1. Constraints and benefits
I teach English as a Foreign Language (EFL) at Okayama University in Japan. It is a large national university in the west of the country with world-leading research in medicine, agriculture, and engineering. The level of students is high and it is very competitive to enter. EFL is an important component of university study and my department tries very hard to support the students’ English academic development. The use of technology for study is emphasised by Japan’s Ministry of Education and is gradually becoming normalised (Bax, 2011) in many universities. However, the way it is implemented varies widely in each context. In my university, there has been a gradual introduction of university-wide facilities and support.
During this gradual spread of access to technology, I have used tools that are free for students and that they can make use of outside the classroom. The rationale for my use of technology is to encourage students to improve their digital literacy skills (Dudeney, Hockly & Pegrum, 2013) such as through the creation of multimedia projects (Cowie, 2018) and to provide mobile language learning opportunities (Pegrum, 2014) whereby students can practice their language skills, as Sharples says (2015), uncoupled from time and space. Examples of the tools that I have used include Google Docs and Slides to make collaborative multimedia projects; Brainshark and Padlet for brainstorming and sharing ideas; Google Community as a kind of LMS for classes; creating Wikipedia pages for writing practice; and, Quizlet for vocabulary development. In order to teach students about online tools, I make instructional videos using my smartphone and Camtasia which I then share on YouTube. For colleagues, I created a WordPress site to share information about the curriculum, teaching approaches and so on.
Screenshot of an archived page from a teacher website
However, this gradual uptake of digital tools accelerated exponentially from April 2020 when all staff had to move their courses online due to the COVID-19 emergency (Bozkurt et al., 2020). Two tools that have become essential for me during this period are Zoom and Flipgrid. I will look at the constraints and benefits of these two tools in more detail.
| Tool | Benefits | Constraints |
| Zoom | This video-conferencing tool has made synchronous language learning lessons very easy to arrange and carry out. I use a ‘flipped classroom’ approach (Goldstein & Driver, 2014) where students prepare before a lesson, carry out tasks during the Zoom meeting, and complete an assignment after the lesson.
The tasks are mainly carried out collaboratively using the breakout function of Zooms. This allows students to work together whilst the teacher can monitor and advise as necessary. One affordance is that students can collaborate on a shared document or use the ‘whiteboard’ to work together on a task. Zoom allows for all three types of online ‘presence’ (teaching, social and cognitive) as advocated in Garrison, Anderson and Archer’s (2000) Community of Inquiry Framework. |
The biggest constraint is that some students do not have the Wi-Fi bandwidth to properly access Zoom which limits their participation.
Some students do not like to reveal their faces on video which can limit interaction. The ability to record meetings does not work once students move into breakout rooms.
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| Flipgrid | This is a video-sharing tool that I use for homework assignments for language students to practice speaking in English; either informally or for presentations. Students can also comment on their classmates’ videos which encourages a sense of community and peer feedback.
The teacher feedback can be in the form of a video which is a great advantage as students get both advice on their work and also further listening input. The teacher can also give written feedback through an embedded email link to each student which saves time; and there is a simple rubric making feature which can also save time. |
For some students, the initial learning curve to figure out how to use Flipgrid is quite steep; however, after they have made one or two videos most students get used to it quickly.
Sometimes, Flipgrid ‘flags up’ that a student has uploaded inappropriate material. In every case this warning has been unfounded. A small number of students have had some difficulties uploading their videos to the Flipgrid site. They report that it has taken them up to 30 minutes to do so. |
Reflection
I think it is important to fit the technological tool to the goals of a pedagogical approach. Learning a foreign language involves many different processes. For example, there needs to be time for memorization of new words and phrases or time for planning an academic essay. These will probably be individual activities whilst speaking practice, by definition, will probably need a partner or a group. So, choosing a tool to fit these different activities is very important. There are tools like Quizlet which can make behaviorist vocabulary learning more enjoyable and collaborative tools such as Google Docs can enable constructivist approaches to learning.
I haven’t always done this as well as I could in that my goals for a class, the activities that I select, and the tools I want students to use are not always aligned. One simple example to illustrate this is that in one presentation class I wanted students to work collaboratively on a slide show (Google Slides) but at the time they could not independently add their voices to the presentation and hence could not work together on an interactive presentation. But with experience I have gradually gained a greater awareness of what is possible and work to align goals, tasks and outcomes with the tools that are available.
2. Technical Knowledge
As can be seen in the Visitor and Residence Profile (White & Le Cornu, 2011), most of my use of technology is for professional use. In particular I have made online courses with Udemy, various websites with WordPress (including this one) and steadily added to a stock of materials for students shared through YouTube. Up until 2019 I used Google Community as a makeshift LMS where students would post their projects (usually videos and slideshows) to the class community and give comments to each other. I would also give feedback to the students on their projects using the comment function. The screenshot below shows some of the class communities made using Google Community. Unfortunately, Google Community is no longer in use so these are archived images.
From April 2019, my university introduced Moodle as an LMS. It was not compulsory to use it until April 2020 when, as mentioned above, all classes went online. I make lesson plans and activities on Google Docs and link them into Moodle topics. Below is the course page for one class. It shows an introductory video and then the links for Google Docs.
I had not really used Moodle extensively until 2020 and even now only really use it as a way to post learning materials in one place. I do think an LMS can be more than a metaphorical ‘digital carpark’ (Farrelly, Costello & Donlon, 2020) or a ‘delivery system’ for materials (Herrington, Reeves & Oliver, 2005) and has the potential to be a very useful learning device, especially if the functions such as forums and chat are used to create interactive opportunities for students. Unfortunately, the university version of Moodle is a little out-of-date and it is quite time consuming to set up so I prefer to use Zoom and Flipgrid for those kinds of interactions.
Reflection
Digital technology is a rapidly changing world and it is a necessary skill (or attitude) to realise that tools that are used in one year may not be available in the next. Tools I have used in the past that have disappeared or have become fee-paying include Brainshark (video creation), Google Plus (group communication), GoAnimate (animation creation) and Google Community (online sharing). From these experiences, I have learned not to be over-dependent on one piece of software and to keep alert to new opportunities. To that end I monitor the literature and have joined specialist groups (such as JALT CALL, EUROCALL, ASCILITE, and ALT) to keep myself informed and try new things out.
3. Deployment of learning technology
As a result of the desire to try and learn new skills, I have developed (with my partner, Keiko Sakui) online courses using the Udemy platform. We have used Keynote, iMovie, Go Animate and Doodly to make videos that are a mixture of slide shows, embedded talking heads, and animation. Since 2017, we have made five courses on English and communication (grammar, small talk, meetings, presentations and academic writing). We have over 600 students that have signed up from 35 countries.
Perhaps the main challenge, other than how to use the various software applications and understand audio/video recording, has been how to structure the courses to maintain student engagement and motivation. We never meet the students face-to-face and the Udemy ecology provides limited communication opportunities for feedback. This means that we have tried a number of techniques so that motivation is maximised in the course itself. These include following various technical principles to make videos engaging such as ‘coherence’ (remove extraneous information), ‘signalling’ (highlight what you want to teach through contrast) and ‘temporal contiguity’ (present information through different channels of information, such as audio and visual, at the same time) (Mayer, 2009). These can be evidenced by presentations we made at SoTEL 2019 (Cowie & Sakui, 2019) and SoTEL 2020 (Cowie & Sakui, 2020a) at the Auckland University of Technology.
In addition to making videos as technically engaging as possible we have also carried out research into what language students perceive as a motivating video teacher. After a survey of 60 students and follow-up interviews with seven, our main findings were that online teachers need to speak at an appropriate speed for their audience, be as clear as possible, be friendly rather than rude or scary; and, most importantly, try to be genuine and communicate a level of passion. See Cowie and Sakui (2020b).
Reflection
For evidence of my reflection on the limits of interacting with unknown online students please watch this short video. It was a discussion using Google Hangouts with other participants on the March 2019 #cmaltcmooc organised by AUT (New Zealand). The main point is that there are very limited ways to ‘interact’ with unknown online students (they can only review a course, ask a question or receive an announcement). Instead it is important to embed techniques of engagement within the online video itself.
References
Bax, S. (2011). Normalisation revisited: The effective use of technology in language education. International Journal of Computer-Assisted Language Learning and Teaching. 1(2), 1-15.
Bozkurt, A., Jung, I., Xiao, J., Vladimirschi, V., Schuwer, R., Egorov, G., …Paskevicius, M. (2020). A global outlook to the interruption of education due to COVID-19 pandemic: Navigating in a time of uncertainty and crisis. Asian Journal of Distance Education, 15(1), 1–126. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3878572
Cowie, N. & Sakui, K. (2018). Learning English through digital projects: A Japanese university case study. Osaka JALT Journal, 5, 20-43.
Cowie, N. & Sakui, K. (February 14th 2019). How do we keep motivating learners?: Using online platforms to teach language. SoTEL Symposium. Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand.
Cowie, N. & Sakui, K. (February 19th, 2020a). Enhancing student retention rates on open non-formal online language learning courses. SoTEL Symposium. Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand.
Cowie, N. & Sakui, K. (June 7th, 2020b). How to make online videos engaging for language learners. JALTCALL Online Conference.
Dudeney, G., Hockly, N., & Pegrum, M. (2013). Digital Literacies: Research and Resources in Language Teaching. United Kingdom: Pearson Education Limited.
Farrelly, T., Costello, E. & Donlon, E. (2020). VLEs: A metaphorical history from sharks to limpets. Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 1 (20), 1-10. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/jime.
Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2000). Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education. The Internet and Higher Education, 2(2-3), 87-105.
Goldstein, B. & Driver, P. (2014). Language Learning with Digital Video. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Herrington, J., Reeves, T.C. & Oliver, R. (2005). Online Learning as Information Delivery: Digital Myopia. Journal of Interactive Learning Research, 16(4), 353-367. Norfolk, VA: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). Retrieved September 26, 2020 from: https://www.learntechlib.org/primary/p/6116/.
Mayer, R. E. (2009). Multimedia Learning (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press
Pegrum, M. (2014). Mobile learning: Languages, literacies and cultures. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Sharples, M. (2015). Making sense of context for mobile learning. In J. Traxler & A. Kukulska-Hulme (Eds.), Mobile Learning: The Next Generation (pp. 140-153). New York: Routledge. Retrieved from: https://www.routledge.com/products/9780415658362
White, D. S., & Le Cornu, A. (2011). Visitors and Residents: A new typology for online engagement. First Monday, 16(9). https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v16i9.3171