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Françoise
Blin, Dublin City University Learner autonomy has often been described as the capacity to learn independently, i.e. without teacher intervention or outside a formal curriculum. Independence entails, inter alia, taking responsibility of one's own learning, setting objectives, and making informed pedagogical decisions based on some form of self-evaluation. However, the concept of interdependence is also subsumed in learner autonomy. Learners exercise their independence in specific socio-cultural contexts, in interaction with others and with the knowledge domains under study. Autonomy is therefore both independence and interdependence and its development can be seen not only as the development of 'individual' autonomy but also as the development of 'social' autonomy through which a group of learners will collectively take responsibility for and control of their learning. In the case of language learning, learner autonomy is often associated with CALL. Computers are said to enable learners to exercise and to develop their autonomy while helping them to develop their language competence and autonomous use. This
presentation will examine to what extent such claims are verified. It
will look at the potential of CALL to promote both learner independence
and interdependence and discuss ways of integrating computers in the language
curriculum. More specifically, it will suggest and discuss some technology-enhanced
language learning activities that may assist in the development of learner
autonomy in the primary, secondary and Planning, Integrating and Evaluating ICT and Language Learning; Models of Best Practice in Irish Academic Institutions J Stephen Byrne, Abacus Communications J Stephen Byrne is CEO of Abacus Communications. The company designs, develops and sells foreign language software and offers a range of support services. The talk will present concrete examples of the experiences of a number of Irish institutions that have integrated ICT and language learning and will conclude with a view on how to successfully use software resources in the language classroom. How to create your own learning activities using Hot Potatoes Nathalie
Cazaux, Institute of Technology Blanchardstown This presentation seeks to understand the advantages of using authoring software such as Hot Potatoes in order to create language games, which are specifically targeted at our learners. Too often, Computers in Language Learning mean using expensive CD-ROMs that do not really reflect the students' areas of interest. The World Wide Web is another important source of material but, among an immense collection of material of all sorts, it is quite difficult to find exercises that are well adapted. Another disadvantage of the web is that it changes all the time and can prove to be an unreliable resource. One solution is to mix the reliability and ease of use of CD-ROMs with the specificity of the Web by creating your own web site and exercises. The presentation will develop the following ideas: Based on cognitive psychology research, what are the activities that we need to create in order to help learners learn best? What are other questions we should ask ourselves before embarking on the development of the exercises: how much time can we spend on this? Who are we targeting? How will this material be used? I propose to develop these points in the first part of my presentation and then explore the possibilities offered by the Hot Potatoes software. A low budget approach to CALL in the classroom: one school's efforts to provide computer aided language-learning facilities in a range of classrooms Jim Cannon, Salesian's College, Celbridge This
presentation will demonstrate the practical steps involved in linking
a computer to a television screen, costing less than € 200 as an
alternative to using a data projector, which costs in the region of €
3,000.
Karin Duffner, St. Patrick's College Drumcondra Five primary schools from Clare, Donegal, Dublin and Waterford collaborated on a SIP project (Schools Integration Project) to explore ways in which ICT could be harnessed to teach, learn and appreciate foreign languages and culture. The Schools Integration Project was a central feature of Schools IT 2000 - a major national initiative designed to strengthen the ICT infrastructure in Irish Schools. Our project aimed to establish links between participating schools to exchange and formulate lesson plans, resources and ideas for class activities. It also aimed to establish links with primary schools in other countries to broaden the language experience and facilitate greater European understanding among the pupils. Through use of email, the Internet, software and multimedia, active participation in learning a foreign language was enjoyed by the pupils. This overview reflects on the experiences and challenges, and makes recommendations for using ICT in teaching languages in the primary school. Christophe Harris, Rosk e-Systems Excellent
new features for students of Irish, French and German at Junior and Leaving
Certificate level. Lingua-Master will serve as an invaluable tool, not only for the oral and aural, but also for all areas of language learning.
William Haworth, Liverpool John Moores' University Over the last half-century language teaching has been promised a number of technology-based revolutions, which subsequently have failed to deliver the full-scale changes that they were supposed to introduce. This has not been due to technical shortcomings, but rather to a failure to reshape pedagogy in a fundamental way. The language laboratory and CALL are the most prominent examples. There are islands of excellent practice based around their exploitation, but the mainland of language teaching has not been subject to fundamental re-shaping through their use. Now the new kid on the block is the Internet and the shouts of imminent revolution are loud once again. The question is whether the sensible strategy for language teachers is to sit it out and wait until another pseudo-revolution runs into the sand, or to espouse it as a way of improving how languages are taught and learned. This presentation attempts to draw up a balance sheet of what the medium offers and what it costs in terms of resources, and to present a view of the options open to us as teachers of language. It looks at the 3 phases of development of use of the Internet as a medium for delivery, interactivity and communication. It outlines the theoretical base of network-based language learning, and describes the shift in the nature of the teaching role and development of learner autonomy. It looks at the practicalities of the design and production of materials including multimedia. The emphasis is on practical use and examples of current practice are given.
Liz
Kiely, Kildare Education Centre The Pinboard was developed for a specific community of teachers and is currently used as resource by primary school modern language teachers. The Italian Pinboard will be used to illustrate this resource in this presentation. This world wide web workspace was developed as a resource for language teachers in answer to the following question: how can technology that is available in schools be used as a teaching and learning tool to meet the needs of the primary school teachers? The Pinboard is an ICT tool for teaching and learning that is transferable into other language areas and can be tailored for other age groups and types of teacher. This resource contains a miscellany of material and includes topics such as developing links with Italian schools, material for classroom use, ideas and contributions from the Italian teachers and ideas on on-line language learning. The
Pinboard facilitates: A booklet illustrating the content accompanies the Pinboard. This facilitates the fast and efficient accessing of specific data from the Pinboard and limits the amount of on-line time required. The Pinboard can be a dynamic axis of information to facilitate language teaching and learning. Note: *The Pinboard was developed by Liz Kiely and is currently being used by language teachers around the country. Liz has been providing in-career development to primary school teachers of Italian since 1998.
Ole Lauridsen, The Aarhus School of Business Everybody has a website, and that goes for language teachers, too. The website seems to be the answer to our prayers, now we can really "go e-learning". But too often, the learners slowly loose their interest in the site, and the teachers tend to get lost in the overwhelming amounts of information. The problem is that teachers too often have too many intentions with their sites, and that the sites therefore must fulfil too many purposes. My
presentation will show how to avoid this large problem so that the website
can be used in the best way possible - and so that we language teachers
do justice to this fantastic tool. Furthermore I will delve into working
modes and important layout details.
Maryan
Martin, Réaltán Ní Leannáin and Margaret Farren; Issroff and Scanlon (2002) identify two groups of theories converging in educational technologies: Educational theories and Human Computer Interaction theories. This is also valid for language teaching/learning technologies. Often, technical aspects absorb most of the attention, leaving the educational issues aside. In our presentation we describe how, through an Action Research process, we reflected on our beliefs and values as educators, and how, with an essential knowledge of Human Computer interaction and GUI design, we embodied these values in a teaching artefact: a website with activities for school learners of Irish and Spanish. "Haz clic en español/ Déan clic as Gaeilge" Issroff K. & Scanlon E. (2002) "Educational Technology: The Influence of Theory" Journal of Interactive Media in Education http://www-jime.open.ac.uk
Freda Mishan, University of Limerick In this paper, the potential of Web-based instruction is extended to the authoring of Web sites by learners themselves. The paper proposes a task-based framework in which language learners collaborate in the conception, creation and maintenance of a Web site. The learner Web authoring task described in the paper uses an iterative, three-stage framework which integrates reflective, evaluative and language awareness-raising sessions, and subsumes essential conceptual and technical aspects of Web page creation. The language learning potential of the methodology is assessed, using as criteria factors known to be essential to language acquisition such as motivation, confidence, authentic language input and output. It is shown how learner Web authoring combines 'the three A's', authenticity, authorship and autonomy: the first two are 'the twin tenets' of the Communicative approach and the third, autonomy, is the contemporary educational ethos and, arguably, the natural heir to CLT. In conclusion, the paper looks to the potential for development of learner Web-authoring in view of the ever-increasing usability of Web tools and the general shift in pedagogical orientation from teacher to student-directed learning. Practical Video Streaming Possibilities using RealMedia Seaghan
Moriarity, Tobar.ie This demonstration/tutorial will focus on the most accessible and practical implementation of streaming audio/video. The session will demonstrate how to take an audio and video signal from, for example a camera, and broadcast the signal live via the internet thereby making it accessible for live viewing. I will also demonstrate how the video files can be archived for subsequent on-demand viewing.
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Hardware Needed
Liam Murray, University of Limerick. This paper will explore many of the practical and pedagogical issues facing teachers of Modern Languages and will be combined with a hands-on session, which aims to investigate and evaluate the current practices of web authoring teachers and the possible use of templates. Using Cushion and other's recent work (Didascalia Conference, August 2002) in this area as a starting point, we shall be seeking answers to the following important questions: -
What are the requirements for a completed product of the authoring process? And
of course the old question: Back
to top Angela Rickard, ITÉ Oilte is a pilot for a training course in the practical application of new technologies for language teaching and is aimed at language teachers in Primary, Secondary and Further Education in Ireland. It was coordinated by ITÉ with the support of the NCTE and a committee of language teaching specialists. Oilte is about providing on-going training to teachers when and where they require it: it was designed to take teachers a step beyond basic skills' training provided by the NCTE in the Teaching Skills' Initiative by concentrating on the pedagogic needs specific to language teachers. In both Phase I and Phase II of the project, considerable emphasis was placed on the pedagogical implications of putting ICT to use in a language classroom, including practical considerations such as access to computers, online materials and technical support, as well as the question of how best to integrate the use of computers into appropriate teaching approaches. This presentation will give further detail concerning the rationale of Oilte and discuss its progress so far. It will also make recommendations for future courses, arising from the insights and experiences of the teachers involved in the project. |