Three Conference Abstracts On Digital Applications And Language Learning

MOVING TOWARDS THE DIGITAL CLASSROOM Margaret Anne Clarke University of Portsmouth Keywords: CMC, multimedia, institutions, adaptation, pedagogical strategies This presentation will focus on the modes of adaptation that institutions, teachers and learners necessarily have to make in their pedagogical and learning processes to newly installed computer-mediated and multimedia learning environments. Although much work has been done on the potential of multimedia and digital classroom applications, there is still little substantive work on the use of these applications within a specific higher education framework, and above all the institutional factors which may block or facilitate the successful adaptation of the multimedia application to its immediate context, which in general has been underresearched and under-theorised (Erben, 1999). Authorities such as Cuban (1986; 1993) and Beatty (2003) have pointed up that innovations in CALL multimedia have not always been perfectly integrated into classroom practice, for various reasons including problems with the installation and technology itself, ideological factors, classroom conditions, cost and teacher training. This paper will present an ongoing case study to examine the theoretical, methodological and pedagogical issues which have arisen from the installation of computer-based multimedia language learning environments in operation for the past two years at the School of Languages and Area Studies, University of Portsmouth, taking into account the five key factors outlined by Barr & Gillespie (2003) of information dissemination, resource distribution, human resources, pedagogical strategies and ideological and cultural context. The study is based on data collated in several discrete stages from both teacher and learner users over a period of two years from 2003 onwards. The results and conclusions arrived at thus far have been based a study of various focus groups drawn from cohorts of MFL and EFL students and interviews with teachers.

LEARNER STRATEGIES WITH MULTIMEDIA APPLICATIONS: IDENTITY, AGENCY, AUTHORSHIP Margaret Anne Clarke and Rose Clark The University of Portsmouth The purpose of the present study is to perform an illuminative, integrative and summative interpretation of changing modes of student authorship through a survey of EFL and MFL learners in an integrated multimedia-supported digital classroom over the period of one academic year. Use of multimedia CMCs can be analysed in relation to the changing “landscape of communication” (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 1996) and other ongoing debates about repertoire multiliteracies, and the influence of new technologies on multiliteracies (Kress, 1995;Tweddle, et al, 1997). The study will focus particularly on changes in modes of writing and the shifts from traditional narrative and descriptive genres to genres more closely related to issues of personal identity as the students construct meaning via the use of multiple hypermedia functions within open-ended classroom situations, through peer tutoring and other collaborative methods in the classroom. In the first part of the paper, I examine the theoretical framework supporting genre theory with particular reference to what Threadgold (1994) terms a ‘multifunctional’ approach to genre theory. This takes account of the dynamic ways in which genres are ‘performed’ in practice and applies them to the practice of language learning through the affordances and resources offered by multimedia digital applications, which are not viewed as links or means for conveying information, but rather as “thinking devices” used to generate new meanings in a collaborative setting (Lotman, 1988). The study itself consists of a content analysis of data collected through several sources throughout the academic year 2004-2005: the reflective comments of a class of 25 students of EFL in learning journals maintained weekly; the direct observation of students’ classwork by the tutor; and weekly discussions with a focus group consisting of 10 students.

THE KNOWLEDGE, PRACTICE AND OWNERSHIP OF GENRE WITH MULTIMEDIA DIGITAL APPLICATIONS

Margaret Anne Clarke and Rose Clark University of Portsmouth The purpose of the present study is to perform an interpretation of modes of student authorship within an integrated multimedia-supported digital classroom over the period of one academic year. The paper will focus on student learners’ use of multimedia applications as “genre participants” and “genre producers” and the processes and stages undergone as they construct meaning via the use of multiple hypermedia functions and affordances within open-ended classroom situations, for a number of communicative purposes and within a range of selected intercultural themes and contexts. According to Threadgold (1999) the theory and rhetoric of genre has been applied to other semiotic media, including multimedial and digital. The students’ dynamic use and exploitation of multimedia resources and their available generic knowledge not only responds to rhetorical and discursive contexts, but may also create, innovate and develop new generic forms to achieve novel communicative goals; according to the framework outlined by Bhatia (1999) student authors may often pass through progressive stages of genre knowledge and practice to attain the competence of “genre ownership”, that is, the capacity to create hybrid or mixed generic forms, embedded genres or sometimes, novel generic constructs in order to attain what Kress (2003) terms a multimodally constituted message. Thus the paper will test the theory outlined by Bhatia through a content study of data collected from several sources throughout the academic year 2004 – 2005, including direct observation of selected course material, the students’ classwork and their use of hypermedia functions in open-ended classroom situations; and weekly discussion with a student focus group.