tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-73095578443349501992023-11-16T14:30:39.590+00:00ICT for Language TeachersThis blog is linked with the ICT4LT website at http://www.ict4lt.org. It aims to keep language teachers up to date with new developments in the use of ICT in language teaching and learning.Graham Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15782751150452768910noreply@blogger.comBlogger76125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309557844334950199.post-41167107143641343872012-04-25T12:23:00.000+00:002012-04-26T13:48:59.813+00:00Dunbar’s Number and social networksI recently came across a reference in an article on social networking to Dunbar’s Number. It’s an intriguing idea. Dunbar’s Number is a concept developed by Professor Robin Dunbar, Head of the ICEA (Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology), University of Oxford. Essentially, the “number” is the suggested limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships, namely 150. Why 150? Apparently, it’s due to the cognitive limit on the number of friends with whom we can maintain such relationships. In other words, our brains are simply not big enough to handle many more than 150 stable social relationships. And this number goes back a very long time – for example to the average population size of villages in early hunter-gatherer times. See the Wikipedia article, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar's_number">Dunbar’s Number</a>. <br />
<br />
Professor Dunbar explains the concept in this YouTube video, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lPH-qqKHfI">How many friends does one person need?</a> He refers to the current trend for people to compete in building up huge collections of friends on their Facebook account. This is a trend that I have noticed too, with many of my personal contacts numbering well over 1000 so-called friends. But, of course, they don’t “know” them. As Professor Dunbar puts it, if you have such a huge circle of friends they are mostly "just voyeurs into your life”, many of whom you could, with advantage, do without. In order to maintain a relationship it has to be reciprocated and nurtured - which is much easier to do face-to-face - but I must admit I have found social networks invaluable in maintaining contact with family and friends who are scattered all over the world – some of whom I had lost touch with until the advent of the Web.<br />
<br />
Professor Dunbar’s views echo my own. When I joined Facebook and Twitter I had my own figure of 200-250 friends in mind, and so far I have not exceeded 250 on either of these networks. But I have Twitter friends who follow 3000-4000 people and who are followed by similar numbers. How do they cope? I simply do not have the time to deal with such huge numbers – and I am retired. My Facebook account has a core of around 40-50 friends with whom I am in regular contact, and I belong to a small number of special interest groups dealing with topics in which I have a professional or personal interest. Most of my core group on Facebook are family and close friends. The rest of my Facebook friends are mostly people I have met face-to-face or online and whom I find interesting or amusing. My Twitter friends are mostly people with whom I share a professional interest. I admit to being choosey. I turn down lots of friend requests, both on Facebook and on Twitter.<br />
<br />
I have touched on this topic before in a blog posting headed <a href="http://ictforlanguageteachers.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/have-plns-been-over-hyped-reaction-to.html">Have PLNs been over-hyped? A reaction to Gavin Dudeney's blog</a>,19 March 2011. I wrote:<br />
<br />
“I get more out of chatting to half a dozen friends at my local pub on a Saturday night than I do out of a whole week of browsing the Web. Twitter is OK for picking up links and for occasional bits of information, but on the whole I find it confusing. Turn your head for a couple of hours and the interesting threads you were following have got lost in a mass of idle chit-chat. I deliberately avoid accepting lots of new friends on Twitter or Facebook. I can’t handle large numbers of friends or followers, and I don’t want to anyway. Facebook is my fun area. It embraces my family and real friends, and a few people I have met at conferences. Don’t expect too much serious stuff from me on Facebook. Most of my postings have nothing to do with my professional life.”<br />
<br />
What do you think?<br />
<br />Graham Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15782751150452768910noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309557844334950199.post-37457717864555542962011-12-21T16:17:00.004+00:002011-12-21T16:17:40.184+00:00Conference on Virtual Worlds, Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain<br />
I have just returned from Spain, where I contributed to a two-day conference on virtual worlds at the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV), 16-17 December 2011. The conference was organised under the auspices of the CAMILLE Project in the Department of Applied Linguistics at the Polytechnic University of Valencia within the framework of EUROCALL’s programme of regional events, in collaboration with the Inter-University Institute of Applied Modern Languages, supported by the Vice President for Research at the UPV Ministry of Science and Innovation, with sponsorship by Macmillan ELT.<br />
<br />
There were five invited guest speakers: Randall Sadler, Luisa Panichi, Heike Philp, Kristi Jauregi, and myself. The main target audience was local secondary school teachers of English, but a number of research students were also in attendance. Each day of the conference was divided into two parts: presentations by the guest speakers in the morning and hands-on workshops in the afternoon.<br />
<br />
This was a remarkable event in three different ways. Firstly, the size of the audience was impressive: around 75 participants. Secondly, it was the first time that I have been able to work in Real Life with such a distinguished a group of experts in the use of virtual worlds in language learning and teaching. Thirdly, this is the first occasion on which I have experienced such a large number of participants in hands-on workshops. The computer lab that was provided for the workshops comprised 50 high-end PCs with excellent graphics cards and a fast connection to the Internet. This meant that, with 75 participants in attendance, some people had to share a computer, but everybody was able to join Second Life and learn the basics. The hands-on workshops were led in turn by one of the guest speakers, with the others circulating amongst the participants and troubleshooting where necessary. We experienced surprisingly few technical hiccups, and Second Life behaved itself very well – with very little lag, even when the participants were gathered together on a shopping spree in the boutique holodeck on EduNation I Island.<br />
<br />
I wish to offer my personal congratulations to the UPV team who organised this event, especially Ana Gimeno and Rafael Seiz Ortiz, who took care of all our needs, including transporting us to the excellent tapas restaurants in Valencia!Graham Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15782751150452768910noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309557844334950199.post-88524944036904412132011-11-22T12:12:00.001+00:002011-11-22T12:36:13.637+00:00Google Translate: friend or foe?Are you a language teacher? If so, what are your views on online translation tools?<br />
<br />
<a href="http://translate.google.co.uk/">Google Translate</a> is probably the most widely used online translation tool, but there are others that will also do the job. Several are listed in <a href="http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_mod3-5.htm#machinetrans">ICT4LT Module 3.5, Section 3 (Machine Translation)</a>. Such tools have been the bane of language teachers’ lives ever since they became widely available on the Web. The teacher sets a text to be translated for homework and the students use Google Translate to do the job, thus saving themselves work and driving their teacher mad when they turn in a piece of work that is full of mistakes that reveal clearly that an automatic translation tool has been used. Or the teacher may ask the students to produce an original composition in a foreign language - so they type it out in English and paste it into Google Translate. Again, the output is full of mistakes but often of a different kind, for example the students may be using constructions in English that are way beyond what they would be capable of using in the foreign language. And many mistakes made by Google Translate are made solely because the source text is incorrect. If you write "I should of thought" (yes, it's a common mistake!) instead of "I should have thought" then Google Translate's output is wrong. But it translates "I should have thought" correctly into German as "ich hätte gedacht". Thinking back to my early experiences with <strong>Machine Translation (MT)</strong> in the 1980s, I remember a company (Perkins Engines) that used the Weidner MT system first training its employees to write correct, unambiguous English so that the system could handle the texts more easily – in other words, anticipating potential errors that could be made.<br />
<br />
<div>
Right now it's not too difficult to spot that Google Translate has been used to produce a text in a foreign language, but a few years ago Google began using a different translation engine that uses a so-called <strong>Statistical Machine Translation (SMT)</strong> approach. Now Google Translate begins by examining and comparing massive corpora of texts on the Web that have already been translated by human beings. It looks for matches between source and target texts and works out which translations are likely to be the most accurate. This YouTube video, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GdSC1Z1Kzs">Inside Google Translate</a>, explains how it works. As more and more corpora are added to the Web this means that Google Translate will keep improving until it reaches a point where it will be very difficult to tell that a machine has done the translation. I remember early MT tools translating "How are you?" into German as "Wie sind Sie?" Now Google Translate gets it right: "Wie geht es Ihnen?" You can also click on the words in the translated text to hear how they are pronounced.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
So Google Translate is no longer the crude tool that it used to be. Besides using a much more sophisticated and accurate translation engine, it also offers the possibility of interaction. When the translated text appears you can hover your mouse over the text and ask Google Translate to suggest alternative renderings if you don't accept what it offers as the first choice. These may be different vocabulary items, different tenses, different case endings in German, etc. You can also rearrange the word order. Thus you can edit the text until you are satisfied with it – and then you can copy and paste the text into <em>Microsoft Word</em> and edit it further using the inbuilt foreign-language spell checkers, grammar checkers and thesauruses. Having said that, I am in no doubt that most students would just accept what Google Translate offers as the first choice and hope for the best. But a clever student would investigate Google Translate's new features and produce quite an acceptable translation that does not have the obvious hallmarks of being translated by machine. So what is the solution if students cannot be persuaded not to use Google Translate?</div>
<ul>
<li>Do you punish your students for cheating?</li>
<li>Do you hand back their work and tell them to do it again without using Google Translate?</li>
<li>Or maybe you warn your students that you have already run the text through Google Translate and that if you find any examples of the same incorrect phrases being used in their work then they will score zero.</li>
<li>You could also exploit the mistakes that Google Translate makes by displaying them on a big screen to the whole class and showing your students how ridiculous they are. At the same time you could use the output of Google Translate to raise your students’ linguistic awareness. Ask your students to spot the mistakes and explain why they have been made – e.g. parsing <em>like</em> as a verb rather than a preposition.</li>
</ul>
But perhaps the time has come to admit defeat and to set different types of tasks for homework. A blog posting by Naomi Ganin Epstein, headed <a href="http://tinyurl.com/5r3eeq6">If Google is translating then I’ll start revamping</a>, is worth looking at. She suggests setting a number of different types of assignments for homework that get round the problem of students using Google Translate.<br />
<br />
Let’s face it, automatic translation tools have been around for a long time and they are here to stay. The European Commission makes extensive use of so-called <strong>Translation Memory (TM)</strong> systems. These produce a rough draft of the text to be translated, which is then corrected by professional translators. It can speed up their output by up to 80%. I know of one university that trains its students to use a TM tool known as <a href="http://www.trados.com/en/">TRADOS</a>. They can then slot more easily into jobs as professional translators when they graduate. I often use Google Translate in the same way – but only with languages that I know reasonably well.<br />
<br />
Reactions?Graham Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15782751150452768910noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309557844334950199.post-83402861733168708602011-10-25T10:40:00.001+00:002011-10-25T10:46:46.690+00:00The French Digital KitchenI had a very interesting day yesterday, 24 October 2011, at the French Institute (Institut Français), London. I had been invited by Professor Paul Seedhouse, Newcastle University, to give a short presentation on the <strong>History of Computer Assisted Language Learning</strong> to lead into his presentation on an exciting new interactive approach to language learning, <strong>The French Digital Kitchen</strong>. The French Digital Kitchen is a situated language learning environment in which a computer in the kitchen communicates with students, instructing them step-by-step in how to cook French cuisine while teaching aspects of French language at the same time, namely the essential vocabulary and grammar that are used in such an environment. The underlying pedagogy is Task-Based Learning (TBL), an established approach to teaching foreign languages whereby learners are prompted by instructions in the target language to carry out specified tasks. <br />
<br />
As a first step, the students are presented with the grammar and vocabulary, and then they practise using what they have learned in the kitchen. Utensils and ingredients that are used in the kitchen are all labelled in French, and motion sensors are embedded in the utensils and the containers for the ingredients, which track the students' actions and prompt the kitchen computer to give them spoken instructions for each step in the process of preparing the food. Students can ask for instructions to be repeated or translations into English simply by touching the computer screen. Students work in pairs and are encouraged to communicate with one another in French.<br />
<br />
As well as watching the presentations, we were treated to a demonstration of the portable version of the kitchen, with volunteers from the audience following the instructions in French for preparing a delicious <em>clafoutis aux poires</em>, which was then cooked in the French Institute’s kitchen and presented to us at lunchtime – a “tangible and edible product”, as Professor Paul Seedhouse described it.<br />
<br />
The project is now being extended, thanks to European Commission funding, to develop materials in English, Spanish, Italian, German and other languages.<br />
<br />
Videos demonstrating the project are available on YouTube:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bt7WYG4r99E">French Digital Kitchen Dissemination Video</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOAYmuJ65h8">The Talking Kitchen that Teaches you French</a><br />
<br />
Further information is available at the <a href="http://digitalinstitute.ncl.ac.uk/ilablearn/kitchen">Digital Institute website at Newcastle University</a>.Graham Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15782751150452768910noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309557844334950199.post-30773645738272098782011-07-25T15:46:00.002+00:002012-01-08T12:23:50.532+00:00Scoop.it! Useful "curation" toolI have recently begun using Scoop.it! It's a useful tool that enables you to set up Web pages that gather together links on a specific topic. Scoop.it provides a facility for you to "curate" information on your topics by trawling the Web and finding links that you may wish to add to your topic pages. The links are then laid out attractively like the page of a magazine: <a href="http://www.scoop.it/">http://www.scoop.it/</a><br />
<br />
I have set up two Scoop.it pages:<br />
<br />
Computer Assisted Language Learning<br />
<a href="http://www.scoop.it/t/computer-assisted-language-learning">http://www.scoop.it/t/computer-assisted-language-learning</a><br />
<br />
Virtual World Language Learning<br />
<a href="http://www.scoop.it/t/virtual-world-language-learning">http://www.scoop.it/t/virtual-world-language-learning</a><br />
<br />
And I follow other people's pages on related topics. As well as being useful for setting up permanent resources, Scoop.it could be used by students for creating one-off magazines.Graham Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15782751150452768910noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309557844334950199.post-91525820008732783852011-07-25T14:10:00.014+00:002011-10-01T17:16:33.180+00:00QR codes in education: Why all the fuss?<div style="text-align: left;">The Web is abuzz at the moment with blogs on using QR codes in education. I am not going to give a detailed explanation of what a QR code is if you don’t already know. Suffice it to say that it’s a bit like a barcode but looks different and has a wider range of uses. The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qr_code">Wikipedia article on QR codes</a> gives a good summary of their historical development and how they have been used, particularly in industry. These are examples of a QR code and a barcode that I generated:<br />
<br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOv9_dAGFD68ScqZIl19rDRzOAJf_Bj92oBGrYd2-H842oi8ljIR6P_M4p-OimmMUN-b0PytCit_Na0bUI1GziossLLV04X1AA3Wz9GXNsLV037zGamMzj3KX_kAJYBiUaT8OsV4AbCx4/s1600/QR+Code+ICT4LT.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOv9_dAGFD68ScqZIl19rDRzOAJf_Bj92oBGrYd2-H842oi8ljIR6P_M4p-OimmMUN-b0PytCit_Na0bUI1GziossLLV04X1AA3Wz9GXNsLV037zGamMzj3KX_kAJYBiUaT8OsV4AbCx4/s1600/QR+Code+ICT4LT.png" t$="true" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
QR code of the ICT4LT website. Generated by <a href="http://www.qrstuff.com/">http://www.qrstuff.com/</a></div><br />
<div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuHWP3Ho5UzKh97GLEk-_vHGxHIK88bMYuxIN_04a2VU-AUGxFeXHPUIjZI84bBLlaVt4np790u0elktTW_BVh-zqfjMcI5ClGJoarDksfPE-wmszupZ_NArFTzB7-j9AR_T4OjacM13w/s1600/barcode.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuHWP3Ho5UzKh97GLEk-_vHGxHIK88bMYuxIN_04a2VU-AUGxFeXHPUIjZI84bBLlaVt4np790u0elktTW_BVh-zqfjMcI5ClGJoarDksfPE-wmszupZ_NArFTzB7-j9AR_T4OjacM13w/s320/barcode.jpg" t$="true" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><br />
Barcode containing information about Graham Davies’s gender, age, weight, height, location<br />
and value in US$! Generated by <a href="http://www.barcodeart.com/">http://www.barcodeart.com/</a></div><br />
Although QR codes have been around for some time, namely since 1994, it is only recently that they have attracted the attention of educators. <a href="http://joedale.typepad.com/integrating_ict_into_the_/2011/07/ipod-touch-training-in-mfl.html">Joe Dale’s blog posting (21 July 2011)</a>, for example, outlines some of their potential uses in teaching foreign languages. Joe describes using QR codes to:<br />
<br />
• launch an mp3 file,<br />
• play a video,<br />
• visit a website and answer comprehension questions,<br />
• engage in a treasure hunt,<br />
• answer questions set by the teacher using QR code voting.<br />
<br />
I have to confess that so far I am not too excited by the current interest in using QR codes in education. It’s not a new idea. Back in the 1980s I attended a seminar in Denmark at which Peter Looms of Danmarks Radio demonstrated how a barcode reader could be used to locate resources for language learners on an interactive videodisc and how teachers could create their own lessons by photocopying, cutting and pasting previously prepared barcodes to create activities for students. The barcode reader was used to jump to a particular frame or segment on the videodisc, not unlike the way in which a URL or QR code is now used to jump to a particular website or part of a website. See:<br />
<br />
Pinfold C., Fox R. & Looms P. (1994) “Barcoding a Japanese language videodisc for secondary schools”. In McBeath C. & Atkinson R. (eds.) <em>Proceedings of the Second International Interactive Multimedia Symposium</em>, Perth, Western Australia, 23-28 January 1994: 436–442. Available at<br />
<a href="http://www.ascilite.org.au/aset-archives/confs/iims/1994/np/pinfold.html">http://www.ascilite.org.au/aset-archives/confs/iims/1994/np/pinfold.html</a><br />
<br />
Using barcodes in education did not catch on. CD-ROMs and DVDs replaced interactive videodiscs and the advent of the Web in 1993 brought about radical changes in storing and accessing educational resources. <br />
<br />
The main problem with QR codes is that you need a device and an application that can read and interpret them – in the same way that you need an appropriately programmed barcode reader to read and interpret barcodes. The difference is that devices and applications that can read and interpret QR codes (I use my iPhone and the Qrafter application) are in common use by the general public. But pointing an iPhone at a QR code image – and you may need more than one shot to read it – waiting for your phone to boot up a Web browser and then render the page to which it is pointing seems to need a lot of additional time and effort. And if you wish to create your own QR codes you need to know how use another application. Maybe I am just getting old, cynical and unimaginative. I have been playing around with technology in education since I began using language labs in 1965 – which were not as wonderful as they were cracked up to be – and now I have to see a real need for the use of technology with evidence that it saves teachers time and produces better learning results. <br />
<br />
However, I have found a good use for QR codes. My wife Sally was watching one of her favourite cookery programmes on BBC TV last week. I was half-watching with her, but I am mainly interested in the results of cooking and not the process itself. My eyes lit up, however, when the TV chef began cooking a smoked haddock pilaf that looked particularly tasty. Sally thought she would like to try it and wondered where she could get the recipe. At that moment I spotted a QR code flash up, all too briefly, in the corner of the TV screen. As we were watching the programme on our Sky+ Box I was able to rewind and freeze the screen so that I could point my iPhone at the QR code. Bingo! It worked first time and sent me to <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/smoked_haddock_pilaf_84768">http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/smoked_haddock_pilaf_84768</a>. Using Qrafter on my iPhone, I emailed the URL link to Sally so that she was able to click on it in her email application on her computer and display and print the recipe. We enjoyed an excellent pilaf the following evening. Now that’s what I call a sensible use of technology!Graham Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15782751150452768910noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309557844334950199.post-26633814716442391932011-07-13T08:53:00.000+00:002011-07-13T08:53:22.441+00:00Languages ICT website to close on 25 July 2011The Languages ICT website, which was set up and maintained by <a href="http://www.cilt.org.uk/">CILT</a> and <a href="http://www.all-languages.org.uk/">ALL</a>, is due to close on 25 July 2011. The announcement of its closure appears on the <a href="http://www.languages-ict.org.uk/">Languages ICT homepage</a>. If there are materials at the site that you find useful grab them while you can! There are many PDF and video files that can be downloaded.<br />
<br />
This is another example of a useful site being abandoned as a result of the lack of available funding. We have seen this happening many times, especially since the current government took over. Having said that, websites that depend on national government or EC funding are often short-lived. Once the funding period comes to an end they are unable to sustain themselves, so they get out of date and are finally abandoned. Teachers TV is a typical example, although the videos can now be streamed from other sites where they are archived: <a href="http://www.tes.co.uk/TeachersTV">http://www.tes.co.uk/TeachersTV</a> and <a href="http://www.teachersmedia.co.uk/">http://www.teachersmedia.co.uk/</a><br />
<br />
When the <a href="http://www.ict4lt.org/">ICT4LT website</a> was initiated with EC funding in 1999-2000, it was made available in four languages: English, Italian, Finnish and Swedish. After the funding period came to an end it was sustained as a labour of love by the five original partners, but the Italian, Finnish and Swedish versions were not kept up to date and have now been abandoned. I took the decision to take over the English-language version and to keep it going. It requires quite a bit of work as links keep changing or disappearing and new developments in ICT take place every day. Nevertheless, the site is reasonably up-to-date and includes information on ICT developments that have taken place since the funding period came to a close, e.g. blogging, podcasting, Web 2.0 applications and virtual worlds. Income from a few discreetly placed advertisements more than covers the costs of paying for the broadband connection and Web space is donated free of charge by my daughter Siân, who is a graphic designer / Web designer. So there are ways and means of keeping a project going. The site receives an average of 12,000 to 13,000 visits per month – “real” visits, not visits from bots and search engines:<br />
<br />
So what happens to dead sites? Sometimes their resources are archived on new or existing sites, but there is a huge Web archive, also known as the <a href="http://www.archive.org/">Wayback Machine</a>, that keeps records of earlier versions of websites. It is not 100% complete, but I have often found it useful in tracking down resources that I thought had disappeared into oblivion.Graham Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15782751150452768910noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309557844334950199.post-77892872490746924542011-03-19T09:52:00.005+00:002011-04-05T11:58:44.820+00:00Have PLNs been over-hyped? A reaction to Gavin Dudeney's blogI was interested to read Gavin Dudeney's posting to his <a href="http://slife.dudeney.com/?p=701">That'SLife blog, 18 March 2011</a>. It’s headed <strong>On PLNs. </strong>In his posting Gavin asks whether Personal Learning Networks (PLNs) have been over-hyped. The essence is summed up in his opening paragraph:<br />
<br />
"I think all this ‘PLN’ business is seriously over-hyped and overrated and most people are kidding themselves about just how much they get out of theirs, just how many of their PLN would be friends and mentors ‘in real life’, and just, well, just how real it all is."<br />
<br />
I posted a response, agreeing on the whole with what Gavin had said, especially this extract from his posting:<br />
<br />
“Here’s what I know (and I must stress this is a personal post – your mileage may vary)… My best friends are all, with one or two exceptions, people I have first met face-to-face and then continued to contact online due to distance or whatever. I also know that, like most people, I have an optimum number of friends, and that number is very small. I see these people when I can, and I get more out of two hours in their company than I could ever in a few weeks with them online in Twitter.”<br />
<br />
So true! I get more out of chatting to half a dozen friends at my local pub on a Saturday night than I do out of a whole week of browsing the Web. Twitter is OK for picking up links and for occasional bits of information, but on the whole I find it confusing. Turn your head for a couple of hours and the interesting threads you were following have got lost in a mass of idle chit-chat. I deliberately avoid accepting lots of new friends on Twitter or Facebook. I can’t handle large numbers of friends or followers, and I don’t want to anyway. Facebook is my fun area. It embraces my family and real friends, and a few people I have met at conferences. Don’t expect too much serious stuff from me on Facebook. Most of my postings have nothing to do with my professional life.<br />
<br />
It is becoming increasingly apparent that life online is becoming stressful. I often read about people worrying about keeping up with new developments. They are never away from their laptops, iPhones or iPads. I recently read a posting from a young woman who was horrified to find that she had been charged $30 a day for using her iPhone while spending a holiday at her parents’ home (which is in a different country from the one in which she works). Her parents’ home did not have wifi, so she chose to pay the roaming charges in case she missed something important. There’s another solution: switch off your phone while you are on holiday.<br />
<br />
Some years ago, when I was still in full employment, I came back from a short holiday to find 500 messages sitting in my email in-folder. In a fit of pique I just trashed the lot without reading a single message. On reflection, I felt a bit guilty and also apprehensive about this, wondering if I might have missed something important. But my act of vandalism appeared to make no difference to my life. People who really needed a reply to the messages that they had sent me contacted me again. A friend of mine did the same thing recently, dumping all the messages that arrived by email into a trash folder while she was on a skiing holiday. I think her experience was much the same as mine.Graham Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15782751150452768910noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309557844334950199.post-60694641535242145782011-02-18T14:01:00.028+00:002011-02-25T15:00:58.463+00:00ICT Links into Languages Conference, 12-13 February 2011There has been a buzz of excitement following the ICT Links into Languages Conference (ILILC) that took place at the University of Southampton over the weekend 12-13 February 2011. This is clear from the activities on Twitter and in various blogs and wikis that are managed by teachers of modern foreign languages. I was not at the conference in person but I followed the text chat in the CovertitLive window embedded in the <a href="http://ililc.wikispaces.com/">ILILC wiki</a> and I watched the streaming videos of Joe Dale's and Rachel Hawkes' presentations. Even at a distance it was clear to me that this was going to be a memorable occasion. All credit is due to Joe Dale, who played the main role in setting up this event. See <a href="http://joedale.typepad.com/integrating_ict_into_the_/2011/02/ict-links-into-languages-conference.html">Joe Dale's blog</a> for further information and links.<br />
<br />
<div>One of the questions raised by <a href="http://chrisfuller.typepad.com/">Chris Fuller</a> and <a href="http://alexblagona.blogspot.com/">Alex Blagona</a> is how the buzz of this conference can be sustained. It’s not an easy question to answer, and I’ve thought long and hard about it. Keeping the buzz going and, above all, convincing the unconvinced that ICT can play an important role in language learning and teaching are not easy tasks. I’ve been doing this for years, and it’s been a long, uphill struggle. Maybe we can learn from the past.</div><br />
<div>When I first got into ICT in the late 1970s I was regarded by my colleagues as the departmental freak. Their attitudes changed, when my <a href="http://www.cilt.org.uk/">CILT</a> publication on Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) appeared in 1982, the first of a string of CILT publications on this topic that appeared from the 1980s onwards. Looking at the titles on my bookshelves I can see my own publications and several others, spanning the period from 1982 to 2001:</div><br />
<div>Davies G. & Higgins J. (1982) <em>Computers, language and language learning</em>, CILT.</div><br />
Davies G. & Higgins J. (1985) <em>Using computers in language learning: a teacher's guide</em>, CILT.<br />
<br />
<div>Atkinson T. (1992) <em>Hands off. It's my go! IT in the languages classroom</em>, CILT in association with NCET.</div><br />
<div>Hagen S. (ed.) (1993) <em>Using technology in language learning</em>, City Technology Colleges Trust in association with CILT.</div><br />
<div>Hewer S. (1997) <em>Text manipulation: computer-based activities to improve knowledge and use of the target language</em>, CILT.</div><br />
<div>Atkinson T. (1998) <em>WWW: the Internet</em>, CILT. </div><br />
<div>Atkinson T. (ed.) (2001) <em>Reflections on ICT</em>, CILT.</div><br />
<div>Thinking back, I recall the 1980s and 1990s as a period of great optimism and enthusiasm - quite different from today in many respects. The first major conference on ICT and language learning and teaching was organised by CILT in association with the Council for Educational Technology (CET) at Queen Mary College’s Halls of Residence way back in 1981. In the following years CILT organised a series of annual conferences that took place at St Martin’s College, Lancaster. Each one generated a buzz, and overall they probably had a considerable impact.</div><br />
<div>In 1985 the National Centre for Computer Assisted Language Learning (NCCALL) was set up at Ealing College with the aid of central government funding. Its brief was to address the needs of language teachers in FE, but in practice it addressed all sectors of education. I was proud to be the Director of NCCALL, which received visits from around 400 language teachers per year during its existence. Most were participants in our regular courses, but we also had a steady stream of individual visitors from the UK and all over the world. NCCALL worked in close collaboration with the Computers in Teaching Initiative Centre for Modern Languages (CTICML) at the University of Hull, which was set up in 1989 to address the needs of the HE sector. Both centres had a considerable impact on spreading the word about ICT in language learning and teaching, but the funding did not last for ever. NCCALL was closed down in 1990 and the CTICML was closed down in 2002.</div><br />
<div>BECTA’s predecessors (the CET, MESU and NCET) were also active in the early days of CALL. The CET (Council for Educational Technology) collaborated with CILT in setting up the first major CALL conference in 1981, and a number of important publications followed. I can see the following on my bookshelves:</div><br />
<div><em>Learning languages with technology</em>, NCET/MESU, 1988.</div><br />
<div>The videocassette, <em>Granville in the modern languages classroom</em> (about the <em>Granville</em> simulation, written for the BBC Microcomputer), NCET/MESU, 1988.</div><br />
<div><em>Accent on IT</em>, NCET, 1997.</div><br />
<div>Then there was the NOF initiative, 1999-2003. The NOF initiative was one of the most extensive ICT in-service training initiatives ever undertaken. Funded with £230 million worth of National Lottery money, the initiative aimed to enable thousands of teachers in all subject areas to make effective use of ICT. A nominal sum of £450 was allocated to each full-time teacher in publicly maintained schools. NOF was not a roaring success, however. The main problem was that most of the training was delivered by agencies specialising in ICT training in general rather than subject-specific ICT training – and they were highly criticised. Those agencies, e.g. CILT, that delivered subject-specific training were more successful and highly praised by teachers who took part in their courses. See what I have written about NOF in my article on <a href="http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/ictmfl.htm#nof">ICT and MFL in the National Curriculum</a>.</div><br />
<div>And then CILT set up the <a href="http://www.languages-ict.org.uk/">Languages ICT</a> site in collaboration with ALL, but this now appears to be a dead site, with the homepage dated April 2009.</div><br />
<div>A lot of money has been spent on promoting ICT and some of it has been well spent - see the examples above - but who is spending the money now? Not the current UK government, certainly. I hope the impact of ILILC is maintained, but I don't think it will be easy. The key problems are a lack of continuity and a lack of funding, and there is no focal point to which language teachers can turn for advice. I do, however, try to keep the <a href="http://www.ict4lt.org/">ICT4LT site</a> updated as a labour of love. It’s still going strong, 12 years after it was set up with the aid of EC funding. It’s a struggle keeping it going as so many innovations appear each week, but the average daily visitor count of 1000+ gives me encouragement.</div><br />
<div><a href="http://www.eurocall-languages.org/">EUROCALL</a>, founded in 1986, is also still going strong. The 2011 EUROCALL conference will take place in Nottingham, 31 August to 3 September, and one of the sub-themes is <em>The use of new technologies for language teaching in schools</em>. Will you be there?</div><br />
<div>Finally, take a look at my EUROCALL 2010 keynote, <a href="http://iufm.u-bordeaux4.fr/ressources/recherche/eurocall2010_conf1">Where have we been, where are we now, and where are we going?</a> Can we learn from the past? How can the buzz be sustained?</div>Graham Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15782751150452768910noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309557844334950199.post-69220343979932698452011-01-08T12:59:00.019+00:002011-10-23T10:37:23.039+00:00My life onlineI have been using electronic communication for many years, dating back to my first encounter with email back in 1985. Around the same time I was able to access the French <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minitel">Minitel</a> system. Getting online to send emails and accessing Minitel in those days was a cumbersome process that involved using a dial-up modem linked to a BBC Microcomputer, but it worked. I was able to communicate by email with a group of colleagues with whom I was working on a project and to display authentic Minitel pages to our students of French. The big breakthrough came after my college joined the JANET network, and in 1993 I was able to send my proposal for a conference keynote presentation to the University of Victoria, Canada, by email. My proposal was accepted by email and all the subsequent correspondence with the University of Victoria took place by email. Not a single piece of paper was posted in either direction.<br />
<br />
I began using the Web in 1994. It required the use of a dial-up modem and it was S-L-O-W. Pages took an eternity to download, and I often switched off the display of images to speed things up. But it was fascinating - all that information at one’s fingertips, although it was only a tiny fraction of what is available now, and sound and video did not exist in the early days of the Web.<br />
<br />
How things have changed. I am now retired and I spend a lot of time online - but mainly for leisure and pleasure. I am so glad that I am no longer under pressure to keep up to date like many of my younger colleagues. My computer is my window on the world. This is how I spend my day:<br />
<br />
I begin my day by checking my email. Thank to my efficient ISP I get very little spam. Most spam is blocked before it reaches my computer, so I never see it, and the odd spam email that sneaks through is trapped by my <a href="http://www.firetrust.com/en/products/mailwasher-pro">MailWasher Pro</a> filter. If an email requires a reply that I can deal with in less than a minute I answer it immediately. Emails relating to my business partnership and consultancy work take priority, and anything that requires a longer reply or research goes into my pending box until I find time to deal with it.<br />
<br />
My next task is to look at the 30+ discussion lists, blogs, wikis, Nings and fora that I follow. Thanks to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS">RSS</a> and <a href="http://www.google.co.uk/reader/">Google Reader</a> this does not take long. I skim quickly through the subject lines and read only those contributions that look interesting - which is usually a small fraction of the total. I reply to one or two if I have anything useful to say.<br />
<br />
I then take a quick look at my <a href="http://twitter.com/daisybundle">Twitter</a> account. I have a love-hate relationship with Twitter. On the one hand I love the way in which Twitter’s 140-character limit forces people to be succinct, but I hate the flood of messages piling up one after another, often with no easily discernible threads. If people keep bombarding Twitter with stuff that is of no interest to me then I just unfollow them - and I protect my tweets in order to cut down spam. I do, however, find Twitter useful. I pick up many new interesting Web links and announcements via Twitter, especially via the <strong>#mfltwitterati</strong> and <strong>#flteach</strong> hashtags.<br />
<br />
I then take a quick look at my <a href="http://www.facebook.com/graham.davies3">Facebook</a> account. I use Facebook mainly to keep in touch with my family and friends worldwide, but many of my Facebook followers don’t seem to realise this. They follow me expecting pearls of academic wisdom, but mostly I post personal messages, links to amusing YouTube videos and photos that are of interest only to my family and friends. I find that my Facebook friends are more likely to engage in communication than my Twitter friends. This is probably because most of my Facebook friends are people whom I know personally, but I think it also has something to do with the interface of Facebook, which makes two-way communication easier. In addition I belong to several closed groups (e.g. <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/255577856335/">EUROCALL</a>) on Facebook, where the information exchanged is viewed only by members of each group, i.e. it's quite separate from the information that is broadcast to my family and friends. I use the groups mainly for educational purposes and for keeping myself informed about specific topics in which I have a personal interest.<br />
<br />
I also have accounts on <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/39193151@N06/">Flickr</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/grahamwinkler">YouTube</a> and <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/grahamdavies">LinkedIn</a>. I have posted a few videos that I have made to my YouTube account and a small collection of photos to my Flickr account, but I only do this occasionally. I use LinkedIn to build up a list of professional contacts. I thought it might be useful in picking up offers of consultancy work, but so far I have not had a single offer.<br />
<br />
By this time it’s mid-morning and time for coffee. I take a break for half an hour walking around most of the time. I do this at regular intervals during the day. I used to suffer from back problems, which my doctor diagnosed as the result of sitting at the computer for long intervals without a break. In 2006, following major surgery, I was diagnosed with deep vein thrombosis (DVT). DVT often follows surgery and it is also associated with sitting in the cramped conditions of long-haul flights. But DVT can also be triggered just by sitting for too long. Yes, sitting for too long at a computer is not good for your health. See this story: <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3441237.stm">Computer game teenager gets DVT</a>.<br />
<br />
After my coffee break I update the two websites and the Ning that I maintain: <a href="http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/">Camsoft</a> (my business and personal site), the <a href="http://www.ict4lt.org/">ICT4LT</a> website and the joint <a href="http://virtualworldssig.ning.com/">EUROCALL/CALICO Virtual Worlds SIG Ning</a>. Mainly this involves adding new links and information that I have picked up via email, Twitter or Facebook. Once a week I use <a href="http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html">Xenu Link Sleuth</a> to check my websites for broken links.<br />
<br />
Time for lunch and an afternoon walk with our greyhound, <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/39193151@N06/4473697290/">Brett</a>. I walk at least a mile every day. We are fortunate to live very close to beautiful National Trust woodland and common land, so this is an enjoyable part of the day. When I get home I usually have a nap for half and hour, and three times a week I go for an afternoon swim in our local Holiday Inn pool.<br />
<br />
At around 5pm-6pm I pop into <a href="http://secondlife.com/">Second Life</a>. This is a good time as my American colleague, Randall Sadler, is usually up and about and I often engage in text chat or voice chat with him - and other colleagues - at the <a href="http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/EduNation%20III/74/199/31">CALICO/EUROCALL HQ</a>. I can also access Second Life via my iPhone, using the <a href="http://www.pocketmetaverse.com/">Pocket Metaverse</a> app, but only for locating friends and engaging in text chat with them; it’s not (yet) in 3D.<br />
<br />
Around 7pm I usually shut down my computer. The evening is for relaxation: a couple of drinks, listening to music and a long and leisurely dinner, followed by viewing TV. Most of the music we listen to now is relayed from <a href="http://www.apple.com/itunes/">iTunes</a> on a laptop in our lounge to my ancient (1994) but powerful Kenwood hifi system, using a small transmitter device - a wonderful blend of old and new technologies. The <strong>Sky+ Box</strong> that we bought a couple of years ago has totally changed the way in which we watch TV. Most of the broadcasts that we watch, apart from the news, have been recorded on the Sky+ Box’s hard disk, which can store 40 hours of recordings. It’s a very efficient and easy-to-use system, and I can even program the box remotely from my computer or iPhone.<br />
<br />
I usually sit with my iPhone by my side while watching TV. I find a couple of iPhone apps particularly useful: namely <strong>Google </strong>and the <a href="http://www.imdb.com/">International Movie Database (IMDb)</a>, and I occasionally use the Twitter or Facebook apps on my iPhone. My memory is not so good as it used to be. For example, while watching <em>Elizabeth: The Golden Age</em> neither my wife Sally nor I could not remember in which way Elizabeth was related to Mary Queen of Scots. Google gave us the answer - they were cousins. We often forget the names of actors too, but the IMDb can quickly provide us with this information. All I have to do is search for the name of the film and call up a complete cast list, a summary of the plot and selected reviews.<br />
<br />
Well, that’s about it. How do you spend your life online?Graham Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15782751150452768910noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309557844334950199.post-48613099142653532482010-11-20T10:26:00.001+00:002010-11-20T10:26:38.390+00:00EUROCALL symposium on corpora and computer mediated communicationIn cooperation with the Eurocall CorpusCALL and CMC SIGs, the Applied English Linguistics group at the University of Tübingen (Germany) is organising the following CALL research symposium:<br />
<br />
Authenticating Language Learning: Web Collaboration Meets Pedagogic Corpora<br />
17-19 February 2011<br />
<br />
Website: <a href="http://www.ael.uni-tuebingen.de/symposium.html">http://www.ael.uni-tuebingen.de/symposium.html</a>Graham Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15782751150452768910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309557844334950199.post-31973521219619465962010-11-15T11:20:00.005+00:002011-11-20T13:18:54.335+00:00Review of "Talk Now", a CD-ROM for learners of Mandarin ChineseFurther to my <a href="http://ictforlanguageteachers.blogspot.com/2010/11/mylo-new-way-to-learn-languages.html">November 2010 posting on MYLO</a>, in which I criticised the pedagogy underlying the MYLO project and described my (failed) attempt to use it to learn Chinese, I decided to have a look at an existing commercial product, namely “Talk Now” Mandarin Chinese by EuroTalk, to see how it fared. Here is my review:<br />
<br />
The package was extremely easy to install. It is supplied on CD-ROM and all I had to do was pop the CD into my computer and then most of the process was automatic. The package has the following features:<br />
<br />
- You can choose which language you want to learn FROM. The default is English, but you can also choose to have the interface and translations of the Chinese in a huge range of other languages. This means, for example, that if you are a native German, French, Spanish or Polish speaker you don’t have to struggle with English as the “Trägersprache”.<br />
<br />
- The interface is simple, and the screen is clear and uncluttered.<br />
<br />
- I signed in as “Graham”, the name under which my scores and progress would be recorded. Records are carried over from session to session, so that you can see how well you are doing and what you already know. If other students were using the package at the same time they would be able to sign in under their individual names and sign back on from session to session.<br />
<br />
- I was presented with a choice of learning words and phrases in the following categories: First words, Food, Colours, Phrases, Body, Numbers, Shopping, Countries, Time. I chose First words.<br />
<br />
- I could click on the English translation of each word and hear how it was pronounced both by a native male and native female speaker. At the same time each word and phrase was presented to me as pinyin text, as Chinese characters and with an associated cartoon. The sound quality was excellent.<br />
<br />
- I was able to click on a microphone and practise pronouncing each word and phrase as many times as I liked in order to hear how I sounded, using the male or female native speaker as a model.<br />
<br />
- I was able to print a full-colour list of the words and phrases that I was learning as pinyin text, Chinese characters, translation into English, and with a cartoon image associated with each word or phrase. I sat down in a comfy chair and read through the words and phrases after I had finished practising pronouncing them on my computer.<br />
<br />
- I worked my way through four game-like quizzes at increasingly difficult levels that tested how well I could remember the words and phrases that has been presented to me. I discovered that the program remembered my weak points and homed in on them so that I was offered additional practice.<br />
<br />
- I was able to click on a button that stored all the recordings of the words and phrases in iTunes on my computer, and I was then able to transfer them to my iPod and iPhone so that I could listen to them while walking around.<br />
<br />
So what’s missing? There’s a lack of explanations about the tone system, the pinyin writing system and how to recognise and write Chinese characters. I also missed images and videos showing real people in China speaking Chinese, and something about Chinese culture – but I found all this at the BBC Languages website: <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/chinese/">http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/chinese/</a><br />
<br />
I needed explanations of Chinese grammar too, but I found it difficult to find anything on the Web that explains Chinese grammar in simple terms. I also needed a dictionary. This was easier to find. The “Useful links” section at the BBC site led me to <a href="http://www.clearchinese.com/">http://www.clearchinese.com/</a>. Other links can be found here:<br />
<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/chinese/real_chinese/mini_guides/links/">http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/chinese/real_chinese/mini_guides/links/</a><br />
<br />
My verdict: “Talk Now” is not perfect, but it’s not at all bad, and it does an efficient job. After a couple of hours of practice I was actually LEARNING Mandarin Chinese. I could recognise and pronounce about 50 words and phrases, and one day later I could still remember around half of them. “Talk Now” is good value for money at £24.99 for a single-user licence or £110 for a school site licence, but it needs to be backed up by other resources. There are other packages for more advanced learners and the range of languages on offer is enormous. There is already a EuroTalk Facebook page at <a href="http://www.facebook.com/EuroTalk">http://www.facebook.com/EuroTalk</a>, and EuroTalk products will be going online early next year. For further information see<br />
<a href="http://eurotalk.com/en/">http://eurotalk.com/en/</a><br />
<br />
I am not alone in criticising the MYLO project. A lively discussion is currently (November 2010) going in in the <a href="https://www.mailtalk.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A1=ind1011&L=LINGUANET-FORUM#33">Linguanet Forum</a>.<br />
<br />
Regards<br />
Graham DaviesGraham Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15782751150452768910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309557844334950199.post-80116087927580202372010-11-12T11:01:00.011+00:002011-11-11T10:30:09.229+00:00MYLO - a new way to learn languages?MYLO is a UK goverment-funded project that aims to offer secondary school students a "new way to learn languages", specifically French, German, Spanish and Mandarin Chinese. See my <a href="http://ictforlanguageteachers.blogspot.com/2010/02/mylo-open-school-for-languages.html">February 2010 posting on MYLO</a>. <br />
<br />
I have had a quick look at the <a href="http://www.hellomylo.com/" target="_blank">MYLO Website</a> and the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watchmylo" target="_blank">MYLO YouTube videos</a>. My first reactions:<br />
<br />
The following message on the homepage (as of November 2010) does not inspire visitors with confidence:<br />
<br />
"A new UK Government took office on 11 May. As a result the content on this site may not reflect current Government policy. All statutory guidance and legislation published on this site continues to reflect the current legal position unless indicated otherwise. To view the new website, please visit <a href="http://www.education.gov.uk/">http://www.education.gov.uk/</a>"<br />
<br />
Why does the MYLO URL continue to use DCSF? The DCSF changed its name shortly after the new government took over in May 2010, and most old DCSF addresses have been updated.<br />
<br />
As a former teacher of German, I looked first at the section on <strong>German Basics</strong>, <strong>Greetings and Goodbyes</strong>. The word "tschüs" (informal "goodbye") is introduced here. There are different ways of pronouncing and spelling this word, depending on the region, personal preferences, etc. The "ü" can be long or short and the spelling must correspond to the pronunciation. In the sound recordings in MYLO the "ü" is pronounced short, and therefore the spelling should be "tschüss", but MYLO presents the written form as "tschüs", which is the correct spelling only if the "ü" is pronounced long. I remember having this discussion when I worked on German Steps for the BBC: <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/german/lj/">http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/german/lj/</a>. You will find "tschüss" in the BBC materials. Not trusting my own judgement or memory, I checked the spelling/pronunciation at <a href="http://www.canoo.net/">http://www.canoo.net/</a>. This confirmed that, since the 1996 spelling reform, "tchüss" is correct when the vowel is pronounced short and that "tschüs" is correct when the vowel is pronounced long. Duden agrees: 23rd edition (2004) and later. MYLO has promised to correct this error, but someone should have done some thorough checking in the first place.<br />
<br />
The MYLO YouTube presentations are slick and the advice given in the “Learning to Learn” clips is sound, but I think it will wash straight over the heads of most teenagers.<br />
<br />
I decided to put myself in the position of a learner. This is a bit difficult for me as I speak German fluently, my French is tolerable, and I have good survival skills in Spanish. I don’t know much Chinese, however. I followed a BBC radio course in spoken Mandarin over 40 years ago, and I have forgotten most of what I have learned, so I had a go at MYLO’s Mandarin Chinese exercises. I scored 100% on all the exercises that I attempted (matching sounds with the pinyin texts and the Chinese characters), but I learned nothing about the tone system and how Chinese is structured. Half an hour later I could not recall most of the words that had been presented. These important elements are lacking:<br />
<br />
1. The possibility of recording and playing back one’s own voice, which is vital in the early stages of language learning and features in many software packages that have been published in recent years by companies such as <a href="http://eurotalk.com/en/">EuroTalk</a> and <a href="http://www.vl-systems.com/">Virtual Languages</a>.<br />
<br />
2. There are no “real-life” images or videos. See, for example, the BBC’s introduction to Mandarin Chinese at <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/chinese/">http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/chinese/</a>. Furthermore, the BBC materials are much better in terms of presentation, e.g. the tone system, pinyin, Chinese characters, and what the words and phrases actually mean. There are also useful links to external sites.<br />
<br />
3. There is negligible feedback in the exercises in MYLO, and I don’t recognise the pedagogical and cognitive principles on which they are based - maybe a variation of Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development? Feedback is crucial. We learned a lot about interactivity and feedback (both intrinsic and extrinsic feedback) while working on the TELL Consortium software in the 1990s. See ICT4LT Module 1.1, Section 7.1 and Section 7.2:<br />
Interactivity: <a href="http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_mod1-1.htm#7.1">http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_mod1-1.htm#7.1</a><br />
Feedback: <a href="http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_mod1-1.htm#7.2">http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_mod1-1.htm#7.2</a><br />
<br />
MYLO advertises itself as a “new way to learn languages”. Well, not really. Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) has been around since the 1960s, CILT’s first publication on CALL - aimed at secondary school teachers - appeared in 1982 (I was one of the authors), and multimedia CALL has been around since the early 1990s: see my EUROCALL 2010 keynote,<br />
“Where have we been, where are we now, and where are we going?”<br />
Video: <a href="http://iufm.u-bordeaux4.fr/ressources/recherche/eurocall2010_conf1">http://iufm.u-bordeaux4.fr/ressources/recherche/eurocall2010_conf1</a><br />
PowerPoint: <a href="http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/Graham_EUROCALL_2010_Keynote.ppt">http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/Graham_EUROCALL_2010_Keynote.ppt</a><br />
<br />
We have learned a lot of lessons on this long journey, but MYLO does not appear to have been listening.<br />
<br />
I am not alone in criticising MYLO. A lively discussion is currently (November 2010) going on in the <a href="https://www.mailtalk.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A1=ind1011&L=LINGUANET-FORUM#33">Linguanet Forum</a>.Graham Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15782751150452768910noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309557844334950199.post-70319365939757224732010-10-17T10:55:00.002+00:002010-10-17T10:58:35.908+00:0010 best languages to learn right nowThis is an interesting list of languages, compiled on the basis of the numbers of community speakers of these languages in the USA - and also the prospects of using these languages in international business. The list of <a href="http://www.toponlinecolleges.com/blog/2010/10-best-languages-to-learn-right-now/">10 best languages to learn right now</a> comprises:<br />
<br />
1. Spanish<br />
2. Chinese<br />
3. French<br />
4. German<br />
5. Tagalog<br />
6. Vietnamese<br />
7. Korean<br />
8. Polish<br />
9. Russian<br />
10. Italian<br />
<br />
What would such a list look like from a UK point of view? We often talk about the "best" foreign language for us to learn, but weighing up the various reasons for learning a particular foreign language is not easy. As native speakers of English we find life far too easy travelling around a world where English is so widely spoken both as a first and as a second language. <br />
<br />
French is currently the No. 1 language that is taught in UK schools, mainly for historical reasons and because France is our nearest neighbour, but strong arguments have been put forward for learning Spanish, German, Chinese and Japanese too. <br />
<br />
And what about our community languages? Polish or Panjabi might be the first choice in the area where I live.<br />
<br />
What do you think?Graham Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15782751150452768910noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309557844334950199.post-13941209529612092522010-10-17T10:30:00.000+00:002010-10-17T10:30:36.398+00:00Top 25 world languages blogsWe are delighted to announce that the ICT4LT blog has been listed at No. 15 in the <a href="http://www.onlinedegrees.org/top-25-world-languages-blogs/">Top 25 languages blogs</a>. <br />
<br />
No. 1 on the list is Lisa Stevens' blog<strong> ¡Vámonos!</strong> - a useful and entertaining blog for primary school language teachers. We list Lisa's blog - and many others - in Section 12.2.2 of Module 1.5 at the ICT4LT site under the heading <a href="http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_mod1-5.htm#ltblogs">Useful blogs created by and for language teachers</a>. <strong> </strong>Graham Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15782751150452768910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309557844334950199.post-41995666641767561872010-09-24T10:34:00.000+00:002010-09-24T10:34:10.713+00:00SLanguages Conference, 15-16 October 2010<strong>SLanguages 2010</strong> is a 24-hour virtual conference on language teaching and learning in Second Life. It will run from 10:00 SL time (5pm GMT), 15 October, 10:00 SL time (5pm GMT), 16 October. Wherever possible, sessions will be repeated to enable people in different time zones to see them. There will also be group discussions and social events and the opportunity to visit an exhibition of SL tools for educators. Further information can be found in the <strong>AVALON Ning</strong>:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://avalon-project.ning.com/events/slanguages-2010">http://avalon-project.ning.com/events/slanguages-2010</a>Graham Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15782751150452768910noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309557844334950199.post-30609402818185231482010-09-01T13:51:00.007+00:002010-09-19T09:22:40.145+00:00EUROCALL 2010 Conference, 8-11 September, BordeauxThe EUROCALL 2010 Conference took place in Bordeaux, 8-11 September. As in previous years, the conference was covered in a <strong>Virtual Strand</strong> to enable people who could not attend the conference in person to follow the main events. The <a href="http://virtualeurocall2010.blogspot.com/">EUROCALL 2010 Conference Blog</a>, with embedded <a href="http://www.coveritlive.com/">CoveritLive</a> windows, was the main element of the Virtual Strand, but other social networks were also used:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://twitter.com/Eurocall2010">Twitter</a><br />
<a href="http://www.facebook.com/#/group.php?gid=255577856335&ref=nf">Facebook</a> <br />
<a href="http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=2664932&trk=hb_side_g">LinkedIn</a> <br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/1338053@N23/">Flickr</a> <br />
<br />
Videos of the plenary presentations have now been made available, as well as photostreams of the parallel sessions and social events: <a href="http://iufm.u-bordeaux4.fr/accueil/recherche/colloque/eurocall2010/">EUROCALL 2010 Videos and Photos</a>.<br />
<br />
Further information about EUROCALL can be found at the <a href="http://www.eurocall-languages.org/">EUROCALL Website</a>.Graham Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15782751150452768910noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309557844334950199.post-9712147574273956932010-07-16T13:26:00.001+00:002010-09-20T08:44:26.805+00:00The 1920s Berlin Project in Second LifeThis is the website for <strong>The 1920s Berlin Project in Second Life</strong>:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.1920sberlin.com/">http://www.1920sberlin.com/</a><br />
<br />
More information, with screenshots and videos, can be found in the <strong>AVALON Ning</strong>:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://avalon-project.ning.com/forum/topics/ich-bin-ein-berliner">http://avalon-project.ning.com/forum/topics/ich-bin-ein-berliner</a><br />
<br />
Second Life is a 3D world in which simulations (“sims”) of any real or imagined location can be created and in which people can interact in their avatar guises. The aim of the project is to stage a German course in a historical setting. Participants are asked to wear clothes of the 1920s, and a free set of clothes is provided for your avatar. There is an active role-playing community with great characters like Jo Yardley, a war widow, and Petrus, the barman, who might give you a glass of Absinth when the police are not looking.<br />
<br />
Here is the SLURL:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Dudintsev/130/60/501">http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Dudintsev/130/60/501</a><br />
<br />
The German course is an experiment to see whether language teachers in Second Life can set up a sim and a community where they can offer their courses and where the lessons offer real added value for the learners, introducing them to a community and place which they can come back to by themselves and practise their German.<br />
<br />
Here is an extract from the description of the project at the above website:<br />
<br />
“Berlin in the 1920s was a very interesting time, politically, culturally and in many other ways. We wanted to try and recreate the atmosphere of this fantastic city in that amazing era. But we wanted to show a realistic and authentic view of the darker side of this city. Most historical sims show a somewhat romanticised, clean, charming view of the past. We wanted to show our visitors what common people lived like in the backstreets of the poorer neighbourhoods. No big houses, palaces, lanes and glorious theatres in our sim, but tiny apartments, a cheap modern looking cinema, a theatre that has seen better days and a dance hall that is situated in a damp basement and where they have lukewarm beer in dirty glasses.”Graham Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15782751150452768910noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309557844334950199.post-69856908504077287842010-07-16T08:38:00.002+00:002011-01-01T17:06:49.898+00:00Second Life - the long goodbye: re Gavin Dudeney's blogThere is a very lively discussion taking place right now in Gavin Dudeney’s <strong>That’SLife </strong>blog in a thread headed <a href="http://slife.dudeney.com/?p=446">Second Life - The Long Goodbye</a>. Gavin has decided to say goodbye to SL, at least in terms of continuing to play a role in using SL for teaching and training. He has decided that SL is not the most suitable environment for educators, citing technical problems, the unfriendliness of Viewer 2 and the general lack of real improvements during the last two years.<br />
<br />
As Gavin puts it: “It’s frustrating not to improve at a better pace, it’s frustrating to see competent users still having voice and other problems and, well, it’s just frustrating sometimes.” Read Gavin’s blog and the large number of comments by people who agree or disagree with Gavin.<br />
<br />
What do you think? Is SL “ too demanding and too unreliable for most educators” and are there “better ways of doing most things you can do in SL in terms of education”?Graham Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15782751150452768910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309557844334950199.post-79204493366358841432010-06-09T11:46:00.002+00:002011-04-24T12:36:28.929+00:00Hard to teach - teaching foreign languages at secondary school levelThis <strong>Teachers TV</strong> video shows three imaginative case studies of teachers using ICT to teach modern foreign languages at secondary school level.<br />
<br />
1. José Picardo's students at Nottingham High School for Boys use <a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.voki.com">Voki</a>, <a href="http://www.glogster.com/">Glogster</a> and <a href="http://www.stupeflix.com/">Stupefix</a> to practise speaking Spanish.<br />
<br />
2. Fiona Joyce at Kingstone School in Barnsley uses the Web to stimulate her students' interest in French life and language. She uses French-language videos to trigger vocabulary work with her students, encourages them to use the Web for research and to use an inter-school social network to communicate with French-speaking students around the world.<br />
<br />
3. At Cramlington Learning Village, the emphasis is on encouraging students' self-assessment skills. Chris Harte's students practise their spoken French, using <a href="http://audacity.sourceforge.net/">Audacity</a>, by creating an audio-visual presentation about Haiti. <br />
<br />
<object height="227" width="400"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=12300829&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1" /><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=12300829&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="400" height="227"></embed></object><br />
<br />
See also José Picardo's <a href="http://www.boxoftricks.net/">Box of Tricks</a> blog.Graham Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15782751150452768910noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309557844334950199.post-77951144503083466392010-05-26T09:12:00.009+00:002010-05-26T15:59:29.964+00:00New UK government to close BECTASee this article in The Guardian, 24 May 2010:<br />
<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/may/24/becta-government-closure">Government to close BECTA</a><br />
<br />
BECTA is the British Education and Communications Technology Agency, which is responsible for information and support regarding the use of ICT to schools and other educational institutions throughout the UK.<br />
<br />
Way back in 1981 BECTA was known as the Council for Educational Technology (CET). I was invited in that year to a meeting with representatives from the CET and <a href="http://www.cilt.org.uk/">CILT</a> (now known as the National Centre for Languages), which led to the first major UK conference on the use of computers in language teaching and learning - at which I gave my first public presentation on computer assisted language learning.<br />
<br />
The CET changed its name a couple of times in the following years, first to the National Council for Educational Technology (NCET) and later to the Microelectronics in Education Support Unit (MESU). I have some good publications on my bookshelves that date back to that era, e.g.<br />
<ul><li>Learning languages with technology (printed materials), NCET, 1988</li>
<li>Videocassette on the Granville simulation, NCET, 1988</li>
<li>Accent on IT (videocassette and printed materials), MESU, 1997</li>
</ul>In those days representatives of BECTA’s predecessors were often in evidence at national conferences for language teachers in the UK and at the international <a href="http://www.eurocall-languages.org/">EUROCALL</a> conferences, but then they disappeared into their hi-tech shell. BECTA expressed an interest in becoming a partner in the <a href="http://www.ict4lt.org/">ICT4LT project</a>, which was initiated with European Commission funding in 1999, but then they withdrew, indicating they would rather just play a role in publicising and supporting the project in a more informal way – which never happened.<br />
<br />
The name change to BECTA took place in 2000, and from this point on I think the agency began to lose the plot. It became more technology-driven, and the needs of language teachers (and other non-technical subject areas) were overlooked. The 1980s was a good period, but pedagogy faded into the background in the 1990s, and then BECTA got involved in expensive, grandiose (but short-lived) schemes such as the National Grid for Learning (NGfL) and Curriculum Online. There is very little at the BECTA site now that focuses on language teaching and learning.<br />
<br />
Teachers do not need a costly government agency like BECTA. There are hundreds of sites on the Web where useful information about ICT can be obtained, and teachers also tend to use social networks if they are looking for information or advice. Frankly, I am happy to see BECTA disappear.Graham Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15782751150452768910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309557844334950199.post-14239643444270110512010-05-19T11:31:00.002+00:002010-05-20T14:34:52.001+00:00Language learning and social media<strong>Language learning and social media</strong> is an EC-funded project that embraces a mix of activities exploring the relationship of language learning and social media in the Web 2.0 era:<br />
<br />
Participatory debates, award-winning competitions, policy recommendations and reports, scientific publications and field studies.<br />
<br />
The 14 partner institutions will examine six key dimensions of language learning and social media:<br />
<ol><li>Language learning, social media and social inclusion. </li>
<li>Language learning, social media and development of language resources. </li>
<li>Language learning and teaching through social media in new EU countries: Romania, Latvia and Poland. </li>
<li>Language learning, social media and multilingualism. </li>
<li>Language learning through social media: evolution of teaching practices. </li>
<li>Language learning and teaching in formal and non formal contexts through ICT. </li>
</ol>Further information at: <a href="http://www.elearningeuropa.info/languagelearning">http://www.elearningeuropa.info/languagelearning</a>Graham Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15782751150452768910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309557844334950199.post-34960036583888405342010-05-14T15:26:00.003+00:002010-05-16T12:28:04.587+00:00New book on interactive whiteboards: Thomas & SchmidThomas M. & Schmid E.C. (2010) (eds.) <em>Interactive whiteboards for education: theory, research and practice</em>, Hershey, PA (USA): IGI Global. ISBN: 978-1-61520-715-2.<br />
<br />
Interactive whiteboards (IWBs) play an important role in language teaching, especially in the UK, where it is unusual to find a school that does not have at least one interactive whiteboard. Most schools now have several interactive whiteboards installed in their classrooms. See <a href="http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_mod1-4.htm#iwbs">ICT4LT, Section 4, Module 1.4</a>, where we take a look at the use of IWBs in whole-class teaching and where other publications on IWBs are cited.<br />
<br />
This new publication by Thomas & Schmid (quoting the publicity) “emphasises the importance of professional development, credible educational research, and dialogue between teachers, administrators, policymakers and learners. This book intends to guide and inform the process of technology integration in education, introducing valuable case studies for educators interested in present and future IWB technology.”<br />
<br />
On the whole IWBs have been embraced with enthusiasm by teachers of foreign languages in the UK, as shown in my small-scale investigation, <a href="http://www.ict4lt.org/en/ICT_Effectiveness.doc">How effective is the use ICT in language learning and teaching?</a> which I conducted in the autumn of 2008.<br />
<br />
But IWBs have not been without their critics, for example Scott Thornbury, whose provocative contribution to the IATEFL 2009 blog inspired this thread (May 2009) in the ICT4LT blog: <a href="http://ictforlanguageteachers.blogspot.com/2009/05/iwbs-are-useless-discuss-quoting-scott.html">“IWBs are useless. Discuss” (Quoting Scott Thornbury)</a>.<br />
<br />
What do you think?Graham Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15782751150452768910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309557844334950199.post-29085665274121878792010-05-11T09:59:00.003+00:002010-05-11T11:35:04.630+00:00Flash forward: Language teachers using social networking sites<a href="http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6040748">Flash forward</a> is an article written by Yojana Sharma and Joe Dale, published in the <em>TES Magazine</em>, 9 April 2010<br />
<br />
Many language teachers are sceptical about the use of social networking sites and other Web 2.0 applications. They question how such tools fit in with language teaching methodology and they often find that their school's network blocks wikis, blogs, YouTube, Twitter and many other Web 2.0 sites that offer potentialy exciting learning opportunities.<br />
<br />
This article should convert some of the sceptics. It illustrates how an informal network of around 50-60 language teachers in the UK is making good use of such tools in the modern foreign languages classroom.<br />
<br />
See also <a href="http://joedale.typepad.com/integrating_ict_into_the_/2010/05/new-growth-from-the-grassroots.html">New growth from the grassroots</a>, Joe Dale's blog, 10 May 2010.<br />
<br />
Section <a href="http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_mod1-5.htm#anchordiscuss">12 of Module 1.5 at the ICT4LT site</a> focuses on social networking.Graham Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15782751150452768910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309557844334950199.post-17062446034048424272010-05-06T13:01:00.003+00:002010-05-19T11:34:44.450+00:00Second Life videos: Groovy Winkler tours the EUROCALL/CALICO HQsI have recently created these three videos about Second Life. They aim to show you some of the features of the EUROCALL and CALICO HQs, which are managed jointly by myself, Graham Davies (aka Groovy Winkler) and Randall Sadler (aka Randall Renoir). All three videos were made using the Fraps screen capture software:<br />
<br />
<strong>1. Tour of the EUROCALL HQ Building in Second Life</strong><br />
<br />
<object height="385" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/2GPTRLuT_qc&hl=en_GB&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/2GPTRLuT_qc&hl=en_GB&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object><br />
<br />
<strong>2. Holodecks at the CALICO/EUROCALL HQ in Second Life</strong><br />
<br />
<object height="385" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/lku6IXDiVhw&hl=en_GB&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/lku6IXDiVhw&hl=en_GB&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object><br />
<br />
<strong>3. Shared Media at the EUROCALL/CALICO HQ in Second Life</strong><br />
<br />
<object height="385" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/H56ifrj5fcY&hl=en_GB&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/H56ifrj5fcY&hl=en_GB&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object><br />
<br />
More videos are in the pipeline.Graham Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15782751150452768910noreply@blogger.com0