It is
amazing to think about how quickly technology is changing. The ten
developments in information and communications technology described by
Warschauer (2004) might have seemed pretty groundbreaking at the time
this article was written, but today this is all so common and we
probably take it for granted. It is hard to imagine where we will be ten
years from now! Warschauer mentioned that around 10% of the world's
population was online in 2004 (p. 4), so I did a quick Google search to
see where we are today - around 40% (Internet Live Stats). I'm not sure how accurate that website is, but it is pretty interesting to look at.
Warschauer also discussed critical literacy and noted that, "in the online future, virtually all literacy will necessitate critical judgment" (p. 7). I thought this was a really important point and his description of how much thought should go into evaluating each website, whether or not to keep scrolling, which links to click, etc. is a skill that needs to be taught. In a class I was teaching this past semester, for example, students were working on short research papers and we had to spend time going over which types of websites would be deemed acceptable to use in an academic paper. While they had some prior knowledge about different types of websites, it was not always easy for them to decide which sources were more credible. There is certainly a lot more to consider when evaluating online sources compared to print.
The section on agency got me thinking about some different assignments that I can try in the future. I think it would be great to get my students to create their own websites. As Warschauer explains, "By assisting their students to carry out such authoring--fulfilling a meaningful purpose for a real audience--teachers are helping them exercise their agency" (p. 12). I still need to think more about what exactly the assignment would involve, but I think getting them to present their work online as an alternative to using PowerPoint would be a great experience.
Overall, I thought this was an interesting article that got me thinking about how far we have come in such a short time, and it got me excited thinking about what could be next. I do not think it would be fair to our students to exclude CALL from our classes.
Reference
Warschauer, M. (2004). Technological change and the future of CALL. In S. Fotos & C Brown (Eds.), New perspectives for second and foreign language classrooms (pp. 15-25). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Warschauer also discussed critical literacy and noted that, "in the online future, virtually all literacy will necessitate critical judgment" (p. 7). I thought this was a really important point and his description of how much thought should go into evaluating each website, whether or not to keep scrolling, which links to click, etc. is a skill that needs to be taught. In a class I was teaching this past semester, for example, students were working on short research papers and we had to spend time going over which types of websites would be deemed acceptable to use in an academic paper. While they had some prior knowledge about different types of websites, it was not always easy for them to decide which sources were more credible. There is certainly a lot more to consider when evaluating online sources compared to print.
The section on agency got me thinking about some different assignments that I can try in the future. I think it would be great to get my students to create their own websites. As Warschauer explains, "By assisting their students to carry out such authoring--fulfilling a meaningful purpose for a real audience--teachers are helping them exercise their agency" (p. 12). I still need to think more about what exactly the assignment would involve, but I think getting them to present their work online as an alternative to using PowerPoint would be a great experience.
Overall, I thought this was an interesting article that got me thinking about how far we have come in such a short time, and it got me excited thinking about what could be next. I do not think it would be fair to our students to exclude CALL from our classes.
Reference
Warschauer, M. (2004). Technological change and the future of CALL. In S. Fotos & C Brown (Eds.), New perspectives for second and foreign language classrooms (pp. 15-25). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
No comments:
Post a Comment