Eurocall 2017 - blog integrated to the main conference website

Do point your browser to http://www.eurocall2017.uk/eurocall2017-blog/ to access the blog for this year's conference. Thank you!

The 5 R's of Open Education and Eurocall 2105

Memories of Eurocall 2015 may be distant now. The warmth of the Italian sunshine and our new and old friends companionship lost to the chill of the winter and the demands of a new year. However the ripples remain in cyberspace and when the UK language e-learning community comes together again in a few days at #elearnllas in Southampton we will be returning to share the inspiration provided by Eurocall's keynote speakers. 

The playlist of videos of these presentations provide a helpful snapshot of the conference but also an ongoing source of discussion and debate as our field moves forward. Technology is fast moving and teaching approaches which embrace it's use have not always kept pace. I will be talking to the #elearnllas community about my experiences of developing a virtual learning environment for language teachers and sharing tips which I hope will help them in turn to support their communities as they navigate the digital oceans. 

I will be celebrating the 5 R's of Openness in order to reconnect during this event with the wider language community. My presentation will be multimodal and streamed on the morning of Friday 22nd January so participation at a distance is welcomed. The #elearnllas tag will help you find each other and maybe we can relive some of the warmth of Perugia, popping our heads out of our respective ponds to enjoy the sunshine. Please explore this interactive map of the terrain I will be sharing on Friday. You can even collect an open badge - but more of that on the day!

Eurocall 2015 through our social sharing

Post #eurocall2015 reflections on arriving in Padova.

On Tuesday of this week I arrived in Padova. I got off the airport bus and was pleased to recognise a shopping mall I had noticed when researching the area around my hotel on google street view. I stopped for a drink, connected to the free wifi and set about planning my walk to the hotel on my phone. I was surprised when google maps showed a 5 minute walk in the opposite direction to that which I was expecting but it must be right of course! 10 minutes later a kindly receptionist in a different hotel ordered me a taxi to save my sore feet. 

Post conference, I am better able to understand this mundane experience. My faith in my ubiquitous device use and reliance on internet access had prevented my critical use of technology. I should have realised that my device had not updated a real time, location specific map. I had seen a cached map from my earlier planning and used it to dismiss my instinct and better judgement (blisters were an unforeseen, unwelcome consequence). 

The space in our lives where tech and human intersect is a good space for critical thinking. The "seeing double" described by Sian Bayne. Raising awareness of what goes on "under the hood" of the ubiquitous technology that is now just another everyday tool helps us to think critically. Here's one of the 3 such research activities she described in her keynote. 

#eurocall2015 teacherbot paper is here (open access) http://t.co/d0ATn27Aba

— Sian Bayne (@sbayne) August 27, 2015

Entangled fingers (image taken from art installation opposite my hotel - yes I got there in the end!) illustrates our enmeshed lives. Humans are connected, interdependent beings. We inhabit a world where critical post humanism allows us to explore the boundaries between ourselves and our tools. #eurocall2015 brought challenges, stimulation, answers and more importantly questions.

Shaky Internet connection

In case you are waiting for blog post updates, I would recommend Twitter as the primary source of information. The Internet connections in Italy seem a bit unstable so blogging hasn't been an easy task.

We will tweet and will defintely broadcast the keynotes live and hope to offer you a window into the activities via the blog too. The conference is going super and the weather is almost as hot as the Finnish sauna (well, not quite....).

We are ready to start!

The plenary sessions will be recorded as usual. You will find the live streaming at: http://www.rcsistemi.it/eurocall2015/eurocall2015.html

 A handy way for two way participation is Twitter as usual:

Twitter: @EUROCALL2015  Use #EUROCALL2015 in your tweets about the conference.

Hook up and enjoy !!

A new year a new conference - Welcome to Padova!

We are happy to welcome you to the historically interesting, weatherwise pleasant and conferencewise exciting Padova!

Like in the past, we are hoping to offer you a flavour of the conference through this blog by posting short blurbs on the presentations, uploading pictures and more importantly streaming live from the plenaries.

Let's enjoy Eurocall 2015 both on site and at a distance!

 --- Eurocall Excutive committee and the local organisers

The closing ceremony! (Not streamed live but recorded for later viewing)

And now we have started!


1) A look back at the conference by Steven T., Josef C. and Ana G.

Steve was especially impressed by the approach most people had for technology: not only looking at the technologies per se but actually placing them in the wider context of supporting and doing learning. Ana in turn emphasised how important this conference is for us to together think and develop more rigorous ways of researching and developing CALL further together. She doubted that our universities don't always understand the value and importance of these face-to-face encounters.  Like the previous commentators, Josef showed his appreciation for the organisers for a great conference.  He also agreed with previous comments that the focus was on pedagogy and task-design instead of a certain technology. Words like meaninfulnes, usefulness and playfulness were mentioned in connection with the task. What he called for was a more focus on the media choices - why we use certain technologies for certain purposes. He also doubted that we use certain hype terms (e.g. 21st century learning) without really defining and discussing them in more detail.

2) The poster awards:

3) Thank you's!

The conference helpers -
Marjolijn Verspoor,
Estelle Meima,
Shanti van Leeuwen,
Sake Jager and
Mariska Pater (Conference Bureau)


June Thompson will retire from being the editor of ReCALL and was thanked with a very loud applause.


4) Next year PADOVA! (26-29, August, 2015)

The closing is about the start!

We are all set to start the closing - This has been an awesome conference!

Keynote 3: John de Jong - Innovative Items: Measuring Something More or Different

John de Jong starts with a short introduction to language testing. Paper-based tests lack the immediate response/award/feedback factor that we know from for example gaming machines or tablet technology and which can be achieved using machine testing.

Automated essay scoring tends to be mistrusted, the general view being that machines cannot be taught to interpret meaning. However, de Jong takes us through recent developments that seem to show that IEA (intelligent essay assessor) can do just that: a machine learning to score like human markers by measuring different aspects of the responses collected from a large body of text input. Such scoring uses latent semantic analysis to score content Latent semantic analysis (LSA) is based on the machine reading vast amounts of texts, learning what words mean and how they relate to each other, ie it learns the concepts, rather than just the vocabulary resulting in the creation of a semantic space. The following slide summarises the concept:

In terms of reliability and validity LSA has been tested on millions of essays and its scoring vis-a vis a human rater compares well to human raters vis-a-vis human raters. De Jong goes on to say that such automatic processes are already being used frequently, for example in Interwiki bots, an automated system that immediately takes off text written into Wikipedia that is not relevant to the area in question. Associated Press agency has also started using software that will automatically generate thousands of financial reports without the need for reporters. The presentation then turned to the challenges in assessing 21. century skills, and the following slides summarise the most salient points:

De Jong gives further application examples of the machine, such as oral exams. Here, the machine acts as interlocutor, always adapting to the level of the student. For De Jong, standardisation of oral exams is not really possible when using human interlocutor because of different affective factors. Using machine interlocuteurs would ensure that each students is tested against the same interlocuteur/rater. A further area for machine application for de Jong are tandem programmes, i.e. the machine can becomes a partner in collaborative projects. In closing, de Jong urges us to think about further possibilities of integrating technologies into our work, as well as exploring the idea of how the role of the teacher might be changing in the future.

3rd Keynote John de Jong - Innovative items - measuring something more or different

The live stream is available at http://tinyurl.com/eurocall

Mei Lin and her colleagues on Collaborative inquiry

In their project Mei and her colleagues want to engage the learners with the written word and deal with the ambiguity through addressing a question that has no single correct answer.

As the technology to support this, they use the Tabletops and with the Mysteries approach to do this (see pics below)

They used the Thinking Skills framework (Moseley et al., 2004) that has been created earlier (see pic below).

Data analysis was carried out in an interdisciplinary team
- moment to moment multimodal interaction
- function of talk and higher order thinking
- affordances of technology

Two lenses on collaborative interaction: sense-making and shared understanding - organisational structure: turn-taking, sequental organisation development of shared understanding

Their sequencing framework can be seen in the picture:

 

Here a picture of the students working at the tabletop:

Mei Lin is more than happy to explain their project in more detail or plan a cooperation project together with you. You can contact her at: mei-lin_at_ncl.ac.uk.

First two keynotes already available online!

The Dutch are effective! The first two recordings are already available for online viewing:

1st keynote - Carol A. Chapel: Arguments for Technology and Language Learning? bit.ly/1tlWejy

2nd keynote - Bart Rienties:  (in)formal learning and social interactions...? bit.ly/XF2DuA!

R Vurdien: social networking:developing intercultural competence and fostering autonomous learning

The presentation reported on a study that was based on 2 focus groups, one in Mauritius and Spain, made up of university students and involving out of class activity. The research questions underlying the study looked at what students can learn about each others culture, and does online learning foster learner autonomy. There were 24 students in total, with C1 (Spaniards) and C2 level (Mauritians) in English, respectively. Tasks were assigned every 2 weeks, asking students to post on their blogs covering areas such as university education gastronomy, lifestyle etc. The final two tasks involved students interviewing each other across the two groups, as well as making short videos. Sample interview questions asked by participants in their interviews included questions on architecture, health, politics and research.

The study adopted a qualitative approach, using questionnaires at the beginning and the end as well as an interview at end of the study. Findings suggest that in general students had enhanced their knowledge of the other countries, and interestingly, when asked to assess the cultural similarities and differences they observed, the Spaniards reported more similarities, e.g. in in habits and lifestyle, while the Mauritian found more differences, e.g. in outlook and opportunities. Likewise, the Mauritian students thought the interaction had helped building friendships with the other cultural groups, while the Spaniards didn't consider the study long enough to allow for friendship to form. The study concluded that there was an increase in motivation due to the dynamic online nature of the interaction. The data further showed that the interaction enhanced the students' understanding of the other culture, and pertinent collaborative tasks encouraged them to interact, share information and think critically.

Meima & van Engen on the MAGICC project (www.magicc.eu)

Modularising Multilingual and multicultural academic communication competence for BA and MA level is a Life Long Learning EU project developing learning outcomes for HE language courses. It conceptualises and describes competences for multicultural and multilingual work life and attempts at harmonising the assessment criteria that can be employed for teaching and learning. One of the outcomes is also an academic eportfolio the students can use to show their competences for future employers.

R. O'Dowd: Learning as they go" :in service teachers learning to collaborate

Robert O'Dowd on teacher competences for carrying out telecollaboration. There are some 40 competencies which raises the question how to teach teachers in a one-off workshop on to acquire the competencies needed for a successful telecollaboration (see O'Dowd 2013). When interviewing 4 novice teachers based in Argentina, USA and USA, Robert realised that all four had completely different issues that needed addressing, ranging from institutional issues to technological issues. No two exchanges are ever the same, so toil address this issue, the INTENT project is hoping to run a project which will take account of the need for teachers to become part of communities of practice through "critical friends groups" and "peer coaching". Teachers learn best when engaged in the activity.

How can this then be embedded into teacher training? The proposed project seeks to put together a training course that includes information on the educational cultures of partner institutions, and invites experienced colleagues to make guest appearances and share their knowledge with the trainee telecollaborators. It further hopes to give trainees the opportunity to read about previous exchanges in the form of case studies, and engage teachers in simulations of TC exchanges or mentor them through their first exchanges.

2nd Keynote Bart Rienties

Please, join us for the live stream of today's keynote: ow.ly/Aw4SR

A highly interactive start to the keynote as Bart had the audience interpret analytics relating to the world cup performance of Robin van Persia, demonstrating the limitations of learning analytics. He talked of the need to distinguish between learner data and learning data before introducing a number of studies around learning analytics. One such study involved pre-sessional students on an economics degree that were assigned to study groups for 4 months. Results showed that the students learned more outside their assigned groups rather than inside these groups. So, if 80% of learning occurs outside their "classroom" how can we encourage informal learning, and how can we capture this learning in learning analytics?

A further development of the study looking at the VLA data showed that the predictive power of VLE data alone is very low, whereas using all data for six performance measures yields a far greater prediction accuracy. Using such data allows for example for early and targeted interventions with struggling students. Questions for Eurocall to consider are what VLE metrics should mew use, what do students learn from peers? When should the teacher intervene and how could we use smart(er) metrics of emotions and learning patterns? Bart's closing remark to his very entertaining and inforrmative talk was that learning analytics has lots of potential, but still offers more questions than answers. (By Oranna)

M-J Hamel et al on Using screen capture tools for L2 writing course

Marie-Josée starts by reminding us that
1) the digital technologies represent important new multimodal spaces and resources for L2 students and their instructors and that
2) understanding student's writing behaviours at the computer is a fundamental part of developing the writing pedagogy.
In their 3-year study, the researchers use video screen capture technology (VSC) to understand the processes of writing, to be able to scaffold the students reflection and also give the students opportunities to reflect on their writing process. The research questions are whether the studest find the tools useful and what are the advantages of VSC use in a language writing course: critical reflection, language competence, language autonomy.

The theoretical framework is built on the following:

More information from the presenters. (Quickest way to reach Marie-Josée is via Twitter: @mjhamel20)

Ilona Laakkonen on Personal Learning Environments and Course Design

Ilona Laakkonen presentation was an exploration on how to adapt the ideology of the Personal Learning Environment (PLE) to a higher education language course. First part of the presentation was on defining the concept of PLEs and this posting is on that part. The other parts outlined a HE course where PLE was used throughout and the presenter discussed the methodological aspects of researching learning and PLEs. Finally, focus was put on the development on the digital literacies of the students and the Beetham&Sharpe (2010) development framework. For those of you interested in the idea of PLE, here is one way of looking at the components of PLE as part of formal learning:

In the current study, the idea was to design a continuum of activities that would align with the studies at the university and employ PLEs throughout them. The ideal design would be as follows:

Ask for more information on the concept or on the possible research approaches from the presenter: Ilona Laakkonen, ilona.laakkonen_at_jyu.fi or see at ilonasplage.blogspot.com (mostly in Finnish, but go for the Publications section for English content)

L. Cuesta Medina and P Alvarez Ayure:n Fostering Collaboration in CALL: benefits and challenges of using virtual language resource centres

The presentation discusses a research action pilot project based on a group of 16 teachers on an MA degree in language teaching in Colombia. The creation of virtual language resource centres (VLRC) is a step towards addressing the lack of both printed and digital resources available to the language learner and teacher. Factors taken into account in setting up the VLRCs the matching of the new digital resources to the needs and levels of the students. Amongst the design principles taken into considerations for the creation of the 9 VLRCs were learner centred approach, (which involved training the teachers in giving learning strategy training, LMS and web 2.0 training in order to operate in the new learning environment on their own); distance and online learning instruction as assets to facilitate lifelong learning (Paquette 2000),; contribute to the creation of a sense of a community; constructivist pedagogy. The pilot project saw collaboration between students of different schools in the same city, as well as between students in different parts of the country. The second level of collaboration took place between teachers in different parts of the country, working together to create the VLRCs. The project outcomes highlighted the potential of VLRCs in the process of bridging the digital divide. They further encouraged learner autonomy, facilitated access and use of web 2 tools as well as providing a customised learner experience. However, it also stressed the continued need for staff and student training on the creation/use of VLRCs.