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What is CALL? (It's YOU!) or ...
Computer Assisted Language Literacy

by Vance Stevens
Department of Computing, The Petroleum Institute, Abu Dhabi, UAE

Plenary address given at the annual CALL Conference "Technology CALLs You"
held at the Ankara University Development Foundation Schools, April 14, 2007

This talk draws from my Sunday, April 1, 2007 blog post: What is CALL: Computer Assisted Language and Literacy http://advanceducation.blogspot.com/2007/04/what-is-call-computer-assisted-language.html.

This presentation is online

• The slides are here: http://www.slideshare.net/vances/what-is-call-its-you-vance-stevens-ankara2007/
• Live webcast on Elluminate courtesy of Learning Times, http://tinyurl.com/y3eh Starting with Dr. Senem Yildiz's presentation at 07:10 GMT (10:10 in Ankara). Vance Stevens presenting at 08:15 GMT
• The recorded presentation has not yet been podcast at http://webheadsinaction.org And/or http://vance_stevens.podomatic.com/
• But some pictures are up here: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/altunar/Vance_in_Ankara?authkey=BAfHQP0B0mk
• This presentation link:http://tinyurl.com/yvx6yd -- That's yvx6yd

Where can YOU webcast?Webheads presentation tools

Learning Times http://www.learningtimes.org Create an acct for free Have access to library of digital media content Webheads Meeting room is at http://tinyurl.com/y3eh Aladohttp://www.alado.net/webheads Long-time supporter of Webheads and other charitable learning initiatives

• Learning Times http://www.learningtimes.org
  - Create an acct for free
  - Have access to library of digital media content
  - Webheads Meeting room is at http://tinyurl.com/y3eh
• Aladohttp://www.alado.net/webheadsLong-time supporter of Webheads and other charitable learning initiatives

Who are Webheads?

• http://webheads.info
• http://www.webheadsinaction.org is part of the Worldbridges networkof webcast and podcast sites http://www.worldbridges.net
• Hosts of Webheads in Action Online Convergence May 18-20 http://wiaoc.org

What's a podcast?

• It’s an audio blog
• Subscribe to its RSS feed and it automatically updates new content to your computer
• You can record using Audacity, open source http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/
• You can open a podcast site at http://www.podomatic.com
• Besides my site, Terry Freedman’s Coming of Age: http://comingofage.podomatic.com/
• Open source, Web 2.0 tools are FREE and more importantly, freely available
• Podcast blogs are a good example of a Web 2.0 tool

What is Web 2.0?

• Read write web
• Content created by anyone – YOU, your students
• TWO way communication
• Dynamic vs. static web pages
• Conversations (classic: Cluetrain Manifesto http://www.cluetrain.com/)
• Attitude of sharing / creative commons
• Associated with tagging / social networking

Examples:

• Wikis and Wikipedia,
• blogs,
• Google tools,
• photo sharing sites like Flickr, Bubbleshare …
• Graham Stanley’s examples: http://www.pod-efl.com/video/Web%202.0%20&%20Language%20Learning.mov

What’s wrong with this picture?

• From http://www.call-is.org/moodle/mod/resource/view.php?id=95 
  "Many research subjects are probably novices to CALL, may lack technical skills, and are untrained, undirected, and studied only during their initial experience. Thus, our research base in CALL is skewed."

Why Computer-assisted Language and Literacy?

CALL is only partially, if any longer …

• About programmed instruction / mastery learning
• Contained in shrinked-wrapped software packages
• Non-communicative

Seamlessness: Computers are (or should be) no longer the focus of CALL activities

CALL should build on basic computer skills and literacies that are transferable across curriculum and beyond into lifetime learning and productivity

Why should Literacy replace Learning in the acronym CALL?

• The learning is important, but understood
• Multiliteracies subsume skills that must be acquired
• Developers and CALL Coordinators are, or should be, grappling with literacy issues; not interface ones
• Why? “CALL” software should conform with norms of intuitive software use; should be something we DO with commonly available tools in course of daily solutions to needs we address with technology, not something contrived with no relationship to heuristics of ongoing solution to problems

Literacy: the KEY, and ANCHOR, to CALL development

• The KEY: understand what software tools there are to help us solve problems;
• The ANCHOR: set problems for language learners that utilize computer-based tools to give learners something to discuss and negotiate in resolving the problem task
• LITERACY: how can teachers achieve these awarenesses and inculcate them in students

How teachers can acquire literacy skills through free online professional development

1. Free training available annually: e.g TESOL Electronic Village Onlinehttp://evo07sessions.pbwiki.com/
2. Free online conferences such as K-12 Online http://k12onlineconference.org/ (next one in October, 2007) and Webheads in Action Online ConvergenceMay 18-20 http://wiaoc.org
3. Subscribe to Podcasts; e.g. Worldbridges http://www.worldbridges.net
4. Join Communities of Practice: e.g. Webheads http://webheads.info

Of decreasing imporance - Attending F2F conferences such as this one

• It may be that those tuning in at a distance are benefiting more in terms of literacy skills
• They are USING the technology in one of the ways just mentioned

Community of Practice Approach:How Webheads got to Turkey

• Where’s Rif? http://www.homestead.com/prosites-vstevens/files/efi/webheads.htm
• Meet Arif http://www.homestead.com/prosites-vstevens/files/efi/rif.htm
• Vance and Rif co-author a paper from a presentation given online, Nov. 2001 http://www.homestead.com/prosites-vstevens/files/efi/papers/t2t2001/proceeds.htm
• Rif and his students meet counterparts from China

What’s the connection with China?

• October 31, 2001, connecting live online in synchronous text, voice, and video-enhanced chat, two classes of non-native English speakers from Turkey and China: http://sites.hsprofessional.com/vstevens/files/efi/chat2001/wfw011031.htm
• Meet Yaodong: http://www.homestead.com/prosites-vstevens/files/efi/yaodong.htm
• A day in the life of an online language educator: http://tesl-ej.org/ej23/int.html

Conclusions: Desireable Characteristics of CALL

• Communicative
• Authentic
• Constructivist
• Seamlessly integrated with both Curriculum and Normal routine of computer use
• Tool/task based
• F.U.N. http://www.homestead.com/prosites-vstevens/files/efi/papers/tesol/colloquium2004/fun22.htm
• Conversational
• Dynamic/interactive not static/one-way; Web 2.0 ?3.0

What tools meet these criteria?

• Media production
• Media reception and aggregation methods; in particular, for language learning: podcasting
• MUVEs such as Second Life

Media production

• Sharon Betts: Tools of the Trade: Tools I learned while working to become a Webhead at http://webheadtools.motime.com/

Aggregation

• Bloglines http://www.bloglines.com
• Del.icio.us http://del.icio.us
• Tagging
  - Technorati http://www.technorati.com

MUVE’s: Multi-user virtual environments

Facebook http://www.facebook.com / MySpace

Second Life http://www.secondlife.com

• Studies on Second Life from an educator’s perspective: http://www.homestead.com/prosites-vstevens/files/efi/papers/tesol/arabia2007/00.htm
• New Media Consortium video http://www.nmc.org/sl/2006/06/12/seriously-engaging-movie
• LanguageLab.com has a 21 sim island, where they'll be teaching students English and Spanish using voice enabled SL http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/18510/page1/

This presentation link: http://www.homestead.com/prosites-vstevens/files/efi/papers/ankara2007/whatiscall.htm
or http://tinyurl.com/yvx6yd

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Last updated: August 29, 2007

Copyright 2007 by Vance Stevens
under Creative Commons License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/