Abstract:

In this presentation, we report progress in a project funded by MEXT (Japan's education ministry) in implementing blended learning using tablet devices (specifically, at this time, Apple, Inc.'s iPads) at a tertiary institution in Japan, for use in foreign/additional language education. This project is specifically aimed at the production of a guide for use by other language educators in Japan, and hence there is a focus on wide applicability and ease of implementation.

It is often pointed out that there is a severe lack of publicly available information on the processes of technology adoption or integration at Japanese universities. Abundant anecdotal evidence suggests that in most institutions there are no efficient or effective processes in place, and there are in addition no national, regional, or institutional guidelines in most cases. Funding tends to be skewed towards an engineering perspective (i.e. creation of new software or systems) rather than a more systems-based or ecological perspective focused on how to make optimal use of available tools and systems. (The situation is reminiscent of, but more severe than, that reported a decade ago for the UK by Salmon, 2005, in which he reported “little evidence of emergence of harvesting, transferring and testing the sturdiest models and principles”.) This means that training in new tools or technologies is often entirely absent, as are opportunities for ongoing professional development around those tools, which might lead to valuable reflection and idea-sharing geared towards improvements. Likewise, at least at small institutions, it is rare to have any support staff available; hence, for wide adoption, it is important that the technologies and tools used should be inherently easy to use and that clear instruction be provided for inexperienced users.

Against this background, the project focuses on activities that are relatively easy to understand and could be adopted with little modification at other Japanese tertiary institutions (and, by extension, at other educational institutions worldwide). Against current trends, on Puentedura’s (2010) SAMR scale, we tend to favour substitution and augmentation rather than modification and redefinition, as we believe this will make our proposed activities more easily understandable. In turn, our hope is that having a range of activities ready to use will serve to justify the purchase of tablet devices both to educators themselves and their funders, and that using them for SA activities will lead to confidence that will enable MR activities at a later time.

The project lies within the by now widely accepted general framework of blended learning (e.g. Procter, 2003; Heinze & Procter, 2004), wherein different modes of learning are used in a single teaching context. In this case, online work is done between classes, usually on PCs, and class time is used for mainly face-to-face activities augmented by the availability of iPads to use at appropriate times during classes. Hence, the learning may, with some reservations based on the inability to lend iPads to students for extended periods, be classified as integrated blended learning (Lavin, 2011). Specific activities are centred mainly around presentations, games, e-books, brainstorming, and information gathering.

Keywords:

CALL, blended learning, tablets.