90sAuthentic tasks & materialsSocio-cognitivist theoretical

foundation

What is CALL?

So what’s going on now?Read/Write WebConsumers & ProducersMaking new connections to

people & informationEmerging theories, such as

Connectivism (Siemens, 2004)

What is Web 2.0?Web 2.0 coined in session on

Web-based technologies after the dot-com bubble burst in 2001 (O’Reilly, 2005): Web as a platform harness the collective

intelligence of usersrun on data-data is kingPerpetual betakeep it simple; Cross platform/device

compatibleprovide rich user experiences.

2.0

Web 2.0 – A Definition

Web 2.0 applications should:enable users to both consume and produce

content,allow users to comment on content, allow users to share content with others, and

syndicate (e.g., RSS) content for easy distribution.

There is really no good definition of what a Web 2.0 application is (Clarke, 2006), but there seems to be a general consensus of what these tools should have or should be able to do.

Web 2.0 – Popular Technologies

Blogs - Blogger (http://www.blogger.com), EduBlogs (http://edublogs.org), WordPress (http://wordpress.com);

Podcasts - Grammar Girl (http://grammar.qdnow.com), Breaking News English (http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com), English as a Second Language Podcast (http://www.eslpod.com);

Wikis - Wikispaces (http://www.wikispaces.com), Zoho Wiki (http://wiki.zoho.com), Wetpaint (http://www.wetpaint.com);

Photo Sharing Sites - Flickr (http://www.flickr.com), Picasa (http://picasa.google.com), Photobucket (http://photobucket.com);

Video Sharing Sites - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com), Google Video (http://video.google.com), TeacherTube (http://www.teachertube.com);

Online Social Networks - Cyworld (http://www.cyworld.com), MySpace (http://www.myspace.com), Facebook (http://www.facebook.com), italki (language learning - http://www.italki.com), and Soziety (language learning - http://soziety.com);

Social Bookmarking - del.icio.us (http://del.icio.us), StumbleUpon (http://www.stumbleupon.com), diigo (http://www.diigo.com);

Aggregators - Google Reader (www.google.com/reader), Bloglines (http://www.bloglines.com);

Personalized Start Pages - Netvibes (http://www.netvibes.com), PageFlakes (http://www.pageflakes.com), iGoogle (http://www.google.com/ig).

The CALL Class: OverviewAn 8-week, online, graduate Introduction to

Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) course in the Language Education Department of a large, mid-western University in the summer of 2006.

Roughly half in-service and half pre-service teachers

Integrating technology in the classroom.Dual foci on application and theory.

In older courses, these were mixed each week. In latter courses, we alternated weeks.

The CALL Class: Deliverables Class was product driven, with technologies and concepts

assessed via multiple assessments. Weekly discussions (6) – topical discussions Reading reflections (4) – reflections to course readings posted to blogs Course reflections (3) – “how am I doing” reflection exchanged with

instructor Website/Software Evaluations (4) – evaluations posted to blogs External Documents Assignment - Supplemental materials

development for use with a technology. Web Page Development Assignment - Creation of a basic Web page,

involving some HTML and uploading documents to a web server (no services)

Assessment Assignment - Do research on an assessment category and write it up in the wiki

WebQuest Assignment (final project) - Development of a WebQuest with a group

Information/Technology Activities - installing, signing up for, and using applications, blogging, commenting on blogs, updating/formatting the wiki, chats, visiting websites, exploring topics on their own, and so forth. These differed slightly for each participant.

The CALL Class: Summer 200614 students (12 female, 2 male)9 in-service teachers, 5 pre-serviceHalf participated from Indiana. The other half

were in Virginia, Ohio, Georgia, Puerto Rico, Taiwan, Thailand, and Trinidad. (teacher was in Indiana for 4 weeks and Korea for 4 weeks)

All students completed the course8 students (7 female, 1 male) signed consent

forms for their documents to be used in this study.

5 students (all female) made themselves available to be interviewed (2 email, 3 phone)

Document AnalysisEmail Correspondence Course ReflectionsDiscussion ForumsBlog PostingsWiki Postings

items contained relevant information. Blogs and wikis were more for assignments, so it’s no surprise that they did not contain personal information.

Document Analysis - Overview

“I felt like being in an explosion of technology in learning.”

5 out of 8 wrote about their frustrationsThese feel into 3 categories:

1. Can’t find it2. Don’t know where to put it3. Too much information

Document AnalysisCan’t find it

“I think I am still being dumb, but I can't seem to find the place in the Wiki to sign up for a chat time.”

Document AnalysisDon’t know where to put it

“So, my question is, would you prefer for us to post things on the website, or is the Messenger an appropriate place to chat about the readings and other topics presented in class?”

“Is there a due day for this assignment? As I am still taking in all the information, I hope I don't miss any due days.”

Document AnalysisToo much information

“I had pressure when I was overwhelmed by the technology used in this class.”

“I found myself distracted by all the places that contained information on our Moodle. I spent many hours reading everything…”

“I wrote about being impressed and even overwhelmed by the many resources that are available online.”

Interviews2 students were interviewed via email. They

filled out a question sheet and answered follow-up emails.

3 students were interview by phone. They were emailed questions in advance. Interviews averaged an hour each.

The interview was both used to gather more data and to perform a member check on what had already been processed.

Interviews - OverviewAll experienced some frustrationFrustration was the result of:

Time constraintsProcedural errors (Web page development)Group work

Frustration was mediated by:Personal attention (Chat, phone, video

conferencing)Strong connections with others in the courseRelevance to studies, jobs, and career plans.Moodle (organization of the course page)Time (both chronological and reflective)

SurveysI did a survey of participants in a variety of education-related listservs (EDNET, EDTECH, evonline, IATEFL, LLTI, and wwwedu) and one Ning group (Classroom 2.0) . These are very active resources and the response was great with 55 respondents at the time of analysis (the survey is still open for a few more days

The respondents provided great insight on the findings of this study and, in fact, provided so much more data further analysis will have to wait.

For our purposes here, I am only going to provide descriptive statistics.

Survey - Participants55 Respondents

27 Classroom Teachers28 Teacher Educators

Surveys – Personal UsageOther Technologies Used:• VoiceThread• Web conferencing• Second Life• Teacherweb• Yahoo Groups• Podcasts• Videocasts• e-portfolios• Discussion Forums• Basecamp• Chinswing

Surveys – Personally Overwhelmed

Surveys – Class TechnologyOther Technologies Used:• VoiceThread• Web conferencing• Second Life• MS Office• Teacherweb• Podcasts• Videocasts• Class website• e-portfolios• Zimmer twins• Dfilm

Surveys – Student Overwhelmed

Surveys - OverviewMost respondents indicated that they sometimes

feel overwhelmed with the technologies.37 - yes or sometimes15 – no3 - skipped

A little less that half of the respondents indicates that their student felt overwhelmed.24 – yes or sometimes26 – no2 – skipped3 – don’t know

What’s it all mean?Stressors

Too little personal supportToo much informationToo little timeToo little relevance

MediatorsPersonal support (email, chat, call, carrier

pigeon..)Pacing of instructionTime of reflectionHands on experience

ConclusionComputers, the Internet, the World Wide Web, Web Pages, Email, Blogs, Wikis, RSS, Aggregation, Online Social Networks, Laptops, Pocket PCs, Smart Phones, Broadband, Wi-fi, ….

Teachers (and administrators) hear these buzzwords that seem somehow magical. When you add these to 100s, even 1000s, of websites teachers “need” to access, this can seem overwhelming.

Given the proper support teachers can learn an amazing amount in a short amount of time.

Thank you very much

Any Questions?Dan Craig

Too many ways to contact meEmail: [email protected]

Website: http://danielcraig.com CALL Blog: http://iucall.blogspot.com (today’s files will be posted there)

Facebook: [email protected] 2.0: danielcraig

Skype: daacraig