Mid-South Instructional Technology Conference
Teaching, Learning, & Technology
Transforming the Learning Environment
April 4-6, 2004
|
Fred Yaniga Track 1 - Effective Technology-Based Learning Resources |
Abstract
The traditional college-level language classroom presents an interesting opportunity to implement technology as an instrument of learning. Unlike distance-learning classrooms, technology is not at the focus of instruction, but can still be used to compliment classroom instruction and, in many cases, proves to be pivotal in student success. This presentation will demonstrate successful strategies for technology in concert with the traditional classroom as well as using Blackboard statistics to gain insight into correlations between student use of the technology and final success.
Description
Foreign language sessions at the ITC Conference seem to be a rare breed, yet teachers of foreign languages can profit greatly from pedagogically sound implementation of technology. Learning language involves a wide array of skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing and culture, all of which can be greatly supported by widely available technology. My presentation will demonstrate a few simple techniques to implement these technological tools to maximize classroom time and student learning while stimulating student interest and, arguably, increasing success.
Examples will be taken from my current Intermediate German class and will include the use of organized digital course documents, audio and video supplements, synchronous and non-synchronous communication, as well as the use of online assessments and statistics. Students in the class were consistently made aware that course content was available via the Blackboard site. Documents such as lesson plans, worksheets, overhead transparencies and review sheets were organized and posted to Blackboard as were audio and video clips which we used during class. Students were encouraged to use these files to review class information thus freeing obsessive note-takers of their burden and allowing for greater levels of in-class participation. By using Blackboard's "Virtual Classroom" function I set up a weekly chat session I called my "Cyber Office Hour" (synchronous communication). I held the chat from my own family room while students were usually at home or in their dorm rooms or taking a break from studies in the library. This chat quickly became very popular among a large number of students who participated regularly, and was read in archive form by many more students on a weekly basis. Listening was reinforced by making different kinds of audio and video files available through Blackboard, many of which were used in their entirety or in part during our classroom meetings. Students were much more likely to visit the Blackboard site to repeat listening and viewing exercises than they ever would have been to visit the Language Center.
My claim is that by using these technological tools alongside my traditional face-to-face classroom techniques, many students are able to learn more efficiently. I will buttress this claim through the analysis of Blackboard Course Statistics data which supplies information about student usage of specific content areas and offers the possibility of correlating degrees of successes.