Graham Davies

It seems that MyDoom's onslaught is getting worse today, 30 Jan 2004. One of my ISPs, CompuServe, has been locked up all day so that I cannot collect emails. Prepare yourselves for worse to come next week when MyDoom tries to effect a denial of service attack on SCO and Microsoft!

Plagiarism and Copyright Issues The ICT4LT site has a section on Plagiarism in one of its modules (Module 4.1, Section 7): http://www.ict4lt.org. A relevant extract follows. We have also set up a page of guidelines regarding Copyright at the ICT4LT site: http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_copyright.htm Having been an external examiner for a number of different universities over the past 10 years, I am acutely aware of the growing problem of plagiarism among students – and among staff members too! As a partner in a publishing business and as a webmaster responsible for two websites, I am also acutely aware of the need to be on one’s guard against breaches of copyright. Just because something is publicly visible on the Web it does not imply that it is copyright-free. The standard legislation regarding copyright and conventions of bibliographical referencing apply to materials gleaned from the Web in just the same way as they do to materials gleaned from books and other sources. Here is the relevant extract from ICT4LT Module 4.1, Section 7:

I have a confession too: Goldsmiths' 1964-65 (German and French PGCE), and now a free-lance ICT trainer. I agree with David. The National Curriculum is far too prescriptive and dreadfully jargon-ridden. As a former teacher of German and French who grew up in the tradition of thinking for myself, I am appalled by the MFL National Curriculum. It's largely superfluous anyway. The Council of Europe has done years of groundwork on designing the Common European Framework for Languages, which is used as a yardstick by many European countries. But what do we do in the UK? We do our own thing: Fog in the Channel. Continent Cut Off! See my article at: http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/ictmfl.htm "Information and Communications Technology and Modern Foreign Languages in the National Curriculum: some personal views"

Would that someone would find a way to reproduce cabbages for free! Mind you, current developments in battery farming and fish farming seem to be moving in that direction – and not necessarily to the benefit of the consumer. God knows what we are ingesting these days – I have a hospital appointment next week to investigate why, after nearly 60 years of eating fish with no ill effects, I now break out in a rash every time I eat any kind of fish product. Is there an analogy here with the regular computer virus invasions that we experience? MyDoom has tried to break into my system around 20 times in the past couple of days. Yes, distributing software via the Web is a very low-cost operation relative to the number of copies distributed. Even distributing on CD-ROM or floppy disk is pretty cheap. As Martin says, it’s the technical support service that has a price tag – bearing in mind too that development costs have to be covered too – and teachers do appreciate good and sympathetic technical support. As a business owner, I have not yet noticed a major fall in sales of software that we retail, in spite of all the free stuff that is around. Besides appreciating technical support following the purchase, we find that teachers are very discerning and demanding customers before they decide to buy: they want lots of information about a product, a demo, screenshots, printouts of contents, etc. Interestingly, most teachers contact us by telephone for this kind of information rather than by email. Teachers - especially language teachers - like to chat!

MyDoom has tried to invade my system at least 20 times during the last two days -or rather at least 20 times that I am aware of as various external filters are also in operation before my system's defences kick in. I became acutely aware of Internet security a few years ago when my system was hit by a succession of invasions exploiting the MS "hole". I then began to set up a Web page offering advice to others based on my personal experiences and actions that I have taken to render my system safe. See: http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/bugs.htm "Computer viruses: a cautionary tale"

It is probably worth adding that all material published on the Web is subject to copyright unless there is an explicit statement indicating that it is in the public domain or, for example, may be used exclusively in an educational context. At the ICT4LT site, which I maintain, we have a page of guidelines and links regarding copyright: http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_copyright.htm A new profession has emerged: the copyright bounty hunter. Bounty hunters trawl the Web looking for infringements of copyright which they can report to the copyright owners or their legal representatives for an agreed fee. Watch out!

The answer for me is simple: "Blend!" Actually, the term "blended learning" irritates me. It's just a new addition to the plethora of new terms with which we are constantly confronted that seek to dress up an old idea in new clothing. In Modern Languages we have always made use of so-called blended learning, drawing on a variety of resources: human, audio technology, video technology, overhead projector slides, books, blackboards etc. ICT is just another tool in the teacher's armoury. I have been working in ICT since 1976 and it has long since ceased to be exciting for me. E-learning has a few useful features that I can take or leave. Furthermore, concrete evidence regarding the impact of ICT in education is difficult to obtain, although a report on a research study conducted by BECTA, ImpaCT2, has produced some significant data: http://www.becta.org.uk/research/impact2 The ImpaCT2 study seems to indicate that schools using ICT in the classroom get better results than those that do not, and there is a correlation between the use of ICT and good examination results in some subject areas, but it depends how you read the data and there is a huge cost factor to be taken nto account. Case still not proven. Angela McFarlane, Professor of Education and Director of Learning Technology, Graduate School of Education, University of Bristol, writes: Times Educational Supplement, ICT in Education Online, 26 April 2002, p. 17.

Yes, and thanks for starting it, Marco. The problem is that human language is not at all clear-cut. As has been indicated elsewhere in the forum in a reference to understanding language on the telephone, we are constantly engaged in information gap processing, which is a very subtle process - and often unreliable, which is why people sometimes talk at cross purposes. Although a good deal of work is going on in the area of Human Language Technologies, we are a long way from developing software that "understands" natural language: see Module 3.5 at the ICT4LT website: http://www.ict4lt.org (Human Language Technologies). I recall a letter being written to a national daily newspaper in the UK, in which the correspondent accused the paper of being racist for referring to a "black cab driver" who had been involved in a crime. The correspondent raised the question of the relevance of the colour of the man's skin. What the correspondent had failed to see, however, was that "black" referred to the cab, not the man! "Black cabs" are the traditional London black taxis. A hyphen would have clarified the meaning, i.e. "black-cab", and in speech the way the phrase is stressed would have sorted it out. This is why we are a long way from developing fully automatic machine translation systems - also dealt with in Module 3.5 at the ICT4LT website. Automatic parsers - which are essential for determining what the source language means before it can be translated - are not bad but they are not 100% reliable. This is why automatic translation systems are moving more and more towards a memory-bank-based approach rather than a parser-based approach.

Filters are probably essential in schools to prevent children accessing sites containing offensive material, but some of the filters are pretty stupid. For example, when running a workshop in a Birmingham school I could not access google.co.uk as it was filtered out - presumably to stop kids/teachers(?) searching for porn - but google.com worked! There is also the story of caving clubs in schools being unable to access pictures of stalactites and stalagmites because of filters that look for certain shapes and flesh-coloured tones! I have had several bad experiences in running workshops in schools which had installed such sensitive filters that one site in three was inaccessible. This makes a nonsense of the WWW as an information resource. To repeat what I wrote elsewhere:

I have a substantial list of annotated links (300+) for Modern Foreign Languages at: http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/websites.htm There are 1000+ links scattered around the ICT4LT website (Information and Communications Technology for Language Teachers): http://www.ict4lt.org The ICT4LT site includes a module (No. 3.3) on Creating a WWW Site and there is a Glossary of Terminology relating to ICT in general and to Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL), as well as a Resources Centre. The ICT4LT site includes several references to Action Mazes and to the Quandary and Hot Potatoes programs - both of which are useful tools in CALL: see especially Module 2.5 on Authoring Programs. Martin Holmes and Stewart Arneil have demonstrated these tools at EUROCALL conferences (http://www.eurocall-languages.org) and I have been privileged to visit their university (University of Victoria, Canada) several times - I have relations living nearby on one of the smaller islands. Small world!

Just to add my bit regarding the Australian context. Australia has been very active in the area of Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL), going back to the early 1980s. Melbourne University hosted the first WorldCALL conference (1998) - the second took place in Banff (Canada) in May last year: http://www.worldcall.org Griffith University is the designated HQ of WorldCALL when it is finally set up as an official professional association later this year. Prominent people in CALL in Australia include: Uschi Felix & Sally Staddon (Monash University) Robert Debski & June Gassin (Melbourne University) Mike Levy (Griffith University) All have published extensively. There is an informal association ATELL (Association for Technology Enhanced Language Learning) and an online journal ON-CALL, now merged with CALL-EJ in Japan: http://www.cltr.uq.edu.au/oncall/home.html

I have been locked out from discussion lists several times by automatic filters accusing me of using "offensive language". I had my knuckles rapped for using the phrase "black bitch" - which actually appeared in the following context: "I love greyhounds. I have adopted three retired racing greyhounds over the last 20 years. I currently own a dog called Swifty, and my daughter has a dear little black bitch called Millie." You can view pictures of Swifty and Millie (racing names "Groovy Guzi" and "Mother Cluck"), together with their pedigrees, at http://www.greyhound-data.com/ On another occasion a colleague used the word "cocktail" in the context "a cocktail of different approaches to teaching" and was locked out from the same list. Finally, one member in exasperation blew the whole system apart by sending the following message to the list: "Ah, cocktails for two, followed by a bumper meal in Scunthorpe. Bottoms up!" Shortly afterwards the filter was removed.

This is not strictly true. Since 1982, my small family partnership of three (formerly four) people has made a modest income from selling educational software. We were doing very well until the eLC initiative (Curriculum Online) raised its ugly head, causing us to spend an inordinate amount of time dealing with the bureaucracy that it generated. Curriculum Online almost killed off several small companies. However, we are now coping with the bureaucrats quite well and trade has picked up. My view of Curriculum Online is that is was designed to generate income for techie consultants and keep civil servants employed. It's also a reflection of the pre-1989 East European control-freak thinking of the current bunch that we have in power. But what’s wrong with website subscription charges and paying for educational software? Our family business is frequently asked for free software by teachers. I have a standard reply: “Thank you for your request for free software. We are currently trying to negotiate a deal with Sainsbury’s whereby they supply us with free groceries. As soon as this deal is concluded we’ll supply you with free software.” As Martin says: We're certainly not seeking a tax haven, but I have a cunning plan: If the educational software market takes a turn for the worse I'm going to take up plumbing. The money is good: the basic call-out charge here in Berkshire is 45 pounds and 35 pounds per hour thereafter. And have you tried asking a plumber to do anything for free?

I guess that - for obvious reasons - we are a bit ahead of the game in setting international assessment standards in Modern Foreign Languages. See the Council of Europe's Common European Framework (CEF) for Languages and the DIALANG language testing websites: http://www.coe.int/T/E/Cultural_Co-operati...Language_Policy - also published in book format by CUP. http://www.dialang.org The CEF is an internationally recognised six-point scale of language proficiency that is used as a yardstick by numerous exam boards in Europe - rather belatedly in the UK, however, except by exam boards that offer exams in English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL). The CEF is based on extensive research going back to the 1970s. From my experience in teaching students from a wide range of different mother tongue backgrounds, the CEF yardstick is pretty accurate and tells me what to expect. If, for example, I know that a student has passed the Cambridge First Certificate examination in ESOL, which relates to the CEF B2 (Vantage) level, I expect the student to be pretty good, as the First Certificate is usually achieved after around 700 learning hours and tests the four discrete skills Reading, Writing, Listening and Speaking (plus Use of English) very thoroughly. Our National Curriculum for MFL and related exams have a lot of catching up to do in order to fall into line with the CEF, but there are hopes on the horizon: "Languages for all: languages for life - a strategy for England" http://www.dfes.gov.uk/languagesstrategy

Coming back to what I wrote earlier about e-learning and foreign language learning, blended learning is essential in subject areas that are both skill-based and knowledge-based. Skill-based subjects can only be taught efficiently in a face-to-face situation. I recently contributed to a report entitled "The Impact of Information and Communications Technologies on the Teaching of Foreign Languages and on the Role of Teachers of Foreign Languages". This is a comprehensive report commissioned by the EC Directorate General of Education and Culture, which can be downloaded in PDF or Word format from the ICC website: http://www.icc-europe.com - click on "Report on ICT in FLL". In the Executive Summary we wrote: "One important fact that has emerged from this study is that Foreign Languages as a subject area is 'different' from most other subject areas in the curriculum, namely that it is skill-based as well as knowledge-based, and in this respect it has more in common with Music than, say, History or Geography. This has implications both for the types of hardware and software that are used in FLT & FLL, but also for FLT pedagogy and methodology." The issue of e-learning and foreign languages has been thoroughly aired in EUROCALL conferences over the last 10 years (http://www.eurocall-languages.org) and in recent published works: Felix U. (2001) Beyond Babel: language learning online, Melbourne, Language Australia. Reviewed at: http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/felixreview.htm 2002: My article entitled "ICT and modern foreign languages: learning opportunities and training needs", published in Scottish Languages Review 8, June 2003, Scottish CILT: http://www.scilt.stir.ac.uk/SLR/index.htm Felix U. (2003) (ed.) Language learning online: towards best practice, Lisse: Swets & Zeitlinger. There is a substantial body of diagnostic language tests relating to the Council of Europe's six-point scale at http://www.dialang.org Significantly. the tests only cover three out of the four discrete skills: Reading, Writing, Listening. Speaking is conspicuously absent and Writing is restricted to basic gap-filling activities not essay-writing, for example.

Languages Online is produced by teachers at the RGS, High Wycombe. It's a useful site, consisting mainly of Hot Potatoes activities. I list it under Royal Grammar School in my personal list of Favourite Websites: http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/websites.htm It's one of many similar sites produced for MFL by school teachers.

Dear Colleagues Educational trips abroad has been the subject of many email exchanges in the Linguanet Forum: http://www.mailbase.org.uk/lists/linguanet-forum/ Search the archives at the above address under "trips abroad". It's a burning issue, surrounded by controversial legislation and guidelines regarding teachers' responsibilities, etc.

Just a very quick reply from my hotel in Austria, before I set off for a morning´s skiing: Some subjects, e.g. my own discipline (German language) cannot be taught fully online. As I am constantly reminded by my daily experiences here in Austria, face-to-face learning of a language is unquestionably the best way to acquire an acceptable level of language proficiency and to absorb knowledge of local culture, customs, etc. Online language learning can only be a supplement to the "real thing" - a useful add-on but not a substitute. Some years ago, when I was director of a university language centre that was very well equipped with ICT hardware and software, we conducted a survey among teachers and students to determine to what extent they would accept more ICT-based learning instead of face-to-face learning. Almost unanimously, they agreed that they would prefer more face-to-face contact with native speakers and less ICT. Blended learning is not a cop-out; it´s the only approach that makes sense. Do we really want to turn the next generation of kids into screen-gazing zombies?

Most interactive whiteboards are under-utilised and most teachers could do just as well with a laptop, a projector and a white screen or wall. With proper training, however, some teachers can work magic with interactive whiteboards. For further views see: REvIEW Project: Research and Evaluation of Interactive interactive whiteboards, University of Hull in collaboration with Promethean: http://www.thereviewproject.org Greenwhich LEA: A useful article entitled "Interactive whiteboards - a luxury too far?": http://www.g2fl.greenwich.gov.uk/temp/whiteboards This is my last message in this section for a two weeks. BETT 2004 tomorrow, 8 Jan; packing Fri 9 Jan; depart for skiing holiday in Austrian Tyrol Sat 10 Jan; back on Sun 25 Jan.

OK, Ian, we agree to differ, but we seem to agree that market forces play a role in many choices that we have to make. I could keep my German up to scratch (I am a former teacher of German) at virtually no expense by going online and conversing with German native speaker colleagues in Germany, Austria and Switzerland in a Virtual Learning Environment. But, foolishly and heedless of the cost and market forces, I am shelling out hard-earned money to leave this country for two weeks on Sat 10 Jan to practise my German in the Austrian Tyrol. This is solely to improve my German and has nothing to do with enjoying the local food, wine and beer and cruising gently on skis down the beautifully groomed pistes, stopping off for the occasional glass of Glühwein in a chalet set in gorgeous mountain scenery. This is therefore my last message for a while...

Of course! And, as I have argued in another part of this forum, the British Open University has an excellent track record in delivering distance learning, my wife Sally being a prime example of a "failed" school leaver who ended up with a good OU degree comprising elements of English Literature, Sociology, History and Philosophy. I am puzzled by the way in which some universities are setting up VLEs and what they aim to achieve. A group of German universities have set up a VLE for students of linguistics - students who are physically present at the universities in question, so I am not sure what real advantages such a VLE offers. Professor Dieter Wolff talked about the VLE in his EUROCALL 2003 keynote (http://www.eurocall-languages.org). If I remember correctly, Dieter indicated that many students liked the idea of being to access all the teaching materials in one place, but many said that they would prefer to be able to print out the materials rather than read them on screen. A substantial number, however, said that they preferred the spontaneity of debate that arose in a normal classroom and the ability to question their tutors on the spot. Dieter Wolff writes in his abstract: You can learn German via the Web. I am a former teacher of German and recently contributed to the BBC German Steps course at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/german/lj And, of course, you can converse via the Web with native speakers in other countries in synchronous mode using a variety of different audio and videoconferencing systems or in asynchronous mode using Wimba (http://www.wimba.com). But even the BBC could not come up with a solution to the problem of recording and playing back one's own voice in a Web environment - it's extremely useful to hear how one really sounds - so in German Steps we ended up inviting the learner to speak to the screen without the possibility of recording and playing back - which is a standard feature of most multimedia CD-ROMs for language learners, e.g. Eurotalk's "Talk Now" series and Auralog's "Talk to Me" and "Tell Me More" series. Nothing, however, can replace the experience of learning the language in the country where it is spoken, enjoying the local food, wine and beer, and chatting with the locals - and this is exactly what I am going to do as from Sat 10 Jan, when I set off for two weeks'skiing in the Austrian Tyrol. This is therefore my last message for a while...

No, I don't think it's misleading. It illustrates the way in which market forces tend to determine the way in which products thrive or fail. Most electronics experts agreed that the Betamax system was technically superior (i.e. "best" in this sense), and I remember buying a couple of Betamax systems for the university language centre of which I was director in the 1980s and 1990s. They were more compact and less prone to break down than the VHS systems that were around at the time. The problem was that more and more pre-recorded material (especially for language learners) began to be produced for VHS systems and less and less for Betamax systems, and my teachers therefore demanded that the Betamax systems should be phased out and replaced by VHS systems - which is what happened in the end. This is what I mean by "winning". It's rumoured that the large-scale production of "Bollywood" films for Indian diaspora and porn films in VHS format played a significant part in the demise of Betamax - but I don't have any concrete evidence to support this. As for Macs, yes, it was mainly due to the policy of Apple not to licence its systems to other manufacturers that caused PCs to come to the fore, but at the same time - certainly in the educational sector in the UK - less and less subject-specific software was being produced for Macs, i.e. a similar situation to the Betamax/VHS situation described above. As a language centre director, I was at odds with the technicians who loved Macs and the teachers who could not get enough CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning) software for them. In the end we centred on PCs. In the USA, however, Macs were the dominant machine in many (probably most) university language centres in the 1980s and 1990s and it was easy to obtain CALL software relating to the US schools curricula - I have seen a lot of excellent Mac CALL material demonstrated at conferences in the USA. Macs still hang on in US university language centres, but PCs are gradually edging them out.

I assumed it meant Virtual Learning Environment, such as Blackboard and WebCT -and I agree with Marco! VLEs in a school situation are a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Universities and larger businesses can probably afford to set them up and maintain them. What schools need are more websites that offer quality, downloadable resources that can be used in the classroom, e.g. on an interactive whiteboard or as interactive learning material in a computer lab. My subject area is MFL. Do we really want to set up whole university courses in VLEs? Do we really want to deprive young people of the valuable experience of leaving home, studying and socialising with their peers, joining societies, going to clubs and parties, travelling, and falling in love? Do we really want to breed a generation of screen-gazing zombies? And who is going to employ someone who has obtained an e-languages degree? Most employers expect a languages graduate to have had many hours of face-to-face contact with native speakers and, preferably, to have spent a substantial period of residence abroad. See David Noble's excellent series of articles: Noble D. (1997-2001) "Distance Education on the Web", a series of five articles: http://communication.ucsd.edu/dl Noble writes: (Part I of the above series)

This happens already, at least in HE and to some extent in schools that I have visited. Over the last 10 years I have worked as an external examiner for three different universities that offer masters degrees in CALL and TELL (Computer Assisted Language Learning and Technology Enhanced Language Learning). Essays submitted by students are always in word-processed format, and as part of their coursework students regularly produce PowerPoint presentations and CD-ROMs containing interactive multimedia learning materials created with the aid of authoring systems such as Macromedia Director. Students may also create a set of Web pages as part of their coursework. See the list of universities that offer specialised postgraduate courses in CALL and TELL: http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/courses.htm Some do, but they appear to use them mainly for playing games and ripping off MP3 music from the Web. There are also one or two nerds among them who who more interested in the technology itself rather than what it can do for them. Almost invariably they buy their computers from local discount stores such as PC World - which come pre-installed with a range of MS software packages and selected games, plus a colour printer and other accessories. I like the idea of acquiring cheap computers. I buy cheap computers for my business too. I recently bought an obsolete computer from a local international electronics company: 350 MHz, 6Mb hard disk, 128Mb of RAM, Win98 and MS Office 97 preinstalled. I slotted it into our LAN as an extra workstation for routine business tasks and for accessing email and the Web via our shared broadband modem. It works fine: a snip at 40 quid! The company get rids of such machines every few months. It's worth asking around. Too many schools are acquiring hardware (at vast expense) that is much more powerful than they need.

True! VHS/Betamax was a different situation, but it illustrates the point that the best doesn't always win. So, it's a question of wait and see... As a cautious businessmen, I take little notice of predictions. My business only changes tack when there is significant concrete data to confirm a prediction. We could have been caught out badly if we had believed the advice of educationists about Acorn computers in the 1980s and early 1990s. Teachers and advisers who supported the use of Acorn computers in schools kept telling us that PCs would soon be eclipsed by the Archimedes, but our sales figures kept telling us that the Arc was in decline - and seriously from around mid-1992. By the mid-90s the PC dominated the scene, and sales figures of PC software to schools have continued to rise ever since. Macs hung on in Scotland and Northern Ireland, but DENI in Northern Ireland has recently negotiated a deal with a local commercial agent whereby all schools in the province are being provided with networked PCs and PC laptops, pre-installed with generic software and a range of subject-specific software. Regarding the worldwide situation, see: Kirkman G., Sachs J., Schwab K. & Cornelius P. (eds.) (2002) Global information technology report 2001-2002: readiness for the networked world, Oxford, Oxford University Press. Substantial sections of the report are available in PDF format at: http://www.cid.harvard.edu/cr/gitrr_030202.html My subject area is MFL. I have recently been involved in the production of two reports including contributions from a number of international experts: (1) A report conducted during 2002 for the Directorate General Education and Culture at the European Commission: The Impact of Information and Communications Technologies on the Teaching of Foreign Languages and on the Role of Teachers of Foreign Languages (edited by Tony Fitzpatrick and Graham Davies, published 2003). The report is the outcome of a Europe-wide study coordinated by the International Certificate Conference (ICC), Frankfurt. The full report can be downloaded in PDF or Word format from the ICC website: http://www.icc-europe.com - click on Report on "ICT in FLL". (2) A report commissioned by UNESCO: Analytical Survey on Information and Communications Technologies in the Teaching and Learning of Foreign Languages: State of the Art, Needs and Perspectives (forthcoming). One thing that we have noticed worldwide that the Internet is moving away from its original model of cooperative communication based on exchange, and tending towards the logic of a mass broadcasting medium, resulting in concentration of producers and the progressive disappearance of interactivity. This is somewhat worrying to the language teaching profession, and we propose various ways of fostering cooperative, collaborative approaches. There is a contribution from China in the report. Finally, I currently head an international team that is in the process of setting up WorldCALL as an official organisation - a decision that was taken at the second (very successful) WorldCALL conference in Banff, Canada, May 2003: http://www.worldcall.org. There is a major focus on the transfer of expertise in the draft constitution.