TY - JOUR
T1 - 'Free rein' to learn about language, culture and technology
T2 - A multimodal digital exchange between school students in Australia and Japan
AU - Oakley, Grace
AU - Pegrum, Mark
AU - Lander, Bruce
AU - Tomei, Joseph
AU - Sonobe, Nicole
AU - deBoer, Mark
PY - 2023/2/28
Y1 - 2023/2/28
N2 - As part of an Australia-Japan Foundation project, school students in Australia and Japan created and exchanged multimodal digital texts (MDTs) in order to learn language through authentic communicative practice, raise intercultural capability, and develop 21st century skills and digital literacies. Analysis of teacher and student interview and focus group data using the 4-domain SPeCT (Structures, Practices, Capabilities, and Technologies) model derived from earlier cross-cultural multimodal digital text exchange research revealed that, notwithstanding certain challenges relating to Structures, Capabilities, and Technologies, teachers and students were overwhelmingly positive about the project, whose relatively free nature was seen as fostering learning. The perceived benefits were largely in the domains of Practices and Capabilities: in the former, these related to choice and autonomy, personalisation and inclusivity, and collaboration and peer learning; in the latter, they related to practising language, learning about one’s own and others’ cultures, and developing 21st century skills and digital literacies. This suggests that within the wider field of telecollaboration and COIL (collaborative online international learning), there is merit in young learners being given some ‘free rein’, or autonomy, in creating and exchanging MDTs.
AB - As part of an Australia-Japan Foundation project, school students in Australia and Japan created and exchanged multimodal digital texts (MDTs) in order to learn language through authentic communicative practice, raise intercultural capability, and develop 21st century skills and digital literacies. Analysis of teacher and student interview and focus group data using the 4-domain SPeCT (Structures, Practices, Capabilities, and Technologies) model derived from earlier cross-cultural multimodal digital text exchange research revealed that, notwithstanding certain challenges relating to Structures, Capabilities, and Technologies, teachers and students were overwhelmingly positive about the project, whose relatively free nature was seen as fostering learning. The perceived benefits were largely in the domains of Practices and Capabilities: in the former, these related to choice and autonomy, personalisation and inclusivity, and collaboration and peer learning; in the latter, they related to practising language, learning about one’s own and others’ cultures, and developing 21st century skills and digital literacies. This suggests that within the wider field of telecollaboration and COIL (collaborative online international learning), there is merit in young learners being given some ‘free rein’, or autonomy, in creating and exchanging MDTs.
KW - autonomy
KW - COIL
KW - collaboration
KW - digital storytelling
KW - inclusivity
KW - Multimodal digital text exchanges
KW - SPeCT
KW - telecollaboration
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85152955623&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.58459/rptel.2023.18034
DO - 10.58459/rptel.2023.18034
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85152955623
SN - 1793-2068
VL - 18
JO - Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning
JF - Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning
IS - 34
ER -