The popularity of online crowdsourcing platforms was slowly increasing among language learners before the pandemic, but COVID-19 changed the educational systems worldwide. This study aims to uncover ...whether or not, and if ‘YES’, how the attitudes and habits of language learners concerning the use of crowdsourcing materials in Turkey, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Republic of North Macedonia and Poland changed during the pandemic.
To compare the pre-and during the covid crowdsourcing tool usage, the cross-culturally appropriate questionnaire utilised in the pre-COVID-19 period was used again. The collected data were analysed qualitatively and quantitatively to identify the differences between the periods.
The study’s findings showed that the shift from face-to-face to online learning significantly affected the development of crowdsourcing platforms worldwide and their employment in the studied countries. The results also demonstrated that a combination of factors, such as reduced interactions with teachers and peers, an increase in workload, and a lack of support on the part of institutions, led to students taking responsibility for their learning. The number and characteristics of the popular platforms changed from country to country since expectations from students varied.
Online crowdsourcing sites/platforms have become popular in recent years, and the first aim of this study is to uncover what crowdsourcing resources language learners in Turkey, Bosnia and ...Herzegovina, the Republic of North Macedonia and Poland know about and use. The other two goals of the study are to uncover what crowdsourcing games or websites the students in the studied countries utilise as in- or/and outside-class activities, how enjoyable they find them and whether or not students contribute to the further development of those crowdsourcing resources. The data for the study were collected using a cross-culturally appropriate online questionnaire in English designed specifically for this study. The questionnaire comprised two parts. Section one gathered information about the employment of the crowdsourcing sites, tools, and games, while section two helped compile a detailed picture of the participants’ background. The data were analysed both qualitatively and quantitively, keeping in mind country and context-specific variables. The results show that there are both intriguing similarities and differences in the ways informants in the examined countries perceive, employ, evaluate and contribute to the available crowdsourcing resources when learning foreign languages. Therefore, the findings might provide insights for language teachers planning to incorporate crowdsourcing sites and crowdsourced activities in their classes as well as for platform/game creators aiming to develop resources with cross-cultural usefulness and validity.
While eTwinning is focused on facilitating collaboration among schools in Europe and beyond, the extensive participation of over one million teachers from 44 countries makes the program an extensive ...educational crowdsourcing activity. In this paper the program which structures the related pedagogical approaches and practices will be analyzed and discussed in light of the crowdsourcing principles. Teachers and students participate in the program voluntarily. All collaborative activities, material production and publication of results which take place online and emphasize language learning fulfil the characteristics of the effective use of crowdsourcing in education. Two kinds of analyses are undertaken, a global analysis of the program features and local analysis of the selected projects. The global analysis relates the crowdsourcing practices to the eTwinning activities. The local analysis is based on the outstanding projects submitted for evaluation for national awards in Poland, further exemplified by activities and reference to the public sites of the projects. The aim of the text is to show that teachers may effectively use crowdsourcing in educational practice even when not primarily focused on its application.
While eTwinning is focused on facilitating collaboration among schools in Europe and beyond, the extensive participation of over one million teachers from 44 countries makes the program an extensive ...educational crowdsourcing activity. In this paper the program which structures the related pedagogical approaches and practices will be analyzed and discussed in light of the crowdsourcing principles. Teachers and students participate in the program voluntarily. All collaborative activities, material production and publication of results which take place online and emphasize language learning fulfil the characteristics of the effective use of crowdsourcing in education. Two kinds of analyses are undertaken, a global analysis of the program features and local analysis of the selected projects. The global analysis relates the crowdsourcing practices to the eTwinning activities. The local analysis is based on the outstanding projects submitted for evaluation for national awards in Poland, further exemplified by activities and reference to the public sites of the projects. The aim of the text is to show that teachers may effectively use crowdsourcing in educational practice even when not primarily focused on its application.
Language Teachers and Crowdsourcing Zanasi, Lorenzo; Weber, Tassja; Volodina, Elena ...
Rasprave Instituta za hrvatski jezik i jezikoslovlje,
01/2020, Letnik:
46, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
The paper presents a cross-European survey on teachers and crowdsourcing. The survey examines how familiar language teachers are with the concept of crowdsourcing and addresses their attitude towards ...including crowdsourcing into language teaching activities. The survey was administrated via an online questionnaire and collected volunteers’ data on: (a) teachers’ experience with organizing crowdsourcing activities for students/pupils, (b) the development of crowdsourced resources and materials as well as (c) teachers’ motivation for participating in or employing crowdsourcing activities. The questionnaire was disseminated in over 30 European countries. The final sample comprises 1129 language teachers aged 20 to 65, mostly working at institutions of tertiary education. The data indicates that many participants are not familiar with the concept of crowdsourcing resulting in a low rate of crowdsourcing activities in the classroom. However, a high percentage of responding teachers is potentially willing to crowdsource teaching materials for the language(s) they teach. They are particularly willing to collaborate with other teachers in the creation of interactive digital learning materials, and to select, edit, and share language examples for exercises or tests. Since the inclusion of crowdsourcing activities in language teaching is still in its initial stage, steps for further research are highlighted.
U radu je predstavljeno europsko istraživanje o nastavnicima i gomilizaciji (engl.
crowdsourcing
). U istraživanju je ispitano koliko su nastavnici jezika upoznati s konceptom gomilizacije te su ispitani njihovi stavovi o uključivanju gomilizacije u aktivnosti poučavanja jezika. Istraživanje je provedeno s pomoću mrežnog upitnika, a prikupljani su podatci o: (a) iskustvu nastavnika u organizaciji gomilizacijskih aktivnosti s učenicima/studentima, (b) razvoju gomilizacijskih resursa i materijala, kao i (c) motivaciji nastavnika za sudjelovanjem u gomilizaciji i upotrebi njezinih aktivnosti. Upitnik je distribuiran u više od 30 europskih zemalja. Uzorak obuhvaća 1129 nastavnika jezika u dobi od 20 do 65 godina, koji rade uglavnom u institucijama tercijarnog obrazovanja. Podatci upućuju na to da ispitanici nisu upoznati s konceptom gomilizacije, zbog čega je niska stopa gomilizacijskih aktivnosti u učionici. Međutim, velik je postotak nastavnika koji su voljni sudjelovati u gomilizaciji kako bi se razvili obrazovni sadržaji za jezike koje poučavaju. Posebno su voljni surađivati s drugim nastavnicima u stvaranju interaktivnih digitalnih obrazovnih sadržaja te odabirati, uređivati i dijeliti jezične primjere za vježbe i testove. Budući da je uključivanje gomilizacijskih aktivnosti u poučavanje jezika još u povojima, istaknuti su koraci za daljnja istraživanja.
Curriculum integration is one of the concepts which has been discussed for years. Telecollaborative projects, which employ elements of distance learning, provide opportunities for putting the idea ...into practice. Analysis of eTwinning projects undertaken in Polish schools aims at demonstrating the integrative role of distance learning approaches and their contribution to integration of various themes in educational context. As the eTwinning framework is very flexible, allowing for teacher and students autonomy the projects may vary in the topics, age and number of participants, duration scope within curriculum etc. The study shows various levels and perspectives of curriculum integration which take place in eTwinning projects. It also discusses the role of distance learning at primary and secondary educational levels. The challenge is to transform international collaboration of selected schools an everyday practice for all learners and teachers.
Crowdsourcing is a new technique of gathering data or performing large scale tasks by outsourcing it to a wider public. Its role and potential in language education is investigated in first in its ...volume research - enetCollect (European Network for the Combination of Language Learning and Crowdsourcing Techniques) COST project. This paper presents the most pertinent data about highly successful crowdsourcing portals for language learning, some educational projects based on teacher’s contributions and analysis of a survey as a crowdsourcing activity. The paper analyses two surveys: a low response rate, large scale pan-European survey wherein a sample of language teachers od all station all over Europe was asked to answer some crowdsourcing related questions (Arhar Holdt et al., 2020) and a high response rate, small scale, survey among the distributors of the first survey in which they were asked to analyse the numbers and techniques they used to reach the crowd. The focus of this article is on an extension study to the teacher survey in which thousands of teachers were approached but the response rate was relatively low. While such low response data in other cases would have been perceived as a drawback and are rarely analyzed, in the context of crowdsourcing meta research this could be a goldmine of importance. The article demonstrates how educators mayor may not be willing to participate in a crowdsourcing activity.
This paper presents the use of mobile devices by students of linguistics, future foreign language teachers, outside the university and in-campus, and their vision of the potential usefulness of such ...devices for language learning at tertiary level. As various characteristics of mobile devices influence their usability, users select a device to fit specific needs. This article discusses student teachers' preferences of the use of mobile devices in the light of boundary objects theory (Star, Griesemer, 1989; Star 2010). Although they use mobile phones mainly for communication and orientation in both contexts, the functionalities are different. For example, they use phone calls outside the university versus sms in-campus, city public-transport website versus weekly schedule. The device turns out to be so flexible that allows for a selective use of its functionality depending on the context.
In spring 2020 both teachers and learners experienced the interruption of education as it had been established for over 150 years and seemed to be unchangeable. The paper focuses on students’ ...perspectives on how they perceive the changes in learning due to the pandemic educational emergency response based on the results of a survey of students in four countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Poland and Turkey. We aim at discussing the data collected at the end of the 2019-2020 Spring semester. The research focuses on the accessibility of the tools for learning, modes of instruction, as well as interaction patterns. In addition, we present students’ opinions on the difficulties they experienced, the learning strategies they adopted and what aspects of online learning should remain as a regular educational practice after the pandemic period.
ICT as Material Culture in CALL Gajek, Elżbieta
Theory and practice of second language acquisition,
06/2017, Letnik:
3, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Odprti dostop
Human and technology interactions are bilateral. A man makes use of the technology available anytime, but the technology enhances human potential and creates opportunities for further development in ...this area. This mutual influence is illustrated on the example of the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in Language Learning and Teaching (LL&T). Both historical perspectives on Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) and the contemporary practices depict interrelations between material artifacts and their use for learning purposes in the multilingual reality of the Internet. The results of research on teachers of foreign languages show that material culture gives grounds for social and pedagogical practices, yet, human perceptions, opinions, and actions constitute the actual use of it.
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