Hubbard & Levy Reading Reflection

Reading Reflection 2 Hubbard and Levy                     

Early on in the Hubbard reading, CALL is described as a weak field due to lack of research and data collected.  According to Egbert and Hanson-Smith, "educators do not need a discrete theory of CALL to understand the role of technology in the classroom". I feel like this summarizes my thoughts on research in this area. Yes, it is important to have research and data in order to improve the technology and its uses; however, technology is changing so quickly, it is hard to collect accurate information. This should not lesson the importance of its role in the classroom.

One of my experiences with CALL has been with the software Rosetta Stone. I quickly lost interest and became frustrated with the pronunciation lessons. I didn’t feel like the program recognized what could have been an acceptable accent. When anyone is working on acquiring a second language, I do not feel like pronunciation should play as big of a role as vocabulary, structure, etc. The Hubbard article does say that new technologies are becoming more and more advanced every day in this area but as I said in my recent experience I found it challenging.

Hubbard goes on to discuss different forms of CALL such as Google Docs. While I see the value of collaborative writing, I didn't find a lot of value in using them as a student. It was time-consuming to read everyone’s posts, then add my own thoughts without being redundant. I did find the information about Second Life to be interesting because I don’t know anything about it. I wonder how it could be used in the classroom. I also liked the idea of having “Keypals”. I used penpals quite often in my kindergarten classroom but I think the older students would enjoy typing back and forth to each other because it is quicker.

The last thing Hubbard touched on that I found to be very true is regarding teacher education. He mentions that pre-service training is sporadic with the majority of candidates receiving little or no formal preparation. In my undergraduate studies at Purdue, I was required to take ONE technology for teachers class. I am still amazed at how teacher education programs do not spend more time on this topic.

Levy covers several ways of using CALL such as blogs, student-designed web pages, photo editing, and power point presentations. I agree with Levy in regards to blogs encouraging self-expression through informal writing. I do like how students can be a little more free to be themselves in their writing.

In another section under pronunciation, Levy says some systems can offer a wide range of feedback strategies to suit individual learner preferences. I wonder what he means by  this and how software can determine learner preferences.

As an employee of a University, I work with several students who love online classes and some who are “afraid” of them. Levy discusses the virtual learning environment. I do believe some things such as cultural nuances, peer interactions and support, etc. can be lost in such a setting but yet other things can be gained. “the tutor might be using the whiteboard while explaining a teaching point through audio/video while the students are listening and using text chat to communicate with one another about the lesson.”

Finally, I enjoyed the point Levy made about learning old technology more comprehensively. There are many aspects of even Microsoft office that I do not have a solid grasp on. These are things that could help me in my job, personally, and as a student that I wish I knew. This goes back to teacher preparation and the lack of in-service training provided.