This web conference is open to all interested LACOL faculty and staff interested in setting the focus for the LACOL Language Instruction Hack-a-thon, May 5-8 2017 at Swarthmore College.
Meeting Date: TBD
Meeting Lead: Mike Jones, Language Resource Center Director, Swarthmore
Special Guest: Dr. Christopher Jones, Teaching Professor of French and Computer-Assisted Language Learning, Carnegie Mellon University
Agenda:
Review draft agenda, collaboratively agree on focus
Review shared goals and desired outcomes
Explore useful examples of diagnostic tests and refresher content as input
Agree on focus for pre-workshop research and data collection
A creative Latin professor at Swarthmore College has been using technology to extend informal learning beyond the boundaries of Swarthmore. For the last three summers, Prof. William Turpin has hosted a free, public, online course on Medieval Latin translation. He has been assisted by colleagues Bruce Venarde (University of Pittsburgh), Carin Ruff (Hill Museum & Manuscript Library) and Jen Faulkner (East Longmeadow High School, MA), who helped him to facilitate the weekly sessions. According to Prof. Turpin:
The intention of this course is to replicate to the extent possible the experience of a student in (say) a college Latin class at the early intermediate level, minus the quizzes, tests, and continuing assessment, there is no mechanism for awarding credit or certificates of attendance. The most immediate model, in fact, may be an informal reading group devoted to a particular ancient or medieval text. The basic premise is that a small community of interested participants can both encourage and enhance what is essentially a private encounter with a text.
Sunka Simon Swarthmore College associate professor of German studies
At Swarthmore College, Associate Provost and Professor of German and Film and Media Studies Sunka Simon and Associate Professor of French Carina Yervasi, collaborated with Ashesi University Professor Mikelle Antoine to create an interactive online course that examines questions of nationality, globalization, race and ethnicity, and gender and sexuality through the lens of global diasporic communities. Using a “globally-networked learning environment,” the course entitled Re-Envisioning Diasporas was the first synchronous, hybrid course taught between Swarthmore College and Ashesi University in Ghana. The classes worked in joint video-conferenced sessions twice a week to explore how displaced peoples worldwide address these challenging questions while living in a perpetual state of “elsewhere.”
Carina Yervasi Swarthmore College associate professor of French and Francophone studies
What I’m discovering is that our model of learning is very different from the traditional model of distance learning. Our model is collaborative; it’s not student-professor online learning where the students are interacting with just the professor. [ … ] The students have to write and interact with each other. We’ve used writing, blogs, forums, Youtube, Skype and VoiceThread … I like that we’re using these technologies to connect in new ways.
LACOL’s Language Instruction Working Group focuses on both theory and effective practices for teaching languages and literatures, using the latest networked technologies to enhance the learning experience.
Activities and Interests of this working group include:
LESSER TAUGHT LANGUAGE GROUP: Partnering across our member schools to enhance opportunities for students learning lesser taught languages
