Course Management System to promote language learning

1
Course Management System to promote language
learning

• Hiroyo Saito
• NEALLT 2006 conference
• at University of Pennsylvania
• April 8, 2006

2
CMS as a communication tool

• You can use Blackboard
• just to place course materials online.
• as communication tools that can be used to
  promote language learning inside and outside the
  classroom among students, and between students
  and instructor.

3
Blackboard tools

• Journal Tool
• Chat Tool
• Course Documents
• Assignment Tool
• Grade Book

4
Journal tool (blog)

• Ease of use
• Format (font, size, text color, highlight color,
  bold, italic, underline, align, and lists).
• Upload pictures.
• Add links.
• Add comments by both faculty and classmates.
• No need to click on the link to read a message
  like the Discussion Board.

Journal 1/5
5
Journal tool (blog)

• The Journal tool allows to
• Create theme-based journals.
• Create group journals.
• Trace the history of writing.
• Sort all the messages by writer.

Journal 2/5
6
Journal tool survey results

• Survey 17 students taking 1st year Japanese
  class.
• 17 students agreed that the journal tool is easy
  to use.
• 17 students prefer typing directly in Blackboard
  to tying in Word and sending it to the
  instructor.
• 17 students agreed that the color coded editing
  by the instructor helps them to correct the
  mistakes.
• No students mind the fact that their classmates
  can see what they write in the journal.

Journal 3/5
7
Journal tool students comments

• I think the Blackboard journal is a useful tool.
  It is nice to be able to use both in the LLC and
  in my computer in my room. The tool works
  exactly like a word document, so it is easy to
  use.
• very helpful for review purposes.
• It's really good. I like it just fine and I hope
  it doesn't change.
• I think it works pretty well.

Journal 4/5
8
Journal tool facultys comments

• I find this to be very useful, because this
  function enables our students to submit their
  individual work, to receive instructor's
  feedback, to edit their original work, to
  resubmit their revised work, to do pair work and
  even to exchange messages with their pen-pals.
  Yoko Koike
• I believe we both get a better sense of where we
  stand with the language. It gives a unique
  opportunity to those students who are usually shy
  or slow in speaking in class. I might say that,
  in this respect, journal is better because the
  student is the one writing, by him/herself,
  without others seeing the product, except at the
  time of submitting Asima Saad-Maura

Journal 5/5
9
Chat tool

• Can be used for
• course-wide chat.
• group chat.
• them-based chat.
• Can be archived for later analysis.

Chat 1/5
10
Chat tool survey results

• Survey 16 students taking 1st year Italian.
• 16 students like the chat activity in the LLC.
• 16 students think that the chat activity is
  helpful for their learning.
• Only 6 students agreed that they participate more
  in class when they have the chat activity.

Chat 2/5
11
Chat students comments

• I like the chat activity because it allows you
  to go at your own pace during classroom
  discussion. Too often do I feel students get
  close to fully understanding what's going on and
  each sentence, but the pace is too rapid for them
  to fully get it. I think the chat tool is useful
  for reconciling that difficulty.
• Ultimately, the largest benefit for the chat
  activity we engage is in constructing full
  sentences (in Italian) and having immediate help
  from peers as well as an instructor to correct or
  enhance those sentences.
• It is a unique opportunity that I enjoy taking
  advantage of.

Chat 3/5
12
Chat facultys comment

• A word of caution is important about chat,
  though it is advisable to prepare a set of
  questions beforehand for the students to answer,
  otherwise, it can be confusing to them not
  knowing exactly what to write, theyll then
  resort to small talk and fragmented phrases.
  Asima Saad-Maura

Chat 4/5
13
Chat facultys comments

• Change of scenery, gets us out of the
  class-room, especially important for year-long
  courses.
• Video is always interesting, visually and for
  learning purposes to watch people speak in the
  target language, to observe gestures, expressions
  and to talk about it via chat provides for all
  participants to express opinions and ask
  questions.
• Good tool to help one another and feel good
  about that by writing in Italian. Ute Striker

Chat 5/5
14
Pronunciation Exercise

• The objective of the exercise
• to raise the students' awareness of and improve
  their pronunciation and intonation.
• The tools used
• Blackboard
• Course Documents / Assignments / Grade book
• Audacity /Dartmouth Language Recorder
• USB microphones
• Headphones

Pronunciation 1/6
15
Pronunciation Exercise

• Process for students
• Download a sound file (mp3) stored in the course
  document folder in Blackboard. Each sound file
  has pauses for students to record themselves.
• Upload the sound file to Audacity.
• Record themselves after each phrase.They are
  encouraged to try as many times as needed until
  they are satisfied with their recording.
• Delete the master sound and save it as mp3 file.
• Upload the mp3 file to Blackboard via assignment
  tool. They write comments and scores for their
  own recordings.

Pronunciation 2/6
16
Pronunciation Exercise

• The instructors process
• Listen to each students recording stored in the
  grade book section of Blackboard.
• Give them feedback and scores in the grade book
  of Blackboard.

Pronunciation 3/6
17
Pronunciation exercise survey result 17
students

• 15 students agreed that the pronunciation
  exercises are useful for them.
• 14 students agreed that the instructors feedback
  is useful for them.
• 15 students agreed that having model
  pronunciation right before they record helps them
  to pronounce better.
• 13 students agreed that this exercise has been
  helping them to pay more attention to their
  pronunciation when they speak Japanese.

Pronunciation 4/6
18
Pronunciation exercisestudents comments

• Good exercise for learning to speak quickly
  while trying to speak with proper pronunciation.
• a good supplement to the regular review of
  speech in the class.
• The only problem I have with the recordings is
  that the space we have to record each sentence is
  small. I must say them fast to fit them into the
  allotted space. So my words are not a clear and
  concise as I might be able to get them.
• It is fun to use different voices when doing the
  pronunciation exercises. I think they're useful,
  but I think the way they are most useful is in
  helping us to read.

Pronunciation 5/6
19
Pronunciation exercisefacultys comment

• Working on students' pronunciation and
  intonation issues in class often presents
  difficulties to language teachers. This exercise
  using Audacity in the Blackboard environment
  makes it possible for students to work on their
  own pronunciation/ intonation in a relatively
  safe space while they can receive the
  instructor's regular feedback, through the
  Blackboard gradebook. Yoko Koike

Pronunciation 6/6
20
Assignment tool / Gradebook

• 1. Faculty create an assignment folder for a
  specific assignment.
• 2. Students submit their assignments (word
  documents, sound files, etc) into the specific
  assignment folder with their comments.
• The students name and the assignment name are
  automatically added to the file.
• The submitted assignments appear in the grade
  book.

21
Grade book

• 3. Faculty check the students assignments in the
  gradebook and give the feedback and grades.
• Faculty can download all the assignments into a
  folder.
• Faculty can add paper-based exams or attendance
  into the gradebook manually.
• 4. Students check the grades and feedback as soon
  as the instructor puts them in the gradebook.

22
Grade book Facultys comment

• The best part of gradebook is as soon as I grade
  a quiz, it will be known to students. The
  gradebook function on BlackBlard allows them to
  see their scores of all the quizzes with the
  average scores/highest scores and lowest scores.
  I also hope that it has helped at least some
  students view the course to be as much as theirs
  as it is mine. When they receive their quizzes
  back, they can also easily check and see if its
  recording is correct. Yoko Koike