Modern Languages And Distance Education:Thirteen Days In The Cloud
Abstract
This research study documents the journey of two modern language faculty (Spanish and German) from their original beliefs that teaching foreign languages can only be conducted in a face-to-face format to their eventual development of an online class using Web 2.0 technologies to encourage their students’ active skills of reading and speaking in their target language. The research study shows how the instructors incorporated Web 2.0 technologies and used the Communities of Inquiry (CoI) framework to design their online class to ensure their class had the essential elements of teaching presence, social presence and cognitive presence. Web 2.0 technologies used to build strong levels of CoI were BB-Collaborate web conferencing, Voki, VoiceThread, ANVILL, Fakebook, Bubble,us, Mindmapping, Flashcard Exchange, Glogster, Zunal, and Weebly.
Keywords
Modern Languages, Community of Inquiry, Web 2.0, Distance Education
References
- Allen, I. E., & Seaman, J. (2013). Changing course: Ten years of tracking online education in the United States. Babson Survey Research Group and Quahog Research Group, LLC.
- Retrieved from http://www.onlinelearningsurvey.com/reports/changingcourse.pdf Anderson, T., Rourke, L., Garrison, D. R., & Archer, W. (2001). Assessing teacher presence in a computer conferencing context. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 5(2), 1-17.
- Blake, R., & Delforge, A. M. (2006). Online language learning: The case of Spanish without walls. In B. Lafford & R. Salaberry (Eds.). The art of teaching Spanish: Second language acquisition from research to praxis. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
- Bowen, J. (2012). Teaching Naked: How moving technology out of your college classroom will improve student learning. San Francisco, California: Wiley.
- Carlon S, Bennett-Woods D, Zenoni L, et al. The Community of Inquiry Instrument: Validation and Results in Online Health Care Disciplines. Computers & Education [serial online]. September 1, 2012;59(2):215-221. Available from: ERIC, Ipswich, MA. Accessed August 17, 2013.
- Chenoweth, N. A., & Murday, K. (2003). Measuring student learning in an online French course. CALICO Journal, 20(2), 285-314.
- Crawford, D. L. (2006). Characteristics leading to student success: A study of online learning environments. Texas A&M University- Commerce, United States-Texas: Ed.D. Dissertation.
- Daspit, J. J., & D’Souza, D. E. (2012). Using the community of inquiry framework to introduce wiki environments in blended-learning pedagogies: Evidence from business capstone course. Academy Of Management Learning & Education, 11(4), 666-683.
- Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2000). Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education. The Internet and Higher Education, 2(2-3), 87-105.
- Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2001). Critical thinking, cognitive presence and computer conferencing in Distance Education. American Journal of Distance Education, 15(1), 7-23.