Unidad académica: Escuela de Educación Facultad: Centro de Lenguas Profesor: Jorge Villegas A .

1. COMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY FOR VIRTUAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENTSIN EFL CLASSROOMSJorge Villegas A.Esp in EFL Teaching, Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana Unidad académica: Escuela de Educación Facultad: Centro de Lenguas Profesor:Jorge Villegas A. E – mail:jorge.villegas@upb.edu.co

2. A sub-product of the Academic Project of the LanguageCenter UPB for the Implementation of a Language Laboratory System based on Multimedia and Communications & Information Technology Unidad académica: Escuela de Educación Facultad: Centro de Lenguas Profesor:Jorge Villegas A. E – mail:jorge.villegas@upb.edu.co

3. Unidad académica: Escuela de Educación Facultad: Centro de Lenguas Profesor:Jorge Villegas A. E – mail:jorge.villegas@upb.edu.co When a teacher becomes aware of new developments in pedagogical theory or technology, the first reaction is frequently “Sounds great!”, and the second “but?” There is almost invariably conflict between the ideals stimulated by the linguistic theory, the pedagogical approach or the technological innovation, and the practical matters which must be taken into consideration for effective implementation of those ideals.Brian McCarthy, 1992.

4. Learning Theories, Approaches and the Roles of Computers from the 50`s to PresentBehaviouristic: PC as a Tutor Communicative: PC as a Tutor, as Stimulus, and as a Workhorse or Tool. Integrative:PC as a means SOME CALL SNAPSHOTS

5. CALL: Computer Assisted Language Learning & Behaviourism In the 1950’s: The computer as Tutor (Taylor, 1980) Repetitive exposition to the same material is beneficial to learning Computers do not get tired of repeating and do not provide subjective feedback Learners go at their own pace on the topic they need. Class time is optimized for other activities

6. CALL & The Communicative Approach 1970’s & 80’s The computer as: * Tutor (Taylor, 1980), * Stimulus & Workhorse (Taylor & Pérez, 1989), * Tool (Bierley & Kemble, 1991)

7. CALL& Communicative Approach (Continued) Emphasis in actual language use Grammar learning is deductive The production of original utterances is promoted in order to avoid premade dialogues Not all activities are judged, evaluated or rewarded There is flexibility for the answers Only the target language is used Should try to go beyond what a textbook can do

8. Integral CALL Integrates all processes involved in learning a language Is truly interactive Should understand learners’s output and assess it for correctnes and appropriateness. Diagnoses pronunciation, sintaxis and language use problems Decides inteligently among correcting, repeating, paraphrasing, slowing down to student’s pace, or giving him/her an explanation.

9. Computer-Mediated Communication integrated in EFL Classrooms Through the integration of different strategies students get benefits for their language learning process. Along with traditional classes, students can interact with some software installed locally in the PCs at the computer Lab facility and in their free time, they log in into a Yahoo E-Group.

10. Unidad académica: Escuela de Educación Facultad: Centro de Lenguas Profesor:Jorge Villegas A. E – mail:jorge.villegas@upb.edu.co Sandy Britain and Oleg Liber (1999-2000) A Framework for Pedagogical Evaluation of Virtual Learning Environments.

11. Keystones • The Dearing Report (1997) searched for the appropriate use of technology in higher education in the United Kingdom. This report praises “the promise for improving the quality, flexibility, and effectiveness of higher education.” • Conversational Framework (Laurillard, D (1993) Rethinking University Teaching – A framework for the effective use of educational technology, London: Routledge), who based on Gordon Pask's Conversation Theory (1976).

12. Unidad académica: Escuela de Educación Facultad: Centro de Lenguas Profesor:Jorge Villegas A. E – mail:jorge.villegas@upb.edu.co

13. Basic features of a VLE

14. Unidad académica: Escuela de Educación Facultad: Centro de Lenguas Profesor:Jorge Villegas A. E – mail:jorge.villegas@upb.edu.co An e-group has: • A notice board where all messages from the group arrive. The possibilities for interaction are one-to-one (student-student) or one-to-many (tutor or student to all members of the group. These possibilities respect the students’ need for privacy and allows self and peer correction. • A course outline can be easily devised through a webpage, usually available for free at the same site. They offer simple tools to design web pages at no cost. Tutor can fill out forms and select characteristics from a template in order to get attractive pages, without having to know about web design or advanced programming language.

15. Unidad académica: Escuela de Educación Facultad: Centro de Lenguas Profesor:Jorge Villegas A. E – mail:jorge.villegas@upb.edu.co • Conferencing tools vary from asynchronous email exchange in a discussion list to real time chat and video conferencing. There are some utilities like the Messenger, which allows members to know when another member is on-line and they can chat via the keyboard or use the multimedia features of the PC like the webcam and the audio capabilities of most PCs today. • Synchronous collaboration tools are of great usefulness for all kinds of exchanges. Tutor can arrange meetings at specific hours of the day in order to answer students’ questions. In the same fashion, students can contact peers when they need to do pair or team work without having to get together in a physical location.

16. Unidad académica: Escuela de Educación Facultad: Centro de Lenguas Profesor:Jorge Villegas A. E – mail:jorge.villegas@upb.edu.co • Class Lists & Student Homepages are also possible to be created when signing up for the e-group. The tutor, as manager and group owner can create and edit databases with students’ names and progress. The group features include a record of each member with the dates and times he/she signed in, among other manager’s tools. • Metadata is inherent to web design programming. Sometimes it might not be implicit, but most templates ask for descriptors and key words when saving pages. Final users do not realize they are filling in metadata because of the characteristics of templates and web-design tools at present.

17. Unidad académica: Escuela de Educación Facultad: Centro de Lenguas Profesor:Jorge Villegas A. E – mail:jorge.villegas@upb.edu.co • Assignments are not necessarily provided electronically, but it is quite easy and require a single message from the tutor to all members of the group, or through the Calendar which sends a notification when an important date or task is near. • Assessment can be provided through individual or collective answers to messages posted. Students can ask the tutor for help on an individual or a public basis. This allows for peer assessment, self-assessment or individual tutoring. Quizzes can be provided from external links (bookmarking) or through files sent to the file upload area.

18. Unidad académica: Escuela de Educación Facultad: Centro de Lenguas Profesor:Jorge Villegas A. E – mail:jorge.villegas@upb.edu.co • The file upload area helps all members to send material (as attachments). The potential of this feature is as big as many members it has. Each member has 100 MB for storing all kinds of stuff. In a group of 25 students, the storage might reach up to 2,5 GigaBytes, enough room to place multimedia material and other kinds of material. Whenever material is uploaded, members receive a notification message. • Multimediaresources are available not only from the possibilities of storage, but also from the bookmarking feature. In the Internet there thousands of sites offering free interactive material designed with the latest animation software, and thousands of radio and TV stations which broadcast authentic material in the target language 24 hours a day

19. Unidad académica: Escuela de Educación Facultad: Centro de Lenguas Profesor:Jorge Villegas A. E – mail:jorge.villegas@upb.edu.co • Calendar, assignments and files are very interrelated. Tasks and activities for the group can be arranged chronologically so members receive notification messages some time in advance in order to be up-to date with the goals of the course. This is a great tool for the cases when students miss classes. By getting into the group and checking regularly the email, they can catch up with the group. • Search tools could not be missing from an e-group like Yahoo’s. There is even a tool called Yahoo search companion which users can install in their PCs and get quick searches without opening a browser.

20. Unidad académica: Escuela de Educación Facultad: Centro de Lenguas Profesor:Jorge Villegas A. E – mail:jorge.villegas@upb.edu.co • Bookmarking is a feature that all browsers have nowadays. In an e-group, all members can send the location of interesting links through messages or by adding them directly into the links menu in the left panel within the group area. • A navigation model is not strictly part of the VLE but somehow it is a need with the activities done in the e-group. Members must be familiar with the commands and links they have at the e-group graphic interface in order to maximize the resources.

21. Unidad académica: Escuela de Educación Facultad: Centro de Lenguas Profesor:Jorge Villegas A. E – mail:jorge.villegas@upb.edu.co Basic Models for on-line courses: Content+Support model: static body of content is the core of the course and it is supplemented by tutorial support. The level of on-line interaction is relatively low. Wrap-around model: Materials are wrapped by activities, on-line discussions. Mason (1998) refers to this model as a 50/50 model because students interact on-line half their time. Integrated model: The course is defined by collaborative activities, needs and group activities. Resources are contributed by participants or tutors as the course develops

22. Unidad académica: Escuela de Educación Facultad: Centro de Lenguas Profesor:Jorge Villegas A. E – mail:jorge.villegas@upb.edu.co • Some Off-line Material at the Computer facilities at the Language Center-UPB

23. Unidad académica: Escuela de Educación Facultad: Centro de Lenguas Profesor:Jorge Villegas A. E – mail:jorge.villegas@upb.edu.co “Technology will not replace teachers, but teachers who use technology will replace teachers who don't." Ray Clifford, keynote address at CALICO, 1987

24. Unidad académica: Escuela de Educación Facultad: Centro de Lenguas Profesor:Jorge Villegas A. E – mail:jorge.villegas@upb.edu.co • Contactsjorgehv@upb.edu.cojorgehv@geo.net.cojorgehumbertovillegas@yahoo.comRecommended Sites • http://www.upb.edu.co/cdelenguas • http://www.upb.edu.co/cdelenguas/englishexer/ • http://www.upb.edu.co/cdelenguas/call_read_guide.html • http://www.upb.edu.co/cdelenguas/ tesisCMCwriting/VersionHipertextual/TesisCMCwriting.html