|
Items in cart [0] |
Questions? Call 888-624-8373 |
| Copyright © 2009. National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. Terms of Use and Privacy Statement |
Below are the first 10 and last 10 pages of uncorrected machine-read text (when available) of this chapter, followed by the top 30 algorithmically extracted key phrases from the chapter as a whole.
Intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text on the opening pages of each chapter.
Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.
Do not use for reproduction, copying, pasting, or reading; exclusively for search engines.
OCR for page 171
8
Advancing Uses of
New Technology
D
uring the past half century, since the passage of the National Defense
Education Act (NDEA), which created the now-Title VI programs,
there have been significant changes in information and communica-
tion technologies (ICT). These changes have tremendous implications for
reconsidering how best to realize the goals of the Title VI and Fulbright-
Hays (Title VI/FH) programs. This chapter briefly reviews changes in these
technologies themselves and then examines the ways in which Title VI/FH
programs have used technology up to the present, in order to address the
question of how well the programs are advancing the use of new technology
in foreign language and area studies.
Briefly, almost all areas of human endeavor have been deeply affected
by changes in ICT. The ability to communicate in multiple media with
people around the world at low cost, as well as the ability to look for and
publish any information on a distributed global information network,
have profound implications for research, education, and outreach activities
that have an international focus, such as those included in the Title VI/FH
programs. These new technologies have created a new context and a new
set of tools for conducting research, teaching, and outreach activities in
area studies and foreign language education. Below we discuss some of the
more prominent changes in information and communication technologies,
their implications for Title VI/FH programs, and the extent to which, based
on the limited available evidence, the programs have adapted to or taken
advantage of these developments.
OCR for page 172
INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES
ADVANCES IN INFORMATION AND
COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES
ICT have affected mass communication, the use of digital media, and
the ease of publications, with implications for the Title VI/FH programs.
Mass Communication
Over the past 50 years, ICT have made person-to-person communica-
tion across geographical and political borders a mass phenomenon, avail-
able and affordable to people in almost every corner of the world. The
first transatlantic telephone cable was built in 1956, two years before the
NDEA, which drastically expanded telephone communication capacities
between Europe and North America. Prior to that, telephone calls between
England and the United States cost more than $200 per minute,1 and only
about 2,000 phone calls could be placed each year. Today, with fiber optic
lines and satellites, phone calls anywhere cost only cents, and the capacity
is virtually unlimited. In 2006, there are over 2 billion mobile phone sub-
scribers worldwide, which means over one-third of the world’s population
had access to a mobile phone. Telephone is of course not the only means of
communication across distances. The Internet has made available extremely
low cost computer-to-computer and computer-to-phone communication
capabilities to over 1 billion Internet users in the world.2
Not only has communication technology become more available and
affordable, but also it has become more powerful in terms of the quantity
and quality of information it can transmit. Today, audio, video, text, and
images can be easily transmitted over the Internet between computers. The
upcoming third generation (3G) mobile phone technology enables multi-
media communications on cell phones worldwide. It is no exaggeration to
say that with today’s technology one can communicate with people in any
place in the world through video, images, text, and voice.
Digital Revolution
Another major change is the digital revolution brought about by com-
puters. In the 1950s, the computer was still what its name suggested, a
machine that did mathematical calculations. But today, the computer is a
television, a telephone, a telegram machine, a piano, a typewriter, a music
box, a library, a community center, and much more. Thanks to digitization,
1 Based on a 3-minute phone call which cost £9 in 1927, which would be around £360 in
2005 using the inflation calculator at http://eh.net/hmit/ppowerbp/.
2 The number of Internet users is based on information obtained at http://www.internet-
worldstats.com/stats.htm.
OCR for page 173
ADVANCING USES OF NEW TECHNOLOGY
the computer has integrated many media into one—enabling the mixing of
contents that were once not mixable.
While digitization enables the mixing of information, rapid develop-
ment in storage technology has made it possible to distribute massive
amounts of multimedia information to individuals at low cost. In 1956, the
world’s first random access hard disk was created. It weighed a full ton and
would cost about $250,000 to lease it for a year, but it would hold only 5
megabytes of information. Today, the 1.8-inch drive inside a $299 iPod has
a 40 gigabyte storage space.
High-speed computer networks, low-cost massive storage, increasingly
sophisticated search engines, and the digital format together enable the
accumulation and sharing of an unprecedented amount of information
among institutions and individuals. Google’s attempt to digitize and make
available millions of books to worldwide users is yet another example of
global information gathering and sharing.
Personalized Publishing and Broadcasting
Perhaps the most fundamental change in ICT is the capability they
afford individuals and organizations to publish and broadcast their ideas
to a broader audience. Thanks to low-cost digital tools and easy access to
the Internet, publishing and broadcasting are no longer controlled solely
by corporations or governments; practically any individual or organization
that wishes to publicize its ideas, images, or any other personal informa-
tion can do so.
Implications for Title VI/FH Programs
The changes in ICT briefly described above have significant implica-
tions for Title VI/FH programs. The first change, which has already affected
Title VI/FH quite a bit, is the potential for expanded access to primary
sources of information. For example, in the 1950s, it was almost impossible
for most people in the United States to have access to a Chinese newspaper
published in China on a regular basis. Today, hundreds of newspapers pub-
lished in China are available on the Internet. Also on the Internet, anyone
can watch the Nile TV live from Egypt, listen to CapitalFM broadcast
live from Nairobi, Kenya,3 or follow online conversations among youth in
India. Many organizations have made available on the Internet documents
that may otherwise be difficult or expensive to obtain, such as historical
documents, literary works, museum items, and library collections.
3 Fora list of foreign radio and TV stations on the Internet, visit http://www.multilingual-
books.com/online-radio.html.
OCR for page 174
INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES
As a result, information that used to require extensive international
travel to obtain is now available at the fingertips of the ordinary citizen;
documents that may have been accessible to few are now accessible to
many; and data that would have required extensive observation and par-
ticipation in foreign settings are now collectable from one’s own computer.
Perhaps even more significant is that these materials and documents can be
represented, rearranged, and easily incorporated into education materials
for students and the public.
Another important implication of the technology revolution for Title
VI/FH programs is expanded access to expertise and enhanced capacity
for dissemination and education. In the 1950s, it would have been difficult
if not impossible for the ordinary college student interested in studying
Russian to have daily conversations with a Russian college student. It
would have been similarly difficult to conduct interviews with people in
villages in Thailand without being physically present. Communications
with colleagues in foreign universities were conducted mostly by postal
mail—which could be costly and even with the fastest airmail, could take
days, if not weeks.
Fifty years ago, when Title VI was put into place, the primary means
of disseminating information was paper and physical meetings. But today,
emailing, audio chatting, text messaging, and videoconferencing have be-
come commonplace for cross-national communications. With inexpensive
and easily set-up videoconferencing equipment, one can more easily bring
experts in other countries into classrooms and offices without traveling.
Online collaboration among researchers, international virtual conferences,
and virtual courses from foreign universities have become increasingly com-
mon practices in business and academia. Today, researchers and organiza-
tions can instantly disseminate information and distribute documents to a
broad audience located anywhere on the globe. This not only dramatically
reduces costs but also reaches a broader audience in a much shorter time.
Institutions can use this enhanced capacity to reach more students through
online distance courses and seminars.
Technology has also created new opportunities for foreign language
instruction. For example, the National Science Foundation has funded a
series of learning labs, some of which include foreign language instruction
among their areas of focus (see, for example, Pittsburgh Science of Learning
Center, visit http://www.learnlab.org/about.php).
TITLE VI/FH PROGRAMS AND TECHNOLOGY
Because limited information and no evaluations addressing the use of
new technologies by Title VI/FH programs are available, the committee
commissioned a review by Joyner and Suarez (2006). The review included
OCR for page 175
ADVANCING USES OF NEW TECHNOLOGY
projects aimed at developing new instructional materials, as discussed in
Chapter 8, as there was significant overlap between that key area and the
use of new technology. The researchers examined 111 projects using tech-
nology, including all of those funded under Technological Innovation and
Cooperation for Foreign Information Access (TICFIA), which has use of
technology as a specific part of its mandate.
The main shortcoming in the committee’s analysis is a lack of informa-
tion about the quality of funded projects that use new technology, in terms
of how widely they are being used, or how effective they are in achieving
their goals. It is not known, for example, how well some of these projects
are actually improving language instruction. One could argue that the use
of technology itself is not what is most relevant to the field of international
education; the more relevant issue is the appropriateness of the technology
for its users and for the way in which it is being used. From that viewpoint,
the question of interest would involve relating the technology to its users
and use—information that is not available in any systematic way in grant
applications and reports. Indeed, a paper on second language acquisition
prepared for another recent National Academies study stated that, although
use of new technology has made its way into language classrooms, “very
little research has been conducted from a cognitive perspective to determine
how the method of delivery and context of learning affect the acquisition of
[second language] skills” (Kroll, 2006). Therefore, this section focuses more
on quantifying and describing technology-related projects funded by Title
VI than on judging their effectiveness or how widely they are used.
Kinds of Technology-Related Activities
In the committee’s analysis (Joyner and Suarez, 2006), projects’ use
of technology is described largely by illustration rather than by a strict
categorization of projects and a quantitative report on the number in each
category. One reason for this approach is that available information about
the projects is sparse and sometimes dated. For example, if a project was
funded five or six years ago, what was described as new or on the cutting
edge at that time may well be commonplace in 2006, given the rate at which
technology has been changing. Most if not all National Resource Centers
(NRC), Language Resource Centers (LRC), and Centers for International
Business Education and Research (CIBER) have web pages with informa-
tion about their work, often with links to other programs. However, this
is now rather routine and would not necessarily count as “advancing new
technologies” unless the web pages were being used in a novel way—and in-
deed many appear to be (an online English-Urdu dictionary is one example;
more are described below). But another problem is that, even if the project
has evolved into more sophisticated or innovative techniques, the frequent
OCR for page 176
INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES
absence from the Evaluation of Exchange, Language, International and
Area Studies (EELIAS) database of the grantees’ progress reports or final
reports deprive the reader of knowledge about how it evolved. Also, while
it might be useful to analyze the technology uses in terms of a typology,
such as whether projects (1) developed new technological tools, (2) adapted
existing tools, or (3) used existing technology, the level of detail for analyses
such as that was generally not available.
In broad terms, the examples of technology in Title VI/FH programs
fall into two general groups:
1. Technology as a delivery tool, which addresses the problem of
geographical distance or helps achieve maximum access to material. In this
group, existing content material is brought to a wider audience through the
use of technology, such as in the case of language or area courses that can
be taken electronically.
2. Technology that serves to create new content or enhance it. This
usually means digitization of material that was previously available only in
hard copy or the creation of interactive online learning materials.
Technology as a Delivery Tool
One important use of technology as a delivery tool is to support out-
reach, a required activity of the NRC Program (see Chapter 5). Some
examples:
• Outreach World at the University of California, Los Angeles (http://
www.outreachworld.org), funded by International Research and Studies
(IRS), presents itself as a clearinghouse for outreach activities undertaken
by NRCs nationwide, which may be of use to foreign language and social
studies teachers at the K-12 level. It helps to break down the distance bar-
rier by making NRC outreach available to an audience that is not confined
to the geographic area in which the NRC is located. Teachers can draw on
Outreach World for resources on such topics as African geography, human
migration, the diversity of cultures in Latin America, the effects of air pol-
lution in Mexico City, and the history of Cairo, Egypt. Teachers can also
communicate with one another to share experiences in teaching languages,
study abroad, and other topics (see Chapter 5).
• A similar resource for those in business is CIBERWeb, housed at
Michigan State University. The web page (http://ciberweb.msu.edu) brings
together outreach activities for all CIBERs, organizing them by topic. It
includes events that would be of interest to business representatives look-
ing to export products or services, as well as business school faculty and
students (see Chapter 10).
OCR for page 177
ADVANCING USES OF NEW TECHNOLOGY
• The National Capital Language Resource Center (a consortium
consisting of Georgetown University, George Washington University, and
the Center for Applied Linguistics) has a web page (http://www.ncrlc.org)
that serves as a resource for language teachers at the postsecondary level.
It contains large amounts of material related to classroom teaching and
assessments, as well as information on professional development and train-
ing opportunities. It even houses an “advice” page, on which experienced
teachers help novices with specific classroom issues.
In the projects funded by programs other than NRCs, the content
delivered by technology was most often courses or other distance learning
activities. Box 8-1 illustrates several uses of technology as a delivery tool.
Technology as a Content Enhancer
The largest number of projects in the second category, in which technol-
ogy is used to create, enhance, and then deliver content, is funded through
TICFIA. This is consistent with its mission—to access, collect, preserve, and
widely disseminate information from foreign sources. The projects identi-
fied seek to develop foreign source materials for research use by scholars or
for language instruction. Many projects collect primary documents in for-
eign languages and other language learning materials, catalog and digitize
them, and then make them available to researchers and language teachers
through the Internet. Table 8-1 is a summary of recent TICFIA awards.
IRS is the other major program identified that funded projects that use
technology to enhance content. These projects often developed language
and area instruction content and then used new technologies as a means
of delivery and dissemination. Box 8-2 describes some IRS-funded projects
that were specifically designed with new technology in mind as a means of
delivery.
CONCLUSIONS
Rapid changes in ICT have made it possible for Title VI/FH programs
to make great strides in the areas of distance learning, the digitization of
foreign source materials, and enhancing the ability of people to communi-
cate, whether between instructors and students, or K-12 teachers sharing
information on best practices in their classrooms. New technologies have
been put to imaginative use, such as for the creation of online dictionar-
ies, lesson plans for use by teachers, and advice lines for novice language
instructors.
Because of a lack of information, the committee could not make judg-
ments about the effectiveness of projects using new technologies, that is,
OCR for page 178
INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES
BOX 8-1
Illustrations of Technology as a Delivery Tool
Florida Network for Global Studies
As part of an NRC grant, the Florida Network for Global Studies at Florida Inter-
national University will be expanded beyond the International Center of the Uni-
versity of Florida (Gainesville) and the Center for Transnational and Comparative
Studies of Florida International University (Miami) to other universities in the state
of Florida system and to selected community colleges and secondary schools,
employing the latest technology in web-based, virtual connectivity, and distance
learning.
Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies (REEES) Consortium
Using an Undergraduate International Studies and Foreign Language grant,
REEES at the University of Iowa, in partnership with the Department of Foreign
Languages and Literatures at Iowa State University and the Department of Mod-
ern Languages at the University of Northern Iowa, has begun a pilot program of
distance learning for REEES students at the three Iowa institutions. The project
pools faculty expertise and student populations through a combination of In-
ternet-based instructional delivery platforms, enriching offerings in these areas
at all three campuses simultaneously. Based on specific institutional strengths,
instructor expertise, and student demand, three languages—Czech, Polish, and
Serbian-Croatian—were selected for initial concentration.
Global E-Commerce Training for Business and Educators
Using a Business and International Education grant, an e-commerce project at
State Center Community College District in Fresno, California, was designed to
train businesses on how to complete export transactions through their websites,
establish an e-commerce Internet course, and disseminate project results through
websites, listservs, and other means.
Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition
The Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition, a Language Re-
source Center (LRC) at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, planned to use
part of its LRC grant to create a professional development program and a web-
based resource center for K-16 language teachers that provides instruction and
practical tools for incorporating content-based language instruction into the class-
room using technology. Another of the center’s projects helps increase com-
munication among teachers of the least commonly taught languages, through
databases of where such languages are taught, relevant listservs, and a website
of resources for teachers.
SOURCE: Joyner and Suarez (2006).
OCR for page 179
ADVANCING USES OF NEW TECHNOLOGY
TABLE 8-1 Summary of Technological Innovation and Cooperation for
Foreign Information Access Awards, 2005
Institution Project Title and Description
South African Collaborative Film and Video Project—create an online
Michigan State
University searchable database of archival video on the history of South Africa.
OACIS for the Middle East: On-Line Access to Consolidated
Yale University
Information on Serials—make Middle Eastern language resources
widely available by creating a publicly accessible, continuously updated
list of Middle East journals and serials, including those available in
print, microform, and online.
Sources of Authentic Materials for the Less Commonly Taught
University of
Languages—develop an online tool for bringing authentic materials
California,
Los Angeles into the classroom for less commonly taught languages.
Mining Hidden Gems: Building a Latin American Open Archives Portal
University of
for Scholars—address the need for improved control of and access to
California,
Los Angeles Latin America’s “grey literature,” the publications, working documents,
and other materials produced by research institutes, nongovernmental
organizations, and peripheral agencies produced in print and electronic
formats.
South Asian Information Access: A Federated Program to Expand the
University of
Resources for Understanding the Subcontinent—online collection of
Chicago
digital resources that will encompass Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan,
India, the Maldive Islands Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Language
materials selected from among the 27 modern literary languages of
South Asia will be a special focus.
Access to Russian Archives—create a digital database of regional and
University of
Kansas national guides to the Russian archives. The project will digitize guides
to the approximately 270 central and regional archives in Russia.
Access Indonesia—identify, collect, and collate information on
University
of Southern Indonesia, with a focus on information that is not yet accessible in the
California United States.
Japan Media Review Website on Developments in Japan in On-
University
Line Journalism—support Japan Media Review (http://www.
of Southern
California japanmediareview.com), which monitors and collects relevant data from
Japan related to electronic media and broadband, wireless, and Internet
communications technology.
Tibetan Digital Library Access—online archive and communication hub
University of
Virginia and for research and documentation in Tibetan and Himalayan studies.
Cornell University
consortium
Portal to Asian Internet Resources—to support the Portal to Asian
University of
Wisconsin Internet Resources, which provides access to Internet resources from
Asia in its vernacular languages.
SOURCE: Data provided by U.S. Department of Education.
OCR for page 180
0 INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES
BOX 8-2
Illustrations of Technology as a Content Enhancer in Projects
Funded by International Research and Studies
Darvazah: A Door into Urdu
North Carolina State University in this project will use emerging technologies and
pedagogical principles derived from the field of computer-assisted language learn-
ing to create a fully interactive elementary Urdu course. The course will employ
the full range of multimedia capabilities of the Internet, integrating video, audio,
and animation into graded lessons that emphasize performance and proficiency
in the target language. Glossaries, grammar units, cultural concepts, and other
learning tools will be hyperlinked to lesson movie texts. This project will result in
the equivalent of a two-semester university class in Urdu that can serve as the
basic text for formal classroom instruction, for supplemental tutorials and drills,
or for self-directed learning. For the classroom environment, the materials will be
designed to dovetail with course delivery platforms like WebCT.
Uzbek-English/English-Uzbek Dictionary
This Indiana University, Bloomington, project aims to produce a new, compre-
hensive Uzbek-English/English-Uzbek dictionary that will contain at least 40,000
headwords in each of its Uzbek-English and English-Uzbek parts, making it the
most comprehensive and useful Uzbek dictionary designed for English speakers
to date. The effort makes extensive use of technology to convert and migrate
words from an earlier dictionary to the new one and to conduct web searches to
identify new words to be included. The two dictionaries produced by this project
will eventually be published in both book and searchable CD-ROM format.
Online Diagnostic Tests and Course Materials for Dialects of Arabic,
Chinese, and Persian
This San Diego State University project employs the computer-assisted screen-
ing tool (CAST) to create assessments in Iraqi and Egyptian dialects of Arabic,
Mandarin Chinese, and Persian Farsi. It builds on a previous IRS project that
developed CAST to create online diagnostic speaking assessments in Arabic and
Spanish. CAST can assess the language skills of remotely located individuals
(practicing and aspiring teachers, interpreters, international business employees,
and government workers) and can help organizations evaluate large proficiency-
based language programs. The objectives are to (1) elicit, online, a speech
sample that establishes a baseline rating for an examinee; (2) serve as a reliable
predictor of performance on an official oral proficiency instrument, and (3) provide
positive feedback for proficiency-based teaching. Examinees will be directed to
authentic text, video, and audio materials for advanced and superior levels, which
will model the oral skills expected.
SOURCE: Joyner and Suarez (2006).
OCR for page 181
ADVANCING USES OF NEW TECHNOLOGY
how well they are achieving their goals. The committee’s analysis could only
quantify, categorize, and describe the projects. So, for example, NRCs are
making a great deal of outreach material available to K-12 teachers, but
how often it is used or its usefulness in the classroom is not known.
There is no doubt that some projects are making good use of new
technology in creative ways. However, there is clear opportunity for ad-
ditional innovation, particularly given the rapid changes in technology.
Some avenues to pursue include virtual language or area centers, common
technology platforms that can serve as the foundation for the teaching of a
wide variety of languages, more online learning, global collaboration, and
making better use of original foreign language source materials. These are
discussed further in Chapter 12.
Conclusion: Title VI and Fulbright-Hays programs are using available
technologies, such as the Internet and distance learning, but they could
do more to maximize the potential created by current technologies.
