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Associate Professor in Distance Education at the Centre for Distance Education, Athabasca University. Dr. Debra Hoven has a strong language teacher education background and wide experience as researcher in the areas of ICT in education, open and flexible learning and innovative pedagogy. Her teaching and research includes TESOL/FLT methodology, language curriculum design, resource development and appropriate technologies for intercultural education and learning. She has held numerous research and teaching development grants related to electronic communications and uses of technology in language learning and teaching. She has a variety of publications in the areas of technology, education and language learning. She is a member of several editorial boards: Asia Pacific Association of CALL, Computer Assisted Language Instruction Consortium Journal, CALL-EJ Online and TESOL-Quarterly among others.
Areas of particular interest: development of e-portfolios, digital storytelling across cultures as alternative forms of assessment and uses of mobile technologies in teacher professional development.
Further details at:
http://cde.athabascau.ca/faculty/hoven/debrah.php
The field of Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) has developed in many different directions since the advent of the Internet and even more so since the World Wide Web began to weave its way into our lives. As new technologies emerge all the time, it is very easy for us as language teachers to become overwhelmed by the volume, speed, and multiple capabilities of these technologies. However, in the interests of effective language teaching and learning, it is important for us to re-focus our thoughts and discussions on the pedagogical uses and personal affordances of existing and possible future technologies. To move in this direction, this presentation will focus on how current research into the roles and nature of pedagogy in online learning can inform our approach to design, and our understanding of the inter-cultural construction or construing of knowledge, and the roles of various participants and technologies in this fluid and changing process.
The principle proposed here is that individual learner needs can be better met when different learning styles and learning strategies, teaching styles and teaching strategies, and diverse approaches to the design and construction of learning pathways can be brought together. As part of this approach, where learning is prioritized, both teachers and learners participate in designing, creating, selecting, modifying, (re-)combining, collating, and compiling multi-modal, multi-vocal, multi-purpose language resources. In this way, our awareness of the range of options accessible is expanded, enabling us to further construct more expansive and adaptive learning environments for language learning, wherever it takes place.
As part of this model, the following six roles of technology-enhanced language learning (TELL) are proposed as components of a flexible and fluid pedagogical approach:
- Instructional (language classroom applications, localizing materials, and multi-media and hypermedia)
- Discovery/exploratory (fostering autonomous language learning through technology, self- and peer-reflective evaluation, and learner-created content and interaction)
- TELL and Communications Technologies (using various CMC and wireless tools for cultural exchange, communications and language learning)
- Social networking tools and CALL (Web 2.0 and reflective, analytic, participatory language learning: blogs, wikis, Facebook, YouTube, tagging, RSS etc)
- Collaborative (blogs, wikis, tagging, RSS, Creative Commons, collaboratories, Cultura, Folksonomies
- Narrative (construing, creating, re-vitalizing and re-discovering individual, social, community and cultural identity through digital media technologies).
In addition to these roles, this presentation will then explore some of the issues relating to managing learning in a broader sense, including Learning/Content Management Systems; both structured and loosely structured, commercial and Open Source - through to Personal Learning Environments (e-Learning, blended learning, learning autonomy).
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