Reading Prompt # 10

*RICHARDSON Ch. 7. Fun with Flicker: Creating, Publishing, and Using Images Online
After reading Richardson, what ideas do you have for using images and programs such as Flicker in the language learning classroom?
Richardson’s Flicker discussion demonstrates that teaching and learning a language can be made less difficult. The annotation functions of flicker is an excellent tool for teaching vocabulary and word usage when a there is more than one definition or context for a word. For instance the word “cold” can be used in different context. The word “cold” can be used to express temperature or absence of feelings or compassion. Another use for flicker in language teaching and learning is its capacity to stream to blogs and other activities in a classroom. This facility to redirect to additional information sites is an excellent tool for clarification of terms.

*BLACKBOARD - Kern, R. (2006). Perspectives on technology in learning and teaching languages. TESOL Quarterly, 40(1), 183-210.
Kern gives a broad overview of issues in CALL, with specific examples from three areas and implications for teaching and research. Select and share your own thoughts and opinions on one or more issues that Kern raises.
I wonder if anyone knows Moore’s Law relating to technology. Gordon Moore was one of the inventors of integrated circuitries and in the 1970s he discovered that he could squeeze twice the number of transistors in an integrated circuit every 24 months. This capacity of expanding more operations in a circuit board and making them capable to operate at a faster speed and quadrupling its computational power is known as “The Law of Accelerating Results.” The reader must be asking what does this law have to do with Kern’s overview of CALL? We’ve witnessed how technology has gone through exponential changes. What is hype today tomorrow is obsolete and new products are offered with new applications and capabilities i.e. the iPad due to be released this Saturday (April 3, 2010). Kern brings up the issue if CALL is the proper acronym for language learning based on technology applications. I thing that, the acronym should be changed to TALL (Technology Assisted Language Learning) because language learning no longer exclusively use computers but, all types of communication technological products. One thing to keep in mind is that technology in all its capabilities will not replace the human factor in education and its interactions. Our differences as human beings cannot be downloaded into a computer and provide instruction taking into consideration the diversity that makes us different.