The online learning environment works well for asynchronous points of engagement for written, self-paced, learner-centered assessments. But how can educators build in feedback and interactivity for tasks that require auditory or interactive visual components, to include listening and speaking exercises? And is this possible using only free and open tools?
The online learning environment works well for asynchronous points of engagement for written, self-paced, learner-centered assessments. But how can educators build in feedback and interactivity for tasks that require auditory or interactive visual components, to include listening and speaking exercises? And is this possible using only free and open tools?
In 2014, a team of educators from Northern Virginia Community College were awarded a grant from the STARTALK Project (a federally-funded project of the National Foreign Language Center and National Security Agency) to design and develop a fully-online learning module to help increase language and cultural proficiency amongst Chinese language learners. The team created eTower, a performance-based CALL (computer assisted language learning) module that improves educational access and success for online, and increases proficiency outside of the classroom.
In this interactive online session, members of the eTower team will give a tour of both the content currently available on the web, as well as the tools and effective practices used to design the modules. The presenters will share pedagogical strategies for integrated performance assessments, authentic examples of culture within language instruction, using web technology to allow students to write and speak in online modules, and leveraging open educational resources to increase access to meaningful Chinese language learning. They will demonstrate how their specific design approach, interdisciplinary in nature, might be applied to a variety of contexts besides world language instruction - chiefly, any online learning environments where learners will be asked to demonstrate mastery beyond basic written communications.
The presenters will highlight open source tools for web and graphic design, cloud-based audio recording and playback, quizzing and polling, and personalized feedback loops. They will engage participants in a discussion of how the approaches that they utilized to create their open source modules in Chinese might also be used in a variety of instructional contexts to better support active and engaged student performance in the online classroom.