(PDF) Collaborative Language Learning in Co-constructed Participatory Culture

Collaborative Language Learning in Co-constructed Participatory Culture GREG KESSLER Ohio University ABSTRACT This article expands upon themes addressed in the 2012 CALICO opening plenary1 that I delivered at the University of Notre Dame. This extended interpretation allows me the opportunity to further explore the nature of participatory human communication and collaboration and offer some clarification of the proposed instructional model for promoting collaborative autonomous language learning abilities. In particular, this article focuses upon the hyper-collaborative participatory culture that has become ubiquitous across the Internet. This collaborative culture has transformed the frequency and manner of our communication with one another as well as the way we co-construct reality. The potential for incorporating the opportunities presented by this participatory culture into language teaching and learning is enormous, but we must recognize and avoid a variety of threats. This article addresses these realities while suggesting ways to promote collaborative autonomous language learning abilities. I discuss the potential for a pedagogical paradigm shift in response to this dramatically altered communication landscape and share some practical suggestions for classroom practice. KEYWORDS Collaboration, Participation, Autonomy, Social Media, Constructivism INTRODUCTION Social networking, and the variety of media that it incorporates, has taken on many new forms in recent years. It has also established prominence in many people’s lives. Social media offers each of us seemingly limitless opportunities to participate in the culture around us and to help redefine that culture. In fact, in many circumstances today, social media obligates us to participate. Through this participation, we become co-constructors of the content and are likely to develop a sense of ownership that may be accompanied by a sense of belonging and obligation. We will discuss some biological and social reasons for this later, but, initially, it is important to recognize that once such membership is established we are likely to devote ourselves to maintaining this content and continue to participate in similar content creation in the future. These co-constructed participatory environments rely upon communities of users who find this participation meaningful and rewarding. It is fairly obvious that we would all agree that it would be great to have such descriptions applied to our language teaching contexts. I imagine this is why some have been drawn to design learning within these contexts. It may also simply be because these social tools have become so pervasive that many aspects of our lives outside of the classroom are likely to be influenced by them. Along with this ubiquitous presence of social media, we are surrounded by an overwhelming amount of information, including language. Much of this information is being visually represented in new, complex, and compelling ways. As participants, we can learn to benefit from these new representations and we can also learn to produce them ourselves when CALICO Journal, 30(3), p-p xx-xx. © 2013 CALICO Journal 1 CALICO Journal, 30(3) Collaborative Language Learning doing so is in our interest. We will begin by discussing some of these new representations of language and information as well as new means of interfacing. NEW FORMS OF LANGUAGE AND INFORMATION One of the most interesting language related developments on the Internet in recent years is the increase in diversity of linguistic representation we encounter daily. We are immersed in new representations of language and new opportunities for social engagement that dramatically enhance and potentially redefine the design of and orientation toward language education. Digital artifacts that we rely upon daily are complex and require decoding on our part. There are so many new ways to represent language, data and other forms of knowledge that we may require orientation to some of them in order to use them in meaningful ways. We have data aggregators that allow the visual representation of language corpora from across the web. These include an array of evolving tools from Google such as trends, which allows us to browse searching trends and Fusion, which allows data to be displayed across a matrix. Figure 1 Google Trends searching the phrase social media 2 CALICO Journal, 30(3) Greg Kessler Figure 1 shows a mash-up of information, graphing and mapping, which provides us with a line graph of the history of searches over time as well as a geographical representation for these searches. The letters dispersed across the line graph are links to related headlines from major news outlets. Scrolling over any country indicates the number of related searches and allows users to click to zoom in for closer view to state/province and city view. This interactive mapping of information is becoming a more common resource. We also have a number of big data mash-ups with maps that provide insight into social and cultural phenomena across geographical representations. Some examples include the variety of maps that tracked the 2012 U. S. presidential election at the state and county levels. Another is the on-the-fly mapping that aided relief workers in Haiti in the recovery of Hurricane Irene. In addition to these big data aggregators, we have text visualization tools, such as the MIT Personas project, that constructs a graphic representation of data gathered across the Internet associated with an individual’s name. We also have a number of different word cloud tools that can be used to illustrate the frequency or prominence of words within a specific textual context. Figure 2 below is an example of a word cloud, utilizing this article as the source text. Word clouds can be created using tools, such as Wordle (wordle.net), Tagxedo (tagxedo.com), Word It Out (worditout.com), Tagul (tagul.com) and Tag Crowd (tagcrowd.com). Baralt, Pennestri, and Selvandin (2011) provide some good suggestions on how these may be used in language learning. 3 CALICO Journal, 30(3) Collaborative Language Learning Figure 2 Word cloud created by Word It Out In addition to these new representations of textual and visual forms, there are numerous new representations associated with speech and gestures. Indeed, we are entering an era of increased interfacing with screens through touch, speech, and gestures. We multi-touch our way through the tablet interface. We can control Google Chrome and Siri speech initiated searching. A video that demonstrates speech based searching in the Google Chrome browser can be viewed here (http://call.ohio.edu/cj2013/speech.m4v). We can navigate games and desktop contexts through the Microsoft Kinect, at least after it was altered by the participatory culture in order to work outside the X Box environment. We also have products like the Leap Motion infrared sensor to manipulate computer functions with very discreet localized gestures. This ability to interface without a tangible intermediary device creates a new sense of direct connection to the technology. This kind of interaction can likely motivate teachers and students and help them establish a sense of immersion. A video demonstrating the Leap Motion gesture interface can be viewed here (http://call.ohio.edu/cj2013/leap.m4v). Another aspect of participatory culture is the meta-discussion that is co-constructed in coordination with the surface level content. Many social media contexts promote reflective discussion about content that encourages dissenting voices to contribute and offer alternative interpretations. Wikipedia is perhaps the best example of this. In many cases, the meta-discussion about a given topic may be much more extensive than the entry itself. This discussion is also likely to reveal nuances and complexity about the topic that would otherwise be impossible to surmise without extensive background knowledge. These are only a few examples of how language is being visualized and used in dramatically new ways. While these examples of varied linguistic representation are certainly interesting and provide many beneficial enhancements for language learning, one of the most important things about them is the manner in which they have been constructed and disseminated. These new means of linguistic representation are simply a small subset of the artifacts mediated within the participatory culture that has disrupted global communications in the marketplace, politics, art, entertainment and just about every other realm of humanity. This paradigm shift is undeniable, but not everyone is in agreement that this is a positive development. 4 CALICO Journal, 30(3) Greg Kessler IT ALL DEPENDS ON HOW YOU LOOK AT THINGS Today, we are bombarded with new interpretations of how these communication innovations and their use are influencing us across society. In the early days of the Internet, many held a Utopian view of the mass democratization we would witness with little regard for potential negative developments. While we can certainly recognize positive trends, there is more skepticism today about our increasingly connected and public communication. This divide has spurred some of the most intriguing debates between cultural observers in recent years. In order to understand how we might proceed within these social participatory contexts, it is helpful to understand these different perspectives. On the optimistic side, Shirky (2010) presents a world in which our contributions to social media, which he refers to as cognitive surplus, can be harnessed to solve many of the world’s problems. He argues that by contributing our unused cognitive potential in social, collaborative, and participatory contexts we are able to construct new ways of engaging with one another and new ways of approaching challenges. He outlines a history of collaborative and social scenarios from 1720’s London through today that illustrate how we have used our free time and how we can use it collectively today. He focuses upon the expansive opportunities for creativity and generosity within the new social contexts. As he states in conclusion, What matters most now is our imaginations. The opportunity before us, individually and collectively, is enormous; what we do with it will be determined largely by how well we are able to imagine and reward public creativity, participation and sharing. (p. 211) In a similar vein, McGonigal (2011) promotes collaborative gaming as a panacea for society’s ills. As a game developer, she has created games that are both popular and ambitiously altruistic. She argues that we can harness the collective contributions of members of gaming communities to solve real world problems, such as depleting energy sources and political unrest. The enthusiasm and collaborative spirit demonstrated by these communities of gamers has certainly influenced many toward incorporating games into curricula across education, business, and other domains. It has also inspired movements, such as gamification and gameful design, which aspire to increase participation and motivation through the incorporation of game related concepts and play. Many others have a much less optimistic perspective on these developments. Carr (2011) writes extensively in defense of printed text, or perhaps more specifically against knowledge disseminated through screens. He argues that accessing information through the Internet likely decreases our cognitive and contemplative abilities. He suggests that participatory culture undermines the quality of our cultural content by allowing non-experts to share in the creation. He sees this development as the result of an anti-intellectual wing of academia and screen-obsessed individuals who do not recognize that the endless interruptions created by a world of windows and web-based interactions hinder our ability for lengthy in-depth focus upon deep topics. In short, Carr argues that the Internet is making us stupid. There are also those rare cultural observers who manage to maintain a sense of balance, acknowledging valid threats while focusing upon the potential benefits of these developments. In response to Carr’s (2011) argument, Weinberger (2012) wrote Suppose we were to take the question “Is the Net making us stupid?” to have less in common with questions such as “Is it raining outside?” and more with “Is my preferred political party going to lose the next election?” That second question is best answered not merely with a prediction but with a conditional: “Yes, unless you get up off your duff and do something about it.” (p. 369) 5 CALICO Journal, 30(3) Collaborative Language Learning It is important to recognize this responsibility in contributing to participatory culture. We, as teachers, administrators, and students have a shared obligation to play an active role in defining these cultures in ways that will align with our unique needs and intentions of use. We cannot rely on others to shape these constructs if we intend to use them to our optimal advantage. Thus, participatory culture creates an equal balance of opportunity and responsibility. Weinberger (2012) also argues that one of the most important developments of this participatory co-construction of culture is the lessening of reliance upon experts. By creating value for the contributions of varied participants within collaborative content construction, these new contexts promote greater encouragement for participation while it also suggests a need for caution and care. He anticipates that the Internet will not simply continue to function as a commons, as many early observers had argued, but rather as the Wilds. This metaphor highlights the importance of creative expansion and interpretation not only in how we interact with one another in these contexts, but how the contexts themselves continue to evolve. This observation is optimistic and offers us much to look forward to as active participants. Weinberger also argues that these forms of collaboration allow us to interact with different ideas and participants. This engagement with “others” who are not likely to share much in common with us or encounter us in other contexts is critical to our understanding as global citizens. We may simply assume that such individuals will generally not agree with us, but through collaborative dialog we can establish a more nuanced understanding of others as well as ourselves. It seems obvious that we, as language educators, ought to be prepared to recognize the varied opportunities that emerge in these new social contexts while we also recognize a need to develop critical awareness as we engage in these environments. After all, we have a responsibility not only to provide meaningful, engaging, and efficient practices for language teaching and learning, but also to contribute to the safety and security of students and teachers. Carr (2011) acknowledges that our inclination is to be distracted, to have our attention drawn in multiple directions at once regardless of the medium, but he argues that screens increase this tendency. While I find his argument questionable, perhaps it is worth considering constructing opportunities for learners to engage in meaningful interactions in environments that allow them to benefit from the distractions of their peers, collaborators, benefactors as well as from antagonists and opponents. PREPARING FOR THE DARK SIDE In spite of the excessively optimistic perspective that many adopted as the Internet became more participatory, it became obvious that this was not a utopian frontier. Rather, this new realm of participatory culture would introduce new responsibilities for us as members of this domain. One of the most significant lessons learned from the nascent days of collaborative co-constructed participatory culture has related to the darker side of human nature. It is important that we are aware of these threats in order to avoid them or even turn them into opportunities for learning. Some of the most significant issues that have arisen recently include trolling, flaming, and concerns about privacy. The openness and varied opportunities to share opinions on the Internet has resulted in significant abuse. Trolls are anonymous individuals who intentionally create discord through flaming, or posting inflammatory, hostile, and profane text. These posts are designed to attract attention and detour otherwise reasonable discussions. Every social media platform has the potential for trolling, however, some attract or allow much more than others. YouTube, and 4Chan have been notorious sites for trolling. Recently, the most famous troll, Violentacrz, was publicly exposed. In response, he was fired from his job and socially disgraced, suggesting that society will always develop ways to correct for these kinds of behaviors. For our instructional purposes, it may be helpful to prepare teachers and students to recognize trolling and flaming in order to maintain meaningful participation and avoid engaging with 6 CALICO Journal, 30(3) Greg Kessler flamers and trolls. There are numerous sources of information about how to deal with trolls in more aggressive ways as well, such as those offered on this site: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/05/14/how-to-deal-with-trolls.html The threat to our privacy is a more serious issue and it is likely to become increasingly complicated. It might not be obvious to all users that threats can be initiated by individuals, institutions, governments, or commercial entities. Morozov (2010) provides a sobering, if now wholly pessimistic, perspective on the dangers of social media and Internet freedom. He outlines how the demonstration of free speech has been manipulated by authoritarian regimes only magnifying their control. Others have shared similar concerns about the collection of data that results from our extensive participation online. Vaidhyanathan (2011) warns that there is such reliance upon data collection that Google has transformed its business model from focusing on us as consumers to considering us as the product itself. These critical perspectives provide important considerations as we move toward a greater collaborative and participating culture. As instructors and leaders in education, we need to guide our students toward a meaningful and aware participatory culture that does not leave them vulnerable to these various threats. Some things we can focus on in pursuit of this goal include helping teachers and students recognize how to protect their identities online, helping them identify and harness opportunities to participate in safer online communities, and learning to avoid common pitfalls of social media. Considering these threats can also help us to align the design of learning contexts with the strengths of specific social media sites. Of course, it is always easier to avoid these pitfalls when we have established a strong participatory collaborative community. COLLABORATION IN PARTICIPATORY CULTURE In many cases, teachers may benefit from a better understanding of characteristics of human collaboration in general. This understanding can help us to design collaborative projects, groups, and activities that incorporate the elements that contribute to success while avoiding those that present threats. As Weinberger (2012) acknowledges, As many have rightly pointed out, our motives for collaborating are rarely pure. We apply ourselves to these problems for all the motives that humans have. But we’ve always pursued knowledge for an impure mix of reasons, simply because we are humans. Indeed, the rich variety of our motives is itself reason to hope: We now have more reasons than ever to join in the collective pursuit of knowledge. There is so little standing in our way of learning and contributing that the weakest of reasons can be enough to bring us to contribute. We thus do not yet have any good idea of what cannot be done by connected humans when working at the scale of the Net. (p. 392- 393) This recognition of the potential for collaborative endeavors indicates not only the scale of interaction on the Internet, but also the scale of data itself. It is nearly impossible for us to truly comprehend how much information exists on the Internet. As Weinberger concludes, “Information has become a problem not a solution” (p. 25). This wealth of information is both impressive and overwhelming, and while many emerging tools aggregate data in accessible and integrated ways to enhance their salience, we are likely to misunderstand or miss out on some of these sources. Even with these enhanced innovative tools, the sheer volume of content on the Internet presents a challenge even to professionals maintaining their currency. It is likely that teachers can be easily overwhelmed by this reality. Computer-assisted language learning (CALL) teacher preparation is critical to guide teachers through this landscape, particularly through decision-making processes. However, formal education is limited and generally considered 7 CALICO Journal, 30(3) Collaborative Language Learning as a one-time investment. Therefore, it may be more important to rely upon other means of disseminating information about the potential of CALL in these emerging contexts. If we agree that designing collaborative participative opportunities for students contributes to the co-creation of culture, perhaps teachers ought to engage in collaborative participatory communities to better understand CALL. Collaborative engagement with others around CALL, evolving pedagogy, evolving technology, and other diverse topics that feed into the field of CALL through communities of practice (CoP), mentoring programs, internships or other less formal structures seems an ideal solution. Collaboration is not only important in our classrooms but throughout our societies. Our students can benefit from being better participants in collaborative contexts, and, thus, better citizens and community members. These skills are becoming more valued in the workplace as well. There are numerous benefits that can be obtained through the incorporation of multiple perspectives throughout the development of any project. According to Weinberger (2012) “Too much commonality leads to groupthink. Too little commonality leads to wheel-spinning or committees that compromise toward mediocrity. The trick is to have just enough diversity” (p.168). This value of diversity can be interpreted across individual student differences. In our classrooms, we have students with diversity across socioeconomic background, first language, ethnicity, age, gender, language ability, degree of risk taking, life experience, etc. These differences can often be seen by teachers as a hindrance, but in carefully managed collaborative projects they can be invaluable. Students with such diverse backgrounds are likely to learn from one another and value each other’s contributions when lessons are designed to benefit from these differences (Schechter & Cummins, 2003). In spite of the dramatically changing nature of our communication practices outside of education and the increasing quantity of information, it seems there is little reflection on the potential that these changes have to offer to language teaching and learning. Current pedagogical theories, methods, and practices still reflect the realities of a face-to-face paper-based learning environment. There has been research into the area of social constructivism within contemporary technology contexts, but these tend to rely upon previously constructed interpretations of constructivism, rather than redefining how these educational philosophies might be adapted to these new social contexts. These constructivist arguments generally support social activities that allow students to engage with one another in technology enhanced contexts as they co-construct knowledge. Through this co-constructive engagement they have opportunities to encounter and experiment with language as they pursue other goals. These concepts were established in a time when knowledge was largely hierarchically structured and under the domain of experts. In our emerging socially co-constructed world, constructivism has almost become a de facto mindset. Students today are entering our educational environments with years of experience as contributing members of collaboratively constructed participatory culture. Recent research in other fields has highlighted a number of interesting underlying characteristics about our participation in social media. In the field of Psychology, Tamir and Mitchell (2012) recently observed that there are intrinsic rewards associated with self-disclosure such that this behavior was associated with increased brain activity resulting in release of dopamine. Further, they observed that participants preferred to self-disclose over the alternative of receiving financial gains. Similarly, researchers from the Stanford School of Medicine found that participation in social games activated areas of the brain associated with reward and addiction (Hoelk, Watson, Kesler, Bettinger & Reiss, 2008). These findings clearly reveal some of the motivations that we have for engaging in participatory culture. In order to harness this motivation, we ought to strive to better understand how we can meet our students in these new participatory environments. 8 CALICO Journal, 30(3) Greg Kessler While some specific aspects of these co-constructed participatory practices have been observed in our field, these studies have generally focused upon linguistic phenomena within students’ production or a single function of the social tool, rather than the full potential of the ecology of these wholly new social contexts. There is no evidence of a conceptual reflection upon these practices and how they may influence language teaching practices. However, there has been research in contributing contexts. Some aspects of the changing nature of communication that have been recorded in recent years include investigation into communication within social gaming contexts (Gee, 2003; Thorne, Black & Sykes, 2009). Research has also investigated social practices within social media contexts, such as the construction of identity (Chen, 2013; Klimanova & Dembovskaya, 2013), intercultural communicative competence (ICC) (Belz, 2003; Chun, 2011), and language selection (Pasfield-Neofitou, 2011). Others have studied how the use of specific collaborative or participatory tools may be used, such as wikis (Elola & Oskoz, 2010; Kessler, 2009), weblogs (Bloch, 2007; Sun & Chang, 2012), and CMC text chat (Sauro & Smith, 2010). There has also been a significant amount of interest in the collaborative construction of knowledge, particularly in writing (Kessler, 2009; Kessler, Bikowski & Boggs, 2012; Storch, 2013). Many of these studies have suggested that there are significant potential benefits when using these tools, particularly if pedagogy is flexible enough to adapt to these changing contexts. Some have even argued that there may need to be a “re- conceptualization of classroom teaching” (Storch, 2005, p. 169), and that we are in the midst of a significant paradigm shift in regards to technology and language teaching pedagogy (Kessler, Bikowski & Boggs, 2012). Considering the cultural paradigm shift that we have witnessed in communication technologies, we should anticipate an aligned pedagogical shift to be quite dramatic. EMERGENCE OF HYPER COLLABORATIVE AND MULTILINGUAL CULTURE The potential of language learning within this hyper-collaborative participatory co- construction of reality offers each individual the opportunity to define his or her own role at various junctures regarding the manner in which to contribute, the extent to which to contribute, and the nature of the content to choose to contribute. This understanding does not suggest that all members of participatory culture contribute in productive or meaningful ways, but recognizing the potential may prepare us as CALL professionals to create and manage the contexts that optimize these experiences. Such experiences can be designed to benefit from what we have learned about behavior in participatory culture. By empowering students who are already so aware of the nature of participatory culture to recognize the unique potential of environments, we can design projects, activities, and groups in optimal ways. While our understanding and use of these contexts is emerging, and therefore in need of continued observation, there are some characteristics that we can anticipate. We can see that these forms of participation are occurring in many languages, by many second or additional language speakers. Not only does this participation take place across languages, but it also appears to offer many unique opportunities for multilingual speakers. We can see common examples of language mixing and code switching across discourse functions within a single dialog (Lee, 2011). We can also observe that these experiences have allowed our students to develop a sense of membership within a community of learners. This sense of membership can be an important step toward engaging and motivating students (Mills, 2011). Others have recognized that students are able to establish their own voice within these contexts, validating their identity and contributions in unique ways (Kilmanova & Dembovskaya, 2013). These contexts and the interactions that they support promote the negotiation of meaning and uptake of corrective feedback (Bower & Kawaguchi, 2011). Students are also able to take authority over their own learning (Bloch, 2007). This establishment of authority over the learning process is one of the core elements identified by many scholars when discussing language learner autonomy (Benson, 2001; Fuchs, Hauck, & Müller-Hartmann, 2012). 9 CALICO Journal, 30(3) Collaborative Language Learning Developing autonomous language learning abilities Autonomy in language learning has received a good deal of attention in recent years, including the role it plays in CALL environments. Autonomy has been recognized as promoting student control over their own learning and has been associated with increasing motivation, self-direction, learner setting and individual differences (Benson, 2001; Dörnyei & Skehan, 2003). Reinders & Hubbard (2013) outline CALL affordances for promoting learner autonomy, including access, storage and retrieval, sharing and recycling of materials, cost efficiency, authenticity, interaction, situated learning, multimedia, new types of activities, non-linearity, feedback, monitoring and recording of learning behavior and progress, control, and empowerment. These are presented with a caveat that each affordance may also be juxtaposed as a constraint if students are not “Working with teachers, tutors or other resources (e.g., computer programs) to help them become autonomous and…interested and motivated to become autonomous” (p. 366). This description of responsibility on the part of the student is consistent across the autonomy literature. Also consistent with this description is the fact that some have suggested specific ways that teachers can take an active role in promoting student autonomy. In order to promote the development of autonomous abilities that benefit individual students when they become collaborative contributors to a group, Kessler and Bikowski (2010) developed a framework of collaborative autonomous language learning. This framework resulted from documenting the observed behavior of students engaged in a large group, many-to-many collaborative writing activity within a shared wiki. The activity was centered upon constructing a shared definition of the term “culture” and required that the students maintain their own participation over a 16 week term with no teacher intervention. The manner in which the students demonstrated their participation was clearly divided along the lines of willingness and ability. This observation is reflected in the characteristics of a successful autonomous collaborative learner (p. 49): 1) the ability to use language to independently contribute personal meanings as a collaborative member of a group; 2) the ability to use appropriate strategies for communicating as a collaborative member of a group; and 3) the willingness to demonstrate these abilities within the group. Language learners who demonstrate such abilities are likely to be successful participants within a variety of social contexts. These characteristics are attributed to individual students and their contributions while recognizing the ultimate goal is to contribute to group collaboration. Thus, students who demonstrate ability and willingness, but fail to contribute to the group are failing to meet the second characteristic. By helping students develop a critical awareness of their participation we can improve group work. By utilizing the compelling context of co-constructed participatory culture we may be able to do this in wholly unimaginable ways. It is obvious that we devote a great deal of our attention in teaching to helping students develop the language abilities represented within this framework. We may even tend to the issue of student willingness to some degree, but this is probably quite limited. It is likely that there is much less attention devoted to the abilities specifically focused upon being a collaborative member of a group. This framework is intended, in part, to raise awareness about these characteristics. This framework also supports the promotion of these abilities across the use of a variety of CMC tools, but they are ideally suited toward the social participation that occurs within these emerging communication contexts. In a recent study, informed by the collaborative autonomous language learning framework, Kessler, Bikowski and Boggs (2012) explored the co-construction of academic research papers among larger groups (3-5 students) using web-based word processing (Google Documents). This study observed, among other things, that multiple students constructed 10 CALICO Journal, 30(3) Greg Kessler text simultaneously rather than working in pairs or waiting for a partner’s contribution before contributing. In this simultaneous participation, each student can see what others are writing as they write, each having a unique color code. A screen-captured video demonstrating this behavior can be seen here: http://call.ohio.edu/cj2013/gd.m4v. This behavior would not be possible without a tool that allows many-to-many simultaneous editing. We expanded this collaborative autonomous language learning framework in order to place it at the center of the co-evolution of tool, use, and pedagogy. This model can be seen in Figure 3. Figure 3 A framework for the co-evolution of collaborative autonomous pedagogy (Kessler et al., 2012) This expansion is intended to provide flexibility to adapt to new teaching contexts, tools, and pedagogies. In addition to adjusting to these evolving concepts, this adaptation is necessary in order to align pedagogical practice with current sociocultural realities. Placing collaborative autonomous language learning at the center of this model of co-evolution allows the model to be adaptable to emerging practices. Presumably, demands of language ability, group serving strategies, and willingness will vary across tools and tasks. Perhaps it is helpful to explore some examples of how this framework can be used to design learning experiences that incorporate aspects of the participatory culture of co-construction within language learning. Designing better Collaboration and Participation We can begin by constructing classroom practices that mimic and rely upon the same kind of activities and tasks that students and faculty are already accustomed to doing in other domains of their lives. After all, learning is a social construct that has the potential to be as compelling and engaging as anything else that is shared through social networks. Perhaps focusing more on the social nature of information sharing and less on traditional formal aspects of education can promote more participation. In such scenarios, we can also create opportunities for students to be content creators, such that their linguistic production serves as a model for future students. This understanding may motivate students to be more reflective and thoughtful about their production. Ideally, this kind of activity could be designed to be freely and broadly distributed as open-access learning materials under the creative commons construct. The Center for Open Educational Resources and Language Learning is an ideal source for exploring this concept (http://coerll.utexas.edu/). 11 CALICO Journal, 30(3) Collaborative Language Learning There are a number of other considerations that we should take into account when designing collaborative participatory learning experiences. Creating opportunities for students to assume roles outside their comfort zone can help them develop necessary skills. For example, those who are normally inclined to dominate discussion can be assigned the role of note-taker and those who are less inclined to acknowledge or pay attention to their peers can be given the role of manager or synthesizer, requiring them to actively involve all members of a group. Oakley, Felder, Brent, & Elhajj (2004) provide suggestions for numerous other group configurations that can be employed to improve teamwork. Recognizing the optimal participatory nature of these social contexts, we can borrow characteristics to enhance participation in our learning environments. This could be done in many different ways. We could use the very same social networking sites and tools that students are familiar with or we can create our own activities that resemble these in desirable ways. We can also consider adopting practices that may be more conceptual and less obvious. For example, allowing students to have more control over the design of the learning environment, tasks, activities, and even approaches to evaluation can help students to feel a sense of involvement and commitment to the class. This kind of involvement is also consistent with establishing a student centered learning environment. While we are all familiar with group work in language learning, all too often students are not prepared for collaborative group work. There is an assumption that students know what to do when they are placed in groups, but they are likely to have many previous negative group experiences with little critical reflection upon how these experiences could have been improved. It is important to provide opportunities for students to help define how a group should function and what should be expected of them. Students would also benefit from discussing previous negative experiences in order to design more successful collaborative experiences in the future. Collaborative groups are now found throughout society in these participatory contexts. This means that we can now rely upon students’ experiences in non- educational settings to inform these practices. Engaging students in the design of collaborative activities, practices and expectations allows them to contribute to the construction of these practices in ways they are currently contributing to participatory culture. This should prove to empower and engage them. In promoting the collaborative autonomous learning abilities it is important to design contexts that promote the engagement of students and allow for creativity. Constructing optimal learning opportunities in today’s participatory contexts requires an awareness of the realities and potential that these contexts present. Optimal learning environments will allow students to engage with each other, the instructor, the curricular goals and other aspects of the environment. It will also allow students to have some input about the design. Of course, it is always important to incorporate aspects we have learned about from previous CALL and design based research as well. Designing environments with input from students that include varied opportunities for exchanging feedback and archiving interactions for future reference can provide learners with wholly new opportunities to experiment with their language production. Such design should also be aligned with relevant learner and teacher preparation. Preparing students and teachers to harness the potential of co-constructed participatory culture may be much more challenging than designing these optimal learning experiences. Designing Projects that Promote Participation One of the most compelling aspects of participatory culture is the extensive potential for contributing to the construction of knowledge. This opportunity to create content is also a core component of project-based learning (PBL), which allows students to participate in extended social learning experiences built upon topics of concern or interest to students 12 CALICO Journal, 30(3) Greg Kessler (Moss & Van Duzer, 1998). PBL offers ideal opportunities to be designed in ways that incorporate aspects of social mediated participatory culture. Some examples of extended projects include: Group digital storytelling Requires students to gather information, write scripts and create digital artifacts about a shared experience, cultural phenomena or topic of interest. Fanfiction Requires students to identify some genre, cultural topic or work of literature and respond to it through expansion or other alteration of the storyline. Simulation and gaming construction Requires co-construction of a virtual environment and/or community, such as those associated with The Sims™, Minecraft, or other collaboratively manipulated environment. Shared social mapping projects Requires students to gather data about some personal, social, cultural, or other phenomenon and embed this data within mapping software. Digital cultural collage Requires students to gather information about a cultural, historical, or important figure from the target culture and construct an extensive digital representation. Video projects Requires students to gather information, organize it into a meaningful sequence, create storyboards, and construct a video that is dramatic, instructional, or a documentary. Course wiki about core course content Requires students to contribute after conducting research in order to share and negotiate their new understanding. While projects tend to involve a series of varied activities toward a shared or cumulative goal, there are many ways to incorporate aspects of participatory culture at the less extensive or even mini-project level. Some examples of short term projects include: Group picture story creation This is similar to digital storytelling, but less demanding and requiring a shorter duration. This could be done as a step in the process of a larger digital storytelling project. Authentic knowledge contributions Students can contribute to Wikipedia or other online knowledge-bases about topics that they research collaboratively. Although Wikipedia is extensive in many languages, it is likely that any given city, university, community, or a more specific topic has yet to be defined in many languages. Internet meme creation Students can creatively combine brief text with visuals that add some unique meaning. 13 CALICO Journal, 30(3) Collaborative Language Learning Any of these projects can be shared within classes or with others outside of a class context. This sharing could also invite further collaboration or merely feedback about the quality of the production. External feedback is an additional benefit of participatory culture. It is also important that teachers allow students sufficient time for opportunities to engage in these participatory contexts. Although it may initially feel uncomfortable or unfamiliar, this time for authentic practice is critical. Teachers should keep in mind the following guidelines: • Allow students to define their own projects • Construct tasks and task expectations as a class • Ask more questions than you provide answers • Provide tasks across a spectrum of teacher intervention • Provide necessary learner training for use of digital spaces and tools • Encourage the exploitation of extant language and technology knowledge and skills • Observe and monitor student progress as they collaborate, but avoid too much control • Provide input/feedback only as it aids or guides the task or project • Assure all students have an appropriate role in a project or activity • Provide students with rubrics and/or checklists (It is best if these are created with student input) These are only some suggestions that I have gathered from years of designing learner- centered project-based experiences. There are certainly many others that would be helpful in these contexts as well. What is important is that students have room to experiment with the language and work together through the process. There are likely to be other challenges that teachers face and each day may present new opportunities. PREPARING FOR UNCERTAINTY This co-construction of knowledge is likely to result in circumstances of uncertainty and conflict that are quite unlike traditional learning environments. Due to the ever-changing potential within these learning experiences, a certain level of flexibility is necessary for participants, including teachers. Allowing students the freedom to define and control aspects of their own learning can dramatically threaten a teacher’s sense of control. In this educational model, a teacher’s control over the learning environment is complex and fluctuating. It is likely to require ongoing adjustments as learning progresses. Much of what makes the co-construction of participatory culture so compelling is the fact that it is in a state often referred to as perpetual beta. It is very difficult to predict exactly how these rapidly evolving tools will change in the future. It is also difficult to predict exactly how we will adapt our behavior to these changes. However, with a little effort, we can stay informed throughout this evolution. Developing a sense of curiosity about this evolution can be very rewarding, particularly if you engage with others in the process. CoPs and a variety of formal and informal CALL mentor arrangements may be ideal for some, while others may prefer in-service and conference oriented professional development. We all need to be actively involved in this evolution or we are likely to be left behind. Designing the future is exciting, rewarding, and challenging work and it is a responsibility we all share and benefit from simultaneously. NOTE 1 A video of the 2012 CALICO Opening Plenary is available online at: http://www.ohio.edu/linguistics/ people/kessler/2012-Kessler.m4v   14 CALICO Journal, 30(3) Greg Kessler REFERENCES Baralt, M., Pennestri, S., & Selvandin, M. (2011). Using wordles to teach foreign language writing. Language Learning & Technology, 15(2), 12-22. Belz, J. A. (2003). Linguistic perspectives on the development of intercultural competence in telecollaboration. Language Learning & Technology, 7(2), 68-117. Benson, P. (2001). Autonomy in language learning. Essex, UK: Pearson Education Limited. Bloch, J. (2007). Abdullah’s blogging: A generation 1.5 student enters the blogosphere. Language Learning & Technology, 11, 128-141. Bower, J., & Kawaguchi, S. (2011). Negotiation of meaning and corrective feedback in Japanese/ English eTandem. Language Learning & Technology, 15(1), 41-71. Carr, N. (2011). The shallows: What the Internet is doing to our brains. MacMillan: New York Chen, H. I. (2013). Identity practices of multilingual writers in social networking spaces. Language Learning & Technology, 17(2), 143–170. Chun, D. M. (2011). Developing intercultural communicative competence through online exchanges. CALICO Journal, 28(2), 392-419. Dörnyei, Z., & Skehan, P. (2003). Individual differences in second language learning. In C. J. Doughty & M. H. Long (Eds.), The handbook of second language acquisition (pp. 589-630). Malden, MA: Blackwell. Elola, I., & Oskoz, A. (2010). Collaborative writing: Fostering foreign language and writing conventions development. Language Learning & Technology, 14(3), 51–71. Fuchs, C., Hauck, M., & Müller-Hartmann, A. (2012). Promoting learner autonomy through multiliteracy skills development in cross-institutional exchanges. Language Learning & Technology, 16(3), 82–102. Gee, J. P. (2003). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Hoelk, F., Watson, C. L., Kesler, S. R., Bettinger, K. E., & Reiss, A. L. (2008). Gender differences in the mesocorticolimbic system during computer game-play. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 42(4), 253-258. Kessler, G. (2009). Student initiated attention to form in wiki based collaborative writing. Language Learning & Technology, 13(1), 79-95. Kessler, G., & Bikowski, D. (2010). Developing collaborative autonomous learning abilities in computer mediated language learning: Attention to meaning among students in wiki space. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 23(1), 41-58. doi: 10.1080/09588220903467335 Kessler, G., Bikowski, D., & Boggs, J. (2012). Collaborative writing among second language learners in academic web-based projects. Language Learning & Technology, 16(1), 91-109. Klimanova, L., & Dembovskaya, S. (2013). L2 Identity, Discourse, and Social Networking in Russian. Language Learning & Technology, 17(1), 69–88. Lee, L. (2011). Blogging: Promoting learner autonomy and intercultural competence through study abroad. Language Learning & Technology, 15(3), 87-109. McGonigal, J. (2011). Reality is broken: Why games make us better and how they can change the world. Penguin: London. Mills, N. (2011). Situated learning through social networking communities: The development of joint enterprise, mutual engagement, and a shared repertoire. CALICO Journal, 28(2), 345-368. Morozov, E. (2010). The net delusion: The dark side of Internet freedom. New York: PublicAffairs. 15 CALICO Journal, 30(3) Collaborative Language Learning Moss, D., & Van Duzer, C. (1998). Project based learning for adult English language learners. Washington, DC: National Clearinghouse for ESL Literacy Education. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED427556) Oakley, B., Felder, R. M., Brent, R., & Elhajj, I. (2004). Turning student groups into effective teams. Journal of Student-centered learning, 2(1), 8-33. Pasfield-Neofitou, S. (2011). Online domains of language use: Second language learners’ experiences of virtual community and foreignness. Language Learning & Technology, 15(2), 92–108. Reinders, H., & Hubbard, P. (2013). CALL and learner autonomy: Affordances and constraints. In M. Thomas, H. Reinders, and M. Warschauer (Eds.), Contemporary computer assisted language learning. London: Continuum Books. Sauro, S., & Smith, B. (2010). Investigating L2 performance in text chat. Applied Linguistics, 31(4), 554-577. doi: 10.1093/applin/amq007 Schechter, S. R., & Cummins, J. (2003). Multilingual education in practice. Using diversity as a resource. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Shirky, C. (2010). Cognitive surplus: Creativity and generosity in a connected age. New York, NY: Penguin. Storch, N. (2005). Collaborative writing: Product, process, and students’ reflections. Journal of Second Language Writing, 14, 153–173. doi: 10.1016/j.jslw.2005.05.002 Storch, N. (2013). Collaborative writing in L2 classrooms. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters. Sun, Y., & Chang, Y. (2012). Blogging to learn: Becoming EFL academic writers through collaborative dialogues. Language Learning & Technology, 16(1), 43–61. Tamir, D. I., & Mitchell, J. P. (2012). Disclosing information about the self is intrinsically rewarding. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 109(21), 8038-8043. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1202129109 Thorne, S., Black, R., & Sykes, J. (2009). Second language use, socialization, and learning in Internet interest communities and online gaming. Modern Language Journal, 93(s1), 802–821. doi: 10.1111/j.1540-4781.2009.00974.x Vaidhyanathan, S. (2011). The Googlization of everything (And why we should worry). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Weinberger, D. (2012). Too big to know. Basic Books: New York. AUTHOR’S BIODATA Greg Kessler is director of the Language Resource Center in the College of Arts & Sciences and Associate Professor of CALL in the Department of Linguistics at Ohio University. His research addresses the convergence of language, digital environments, language learning and associated human behavior. He is currently past president of CALICO. AUTHOR’S ADDRESS E-mail:

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