Education and Technology —
Posts to this category in some way relate to education and/or technology. I often write about EFL practices and experiential education as they relate to the use of technology.
This year’s annual JALT 2008 conference will coincide with the 7th joint conference of the Pan Asian Consortium (PCA) and the 6th Asian Youth Forum (AYF), which should lend a greater international feel to the event. It’s being held at National Olympics Youth Memorial Center in Tokyo - the same venue as last year’s [...]
Ever since Stephen linked to Seeqpod earlier in the week, I’ve been going crazy with this fun and very useful tool. Essentially, you do searches on your favorite music, artist, or band, and then browse the resulting list of full mp3 files or music videos - all flash based for experiencing in the browser, [...]
Japan’s second symposium on CALL, Web 2.0 technologies, and wireless learning environments is set to take place at the Nagoya University of Commerce and Business on March 29th. Entitled Wireless Ready: Interactivity, Collaboration, and Feedback in Language Learning Technologies, the conference will simultaneously be held virtually at Gavin Dudeney’s Edunation in Second Life. [...]
Another interesting English language training application I came across at JALT 2007 was Lexxica, a free Web-based service out of Tokyo. Based on frequency analysis of international corpora, Lexxica’s main purpose is to quickly identify how many English language words a learner knows, and then through digital flash cards, reading exercises, games, etc., build [...]
At JALT2007 this weekend I came across a new website called iKnow: a free English learning application with social networking features, designed exclusively for Japanese learners. Once logged in, learners can use a variety of applications designed to build their English skills, including vocab and phrase lessons, dictation, podcasts, games, etc. iKnow keeps track of [...]
The merger of social networking technologies with internet telephony has spawned a new movement of teachers and students looking to supplement and, in some cases, bypass traditional language educational institutions for more personalized and direct tutor-learner relationships. Myngle, is one such upstart, which their founders describe as:
…the global language elearning marketplace, where teachers and [...]
I’ve argued before that Flickr is an ideal social network for beginning and lower intermediate EFL learners, due to the abundance of short, ‘one-liner’ comments on photos, not to mention the fun factor involved. So to build on this, I went ahead and fleshed out the handout I created for my presentation at JALTCALL [...]
In response to several recent requests, I am re-posting a paper I wrote back in the spring of 2003 as part of my M.Ed. work. With the recent surge of interest in Second Life for language learning, perhaps someone doing research will find it useful in some way:
Campbell AP (2003) Foreign Language Exchange in [...]
If you haven’t seen it already, an excellent blogging resource was just posted on Mashable entitled, Blogging Toolbox: 120+ Resources for Bloggers. It’s the best collection of links I’ve seen yet.
I hopped on the Shinkansen for quick trip to Tokyo this weekend for the JALTCALL 2007 conference, which was held at Waseda University. The conference theme was ‘CALL: Integration and Disintegration’, which, in my interpretation, attempted to examine the recent diversification of CALL practices throughout the language teaching field and the corresponding impact such [...]
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 [...]
Now is the time to abolish homework, and let children, families and communities use that time to prepare for a future where creativity and flexibility will be essential.
A must-read post from Harold Jarche points out the ills of homework and argues that we should give our children back their personal time. As a father, I’m [...]