e-poche.net

I spent last Saturday at the Nagoya University of Commerce and Business at Wireless Ready, Japan’s first conference centered around the Web 2.0 and language learning with an emphasis on podcasting and mobile technology. With approximately 60 people in attendance, the conference began with three keynotes, followed by four separate panels, and ending with a Q&A session with the three keynote speakers.

Conference organizer, Michael Thomas, kicked off the event with an introduction on the Web 2.0 that included a showing of Graham Stanley’s video presentation on the topic. Michael also added that much of the discussion on the Web 2.0 in language learning has mostly been descriptive and relatively uncritical, and he called for more critical discourse on the subject.

Steve McCarty gave the opening keynote, which centered mostly on giving an overview of current Web 2.0 tools and practices in second and foreign language learning. Interestingly, he simultaneously gave the presentation in Second Life, where Gavin Dudeney’s avatar was present along with a few others. I thought this was an excellent way to demonstrate firsthand what one possible future of online learning might look like.

Next came an engaging, well delivered presentation from Chris Houser on the use of mobile phones in language education. He argued that CALL rooms will eventually be replaced with mobile technology, especially as phones evolve into much more powerful tools, resulting in a more integrated, normalized version of CALL. Chris also shared previous research indicating that Japanese learners preferred using mobile phones over computers and pen/paper for sending and receiving messages, for the phones provided the most access and comfort. Along the way, he described several ways of using mobile phones in the classroom, introducing applications created specifically for the cell phone, such as EduCALL, Vidioms, and Poodle (like Moodle for phones).

I really appreciated the effort Chris put into preparing for the talk, especially at such short notice, since Michael Coghlan had to back out at the last minute. I wonder if Chris has taken any tips from Garr Reynolds, for I noticed many similarities between his presentation style and what Reynolds advocates on his website: the speaker moves around, tells stories, engages the audience; while the slides are simple, containing few words, mostly pictures and diagrams to accompany the talk. Very well done Chris!

The third and final keynote was from Michael Vallance, who spoke about informed use of learning technologies, drawing heavily upon his research and experience from many years of teaching in Singapore. For me, the most interesting part of his talk was his explanation of the integral relationship between educational research, practice, and policy and how all three aspects affect one another. This provided a helpful framework for discussing the transformative impact of learning technologies on our academic institutions. He concluded by describing a project called, iPod therefore iWrite, that put iWriter to use, a program similar to a blog client for iPods, something Mogopop also seems to do.

From there I listened to two short but informative talks by ESL podcasters, Robert Chartrand and Bill Pellowe of ESLPodcast, and Robert Diem and Roberto Rabbini of The Bob and Rob Show. I found their methodological descriptions on podcasting of particular interest, as I’ve been experimenting with similar techniques at English Conversations. It will be interesting to see how the work of these ESL podcasters evolves. And if they ever decide to join forces, we might end up with the Bob, Rob, Rob and Bill show!

The second set of panel speakers I saw included a talk on mobile learning in Taiwan from Teresa Chen, an introduction to the pedagogical applications of using digital video clips by David Ockert, and a presentation on using weblogs for intercultural exchanges by Nathaniel Carney. I found the latter most relevant to my own work with weblogs in the language classroom, and was glad to see Nathaniel take a critical approach to his research into the blogging process. One of his main points was that weblogs are good for discovering other perspectives on a given topic or issue, but that they weren’t so effective for enabling sustained interaction. In the context of a language exchange between two or more predetermined groups of students, I would agree with his assessment. Although in that case, I would have used a threaded discussion list for the exchange, not weblogs. I also agreed with Nathaniel that the use of weblogs should be supplemented with other forms of technologically mediated interaction, such as audio, video, or photo sharing.

Finally, the day ended with a Q&A session with the three keynote speakers. The salient point for me was that Web 2.0 technologies do not necessarily imply 2.0 mindsets, and the institutional “fit” here in Japan isn’t all that great. So clearly there needs to be more action research from teachers striving to integrate these potentially transformative and liberating technologies, and a corresponding attempt to educate other teachers, not only in the uses of Web 2.0 tools, but perhaps more importantly Web 2.0 mindsets.

Michael Thomas did such a great job organizing the event that I hope he gets involved in holding a follow up conference in 2008. If so, I’d like to see slightly less emphasis on podcasting on more on the use of social networking applications, which I think have far more interactive potential than the broadcasting of audio files. In the meantime, check out his call for chapters in the Handbook of Research on Language Acquisition Technologies: Web 2.0 Transformation of Learning.

Update: Michael informs me that there were exactly 68 conference attendees.