Revisión tecnológica del aprendizaje de idiomas asistido por ordenador: una perspectiva cronológica

El presente artículo aborda la evolución y el avance de las tecnologías del aprendizaje de lenguas asistido por ordenador (CALL por sus siglas en inglés, que corresponden a Computer- Assisted Language Learning) desde una perspectiva histórica. Esta revisión de la literatura sobre tecnologías del aprendizaje de lenguas asistido por ordenador comienza con la definición del concepto de CALL y otros términos relacionados, entre los que podemos destacar CAI, CAL, CALI, CALICO, CALT, CAT, CBT, CMC o CMI, para posteriormente analizar las primeras iniciativas de implementación del aprendizaje de lenguas asistido por ordenador en las décadas de 1950 y 1960, avanzando posteriormente a las décadas de las computadoras centrales y las microcomputadoras. En última instancia, se revisan las tecnologías emergentes en el siglo XXI, especialmente tras la irrupción de Internet, donde se presentan el impacto del e-learning, b-learning, las tecnologías de la Web 2.0, las redes sociales e incluso el aprendizaje de lenguas asistido por robots.The main focus of this paper is on the advancement of technologies in Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) from a historical perspective. The review starts by defining CALL and its related terminology, highlighting the first CALL attempts in 1950s and 1960s, and then moving to other decades of mainframes and microcomputers. At the final step, emerging technologies in 21st century will be reviewed

Predictors of Success and Preference for Full Online Distance Education: Insights Moving Forward the New Normal in Education

The study investigated the critical success factors (CSF) influencing the effectiveness of online distance learning delivery. Effectiveness was measured based on overall student satisfaction, intention to re-enroll, intention to recommend the school, and preference for online learning. The study utilized data from a total of 2,703 students, which accounted for 68% of the entire student population of a higher education institution in the Philippines. Students expressed their satisfaction with the school’s online services, including academic (learning outcomes and delivery), academic support, and student services. They regarded these services as indicative of quality, assessed through an instrument constructed from existing literature. A three-factor model was established through confirmatory factor analysis, and path relationships were scrutinized using covariance-based structural equation modeling with AMOS. Effect size analysis was used to confirm the regression weights and P-values. Results show that the delivery of learning had the most influence as a predictor of success and may be the only crucial factor for all indicators of success. Learning outcomes, academic support, and student services provided online did not show any significant effect or register any effect on all success indicators. The latter supports the premise that investing in ICT infrastructure and educational technology tools contributes, but it does not guarantee success. Moving forward, fully online distance learning, if designed appropriately, has the potential to become a prominent method of conventional education, rather than just a temporary solution during a crisis

Does Online Education Need a Special Pedagogy?

The extensive integration of information technologies in teaching and learning in the 21st century has initiated a dramatic change of educational paradigm. To a large extent this change was caused by the online education. A rapid growth of online university programs raises a number of new pedagogical, psychological and social issues. Online learning creates a learning environment that, compared to traditional, classroom-based education, is less personal, more independent, often fragmented, rarely systemic, distributed in space and time, and dependent on the learner rather than on the teacher. Many problems with online education (high attrition rate, orientation at highly skilled and highly motivated people, among other issues (The Trouble with Online College, 2013), indicate that one of its major challenges is not the technology itself or its classroom applications, but the lack of sound, research-based theoretical framework as the foundation of quality online learning. A comprehensive and effective educational theory is thus crucial for the quality education. This article makes an argument for such a theory and offers a model of online pedagogy for higher education with a focus on instruction and instructor, student autonomy, socialization through networking and collaboration in the online learning environment

Innovation in education: what works, what doesn’t, and what to do about it?

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to present an analytical review of the educational innovation field in the USA. It outlines classification of innovations, discusses the hurdles to innovation, and offers ways to increase the scale and rate of innovation-based transformations in the education system. Design/methodology/approach - The paper is based on a literature survey and author research. Findings - US education badly needs effective innovations of scale that can help produce the needed high-quality learning outcomes across the system. The primary focus of educational innovations should be on teaching and learning theory and practice, as well as on the learner, parents, community, society, and its culture. Technology applications need a solid theoretical foundation based on purposeful, systemic research, and a sound pedagogy. One of the critical areas of research and innovation can be cost and time efficiency of the learning. Practical implications - Several practical recommendations stem out of this paper: how to create a base for large-scale innovations and their implementation; how to increase effectiveness of technology innovations in education, particularly online learning; how to raise time and cost efficiency of education. Social implications - Innovations in education are regarded, along with the education system, within the context of a societal supersystem demonstrating their interrelations and interdependencies at all levels. Raising the quality and scale of innovations in education will positively affect education itself and benefit the whole society. Originality/value - Originality is in the systemic approach to education and educational innovations, in offering a comprehensive classification of innovations; in exposing the hurdles to innovations, in new arguments about effectiveness of technology applications, and in time efficiency of education

Designing personalised, authentic and collaborative learning with mobile devices: Confronting the challenges of remote teaching during a pandemic.

This article offers teachers a digital pedagogical framework, research-inspired and underpinned by socio-cultural theory, to guide the design of personalised, authentic and collaborative learning scenarios for students using mobile devices in remote learning settings during this pandemic. It provides a series of freely available online resources underpinned by our framework, including a mobile learning toolkit, a professional learning app, and robust, validated surveys for evaluating tasks. Finally, it presents a set of evidence-based principles for effective innovative teaching with mobile devices

Research-Informed Teaching in a Global Pandemic: "Opening up" Schools to Research

The teacher-research agenda has become a significant consideration for policy and professional development in a number of countries. Encouraging research-based teacher education programmes remains an important goal, where teachers are able to effectively utilize educational research as part of their work in school settings and to reflect on and enhance their professional development. In the last decade, teacher research has grown in importance across the three i’s of the teacher learning continuum: initial, induction and in-service teacher education. This has been brought into even starker relief with the global spread of COVID-19, and the enforced and emergency, wholesale move to digital education. Now, perhaps more than ever, teachers need the perspective and support of research-led practice, particularly in how to effectively use Internet technologies to mediate and enhance learning, teaching and assessment online, and new blended modalities for education that must be physically distant. The aim of this paper is to present a number of professional development open educational systems which exist or are currently being developed to support teachers internationally, to engage with, use and do research. Exemplification of the opening up of research to schools and teachers is provided in the chapter through reference to the European Union-funded Erasmus + project, BRIST: Building Research Infrastructures for School Teachers. BRIST is developing technology to coordinate and support teacher-research at a European level

Perceptions, practices, and attitudes on the use of technology in the English as a Foreign Language classroom: The iPad in the Andorran school system

Over the years, computers and mobile devices have transformed the way the English language is taught at school. While numerous bodies of literature are available globally regarding computer- and mobile-aided language learning, this field has never been explored in the local context of Andorra. This research thus aims to study the teachers’ and students’ perceptions, practices, and attitudes on the use of iPads in the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classrooms in the Andorran school system. Guided by the interpretive-constructivist paradigm, it uses qualitative research design, employing ethnography as its methodology, to gather detailed and grounded answers to the research questions. Classroom observations, semi-structured focus group interviews, and questionnaires were used to collect data from English teachers and EFL students of the first and second levels of Andorran secondary schools. Qualitative data analysis and descriptive statistics were carried out to process the information. Findings reveal that the users have positive perceptions towards the use of iPads in English classes and the technology is used primarily to accomplish tasks identified in the course curriculum guidelines. Their attitudes are mostly favorable towards iPads especially due to the perceived benefits of inclusivity, flexibility, increased engagement, and more efficient production of better outputs. However, there are also some drawbacks identified, such as distraction, dependency, and saturation. Further studies are recommended to explore the benefits of using tablets in educational management and technology.Al llarg dels anys, els ordinadors i els dispositius mòbils han transformat la manera d’ensenyar anglès a l’escola. Tot i que hi ha força bibliografia disponible d’àmbit mundial sobre l’aprenentatge de llengües assistit per ordinador i dispositius mòbils, aquest camp no ha estat mai explorat en el context local d’Andorra. Aquesta investigació pretén, doncs, estudiar les percepcions, les pràctiques i les actituds dels professors i dels estudiants sobre l’ús dels iPads a les classes d’anglès del sistema educatiu andorrà. Guiat pel paradigma interpretatiu i constructivista, l’estudi segueix el disseny de la investigació qualitativa, emprant l’etnografia com a metodologia, per recollir respostes detallades i fonamentades a les preguntes de la investigació. Per recopilar dades del professorat d’anglès i dels estudiants de primer i segon nivell de secundària de les escoles del sistema educatiu andorrà, s’han utilitzat observacions a l’aula, entrevistes de grups focals semiestructurades i qüestionaris. Per processar la informació, s’han dut a terme anàlisis qualitatives de dades i estadístiques descriptives. Les conclusions revelen que els usuaris tenen percepcions positives sobre l’ús dels iPads a les classes d’anglès i que la tecnologia s’empra principalment per dur a terme tasques identificades a les directrius del currículum del curs. Les actituds dels usuaris són majoritàriament favorables envers els iPads, sobretot a causa dels beneficis percebuts d’inclusivitat, flexibilitat, millor interacció i producció més eficient dels treballs encomanats. No obstant això, també s’han identificat alguns inconvenients, com ara la distracció, la dependència i la saturació. Es recomanen estudis addicionals per explorar els avantatges de l’ús de tauletes tàctils en gestió i tecnologia educatives

Theory into Practice in Environmental Education: Towards an evidence-based approach

This research addresses conceptual and practical issues in the field of environmental education. Environmental education is a compound and contested field in terms of both environmental and educafional ideologies. Its practice is also influenced by perspectives of context and change. Hence, the operationalisation of environmental education might be expected to vary across different ideologies and contexts. Thus, this research attempts to ore the operationalisation from theory into practice in environmental education. 'he approach of this research derives from those issues in the research context of education lental education that are currently of most concern. That is, policy-makers and I practitioners expect researchers to answer question such as "what works?" because they face the pressure of making decisions, in response, this research attempts to shed light on the nature of environmental education by using an evidence-based approach. However, most lence-based work in education is grounded in a post-positivistic perspective. This research, by contrast, employs evidence drawn from qualitative inquiry that recognises the significance depth contextual understanding. Thus the research sits within the qualitative paradigm and employs case study methodology.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Adopting smartphone applications for Second Language Acquisition: investigating readiness and acceptance of mobile learning in two Higher Education Institutions

Both university scholars and school teachers have witnessed a growing presence of smartphones and tablets inside classrooms over the last decade. This doctoral investigation analyzed students’ readiness and perception towards acceptance and adoption of smartphone applications for Mobile-Assisted-Language-Learning in English. Objectives were based on the importance of mobile learning nowadays and at verifying how second language acquisition applications were accepted and adopted by participants of this study held simultaneously at Universidade Tiradentes (Brazil) and Universidade Nova de Lisboa (Portugal). Our first research question wanted to know if they were ready to the acceptance and voluntary adoption of virtual learning environments as a technology innovation, raising their awareness to the use of mobile apps as learning tools. A second research question analyzed which apps best contemplated participants’ linguistic needs and could be suggested for curriculum development in higher education institutions in Brazil and Portugal. The five applications selected to our research were: Babbel, British Council, Busuu, Duolingo and Speak English Daily. Through an analysis of the selected applications for Second Language Acquisition (SLA), the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) designed for L2 learning as well as the responses from participants it was possible to contribute to an adaptation of the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology which we labeled UTAUT+M; the M standing for mobile. Elements of Connectivism are intertwined through this study and the convergence between m-Learning and SLA is perceived at the abundance of applications on the App Store (iOS) or Play Store (Android). The study was conveniently held at UNL, with graduates from Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas and Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia. At UNIT, participants were from the English Language, Petroleum Engineering and Biomedicine. The approach was mixed with qualitative and quantitative aspects and our Designbased Research (D-bR) focused on understanding how participants made use of these apps and the potential to language acquisition opportunities they provide. Using a cross-sectional survey with convenience sampling, we collected data from volunteers at the live presentations and also after a 60 to 90 days period to assess their use of the apps during it. Through descriptive statistics, we analyzed the data, coded it, separated in determinants and carried out frequency analyses of the attributes to better understand results and rates of acceptance and rejection from the sample. Our adapted UTAUT+M contributed to the understanding of the acceptance and potential adoption of mobile learning applications, which app could be recommended for curriculum development and how the contributions of this thesis can enhance English teaching and learning to these higher education graduate