Well, let’s take a step away from our traditional approach to blogging as based entirely on the readings and let our imagination soar wildly.
During the last week I might have put a damper on our discussion of the value of computers as tools (as opposed to computers as tutors and mediums). Do you agree with my take on the usefulness of computers in this role for FL education? What computer tool that you are familiar with are you excited about? Or, better yet, think about a concept computer tool for teaching FL that has not been implemented yet but would have the potential for having a beneficial impact on the field.
Soar away! 
It seems like the push to view technology as a medium, rather than a tool or even a tutor, is something that allows it to be more easily woven into a language learning course. It’s easy to find many uses for technology in language education as long as the activity is the focus and not the tool itself. I’m interested in what y’all think about a virtual world as a medium, tool and tutor. Here’s how I see it. As a medium, it allows people to communicate and share elements of their worldviews through the use of personalized avatars and other visual/auditory elements. So it’s not just linguistic, but also visual. As a tool, students have the opportunity to practice their writing, reading, oral and listening skills through the chat and videoconferencing features. As a tutor, students from all over the world can communicate and participate in the virtual world (if they have the technological capability), so native speakers act as the tutor.. which actually might make the virtual world more of a medium through which students are able to act as tutors for each other. Hmm.. Anyway, I think viewing technology as a medium in the foreign language class may be the best way to get over the hump of trying to prove that CALL practitioners are not always saying that technology is BETTER.. it’s just different and allows for more kinds of communication to happen. Here, I’ve just assumed that first of all, CALL practitioners get criticized for trying to prove that using technology in language classes is a BETTER way of learning.. and second of all, that CALL practitioners feel the need to respond to that criticism by proving that they believe it’s just DIFFERENT. Those assumptions may be way off base, but it seems to me like that’s what’s going on in the field.
What do y’all think about all this?
I agree with Gabrielle where she wrote that CALL is “just different” and there is no way to judge that one is better than the other. A lot of authors of the articles, especially those who have started their career obsessed with CALL, seem to emphasize the positive elements and advantages that CALL offers, which may not be available to “traditional” classroom interactions. Mangenot and Nissen, quoting Chapelle (2000), write;
“Despite the impression one might gain that such classroom dynamics are ideal for language learning, their success may be difficult to document in more concrete terms. When the goals of an activity are to create conditions for interaction and reconfiguration of classroom culture, methods of evaluation must focus on interactions within the classroom culture…” (p. 602)
we should not forget what the purpose of foreign language learning is. What do we attempt to accomplish in the end? One answer I can provide is that we communicate with people in the target language utilizing not only our linguistic competence but also crosscultural, sociocucultural, sociopolitical competencies as well. As a critical race theorist, I would also like to emphasize the impact of racial stratification in the United States (as well as everywhere else in the world). It is only after we consider all of these sociocultural elements that we can start to discuss the dividing line between classroom language learning and computer assisted language learning, leading to the conclusion (again and again) that these two are different. Therefore, we better treat computers as a medium of instruction, not as a “magic box”.
I found a CALL website run by John Paul Loucky.
http://www.CALL4All.us
It has a list of world wide CALL websites/resources.
oops, he does provide a link to the website in his article… sorry!
I agree that we should not create dichotomies or trichotomies when we envision the potential use of technology in CALL classrooms! Yet, going back to the original question, which tools capture your fancy and why? Anything on Loucky’s website? Thank you for putting the link on the blog, Akira, btw.
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I would agree with Gabrielle. I too believe that some kind of virtual world seems to have the potential for having a beneficial impact in the FL education, provided there is little technical problem. It almost seems to suffice the criteria for ACTFL standards 5Cs (communication, culture, connections, comparisons, & communities) if implemented appropriately in FL classrooms. This use of computer promotes human interactions/communications, which seems like the right direction for FL learning objectives.
I also agree with Akira that CALL tools cannot be a “magic box.” I feel as if it all depends on the various factors as to how the tools are employed in what context; the factors include the target learner, the level of the learners, learning objectives and needs, learning environment/context, etc. To me even relatively simple CALL tools used as tutors could be beneficial at a certain level. For example, those activities created with hot potatoes as illustrated in Loucky’s reading website, as I just checked, can be quite effective and useful for the learner. (The variety of online readings posted provides a good amount of linguistic and cultural input. Besides it is copy right free, as the author mentions, which seems like a good deal!) I would consider any tool to be used in the FL education as long as they are implemented properly, but perhaps both the learner and the teacher may need to be aware of the advantages and the limitations of tools (This, I learned from Karlstrom et al.), any tool that is…
First, let me say that I’m very embarrassed to have noticed that my previous post for last week was based upon a MUCH older version of the syllabus, which clarified for me why it seemed that the readings were very design-oriented, but that the lesson date coincided with the whole Tutor/Tool theme. Or maybe I was just having trouble with the whole grid-syllabus format.
In any event, my first bias toward tools is that I like to have computer tools that I know how to use — or that I have the proper scaffolding to learn how to use. For example, I have trouble conceiving of CALL tasks that are not blog-oriented, but that which might benefit more from a Wiki, just because I fear trying to learn how Wikis operate.
On a less pragmatic note, however, I tend to isolate the “language classroom” learning environment from “language” as a thing in itself. Language is, evidently, useful for communication. However the experience of language learning should be more purposefully oriented toward understanding culture and our position as conduits of culture. Given this orientation, I think CALL tools should focus on the language learner as a cultural spectator/critic, rather than on communicative agency. Communicative agency can easily be reproduced in any setting, and — as Salaberry notes — proficiency in these settings is dependent upon learning tactics inculcated in the classroom. My ideal CALL tool, then, would allow for interactivity with multimedia cultural content, within a sheltered setting. Such a tool would provide an opportunity for students to engage directly with the Products, Practices and Perspectives enshrined within the ACTFL standards.
Personally, I learn a lot more about my own culture and language just by sifting through the muck of Youtube, or reading sports columns, than through — say — CMC. That is why I think it is important to have students juiced up on hypermedia that allows them to loop through different parcels of cultural phenomena: for instance a videofeed that links to a news article, that opens into an authentic comment page, that can then provide links to a photo album or a discussion board. This would cultivate the skills of informed spectator interaction with culture that pretty much approximates the best-case scenario for our situation in an information and media saturated world. Linguistic pragmatics and focus-on-form should then be tagged on via assignment to the tools that provide this experience. I guess this is reminiscent of the article that Satomi presented last week in terms of learner strategies. As far as tools that do this without being “just” the Internet, I’m not really sure.
Oh, further adding to my embarrassment, I just realized that I was really talking about computer as “medium” and not as “tool”. Which means, I suppose, that I am dismissing out-of-hand the exceptional usefulness of the computer as a tool for language instruction.
I think one of the problems is that for the most part this is a class of language educators. One of the questions we have used in most our discussions is “how can we use this in the classroom” But I would be really interested to know what percentage of language learners enroll in formal highschool or college classes. It’s probably pretty low. And for all language learners, what percentage stick around long enough to be proficient, or live in the foreign speaking environment for some time. It’s probably quite low too. So we have to ask, what, except for native fluency and pragmatic competence, is the goal of language education. For most they will never reach that level. They just want to learn enough that they can impress their new boss from Germany, or so they can have a fun time ordering food while on vacation, or so they can read some author in the original…In those cases, a computer as a tool is a great resource for many language learners. So I guess a way we can evaluate this question is “how can we help to ensure that these tools are being created well.” I believe much more communication between practitioners, researchers and commercial publishers needs to take place.
So, what tutors do I know that are nice…I can’t think of any that stick out as fantastic. But a computer tutor should: 1) provide a forum for students to take as long (or as short) as they need to go over a point or learn a word. Repetition and recycling are some of the strengths of computerized tutors. They’ll never grow tired of requests. 2)Cultural elements are a must…too many software tutors skip this aspect, as we read in Lafford, Lafford and Sykes. 3) it would be nice for it to provide opportunities to connect with others, rather than be an isolated CD…that’s why I think livemocha is on to something 3)It uses authentic content…as Jonathan noted…moving the person through news papers, youtube, television shows, online radio…and then providing opportunities for in depth analysis, practice, and drill.
Do you guys see anything else that would be essential?