Creating a Learning Community with Moodle: Languages Across the Curriculum at Skidmore

1. Creating a Learning Community with Moodle: Languages Across the Curriculum at Skidmore CALICO Annual Symposium: The Many (Inter)Faces of CALL Texas State University - San Marcos May 24, 2007 Cindy Evans - Skidmore College cevans@skidmore.edu

2. Overview • LAC at Skidmore • Instructional challenges • Role of technology (moodle) • Implementation & development • Pedagogy-technology question

3. LAC at Skidmore • Format: • Individualized curriculum • Goals: • Improve reading proficiency • Enhance vocabulary in target discipline • Address writing proficiency in advanced LAC • Provide ongoing L2 learning

4. The pedagogical challenge • Accommodate diversity of • proficiency levels • content areas • Encourage interaction among students • Create a sense of common purpose through focus on process

5. Affordances of moodle • Interactivity • Supports individual and collaborative work • Glossary feature • Constructivist philosophy: • “People actively construct new knowledge as they interact with their environment.” • “Learning is particularly effective when constructing something for others to experience.”

6. Chickens and eggs • Pedagogy-based approaches: “…define first what is needed in terms of functionalities…” Colpaert, J. “Pedagogy-driven design for online language teaching and learning.” CALICO Journal 23 (3): 477-497, 2006. • Technology “…needs to change the way we teach and the way students learn.” Furstenberg, G. and Levet, S., “Implementing a telecollaborative project for the language class.” CALICO Workshop, 22 May 2007.

7. Implementation & development • LAC moodle site • Evolution: • Feedback: • Incorporate more current events • More interaction with peers’ content areas • Resulting changes: • Increased use of wiki for peer editing & presentation in class • Increased use of glossary (integration into curriculum) • More integration of moodle into classroom work in general. • Moodle site became increasingly central for the community as a portable workspace.

8. Pedagogical paradigm shift • Education of the third millennium characterized as “flexible, inclusive, collaborative, authentic, relevant, global, and effective.” • Emphasis on core meta-skills and knowledge vs. core content Felix, U. “E-learning pedagogy in the third millennium: The need for combining social and cognitive constructivist approaches.” ReCALL 17(1): 85-100, 2005. • Characteristics of digital learners: • Multiprocessors • Navigation = key to information literacy • Discovery-based learners • Bias toward action Brown, J.S. “Growing up digital: How the web changes work, education, and the ways people learn.” Change10-20, March/April, 2000

9. Web environment • Properties of the web: • Two-way medium – users are producers and consumers • Honors notion of multiple intelligences • Shift in using technology from supporting individuals to supporting relationships between individuals Brown, J.S. “Growing up digital: How the web changes work, education, and the ways people learn.” Change10-20, March/April, 2000

10. Confluence of pedagogy & technology