ICT4LT
Module 1.5ICT4LT
Module 1.5This module aims to serve as an introduction to the Internet for language teachers, beginning with a definition of the Internet (Section 1), followed by a substantial set of sections on:
After reading this module have a look at Module 2.3, Exploiting Word Wide Web resources online and offline.
This Web page is designed to be read from the printed page. Use File / Print in your browser to produce a printed copy. After you have digested the contents of the printed copy, come back to the onscreen version to follow up the hyperlinks.
Ros Walker: Ros Walker is the main author of this module. She was employed as a NOF trainer at CILT, UK, when she wrote the first version (published 1999). She currently works as E-learning Manager for the United Learning Trust. The other authors are:
This module has undergone regular revision since it was first published in 1999.
At a seminar conducted by one of the authors of this module, students were asked:
"If you were asked to name one single recent development in ICT that has had the most significant impact on your work, what would it be?" Most of the students answered, as anticipated, "The Internet".
Significantly, none of the students was aware that the Internet and the World Wide Web are not synonymous terms. The Web is only part of the Internet, and none of the students was aware just how recently the World Wide Web came into being, namely 1993. The Internet dates back much further, its forerunner being ARPANET, a US military network which was set up in 1969. ARPANET was extended (as the Internet) in the 1970s to include libraries, educational institutions and, later, businesses. The first email program was launched in 1972. The first publicly accessible Web browser, known as Mosaic, appeared in 1993, followed by Netscape in 1994. See Section 3 (below), headed Using a browser - navigating the Web.
Few of the students were aware of the long history of CALL, which dates back to the early 1960s, and none had given much thought to some of the problems associated with using the Web. See:
Davies (1999) describes the Internet as follows:
The Internet is a computer network connecting millions of computers all over the world. It provides communications to governments, businesses, universities, schools and homes. Any modern computer can be connected to the Internet using existing communications systems. Schools and universities normally access the Internet via their own educational networks, but private individuals usually have to take out a subscription with an Internet Service Provider (ISP). They can then connect their computer to the Internet via a modem and their local telephone system.
Note: Nowadays there are many different ways of obtaining a connection to the Internet. If you work in an educational institution talk to your ICT manager. If you work from home you should be able to obtain access to broadband, which is a fast connection to the Internet via a standard telephone line. See the Glossary for a definition of broadband, and see Section 1.3.2, Module 1.2 for more information on broadband.
This module focuses on three main areas of the Internet:
How would you define the Internet? Feedback.
Contents of this section
Davies (1999) describes the World Wide Web as follows:
This is the most powerful and fastest growing Internet service, now known simply as the Web. The Web is accessed by means of a computer program known as a browser. Two popular browsers are Internet Explorer and Netscape, both of which work more or less the same way. Using a browser you can access websites all over the world and download pages of information. Most Web pages include pictures, and many include audio, animated graphics, video and links - known as hyperlinks - to other websites.
The inventor of the Web, Tim Berners-Lee, has a more visionary view:
The dream behind the Web is of a common information space in which we communicate by sharing information. Its universality is essential: the fact that a hypertext link [Editor's Note: My italics - now usually abbreviated to hyperlink] can point to anything, be it personal, local or global, be it draft or highly polished. There was a second part of the dream, too, dependent on the Web being so generally used that it became a realistic mirror (or in fact the primary embodiment) of the ways in which we work and play and socialise. That was that once the state of our interactions was on line, we could then use computers to help us analyse it, make sense of what we are doing, where we individually fit in, and how we can better work together. (Berners-Lee 1998)
The concept of hypertext predates the Web by many years.Vannevar Bush is credited with inventing the concept of hypertext: see his article "As we may think", written as early as 1945, in which he describes an imaginary machine called "Memex" - essentially a hypertext device that takes account of the way the human mind associates ideas and follows a variety of different paths rather than moving on sequentially (Bush 1945). Bush wrote:
[ The human mind] operates by association. With one item in its grasp, it snaps instantly to the next that is suggested by the association of thoughts, in accordance with some intricate web of trails carried by the cells of the brain. It has other characteristics, of course; trails that are not frequently followed are prone to fade, items are not fully permanent, memory is transitory. Yet the speed of action, the intricacy of trails, the detail of mental pictures, is awe-inspiring beyond all else in nature
The term hypertext did not, however, appear until the 1960s, when it was coined by Ted Nelson. Hypertext was implemented in HyperCard, a program developed for the Apple Mac in 1987, which is acknowledged as the first successful (offline) hypertext system before the advent of the World Wide Web. Essentially, the Web is hypertext running across the Internet.
Contrary to what many people think, Web 2.0 is not a new version of the World Wide Web - as this is what the appendage of a version number to a product's name normally implies. The term arose as the name of a series of conferences, the first of which was held in 2004: http://www.web2con.com
See O'Reilly (2005). See also the Wikipedia article on Web 2.0: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0
Essentially, the term Web 2.0 is an attempt to redefine what the Web is all about and how it is used. In recent years we have experienced a breathtaking increase in the number Web-based communities that make use of typical Web 2.0 tools such as discussion lists, blogs, wikis and podcasts, as well as dedicated social networking websites and virtual worlds or MUVEs that promote collaboration, sharing and interaction. In other words, Web 2.0 signifies a more democratic approach to the use of the Web, in which traffic is less likely to be one-way, i.e. from the website to the end-user. Thus more and more websites are emerging that are the result of collaboration and sharing between closed groups of users, e.g. students in a university or college, or by the public at large. Wikipedia is a typical example of collaborative publishing by the public at large. See the following sections of the ICT4LT website, all of which are dedicated to topics broadly describing features of Web 2.0:
Web-based applications now work more like the software installed on the hard disk of your desktop computer, e.g. the software that you use for word-processing. When you click on an icon in your word-processor you expect something to happen without a time delay and you also assume that you can save the documents that you create with your word-processor onto your hard disk and send copies to your friends using email software (see Section 14). You can now do this sort of thing via your Web browser (see Section 3), regardless of where you are located. In the early days of the Web this would not have been possible. Firstly, the software tools were not available. Secondly, long delays were a feature of the early Web. When you clicked on a button on a Web page you could go away and make yourself a cup of coffee before anything happened. With the advent of new, so-called Web 2.0 software tools and faster connections to the Internet, you no longer have to rely on software being installed on your desktop computer. Web 2.0 provides you with online tools that enable you to produce documents, communicate via email, set up lists of your favourite websites, and organise and store your digital photographs, thus making it possible for you to work away from home and also share what you create with other people, anywhere in the world.
Time delays still occur on the Web, of course, but the advent of new Web programming tools such as AJAX (see Glossary) and plug-ins such as Flash Player have made it possible to create Web pages that respond more quickly to your requests and incorporate more interactivity and functionality. Google Maps is a typical example of a Web application incorporating AJAX. Scroll around the map and watch it update itself with relatively little time delay: http://maps.google.co.uk/maps
The following sites are typical examples of Web 2.0. Have a look and see what they offer:
See also Section 12 (below) and Section 14.2 (below) for more information on blogs, wikis, social networking and also on MUVEs and Second Life, all of which characterise Web 2.0.
Mashups are typical manifestations of Web 2.0. The term mashup derives from the practice in music of mixing two or more songs in order to produce a new song, particularly in musical genres such as hip-hop. In the context of Web 2.0, a mashup can be described as a Web page, often assembled by an amateur enthusiast, that brings together data from two or more Web services and combines the data into a new application with added functionality. O'Reilly (2005:4) describes this phenomenon as "innovation in assembly". Flickrvision and Earthalbum are examples of mashups in which Flickr and Google Maps have been combined into new hybrid Web pages:
See also this mashup, which shows
the real-time locations of all the DART suburban rail service trains in the
city of Dublin: http://dartmaps.mackers.com
This is done by overlaying
information from the Irish Rail website onto Google Maps.
Essentially, then, a mashup is a way of repurposing existing Web services and requires relatively little Web programming expertise. A directory of mashups can be found here: http://www.programmableweb.com
A mashup could be useful in language teaching and learning. A mashup for students studying a foreign language might consist, for example, of audio or video clips from an online broadcasting service, with transcriptions and annotations, grammar explanations and activities and exercises. Mashups could also be used in constructivist ways. For example, students could demonstrate their understanding of concepts by creating their own mashups.
Web 2.0 certainly offers a wealth of exciting new developments, but the question arises regarding how and to what extent these developments can contribute to education, especially the teaching and learning of foreign languages. See:
I am grateful to contributors to the IATEFL and EUROCALL discussion lists who provided useful information on the topic of Web 2.0. The above is in part a digest of the information they posted to the discussion lists at:
To what extent the concept of Web 2.0 is truly innovative is a matter of debate, as it is broadly in line with the concept of the Web as defined by its inventor, Tim Berners-Lee, back in 1998 (see above). So it can be argued that Web 2.0 is just an example of the continuous development of well-established technologies - a transition rather than a break with its past.
It has also been argued that Web 2.0 is essentially a meaningless term invented by a group of businessmen as a way of convincing the media and investors that something fundamentally new has been created.
What do you think? Join in the discussion
(initiated May 2007) in the ICT4LT blog: Web 2.0 - Is it just hype?
http://ictforlanguageteachers.blogspot.com
Contents of this section
When you want to view pages on the World Wide Web, you need a computer program to do it, namely a browser. A browser is a software application that carries your messages to computers all over the world and returns messages to your computer.
The two most common browsers currently in use are:
There have been several versions of both of these. In order to view pages on the Web, it is recommended that you use Version 4.0 and above of either browser.
Essentially, a browser works as follows:
Some browsers, particularly later versions, have additional features, but the ones listed above are the most important.
It is assumed that if you are reading this module are already familiar with using a browser. There are several excellent tutorials on the Web:
Viruses, spam, adware and spyware
Before you surf the Web make sure that you are adequately protected against viruses, spam, adware, and spyware: see Appendix: Viruses.
Contents of this section
Search engines: Often, when you need to locate a Web page, you already have its Web address (http://... etc), but if you want to search for something completely new there are special sites to help you find materials. These are called search engines. It is possible to use the English-language version of a search engine such as Google (see Section 4.1.1), which is currently the most popular search engine on the Web, key in a word or key phrase in any language, and the search eingine will find it. There are also many search engines which work entirely in the foreign language (see Section 4.1.2).
First and foremost, don't waste time looking for materials that are unlikely to be found on the Web. Living professional authors are usually unwilling to give information away for free. This is why the texts of most modern books cannot be found on the Web, especially those that are still subject to copyright, i.e. where the author has been dead for less than 70 years. Similarly, don't expect to find huge collections of downloadable audio and video materials for use with language learners, as copyright on audio and video materials is jealously guarded: see Section 3.5, Module 2.3, headed Audio and video. However, the situation regarding copyright on materials in electronic format has changed considerably in recent years: see our General guidelines on copyright. Sharing materials has become common practice since the advent of Web 2.0, and there are now many sites where you can find materials offered free of charge or at a very low cost: see Section 2.1 (above), headed What is Web 2.0? where you will find references to some of these sites. The Web is truly an enormous collection of information: texts, images, audio and video recordings, etc, many of which can be exploited in language teaching. The problem is that this information is somewhat chaotically organised. Bush (1996) sums it up:
As someone once said, the Web is like one great big, wonderful library. You enter the front door, and there are all the books... piled in the middle of the floor!
When searching, the most important thing is to hit on the keyword or combination of keywords that will bring up the information you are looking for. For example, you may be looking for lyrics of French songs. The keywords are lyrics french songs (note that you do not need to use upper case letters). These three keywords will probably find all the sites that contain these keywords, but not necessarily in that order and french may not be juxtaposed with songs. If you place quotation marks round french and songs - thus "french songs" - then the search engine will try to find sites in which the two words are juxtaposed. If you are looking for something more specific, for example the words of a particular song that was recorded by a particular singer, you can try a search such as "edith piaf" lyrics milord. This should find a site where the complete lyrics of the song Milord, as recorded by Edith Piaf, are listed.
The tutorial materials listed in Section 3.1 (above) contain advice on searching and search activities. The following guides will also help you learn how to be more successful in your searching.
Google is a very efficient search engine, and currently the most popular on the Web. Google's UK homepage is at http://www.google.co.uk. Google is simple to use and very fast. Try entering your search terms and then clicking on I'm feeling lucky button, which homes in on the site that is most likely to fulfil your needs. You can also search for images and news items in the world's press by clicking on the Images or News tab above the search box and then entering your search terms. If you click on Maps above the search box you can search for a map showing almost any location anywhere in the world. There are many other useful features of Google, for example
You can limit general searches as well as searches for news items to specific languages in Google by clicking on Preferences to the right of the search box and indicating in which language(s) you wish to search. You can also click on Language Tools to the right of the search box: http://www.google.co.uk/language_tools. This will offer you the choice of a search in a specific language and also the possibility of having a short text or a whole Web page translated from one language into another. The translation will not be 100% accurate but it will give you a general idea of what the page is all about.
Searching for authentic usage: Let us suppose that you wish to find examples of the phrase "il était une fois" ("once upon a time"). Enter the whole phrase in inverted commas in Google's search box and you will find hundreds of examples of how the phrase is used. You can use a wildcard (* = the asterisk character) if you are not sure of the spelling of a word or wish to look for two words used together but separated by other letters or words, e.g. a search for ich * habe gesurft (no inverted commas round the phrase) will find ich habe gesurft and ich habe gestern mittag noch normal gesurft - very handy in German when different parts of the verb are separated. Enter the combination ich * habe * Internet * gesurft (no inverted commas round the phrase) and you should find examples such as dann habe ich im Internet nach Rezepten gesurft.
Here's another useful trick: Let us suppose that you want to know how to translate and how to use a modern term that is unlikely to appear in printed bilingual dictionaries, e.g. snowboard, zip wire, quad bike, podcast, wiki. Firstly, you look up the term in the English-language version of the online encyclopaedia, Wikipedia: http://www.wikipedia.org
When you find the Wikipedia entry
in English click on one of the equivalent foreign-language entries in the list
headed "in other languages" in the left-hand column of the screen.
This works for quad bike, which will find the English-language entry
at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quad_bike
and the equivalent German-language entry at
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quad
The German-language entry
shows that in German a quad bike is simply Quad and you can read
or print the whole article.
If you now go back to Google's homepage you can set your language preference, as indicated above, to German and search for words that might be used in combination with Quad, simply by entering quad gehen gehe fahren fahre in the search box . The most fruitful combination of keywords is likely to be bin * quad gefahren - i.e. the asterisk being a wildcard standing for anything between bin and quad gefahren. This should enable you to find Quad used in contexts such as “Ich bin Quad gefahren”, “Ich bin mit einem Quad gefahren”, “Ich bin auf meinem Quad gefahren” etc.
If you are still unsure that you have found the right word in the foreign language try searching for the foreign word using the Images option in Google. Seeing a picture of what you are looking for can often confirm that you are on the right track. For example, I was not sure that arboriste in French was the equivalent of tree surgeon, but the images I found clearly indicated that it was the right term, often combined with grimpeur to indicate that it refers to someone who climbs trees and lops off branches.
You can also use Google as a simple concordancer (see Module 2.4 for more information about concordancers) to search for collocations that you are unsure about. Is is possible, for example, to say "a metal wood"? Yes, indeed! Google cites numerous examples. See Robb (2003).
Here are some more search engines:
4.1.2 Foreign language search engines
French
German
Italian
Russian
Spanish
A bookmark is a facility within a browser that enables you to keep a record of Web pages that you have visited and may wish to visit again. Bookmarks are stored in a subdirectory of the Windows directory on your computer. In Internet Explorer bookmarks are known as Favorites (sic - spelt the American way), which is also the name of the subdirectory in which they are stored.
If you find a useful website, click on Favorites (Internet Explorer) or Bookmarks (Netscape) on the main menu bar of your browser. This will enable you to add the website's address to your own personal list so that you can locate the website quickly if you want to visit it again. See Section 3, headed Using a browser - navigating the Web. More ambitious Web users may wish to set up their own annotated set of Web links, also known as a webliography, portal or jump station. See Task 2 at http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/lspinset.htm, which explains step-by-step how to do this.
There are now many excellent collections of links from a variety of sources. As a starting point, see the list of links, headed Useful Web links, in the ICT4LT Resource Centre. See also:
iLoveLanguages: Acomprehensive guide to language-related Web sites. Tyler Chambers (né Jones) is a great gatherer of information about foreign languages: http://www.ilovelanguages.com
Graham Davies's Favourite Websites: An annotated set of over 500 language-related websites: http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/websites.htm
You can also store your bookmarks at the del.icio.us website, so that you can share them with other people, and you can search the site to find out what other people are bookmarking: http://del.icio.us
The Internet is totally unregulated and whilst this means that there are huge amounts of good materials, it also means that materials of poor and dubious quality also appear on websites. Before using materials with students, it is important to determine certain facts about the site. For example:
Authorship
Who created the site? What is their background? What credentials do they have? For example, you locate what appears to be a great website, but on closer examination you find it's been created by a 14-year-old schoolboy as a Web design project. We list the names of the original members of the ICT4LT team on our homepage under the heading Who are we? and we list the authors of each module. Remember that anyone can publish anything on the Web and that, unlike books and articles in printed format, Web materials are less likely to be subjected to editorial scrutiny. Accuracy cannot always be guaranteed. You can find out who owns a site by using the WHOIS lookup facility at Register.com: http://www.register.com. See Section 9 (below), regarding Wikipedia as an example.
Target audience
Who is the site aimed at? The site may sound like it's aimed at schoolchildren but on closer examination it may prove to be suitable only for adult learners. We provide details under the heading Target audience on our homepage.
Revision date
When were the contents written and how regularly is the site updated? Look for evidence of the most recent update. We give the revision date of each page at this site.
Contact name and address
Is there a contact name or contact address at the site? We use a Feedback Form. If you find a mistake, wish to make a comment, or ask a question you can use the form to contact us. The feedback form helps cut down spam, as it makes our email address less obvious to spambots, i.e. programs designed to collect email addresses from the Internet in order to build mailing lists for sending spam. All email sent to us is filtered rigorously.
Ease and speed of access
Is the site easy to access and quick to download? Is the server on which the site is located up to the job of delivering its content at any time? Some servers slow down when lots of people are trying to access the site at peak times, e.g. between 9am and 5pm. Some servers shut down at weekends and during holiday periods.
Ease of navigation
The site may be huge and labyrinthine and you get hopelessly lost trying to navigate it.
Is the site finished?
The contents page looks impressive, but most of the site is "under construction" and a lot of internal links don't work.
A plug-in is an extra piece of software that a Web browser needs to run certain elements of a Web page, e.g. animated sequences and audio or video clips. Web pages incorporating multimedia often need plug-ins such as Flash Player, QuickTime, Shockwave Player or RealPlayer. Plug-ins are usually quick and easy to install, normally free of charge and open up a wealth of new material. Sites that require a plug-in usually provide a link to a site from which the essential plug-in can be downloaded. These are the sites from which these plug-ins can be downloaded: Is the content what you expected?
You find a site that appears to contain French legal texts, but when you access it it turns out to be full of pornographic pictures. Does this sound far-fetched? No, this actually happened to us when we did one of our regular checks on links that we list at the ICT4LT site. The site in question had changed from one week to the next! See http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/DodgyLinks.htm
Copyright
You also need to check where you stand regarding copyright on materials contained at the site. Most sites contain a copyright or "terms of use" message. See Section 7.2 (above), headed Copyright issues. See our own Copyright Notice.
Some special considerations concerning sites for teachers and learners of foreign languages:
Audio materials
If audio materials are offered, are they of adequate quality? Can you play audio materials easily? Do you need a plug-in to play audio materials? See Section 3.5, Module 2.3, headed Audio and video.
Video materials
If video materials are offered, are they of adequate quality? Can you play video materials easily? Do you need a plug-in to play video materials? See Section 3.5, Module 2.3, headed Audio and video.
Interactive exercises and feedback
If interactive exercises are offered, do they do the job better than paper-based exercises? Consider especially the kind of feedback that they incorporate. Feedback should go beyond the standard "Well done!" and "Sorry, wrong!" types of messages and mimic a good teacher offering helpful advice and encouragement. See:
Recording one's own voice
Most language learners, especially in the early stages of learning a language, need to know what they sound like. If interactive exercises are offered, do they allow the learner to record and play back his/her own voice? This is not an unreasonable request, as teachers and learners have been making use of listen / respond / playback facilities ever since the advent of the tape recorder. Most multimedia CD-ROMs offer the possibility of recording one's own voice and some incorporate Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR). Very few websites offer this facility and when they do it doesn't work very well. For further information on ASR see:
The ICT4LT Website / Web Page Evaluation Form will help you evaluate websites. This downloadable Word document also includes a general CALL Software Evaluation Form: Evaluation Forms.
The Internet Detective: A useful interactive tutorial produced by the DESIRE project with funding from the European Commission. Unfortunately, this website has now died. The site URL used to be http://www.sosig.ac.uk/desire/internet-detective.html and then the site became available only in a downloadable version until August 2005 - which we managed to download before it, too, disappeared. Ironically, one of the problems that the authors of the Internet Detective mention in connection with the Web is "any part of the Internet can become unavailable at any moment". If the site reappears we will list its new URL.
See also Section 9 (below), headed Potential problems with using the Web.
Contents of this section
There are several ways in which the Web can assist with teaching languages:
There are advantages and disadvantages to using the Web in all the above situations, but most of those who have taken the plunge have not regretted it. Clare Bradin, in her article "The Dark Side of the Web" (Bradin 1997), lists the following advantages to using the Web with students:
See also the paper by Paul Bangs entitled "Will the Web catch enough flies? Where Web-based learning cannot yet reach" (Bangs 2001).
However, as with any lesson, a lesson using Web-based material needs to be carefully planned.
Before using the Web live with students:
There are numerous ways in which materials on the Web can be exploited in language teaching. See Felix (2001), Felix (2003), Gitsaki & Taylor (1999b and 2000), Windeatt et al. (2000).
When downloading or copying materials from another website, it is most important that you pay attention to copyright. Above all, don't assume that just because material is publicly available on the Web you can do whatever you like with it.
Copyright infringement is a growing problem, which we refer to in:
Email: There are a number of important copyright issues surrounding email correspondence. If you send an email to a private person or discussion list, for example, you automatically own the copyright in your email message and you retain your moral right to be identified as the author. Regarding other people's email messages, you should always seek permission (it's only polite, anyway) before passing them on to third parties or copying extracts for publication elsewhere.
See our General guidelines on copyright, which is a general introduction to copyright, drawing on a variety of sources.
Above all:
A webquest is a task-oriented activity in which the learner draws on material from different websites - but other sources may also be consulted - in order to achieve a specific goal, e.g. researching a topic and (i) answering a series of questions posed by the teacher, (ii) creating a presentation or (iii) writing an essay, etc. The skills that are required in a webquest mainly involve reading and listening, but there may also be communicative speaking exercises.
For further information on webquests see:
Distance learning of languages, Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) and Managed Learning Envirnoments (MLEs) are currently hot topics. See also:
Distance learning courses for language
students that make use of the Web are now well established, for example in The
Open University. Study materials include printed course books and audio materials
that cover survival language for the traveller as well as the communication
skills needed in a range of settings, at home, work or leisure.The OU makes
use of both face-to-face tuition and online tuition:
http://www.open.ac.uk/education-and-languages/
See the OU's LearningSpace page for sample materials in French, German
and Spanish:
http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/course/category.php?id=9
The Open University has been developing and using conferencing tools within its extensive distance-learning programmes for a number of years. An early example of a conferencing tool used by the OU is FirstClass, which began life as a text-only conferencing system and bulletin board. Then the OU developed its own in-house tool, Lyceum, an audio-graphics tool which has a whiteboard facility combined with audio-conferencing: http://lyceum.open.ac.uk - see Hampel & Hauck (2003) and Hampel & Hauck (2004) on the use of audio-graphics tools in the OU. More recently it has been announced that The Open University has chosen Moodle for the delivery of a wide range of its courses, making it the largest user of Moodle in the world. See below for further information on Moodle.
There is an increasing number of websites that offer distance learning materials, including whole courses delivered via the Web and email, using so-called Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs). A VLE is a Web-based package designed to help teachers create online courses, together with facilities for teacher-learner communication and peer-to-peer communication. VLEs can be used to deliver learning materials within an institution or within a local education authority. They may even address a wider constituency, and may be used on a worldwide basis. VLEs have certain advantages in terms of ease of delivery and management of learning materials. They may, however, be restrictive in that the underlying pedagogy attempts to address a very wide range of subjects, and thus does not necessarily fit in with established practice in language learning and teaching. For example, we are not aware of any VLE that can present listen / respond / playback activities - which is a major shortcoming of Web-based CALL. See the "special considerations" that need to be taken into account when evaluating websites: Section 6 (above).
A VLE may also be described as a:
Theoretically, there are differences in the way these systems operate, but this may mean little to the non-technical user. See the definitions for the above terms in the Glossary. Many people use Learning Platform as a catch-all term to describe software and systems designed to manage, deliver and provide access to e-learning materials in a distance-learning context.
WebCT and Blackboard are two established VLEs, which announced an agreement to merge in October 2005.
Moodle is a Course Management System that is gaining in popularity among language teachers and has figured in presentations and workshops at recent EUROCALL conferences: http://www.eurocall-languages.org. Moodle is open source software which, as the Moodle website states: "means you are free to download it, use it, modify it and even distribute it". .
For further information on VLEs, MLEs, etc see:
Distance learning of languages has only become feasible since audio quality has improved over the Web, but even now some sites use poor quality audio materials. Some are run for profit and will charge for the services; others have been set up by enthusiasts keen to pass on their language and culture. The sites vary tremendously in quality and you would be well advised to spend quite some time reviewing materials from these sites before attempting to use them with students. However, there is some very innovative work going on and you may well find some gems.
See Felix (1998a), Felix (2001) and Felix (2003), three works that contain a vast collection of information on virtual language learning, the latter two incorporating a number of case studies and articles on good practice.
See also Graham Davies's annotated list of Favourite Websites at http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/websites.htm. This list is constantly being updated and expanded. Here are a few sites to get you started:
Web-based language learning is, however, still in its infancy, and there are limitations to the different kinds of interaction that work successfully on the Web, especially interaction involving prompted speaking activities, which is well established in CD-ROM-based learning. See Section 3.1, Module 2.3, headed Web-based CALL.
See LeLoup & Ponterio (2003). LeLoup & Ponterio describe an interesting array of Web-based materials, but almost everything illustrated in their article could be implemented better and with more spontaneous interaction in an offline environment, e.g. on CD-ROM or DVD-ROM. Furthermore, you need to ensure that you have a fast Internet connection and can access the sites at a quiet time of day as they may get congested at peak periods. Most multimedia sites require a plug-in, an extra piece of software that the browser needs to run the audio and video elements of a Web page. See also Bangs (2001).
A good deal has already been written on distance learning of languages, mainly in the form of articles based on conference papers presented at EUROCALL and CALICO conferences and published in ReCALL and The CALICO Journal. See:
See also the Special Issue on Distance
Learning of the Language Learning and Technology (LLT) journal (online)
at: http://llt.msu.edu/vol7num3/default.html
You will find dozens of references to distance learning in the LLT journal.
For information on tools that are used to create distance learning materials see Module 2.5, Introduction to CALL auhtoring programs.
Whilst the Web can provide valuable opportunities and superb resources, there are some potential problems that teachers should be aware of:
World Wide Wait
Big files on the Web can be S-L-O-W to download. The wait time can be maddening for your students. Internet access speeds vary according to the type of Internet connection that you have, how congested the Internet is in general at a particular time of day, how many other people in your neighbourhood are trying to access a website at the same time as you, computer configuration and applications, and even the weather. Dial-up modems using standard telephone lines are slow, running at around 56 Kbps, but faster connections via an ADSL broadband connection (at least 512 Kbps) or via a dedicated leased line speed up Internet access. See Section 1.3.2, Module 1.2 for further information on modems and broadband, and see the Glossary for an explanation of the terms ADSL, broadband and leased line. New Web programming techniques have resulted in more spontaneity and better interaction on the Web: see Section 2.1 (above), headed What is Web 2.0?
Dead links
Up to 5% of the links that we list at the ICT4LT site move or disappear each month, but we do a regular automatic link check using the excellent Xenu Link Sleuth program, which is available free of charge at http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html. We also do a random manual check. You may be able to retrieve the contents of a dead link by entering its URL into the Web Archive (the Wayback Machine) at http://www.archive.org. This enormous archive keeps records of revisions of websites at various stages in their lives. It is not 100% complete, but we have found it to be remarkably efficient at recovering old documents that we thought had been lost forever. If you intend to link live in a lesson, check that the site is both available and reliable. Also check links if you are re-using older reference sources. See Graham Davies's article on "Dodgy links": http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/DodgyLinks.htm.
Information overload
There is so much information that it may be too time-consuming to find the "good stuff.". Even with search engines, it can be hard to find what you want, and you therefore have to select your search terms carefully (see Section 4). As Arthur C. Clarke put it: "Getting information from the Internet is like getting a glass of water from the Niagara Falls."
Some websites are thin in substance
See Section 6 (above) on Evaluating websites.
The content of the website may not be reliable - Wikipedia as an example
When you visit a website you need to know if the information it contains is reliable. This issue has already been raised above in Section 6 (above) under the sub-heading Authorship. For example, consider Wikipedia, which is a free-content encyclopaedia on the Web that anyone can add to or edit - yes, anyone, which is both its strength and its weakness: http://www.wikipedia.org. While Wikipedia covers an enormous range of subjects in different languages there is no guarantee that what you read is accurate as the content can be added to or amended by any member of the public, and there is no indication of the authorship or the authors' credentials. On the one hand this can be perceived as a wonderful example of collaborative publishing, but on the other hand it can be perceived as a golden opportunity for the propagation of oddball ideas and self-promotion. Graham Davies checked out the article on Computer Assisted Language Learning in early 2005. It was hopelessly out of date, sketchy and inaccurate, so he amended it. Two weeks later it was amended back to what it was, so he amended it again. Many more additions and revisions have since been made by other contributors, and now the article is generally of an acceptable standard - as of the last update to this module: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_assisted_language_learning
In its early days Wikipedia was too open to unscrupulous editing by the public at large, but the editing process has since been tightened up and the content of articles meeting certain quality criteria can now be "fixed". While Wikipedia can be a remarkably useful and accurate resource it cannot be relied upon 100% - but nor can most other encyclopaedias: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia
To a large extent Wikipedia's reliability
depends on the subject matter: for example, articles on history and politics
are often subject to wildly varying opinions - and even deliberate vandalism.
As a consequence many colleges and universities have banned students from citing
Wikipedia as a source in their coursework. The founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales,
is on record as saying (in 2005) that this is going too far and that teachers
who ban the use of Wikipedia as a source of information are "bad educators".
He did, however, go on to say that the website lacked the authority to be used
as a citeable source for university students and that students who copied information
from Wikipedia "deserved to get an F grade": http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/technology/7130325.stm
Here's a useful tip: If you find an article on Wikipedia in English and then click on one of the language options (headed in other languages) in the left-hand column of the page, you go immediately to an article on the same subject in that language. See Section 12 (below) for more information on wikis.
Audio and video quality can be poor
Whilst immense steps are being taken in this area, audio and video quality for learners can still be poor and the better quality materials available tend to rely on the latest and fastest machines to run properly. Audio quality has greatly improved in recent years, but video quality often leaves a lot to be desired.
Viruses
Make sure that you are adequately protected against invasions by viruses when you surf the Web, as there are new strains of viruses that are able to invade your computer while you are browsing. You should consider installing a firewall, which gives you additional protection against unwanted intruders. Watch out also for spam, adware and spyware. See Appendix: Viruses.
Web clutter
While you are surfing the Web all kinds of information are being dumped on to your hard disk. For example, a cache area on your hard disk keeps a record of sites that you have recently visited, and cookies store little bits of information about yourself after you have visited a site for the first time, and this can be accessed again by the site server when you visit the site again (see Glossary). Caches and cookies take up valuable space on your hard disk drive. A useful piece of software is Window Washer, which enables you to remove caches, cookies and other clutter at regular intervals. See Webroot Software's site: http://www.webroot.com. You can also block cookies - along with those dreadful banner advertisements that slow down your browser - using firewall software, e.g. ZoneAlarm. See Appendix: Viruses.
Undesirable websites
Unfortunately, the Web is full of websites containing undesirable material, and it is all too easy for young people to access such material, by accident or by design. You should consider installing software that filters out undesirable material. See Graham Davies's article on "Dodgy links": http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/DodgyLinks.htm
Reading from the screen is slow!
Web guru Jako Nielsen writes:
Reading from computer screens is about 25% slower than reading from paper. Even users who don't know this human factors research usually say that they feel unpleasant when reading online text. As a result, people don't want to read a lot of text from computer screens: As a result, people don't want to read a lot of text from computer screens: you should write 50% less text and not just 25% less since it's not only a matter of reading speed but also a matter of feeling good. We also know that users don't like to scroll: one more reason to keep pages short. [...] Because it is so painful to read text on computer screens and because the online experience seems to foster some amount of impatience, users tend not to read streams of text fully. Instead, users scan text and pick out keywords, sentences, and paragraphs of interest while skipping over those parts of the text they care less about. Be Succinct! Writing for the Web, Alertbox for March 15, 1997: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9703b.html
This is the main reason why we suggest to visitors to the ICT4LT site that they print the modules and read them in the comfort of an armchair. To print a module, just use the File/Print facility, which is accessible from the main menu bar of your browser.
Some of the above points were taken from Clare Bradin's FLEAT 97 paper, "The Dark Side of the Web" (Bradin 1997).
See also Section 6 (above), headed Evaluating websites:
The most comprehensive publicly available Glossary of Internet Terms that we have come across. As requested, we acknowledge the authorship and copyright of Matisse Enzer, who produced this excellent glossary located at: http://www.matisse.net/files/glossary.html
See also our own Glossary, which is regularly updated and includes links to sections of the ICT4LT website.
Contents of this section
Please note that this section deals only with being able to read foreign fonts on the Internet. In order to type foreign fonts in other types of documents, please see Section 5, Module 1.3, headed Typing foreign characters, which contains references to a wider range of fonts.
Browsing in foreign languages is now relatively easy to do. Most modern browsers support foreign fonts.
You may need to install the KOI-8 font: get the fonts here: http://www.rada.kiev.ua/osmir/koi-8font.html
You will need to install the MS Gothic font: Full instructions are given here: http://members.tripod.com/~oscarfire
Contents of this section
An electronic discussion list - also known as a forum (plural fora) - is essentially a way of sharing emails with the members of a group of people with a common interest. Many discussion lists in the UK are managed by Mailtalk or JISCMail:
If you are seeking an answer to a specific question about the use of ICT in language learning and teaching you can contact us via our Feedback Form. Alternatively, you may wish to initiate a new topic in the following discussion lists, or you may find your question has already been answered in the archives of messages sent in by their members:
In recent years there has been a veritable explosion in the devlopment of weblogs - or blogs for short. These behave in similar ways to discussion lists, except that they often take the form of a journal or a collection of an individual's or group's ideas and thoughts, and they offer an easy facility for uploading new material to the Web. Increasing use is being made of blogs in education. Other educational uses of blogs include:
If you wish to create your own blog have a look at these sites:
Useful blog sites for Modern Foreign Languages
Netiquette: If you join a discussion list or blog make sure that you read the list service's guide to acceptable practice - often known as netiquette. See Section 14.1.4 below.
Another way of sharing information on the Web or initiating discussions is to set up a wiki. A wiki is essentially a series of interlinked collaborative Web pages that can be edited and added to by a group of people - an online resource for which content can be created collectively. It's distinguishing feature is that it also allows anyone who views the wiki to add to or edit the existing content as if they were adding to or editing, for example, someone else's Word document. Wiki also refers to the software used to create such a website. Wiki derives from the Hawaiian "wiki-wiki", meaning "quick".
Wikipedia is the best known example of a wiki, a collaboratively written encyclopaedia: http://www.wikipedia.org. There is an article on Computer Assisted Language Learning in Wikipedia, which you can add to or edit yourself: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer-assisted_language_learning. See these wiki sites:
Social networking is a term applied to a type of website where people can seek other people who share their interests, find out what's going on in their areas of interest, and share information and resources. This is considered to be one of the features of new ways in which the Web is developing and which are characterised as Web 2.0: see Section 2.1, headed What is Web 2.0? These are examples of popular social network sites:
See also these websites, which also offer ways of sharing information and resources:
See also:
Creating your own Web pages is fairly straightforward nowadays. Whilst it is possible to develop high level programming skills, it is also now becoming much easier to type a document and convert it ready for the Web. Microsoft Word offers a Save as HTML option, which will create a simple Web page from a normal Word document. If this is an area that particularly interests you, see Module 3.3, Creating a World Wide Web site.
It is also possible to create your own interactive exercises on the Web, using a tool such as Hot Potatoes or Quia:
See also:
Contents of Section 14
There is no question that the Internet has had a tremendous impact on teaching and learning foreign languages. The term Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) dates back to the early days of computing but more recently it has been associated with the use of a range of tools enabling instant communication via email and Web-based teaching and learning to take place irrespective of time and place. Warschauer (1996a) mentions the following features of CMC:
Computer Mediated Communication allows users to share not only brief messages, but also lengthy (formatted or unformatted) documents - thus facilitating collaborative writing - and also graphics, sounds, and video. Using the World Wide Web (WWW), students can search through millions of files around the world within minutes to locate and access authentic materials (e.g. newspaper and magazine articles, radio broadcasts, short videos, movie reviews, book excerpts) exactly tailored to their own personal interests. They can also use the Web to publish their texts or multimedia materials to share with partner classes or with the general public.
EUROCALL has recently set up a CMC
Special Interest Group, headed by Robert O'Dowd. Here is the link to their Yahoo
discussion list:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CMC_SIG/
Now let's look at some CMC tools in detail and how they are used in teaching and learning foreign languages.
The most stable and long standing of Internet communications media is email. Email is essentially an asynchronous text-based medium which enables anybody with an Internet connection to send messages to one or more people similarly connected. The advantage of asynchronous communications is that the people communicating with one another do not have to be present at the same time - and this is the essential meaning of the term asynchronous.
Email has been widely used by the academic community since the early 1980s and has also led more recently to the setting up of asynchronous discussion lists and blogs referred to earlier in this module: see Section 12, (above), headed Discussion lists, blogs, wikis, social networking. It is also possible to send voice messages as email attachments, using packages such as