Timo Kozlowskis Website

“Get away from the Gap!” – An Innovative Approach to Learning Content Design for Language Courses

Timo Kozlowski

Teacher, Learning Content Designer, Goethe-Institut Thailand

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Presentation Slides

Abstract

Most of existing e-learning language courses suffer from bad content design with a strong emphasis on closed grammar exercises, so there is not enough attention on any language’s primary goal: communication. So the focus of learning content design for language courses should focus more on communication skills. This is especially important professional use of language, like in the tourism industry.   

To boost develop in the region, the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs funded the conception of a German course for tourism in the Tsunami-affected regions, in the case of Thailand, Phuket. The language course was targeted towards professionals in the tourism industry with some basic knowledge of German. Also, the course was conceived as a blended learning course with learning content provided through a Learning Management System (Moodle, in this case) to give the students an opportunity to improve their German knowledge without having to stop working during course time.

In the design of the German language course our primary goal was to tackle this i ssue about the relevancy. On the one hand, existing material usually has no specific target group, especially in local aspects. So we included information and material directly from Phuket, Thailand, because the course is be held there. On the other hand, we opted to move away from more closed forms of E-Learning exercises, e.g., gap-filling exercises. Instead, we concentrated on open assignm ents that focuse on communication skills and social interaction, like forum and chat assignments.

Included in this course are also contact classes every Saturday, in which communication skills are further practised, and also new grammar structures introduced.

This course was held two times now – one time as part of the German curriculum at Prince of Songkhla University. Both times, students and teachers were delighted with the results

Der Heise Newsticker meldet, dass Singapore Airlines in ihren Boeing 777 Langstreckenflugzeugen OpenOffice.org anbietet:

Fluggäste der zur Star-Alliance gehörenden Singapore Airlines können an Bord der neu in Betrieb genommenen Langstrecken-Maschinen vom Typ Boeing 777-300ER künftig Office-Aufgaben erledigen, ohne ein eigenes Notebook oder einen PDA mitführen zu müssen. Die Fluggesellschaft hat zu diesem Zweck die bereits vorhandene KrisWorld Inflight Software durch StarOffice von Sun Microsystems ergänzt.

Singapore Airlines sei damit die erste Fluggesellschaft weltweit, die ihren Kunden die Möglichkeit biete, an Bord mit einer Office Suite zu arbeiten, heißt es in einer Pressemitteilung von Sun. Geschäftsreisende könnten so an ihren Text-, Präsentations- und Tabellenkalkulationsdokumenten weiterarbeiten, ohne ihren Laptop zu starten. Die Daten lassen sich von einem USB-Speichergerät einlesen, die Kompatibilität zu den Dateiformaten von MS Office ist gewährleistet. ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it /c't)

http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/90339 

Damit wird der Begriff "Inflight Entertainment" bei den Singapurern ja neu bewertet. Arbeitswütige Manager müssen sich nicht mehr durch langweilige Unterhaltungsprogramme quälen sondern können sich nun wirklich entspannen - bei der Arbeit. Ein Schelm, wer Arges dabei denkt!

Interview with Javier Solá from KhmerOS on Free Software for the Third World and why Mozilla will disappear

Phnom Penh, october 15^th 2005

The remembrance of the Khmer Rouge's victims can still be felt everywhere around Cambodia's capital Phnom Penh. More than two decades after the fall of Pol Pot's terror regime the country slowly releases itself from the deadlock of civil war. But apart from collecting guns and fighting the further spread of HIV, there is also another issue Cambodia has to overcome – using computers. For people in the US and Europe, it is common to use computers in their own language. But imagine you would have to use a Chinese word processor to write an English text, and this word processor is not really able to handle English well. That is roughly the situation in Cambodia. Most people speak only very little English and are therefore handicapped in doing even simple tasks. Javier Sola, a spaniard living in Cambodia, and the NGO Open Forum of Cambodia want to change this by localizing open source software for Khmer, as the cambodian language is called officially, and provide the people a legal alternative to pirated copies of Windows and Microsoft Office.

Prof. YoungWan Kim from South Corea's Pusan National University, and also Chair of the APEC Future Education Consortium presented in his keynote for the E-Learning e-Learning Strategies : Edutainment Conference at the Rajabhat Suan Dusit University, Thailand on 12^th of March 2077 a bold vision of an Edutainment Park for the APEC region with a stress on value-based education. As Prof. Kim has put it with his own words into the abstract for his keynote:

As to the unexpected future society and rapid changes of technologies, world famous scholars and experts have deliberated ideal model of future society and suggested a way to overcome the challenges of future society. APEC Future Education Consortium is the for developing a community model of future education, embodying a 'Total-supporting System,' and advancing research activities to meet the challenges of the IT-based future society with emphasizing value oriented society and considering the harmony between technologies and human being through implementing the EduPark.

In his Introduction, Prof. Kim noted that future predictions in the past did not come true, be it the totally computerized classroom without a teacher (as seen in the 1960's), or be it Alvin Toffler's 1989 prediction that degrees become obsolete before the year 2000. Although a precise prediction is not possible (upon which I strongly agree),  Prof. Kim shared the oppinion, that "the role and function of education will be getting more important in the future", and that "the educational method will be changed into a new way (in particular, centered on high-tech)", which means that the underlying curricula, educational philosophy, and so on have to change, too. In addition to this, Prof. Kim also stresses the importance of values in future education.

Following this, Prof. Kim defines 6 Challenges and Tasks for school education for future education.

1. Future education should consider multiple paradigms and methodologies instead of being based upon only one. In this task, Prof. Kim criticises the concentration on a western view point on educatio, and the general under-valuation of a specific eastern point of view. Also, apart from technological and economical aspects, other aspects should be taken in acount, too, e.g. psychological, social, economical aspects, so that in the end there is a balance between economic development and enhancement of social welfare.
2. The second task that Prof. Kim pointed out, is the question of living in harmony with one's community. Here, he discusses how to lead a "Healthy Life" which does not only rely on external factors that focus on the body, and that will leads to being stressed to acquire the latest trends of "Being Well". One way to lead a "Healthy Life", as Prof. Kim suggests, is voluntary work, like for organications like Greenpeace, Lions Club, or Rotary Club.
3. The third task is to combine web-based e-learning with face-to-face learning into a blended learning model.
4. The fourth task is to build nature-friendly schools, or to bring schools into a nature environment. For this task, Prof. Kim mainly refered to his project of the above-mentioned Edutainment Park (or EduPark). This park should be planned and established on an international scale to make intercultural learning better accessible. On Prof. Kim's website, there seems to be more information on EduPark - if you can read Korean.
5. The fifth task, Prof. Kim argues, is the return of schools to a more human- and value-center education. "This is because the more complex and fast pace the society becomes, the more important becomes the virtues of moral and ethical decisions in designing one's life based on one's individual character."
6. The last task is to invoke a spirit of sharing  among future educators. Prof. Kim alludes here to Open Source projects like Linux, which he sees as a model for educators to share their learning materials as the Open Source programmers do. However, this spirit of sharing should not stop at the level of the individual but also include the level of public education institutions. As an example, he quote South Corea's Edunet. (UNESCO gives a brief overview about Edunet.)

These tasks are seen to be combined in APEC Edutainment Park by Prof. Kim. His definiton of Edupark:

• international learners and teachers exchange
• nature-friendly learning and experiences
• schools are linked to schools in other cities
• high tech meets nature
• combination of domestic and international learning in virtual and natural environments
• leads to reflection on experiences through learning, playing and adventure.
  

EduPark could be, in Prof. Kim's opinion, a turning point towards a value-centered society and education.

My thought about Prof. Kim's keynote

In general, Prof. Kim's asien point of view (as a Korean) was clearly visible in his demand for a value-centered and holistic approach towards EduPark. Although I admire the boldness of his plan, some aspects of it seem to be a little sketchy, as it appeared in the keynote.

The thing I still the most unclear about are the values. As I have lived in Thailand for some years now, I came to the conclusion that the word value alone is a meaningless word, because values are culture-specific, perhaps even specific for each individual. What I, as a German, mean when I use the word value, does not have to have the same meaning for a Thai or a Korean. So, if you talk about values, you have to be more specific (in my point of view) if you want to understood by somebody else. Regarding the examples that Prof. Kim gave, I can conclude what he supposedly means, but it's a little bit close to arbitrariness.