Forum digest

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Forum digest

• January 31, 2006
• English 526

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Discussion Post

• In chapters 6-9 (Fotos, 2004) youve gotten
  acquainted with a range of technological
  applications in CALL environments such as LANs,
  CD ROMs, e-mail, and the Web. Reflect on the
  potential they exhibited and speculate on the
  perspectives they could still offer. Which of
  their advantages could be extrapolated to the
  design of new CALL activities/tasks? Give at
  least one specific example.

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Potential and Perspectives

• Materials uploaded to the Internet
• Expansion of the use of e-mail in
  teaching/learning environments
• Wide use of multimedia / hypermedia high-quality
  applications that include video, audio,
  simulations, etc.

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Potential and Perspectives

• Availability of interactive activities online
• Learning the pragmatics of the TL online
• Efficient distribution of learning materials
• Advances of simulations, virtual reality, AI, and
  expert systems.

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Extrapolating advantages

• Interactivity (synchronous/asynchronous)
• Text conferencing
• Online discussion forums
• Learner-centered
• Less intimidating learning environment
• Immediate feedback

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Examples

• LANS and other discussion forums will have to be
  designed with a mediator in mind as well as
  controls and salience to provide students with
  knowledge of acronyms that are commonly used in
  chat rooms. (Katie)
• Imagine the automatically transcribed
  video-concordancers/databases we could have in
  10-20 years! Search for a topic, such as
  insincere apology and be given a list of clips
  in which a person is giving an insincere apology,
  and watch it unfold on the screen, complete with
  environment, audio, facial expressions, and body
  language. (Jacob)

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Immense gratitude to

• Kate
• Nadia
• Karina
• Jacob
• Fushun
• Ghinwa
• Damira
• Thank you!