Tag: language learning

Slow progress is still progress

I guess that will have to be my mantra for now. I spent from  Friday to Sunday at the UWCSEA Multilingual Conference (#mlconf2015 if you want to follow the tweets – although not many people tweeting besides yours truly and a few others). Besides the fact that I was giving two sharing sessions, as you know it’s both a topic close to my heart and close to my digital essay theme!

After working all day yesterday it’s back to reality today, and since Mindmeister kindly reminded me that one of my old Mindmaps created with some colleagues was “trending” I thought I’d try and map my readings and knowledge up to now in Mindmeister. It’s not the perfect tool, but it sure beats pen and paper and having to scratch things out and NEVER having a piece of paper big enough. I also don’t really have a space of my own that’s uninterrupted and not shared by multiple family members or bits of digital debris, (plus it’s so darn hot here, so the fan is on full blast scattering paper everywhere) so using lots of little post it notes like the TED talk below wasn’t really an option.

https://embed-ssl.ted.com/talks/tom_wujec_got_a_wicked_problem_first_tell_me_how_you_make_toast.html

Anyway, as of now, this is the status from 3 of the readings I’ve summarised. I have about 47 to go, but I’m already seeing the same themes repeated (yay, fill up that reference list – woah did I just say that?)

https://www.mindmeister.com/maps/public_map_shell/543060246/language-learning-in-a-digital-information-ecology?width=600&height=400&z=auto

And I missed yesterday’s deadline for blog post 4 … not to mention several other things I was supposed to attend to in my personal and professional life…. slipping up.

Deep research Diving

I’m going to either become very quiet or very noisy in the next few weeks as I dive into my next research topic for my last (yikes, how fast did that go) assignment for INF530.

This is my research proposal:

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1. Proposal Topic
Language learning and the new digital information ecology
2. Proposed digital tools and/or spaces to be used
iBooks
This is a tool I’ve wanted to experiment with for a while, and I think it can be used to encompass all the multi-media affordances required for this essay. Eventually I’d like to expand on it and turn it into a resource for our students, educators and families.
3. Rationale
Previous research has indicated that successful language acquisition is the result of the combination of optimising factors relating to the child (student), family, school and community. These can be considered to operate in inter-relationships in a knowledge ecology.
The affordances of digital technology in education combined with global connectedness allow unprecendented opportunities to leverage the connected learning principles of
  • production centered
  • openly networked
  • shared purpose
within language learning, however the current structures of education may ignore or limit these opportunities due to institutional (or familial) fear, ignorance or perceived loss of control.
This essay will look at the work of Seely, Hatie, Bawden, Ng, Siemans, Downes, Ford, Perrault etal. to examine learning design and the information environment and discuss how the learning systems and constituents allow for zones of intervention within the language learning ecology to leverage learning – sychronous and asynchronous, local and global and allow students and their families a greater locus of control over language learning.
A particular focus will be mother tongue learning, an area often neglected by schools, who state they unable to justify supporting a large number of minority languages formally. I will argue this may be the result a failure of imagination and the application of digital technology and collaborative learning rather than a lack of resources.
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