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Listen "WorldCALL 3: Interview with Prof. Claire Bradin Siskin"
Episode Synopsis
Interview with Claire Bradin Siskin, WorldCALL 3 workshop presenter.
Revoluton for Language Learning site: http://edvista.com/claire/rev/.
Revolution Learning Templates: http://edvista.com/claire/rev/templates/templates.html
WorldCALL 3 website: http://www.j-let.org/~wcf/modules/tinyd0/
Hello and welcome to another WorldCALL 3 podcast. This podcast features an interview with Professor Claire Bradin Siskin, a workshop presenter at this summer’s conference.
Music
It is early May, and there is still plenty of time to register for WorldCALL 3. This podcast is particularly aimed at those of you planning to attend the pre-conference workshops, and I really recommend that you do since there is a great selection of interesting opportunities to learn. To start to help you reach a decision on which workshops to attend, today we’re going to have our first interview with a workshop presenter, Claire Bradin Siskin , whose workshop is titled, Join the Revolution. The revolution involves a certain piece of software that allows users to easily create interactive learning applications for the computer. I’ll let her tell you more in a moment. She is director of the Robert Henderson Language Media Center at the University of Pittsburgh, and co-chair of the Program Committee for WorldCALL 3, in addition to being a workshop presenter and it certainly would not be wrong to call her one of the early pioneers in the field of CALL. I sent her some questions to learn more about her role with WorldCALL and the content of her workshop.
1) Could you introduce yourself and talk a little about your work and research areas?
I started my teaching career as a Spanish teacher and then taught English as a second and foreign language for many years. I first became inspired by the possibilities of computer-assisted language learning (or CALL) in 1983. That was when I first had a microcomputer at home. In those early days, my son had to help me a lot because I didn’t know much about computers. One day I took my computer to class and watched my students work with a simple vocabulary exercise. I’ll never forget the excitement and energy in the classroom that day. Even though 6 students were working at only one computer, they loved the fact that they could interact with the program and get feedback.
Today I work in a language lab, and I support the use of technology in learning many different languages. I guess I’ve never lost that feeling of excitement and enthusiasm that comes when the computers work as we intend them to and truly support the language learner. I have learned that CALL is most successful when language teachers are engaged in the process, so I am involved in teacher education. I am especially interested in software programs and tools that make it easier for teachers and learners to use computers effectively. I also teach a graduate-level course about CALL.
2) What has been your role with WorldCALL?
I attended the first 2 WorldCALL conferences – first in Melbourne, Australia in 1998 and then in Banff, Canada in 2003 and presented papers at both. For those 2 conferences, I also served as chair of the Scholarship Committee. The committee members selected CALL practitioners from underserved countries to attend WorldCALL. The opportunity to attend WorldCALL and meet the scholarship recipients at both conferences was a rewarding experience, and I look forward to meeting the 2008 awardees in Japan. For the 2008 conference, I am co-chairing the Program Committee with Françoise Blin. Françoise and I are doing our best to put together a program which will be international in scope and reflective of the multiple ways in which computers are used today in language learning. We have the help of a large Program Committee, and we are especially grateful for the support that we have received from our Japanese hosts in the LET organization.
3) After I read the outline for your workshop, I took a look at the website for Runtime Revolution. The software seems impressive, but could you tell us what the benefits are to using this tool and how it differs from other programs that could be used to make CALL materials?
Revolution is a little hard to define. It is described as a “rapid application development (RAD) tool,” and it has also been called a “software erector set.” If you liked playing with modelling clay when you were a child, you will enjoy Revolution. It gives the developer a lot of freedom to create. Some CALL practitioners may remember HyperCard, which was a popular tool for creating CALL materials for the Macintosh. Revolution incorporates many of the features of HyperCard, but it has been developed much further, and it offers many advantages over HyperCard. Revolution is cross-platform, and it is possible to develop materials on a PC and export them to a Macintosh, or vice-versa. There is integrated color, and you can capture and play back both audio and video files. It can be integrated with database programs and with the Internet. It is fairly easy to collect learner data with Revolution, so it is an ideal tool for both research and assessment in a language lab setting.
What I like best about Revolution is its ease of use. Both teachers and students seem to enjoy creating materials with it, and they don’t need to have high-level programming skills to do this. I also like the fact that I can use Revolution without depending on the Internet, but I can also use it to connect to the resources on the Internet if I need to.
4) Many people are now using course management systems such as Moodle or Blackboard and using freely available content sharing tools to add multimedia and interactivity to their courses. What benefits do you see software like Revolution offering such instructors?
In the first place, Revolution can be used to create CALL materials for those situations in which the Internet is not available at all or is not dependable. Course management systems do allow one to share multimedia resources, but the degree of interactivity with the learner isn’t as well developed as it is with Revolution. To achieve a high degree of interactivity in web-based materials requires the use of programs such as Java or Flash. Revolution is much easier to learn than either of these. I’m doing what I can to make the process of learning about Revolution even easier. If you are interested, you might want to check out my web page, “Revolution for Language Learning,” at http://edvista.com/claire/rev/. Also, I have created a number of templates for language learning. These can be downloaded from http://edvista.com/claire/rev/templates/templates.html. The purpose of the templates is to show language educators what can be done with Revolution and give them a starting point for developing their own CALL materials.
Marcel: Well that brings us to the end of this podcast. I would like to thank our guest today, Claire Bradin Siskin, for taking part. I’m sure her workshop will be interesting. You can find the exact time and place of the workshop listed on the WrodCALL 3 website. If you’re planning to attend, or if you are just interested in the software, please take a look at the websites she mentioned. You can find them linked in the transcripts to this podcast. The transcripts, by the way, can be accessed by clicking on the little blue WorldCALL link in the player located on the WorldCALL 3 website. If you downloaded this podcast from iTunes, please be aware that due to space limitations, the full transcripts do not automatically get downloaded with the audio file. Thanks again to Jeff Wahl for his Loop-o-Plane music, available from magnatune.com. And thank you, for downloading this podcast. I’m Marcel Van Amelsvoort, a member of the Kanto chapter of LET. Have a great day and see you next time.
Revoluton for Language Learning site: http://edvista.com/claire/rev/.
Revolution Learning Templates: http://edvista.com/claire/rev/templates/templates.html
WorldCALL 3 website: http://www.j-let.org/~wcf/modules/tinyd0/
Hello and welcome to another WorldCALL 3 podcast. This podcast features an interview with Professor Claire Bradin Siskin, a workshop presenter at this summer’s conference.
Music
It is early May, and there is still plenty of time to register for WorldCALL 3. This podcast is particularly aimed at those of you planning to attend the pre-conference workshops, and I really recommend that you do since there is a great selection of interesting opportunities to learn. To start to help you reach a decision on which workshops to attend, today we’re going to have our first interview with a workshop presenter, Claire Bradin Siskin , whose workshop is titled, Join the Revolution. The revolution involves a certain piece of software that allows users to easily create interactive learning applications for the computer. I’ll let her tell you more in a moment. She is director of the Robert Henderson Language Media Center at the University of Pittsburgh, and co-chair of the Program Committee for WorldCALL 3, in addition to being a workshop presenter and it certainly would not be wrong to call her one of the early pioneers in the field of CALL. I sent her some questions to learn more about her role with WorldCALL and the content of her workshop.
1) Could you introduce yourself and talk a little about your work and research areas?
I started my teaching career as a Spanish teacher and then taught English as a second and foreign language for many years. I first became inspired by the possibilities of computer-assisted language learning (or CALL) in 1983. That was when I first had a microcomputer at home. In those early days, my son had to help me a lot because I didn’t know much about computers. One day I took my computer to class and watched my students work with a simple vocabulary exercise. I’ll never forget the excitement and energy in the classroom that day. Even though 6 students were working at only one computer, they loved the fact that they could interact with the program and get feedback.
Today I work in a language lab, and I support the use of technology in learning many different languages. I guess I’ve never lost that feeling of excitement and enthusiasm that comes when the computers work as we intend them to and truly support the language learner. I have learned that CALL is most successful when language teachers are engaged in the process, so I am involved in teacher education. I am especially interested in software programs and tools that make it easier for teachers and learners to use computers effectively. I also teach a graduate-level course about CALL.
2) What has been your role with WorldCALL?
I attended the first 2 WorldCALL conferences – first in Melbourne, Australia in 1998 and then in Banff, Canada in 2003 and presented papers at both. For those 2 conferences, I also served as chair of the Scholarship Committee. The committee members selected CALL practitioners from underserved countries to attend WorldCALL. The opportunity to attend WorldCALL and meet the scholarship recipients at both conferences was a rewarding experience, and I look forward to meeting the 2008 awardees in Japan. For the 2008 conference, I am co-chairing the Program Committee with Françoise Blin. Françoise and I are doing our best to put together a program which will be international in scope and reflective of the multiple ways in which computers are used today in language learning. We have the help of a large Program Committee, and we are especially grateful for the support that we have received from our Japanese hosts in the LET organization.
3) After I read the outline for your workshop, I took a look at the website for Runtime Revolution. The software seems impressive, but could you tell us what the benefits are to using this tool and how it differs from other programs that could be used to make CALL materials?
Revolution is a little hard to define. It is described as a “rapid application development (RAD) tool,” and it has also been called a “software erector set.” If you liked playing with modelling clay when you were a child, you will enjoy Revolution. It gives the developer a lot of freedom to create. Some CALL practitioners may remember HyperCard, which was a popular tool for creating CALL materials for the Macintosh. Revolution incorporates many of the features of HyperCard, but it has been developed much further, and it offers many advantages over HyperCard. Revolution is cross-platform, and it is possible to develop materials on a PC and export them to a Macintosh, or vice-versa. There is integrated color, and you can capture and play back both audio and video files. It can be integrated with database programs and with the Internet. It is fairly easy to collect learner data with Revolution, so it is an ideal tool for both research and assessment in a language lab setting.
What I like best about Revolution is its ease of use. Both teachers and students seem to enjoy creating materials with it, and they don’t need to have high-level programming skills to do this. I also like the fact that I can use Revolution without depending on the Internet, but I can also use it to connect to the resources on the Internet if I need to.
4) Many people are now using course management systems such as Moodle or Blackboard and using freely available content sharing tools to add multimedia and interactivity to their courses. What benefits do you see software like Revolution offering such instructors?
In the first place, Revolution can be used to create CALL materials for those situations in which the Internet is not available at all or is not dependable. Course management systems do allow one to share multimedia resources, but the degree of interactivity with the learner isn’t as well developed as it is with Revolution. To achieve a high degree of interactivity in web-based materials requires the use of programs such as Java or Flash. Revolution is much easier to learn than either of these. I’m doing what I can to make the process of learning about Revolution even easier. If you are interested, you might want to check out my web page, “Revolution for Language Learning,” at http://edvista.com/claire/rev/. Also, I have created a number of templates for language learning. These can be downloaded from http://edvista.com/claire/rev/templates/templates.html. The purpose of the templates is to show language educators what can be done with Revolution and give them a starting point for developing their own CALL materials.
Marcel: Well that brings us to the end of this podcast. I would like to thank our guest today, Claire Bradin Siskin, for taking part. I’m sure her workshop will be interesting. You can find the exact time and place of the workshop listed on the WrodCALL 3 website. If you’re planning to attend, or if you are just interested in the software, please take a look at the websites she mentioned. You can find them linked in the transcripts to this podcast. The transcripts, by the way, can be accessed by clicking on the little blue WorldCALL link in the player located on the WorldCALL 3 website. If you downloaded this podcast from iTunes, please be aware that due to space limitations, the full transcripts do not automatically get downloaded with the audio file. Thanks again to Jeff Wahl for his Loop-o-Plane music, available from magnatune.com. And thank you, for downloading this podcast. I’m Marcel Van Amelsvoort, a member of the Kanto chapter of LET. Have a great day and see you next time.
In God we trust