Long time, no write

It's now December, cold outside and Christmas is coming. It's a year since I started this blog and my MEd is finished, I graduate this week, and I've started a new job in E-learning support at a British university. Not much happening at the moment, it's the end of term, but we'll see how it goes.

Make Poverty History

Every single day, 30,000 children are dying as a result of extreme poverty. This year, 2005, we finally have the resources, knowledge and opportunity to end this shameful situation.

Join the band of people who are taking action to make poverty history. It only needs to take you a matter of minutes every month, but it will help us to literally change the world.

http://www.makepovertyhistory.org/

Procrastinate? I'll do that tomorrow....

Dissertation again. Quite a few of the others on my course have already handed out questionnaires and are getting on with their research but I haven't even started yet!!! One of my colleagues puts the problem down to my procrastination. Harsh, but probably fair.
The ECDL thing doesn't appear to be working as I can't get access to the data. I've tried contacting various organizations but to no avail. The plan in itself is good but with no data it's going to be pretty pointless. I can either try again to get access to the data directly from training organizations or think up a new area of research entirely. There is a learning centre near me which teachers English and IT and uses IT to teach English. They are also an ECDL test centre. It could be ideal. I could either persue the ECDL plan with them or look at student experiences of learning English using IT. I've actually just applied for a part-time job there, which is either a good or a bad thing. I'm not sure. it could be good if I get the job and then have access to the data and co-operation from the centre. However, there could be problems or being an 'insider researcher'. It could also be a problem if I don't get the job. Should I wait to see if I get the job? Or will that be another example of my procrastination? Hmm....

Help! I've gone completely IELTS.

Now, for my Databases and CALL module I've decided to design an 'activity bank' of exercises for the reading section of the IELTS test. This is partly due to the fact that I can't think of anything else to do. Not because I'm a lazy git, but because, whilst databases have many uses, I'm very skeptical of their usefulness in the language learning environment. Dictionaries are obviously one area as are massive databases of authentic language - corpora. However, apart from the three uses mentioned, I can't think of much else that is useful. I have seen many uses of databases design for language learning but they all have one thing in common - they're a bit crap. They mainly seem to be behaviourist drill and practice exercises, which help people to the learn the answer to the question but not a lot else. For example, why it's the answer! Luckily I have the opportunity to vent my spleen in a critique once I've finished the database.

I go IELTS!

Back to the web site project. My latest plan is to base the site around the writing skills required for IELTS writing. If I want to follow a broadly constructivist approach, I don't want it to be just a list of exam tips. I envisage it being a series of example exam style questions accompanied by the questions that candidates may wish to ask themselves as they plan their answers. I aim to use Flash animation, partucularly for writing about prcesses in order to make the process to be derscibed 'come alive'. I feel it's perhaps best to start with section 1 - proccess writing and describing charts and tables. If I have time, I may move on to the various essay types required for section 2. I'm unsure about including actual writing exercises but maybe there could be some checking of model answers to questions the site uses in the 'thinking about planning' section. I plan to a aim the site at intermediate, and possibly upper-intermediate, students.

“Learning Polish has never been easier.…you may never feel like you're studying.”

So says the website for Transparent Languages “top-rated language learning method”, which has been successfully used by “hundreds of thousands of people.”

So does it work? Can you learn a new language quickly and easily sitting at a PC?

Installation is straightforward and you are guided through the routine. You can install to the hard drive, for which you need 500MB, or if you are short of space you can install so that it runs from the CD-ROM, which only needs 35MB. The system requirements are very basic. There are PC and Mac versions which require Windows 95 or later, or OS 8.6 or later respectively. Basic sound card, speakers and microphone are required as well as an internet connection for the additional on-line resources. There is a manual, but unfortunately it’s a Word document that you have to print yourself.

There are two main sections – Titles and Reference Tools. The Reference Tools are somewhat disappointing. There is an animated alphabet and a Grammar Reference. Whilst the Grammar Reference is admirably comprehensive with links between related areas, it’s merely in standard Windows help format and has a fairly dry, academic style. It makes no innovative use of PC technology in it’s presentation. Hardly designed to make you “never feel like you're studying”. An accompanying grammar book would be of more use.

The Titles section is where the main action is. There are four tiles – two for beginners, one for intermediate and one for advanced. Each tile is then split in to five sections as shown in the screen shot. The Theater (sic) section is where the language is introduced with good, clear audio, text and graphics or somewhat dated video. The Reading section has the same text but with Grammar references, the Activities section has a number of games to practice the language presented in the Theater. The Pronunciation section gives students the opportunity to try and match the waveforms of their pronunciation of the language presented in the Theater with that of a native speaker; a virtually impossible task. Finally, the Conversation section allows the student to take part in the conversations they have heard. A rather controlled, unnatural practice environment contrary to the manufactures claim.

Help is available wherever you are in the programme. Whilst, like the Grammar Reference, this is very comprehensive, it is generic to all sixteen titles in the series and as a result it can be a little confusing when clicking on help for the Reading section to see an example using a Spanish text.

Just diving and trying to use the software can be quite confusing especially for a beginner as the beginner activities are far too difficult. I would suggest that they are more appropriate for a pre-intermediate learner. Perhaps to combat this the Theater, where the language is introduced, makes heavy use of translation, a rather outmoded teaching method for language learning, which goes against the supposed “immersion in the language” that the manufacturers claim.

On the positive side, once you have found your way around the system you can jump in and out of the activities and the software will remember where you have got to and links this information between the activities. So if you have reached a certain stage in the Theater and then move to the Activities section you have the option to only be tested on the language the Theater has introduced so far.

The Activities section has variety of ‘games’ to test how much you have learnt in the Theater and Reading sections. Each user’s scores are logged and can be viewed at any time. These are very much drill and practise tasks which continually repeat until completed correctly. This can lead the learner, particularly in grammar exercises, into merely giving the correct answer rather than understanding the target structures. This is a common problem with behaviourist style activities. At the end of each title, however, a link is included to a number of online activities. These are perhaps less ‘fun’ but are more structured and if the answers are incorrect the learner is directed to the relevant section of the title to find the correct use and explanation of the target language.

Overall this is a package best suited to mature, individual learners who already have a basic grasp of the language and are using it as a supplement existing learning and is not the revolution in language learning the manufacturers claim.

Dissertation Blues..

I woke up this morning and had to start thinking, in earnest, about my dissertation. Hmmm.. IT and education. I'd like to do something about the effectiveness, or otherwise, of teaching & learning using IT. I'm planning on doing something about ECDL. ECDL can either be done in a formal classroom setting, with sts studying on their own in a computer lab with a tutor on hand, online or with a book and a PC. It would be interesting to look at the learning experiences of each of these delivery methods. How do pass rates differ? How do completion rates differ? What has the student experience of learning been? In what ways are the delivery methods different? Who chose the delivery method and why? Convenience? Cost? The major problem I can see is getting access to the data. I would need to give questionnaires to ECDL students, course providers and course leaders as well as possibly interviewing as well. Ideally it would be one organisation who use all the delivery methods so as to avoid the organisations approach being a factor. Not sure if many do this. I think I'll need to check with the BCS.

Dreams to weave

The next task is to start planning an educational website. So, what to do? A site for language teaching? English? Polish?? Or maybe IT? Perhaps a combination of the two, an IT site for language learners or a site where learning English and IT go hand in hand? The key will be the delivery. It can't be loads of information with some behaviourist drill and practice exercises. It needs to encompass the concept of 'Invenio' - discovery, and be essentially constructivist with the learner in control as much as possible, with perhaps the site acting as scaffolding. It will also need to have a certain degree of interactivity. Not just point and click but real activity. However, that is easier said than done. True interactivity involves some form of communication between the user and the site and I'm not sure if my programming skills are up to that. A discussion forum would add interactivity but that requires a community and you can't manufacture a community for a site without driving traffic to it. PHP and MySQL? I think that's probably beyond the scope of this project. So, I'm planning to build an interactive site which enables users to discover English and IT in an environment which they have control. Hmmmm.... that shouldn't take long then.

Grammar a model for language?

For one of my courses I was asked to look at the uses of modelling in my area of teaching. As I've spent the last few years attempting to teach English as a foreign language, I thought I'd look at grammar. On the face of it grammar should be the perfect model for language learning. Learn the model for sentence structure, pop in a few words and hey presto - language!

Here's a sentence structure for an English sentence.

Subject (S) + Verb (V) + Object (O) + Adverbial (A)

So.....

“The girl sang the song beautifully.”

..fits perfectly into our model. But what about...

“My cat teaches sausages on Wednesdays.”

It fits the model - but it means nothing. Unless you have a strange cat and a packet of highly intelligent sausages!

Then again, what about...

“Strong is Vader. Mind what you have learned. Save you it can"

This doesn't fit our model, but we can understand it and, more importantly, so could Luke Skywalker and he was thus able to save the universe.

Is language too complex to be modelled accurately by computers? Will chatterbots ever really be able hold convincing conversations? Should we bother? Should we not just talk to each other?

New Year ( well Chinese New Year anyway) New Blog.

I doubt if anyone will be moved to read this blog as I Intend to use it as a means of compiling my thoughts during my MEd ICT course at a large university in North West England. Best not say where in case any 'pointy hairs' or Waterstone's management find out. However, if you are reading - Hello! The info here will be about the use of IT in education - I think ICT is such a crap term. A symbol of how education prides itself on being out of step with the rest of the world. Most of the stuff will be about the Internet, databases, modelling and language teaching. I'll probably also moan about how hard life is as a student, having to be at lectures by 10am - three times a week. "Oh the hardship" I hear you cry.