Language Teacher Education
3. Pedagogic rationale
The emergence of Web 2.0 technologies and the fall in the price of obtaining infor- mation and communication technologies have enabled all manner of educational institutions to equip classrooms with computers, laptops and tablets, and the increasing availability of new online tools such as Wikis, blogs, discussion forums and social networking sites provides teachers with free possibilities of engaging their students in online interaction and collaborative work without the need of detailed technical knowledge or ability (cf. O’Dowd 2010). Hence, the importance of adequate teacher training programs for using these technologies is on the in- crease and as Guichon and Hauck (2011) point out, this necessity is enhanced by the fact that teachers not only require the ability and technical knowledge to assess the affordances of any given tool but also require the competency to use the tech- nology according to the learners’ needs, to task demands and to desired learning outcomes. To avoid using digital media for the mere purpose of doing so, one of the main aims of the online collaborative project was to present participants with meaningful ways of using Web 2.0 technologies for language learning purposes and to remind them that “[w]hen considering implementing CMC tools in the language classroom one has to make sure that the pedagogy and not the technol- ogy drives the activity” (Görtler 2009: 75). To enhance the students’ knowledge and awareness of the pedagogy behind using online media, an understanding of three main pedagogic guiding concepts was developed in class, namely Digital
Literacy, Communicative Language Learning and Collaborative Work. These con- cepts provided the theoretical foundation of the project.
3.1 Digital literacy
The interest in digital literacy can be located within the large-scale pedagogic aim of developing multiliteracies. In suggesting that developing literacies must go beyond mastering the ability to read and write written text, the New London Group (1996) put forward their influential concept of a Pedagogy of Multiliteracies in which the teaching and learning of literacy is re-conceptualized in a much broader manner.
They highlight that the changing realities of social and globalized environments require new types of literacy. These changes are marked by two aspects: “the mul- tiplicity of communication channels and media, and the increasing saliency of cultural and linguistic diversity” (The New London Group 1996: 63). Both aspects produce a multiplicity of discourses and a plurality of text types that learners must be empowered to understand and negotiate to participate in the various spheres of modern-day life (ibid.: 61). The New London Group also stresses that the “modes of meaning-making” (ibid.: 64) which become evident in the various discourses and texts clearly exceed textual components, and include other modes such as visual or audio. This becomes particularly important in a world of mass media, multimedia and new technological communication channels that rely on diverse modes and semiotic resources to make meaning, which learners must master competently in order to understand, participate in and critically reflect on the discourses they encounter. The immediate call for foreign language education is to support learners in developing the multiliteracies considered crucial for the 21st century (cf. Elsner/
Viebrock 2013). Given the omnipresence of online media in today’s world, digital literacy has become a crucial component of the set of multiliteracies that learners need to develop. Hence, it was a guiding aim of both university courses to convey to the students the theoretical concept of digital literacy and its various dimensions, and also foster a practical and critical understanding of this concept. The closely related concept of media literacy (e.g. Volkmann 2010: 219–221), which usually revolves around various types of media and is not exclusive to online media, was also embraced, yet narrowed down to the particular interest in social media. The following section provides an overview of the digital literacy dimensions that were central to the courses (cf. ibid. for a similar categorisation).
Even though the mastery of technical skills is not considered the most crucial aspect of media or digital literacy (cf. Elsner/Viebrock 2013: 28), it can be argued that knowledge of the ways in which online media function is a necessary start- ing point in order to engage with media in the first place. This holds true for
consuming media (e.g. knowing how a blog is structured when following its con- tent), but is probably even more crucial for the productive and creative possibili- ties of using media (e.g. setting up a thematic blog and knowing how to publish information). For both aspects, it is important to know how to operate an online medium adequately, and to understand how an online medium is structured, also in comparison to other media (cf. Volkmann 2010). Even though younger learners and students might be considered digital natives operating all online media with ease, one might be advised to call to greater caution here and stress that students might also require a careful introduction into the technical aspects of an online medium. The findings from the survey conducted within the project underline this assumption. Therefore, the classroom should offer ample time to students to learn how collaboration can technically work, e.g. on a wiki platform. This ensures that students are at the same level when initiating projects with online media.
In addition to the technical skills, it is important that students are empowered to choose a medium according to their needs and purposes with a view to achieving specific goals, and to develop strategies and skills to process and produce media- based content in order to meet these purposes and goals. This requires that learners have procedural knowledge (cf. ibid.) when using and producing media, which is a key supplement to the more declarative knowledge of the technology of a medium as such. This emphasis on both consuming and creating content is emblematic of the New London Group’s pedagogy of multiliteracies that sees learners as active agents and designers of their social futures, and it also encapsulates the participa- tive potential of Web 2.0 applications that break down clear-cut dichotomies of users and creators (cf. Elsner/Viebrock 2013; Merse/Schmidt 2014). One example of this purpose-oriented dimension of digital literacy would be to use media for researching and evaluating information, then synthesize such information to solve a problem or generate new ideas, and finally disseminate new information online, e.g. by publishing it in a wiki.
With the changing potential in the utilization of online media in the Web 2.0, Elsner and Viebrock point out that today’s produsers –a term they borrow from Bruns (2008) to describe how consumers gradually become producers of web content– “not only need functional literacy skills but also a good command of critical literacy” (2013: 24) to reflect on the way they use online media. This criti- cal and reflective dimension of media literacy is also foregrounded by Volkmann (2010: 220), who stresses that learners must be critical towards the messages conveyed by media (and, by extension, towards the messages they themselves send out through media). Elsner and Viebrock (2013: 29) also demand a critical reflection on the limits and opportunities of using online media –which requires
that each medium is evaluated individually rather than generalizing online media per se. They also challenge an all-too optimistic view on media and emphasize that “[t]his critical perspective is even more demanded against the backdrop of the non-committal attitudes to be observed in much of the web-based interaction”
(ibid.: 24). Hence, the call is for using online media not just because they are avail- able and easy to use, but to utilize online media critically, reflectively and mean- ingfully with genuine purposes for communication and interaction, and then to be reflective about whether the use of media has been carried out purposefully.
3.2 Collaborative learning
The role of social interaction has often been claimed to be a crucial prerequisite for language learning. This sociocultural perspective derives from Vygotsky’s con- cepts of social interaction, which emphasize the role of interaction for learning (cf. Vygotsky 1962; 1978). CMC tasks and activities lend themselves to interaction between learners by the mere nature of their technology. However, it is important to point out that participant interaction is not necessarily equivalent to collabora- tive learning, and considering the recent inflation in the use of the term “collabo- ration” in the field of language learning and social media, it is important to define the concept behind this term for the following discussion of the described project.
Henri and Rigault (1996) outline collaborative learning by differentiating it from cooperative learning, these two terms often being used interchangeably. Co- operative tasks are those for which learners can divide the work between one another and then complete it individually. In contrast, collaboration is “a coordi- nated synchronous activity that is the result of continued attempt to construct and maintain a shared concept of a problem” (Roschelle/Teasley 1995: 70). The aspect of simultaneity might have been crucial at a time when amendments and additions to products could only be implemented by individuals after having shared the updated version as is the case with many forms of traditional media. However, the advancement of the Web has made synchronous and asynchronous work by several authors on one document possible and feasible. Online multi-authorship offers individuals the possibility to work on one product asynchronously while enabling them to immediately observe and comprehend any additions or changes having been executed by the co-collaborators. It is preferable for individuals to use their skills in a complementary manner to solve a problem which they could not solve by themselves, and therefore the collaboration creates a shared basis on the meaning and workings of a process or product (cf. Schrage 1990). For students to collaborate effectively in groups, a common goal, an incentive to collaborate plus independ- ency from the instructor is required (cf. Hathorn/Ingram 2002). According to
Paulus (2005) this criterion can be fulfilled through the instructional design of the task given to the group. In CMC contexts, where learners are often geographi- cally separated, collaboratively designed tasks might be interpreted as cooperative projects, as students divide parts of the tasks up, work on them individually and then conflate their efforts to a final project (cf. Paulus 2005). To target this regularly occurring phenomenon, one needs to carefully choose Web 2.0 technologies which by their very nature encourage collaborative methods, this being the reason why a course wiki was used in the project, as students were able to work on the assigned topics simultaneously from several individual devices while communicating by way of a chat function at the same time. Moreover, it was considered important to address the methodological idea behind the concept of collaboration in class before assigning the tasks. Besides the general suitability of collaborative activities for learning purposes, collaborative working methods offer chances specifically for language learning as they help learners reflect on their language production. This is because constant communication is needed and participants attempt to create meaning when communicating with co-collaborators (cf. Swain 1995).
3.3 Communicative language learning
Collaborative Web 2.0 technologies offer rich possibilities for communicative lan- guage teaching as they allow for easy integration into all kinds of communicative activities (cf. Görtler 2009). Most of these technologies such as chats and social networking sites belong to the category of computer-mediated communication applications. The definition, however, has been used in a broader sense to include blogs, wikis and other tools that can be used synchronously and asynchronously for collaborative work (cf. Görtler, 2009).
A substantial amount of current research in the pedagogy of foreign language teaching and learning explores the benefits and challenges of CMC. Using tech- nology creates opportunities for the use of language in authentic contexts, which also encourages students to strive for autonomous use of the target language (cf.
Kessler, 2009). Previous research has also supported the fact that CMC is a socially rich environment (cf. Arnold et al. 2005) and helps learners build a classroom community, fosters interaction and gives students the opportunity to provide each other with support (cf. McDonald/Gibson 1998; McKenzie/Murphy 2000; Sengup- ta 2001). Additional benefits include the development of intercultural competence (cf. Müller-Hartmann 2006; O’Dowd 2003; O’Dowd 2007), the general improve- ment of communication skills (cf. Lee 2002), and the increase in learner motivation (cf. Godwin-Jones 2003), to name but a few. Besides the many advantages CMC offers for language learning purposes, research has, however, also indicated several
shortcomings such as technical problems (cf. Belz 2002), tensions and miscom- munication between participants (cf. Belz 2002; O’Dowd/Ritter 2006; Ware 2005), as well as the fact that there are still many poorly educated teachers (cf. Müller- Hartmann 2006; O’Dowd/Ritter 2006). It has been widely acknowledged that the role of teachers in internet-mediated teaching is crucial (cf. Belz 2003; O’Dowd 2007) and therefore language teachers need to learn how to incorporate social media and CMC tools into the classroom by experiential learning supported by model teaching (cf. Müller-Hartmann 2006).
Besides exploring and reflecting on the potential of social media for collabora- tive language learning processes, and with an aim to increase students’ digital lit- eracies, this joint project carried out a learning-by-doing and an experience-based approach to utilizing social media for learning purposes in the university class- room. The goal was to engage students in meaningful collaborative work and com- munication using social media, and offer tasks that allow students to plan, design and create their own social media products. The remaining part of this article will demonstrate how this pedagogic rationale was put into practice in three different projects during the online collaboration between Karlsruhe and Muenster students.