Conference Contribution Details
Mandatory Fields
L. Murray, M. Giralt, S. Benini
EuroCALL2019
Introducing Post-Connectivism as an approach to the challenges of digital convergence and complexity within CALL
Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
Conference Organising Committee Chairperson
2019
()
1
Optional Fields
28-AUG-19
31-AUG-19
Title: Introducing Post-Connectivism as an approach to the challenges of digital convergence and complexity. Keywords: Post-connectivism, digital convergence, complexity, agentive CALL, managed learning. After many long years of advocating for the integration of CALL into Higher Education and proselytising our neo-Luddite colleagues along the way, the CALL community now faces the almost counter-intuitive challenge of the near-ubiquitous and heavy use of mobile technology in our education systems and indeed, in our social lives. The challenge (and responsibility) we face is one of advocating for the critical and agentive use of apps and mobile technology within our current technology-enhanced pedagogical practices (Authors, in review). {Abrahamson, 2015 #3398} The forces of technology may well be reinventing learning (Abrahamson, 2015) and {Abrahamson, 2015 #3398}{Abrahamson, 2015 #3398}what it means to be human. Yet, technology in the form of Social Media (SM) and the language/s used therein are reinventing how humans interact with and learn from one another (Authors, 2018). They are producing their own “ecological complexity” (Chambers & Bax, 2006, p. 477) within CALL. We need to focus on the many unanswered questions about these heterogeneous and polymorphous correlations between SM and language learning (Thorne, 2018). Such a focus will need to cover interdisciplinary areas such as Second Language Acquisition, critical digital literacies, mental health, attention, brain reward systems and social connection/dis-connection. CALL is inherently interdisciplinary and may therefore encompass these areas. The ultimate and necessary aim is to design, test and propose a new ground-breaking approach, leading perhaps to a defined theory for commonplace language learning in the digital age, one that we would call, Post-connectivism. Various forms of CALL have, in many contexts, become normalised (Bax, 2003). However, the challenge remains one of maintaining sustainable CALL development (Blin, Jalkanen, & Taalas, 2016, p. 235) and “addressing the present and future needs of language learners and teachers”. We have closely followed Hubbard and Levy’s (2016, p. 36) directions on CALL theory ensembles and also strongly believe that: “theory can play a role in illuminating teachers’ and learners’ experiences and in pointing the way towards more promising tasks, applications and environments”. In stating that, this presentation explores these aforementioned challenges and responsibilities by extending these tasks, evaluating these apps and proposing a more critical and agentive CALL approach. This may well not only constitute a {Abrahamson, 2015 #3398}new classroom management skill and practice but also one that encompasses a mobile and ‘just in [every] time’ approach to managing one’s learning and teaching in the digital age. Abrahamson, D. (2015). Reinventing learning: A design-research odyssey. ZDM, 47(6), 1013-1026. Bax, S. (2003). CALL - past, present and future. System, 31 13-28. Blin, F., Jalkanen, J., & Taalas, P. (2016). Sustainable CALL development. The Routledge Handbook of Language Learning and Technology, London and New York: Routledge, 223-238. Chambers, A., & Bax, S. (2006). Making CALL work: Towards normalisation. System, 34(4), 465-479. Levy, M., & Hubbard, P. (2016). Theory in computer-assisted language learning research and practice. In The Routledge handbook of language learning and technology (pp. 50-64): Routledge. Authors (2018). Just how much of social media is enough? RTÉ Brainstorm. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10344/6897 Thorne, S. (2018) In e-mail conversations with the authors on this topic.
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