Feedback – a powerful issue
Feedback in various forms is one theme that’s been recurring during the conference: Many speakers have brought up their successful results from “what computers are best at”: I’d particularly like to mention a few: Rebecca Hincks (G3, Tue) presented the results of her research on digitalized prosodic analysis which helps improve engineering students in speech. Also, Breffni O’Rourke (G6, Tue) talked about his use of an eyetracking tool, which adds a whole new dimension to analyzing output logs of text-based synchronous CMC, when also being able to track the learner’s patterns on the screen. If you can actually see what the learner sees, we might be a step closer to knowing what the learner thinks...?
posted by Linda Bradley at 9:53 am
5 Comments:
I really enjoyed O'Rourke's presentation, and completely agree with him that we need more than output logs if we are to be able to understand online interaction more fully. The way he employed the tool to be able to analyze where attention was focused reminded me of the use of keystroke logging to also get an idea of the cognitive processes behind the action.
Feedback seemed to go out of fashion for a while, but it appears to be making a comeback. Paul Bangs, who is attending this conference, often writes about feedback. See, for example, his chapter in Uschi Felix’s book:
Bangs P. (2003) "Engaging the learner - how to author for best feedback". In Felix U. (ed.) Language learning online: towards best practice, Lisse: Swets & Zeitlinger.
Section 8 of Paul’s module on authoring (No. 2.5) at the ICT for Language Teachers website is entitled “How to factor feedback in your authoring”. Here is the URL:
http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_mod2-5.htm
One of the most important points that Paul makes is the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic feedback, which features in the following publication by Diana Laurillard:
Laurillard D. (1993a) Program design principles, Hull: TELL Consortium, CTI Centre for Modern Languages, University of Hull. This document is incorporated as Annex 1: Program design principles into Laurillard D. (1996) Formative evaluation report, Hull: The TELL Consortium, University of Hull. The whole document is available as a downloadable file from: http://www.hull.ac.uk/cti/tell/eval.htm
As for tracking, this also went out of fashion for a while, but maybe it’s coming back in again. It was one of the topics that featured in Nina Garrett’s keynote on at EUROCALL 1997 in Dublin. See:
Garrett N. (1998) "Where do research and practice meet? Developing a discipline", ReCALL 10, 1: 7-12. Available at
http://www.eurocall-languages.org/recall/pdf/rvol10no1.pdf
She writes: “We must go further. By tracking what students do in the whole range of language learning environments and materials, traditional and new, we can leap out in front of current practice to do what I spoke of earlier – take charge of the ways in which technologyyh shapes language education.”
Wise words, eh? And just as relevant today as they were nearly ten years ago.
BTW, I'm only here "virtually" - which is why I can find the time to comment on all these blogs and chase up references.
I´ve been seeing comments about tracking of various sorts for many years, but rarely does anyone mention the ethical dimensions of this. Is it not an invasion of privacy to "unobtrusively" monitor what is being done by learners? Indeed, I would say it is tantamount to a breach of human rights. Is this not an area to be considered more thoroughly?
You're dead right Lesley! You SHOULD get students' permission, but then that can negate the data you collect. When students know that they are being tracked they behave differently. As you say, tracking may be considered unethical, and in some countries it's illegal.
However, tracking is constantly done these days on the Internet. There are numerous sites, many of them run by respectable companies, that track your browsing habits. If you make an Internet purchase or download free software, for example, you may pay a price in the form of the tracking information that the supplier of the goods or software collects about you. This is why I run a program called Window Washer each time I boot up. It removes stored tracking links and cookies that build up each time you browse. I use this in combination with SpyBOT Search and Destroy, which searches for and destroys adware and spyware on your computer.
My online bank no longer asks me to key in my password as they found that tracking software can monitor customer's keystrokes. Now a pull-down menu asks me to select letters at random from my password. A lot of sites do this now. It makes tracking much more difficult - though not impossible.
See my "bugs" page for further information about these programs and adware, spyware, etc:
http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/bugs.htm
I think it's interesting that we consider doing things in a CALL environment that we would never imagine in other forms of teaching: not to be incendiary, but why do we need to track/monitor/etc. CALL activities any more or less than other teaching activities? We have never worried about how much time students spend doing their (written) homework as an index of its instructional effectiveness... Having said this I can of course see the benefit of having a sense of what students are doing, but is this for us or for their learning? Is it the ooh-look-what-the-technology-does-i'm-going-to-use-it sort of mentality that we have heard about a lot during the conference?
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