Last CALL.. Hah! Get it?

So.... This is it. The final blog entry for the CALL section in LT 548 and the one thing I that this course hammered home for me is this... I am human and I make mistakes. Some of my mistakes happen to be MUCH more egregious than others. In particular, I am deeply disappointed in having let down the members of my group by failing to show up for the group presentation. In no way can I excuse this and I am deeply regretful.

While my responsibilities to my classmates is of paramount importance, my failure to attend the course has also let me something of a rather large hole to fill for this final blog with nothing to fill it up. It is impossible for me to really reflect on what other groups presented in the class, simply because I was not there. I have decided to gather what information I can, checking out the websites developed by my classmates and gleaning information from some of the other open blogs on blackboard.

Reflections on the presentations

Ai, Kate and Sura's presentation regarding computer assisted reading is really fascinating and, quite surprisingly, may serve as a resource for my terminal project with its focus on aspects related to MALL as a tool for reading development among elementary school students. However, what I found most interesting was the fact that scores didn't appear to be impacted by the use of CAREER technology, but student behaviors were. I have to admit, though. I'm also intrigued by their idea of using mind-mapping programs as a method to enhance reading comprehension. Previously, I had only considered using mind-maps as a method of organizing ideas for writing, but now I see it working for a variety of purposes. This is something I can see using in my classroom regularly to help with reading, writing and listening skills.

Mafouda, Jaiyi and Ilsa's page regarding listening skills and CALL was very impressive and brought up several important issues for me. While the article which Mafourda covered suggests that the use of digital stories makes listening more interesting and interactive, I am really not convinced how that it is somehow more interactive than listening to a story read by a teacher, especially at early levels. Where I can see some benefits would be in learner access to pronunciation. Perhaps the most interesting is Jaiyi's take on CALL's ability to control the rate of speech and the impact that has on comprehension. I know in my own learning, the ability to control the speech rate of an authentic text (text in the broad sense), was invaluable. With that said, I am not sure about the use of subtitles as a method for improving listening comprehension. In my estimation, it would seem that students would tend to ignore the listening part and it could become a reading exercise instead. Where subtitles may help students is in their ability to graphically distinguish phonological features.

With Marc, Sojung and Lucy's presentation regarding CMC and synchronous communication, the benefits are much more clear. by using CMC in a variety of ways, students can focus on meaning and form. I was especially impressed by Lucy's section in which she discussed how synchronous communication techniques can be used to focus on form by shifting register from informal to more formal communication. I also enjoyed Marc's take on CMC for meaning negotiation by his illustration of a variety of tasks which can be developed for synchronous communication, especially direction giving and receiving. Where I see synchronous communication as being most beneficial and most useful is in its ability to serve as a record of progress in linguistic development, showing learners where they started and where they ended up.

Puywa and Marnie's presentation on using CALL to assist in self-regulated teaching was highly interesting and the challenges faced by learners in an environment without the communicative assistance of other learners makes any language learning very difficult. However, by using CALL one can see how it can effectively teach less common languages. Puywa's videos illustrate how CALL can be used for integrated skills teacing. One more thing. I love how they used Google sites and Google docs to build their presentation. It was incredibly seamless and is definitely something I want to try out in the future with one of my own classes.

Final Reflections

I'm going to use the analogy of a carpenter to illustrate my point. Before January, if I wanted to build something, I was like a carpenter with a hammer and a saw. I could get the job done but it was going to take me a long time. Now, I have a toolbox full of power tools, like a power saw and a nail gun, which makes it easier to build something and whatever it is I'm building will be much stronger than anything built previously. I have to say, between Freemind, Endnote and all of the Microsoft Word instruction, my materials are going to shine compared to what they were like before. This has even extended into other areas. Like I said above, the integration of all the available Google tools allows for some serious collaboration between teacher and students and among students themselves. I'm also excited to build more materials with Xtranormal, ANVILL, Jing and Screencast-o-matic. There is just so much available.

So, what do I think of technology in the classroom? In my own presentation, I discussed how CALL can be built into an integrated hybrid course which allows for extended skills practice. For me, this is going to be key for me as a language teacher in the future. Adding an online component, when possible, provides students with a very rich, much deeper learning experience than they would otherwise have.  All of the presentations given by the groups in class reflect this point very well. Technology is another tool and, in the hands of creative teachers, can build a course which provides students with a level of richness previously unattainable.

In all, this was a wonderful course and a great learning experience for me. While helpful, in future iterations of this course, it would probably be helpful to combine many of the bibliography exercises into one unit. Correcting a bibliography and then presenting it again with the Endnote presentation may have been a little much. If those were combined into one unit, that would give us an hour of instruction for something else.