Reactions from Alex; Part 1

Hello everyone,And once again thank you for contributing your thoughts. It was interesting for me (and I hope for you too) to read what others have written. My reactions were mixed: sometimes I agreed, sometimes quite strongly disagreed, on occasion a little bemused, but always stimulated. I have as much to learn as you and I believe learning is both dialogic and dialectic. I think we make better sense of the world when confronted with views which don’t fit our own. We are obliged to rethink, clarify, enlarge or abandon our own perspective(s). Learning, in my view, is more stimulating, enriching and effective when it is collaborative.

The following are my reactions to some of the things you wrote.

I think it is important that students are shown the possiblities that technology has to offer. If they can develop an interest, they may benefit vastly from the resources that become accessible to them.
Klaus

One reason students use of Wikipedia is criticised is because some use it as an alternative to doing proper reading and believe everything that's written in the entries. I think it would be helpful to train students to use it in a discriminating way.
Siobhan

I agree with Klaus about recording Ss speaking, I have advised Ss to do this many times and doubt that they have but it's a useful thing.
Sam

I think most of my students are very used to working with technology, but not necessarily used to using it as a tool for academic research
Sarah

What I picked up here (and also from Anne's comment about students needing to be motivated in order to make best use of technology) is that we talk about advising or training students which, to my mind, reveals the opaque nature of teaching. We can train, advise, teach, foster, promote (select your verb) yet we also acknowledge the limits of what we can achieve with students. We cannot guarantee, despite our enthusiasm, that students will adopt the strategies or approaches we suggest. This should lead us to question the effectiveness of what we are doing (although we also tend to suggest that much of the responsibility rests with students). Perhaps what we need to do is to attempt a variety of approaches with students in order to enable them (and convince them) to adopt more effective strategies, attitudes and critical thinking skills to online language learning and online academic literacy. Some of things I have in mind here (and have tried) are:

Getting ex-students to talk to students about their uses of technology in their studies and how they cope with this aspect of academic life. This might be more convincing evidence for some students.

Asking ('successful') students to discuss with other students how and why they use online materials (listening for example)... how they manage their time, how they self-assess, how they choose materials/sites, how they manage motivation and affective aspects (fear, stress, anxiety, self-efficacy etc).

Compiling case studies of 'the good language learner' as you come across them, interviewing them, asking them to explain aspects of their language learning outside of class in order for you and your colleagues to build a clearer picture and better understanding of successful students.

Scaffold authentic academic and language learning tasks to help students appropriate the technology effectively.

These are just some examples I've tried ...