#clavier research for Eurocall 2014

Interactive representation of the data collected in the #clavier interviews

Interviews with #clavier participants aimed to establish whether there were shared understandings of the purpose of connecting tutors and students internationally. There were indeed themes that recurred. The extracts in the presentation below present the participants own voices and the image above illustrates the main themes for each question asked.

Q1: How did #clavier come about for you?

Q2: What unexpected outcomes have arisen from informal connections through social media?

Q3: Has this had a positive or negative impact on your working life?

Q4: How do you see this sort of informal network fitting into teacher development in the future?

Q5: What are the threats/opportunities/risks in your context?

Eurocall 2014 Growing like Topsy. from Teresa Mackinnon

RT @RayBoyd007: “@BluntEducator: Technology is a beautiful thing, but if you can't teach without it then you probably can't teach with it.
— Todd (@ToddWhitaker) July 25, 2014

going global

Post inspired by @mrkempnz a fellow tweep and inspiring edtech educator.

From Lone Wolf to Hunting with the Pack - becoming a globally connected educator http://t.co/LlB2Uz9tZq what’s your story?
— Craig Kemp (@mrkempnz) August 9, 2014

Working as a teacher can be a lonely and somewhat insular occupation if you are not careful.  Whether you work in a school, a university, full time, part time or freelance you are assuming a role that puts you under the spotlight and your learners have expectations of you. Over a 30 year career I have worked in a variety of contexts with different age groups from under 10's to over 50's, one to one to one to many, responsible at some periods for the language learning of over 1,000 learners a year. I think I have a reasonable understanding of a range of learner expectations. I have definitely not "seen it all" and I learn more each year from my learners who now tend to be international students following an accelerated learning pathway to French in Higher Education. I am a co-learner with them as we explore the world of resources available to us thanks to the internet and computer-mediated communication (CMC). I try to contribute to my communities, both local and global. 

My PLN, (here's a Top Trumps I did a while back) gathered gradually over more than 5 years through interaction online, lots or reading and great networks of professionals, have broadened my outlook, inspired me to examine my assumptions more closely, to engage with debates central to my chosen career path, and to grow as an educator. Blogging and micro-blogging have helped make explicit the ruminations and half thought through ideas, reflecting and connecting in order to better understand where I stand (split infinitives are OK BTW) . Participating in synchronous and asynchronous CMC has taken me beyond the boundaries of my classroom experiences and those of my immediate colleagues into global interactions and contexts, beyond the UK and Europe. I collaborate with teachers in Australia,the US and around the world in #globalclassroom chats, extend my student connections through the #clavier virtual exchange, and explore the potential for language learning CPD through informal online networks. I have developed my use of technology for teaching, gaining a professional qualification in learning technology through the ALT CMALT scheme and now I research and publish in CMC for language learning and the emerging area of Online Intercultural Exchange (#OIE). 

I had no idea where my early tweets would lead. I followed my head and my heart and found a world of inspiration digitally enabled just a keyboard away. My students and I are the richer for it, my CPD is constant and relevant, my learning lifelong and lifewide. Connecting globally allows us to rise above the immediate, often political nature of our national context and focus on the real issues in education. We need to support the next generation as they discover the realities of sharing the planet and meeting the needs of humanity in challenging times. We promote mutual understanding, communication skills, empathy, openness and creativity. Going global has helped to reignite my passion for education.  

Speaking up!

The point at which I fell in love with the French language is a difficult one to pin down. Undoubtedly I was influenced by the trips my parents encouraged and the role of interpreter which they bestowed on me at just 12 years old. I was terrified of my French teacher but recently took my family to see her home town of Aix-les-Bains because I surely recognise her impact on my life. I went to Oxford Poly to study for a French degree, determined not to "do" literature but within a year I had negotiated more literary study and still have a passion for the works of Mauriac, Camus, Baudelaire, Voltaire and Prévert. (read, discussed and analysed in both my languages). I created a drama project during my PGCE around the theatre of the absurd and the works of Ionesco. Working as an assistante during the 2nd year of my first degree was no doubt a turning point though - I began to understand that language learning is not just intellectually challenging, it is fundamentally transformative - it changes the way you understand others and yourself through interaction. I continue my language learning journey through interaction largely but not exclusively online using #cmc computer-mediated communication.

My community (language teachers/experts in a variety of guises and contexts) are struggling with the realisation that young people are increasingly not choosing to continue language study for single honours degrees, numbers on such courses have been in freefall. It is very upsetting for all of us to see that the qualification we so treasure is not featuring on more wish lists and this has been the subject of countless reports, discussions and soul searching. However, the very opposite trend has been seen in university-wide language study provision so clearly young people do still enjoy the thrill of interaction across cultures. Many of them have done so all their lives but have had little or no state recognition of their linguistic heritage. At a recent school event at my university I asked a group of 14 year olds why they thought languages were useful (expecting the usual list that pointed to employability). This insight came back immediately from a young Sikh - "you can tell someone something without the others knowing what you said". Out of the mouth of babes! Language encodes, linguists decode. That is a human skill, still unmatched by google translate, requiring sophistication, knowledge and skills way beyond those which can begin to be awakened at A level, that is just the beginning. In the UK we have to send a clear message from our community that the journey may be long but it is worthwhile. In schools we need to have the freedom to inspire, in H.E. we must be relevant and move with the times.  Most importantly our community must pull together, for the losses we will sustain otherwise are too terrifying to contemplate. Valuing language skills is valuing human diversity in all its richness, and respect for life gives hope in an era of instability and war.
This post was written to relate to UCML's support for A level Content Advisory Board's recommendations. 

It's good to talk!

This morning I moderated a twitter chat for #globalclassroom, something I participate in as often as I am able. The topic and questions are shared beforehand and I always try to collect some resources and reflect prior to the session to make it easier to keep up. When the time comes we have just one hour, lots of new people to meet and engage with and you never quite know how it will play out. 

Today's session was a subject close to my heart: how do we ensure that our learners have opportunities to develop attitudes to learning (or "habits of mind") that prepare them for the future as best we can. This is part of the role of an educator that I think is more complex than any other - the opportunity to support the acquisition of skills for life compared with simple transmission of information to pass exams. I'm not saying we don't have to do the latter, we do but it should not be at the expense of the development of the whole person. The amazing truth is we can do both well if we capitalise on the affordances of our technologies and our human creativity. 

I need to take a short digression on this topic. I didn't have time to share these during the chat. Take a look at these recent examples of discussions around this in the UK:
Tom Bennett @tombennett71 wrote this in the Guardian. I agree with his conclusion but I wish it were not framed in the usual dichotomy of facts vs skills, this is not a helpful distinction, I have blogged about before. Also this week, shared via twitter was a fabulous letter written to young learners at the end of their Primary school years showing how we can help to frame our need (parents?employers? politicians?) for measurable short term results in a wider context, that of becoming rather than being. (Interesting eh?)

Anyway, back to our #globalclassroom chat this morning. We wanted to draw out a set of global habits of mind, qualities that are necessary to interact effectively (whether as a young person or an adult) with others across national boundaries and contexts. The 16 identified here (p11) are all relevant but I would say from my experience of virtual exchanges and international telecollaboration that when languages, other cultures and technology are involved you have to take each of these to greater depths to succeed. Believe me, this is extreme HoM and deserves recognition and time to achieve within our existing educational frameworks. I await the #globalclassroom archives to see if we identify or describe others that are not simply other ways of saying what has been said already. Meanwhile I remain grateful to my international PLN and the #cmc that supports my learning for my ever expanding, rhizomatic learning happening in my home over a cup of tea and tweet deck :)

The e word.

I chose to look at enhancement and watched the video about xMOOC models. There are several viewpoints shown in the clip but the main focus is on the Stamford experience of Udacity co founder Sebastian Thrun and his stated aim was to democratise access to learning arising from his belief that "education is a basic human right". Whilst I fully support this premise (who wouldn't ?) I felt that some of the statements made rather simplified the success of this model and at times tried to compare it to a way of teaching that would be recognised by most teachers as failing learners . Traditional teaching was presented as students sitting in ranks, not allowed to talk to each other, lecturers transmitting knowledge from the front - surely these are clichés and any institution who maintains them is already on the road to obsolescence? Sadly in HE old habits (and business plans) die hard.

The elements of the MOOC model applicable in my context:
(I prefer cMooc to xMooc personally, as I see the latter more as an institutional marketing model to support business as usual) were:

• online delivery makes learning more accessible especially to those unable to take time away from work/life in order to study
• greater availability of content for replay/review
• more problem based learning, explanations afterwards, "flipped" delivery
• increased emphasis on interaction, making best use of technology, use of quiz 
• more economical, reach more students, make teaching a first class discipline again
• education a lifelong issue - more relevant to modern world, flexible and continuous 

Of course all these things also apply to good blended learning. The question here is how does one scale up the tutor time in order to deliver a personalised experience to thousands of participants? It would seem from the participants interviewed that they expected to get that interaction from each other. Possibly accepted as a trade off for not having to pay to learn? One interviewee commented that we "underestimate how powerful interaction can be online". I believe that to be the case having experienced several cMoocs now since 2011. If you invest the time in online learning, getting to know your fellow learners, if the course is aligned with your personal learning needs you can indeed make useful and productive connections which can foster deep learning. Thrun's experience must be quite chilling for the established order, as it questions whether the "best" universities really select the best potential graduates, his online students outperformed those turning up on campus according to his analysis. So as I have long suspected, there is much wasted potential as a result of our industrial schooling model. 

• problems anticipated

the business model: as soon as money is exchanged for learning a set of expectations arise which have to be met. Thrun's model implies that business as usual is required in order to fund this open free course model. Clearly new costing models would have to be established, I am sure the technology used isn't free and I guess he also expects payment for his work? This is at the heart of the issue and we need some suggestions more creative than simply trying to sell videos of experts in order to raise funds and draw attention to the institution. 

Ultimately, what is judged by learners to be "enhanced" learning opportunities will depend upon their experience of learning, not simply the content they have had access to. Interaction lies at the heart of that. Quality has never really been about institutional reputation, it is more personal than that.

Conducting a VLE review

A post for #octel week 5 based on reviewing Julie Voce's VLE review presentation. 

Julie's detailed and clear project report captured though audio and slides is extremely clear and well articulated. The complexity of the task is obvious, this was a large scale review and re planning of online provision for the teaching in a multi-site institution. I can fully appreciate the steps that were taken, there is a clear logic to the process and, despite some pain along the way the outcome was largely successful. I am very interested in the "failures" and "lessons learnt" slides as they hold useful messages for reflection.

Our language learning online environment Languages@Warwick was created three years ago to meet the needs of a small (by comparison) group of about 3,700 users engaged in a very specific activity: blended language learning. It was informed by my research into language teaching methodologies and learner requirements and developed through a piloting process with our teachers and learners. The aim was provide technologies that could facilitate best practice on language teaching and support innovative teaching. So the scale of our project was different. However, I do wonder if there is something else that can be learnt from our experience that may help those looking to implement institution wide VLE provision. Some of the details are presented in more detail on my CMALT e-portfolio. 

• Who were your stakeholders?

our learners (from across all degree programmes), our teaching staff, our institutional managers, our IT staff. 

• What resources were used?

our teaching staff (esp. those already using technology for teaching), our internal finance (income generating unit), an additional technical staff member recruited to help implement the project, external moodle hosting partner, technology advice using channels such as Jisc, ALT and listserves with other language centre contacts. 

• How clear/achievable was the project plan?
• What fallback position, if any, did you build into your plan in the event of full or partial project failure?

Given the narrow nature of the brief and the fact that existing online arrangements were not conducive to the best use of our resources (human or financial) the project plan was very clear and was monitored and reported on at regular intervals. It was also flexible and shaped by our stakeholders. The fallback position was to rely on institutional development which would have had a significant impact on our ability to compete for students so failure was not really an option!

• What methods did you use to evaluate your project?

We use both quantitative and qualitative data on an annual basis to review our project implementation. This is then shared with stakeholders in a variety of ways including papers/presentations to conferences, presentations at internal showcase events, and reports and documentation to managers. 

• How did you measure project success?

Success criteria include:

-the amount of engagement from our user base through the Languages@Warwick VLE (course resource counts, usage patterns, student feedback)

-the capacity for innovative language teaching (activity in research for Computer Mediated Communication, virtual exchanges)

-the developing digital skill set of our teaching staff

-addressing through suitable technical choices the relative advantage of digital teaching so that we maximise the engagement for all stakeholders.

• Did you celebrate your success and did this encourage further developments?

Celebrating success was a key part of the strategy adopted. From the pilot stage on, we encouraged tutors to share their experienced with their teams and the Centre. We used a youtube channel and a twitter feed to disseminate successes and these were aggregated back in to a core" Using moodle for language teaching" course to which all users were subscribed. 

However...

As Julie identifies from her experience and we certainly found in ours, even when you plan everything meticulously and execute with as much support as can be mustered there are still some major barriers that can emerge during such projects that can really take a toll on those charged with implementing them.

Communication: never as simple as it seems. As a language educator I was aware of the complexities of human communication, the close connection between communication and power dynamics. Too often we interpret the need to communicate effectively as simply providing a "push channel" - a space through which we broadcast decisions and information. This ignores the importance of "pull" communication channels, the means for interested parties to get the information that is relevant to them, giving them control and helping to enlist participation. If people do not wish to engage with your message you have to rely on hierarchical support which may or may not be there. If others are suspicious of the project agenda and feel it may effect their way of working, again there is a good deal of advanced communication to do! Our project was clearly aligned with our institutional Senior management vision and yet that was not enough to make the path to realisation smooth. Finding out what others need and listening to them is importantly and I think this was rightly prioritised in Julie's project even if it caused the time frame to slip. We need to remember we are all colleagues working together for an over aching aim and as such everyone is entitled to their opinion, concerns and input. Any project plan or gant chart that fails to take into account the complexities of implementing change in an institutional context ignores the vital ingredient - people. Great project management qualities include humility, patience and compassion as well as the steely determination to make things happen Such qualities ensure the project will not just succeed but it will last because others will want to help you make it so. 

Authenticity in language learning

What does authentic mean in language learning terms? Back in the 1980s when I was newly qualified, authentic was one of our buzz words. The rise in importance of communicative language teaching included a focus on incorporating "real" language sources taken from French newspapers and the like. These would be more recent than our ageing course books with their carefully chosen screened language, selected to highlight the grammar we had to teach. All very worthy really, and it meant frequent trips to France to bring back useful authentc resources - Carrefour fliers, tickets, fiches. Probably seems crazy now that "autheticity" lies a mouseclick or finger swipe away!

Jump forward 30 years and the notion of authenticity needs to come under scrutiny again. For two reasons:

• how we deal with/expose learners to "authentic" language use on social media
• how we devise activities for learning and assessment for learners use of language

Here's an example of the first:

J'ai ça dans le manuel, mais mes trucs font 2 broches et là ils en indiquent qu'une :o pic.twitter.com/X2Pc81Zyha
— Monsieur Le Prof (@MsieurLeProf) May 15, 2014

A French teacher uses twitter for advice. He demonstrates in a very real, conversational way (unknown to him) how useful the French word "truc" (thingy) can be whilst using some fairly complex constructions (en, ne..que). This is the kind of authentic language use that my students can learn from, alongside a discussion  about register (appropriate language in different situations). Yet students are rarely using twitter to see how the language they are learning is used by native speakers. If they were they would see that, just like in English, it is full of typos too!

On the second point, authenticity (by which I mean real world) in language teaching offers an opportunity to engage learners in real experiences. Far more real thanks to new technologies than I could manage in the 80's. We use shopping websites to compare and choose provisions for a picnic, the ANPE site to find out about skills necessary for jobs in France, connect directly with French students to find out more about their hobbies and interests. (We could connect with those even further afield without difficulty too). So this tweet jumped out at me:

Embed authentic digital experiences into curricula and in assessment and feedback activities #digitalstudent
— sarahknight (@sarahknight) June 10, 2014

Given just how much more authentic - lifelike - we can be in 2014, why are our tasks and our assessments still paper based versions of those we used in the 1980's? The current generation of young people have found us out, they want real world skills and preparation for a future we don't even understand. I feel an authenticity crisis is at large, we are rapidly becoming irrelevant. Language study becoming the preserve of a small elite who wish to work amongst the privileged few.

Here is my last hope.