DMLL

The Role of Technology in the Language Classroom

Throughout the LTS program, I completed 25 modules of DMLL. It was an enriching learning journey that has nurtured my understanding of the broad advantages and affordances of digital spaces. DMLL modules allowed me to reflect on the implementation of technology, social networking sites, mobile apps, tele-collaboration, and gamification in the language classroom. Furthermore, I focused on interactive teaching and integrative assessments in the digital world. Since my future endeavors in language teaching target dismantling capitalist and imperialist powers in education by providing equitable learning opportunities in the public and private sectors, technology has provided me with many points of entry to the target language and culture. Affordable access to open educational resources (i.e., books, videos, language apps, and digital content) and technological tools ensures that marginalized communities could benefit from such resources. Consequently, language educators could conceptualize technology as a tool to establish social justice in education. To exemplify, module 25 on social media allowed me to reflect on my experience as a language learner, where I held a firm belief in paper-pen prototype path to language learning. However, social media sites reflect vast possibilities of authentic interactions and use of different vernaculars that engage learners in collecting lexical information, identifying different vernaculars, and using different registers. Furthermore, module 24 on game-based learning has introduced me to the concept of play as a serious activity, changing my percepcitves of task design. In the context of English teaching in Egypt, task-based teaching is a celebrated pedagogy. However, in lower secondary eduction, tasks are required to be "serious," which sometimes drives learners to refrain from doing them. 

Application of DMLL 

My LT 548 artifact reflects my efforts to adapt textbook materials to implement aspects of digitally mediated learning, more specifically telecollaboration (Dooly, 2017), digital place-based learning (Sykes, 2022), and social networking sites (SNSs) that reflect communities of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Learners are directed to explore the idea of “extreme sports” through social networking sites such as Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook groups, which celebrate a wide range of online communities of practice. Participation in online communities of practice offers opportunities for language learners beyond the confines of institutionalized, isolated, and disconnected classroom materials. It facilitates authentic language use in interaction with like-minded individuals, thereby enhancing intercultural and intracultural capabilities. Furthermore, the learners’ exposure to and analysis of digital discourse could provide a pathway to authentic socialization, conveying layered and multimodal meaning in the thread of the interaction (Sykes, 2021). In this artifact, students, are guided to focus on the use of hashtags used in posts depicting extreme sports and whether these hashtags circulate mobility in the economic, social, or political spheres. This process is self-regulated and subject- and context-specific (Zheng et al., 2018). Consequently, it paves opportunities for connective, context-sensitive, multifaced, versatile, and accessible learning (Sung et al., 2015).  

Assessment and Feedback in the Digital World

The artifact presents a form of differentiation by product in assessment, allowing learners to “generate” an artifact that represents their learning. Learners are encouraged to write social media posts, create posters, record a video, or give presentations using the technological affordances of their context. Students, in this regard, socialize using the language, which exceeds grammatically well-formed utterances (Garrett, 2008). They are engaged in using language that is socially and pragmatically appropriate. It concurrently redefines language as an activity, languaging, that is structured, restructured, and co-structured with respect to the context. Sykes et al. (2008) argue that such participation "frays the boundaries separating language study from social life, student from player, and information consumer from knowledge contributor" (p. 539). Learners maintain their agency, apply their task-based learning skills, practice their identity, negotiate meaning, and receive feedback in a community of practice. These spaces provide valuable opportunities to develop language on the syntactic, lexical, and pragmatic levels.