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Keynote Speaker: Joy Egbert, Washington State University.
Saturday 17:30 - 18:30
Engage me!": Rules for Engagement in CALL.
College students sleeping during class while the teacher drones on through her PowerPoint presentation; junior high students who can't seem to learn the difference between regular and irregular past tense forms in spite of the digital quizzes they do; high school students who are reluctant to complete an assignment with their peers by interacting through email...what's going on? Why aren't students engaged, and therefore learning, when we're using computers in our classrooms? There is ample evidence in the literature -- and in our classrooms -- that the presence and/or simple use of technology does not necessarily facilitate learner engagement and achievement. In fact, learner engagement in language learning probably has less to do with the technology itself than we might think. What then, are the keys for engaging our students, and what role can technology play? This interactive presentation provides a brief review of the engagement literature and seven "rules" that teachers can apply in order to engage their students in the CALL classroom.
Plenary Speaker: Larry Davies, St. Thomas University (EdD Candidate – Educational Leadership)
Sunday 11:10 - 12:10
No Time for Paradigms? LOL! kthxbye higher-ed!
Part 2: The link between technology and organizational culture.
Evidence in recent literature suggests that learning (including language learning) online is a different process than in a face-to-face environment. Online learning poses its own challenges including the building of an effective and efficient learning community; establishing a coherent and cohesive online presence by the instructor; understanding administratively the time and effort needed to conceive, develop, implement and revise online courses; balancing the synchronous and asynchronous activities that constitute the bulk of the activity that occurs in online courses, and; realizing the ever-evolving and quickly shifting paradigms that newer technologies bring. Higher Education is mired with Learning Management Systems (LMSs) conceived and developed from the perspective of a mechanistic paradigm from the 1990s. Craig (2007) noted that these were created from a paradigm before Web 2.0 technologies emerged. This presentation will suggest ways that larger institutions learn to adapt and change at a much faster rate than they have in the past, while allaying and addressing faculty and staff-based hindrances to technology adoption, so that their online ventures are not completely ceded to the leaner, smaller and more adaptive institutions that "get it". The presenter concludes that institutions that don't undergo paradigm shifts (based on engineering organizational cultural change) at a faster pace will be left behind in the online world by learners who will vote with their virtual feet and their very real pocketbooks.
Last modified: Sunday, 25 April 2010, 10:00 PM