Reflection 3: ESTABLISHED PRACTICE and AFFORDANCES

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Reflection 3:  ESTABLISHED PRACTICE and AFFORDANCES

In my first blog, I discussed the context of  the 1^st year Chemistry students, who are participating in an on-line Computer assisted language learning programme called “ Myfoundationslab”, developed by Pearson Publishers. Currently we are piloting this programme on the Bellville and Cape Town campuses with 50 students per campus.  The students attend weekly sessions where they work through reading and writing activities on the MyFoundationsLab programme of Pearson.

The challenge: The first challenge I encountered was to register all students on the system. This is now sorted out. From there, the next challenge was to keep all students involved, motivated and engaged.  I have used the in-house lms (Blackboard) to communicate with the students but have found their responses not very engaged.

Intended outcomes: I wanted to find a way to communicate more easily with the students, as I do not see them on a regular basis and wanted to determine which strategy would be most effective, e.g. smses, face book groups, twitter or blogs.

Features of practice previously in use:

Previously I found it challenging to communicate with students that I see them only 45 minutes per week. As I work in a support position to the Chemistry lecturer and not as their full time lecturer, I do not have free access to the students or any control as lecturer. Therefore ‘buy in’ by the students and motivation is very important.

Affordances / benefits of the technology:  

Communication with the students:

As pointed out by Bower  (2008) simultaneous consideration of task affordance requirements and affordance availabilities is needed. It is therefore very important to determine if the available technology coincides with the affordance requirements of the students. Firstly the option of sms-ing students has been explored. Unfortunately Blackboard does not have this facility and there are thus costs involved.

Secondly students were asked which technology they would prefer to use to communicate with the lecturer. It was clear that Face book was the most popular one, although some students preferred Blackboard. I have decided to use Face book as a way to communicate with them, as well as the Discussion tool on Blackboard. I have posted Announcements on Face book and Blackboard and will have to see how the students respond. So far, students have started to respond, but only about 20 students joined the Face book group, and only about 5 posted anything.

The introduction of Face book is based on the ideas of Levy (2009), who points out that the introduction of multimedia, mobile technologies and the Internet, have led to new forms of communication, writing, and social networking. He identified several initiatives which were developed in each of the areas of language teaching, namely grammar, vocabulary, reading, writing, listening, speaking and even culture. These are all part of the objectives I want to achieve in this project.

Implementing the Pearson programme

Implementing the Pearson programme coincides with the ideas on blended learning by Collis and Moonen (2001) who described blended learning as "a hybrid of traditional face-to-face and online learning so that instruction occurs both in the classroom and online, and where the online component becomes a natural extension of traditional classroom learning”. The students work on the Pearson programme for 45 minutes during lecture time and are then encouraged to continue working in their own time, as the programme is available to all the students at all hours, provided they have Internet access.

Akkoyunlu & Soylu (2008) feel that blended learning helps to cross the gap between the lecturer and student because the use of computers only can be very remote. However, I found the computer access gave me more access to the students as I have such limited contact time with them anyway. Blended learning in my case facilitate communication and gives opportunity for reflection by the students, which I hope will be the eventual outcome as this creates opportunities  for communication as suggested by Garrison & Kanuka (2004).

I will only be able to reflect much later on the opinion of Barrett and Sharma (2007), who point out that technology in language teaching is expensive, based on an outdated, stimulus-response approach and might not cater for all types of learning styles and students. He further argues that computer based language learning might prohibits fluency. Barrett and Sharma further point out that encourages plagiarism and could expose learners to unsuitable materials. In this case it is not true as each student gets his or her own passages through the system itself. According to them, online testing may favour some learners and disadvantage others. This will be determined after the programme has been completed, which is only in September 2013.

The question remains whether the Pearson tool is the most appropriate tool to develop academic literacy amongst 1^st year chemistry students. As pointed out by Kittle (2009) students seem more involved in their own teaching and learning if lecturers create opportunities for multimodality, which could be an important reason for using the Pearson programme. At the end of this study, it has to be clear whether, as pointed out by Levy (2009) the effectiveness of the tool enhanced the users’ understanding and application of content matter, more so than the tool itself. As mentioned in my previous blog, if not it can become an exercise in futility and much lecturing time can be wasted.

Bibliography

Akkoyunlu, B., & Soylu, M. Y. (2008). A study of student’s perceptions in a blended learning environment based on different learning styles. Educational Technology & Society, 11 (1), 183-193.

Barrett, B and Sharma, P (2007) Blended Learning – using technology inside and beyond the language classroom. London: Macmillan

Bower, M. 2008. Affordance analysis – matching learning tasks with learning technologies. Educational Media International. Vol. 45, No. 1, March 2008, 3–15

http://www.informaworld.com

Czerniewicz, L  and Brown, C. 2012.  The habitus of digital “strangers” in higher education. British Journal of Educational Technology (2012)

Collis, B. and Moonen, J. 2001. Flexible learning in a digital world experiences and expectations. London: Kogan Page Limited.

Garrison, D. R. and Kanuka, H. 2004. Blended learning: uncovering its transformative potential in higher education. Internet and Higher Education, 7: 95–105.

Kittle, P. 2009. Student Engagement and Modality. (In) Herrington, A, Hodgson K and Moran C (eds). Teaching the New writing. New York: Teachers College Press.

Levy, M. 2009. Technologies in Use for Second Language Learning. The Modern Language Journal. 93:769-782

Marsh, D. 2012. Blended learning creating learning opportunities for language learners. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.