In Blake's (2008) discussion of the new trend in using technology in language curriculum, he drew people's attention to the fact that more and more CALL researchers had identified teachers' lack of experience with using technology as one of the most serious barriers to the successful integration of technology into the language curriculum. Although, I agree that, insufficient knowledge of newly-developed technology and the worry of being displaced or forced to make drastic change are important factors in explaining teachers' acceptance and implementation of technology in their language classrooms, there are still other more complicated reasons at work in this issue.
The problem reminds me of one of the articles we had from another class last quarter, "Why hasn't technology disrupted academics' teaching practices? Understanding resistance to change through the lens of activity theory" (Blin & Munro, 2007), whose discussion focuses on current resistance and difficulty in technology implementation in education system. The authors have proposed that the activity of designing educational technological tools can "be conceptualized as unfolding in two different yet interconnected spaces: the designer ‘semiotic’ space, which is the social and cultural context in which the design activity is taking place, and the technological space, which affords the actual realization of the object of the design activity", and then whoever is trying to implement the technology "enters two distinct, yet overlapping, communities, both shaped by a partially shared object, governed by their own rules and division of labor". Therefore, to look at technology implementation issue with such a perspective, we could easily see that, to have sufficient technological tools available for use is one thing, but how to make it work across communities and systems is a completely different story. While issues within the technological space might be relatively easy to address with technology development and adequate training, what happens within the semiotic space as well as between these two spaces is much more complicated and challenging.
Finally, I find the concern above-mentioned resonates with what Egbert, Huff, McNeil, Preuss, and Sellen (2009) (as cited in Arnold & Ducate, 2011) have advocated for future direction of CALL researches. After all, the perspective and the role of the teacher are indispensable in the process of integrating technology into language education. However, considering the intricacy and complexity of everything involved, when things do not turn out to be what have been expected, the teacher should not be the only we blame.
1 comment:
Hi Rong,
Great post! I am delighted to see your reference to the Activity Theory article we discussed in ED 210F. You bring up excellent points about teachers being one of the main barriers to technology integration in a classroom. I think the key is to find a way to introduce technology to teachers as a tool that will improve student learning and/or course design (e.g., embedding the tool into the teacher's original activity system rather than creating a new one). This requires teaching teachers about how technology can be used to design effective learning environments/lesson plans.
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