Maximising the use of your VLE for language learning and teaching Marina Orsini-Jones Joint...

Maximising the use of your VLE for language learning and teaching

Marina Orsini-Jones

Joint Associate Head

Department of English and Languages

m.orsini@coventry.ac.uk

Association of the University Language Centre 12th Annual Conference and AGM: Enhancing Quality. University of Reading, 5th January 2012

Virtual Learning Environments and Language Learning and Teaching: students can (from

Web 1 to Web 2 and beyond)

• Find more opportunities to plan their discourse • Reflect on their production• Compare their production with that of their peers and

their teachers• Share language learning knowledge • Obtain immediate feedback on their learning• Acquire useful ICT transferable skills (myth of the

“digital native”)• + connect to other learners globally/use their mobile

phones – or other mobile devices - to connect to the VLE anywhere/anytime

Virtual Learning Environments and Language Learning and Teaching: teachers can (from

Web 1 to Web 2 and beyond)

• Explore new ways of assessing students • Reflect on their students’ production• Research use-function-opportunities offered by the VLE with

peers• Compare their students’ work with that of students in previous

cohorts in an easier way• Maximise the opportunity for examples of good practice

(displaying students’ output from one year to the other) • Obtain immediate feedback on their teaching if needed• Acquire useful ICT transferable skills• Detect web plagiarism easily (Turnitin)• + learn on the way their students interact with other learners and

incorporate learners’ ‘tips’ on language learning into their teaching

New horizons in CALL (becoming MALL): 4 skills anywhere/anytime + 5th skill

(multilingual digital literacy)

• Online speaking and listening : Skype, audio-conferencing and discussions (synchronous and asynchronous)

• Online virtual world creation: games, Second Life, World of Warcraft

• Online knowledge sharing: Language learning exchanges (SNSs like Livemocha and Busuu)

Engaging with new media: digital

multilingual multiliteracies • ICT literacy

• Employability

• “Reading the world”

Research evidence that effective use of e-learning/blended learning can “empower the learner”

Which VLE?

overall principle - 1

An e-learning activity must be very carefully designed

and is defined as a specific interaction of learner(s)

with other(s) using specific tools and resources,

orientated towards specific outcomes”.

(Beetham 2007, 28, italics in original)

overall principle - 2

As implied by McLuhan (1967) the medium (or media)

chosen for the task affects the students’ learning

experience and cognitive journey.

overall principle - 3

Learning, as argued by Vigotsky, “is a socially

mediated activity in the first instance, with concepts

and skills being internalized only after they have been

mastered in a collaborative context”.

(Vigotsky 1986, cited in Beetham 2007, 36).

overall principle - 4

Do not confine your children to your own learning for they were born in a different time.

[ Hebrew proverb ]

Adapted from Dudeney (2009), EuroCALL Plenary, “Beyond the Book”, used with permission

overall principle - 5

Build metacognitive activities supported by e-learning tools into your language learning tasks: thinking on how one learns is proven to help with learning (and it fosters employability skills too) and link them to assessment

Voice tools embedded in Vista 4

Tip 1: Personalise the environment

e.g.: Blackboard and Wimba

Tip 1: Personalise the environment

e.g.: Moodle and Nanogong

Free and open source audio applets (IMS and SCORM)

Free conferencing – Big Blue Button (OR Wimba collaborate)

How?Tip 2: Organise your material by maximising the tools within your VLE (and using a digital repository)

How?Tip 3: Ask your students for suggestions on what to include

How?Tip 3: Ask your students for suggestions on what to include: e.g. BECTA extensive tutorials nlnhttp://go.nln.ac.uk/content/tata4_FK12_Future%20tense%20using%20Going%20To/harness/frameset.htm

Tip 4: don’t reinvent the wheel

Useful packages exist already (e.g. EAP toolkit and Clarity materials for EAP/EFL respectively)

Useful websites too

There is not much point in spending time re-creating ‘drill and kill’ behaviouristic-type tests when they are available for free on the web and are proven by research not to improve LL

but include some in your course, they keep the students happy…

Tip 5: be creative

Allow for effective interface of the VLE with the ‘world outside’, e.g. options with hypertext creation: examples of text-reconfiguration – exposing students to different e-genres of Italian texts (Elena Polisca – University of Manchester)

Tasks aimed at fostering learners’ autonomy and multiliteracy awareness

Good practice from Manchester: CAMILLE 1 – Hypertext (Elena Polisca)

CAMILLE 2

StreamedMP3 tracks

embedded video from Youtube

CAMILLE 3Core text contains auto-generated glossary terms linking to Media Library

CAMILLE 4Included images, audio and video in some question types (using HTML)

Options with hypertext creation: examples of text-reconfiguration 2 (MOJ/CU 1998-2008)

Tutor

Group task of ‘deconstructing text’ following guidelines on translation contained in Ulrich (1992) with links to online dictionaries and online corpora/concordancers

Analysed texts ‘taught’ to peers in assessed ‘microteaching’ translation sessions

Evidence from relevant literature (e.g. Klapper 2006) that adult learners learn languages better via project work carried out over a number of weeks

Cycles of action research to evaluate impact of tasks on students’ learning experience (qual and quant data)

Student group translation (constructivist task shared via the VLE and discussed f2f and online) – Language and Literature (CU) also suitable for history of art courses run by LCs

Tip 6: explore your VLE and make creative use of other platforms that can be launched from within it, e.g. e-portfolios like PebblePad and Mahara

• The LC at Warwick is piloting an interesting assessment model with Mahara

• The Common European Framework can be used in conjunction with an e-portfolio

Assessed ‘Group grammar analysis’ – Built with the webfolio tool in the e-portfolio PebblePad and shared via a ‘gateway’ – French example (CU)

Metacognition – reflecting on how grammar is learnt on blogs in PebblePad (CU)

Positive feedback

Tutor

Analysing a text in this way highlighted to us linguistic aspects that we had not noticed on the paper version of the text

Tip 7: bear in mind accessibility issues

No-nos: animations/non accessible fonts/illegible colours (e.g. red/yellow;black and blue)….

Your tips?

Emerging new ‘hybrid’ environments for language learning: the personalised classroom online - Social Networking Sites to learn languages (also available as phone apps)

’disruptive technologies’ in that they allow for new and different ways of doing familiar tasks.Godwin-Jones (2005) (quoted in Brick 2010)

Tandem learning in ‘controlled conditions’: MentorIT Manchester (Elena Polisca)

VLE-based tandem learning secondary schools/unis

BB

BB

Language Learning SNSLanguage Learning SNSFunctionality (Brick 2010)Functionality (Brick 2010)

• Web-based – no downloads.

• Synchronous voice and asynchronous text chat

• Learning materials

• Peer review of written and spoken submissions

• Profile matching (languages, levels)

• Motivational toolsBB

Pandora’s box of multilingual multiliteracies?

Ultimate user-centred model of LL?

Finally: apps/open VLE models

• Twitter feeds?

• Facebook?

• SNSs?

Difficult to handle assessment via non proprietary platforms, ethical issues, but…possible and happening

The FREEE – Fluid Role Evolving E-learning Environment

(© Orsini-Jones 2009, in Orsini-Jones 2010: 357)

Affordances of multifunctional personalisation of the e-learning zones inhabited by students in a connected ‘global village’

References can be emailed on demandBased on two forthcoming chapters

• Orsini-Jones, M. (2010) Shared spaces and ‘secret gardens’: the troublesome journey from undergraduate students to undergraduate scholars via PebblePad In J. O’Donoghue (Ed.) Technology Supported Environment for Personalised Learning: Methods and Case Studies Hershey, PA: IGI Global. (pp. TBC).

• Orsini-Jones, M. (2010) Task-Based Development of Languages Students’ Critical Digital Multiliteracies and Cybergenre Awareness. In M.J. Luzon, N. Ruiz and L. Villanueva (Eds.) Genre Theory and New Literacies. Applications to Autonomous Language Learning. Cambridge: Scholar.

Any questions?

• m.orsini@coventry.ac.uk