Kutztown University Department of Modern Language Studies Teachers' Conference
	Creative Language Teaching with Internet Technology
	Barbara F. McManus, April 26, 2005

NB: The links below will open in a new browser window, which you should close when you are finished exploring so you can see this window again.

PART I: PRINCIPLES

Advantages provided by the Internet for language learning:

• 5 C's: capacity for both asynchronous and synchronous communication throughout the world at low cost; immediate access to authentic materials from other cultures in rich multimedia form, including visual, audio, and textual resources; vast quantities of information available in the target language enabling connections on many different topics; wealth of foreign-language resources facilitating comparisons between target language and culture and student's own; extremely powerful tool for community building beyond the school setting
• Motivational power: increased time on task, enjoyment and sense of satisfaction
• Resource-based learning: potential to link many different types of resources and provide a guided path through them; potential to provide access to many primary sources, archival materials, databases, etc. to facilitate original research
• Control over learning: students can choose time, place, and pace of learning
• Interactivity: potential for choosing how to pursue and synthesize information, for commenting on information, for self-assessment quizzes, for contributing information
• Publication: potential for easy and inexpensive publication of student work for classmates and even for a worldwide audience
• Updatability: infinitely changeable, can be kept very current

Difficulties encountered in using the Internet for teaching

• Time and learning curve: always assume that preparation of materials will take you at least twice as long as your wildest estimate; be prepared for frequent problems with the technology and with students' use of the equipment; Internet sites and computer software change so rapidly that you must frequently refresh your materials and skills
• Differential access: even if your institution provides excellent facilities and support, some of your students will not have good access to functioning equipment and to the Internet
• Equipment failure and software incompatibility: even the best-maintained equipment will sometimes function poorly or break down (frequently at the most inopportune time); the rapid pace of product development (and the vicious competition among developers) constantly raise incompatibility issues even on the Web, which was created to be universally accessible regardless of platform and software.
• Cost: providing equipment, facilities, and adequate support staff is very expensive, though an adequate technological infrastructure is increasingly accepted as integral to the educational mission rather than an add-on

DESIGNING
INTERNET
ASSIGNMENTS

• Be aware of what tools are available and of how others have employed these in teaching; the tools and examples we are looking at today will get you started, but there are many sites on the Web that discuss these issues in more detail:
  • Language Learning & Technology (online journal)
  • Simulation and Gaming 2002.33 (issue of another online journal devoted to language learning)
  • Information and Communications Technology for Language Teachers
  • The Foreign Language Teaching Forum (SUNY-Cortland), a listserv for language teachers plus links to other resources
  • Teaching German with Technology (University of Virginia)
  • Teaching French with Technology (American Association of Teachers of French)
• Find out what kinds of resources relevant to your target language and culture are already on the web:
  • Lingu@net World Wide Education Resources
  • BBC Languages
  • Languages-on-the-Web, an extensive link page by Crystal Jones and Robert Behar Casiraghi
  • Casa de Joanna, French and Spanish Language Resources
  • LANIC (Latin American Network Information Center), Spanish language links
  • German Studies Trails on the Internet
  • Deutsch an der Universität Michigan by Hartmut Rastalsky, including grammar, vocabulary, and other freely accessible materials
  • Hapax: French Resources on the Web
  • New Computer and Technological Resources for Latin Language Instruction (Barbara McManus)
  • Latin Links (John Gruber-Miller)
• Think about how these tools and resources would enable you and your students to do something new, or to do something old in a new and better way, or to do something in a way that would be more interesting and engaging to the students (and to you!).
• As you begin to design one or more Internet projects, draft learning goals for these assignments that are directly related to the objectives of your course; this will ensure that the projects are integral to the course, not simply technological bells and whistles. It is especially important that your students understand why they are doing these assignments and how they fit into the course as a whole. For an example, see the "learning goals" sections of my two VRoma activities for elementary Latin students using the Oxford Latin textbook.
• Make sure that your students understand how to use the tools you are asking them to employ.
• Outcomes assessment is particularly important to find out if the new types of assignments are accomplishing their aims; also, graded assessment will convince the students that these assignments are essential parts of the course.

PART II: PRACTICE

Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC)

Asynchronous: Written communication with other learners or with native speakers. Advantages of these tools include independence of specific time and place requirements and low cost, ease of preserving a record of the communication and reviewing it for learning purposes, promotion of thoughtful discussion on authentic topics of interest to the participants, facilitation of student collaborative projects, online submission of assignments and file sharing, and the potential to actively involve students in the production of learning. There are few disadvantages, though sometimes students require incentives to participate, discussion can develop slowly, and there is little of the immediacy or time pressure of face-to-face communication. See Enhancing Authentic Language Learning Experiences through Internet Technology, by Jean W. LeLoup and Robert Ponterio (Eric Digest).

• E-mail: Students can be paired with informal "keypals" or enrolled in more formal "tandem learning projects" through organizations such as eTandem Europa. Tandem learning pairs two students from different language communities each of whom is learning the other's native language. The concept of tandem learning involves both reciprocity (the students spend relatively equal time communicating in each language and each is equally responsible for helping the other learn) and autonomy (no teacher participates in their interactions and the students take more control of their own learning).
• Archived Messaging: Students can also communicate in the target language through a listserv, where messages are sent to all subscribed members via e-mail, or a message board, where messages are posted and read on a central website. These are easiest to manage (but also least authentic) when confined to members of a single class; they become more exciting when they involve students from another school or even country, but such exchanges create more logistical problems. Subject-oriented listservs or message boards involving adult native speakers provide a very authentic, real-word experience of the target language and culture, but participation in these may be difficult for students to negotiate and for teachers to assess.

Synchronous: Advantages of these tools include the immediacy and spontaneity of real-time communication in the target language (duplicating many characteristics of face-to-face conversation though the medium is text), ability to brainstorm and receive immediate responses, ability to preserve a conversation in the form of a written log and, in the case of MOOs, potential for role playing, resource creation, and imaginative immersion in other times, places, languages, and cultures. Howeer, scheduling can prove difficult, the tools work best with relatively small numbers of participants at a time, and technological lag or slow typing can impede discussion. Some of these methods can be accompanied by audio and video, though these are still somewhat difficult over the Internet.

• Internet Relay Chat (IRC): Chat programs have the advance of student familiarity and interest; for that very reason, however, they may promote frivolity and triviality.
• MOO: The acronym MOO stands for Multi-User Domain Object Oriented. MOOs, originally adapted from online games (MUDs), enable people in disparate locations to communicate in real time in the manner or chatrooms, but the conversations in MOOs take place in an “online place” with different spatial locations, objects which can be manipulated, and extensibility (i.e., users can add to the environment by building new rooms and creating new objects). Pure MOOs are completely text-based, but more modern MOOs interweave MOO and Web technology to create virtual environments with multimedia features.

A new organization, the enCore Consortium, is working to improve the capabilities of enCore MOOs as rich online learning environments for many subjects, including language learning. MOOs tend to generate a stronger sense of permanence and community than chat programs; they also provide the learner with more intensive and extensive opportunities for use of the target language (see “Technically Speaking: Transforming Language Learning through Virtual Learning Environments (MOOs)” by Silke von der Emde, Jeffrey Schneider, and Markus Kötter). There are a number of MOOs for English speakers devoted to foreign languages and cultures:

• MOOssiggang: Computer-assisted Language Learning (German)
• Dreistadt: German MOO at University of Bergen, Norway
• VRoma: Virtual City of Rome promoting the teaching and learning of Latin language and Roman culture
• Le MOOFrançais: the first French virtual community to be created on the Internet (completely text-based and requires download of a MOO client)
• MundoHispano: the Spanish language learning MOO (completely text-based and requires download of a MOO client)

Computer-Managed Learning Environments: Also called Virtual Learning Environments, these pre-packaged programs provide a single interface that incorporates many technological tools for online delivery and management of courses, typically including various types of asynchronous and synchronous communication, web pages, file-sharing, online quizzes and tests, etc. Normally these packages are adopted institutionally. They can provide tremendous savings in time for faculty and familiarity and ease of use for students, though the single interface can give a “cookie cutter” look and feel to courses. Examples of popular programs are Blackboard, Angel Learning Management, and Moodle, which is freeware.

World Wide Web

Designing Web-Based Assignments: These are a few types of assignments; the possibilities are nearly endless.

1. Finding and Evaluating Information on the Web: Knowing how to locate information on the web is a crucial skill that everyone should possess, not only for academic and professional success, but also for many facets of daily living. It is very important that students be taught how to search effectively and how to evaluate web sites when found, but this can be accomplished via resources already on the web:

• Noodle Tools: Choose the Best Search for Your Information Needs has concise tips for search engines and strategies for various types of research need.
• Google is an efficient search engine which ranks and groups sites very well and offers a cached copy of the web site so you can see it even if the server is down or the site has moved; click on the “Cached” link for this copy, which also highlights your search terms in different colors. If you are searching for an exact phrase, put the words in quotation marks. Googling to the Max (UC Berkeley) points out advantages and shortcomings of Google and includes several printable guides for getting the most of the world's largest search engine database.
• Finding it On Line: Web Search Strategies by Debbie Flanagan. A well-designed tutorial describing various types of web search tools and effective search strategies, including practice exercises and a scavenger hunt. Her use of terminology may be a little daunting for younger or less sophisticated learners.
• Search Engine Showdown by Greg R. Notess. A very detailed, current, and comprehensive discussion and comparison of most search engines, including reviews, search strategies, statistics, etc. Not intended for the novice.
• A Student's Guide to Research with the WWW by Craig Branham, Saint Louis University. Clear, well-designed, and student friendly.
• Evaluating Information Found on the Internet by Elizabeth Kirk, Milton Library of Johns Hopkins University. More detailed information, including some useful practical steps for finding information about authorship, publishing body and currency if these are not specified.
• Five Criteria for Evaluating Web Pages, a useful, printable chart provided by the Cornell University Library.
• The Good, The Bad & The Ugly: or, Why It's a Good Idea to Evaluate Web Sources--Examples. Part of a general site on evaluating web sources by Susan E. Beck, New Mexico State University Library. Information on evaluation is rather sparse and pages can be slow to load, but this page is useful because it provides four three-example sets of web sites of varying quality and reliability.

Furman University supplies a helpful page of links to major foreign language search engines classified by language.

2. WebQuests: The WebQuest is a educational model for designing web assignments originally developed at San Diego State University. WebQuests are problem-solving projects intended to develop and assess all the aspects of web information literacy mentioned above; in the words of the developers, “WebQuests are designed to use learners' time well, to focus on using information rather than looking for it, and to support learners' thinking at the levels of analysis, synthesis and evaluation.” WebQuests emphasize authentic tasks and products. The WebQuest home page includes very detailed training materials; you can use their Portal page to search for examples of language or culture WebQuests drawn from different educational levels.

• Teen Travel Experts: a Spanish WebQuest for grades 8-12
• Le Cirque: A Global Simulation: a French WebQuest for grades 6-8

3. Using Student Web Publishing as an Assessment Device: Besides helping students to develop a valuable skill, web publishing can be a powerful incentive for students to produce high-quality work, to learn the importance of paying attention to details, to learn how to direct their work to a particular audience, and to develop writing and synthetic skills. A case study in the University of Warwick's TELRI project of an intermediate French course that had teams of students research and create web pages is available in Adobe Acrobat format; project directors reported that the student web publishing was successful in “increasing communication in the target language; providing a purpose and focus for expressing and exchanging meaning; enabling independent learning.”

4. Providing Interactive Exercises and/or Tests: Well-designed web pages are never purely passive, since they involve choices of where and when to click, how many levels of materials to pursue, etc. However, there are now many ways to make web pages truly interactive, from relatively simple fill-in forms, to Javascript quizzes, to applets that enable simulations or complex database queries. The following sites allow teachers to create their own exercises using downloadable programs:

• Hot Potatoes: Although not freeware, this software can be downloaded free of charge by educators in publicly-funded institutions. Now available only in a Windows version, this easy-to-use software (originally designed for language teaching) enables users to create interactive multiple-choice, short-answer, jumbled-sentence, crossword, matching/ordering and gap-fill exercises for the Web.
• Quia offers a collection of educational tools and templates that enable registered users to create 14 types of educational games and activities, quizzes with 8 different question types, surveys, and web pages. There is an annual registration fee of $49. Students can use the activities already created by teachers; they are available in Spanish, French, German, and Latin.
• DiscoverySchool.com offers teachers a number of online educational tools, including Puzzlemaker, Quiz Center, Lesson Planner, and Worksheet Generator. Registration is free.
• Creating Interactive Exercises for the WWW