Live blogging from CALICO: Instructional Use and Teacher Perspective Regarding Digital Audio and Video

Updated June 3 2007, post conference

(Kudos to the presenters who had to pare down a 45 minute presentation on their study to 20 minutes… on the fly!)

Greg Kessler (Ohio University) and Lia Plakans (University of Iowa)

Observations that inspired the study: a palpable concern with the shift from analog to digital, and a general lack of teacher comfort with this shift
Methods: 7 ESL teachers in 2 programs, 8-10 week period and a course that focused on Oral Skills, represented a range of teaching confidence and tech use:

Three types of users:

Less confident users:

their [lack of?] confidence with analog materials was transferred to digital environment…did not explore further than they had to…potential for creative use was untapped, and yet they were seemingly optimistic about future potential use

Contextually confident users:

There was a lack of integration of technology with pedagogy (tey stopped everything to use the tool), used as required, had generally low incidents of use and low variety of use.

Highly competent (Contextually confident)

Most reflective, cautious of their use of technology (not using tech for the sake of tech)
High Use and Varied Use of technology, and the most integrated.

Implications:

Teacher development and support:
-focus on the pedagogically driven use
-build contextual confidence
-need to raise awareness of extant capabilities (“I am not a tech expert…I should not be messing with this” … the realization that their skills ARE transferrable..this awareness needs to be raised )
-need to provide more time and practice oportuntiies
-need to establish communities of practice (blogger’s editorial comment: YAY!)

Q&A session:
Questions and comments centered on getting IT professionals to help and support the efforts of teachers/ the role of the technologist as the buffer between IT and teachers/ the “buffer” person needs to help the teacher maintain confidence in front of students… would have been interesting to factor the reliability of the tools into the study as well (would they avoid tools or technology because of reliability issues? etc)

Greg and Lia’s PPT presentation can be seen here:

http://gregling.net/calico2007a.ppt