Notas y mapas

TOPIC TWO: Security and Privacy

TASK TWO: Based upon the information in the articles, the additional links shared on Blackboard and any other research you want to complete, discuss strategies that you as a language teacher can use to ensure that your security and privacy and your students’ security and privacy are not jeopardized when using technology tools, in particular the internet. Use 250 words in your response.

(Again, this is in the context of a post-secondary education institution.) If there are online components to be used in the course, some preliminary information about it should be outlined in the syllabus. At the beginning of the term, it is important to explain the use of those components, providing the students with instructions to activate the necessary features of the component. Some students require a detailed description of everything, and the instructor needs to explain things such as the existence of a book-key (code) to activate an account in a virtual workstation, for example, for the online workbook or laboratory activities.

Just as when in class the students are recommended not to give their real personal information during oral practice, when using online components from American publishing houses it is important to warn the students not to use their real email address. The reason for this is that American companies follow different privacy norms, and they can give or sell the students’ information to third parties.

Therefore, some immediate actions to be taught are:
• Create a separate email account to the use in online components.
• Read the terms of service and privacy policy of the publishing house website.
• Pay attention to check boxes.
• Keep your log-in information secret.
• When access your online course component in a public computer, make sure you close your account properly.
• Do not use the email service provided by some online workbooks to contact your instructors; rather use your institutional email account.

This last item goes both ways, instructors should only use the institutional email services to contact students, and follow the safety and privacy protection protocols designed by the institution.

TOPIC ONE: Copyright

TASK ONE: Discuss your understanding of your role as a language teacher in the correct use of copyrighted material and the internet. Use 250 words in your discussion.

Selecting the textbook for a (Romance) language course in a postsecondary institution is not the easiest thing to do. Beyond the pedagogical possibilities of a title, adopting a textbook implies multiple considerations about the financial implications of its use for a number of persons and entities. Mainly what it entails is a lot of limits that challenges the freedom of teaching. Dealing with instructional material is also dealing with a network of businesses tied to the education system.

In Canada, some institutions have agreements that compel them to use exclusively textbooks published in the US (as if there were no better options or not options at all) (*). The word ‘textbook’ here includes other materials linked to a title: CDs, DVDs, companion sites. Also some institutions’ libraries have subscriptions only to American databases and offer reference services solely from the US. Under these circumstances it is evident that ruling about copyrights is mainly determining how a society is to perform as a consumer within an established limited market.

Nowadays in Canada some of the teachers’ duties include to be informed about the copyright guidelines of the institution they belong, and to inform their students about their rights and obligations under the law. At postsecondary institutions this is primary done through the syllabus.

In order to be informed about copyright issues, instructors can attend workshops prepared by the library or some education unit in the institution. In workshops about copyrights information is provided, questions about specific cases are answered, and alternative materials (public domain, creative commons) are shown. Institutions also have several pages in the website explaining the responsibilities of faculty members and students on the matter.

It is important to be updated about this because companies that have interests in copyrights hire students to check if institutions are compliant with the law. I have known about professors been fined for using pictures in their websites without acknowledging copyrights, or students asking librarians information too specific about allowed uses of materials for an undergraduate student to ask.

TOPIC TWO: Language student perceptions of the usefulness of technology

TASK TWO: Read the following article: Ayres, Robert. “Learner Attitudes Towards the Use of Call.” Computer Assisted Language Learning. 15.3 (2002): 241-249. Print.

Based upon results of a survey of language students about the use of computers for language learning, the authors of the article conclude that … “learners appreciate and value the learning that they do using the computers.” (p. 247).
However the authors continue that … “without exception, the classroom is favoured as being more motivating, more useful in all skill areas, more adaptable and more relevant [than computer-based language learning]” (p. 249).

A. Discuss how these two seemingly contradictory statements can both be true at the same time. Use information from the article as well as your own examples to support your answers. Use 200 words in your response.

The study presented by Ayres (2002) intends to show the attitudes of language students towards the use of technology in the classroom. The apparently contradictory conclusions are produced by the fact that two sets of students’ perceptions about CALL were collected with different instruments.

The first statement is related to three items listed under the category “General Perceptions of CALL”, namely, 1) “relevant to needs”, 2) “computers give good info”, and 3) “should be used more” (p. 247). Items 1 and 2 obtained the highest percentage of agreement among the study population: 80% and 77%, respectively. Though the third item obtained the lowest percentage of agreement, 58%; it is considered an impressive majority. Those percentages support the quotation.

The second statement is mainly related to the results of another category of items studied in this research, the one that asked the students to identify their “Preferred Mode of Learning”. If the conclusions seem confusing that is also because the study mixed items that should have been seen separately. Ayres claims that “the project did not attempt to empirically measure whether an improvement in language competency had resulted from using CALL (p.242-43)”, but undoubtedly some of the students’ perceptions about their “Preferred Mode of Learning” are influenced by their own language learning performance; such is the case of the skills and competencies. Students can derive their perceptions about the usefulness of classroom instruction or CALL from the evaluation of their language skills improvement. There is a referent for that. Other items in the list of perceptions about modes of learning are entirely subjective. How can you measure how interesting and motivating something is? Statements about qualities such as how interesting or motivating a mode of learning is could be better examined or reported with a scale of agreement.

B. The article discusses the costs involved in the use of technology in the language classroom. Given the conclusions of the authors about student preference of classroom instruction over computer-based instruction, do you feel the expenditures on technology are justified? Support your answer with specific information from the article. Use 200 words in your response.

Somehow the question that underlies Ayres’s study is if CALL can replace the language teacher. He mentions previous discussions about that topic in stating that “the number of (CALL) users has expanded as well as the number of applications that are available (Healy, 1999), such that language teachers need to realistically assess the implications of using computers as another tool for language learning, and to consider the changing role of the ‘teacher’ to that of the ‘mentor and consultant’ (Carballo-Calero, 2001) (p. 242)”.
Clearly, Ayres’s position –based in part on this research, is that ‘classroom-based instruction’ is the dominant scenario for the language learning process.

The scope of the study excludes explanations about this, as the information collected is oriented to explore students’ attitudes toward CALL. The data suggest that for language learners classroom-based instruction is enhanced by CALL, but it is not to be substituted by it. Ayres’s last words are “CALL needs to be carefully and judiciously and must be tightly integrated into the learning curriculum in order for learners to obtain maximum benefit from its use” (p. 249). Such seems to be the case at UNITEC, during the term in which the study took place. Seven out of the eleven classes that participated in the study worked in the computer labs two hours a week, the other four classes, one hour a week (p. 243). Ayres reports that the computer labs were available for ‘drop-in’ sessions too.

If technology is used this consistently as a tool of instruction, that shows the acceptance of CALL by the teachers, and the study shows the acceptance of CALL by the students. In consequence it is justifiable to assign a budget for the tools that benefit students learning.