Successful Fall Conference in 2007

The SWALLT membership was treated to a fabulous conference at Stanford University in October. Joseph Kautz pulled together a truly interesting array of presentations in the new and impressive Stanford Language Lab. Joseph's organizational skill was proven by his obtaining sponsorship for lunches and free parking for conference participants for both days of the conference. Another nice surprise was that the Stanford Language Center sponsored a lovely dinner for all participants at a local restaurant. It was a nice way to relax, rehash the day's events, and find out more about each other and our work. An additional bonus for me was meeting instructors from my own school that I'd never met before. Without SWALLT, we'd never know that we had shared interest in language learning and technology.

Web 2.0, Casting a Wider Net was the theme of the weekend with sessions on wikis, podcasting, YouTube, del.icio.us, with forays into digital media management (Sharestream), ADA compliance for PowerPoint on the web (LecShare), and open source content management projects with Drupal.

One of the great features of every SWALLT conference is the selection of sessions. You can see from the conference program that technologists, managers, teachers, and vendors all come together to spend a few days. Because SWALLT is small, the entire group attends all the conferences, contributing to a feeling of community and subsequent sharing of ideas. You can follow the events of the weekend on the blog used by Gus Leonard to report on sessions as they happened.

I wish I had time to write about all the sessions, but since I don't, I'll just briefly mention a couple that featured some unexpected or unexpectedly useful ideas.

Hebrew @ Stanford: I was accustomed to seeing the internet as a tool that students could use for communication with other learners or speakers of the target language or to learn about cultures other than their own. It was a supplement to the classroom.

Vered Shemtov, lecturer in Hebrew at Stanford University, turns that idea upside down. In her session, Hebrew@Stanford: From Using Technology to Support Language Teaching to Teaching Language for Functioning Online, she discussed the changing role of the internet in her Hebrew classroom. Rather than using the internet to practice interactions in advance of real communication between students and native speakers, the internet becomes that real place of interaction.In this Hebrew class, technology is no longer the means, but the goal.

Why this change? For LCTL (less commonly taught languages) students have less opportunity to meet with native speakers locally. Additionally, Shemtov notes that even when students travel to Israel, it is sometimes difficult for them to practice their Hebrew as much as they would like since many Israelis speak or study English and want to practice it with Americans. The internet allows her students a real and more complete Hebrew language immersion experience.

In her first year Hebrew course, students begin the semester by being passive observers of language, using newspapers, wikipedia, etc. in Hebrew. They progress through the semester by acquiring tools that enable them to participate more fully in the Hebrew web, posting to Hebrew wikipedia, creating videos to post on YouTube that will be viewed by Hebrew speakers world wide, and finally at the end of the semester, interacting with Hebrew speakers in the Hebrew version of Facebook. Shemtov notes that the use of social software and user generated content has the potential to completely change how we view language teaching.

Student of Arabic Develops Study Software- Another fascinating session was Loren Siebert's session, LinguaStep: Curriculum-based Language Learning. A computer programming professional, Loren participated in the UC Berkeley intensive summer Arabic workshop, which covers an entire year of language study in ten weeks.

Siebert noted that as a student, he could learn all the grammar concepts, but without adequate vocabulary he could communicate nothing. This was a humbling moment for me, as I realized that with all the energy surrounding communication based activities, social software, and striving to provide to students opportunities for meaningful communication in the target language, students still need work on the basics.

Siebert developed LinguaStep to help build his vocabulary. Sound files, and a smart flashcard system work together to help him learn both pronunciation and meaning. He eventually partnered with the publisher of his Arabic textbook to market the application to other learners of Arabic. He hopes to partner with other textbook publishers of other languages as well. This could be a terrific opportunity for other LCTLs to develop materials that students want and need. Loren was featured in the San Francisco Chronicle just after the SWALLT conference. More information about LinguaStep is found at: http://www.linguastep.com/

Mapping Culture for the Foreign Language Class: An inquiry into the Role of the Geo Interface by David Malinowski at UC Berkeley's School of Education was fascinating. He questions how data is presented and by whom and how those elements determine how data is perceived. By showing the difference between results from a western mapping application (Google maps) and a Korean mapping service, Malinowski posited that the manner by which society maps itself can be seen as a metaphor for culture.

Malinowski described his project, Culture in Place, with the goals: to achieve critical awareness of cultural and social meaning through lens of public signs in the US and in Korea, to provide added motivation and results to language learners. Eighty-three registered students participated in this project. Malinowski's informative presentation was supplemented with a detailed bibliography.

Keeping us Honest - Finally, Pat Miller (CSU-Northridge) showed us a simple to use, inexpensive, but oh-so-useful application for institutions struggling to comply 508 accessibility requirements. LecShare can easily make your PowerPoint ADA compliant. To create a compliant presentation in either HTML or QuickTime movie formats, all you need to do in advance is to create your captions/script as notes in your PowerPoint. Then, narrating and formatting for the web become a breeze. Pat Miller has been working over the years to bring us the latest news in how to become and remain compliant. SWALLT thanks her sincerely for her efforts!

-Carol Reitan