Keynote Speakers, Abstracts and Presentations IWoDA'22

Digital Pedagogy: Reflecting Back and Looking Forward

In 2008, I completed my last piece of commissioned work for the now defunct Becta, the UK Government agency for promoting and integrating ICT in education. I had been asked to identify models of learning online through a series of case studies in school contexts (Lewin et al., 2008). This work complemented policy-making that related to preparing for a pandemic as well as addressing other challenges in the education system at the time such as a shortage of specialist teachers. With a change of government in 2010, my report and the policy document were archived and no longer considered to be of interest. I continued to research teachers’ development of digital pedagogy and its impact on learning outcomes but primarily through classroom use.

In spring 2020, and with no concrete plans in place, educators across the world had to rapidly develop their digital skills and adopt online pedagogies as the global pivot to remote education took place. This was referred to as emergency remote teaching and pandemic pedagogy (Barbour et al., 2020) rather than online learning because of the situation and the (initial) ad-hoc nature of the emergency response. Equally, educators’ priorities in the early months of the pandemic shifted from learning outcomes to keeping students motivated, maintaining social interaction and ensuring that workloads were manageable for both students and educators alike (as well as parents of younger children).

Educational policy makers and institutions faced many challenges including digital divide issues and a lack of digital skills (both educators and students). Technological solutions, digital pedagogies and practices for remote learning were rapidly refined over time. Educators became more reliant on existing and new networks, using tools such as social media to share their experiences and seek new ideas. Such uses of social media enable educators to draw on formal and informal learning attributes enabling professional learning to take place across boundaries such as time and place. As life returns to near normal in many countries, we need to consider what will become of digital pedagogy in the future. I will reflect on my research undertaken before and during the pandemic in relation to online learning and teachers’ development of digital pedagogies (eg. Cranmer & Lewin, 2018; Greenhow et al., 2021). I will conclude with some reflections on what the future may hold for the uptake and development of digital pedagogies.

References

Barbour, M. K., LaBonte, R., Kelly, K., Hodges, C. B., Moore, S., Lockee, B. B., Trust, T., Bond, A.,  Hill, P. (2020). Understanding pandemic pedagogy: Differences between emergency remote, remote, and online teaching. Canadian eLearning Network. https://k12sotn.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/understanding-pandemic-pedagogy.pdf

Cranmer, S., Lewin, C. (2017). iTEC: conceptualising, realising and recognising pedagogical and technological innovation in European classrooms. Technology, Pedagogy and Education, 26 (4), 409-423.

Greenhow, C., Lewin, C., Staudt Willet, K.B. (2021). The Educational Response to COVID-19 Across Two Countries: A Critical Examination of Initial Digital Pedagogy Adoption. Technology, Pedagogy and Education, 30 (1), 7-25. https://10.1080/1475939X.2020.1866654

Lewin, C., Whitton, N., Cummings, J., Roberts, B., Saxon, D., Somekh, B.,Lockwood, B. (2008). MILO: Models of innovative learning online at KS3 and 14-19 Final Report. Becta. http://dera.ioe.ac.uk/1464/1/becta_2008_modelsinlearningonline_report.pdf

Professor Cathy Lewin has over 25 years’ experience of evaluating the use of digital technologies to support teaching and learning in school classrooms. She has been involved in large-scale projects involving significant numbers of schools such as Impact2, ICT Test Bed and the European Commission-funded iTEC project. Her research interests include teachers’ development and application of digital pedagogies, formal and informal learning through technology, and the impact of technology on learning outcomes. She has substantial experience of mixed methodology evaluations and draws primarily on socio-cultural theories, including figured worlds and activity theory.

Further information: https://www.mmu.ac.uk/stepd/staff/profile/index.php?id=1194

La lengua inglesa como competencia digital: formación y usuarios

El aumento de la demanda de especialistas en ingeniería por parte de la industria y, en general, de puestos de trabajo STEM en Europa y en todo el mundo, requiere un perfil de competencias más diverso que comprenda tanto las habilidades duras como las competencias transversales básicas, como las habilidades digitales, y las habilidades blandas. En la actualidad, el reciente impulso hacia la transformación digital que la sociedad requiere ha aumentado el número de marcos y listas de competencias blandas. Otra característica de estas competencias es que deben adquirirse de forma activa, lo que se ha convertido en un reto que ha dado lugar a múltiples enfoques pedagógicos.

Los diferentes marcos incluyen las “funciones básicas de la alfabetización”, definidas por diferentes autores como los usos de la lectura, el cálculo y las habilidades de las TIC en el funcionamiento diario.

El inglés se está convirtiendo de facto en la primera lengua extranjera y es la más enseñada, tanto en Europa como en el mundo, y juega un papel fundamental en la vida cotidiana, pero específicamente en las comunidades STEM, en el ámbito técnico y de investigación.  Sin embargo, según los datos clave de la EACEA/Eurydice sobre la enseñanza de idiomas en la escuela en Europa, los resultados del aprendizaje de lenguas extranjeras en Europa son pobres y sólo cuatro de cada diez alumnos alcanzan el nivel de “usuario independiente” en la primera lengua extranjera, lo que indica la capacidad de mantener una conversación sencilla.

Los MOOCs apoyan la idea de la inteligencia distribuida y el LLL, el aprendizaje abierto, los recursos educativos abiertos y representan una nueva generación de educación en línea que fomenta el desarrollo y la impartición de cursos que son masivos, abiertos y participativos. Esta presentación servirá para revisar diferentes iniciativas de educación digital de inglés como segunda lengua a través de MOOCs, el diseño de sus contenidos y los perfiles de los usuarios de estos cursos.

Edmundo Tovar, obtuvo el título de ingeniero informático y el doctorado en informática por la Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), Madrid, España, en 1986 y 1994, respectivamente. Actualmente trabaja en la UPM como profesor de informática en la empresa. Ha sido miembro electo de la Junta Directiva del OpenCourseWare Consortium (2009-2013), Director Ejecutivo de la Oficina OCW de la UPM (2008-2012) y Director Ejecutivo de la Oficina de Educación Abierta de la UPM (2013-2016).

Actualmente es Presidente de la Sociedad de Educación del IEEE (2021-2022). Dirige el Grupo de Investigación REFERENT de la UPM en tecnologías aplicadas a la Educación Abierta.

English Language as a Digital Literacy Skill: Training and Users

Increased demands from industry on specialists in engineering and in general on STEM jobs in Europe and all over the world need a more diverse skills profile comprising both hard skills, core transversal competences like digital skills and soft skills. At present, the recent push towards digital transformation that society now requires has increased the number of frameworks and lists of soft skills. Another characteristic of these skills is that they need to be acquired in an active way, which has become a challenge that has given rise to multiple pedagogical approaches.

Different frameworks include “Core literacy functions” defined as the capacity by different authors as uses of reading, numeracy  and ICT  skills in the daily operation.

English is becoming de facto the first foreign language and is the most taught foreign language, both in Europe and globally, and plays a key role in daily life, but specifically in STEM communities, in the technical and research field.  However, according to the EACEA/Eurydice’s Key Data on Teaching Languages at School in Europe the outcome of foreign language learning in Europe is poor and only four in ten pupils reach the ‘independent user’ level in the first foreign language, indicating an ability to have a simple conversation.

MOOCs support the idea of distributed intelligence and LLL, open learning, open educational resources and represent a new generation of online education that encourages the development and delivery of courses that are massive, open, and participatory. This presentation will serve to review different initiatives of digital education of English as a second Language through MOOCs, the design of their contents, and the profiles of the users for these courses.

Edmundo Tovar, received the computer engineering degree and Ph.D. degree in informatics from the Madrid Technical University (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, UPM), Madrid, Spain, in 1986 and 1994, respectively. He is currently with the UPM as a Professor of information technology in enterprise. He has served as an elected member of the Board of Directors of the OpenCourseWare Consortium (2009–2013), Executive Director of the OCW Office of the UPM (2008–2012), and Executive Director of the Open Education Office at UPM (2013-2016).

He is currently President of IEEE Education Society (2021-2022). He leads the UPM Research Group REFERENT in technologies applied to Open Education.

Game-based Learning versus Gamification in Education

Video games have become one of the predominant forms of entertainment in our society, but they have also impacted many other of its social and cultural aspects. The new forms of interaction and communication in online multiplayer games, the millions of viewers of professional e-sports competitions, the huge following of gaming streamers through channels such as Twitch, and the communities of players that are formed around a specific title are just some examples of the impact of games in everyday life today.

Serious games try more and more to explore this impact of games and the inherent motivation and immersion of players to help them accomplish other objectives, be they related to education, marketing, social awareness, health and care, etc. Education is an area with more (successful) examples of the utilization of serious games (therefore leading to the game-based learning term, which focuses on the development of games that are designed with specific learning objectives in mind). Educational contexts can also benefit from the use of game mechanics and principles through gamification processes to reinforce the motivation of learners.

The aim of this talk is to present and discuss new advances in games and gamification to show how they could enhance the effectiveness and outreach of education. We specifically will differentiate the two different approaches as they are commonly (and wrongfully) considered as identical.

Carlos Vaz de Carvalho is currently Professor at the Computer Eng. Dep. of the Engineering School of the Porto Polytechnic (ISEP) and also Director of Virtual Campus Lda, an SME dedicated to Technology Enhanced Learning and Serious Games.

I started my research career in 1988 at INESC in the Computer Graphics Group. In 1996, I focused in Technology Enhanced Learning while doing my PhD at the University of Minho. From 2005 to 2014, I was Scientific Coordinator of GILT R&D (Games, Interaction and Learning Technologies). I’ve directed eight PhD and 50 MSc theses and authored over 250 publications and communications, including more than ten books (as author and editor). I coordinated 16 national and European projects and participated in more than 40 other projects. I worked as an expert for the European Commission and associated agencies in the scope of the Socrates-ODL, Minerva, E-Learning, E-Contents Plus, Lifelong Learning, Erasmus+, Horizon Europe and Eurostars programmes.

On the management side, I directed the Distance Education Unit of the Porto Polytechnic from 1997 until 2000. From 2001 until 2005 I was E-Learning Director of ISEP and served as Dean of the Computer Eng. Dep. between 2003 and 2005. Between 2011 and 2013 I was President of the Portuguese Chapter of the IEEE Education Society.

El aprendizaje basado en juegos versus la gamificación en educación

Los videojuegos se han convertido en una de las formas de entretenimiento predominantes en nuestra sociedad, pero también han tenido un impacto sobre muchos otros de sus aspectos sociales y culturales. Las nuevas formas de interacción y comunicación en los juegos multijugador en línea, los millones de espectadores de las competiciones profesionales de deportes electrónicos, el enorme seguimiento de los streamers de juegos a través de canales como Twitch, y las comunidades de jugadores que se forman en torno a un título específico son sólo algunos ejemplos del impacto de los juegos en la vida cotidiana actual.

Cada vez más, los juegos serios intentan explorar este impacto de los juegos y la motivación inherente e inmersión de los jugadores para ayudarles a alcanzar otros objetivos, ya sean relacionados con la educación, el marketing, la concienciación social, la salud y el cuidado, etc. La educación es un área con más ejemplos (exitosos) de utilización de juegos serios (de ahí el término de aprendizaje basado en juegos, que se centra en el desarrollo de juegos diseñados con objetivos específicos de aprendizaje). Los contextos educativos también pueden beneficiarse del uso de la mecánica y los principios de los juegos a través de procesos de gamificación para reforzar la motivación de los alumnos.

El objetivo de esta charla es presentar y debatir los nuevos avances en juegos y gamificación para mostrar cómo podrían mejorar la eficacia y el alcance de la educación. En concreto, diferenciaremos ambos enfoques, ya que comúnmente (y erróneamente) se consideran idénticos.

Carlos Vaz de Carvalho es actualmente Profesor en el Ing. Dep. de Informática de la Escuela de Ingeniería del Politécnico de Oporto (ISEP) y también Director del Campus Virtual Lda, una pyme dedicada al Aprendizaje Mejorado por la Tecnología y los Serious Games.

Comencé mi carrera investigadora en 1988 en el INESC en el Grupo de Infografía. En 1996, me centré en el aprendizaje mejorado por la tecnología mientras hacía mi doctorado en la Universidad de Minho. De 2005 a 2014, fui Coordinador Científico de GILT R&D (Juegos, Interacción y Tecnologías de Aprendizaje). He dirigido ocho tesis doctorales y 50 de trabajos de fin de máster y he sido autor de más de 250 publicaciones y comunicaciones, incluidos más de diez libros (como autor y editor). Coordiné 16 proyectos nacionales y europeos y participé en más de 40 proyectos más. Trabajé como experto para la Comisión Europea y agencias asociadas en el ámbito de los programas Sócrates-ODL, Minerva, E-Learning, E-Contents Plus, Lifelong Learning, Erasmus+, Horizonte Europa y Eurostars.

En el aspecto de la gestión, dirigí la Unidad de Educación a Distancia del Politécnico de Oporto desde 1997 hasta 2000. Desde 2001 hasta 2005 fui Director de E-Learning de ISEP y me desempeñé como Decano del Ing. Dep. de Computación entre 2003 y 2005. Entre 2011 y 2013 fui Presidente del Capítulo Portugués de la IEEE Education Society.

The Challenges and Promises of Researching Gameful Language Teaching and Learning

Researching gameful language teaching and learning (L2TL) is challenging for a number of reasons, including societal and academic skepticism towards gaming as a legitimate field of study, an eclectic array of available theoretical framing, a lack of available models and guidance, and the absence of a single disciplinary home. Approaching the practice from fields as varied as CALL, applied linguistics, education, games studies, computer science, and game design, would-be researchers bring a variety of theories, methods, conceptualizations, and expectations about what is research-worthy, why it should be studied, and what its purpose is — for example, to make language learning more effective, to inform our understandings of learning, to improve pedagogy, or even just to build a commercially viable language learning game.

Research has included classroom interventions using commercial games (Shintaku, 2016), qualitative case studies of informal practices (Vazquez-Calvo, 2020), descriptive analyses of multiplayer L2 gameplay (Scholz, 2016), corpus analysis of game mechanics to extrapolate learning affordances (Dixon, 2021), examination of the potential of games as resources for the exploration of sexuality and identity (Blume, 2021), and design-informed studies on the development and implementation of educational AR games (Perry, 2021). As difficult as it may be to apprehend this eclectic diversity, it should not be thought of as a liability, but rather an asset that reflects the potential of gameful L2TL to disrupt and refresh current practices in language learning research and teaching more broadly. While it may seem divergent and disunified, research is doing the epistemological groundwork that builds scholarly legitimacy. As much as teachers need examples of clear and practical applications of gameful L2 teaching, we need also to support research in the field and promote it for the promise of its implications.

References

Blume, C. (2021). Inclusive digital games in the transcultural communicative classroom. ELT Journal, 75(2). https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/ccaa084 

Dixon, D. (2021). The Linguistic Environments of Digital Games: A Discriminant Analysis of Language Use in Game Mechanics. CALICO Journal, 39(2). https://doi.org/10.1558/cj.20860    

Perry, B. (2021). Gamified Mobile Collaborative Location-Based Language Learning. Frontiers in Education. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2021.689599   

Scholz, K. (2016). Encouraging Free Play: Extramural Digital Game-Based Language Learning as a Complex Adaptive System. CALICO Journal, 34(1), 39–57. https://doi.org/10.1558/cj.29527

Shintaku, K. (2016). The interplay of game design and pedagogical mediation in game-mediated Japanese learning. International Journal of Computer-Assisted Language Learning and Teaching, 6(4), 36-55. https://doi.org/10.4018/IJCALLT.2016100103

Vazquez-Calvo, B. (2020). Guerrilla fan translation, language learning, and metalinguistic discussion in a Catalan-speaking community of gamers. ReCALL FirstView, 1(18). https://doi.org/10.1017/S095834402000021X

Jonathon Reinhardt is Professor of English Applied Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition and Teaching at the University of Arizona. He is a past president of CALICO (Computer-Assisted Language Instruction Consortium). His research interests include social media and language learning, gameful language learning, and other CALL-related topics. He is the author or co-author of tens of top-tier articles and chapters. In 2019 he published the monograph Gameful Second and Foreign Language Teaching and Learning: Theory, Research, and Practice with Palgrave MacMillan.

.

Retos y promesas de la investigación sobre la enseñanza y el aprendizaje de idiomas mediante juegos

La investigación acerca de la enseñanza y el aprendizaje de idiomas mediante juegos es un reto por una serie de razones, incluyendo el escepticismo social y académico hacia la legitimidad del juego como campo de estudio, el conjunto ecléctico de marcos teóricos disponibles, la falta de modelos y orientación disponibles, y la ausencia de un único hogar disciplinario. Quienes desean investigar sobre la enseñanza y el aprendizaje de idiomas mediante juegos se acercan a la práctica desde campos tan variados como el CALL, la lingüística aplicada, la educación, los estudios sobre juegos, la informática y el diseño de juegos, y aportan una gran variedad de teorías, métodos, conceptualizaciones y expectativas sobre qué merece la pena investigar, por qué debería estudiarse y cuál es su propósito: por ejemplo, hacer más eficaz el aprendizaje de idiomas, sustentar nuestra comprensión del aprendizaje, mejorar la pedagogía o incluso simplemente crear un juego de aprendizaje de idiomas comercialmente viable.

La investigación ha incluido intervenciones en el aula utilizando juegos comerciales (Shintaku, 2016), estudios cualitativos de prácticas informales (Vázquez-Calvo, 2020), análisis descriptivos de juegos multijugador de L2 (Scholz, 2016), análisis de corpus de mecánicas de juego para extrapolar las posibilidades de aprendizaje (Dixon, 2021), examen del potencial de los juegos como recurso para la exploración de la sexualidad y la identidad (Blume, 2021), y estudios informados por el diseño sobre el desarrollo y la implementación de juegos educativos de realidad aumentada (Perry, 2021). A pesar de lo difícil que puede ser aprehender esta diversidad, ésta no debería considerarse como una desventaja, sino más bien como una ventaja que refleja el potencial de la enseñanza y el aprendizaje de idiomas mediante juegos lúdico para alterar y refrescar las prácticas actuales en la investigación sobre el aprendizaje de idiomas en general y en la enseñanza en general. Aunque pueda parecer divergente y dispersa, la investigación está haciendo el trabajo de base epistemológico que fundamenta la legitimidad académica. Por mucho que los profesores necesiten ejemplos de aplicaciones claras y prácticas de la enseñanza lúdica de L2, también debemos apoyar la investigación en este campo y promoverla por la promesa de sus implicaciones.

Referencias

Blume, C. (2021). Inclusive digital games in the transcultural communicative classroom. ELT Journal, 75(2). https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/ccaa084

Dixon, D. (2021). The Linguistic Environments of Digital Games: A Discriminant Analysis of Language Use in Game Mechanics. CALICO Journal, 39(2). https://doi.org/10.1558/cj.20860

Perry, B. (2021). Gamified Mobile Collaborative Location-Based Language Learning. Frontiers in Education. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2021.689599

Scholz, K. (2016). Encouraging Free Play: Extramural Digital Game-Based Language Learning as a Complex Adaptive System. CALICO Journal, 34(1), 39–57. https://doi.org/10.1558/cj.29527

Shintaku, K. (2016). The interplay of game design and pedagogical mediation in game-mediated Japanese learning. International Journal of Computer-Assisted Language Learning and Teaching, 6(4), 36-55. https://doi.org/10.4018/IJCALLT.2016100103

Vazquez-Calvo, B. (2020). Guerrilla fan translation, language learning, and metalinguistic discussion in a Catalan-speaking community of gamers. ReCALL FirstView, 1(18). https://doi.org/10.1017/S095834402000021X

Jonathon Reinhardt es catedrático de Lingüística Aplicada en Inglés y Adquisición y Enseñanza de L2 en la Universidad de Arizona. Fue presidente de CALICO (Computer-Assisted Language Instruction Consortium). Sus intereses de investigación incluyen las redes sociales y el aprendizaje de idiomas, el aprendizaje de idiomas y otros temas relacionados con CALL. Es autor o coautor de decenas de artículos y capítulos de primer nivel. En 2019 publicó la monografía “Gameful Second and Foreign Language Teaching and Learning: Theory, Research, and Practice”, con Palgrave MacMillan.