Innovation in Education

UNED MÁSTER UNIVERSITARIO EN FORMACIÓN DEL PROFESORADO DE EDUCACIÓN SECUNDARIA OBLIGATORIA Y BACHILLERATO, FORMACIÓN PROFESIONAL Y ENSEÑANZAS DE IDIOMASCurso 2023-2024

Innovation in Education

Autor: David Curtisdcurtis2@alumno.uned.es

September 2024

03. The Use of Technology and Virtual Environments in Language Learning

02.CALL - Past, Present and Future

01. Virtual Spaces for Education and Learning

References

05.Innovation and research in foreign language teaching/learning

Quiz

04. Use and analysis of multimedia resources in the English language classroom

Contents

Which skills??

These technological changes imply the aquisition of a new skill set by educators

This new digital reality has shifted towards the creation of micro-content

Web 2.0 has given everybody the potential to be a creator of content and has augmented the opportunities for collaboration

1. Virtual Spaces for Education and Learning

Technological changes in the 21st century have altered the way we relate to each other and learn

+info

New Ways of Teaching And Learning

Constructivism gives way to Connectivism

The new potential technology has given us for collaboration in learning has shifted learning from a "merely" constructive process of concept assimilation to a focus on communicative and co-development strategies.

Variance of skill requirements

Societal changes mean that people increasingly need to retrain in different areas throughout their lifetimes. This has lead to a shift from formal to informal learning.

Technology is altering us

Our intellectual tools are reshaping our minds and brains. In addition to aquiring knowledge about content and how to process it, knowing where to access information has become crucial.

Social Beings

Both organisations and individuals are entities with the capacity to learn. A new theoretical framework is being developed to reflect this.

Digital Beings

People learn like networks. People learn in networks. Technology is reshaping those networks.

Importance of knowing where to find information/ how to access it

Principles of connectivism

According to Siemens (2005)

*Learning is focused on connecting specialized information sets (nodes).*The connections (links between nodes) that enable us to learn more are more important than our current state of knowing.

What is Connectivism?

Positive inderdepence

Decision making

Group autoevaluation

What do these new technologies and connectivism mean for education ?

Transferability

Information sharing

Supervision

Through ICT

Exchange

Individual contributions

Relational skills

Access to resources

Training sequence

Relationship with content

Group problem solving

Error acceptance

Educational agents' interdependance

Student responsability

Autonomy between students

Implications in Eduaction

Autonomy

Authenticity

Authentic tasks

Simulation

Interactivity of training environments

Evaluation

Learner Centered

Design

Collaboration

The shift from teacher centered learning to learner centered learning means a the teacher is no longer a mere transmitter of knowledge

Changes in the Teacher's Role

And content creators

guides,

Teachers need to become facilitators of knowledge,

5. Social Repositoiries

Social repositories are collections of material contributed by users. Their commicative potential is multiplied by the ubiquity of a comments section whereby other users can discuss the content shown. Repositories be specific to sharing fotos (tumblr.com) , documents (Scribd.com), links (delicious.com) or videos. (youtube.com). One repository which has gained huge protagonism in recent years is the short format video repository tikitok.

www.tiktok.com

Web 2.0 and Social Learning

Some Web 2.0 tools with applications in foreign language teaching

1. Social Networks

Social networks are the essence of Web 2.0, expanding the possabilities for communicationand collaboration. From generic social networks such as telegrama dn whatsapp to specific networks for foreign language learning such as busuu.com

busuu.com

2. Blogs and Microblogs

Blogging allows users to easily create online diaries. Microblogging (blogging with entries of 140 characters or less) has become an important global communications phenomenon in recent years. The most used microblogging tool is X (formerly twitter.com)

X.com

4. Wikis

Wikis are the epitome of collaborative online content; websites that are created and edited by a number of users. The most famous is wikipedia.org, the web's largest collaborative encyclopaedia. www.wikispaces.com provides a free spce for wiki creation for members of educational insitutions.

www.wikispaces.com

3. Podcasts

Podcasts are downloadable audio (sometimes video) programs. They are often isimilar to radio programs in format. Podcasts exist about multiple themes, ESL podacasts can be found here.

eslpod.com

Arguably, the potential technology has to enhance our cognitive and communicative capacities has put us on the first step towards becoming cyborgs.

Whether or not students can be said to be digital natives or digital immigrants is immaterial. They can already be considered to be digital citizens. It makes sense to harness the educational tools the technological revolution has provided

The Digital Citizen-Student

‘The ubiquity of ICT use in the younger generations is undeniable. Education proposal planning must take that into consideration.

Digital Citizenship

Digital citizenship starts when someone opens their first email account or completes their first purchase online. However the term refers more specificallyto anyone who conducts a large part of their social interaction online. This is especially true of members of the younger generations who have grown up with ICT technologies.

Mobile Learning

New Educational Offerings

Massive Online Open Courses

Personal Learning Environments

Web Content Curation

Open Course Resources

Let's contextualise a little:

"Future" (Now?)

"Present" (2002)

Past (before 2002)

2. CALL. Past, Present and Future

From Bax (2003)

And heavily criticised by Bax...

These were organised chronologically, and defined in terms of the available technology and teaching/ linguistic paradigms

3. Integrative CALL (21st century)

1. Behaviouristic/ Structural CALL (1970s -1980s)

2. Communicative CALL (1980s - 1990s)

CALL in the Past

Warschauer's 3 phases of CALL:

Moreover, Bax derides the neat separation of CALL into separate and mutualy exclusive chronological phases.

Integrative CALL?

Bax's Criticisms of Warschauer's nomeclature

Communicative CALL?

Bax argues that the term is neither:

• Helpful - because it is apparently superceded by an integrative phase,
• Applicable - as students communicate principally with computers

• Inherent to CALL - because the commicative elements of this phase do not require computing. The computer is used to manipulate language, but not for communicating with it.

Bax argues against:

• Warschauer's assertion that teachers were moving away from a cognitive view of CLT towards a socio-cognitive view, or indeed that teachers had even previously shared a cognitive view.
• That task, project or content-based approaches can be considered "integrative" rather than communicative.
• That there had been a change in the frequency or ubiquity of computer use (up from a weekly visit to the IT lab), justifying the change of name

Bax divides CALL development into approaches rather than phases, sidestepping the chronological problem

Bax's Proposal

An alternative analysis of the historical development of CALL.

1. Restricted CALL

Limited by technology, uptake and teaching philosophy

+ info

2. Open CALL

Technology, teacher- student feedback and teacher's role become more open (relative to restricted CALL)

+ info

3. Integrative CALL

Does not yet exist for Bax (in 2002) but analysed as a goal for CALL practice

+ info

Integrated?

Restricted?

Open?

According to Bax, by 2002, the advent of email and the uptake of the web (since 1995) had laid the basis for Open CALL as a real possibility. However, software, teachers' and administrators' attitudes meant that CALL was often still limited to the restricted approach (as - it could be argued - it still is in many places 20 years later).Bax sees the possibility of all three approaches being represented in any one context (classroom/ institution)

Where are we now (in 2002)?

Where was CALL going (for Bax)?

Normalisation as an end goal

1. CALL technology becomes invisible (like pens or books)
2. Computers become ubiquitous and used daily
3. Learners' needs are put first, and computers are used merely as a tool to serve those needs.

Normalisation

Normalising

Fear/ Awe

Stages of normalisation in CALL

Early Adopters

Ignorance/Scepticism

Try once

Try again

2. Sole Agent

The idea that the technology alone should be sufficient for its own successful implementation (

Fallacies impeding progress towards normalisation

Fallacy 1. Omnipotence

The expectation that new CALL technology should be able to do everything (and if it isn't then it is not useful)

Bax's proposed agenda for CALL normalisation

Bax predicted that changes would be necessary in the "size shape and position of the classroom computer"

He also sugested a change in attitudes. Especially in teacher- learner practice.

How does he suggest this may be acheived?

• Ethnographic studies of individual learning environments to elucidate the relationship between teachers, learners and technology.
• Action research in individual environments to identify barriers to normalisation

3. The use of Technology and Virtual Environments in Language Learning

3. Mobile Assisted Language Learning

2. Open Language Learning

1. Technology-enhanced language learning environments

4. Social Learning

1) Teachers can be prone to be driven by the technology instead of pedagogy

2) Online courses are perceived solely as a repository

3) Possibility of learners' over-reliance on technology

Technology-enhanced language learning environments

Advantages of language learning in digital environments (over face-to-face learning)

• No time limit- learning can be asynchronous or synchronous
• Learning can take place anywhere, not bound by physical spces
• Possibility of communities of practice on the internet: online games, virtual environments, etc. as opposed to interaction limited to teachers and students
• Higher degree of flexibility
• Greater freedom of methodology and innovation.

Challanges of language learning in digital envirnoments

Learners must also develop a new series of competences

Skills necessary for teaching languages online

Changes in teacher and student roles

Methodology becomes more learner centered

Teachers must develop a series of digital competences

1. Development of autonomy in the learning process
2. Collaborative work.
3. Practice and development of awareness of learning strategies

Scaffolding

9.Pre-use evaluation

10.Post-use evaluation

Full text of Colpaert (2006) here

8. Specify

7.Conceptualize

6.Personas and goals

5. Linguistic funcionalities

4.Activity framework

3.Architecture of learning environment

2.System Requirements

1.Learning Environment

The importance of instructional design

Colpaert (2006) describes ten steps for the design of effective pedagogy-driven online language teaching

3) OER directories

2) OER Repositories

1) Search engines specialised in OERs

Open Language Learning - OERs

Open Educational Resources (OERs) are educational resources available for use by educators and students for free

Wiley (2014) suggests "5 Rs" as principles OERs should follow

R3

A number of OER tools have been made available to help us select the most appropriate OER resources:

R2

R5

R1

Retain:

R4

Redistribute:

The right to share content with others

The rights over the content we have created

Reuse:

The right and ability to reuse content in a nunmber of ways or formats

Revise:

The right and ability to revise and modify the content

Remix:

The right to combine origninal /revised content with other material

Benefits and challanges of LMOOCs

• Lacking in opportunities for oral production
• Limited skill-based practice and interaction

• The line between formal and informal learning is blurred
• Learner-centered and socially orientated
• Provide open access to quality academic courses

Main elements:

Back to MOOCs

Language MOOCs

Open Language Learning - LMOOCs

LMOOCs are "dedicated web-based online courses for second languages with unrestricted access and potentially unlimited participation" (Barcena & Marin-Monje 2014)

1. A robust set of communications for language learning
2. Short videos with linguistic and cultural content
3. Assessment tools valid for heteroheneous cohorts

Any time, any place

It also opens up the potential for social learning

Mobile Assisted Language Learning (MALL)

Mobile learning has the potential to take the learning experience anywhere and has removed time constraints associated with face to face learning.

Communication

Digital Literacy

Teacher and learner roles

Social Open Language Learning (SOLL)

c(L)MOOCs

x(L)MOOCs

All shared by

And just in case you were thinking we need another acronym...

MOOCs in general, and LMOOCs in particular

Key Features of social learning

• Task-based and action orientated learning
• Collaborative learning
• Mobile assisted language learning
• LMOOCs

Vygotsky's socio-cultural theory of learning has influenced:

Social Learning

N.B.

When choosing digital materials for foreign langauge teaching, we should be aiming to work with activities and materials which favour Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS -creating, evaluating and analysing)

3) Design more complex tasks, following a Task Based Learning approach

2) Create our own materials and activities using a variety of tools, or encourage students to create them

1) Use activities already available on the internet

Different options are available for working with digital materials. We can...

4. The Applicability of Digital Materials in Foreign Language Teaching

WebQuests

Advantages of blogs

Blogs

+ WebTasks

Treasure hunts

Some general web-based digital resources

Benefits

wordcloud

A rather more limited version of an existing padlet modality

Word Clouds

Genially

Powtoon

Pixton

Storybird

padlet

Digital Materials for the Practice of Writing Skills

Creating Digital Posters

Piktochart is one example of a web 2.0 tool for creating digital posters easily from scratch or from templates

piktochart

Virtual Walls

Similar to Piktochart, but with greater collaborative opportunities, padlet allows for the creation of virtual walls, interactive maps, brainstorms, etc.

Digital Stories

Narrations are a common resource in foreign language teaching. Digital storytelling favours partipication, reflection on the learning process,effective incorporation of technology and development of learning projects (Aller, 2013)

Animoto

Interactive Presentations

Online applications like genially allow for the creation of interactive presentations with a non-linear format

101010Blah!0101000111

Podcasts

Oral forums combine the opportunity for asynchronous conversation with real oral production

Voki allows for avatar (digital character) creation

blabberize allows for the creation of talking pictures

Digital Materials for the Practice of Oral Competence

Recent improvements in digital technology have provided greater opportunites for their application in oral skill practice

Studies on podcasts

Studies on wikis

Successful experiences of using Digital Materials and Tools in Foreign Languages

Studies on Blogs

Full text here

CALL Research today

Which topics are being investigated?

5. CALL Research: Where are we now?

from Gillespie (2020)

An overview of 11 years of CALL Research

Where is CALL being researched?

70% of the papers studied in this integrative review of three major CALL journals came from just 7 countries

Where is CALL being researched?

‘Usa este espacio para escribir una cita. Y recuerda: nombra siempre ala autora o autor’

Nombre autor/a

info

3) Integration and normalistion

2) The Fashion Factor

1) Publish or perish

Gillespie attributed this concentration of study topics to three main factors

Less researched topics

Least researched topics

Feedback 3.5%

Vocabulary 6.2%

Corpora 5.3%

CMC 6.9%

Writing 7.%

Which topics are being researched?

Grammar 3.8%

1415 topics were counted among the 777 articles studied

Speaking 6.1%

NLP 5.1%

Design 4.7%

Reading 4%

Despite this great range of topics, a certain concentration was observed: 65.9% of the articles concentrated on just 13 topics.

Teacher Ed. 4.7%

Web 2.0 4%

Listening 4%

Features of the CALL studies

Small Scale studies

Most of the studies featured in the journals were small in scale, featuring small sample groups and conducted over a short period of time

Predominace of English teaching

Most of the studies were based on the teaching of English as a foreign/second language.

Teaching at lower levels

Most of the studies featured beginner or intermediate learners.

High quality of academic rigour

The articles and studies featured a high level of writing and editing, helpful abstracts, theoretical introductions and sound methodology and design.

according to Gillespie

Longtitudinal studies

Social, ethical and cultural aspects of CALL

Engage in a broader range of topics

Where could (should) CALL research go from here?

Thank you

Thank you for reading.

Feel free to try the quiz and see how much you have retained

Connectivism is ...

... a theoretical framework for understanding learning in a digital age

...ever better thanks to a better quality of mobile signal

...an outdated cognitive theory replaced by constructivism

An example of an important change in student and teachers' roles has been...

Students putting up with teachers' inability to use technology

Micro-content creation by students and teachers

Teaching has become more teacher-centered

MOOC stands for

Massive Online Open Course

More Options for Online Communication

Merit Obtained by Online Collaboration

Integrative CALL is...

CALL for racialized and vunerable communities, e.g., refugees

CALL with a solid ethical basis

CALL as normalised and invisible as books or pens

According to Colpaert, which of the following are elements of instructional design?

Personas and goals, system requirements and activity framework

Hipotesis, deduction and experimentation

Conceptalisation, institutional support and educational legislation

MALL is...

A kind of shopping center in the USA

Music and Language Learning

Mobile Assisted Language Learning

Why does Gillespie think that CALL research concentrates on a limited number of topics

Fashion, Publish or Perish and integration

A certain lack of imagination displayed by researchers

CALL journals aren't interested in other topics

• Gillespie, J. (2020). CALL research: Where are we now? ReCALL 32(2): 127–144. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0958344020000051

• Travis, P., & Joseph, F. (2009). Improving learners’ speaking skills with podcasts. en M. Thomas (Ed.), Handbook of research on Web 2.0 and second language learning (pp. 313-330). Hershey, PA: Information Science Reference.

• Arnold, N., Ducate, L., & Kost, C. (2009). Collaborative writing in wikis: Insights from culture projects in intermediate German classes. In L. Lomicka & G. Lord (Eds.), The next generation: Social networking and online collaboration in foreign language learning (pp 115-144). San Marcos, Texas: CALICO.

• Vázquez-Cano, E. & Martín-Monje, E. (2014). Nuevas tendencias para laelaboración y edición de materiales audiovisuales en la enseñanza delenguas. Madrid: McGraw-Hill.

• Armstrong, K., & Retterer, O. (2008). Blogging as L2 writing: A case study. AACE Journal, 16(3), 233-251.

• Aller, M. (2013). La narrativa digital y la escuela. (Digital storytelling and school.) [http://www.educacontic.es/blog/la-narrativa-digital-y-la-escuela].

• Drakidou, C., Pareja-Lora, A., & Read. (2019). A bibliometric approach to the analysis of the Technologically-Enhanced Language Learning (TELL) literature. Argentinian Journal of Applied Linguistics (AJAL), 7(2), 8–33.

• Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Massachusetts: Harvard University Pre ss.

• Barcena, E., & Martín-Monje, E. (2014). Introduction: Language MOOCs: An emerging field. In E. Martín Monje & E. Bárcena (eds.) Language MOOCs: Providing Learning, Transcending Boundaries (págs. 1–15). Berlin: De Gruyter https://doi.org/10.2478/9783110422504.1

• Wiley, D. (2014). The Access Compromise and the 5th R http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/3221

References

• Bax, Stephan, (2003) CALL - past, present and future, System 31, 13-28

• Hampel, R. y Stickler, U. (2005). New skills for new classrooms: Training tutors to teach languages online. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 18(4), 311-326.

• Martín Monje, E. (2021). The use of technology in foreign language teaching andlearning. Madrid: UNED.

• Colpaert, J. (2006). Pedagogy-driven Design for Online Language Teaching and Learning l, 23(3), 477-497.

• Cooper, A. (1997). The inmates are running the asylum: Why high-tech products drive us crazy and how to restore the sanity. Indianapolis, IN: SAMS

• Butcher, N. (2015). A basic guide to open educational resources (OER). París/Vancouver:

GLOBE

Open courseware consortium

Creativecommons search

Specialised OER search engines

MIT OCW

The Open University

UNED Abierta

Links to Open Course Resources:

Open Course Resources

New technologies have provided the opportunity for educational institutions to provide free and open access to educational courses and contentThe pioneers in this field were MIT's Open Courseware (OCW)

https://pinterest.com

htttp://www.pearltrees.com

Web Content Curation

Helping with overload

Just as a museum curator displays the items most appropriate to an exhibition, a web content curator helps to organise and display information appropraite to audiance and topic.

This "integrative synthesis" study only considered papers published in three major CALL journals (ReCALL, CALICO and CALL) between 2006 and 2016. The author purports to have concentrated exclusively on these three journals for feasability's sake. However, this limitation may have influenced the results somewhat.

Warschauers's three stages of CALL

The term was coined by Isabel Perez who differentiated between the two concepts in the following terms. WebTasks...

WebTasks according to Perez (2010)

WebTasks

A little like a simplified (or re-branded) WebQuest

• do not necessarily involve higher order thinking skills
• are not necessarily conducted in groups
• do not necessarily feature a series of phases or parts

These courses are similar in nature to Open Educational Resources (OER), but are available asynchronously and to a large number of learners. They often feature a higher degree of flexibility than normal higher education courses.

MOOCs

Massive Online Open Courses

• MOOCs are often curated and feature facilitators, however, teachers are often unavailable for questions
• Activities may be open-ended
• Interaction between students is encouraged, often on alternative platforms.

Mobile Learning

Learning in the plam of your hand

Learning through applications available for download has the potential to take advantage of the near ubiquity of mobile phones in the modern world.

• Learning can take place at any time, with opportunities for spontaneous learning.
• The lengh of learning periods is flexible and can be very brief, for example the length of a short train journey.
• Some apps feature a return to the audiolingual method

Benefits of digital resources in written production skills

• Increased confidence when writing in the foreign language.
• More reading and writing practice.
• Reinforcement of grammatical structures and vocabulary
• Natural exposure to authentic resources in the target language.
• Opportunity for more extensive review of the students' work.
• Improvement in the written production process: editing, extension, reorganisation and self- correction by students.
• Improvement in socio-cultural competence in the target language.

"Web 2.0 (also known as participative (or participatory)web and social web) refers to websites that emphasize user-generated content, ease of use, participatory culture, and interoperability (i.e., compatibility with other products, systems, and devices) for end users." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0)

Web 2.0

What is Web 2.0?

• Web users take on an active role, rather than being mere passive consumers of content
• Web moves away from corportate/personal web page model

• Content has the potential to be produced collaboratively and asynchronously.
• Appearance of new web formats, e.g., wikis, blogs.

• Democratisation of content production. Content can be produced simply and cheaply by non-specialists

PLEs are are more personalised, adaptable versions of VLEsAccording to Adell and Castañeda (2010) PLEs should contain the following features:

Personal Learning Environments (PLE)

Taking Virtual Learning Environments a little further

• Reading tools and strategies
• Tools and strategies for dissemination
• Tools and strategies for reflection

Open CALL

• Language leanrt as a system with attendant skills
• Tasks feature simulations, games and Computer Mediated Communication (CMC), i.e., email, chats
• Principal interaction with computer and some inter-student interaction
• Feedback focuses on linguistic skill development
• Teacher as monitor and facilitator
• CALL not integrated into syllabus. Technology precedes learner needs/ syllabus
• CALL sessions take place in IT lab and take up a whole session.

• OERs
• Evaluation
• Linguistics
• Translation
• Digital Literacies
• Games
• Pedagogy
• MALL (Mobile Assisted Language Learning)
• Intercultural
• Student attitudes
• Virtual Reality

Gillespie identifies a series of topics which are under-represented in the research. Here are some examples

Integrative CALL

• Language learnt through integration of mixed skills and system
• CMC features heavily as a task
• Frequent interstudent interaction, some of which is computer mediated
• Feedback features higher order skills: interpreting, evaluating, commenting
• Teacher is a facilitator/ manager
• CALL is integrated into syllabus and stems from learners' needs.
• Features in almost every lesson
• Ubiquity of computer ("on every desk, in every bag")

Educators must master:

• Online communication
• (Micro)Content creation
• Online teaching

Commonwealth of Learning

OER commons

OER Directories

According to Dodge, a WebQuest should feature the following:

WebQuests

A web-based task

Web quests are tasks set to students which can be resolved interactively using resources available on the interent.The term was coined by Bernie Dodge and his student Tom March in 1995,

1. An introduction
2. A task to be developed
3. A process that the learner should follow to complete the task with some level of detailed steps (scaffolding)
4. Resources or links
5. Evaluation, usually using a rubric
6. A conclusion

• People want to make an impression on the world
• People want to be sociable and, as a result, want to be connected
• Creativity is channelled through tools that allow us to do many things individually and collectively
• We place more value on the things that we do if we can share them with others.
• Collaboration with other people contributes to happiness and wellbeing

Gauntlett's principle of people's participation in the virtual world (Gauntlett, D, 2011)

Restricted CALL

• Language learnt as a system
• Use of drills and quizzes
• Closed questions
• Minimal interaction with other students
• Correct/ incorrect feedback type
• Teacher as monitor
• Not integrated into syllabus - optiona extra
• CALL sessions in separate IT lab

MITs Open Courseware Repository

LangOER

OER Repositories

Siemens. G. (2005). Connectivism: A learning theory for the digital age. International Journal ofInstructional Technology and Distance Learning. 2(1).

Principles of Connectivism

• Learning and knowledge rests in diversity of opinions.
• Learning is a process of connecting specialized nodes or information sources.
• Learning may reside in non-human appliances.
• Capacity to know more is more critical than what is currently known
• Nurturing and maintaining connections is needed to facilitate continual learning.
• Ability to see connections between fields, ideas, and concepts is a core skill.
• Currency (accurate, up-to-date knowledge) is the intent of all connectivist learning activities.
• Decision-making is itself a learning process. Choosing what to learn and the meaning of incoming information is seen through the lens of a shifting reality. While there is a right answer now, it may be wrong tomorrow due to alterations in the information climate affecting the decision.