Designing CALL Introduction workshops – What has changed in the last 4 years?

[Heike Philp]

Recording: http://lancelot.adobeconnect.com/p58632961/

Technology is constantly on the move, learner-centered theories have new names and learners expectations are shifting to more want of emerging technologies in the classroom. Yet can/do teacher training and development programs follow the changes with changing syllabi increasingly proning the use of technology in the classroom? Teachers may often misunderstand the buzz around social applications and tools due to a lack of information or appropriate training. Yet everyone is talking about uses of Facebook, twitter, wikis and blogs in education because students often know what they are. Computer Mediated Communication advances(CMC) from Web20 to mobile technologies have open doors to new ways of unleashing student creativity. Come and hear how and why in the last 4 years I have had to redesign my CALL workshops to pre-service teachers following several parameters: available technology, facilities where the course and of course student profiles and their computer literacy. The course in November 2010 was delivered online from France through Adobe Connect pro to a class of 35 students located at the language learning Centre at Victoria University.

 

Edith Paillat is the language technology specialist at Victoria University of Wellington. Her role is to find solutions for the integration of technology is the teaching of 12 languages taught at Victoria. She provides support and hands-on training to teaching staff and students using the computer language labs she implemented in 2005 and 2008 consecutively. She is an experienced teacher and teacher of French as a foreign language. She has taught in Vietnam, England, Japan and New Zealand before she took up her current role in 2002.