How would you respond?

Imagine you are at a dinner party with friends, some academic, some non-academic, and these statements or questions are directed at you. How would you respond to each? Work with your group to come up with a sound reply.

1. Technology-enhanced language learning? What, is that, like Rosetta Stone?
2. I had a friend who tried to teach Spanish with a computer program, and she said there were so many problems that she’d never do it again.
3. I imagine that computers and the Internet are so great these days that you’d never have to even step foot in a classroom to learn a language.
4. Aren’t kids naturally motivated to use computers to learn?
5. I think technology naturally favors social approaches to teaching and learning.
6. Who needs teachers any more? The computers do all the work.
7. Kids these days naturally develop computer literacy. They just know how to use them without even trying.
8. What do you think the foreign language classroom of the future will look like?

Let’s farm

Here are some online games to play and compare:

• Farmville – this is a very popular casual social game (some say, just a simulation), highly integrated into Facebook
• Free Farm Game – another farming game, but perhaps a little more realistic
• Third World Farmer – also a farming game, with with a critical educational orientation

Some questions to consider:

1. What is the goal of each game? What choices do players make when playing the game?
2. How does each give the player feedback?
3. With whom or what does a player interact?
4. How motivating or engaging is the game design?
5. How is language used in the game? What cultural discourses and narratives are reflected in the game? How is ‘farming’ portrayed in the design of the game?
6. How might you adapt this game for L2 learning? How could you design a game-enhanced ESL learning activity around it?

ideas for books to review

Here’s an Amazon.com list of books you could review for the book review project

Will technology replace teachers?

Here’s a brief, interesting article about the fate of teachers when it comes to online instruction. I agree with the author, that teaching is far more than what technology can deliver, and good teaching is difficult, if not impossible, to automatize.

Changing Education Paradigms

Virtual classrooms a reality

After our discussion today, I saw this article on how virtual, teacher-less classrooms are actually a reality in Florida. It mentions a Spanish class, too, but doesn’t offer details. It will be interesting to see how the learning outcomes of such classrooms compare to those with teachers.

Welcome

Welcome to Internet Technologies in L2 Teaching and Learning. This blog will serve as a central location for general posts, course announcements, the course syllabus, schedule, and useful links. We won’t be using D2L, so this page will function as our course homepage.