Differentiation and Individualisation through Digital Media
4. Examples of practice
In today’s classrooms web-based language learning is most commonly used for practice purposes (e.g., online material), for information (e.g., web search, web- quest), for communication (e.g., email exchange, chats, audio/video conferencing)
and for presentation (e.g., homepage, weblog, Internet video). In the following, I will provide some practical examples of using digital media for dealing with mixed-ability classes by showing how computer-supported collaborative learn- ing can be employed in order to promote differentiation and individualisation.
In the context of concrete foreign language learning scenarios, some examples of internet-focussed and software-based implementation forms will be described.1
Research results (cf. e.g. Grünewald 2006) show that weak students learn better in a well-structured learning environment, while strong learners benefit from a less structured learning setting. This is especially true for hypertext applications such as the Internet, which provide learners with opportunities to determine and organise their learning paths themselves. While this is a great advantage for strong learners, weaker learners see themselves facing the enormous challenge of structuring the range of options and offers. With regard to Internet search a distinction is made between four different task types (Grünewald 2010: 44):
(1) The guided search is the less individualised form of working with the Internet, in which the URLs are usually selected by the teacher in order to lead the students to a real sense of achievement as quickly as possible. (2) The Internet rally is a more complex search because it puts forward a question in terms of problem solving, which encourages the students to be creative and communicate as much as possible. Although students are also given clear and concrete task instructions, solving the tasks in different, individual ways is possible. (3) The free search is a very open form of integrating web-based instruction into the foreign language classroom, in which students search the Internet without a predetermined ap- proach and without any given sources. Experiences show that this method has many drawbacks because learners have to handle the flow of information and their qualitative evaluation, which can easily demand too much of them. Moreo- ver, learners can easily get lost in hyperspace and give up in frustration. (4) The webquest, which will be explained in more detail in the following.
Webquests are computer-based learning scenarios which foster autonomous, product-oriented and cooperative learning. At the same time, the use of different materials and media offers a considerable number of opportunities for differentia- tion and individualisation. They were first invented by Bernie Dodge and Tom March at the San Diego State University in 1995 in order to help their university
1 The Internet provides countless possibilities and options for teachers to use in the EFL classroom, e.g., websites such as http://www.lehrer-online.de/unterricht.php or https://
learningapps.org. For a very good choice of edu-apps and webtools for “understanding, analyzing, applying, presenting, and creating” in the EFL classroom see Grimm and Hammer (2014: 6).
students work with the Internet. Dodge (1997: 1) calls them “an inquiry-oriented activity in which some or all of the information that learners interact with comes from resources on the Internet”. Webquests offer different levels of difficulty and usually consist of six essential phases (cf. Dodge 1997; Moser 2008):
1) Introduction to topic and task or problem to be solved.
2) Task, which should be designed meaningfully. Creating the task is the most difficult and creative part of developing a webquest.
3) Process: the steps the students should take to accomplish the task such as group/pair work, time frame, etc.
4) Resources: online resources in particular, but also other materials such as books, pictures, films, etc.
5) Presentation, which can be done conventionally, e.g., with posters/handouts or again via new media and put online.
6) Evaluation: the way in which students’ performances are evaluated; this can be done by the teacher or by the students themselves (self/peer evaluation).
Due to its currentness, topicality and authenticity, major benefits can be stated in the context of cultural studies and intercultural learning. Themes and topics can be developed autonomously and all results can be posted onto the Internet again. This can be of benefit for other learners and can thus enhance progressive learning. A great advantage for differentiated instruction is the fact that all stu- dents work on the tasks at their individual pace and in all different participatory structures (individual work, pair/group work). Simultaneously, learner autonomy is promoted according to materials and media that teachers provide their learners with. As well as the Internet, dictionaries, newspapers/magazines, coursebooks, etc. can also be employed. Students should be allowed a free choice of available materials and media. Thus, the focus of a webquest is clearly on individual re- search and information use rather than simple information gathering.
If teachers do not have or do not want to lose time or simply shy away from designing a webquest and are looking for something simple and easy to imple- ment in their day-to-day school life, they could try an email project. Today, in fact, the implementation of email projects is widely used in the EFL classroom.
They connect communication with speakers of the target language and contribute to the expansion of media literacy. The project can either take place with native speakers or with learners of the same target language, e.g., students of English in Denmark or Italy. In communicating with native speakers, it should be ensured that there is a benefit for both sides of the cooperation. Next to intercultural and interdisciplinary contacts, the students learn that English is used in authentic and real communication situations outside the classroom ( see situated learning).
Another form of situated learning with easy access is the usage of a chat. This is a text-based synchronous form of communication with a focus on individualising the students’ language learning processes because it allows not only two interlocu- tors but many users to interact at the same time. Pupils chat in their leisure time and are usually familiar with the technical procedures. Using a chat is a rewarding scenario, which can also function in order to accompany an email project with partners from any other country. For instance, if you work with a partner group at a joint project, it is possible to exchange via chatting, arranging appointments, making agreements, etc. This way the pupils learn about the specific characteris- tics of the chat language and the relationship between the network-specific com- munication conditions via chatting.
Another possibility for authentic communication can be found in forums. These are thematically organised electronic discussion platforms whose contributions are accessible to anyone using the Internet. There are thousands of different forums on all imaginable topics. In addition, most newspapers and magazines offer a forum that students can make use of. Authenticity is gained particularly by a language that differs strongly from standard English. Thus, students are being prepared to using the English language as a lingua franca, which allows them to express their own, unique thoughts and exchange ideas with speakers of other cultures.
More recent developments that have increasingly been used in foreign language learning are podcasts and vodcasts (videopods), media contributions that can be obtained via the Internet. Many podcasts and vodcast sites allow learners to generate questions about the content of the video and to get feedback on their answers. They can be very beneficial when used as a means of repetition of lesson contents or as an additional information source for topics discussed in class or by using their contents as teaching target (cf. O’Bryan/Hegelheimer 2007). Podcasts and vodcasts are particularly attractive for foreign language teaching, as they are for free and bring authentic, current audio material on any kind of subject into the classroom. They can serve as a basis for listening comprehension and enable individualised listening material because each student can listen to (a) different text(s). Podcasts help differentiated instruction by allowing different operating speeds and the chance to listen to passages several times. Another great advantage in terms of differentiated instruction is the possibility to collect these media files and listen anywhere and as often as students want to. Both thematically and with respect to the appropriate linguistic level, students’ needs and interests can be responded to as a wide range of different content and levels can be transferred to the students’ computers easily and without any problems of copyright.
In the last decade, in line with a policy change and reorientation, new ways to integrate users as interactively as possible were searched and found. Terms such as
“community” describe new and contemporary design principles, which allow the users to participate significantly and to take part in the design of the Internet. Typi- cal examples are wikis, weblogs and photo/video portals. According to Tomlinson and Ávila (2011: 144), “Web 2.0 generally allows for dynamic collaboration, but there is a device that stands out because of its potential for developing collabora- tion: the wiki”. A wiki is an asynchronous interactive Web 2.0 hypertext system that allows users not only to read content but also to change it online. Wikis are text-based websites perfect for collaborative learning (cf. Moskaliuk 2010) and offer the opportunity to upload external content, such as pictures and files. The intelligent hypertext structure with internal and external links provides structure to wikis, which usually consist of separate pages connected with hyperlinks. “In sum, wikis have the advantage of being inexpensive, easy to set up, run, and moni- tor, while requiring only minimal technical experience on the part of teachers and students” (Grimm 2013: 234). Wiki projects can be carried out on various topics and in different approaches of learning and teaching. They are particularly useful in collaborative writing projects, e.g., creating wiki articles on topics that are treated in the classroom or creating your own dictionaries or grammar books. Addition- ally, wikis offer separate discussion spaces on each page created by users. These lend themselves perfectly to peer-review or student comments on the work of their classmates. It is a virtual cooperation in which you work on a common document and changes of individual users can be seen at any time. Unlike weblogs, wikis can be secured by providing authorized users with passwords in order to prevent unwanted guests or other disruptions.
An alternative to setting up a wiki is to create a weblog (blog). While “wikis are meant to be more formal, inviting users to edit, revise, rewrite, and cite sources in order to create well-researched and polished content on topics of interest” (ibid.), weblogs usually feature rather personal, diary-style content. They consist of a se- ries of entries arranged in reverse chronological order, are updated frequently with new information about particular topics and allow authors (“bloggers”) to link to other web sites they find interesting or appropriate for the topic. In terms of indi- vidualised instruction in the EFL classroom, authentic and interactive blogs can be used, e.g., as online journals or learning diaries, as digital portfolios (e-portfolios) or as platforms for the exchange with teachers and/or other learners. E-portfolios seem more appropriate than traditional learning diaries to transform better ways of acquiring knowledge in a dynamic process of continuous presentation, testing and storage. They also promote the collective construction of knowledge and
exploratory competences students need today (cf. Pugliese 2011: 196). Besides developing reading/writing skills and inter-/transcultural communicative compe- tences, weblogs increase reflexive skills, and what is more, students benefit from personalising their individual learning process.
If a blog is designed by set video recordings rather than text-based messages it is called a video blog. Other sources for the EFL classroom are free video-sharing websites that let registered users upload and share video clips online. The most prominent one is most probably YouTube and its well-known slogan “Broadcast Yourself ”. But of course, there is a huge choice of other websites such as Clip- fish, Dailymotion, Myspace, Myvideo, Travelistic, Videu, etc., and a variety of online video streams that are offered by most TV programmes. The overall aim of using a video blog or Internet videos is to enhance media literacy but also to facilitate students’ self-employed proportion of their learning process and to help students to expand their own knowledge of foreign languages outside the class- room. Due to their cognitive and emotional proximity to the living environment and experiences of the learners, Internet videos are usually very motivating. We are surrounded by a visual culture and hybrid multi-modal media belong to the students’ lives. Using them in the EFL classroom they learn about encoding and decoding procedures because text, images and sounds have to be “read” similar to linguistic signs. When creating tasks related to the work with Internet videos, it is important that the teacher provides tasks that allow the learners to deal with the foreign language in an authentic context that offers opportunities for interaction.
The focus can be put on real-life tasks, which usually increase students’ interest.
An important factor teachers today have to face is the students’ immersion in and facility with digital technology, and in particular social media, which can be seen as a sub-category of computer technology: “instant messaging, Twitter, video games, Facebook, and a whole host of applications (apps) that run on a variety of mobile devices such as iPads and mobile phones. Such students are constantly
‘on’ ” (Bates 2015: 28). Social media have a high impact on today’s students, i.e., much of their lives revolve around such media. These may include the use of web conferencing tools such as Adobe Connect, the above mentioned streamed video or audio files, blogs, wikis, but also open learning management systems such as Moodle or Canvas. Mobile devices and services such as phones and tab- lets, Twitter, Skype or Facebook enable participants to continually share their contributions (cf. Bates 2015: 155). Kaplan and Haenlein (2010: 60) define social media as “a group of Internet-based applications that […] allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content, based on interactions among people in which they create, share or exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and
networks”. What presumably distinguishes the digital age from other ages is the fast development of technology and our immersion in technology-based activities in our daily lives. Both students and teachers are still in the process of absorb- ing and applying the implications of Web 2.0 tools. Bates (2015: 194) describes the impact of the Internet on education as a “paradigm shift, at least in terms of educational technology”. The basic question is how teachers can deal with this paradigm shift and how they can find a positive approach and a productive ex- posure to integrating social media in the EFL classroom.
Instead of fighting with students over them playing with their mobile phones during class, it is probably much better to encourage them to include meaningful English language communication and integrate social networking services (SNS) such as Facebook or Twitter into their classroom work. Twitter is a microblogging system that limits users to posts no more than 140 characters, which translates into one or at most three sentences, called “tweets”. The great advantage of Twit- ter for EFL purposes and part of the system’s appeal lies in its brevity, because users have to be as concise as possible. Students have to make their message short and focus on the essentials. But how can a teacher develop classes based around Twitter and mobile technology? How can Twitter enhance differentiated instruction and/or learner autonomy in language learning? High attraction lies in its real-time content that encourages people to befriend each other and interact with each other to a much higher degree than previous SNS models. In the EFL classroom it enhances self-organisation, i.e., Twitter functions as part of the digital personal learning environment and guarantees high student activation and stu- dent involvement because all pupils can participate simultaneously at their own pace. It can be used both synchronously and asynchronously, because everything written is documented and can be read and responded to later. Using Twitter is a great chance to promote discussion and debating competences and at the same time enhances media literacy, because only by working in class with social networks like Twitter you can show students how to use them wisely and safely.
Students can then apply to other platforms what they have learned via Twitter, e.g., beneficial and profitable networking –one of the core competences students will need in their later lives. “The power of Twitter in the classroom lies in harnessing the instantaneous and ephemeral nature of the tool” (Kuropatwa 2007). As more concisely outlined by Nick Campbell (2009), Twitter use in education has the fol- lowing four main advantages, most obviously for teachers: (1) Communicating class content, (2) sending out small, timely pieces of information, (3) encouraging collaboration and feedback, and (4) encouraging concise writing.
One of the many possible applications for using Twitter in the EFL classroom is an interactive, digital learning diary (e.g., www.twitario.com) or logbook, which, apart from allowing students to document their learning process, also enables them to enter in discussions with other students and/or the teacher if desired (cf. Eisenmann/Ludwig 2014). Furthermore, students can publish their Twitter diary on other social network spaces such as Facebook. If Twitter is used as a learning diary, it also offers opportunities to enter into transcultural encounters and target language discourse with native speakers of English. Twitter also allows students and teachers to share and comment on materials, students can tweet their own questions and observations about any topic. There is also the possibility of embedding products in the Twitter stream, e.g., videos, blog posts or photos.
In addition to basic communication, e.g., by direct tweets with classmates and teachers or announcements teachers can make, interesting and relevant websites can also be posted and shared by the whole class. One of the most obvious reasons to use Twitter in terms of individualised teaching is probably as a writing practice platform, i.e., for composition activities. Students can be asked to write a short story in under 140 characters. Such a writing project –either several micro-stories or a story in many parts– makes for a great EFL writing assignment. After following writers of short stories for some time or visiting and reading the creators’ pages, students can be given a theme and encouraged to tweet their own stories. This can also be expanded into collaborative stories, where one person starts a story, which is continued by another one, etc. Both forms work very well on Twitter and are a beneficial way for EFL students to work on their writing. It is particularly invidualising because students can write a complete story collaboratively in large or small groups over several days or even months. This method can similarly be used for creating poetry, e.g., Haikus or Tankas, short poems with limited syllables and strict forms. John Hicks is an example of someone who writes Haikus in his posts on Twitter: http://twitter.com/blueheron. Teachers could have students fol- low one or two such people, choose a favorite poem, and explain their choice to classmates. The teacher can twitter a theme out to the class, and students have to come up with their own poem. As a follow-up activity students can use Twitter or a Twitter polling application to vote on the best ones. A similar way of using Twitter is in the context of twiction (a combination of “twitter” and “fiction”), which allows students to tell or summarise a story in one or more tweets (cf. https://twitter.com/
twiction) (cf. Eisenmann/Ludwig 2014). While traditionally, students would use their logbooks to write a story, Twitter can be used instead. These ways of using twitter enable students to enter into meaningful and collaborative discourse in the target language with peers, the teacher and other users of twitter. Especially the