Welcome & Introductions

Group introductions:

• What has been your most successful or unsuccessful experience with technology enhanced language learning?

Discussion: The Big Context & New Media Literacy

Quickblog entry: reflect on Big Context Issues

• "In a statistical sense, we may one day communicate with each other far more via computer mediation than in direct interaction. The effects on what counts as 'normal' language acquisition could be similarly profound." (Crystal, 2001: 241)
• Internet an everyday information and communication tool
• CMC tools are not proxy environments but are legitimate in their own right
• Changes in production and consumption of text
• Evolving on-line social and cultural formations and resources

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Discussion: The Word on Blogs

Sample activity: Class Biographers (Dana Webber) activity description | class blogs

Discussion: The Word on Wikis

Sample activity: Alma Matters (Luke Eilderts) activity description | Wikipedia entry

ActiviWiki activity: In groups of 3 to 5, discuss something to co-create in the wiki about Blog or Wiki use in FLE. Work on a page that you create and link to either the BlogActivities or WikiActivities page.

• Ideas for activities or a project using the technology
• Ideas for variations of one of the activities in the CALPER Computer-Mediated Activity Library
• A position statement on the use of Blogs and/or Wikis across levels of foreign language instruction

Follow-up discussion on Quickblog & ActiviWiki entries from yesterday

Discussion: Contexts and Uses of CMC: From Intra-class to Inter-community

Technologies: SCMC (chat, IM) and CMC (moodle, CMS, threaded discussion)

Sample application: The Mayor is Dead (Lisa Hundley) Case Study

Discussion: Contexts and Uses of CMC: Intercultural Communication

Sample applications: Cultura (Furstenberg, Levet, & Waryn), Penn State Telecollaboration, Tandem Learning

Quickblog entry: reflect on uses of CMC in FLE

• Intra-class interaction: whole class and small groups
  • Similar level: + volume of L, classroom culture, modality shifts
• Inter-class interaction: within or across institutions
  • Differing levels: + near peer role models, peer editing, projects
• International interaction: FLL as x-cultural travel
  • Mark Twain: "I was greatly discouraged..."
  • Cost-efficient access to expert speakers
  • To embed FLL in development of meaningful relationships
  • "We acquire language through a process of assimilation - more or less creative - of others' words (and not the words of a language)" (Bakhtin, 1986)
  • New linguistic repertoires afforded by interpersonal mediation (Thorne, 2003; Belz & Kinginger, 2003

Discussion: Linguistic Dimensions of CMC & Data-Driven Learning

Chat & ActiviWiki activity: In groups of 3 to 5, discuss something to co-create in the wiki about CMC use or DDL in FLE. Work on a page that you create and link to the appropriate page .

• Ideas for activities or a project using CMC or DDL
• Ideas for variations of one of the chat activities in the CALPER Computer-Mediated Activity Library
• A position statement on the use of CMC

Follow-up discussion on Quickblog & ActiviWiki entries from yesterday

Discussion: Podcasting & Videos

Discussion: MMOs, Gaming, & Virtual Environments

Sample applications: Second Life (Luke Eilderts); Sims2; World of Warcraft

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Discussion: Bridging Activities & Identity

Chat & ActiviWiki activity: In groups of 3 to 5, use chat to discuss something to co-create in the wiki about Podcasting or Video. Work on a page that you create and link to the PodActivities or VideoActivities page.

• Ideas for activities or a project using the technology
• A position statement on the use of the technology