Welcome to SNHU's EFL537, VNU-cohort#4.  I'm looking forward to spending the next two weeks learning as much as we can  about how technology can assist language learning.  

There are  so many CALL tools and resources  available and they are evolving so rapidly that it is difficult to keep up, even for those of us who have been trying to do so for years .  It's especially challenging for inexperienced computer users to get a broad overview of what's available, develop some basic skill proficiencies, and explore the relevant academic fields within a two week period, but that is our goal.    There will be many challenges along the way.  It can be overwhelming and frustrating to cover so many new skills and materials in such a short period of time.  Please know that I don't expect anyone  to master all of the tools we learn about.  Just do your best, try to follow your learning passions, and share any questions or problems  as soon as possible. I will do my best to provide screencasts and other guides, but it can be difficult to provide technical assistance from so far away, so students are encouraged to work collaboratively and help each other overcome technical challenges they encounter.  

This is an  unusual course  for a variety of reasons.  Of course, the delivery method is different - entirely online with the instructor  far away.  Also, my approach to learning is somewhat non-traditional.  Rather than thinking of knowledge as a pre-determined finite quantity of information to be transferred to students, I think of it as an infinite buffet of information and skills that can be sampled and consumed at the learner's self-determined pace and directed by their learning passions.  In other words, rather than  'teaching at' you,  I will do my best to support your personal learning goals. As a result, while there will be some common areas of learning, students will likely pursue different learning paths from each other.  Finally, the success of this course depends on creating a collaborative learning environment.  Often, we think of learning as a competitive arena where it's not an advantage for students to  help each other. It's quite the opposite in the course.  I've done my best to prepare guides and screencasts that will help students develop CALL skills, but still the most effective way to learn much of this material is to have someone next to you pointing out how to do it.  I suspect students come to this class with significant differences in computer experiences and abilities.  It's very important that those who are further ahead help those who are catching up, and that students generally help each other and share knowledge. I don't want students to completely do assignments for classmates, but helping someone else learn how to do something is encouraged. One of the greatest ways to learn something is to teach it, so hopefully everyone will benefit from a collaborative learning environment.

Assessment (grades)  -  My least favorite part of teaching is assessment. I wish I could simply teach what I thought was most important and students were motivated to learn for the sake learning without any concern about 'getting a good grade'.  Of course, I know that's not reality.  I do have to give students grades and it's only fair to recognize the accomplishments of students who have done especially good work. I just want you to know that I realize that everyone will probably be working hard in this course and I will be as generous as possible.  Doing a decent job on the 'required assignments' will earn you at least a B. Students can earn B+'s and A's by doing superlative work and extra assignments., but please don't get two hours of sleep a night because you have to get an A.  Follow your learning passions, do your best, but  please take care of yourselves.  

Proper Citation & Credit  (avoiding Plagiarism) - If you include any portion of an article or online source in your own writing, make sure to let me know where it came from.  Information about proper citation is here : http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/589/01/  If you receive significant help from a classmate in completing a task, please let me know.  Remember, I want you to help each other, so it's not 'cheating', it's collaboration.  I just want to make sure to acknowledge the work that people do in helping others. 

The course never ends - or perhaps I should say, this course is just a beginning and I hope your CALL learning never ends.  I'm not sure how long I will be teaching this particular course online, but I'm pretty sure I'll be active online for quite a while and will do my best to maintain this site and Learningcall.net as resources for all those interested in CALL.  I wish we had more time, so we could cover more CALL possibilities but I think the amount we're covering in 10 days is more than enough (and I suspect most of you agree).

Thanks in advance for all of the hard work you'll be putting in to this course.  I have always enjoyed the challenge of this course and have learned a lot from teaching. I very much look forward to continuing this learning journey together. 

Best wishes,
Jeff