PowerPoint Presentation, Tsouris, Eurocall CMC Teacher Education SIGs, 2011, Barcelona

1. Putting CMC in practice in the EFL classroom: Students’ experiences and attitudes at employing a wiki for an advanced English Language course Constantinos Tsouris Language Centre University of Cyprus

2. Study synopsis This small-scale study explores the practices and experiences of university Ss on the application and effectiveness of CMC in the EFL classroom. Ongoing study; to be triangulated/replicated in the next 6 months.

3. Study synopsis (cont.) Advanced, elective English language course (B2 level) Course Aim: to promote critical thinking skills Awiki was employed as a means of S-S and S-T interaction and as a means of continuous course assessment Ss’ views and experiences were gathered in a 2-week period in order to assess the use of technology for LL purposes Wiki was only means of communication between Ss-T for those 2 weeks

4. The introduction of a wiki had a trifold purpose: to motivate learners to practice written, authentic expression; to promote their critical thinking skills based on a constructivist approach; to gather data for this study.

5. Only 20% of sample had previous contact with wikis so there was a need for the T to train them (account creation / wiki management) Following training, Ss seemed to be at ease with using this tool During use of tool, questions did arise regarding: tool functionality (e.g. whether they could upload a file from their pc) how to do things (e.g. how to link a website/upload a video) troubleshooting (e.g. wiki stopped responding / failure to save comments / overwriting of comments)

6. Method For this qualitative study, two methods of data collection are/will be used: (i) Wiki material; (ii) Semi-structured individual and group interviews with all Ss, to be conducted after the course is finished;

7. Feedback Feedback revolved around Ss’ experiences in dealing with CMC for this language course and their views on its advantages and drawbacks.

8. Sample n=10 students, all Greek-speaking Year of study: 3rd/4th Study orientation: non-homogeneous sample; Sscame from various University Schools: Classical Studies X 4 Turkish Studies X 2 Sociology X 1 Physics X 1 Greek Philology X 2

9. Pedagogical contract A minimum of 14 entries/S were required All Ss should try to contribute to the wiki individually, both by posting as well as by commenting on other Ss’ views Personal posts had to be at least 100 words long / comments on others’ posts at least 50 words long Deadlines should be kept regarding posting of comments

12. Session 2 i. …Post a comment on their favorite character from the film ii.…Comment at least once to at least 2 other posts (critical writing)

13. Session 3 Anonymous entries i. …Post a comment on a. using the wiki for class purposes b. their perceptions on the use of technology in education (critical writing)

14. Corpus Number of students registered: 10 Number of participants: 9 Days the wiki ran: 15 Number of total hits: 720 Average number of hits: 48/day, approx. 65/student Number of posts: 139 (135 from students) Average number of posts/student: 15

15. Wiki Views

16. Wiki Messages

17. Results – Sessions 1&2 Writing level: very good Syntax: Very few mistakes Certain competency was expected with particular sample. Results with 1st/2nd year Ss may differ.

18. Results – Session 3 Overall, Ss were caught between technology use (new to them) and f2f contact (more comfortable/had more experience with)

19. Perceived advantages of the wiki helpful easy way to share information/ideas any time/anywhere, hence no pressure saves travel time/costs fun gives benefit to T to explain things easily constructive rewarding

20. Positive comments ‘really interesting that we can use Internet in an educational way’ ‘Ss develop the ability of using the internet as well as distance learning skills’. ‘new experience, will help us in the future’ ‘TLG is part of our lives. We have to customize our learning environment according to new available TLG tools’. ‘crucial to get informed about new TLG advances’ ‘grateful that at least partly the university implements TLG in its classes’

21. Perceived disadvantages of the wiki I. Socialization & Interpersonal contact ‘can not replace personal contact with classmates/Ts’ ‘one way of estranging people’ / ‘contributes to alienation’. ‘against developing human relations’ / ‘no socialization’ ‘personal communication in classroom is more efficient’

22. Perceived disadvantages (cont.) II. Lesson quality ‘interaction sometimes seems the only way to avoid mistakes and comprehend difficult aspects of the lesson’ / ‘f2f is better and easier for us to communicate and solve some Qs’ ‘we can’t see our classmates’ expressions when they write; sometimes something may ‘sound’ bad; misunderstandings may arise’

24. Perceived disadvantages (cont.) III. The Wiki as an instructional tool ‘New technology’ / ‘Haven’t used it before; need time to adjust to it’ ‘I prefer lesson as I’ve known it since I was in primary school’ ‘Didn’t know we could use wikis for classes’ ‘No one taught us this before’ / ‘Ss should receive training on this’

25. Quality of study Qualitatively, the project was positively perceived Being a pedagogical activity, the wiki is not a ‘‘real-life’’ one. However, interactions were meaningful because, based on level/quality of participation, they made sense for the learners who were fully engaged in the writing process/interactions (cf. Mompean, 2010)

26. Conclusions Small scale project, and learning context (FL course / writing tasks) was critical to outcomes Hence, no great claims about generality of findings can be made. Study needs to be replicated using larger numbers of Ss Results show internal consistency Key points are not discipline-specific, thus I consider them valuable for the wider LL&T community.

27. Conclusions Consensus that CMC can be put in great use in the FL classroom. However, not everyone feels comfortable using it because: it is a relatively innovative development of a lack of training a number of Ssare accustomed to more traditional learning methods

28. Suggestions Further training of both instructors and students in CMC Gradual implementation of CMC in the EFL curriculum (blended approach) More user-friendly virtual environments to help novices

29. Follow-up Open-ended interviews are scheduled after the course ends in May to triangulate findings Study to be replicated during Fall semester 2011 with larger samples of 1st/2nd year Ss in order to (a) try and replicate findings and, (b) see whether year of study has any bearing on perceptions

30. References Cole, M. (2009) Using Wiki technology to support student engagement: Lessons from the trenches. Computers & Education, 52, 141–146. Kessler, G. (2008) Student-Initiated attention to form in wiki-based collaborative learning. ReCALL, 20(1), 35-54. Lund, A. (2008) Wikis: a collective approach to language production. ReCALL20(1), 35-54. Su, F. and Beaumont, C. (2010) Evaluating the use of a wiki for collaborative learning. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 47(4), 417-431. Wheeler, S., Yeomans, P., and Wheeler, D. (2008) The good, the bad and the wiki: Evaluating student-generated content for collaborative learning. British J of Educational Technology, 39(6), 987-995.