Our task this week was to find an article relating to our course and do a presentation on it for our classmates. I chose 'Social media, Collaboration and Social Learning - a case-study of Foreign Language Learning' by Margrethe Mondahl and Liana Razmerita. I chose this article as it covered some interesting subject matter in collaborative learning and problem-solving for SLA. It also linked very well with previous lessons we had, again discussing VLE's, PLE's and Digital Natives. I was also interested in the business perspective taken from the article, as it was from Copenhagen Business School, and being from 2014, it was a very recent study and therefore up-to-date with advances in technology.
This week's Task
The key technology utilised was Podio, a business orientated online work platform, mainly utilised by businesses to create, manage and complete projects.
Overall, the tone of the article was that modern students are 'pragmatic and results orientated' and 'may not by particularly academically minded' (Mondahl, M. & Razmerita, L, 2014: 339) While this may be true of some business students, I don't believe it to be an accurate representation of the modern student, in particular those interested in learning a foreign language. In fact, the students seemed to be more pragmatic and disinterested in the the case-study due to their upcoming final exams. 'Very few students were active throughout the course - and peak activity was close to hand-in deadlines.' (Mondahl, M. & Razmerita, L, 2014: 349)
It was also disappointing that few conclusions were made with regards to language learning as the students were 'not particularly willing to “invade each other’s turfs” when it comes to correcting/discussing/making changes to language.' (Mondahl, M. & Razmerita, L, 2014: 349) While Podio may have been a good platform for businesses and gave the students a realistic view of the business world, it may not have been the best tool for facilitating communication in a second language.
The Right Tool for the Job
In fact, it was quite a common theme of this week's discussions of choosing the correct platform to suit the language needs of the class or the pedagogy being taught. Whether it was dependent on personal factors, such as Facebook revealing too much personal information, or using twitter as a means of CMC, when a simple SMS style app would be more appropriate. I must remember to be careful in choosing any digital technology for my class and ensure I am choosing the right approach. As noted by McLoughlin (2010: 30), there are several key areas that using digital technologies must provide if they are to be used as part of a pedagogy, particularly in relation to PLE's:
'Green, Facer, Rudd, Dillon and Humphreys (2005) summarise four key areas pivotal to enabling personalised learning through digital technologies. According to them, pedagogy must:
- ensure that the learners are capable of making informed educational decisions:
- diversify and recognise different forms of skills and knowledge:
- create diverse learning environments: and
- include learner focused forms of feedback and assessment.'
Here, student self regulation and reflection are seem as key factors in their understanding and learning and I must ensure that I allow my students to be able to reflect on their work and not just get caught up in all the 'bells-and-whistles' of digital technology. This very blog is a good example of using digital technology as a means of self-reflection, where I think about and discuss all the articles and discussion I have studied during the week. As Wei (2010: 279) notes 'blogging seems to promote these learners to generate deep reflections upon the research writing process, the evaluation criteria, and the research topic ' And though this task is coming to a close next week as a formally assessed task, I an keen to continue it, as it has been most beneficial to me in these hectic times.
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