Skype, social networks and language learning

There's a lot happening in this field. Techcrunch failed to mention jus, though!

I use paper notebooks a lot for rough work, but it worries me that I don't have backups, also that notebooks can't shout (routine alarms, low battery warnings, etc) if they become hidden from view. I used to use carbon paper to back everything up, but the shops don't even know what that is these days, and photocopying everything is impractical. Any info that's important for me to retain must be in digital format, so backups are automatic. When using a textbook, or even my own notes, sometimes I'll quickly photograph a few pages using my PDA, to save lugging the whole book around, and delete the photos when finished.

tvan, Good question. There isstill a huge cloud of confusion hanging over web 2.0. I've come to realize that it wil ltake some time befoire the traditional media come to see how they might use it. Some of them have indeed approached us. It will be difficult for large organizations to make an entirely new shift in how they do busienss and gater round the new media, of course. As for schools and colleges, the changes will happen only slowly because they are almost a law unto themselves. In the meantime, however, individuals, like you, are adopting newer and more efficient, technology-based, methods of study. This is putting our educators seriously out of synch with learners. Who kinows where that will take us?

Where that will take us? Learners will see educators as increasingly ineffective and superfluous, of course.

This is a very interesting discussion. I think that another factor in this is the history of computer aided learning. Lots of people have been very enthusiastic about introducing computers into education. This has been done in schools , colleges and universities. Unfortunately, it seems to me that it is a very common experience that the pedagogical results have not been proportional to the efforts. This makes traditional educators wary of the dangers of hyped new technology. I suspect that this history is one reason that they are not totally embracing web 2.0. This said, I think that Chinese Pod proves that the technology has finally reached a stage where it can be really useful for teaching. I cannot praise it enough..:) The increasing use of video lectures etc. in all parts of academia will probably eventually have similar and broader impact. This is definitely a Good Thing. We do need to think about "where it will take us" though. AuntySue's answer is probably correct in the short term, but what will happen in the long term? Where will it take us after that? Technology won't stay still at one level, and it has internal forces driving the development, especially if huge amounts of money get involved. We all know that just because the next step is inevitable, it is not necessarily a Good Thing. We also know that things can develop very fast. So, I think it would be good to step back a second and think about possible negative effects, Like, how will the new technology affect the overall structure of the education industry? Who will control it? Will it change WHAT is being taught?

AuntySue, that's hard to say. As I said, I am taking my first-ever Chinese classes and, in my opinion, there is no substitute for human instruction. That's why, while not for everyone, the Practice Plan is better (and more expensive) than the Premium. In the US colleges and, increasingly, high schools provide this. I can't see that being supplanted by the Web; I do see huge room for integration with it.

No question that speaking to a real human being is the way to go! However, I don't see colleges and schools being able to solve this issue en masse.

I haven't opened a textbook for over a year (ever since I came across CPod). As a matter of fact, I've given all of mine away, only kept a thick Chinese dictionary with lots of examples. That's my only book, everything else in digital, I'm even giving up my tiny, colorful 笔记 (notes). I'm on the phone 4 times a week with a biological person at CPod though. 2.0 or otherwise, the *web* of digital chunks produces way more material than I can get my fingers on, and that's also true of the portable web I carry on my 16Gb memory stick, mp3 player and other electronic extensions that weigh less than a notepad. Never been the case before.

Ken, I'm curious about what efforts have been made to integrate textbook-centric courses of study with the Web 2.0 approach. After years (decades) of essentially osmotic learning, I've begun my first-ever formal Chinese course (New Practical Chinese Reader textbook) and can definitely see the benefit of the layered, structured approach with concept building upon concept. However, the shortcomings relative to ChinesePod seem legion: dry topics, less relevant material, lack of interactive exercises and, most hated, having to go to physically go to a language lab and log-in to receive credit. I know thay you have a program with Integrated Chinese, and that Yellowbridge.com has some resources as well. However, my question is, how much do textbook companies reach out to providers such as yourself? ... and vice versa? Has there been talk of providing a pay site for textbook podcasting materials or does it already exist?

young people, thanks Ken, I always new age wasn't a matter of chronology :-)

...anyway, the one thing that worries me in being dependent to the digital medium is practical. With the printed material, it's always possible to scribble notes on anything, even in the woods or on sand. With digital technology, we're so dependent on devices, and if they had life-long reliability, energy (batteries at present). Having everything stuck in a key-size giga/terabyte RAM card is kind of scary... same for pictures actually. I do it nonetheless, still read tons of books but don't tend to keep them long nowadays, and rely on those tiny devices.

tvan - I'm in the same boat as you. picked up a decent amount but embarrassed by my lack of progress. now in formal schooling; am also using New Practical Chinese Reader, supplementing with CPOD learning approach ....... it's obvious that one on one interaction is best to prepare ones self with realtime communication

Goulniky (young man), I still carry paper notebooks with me wherever I go. I use 'em to jot down stuff and transfer it to the digital format later when I have time. It's easy to lose paper, but wikis or Google documents are for ever!

Powerfuldragon, what do you think of the recorded dialogues of NPCR (and all other textbooks) compared with ChinesePod? Boring and stilted? I think this is partly what the blog was addressing. The textbook dialogues are pretty much delivered straight; by contrast Cpod's come with sound effects, repartee, and user comments. I find this reinforces the learning process immensely. For example, the word 庞大 （PángDà, meaning huge) is forever burned in my mind, not because I wrote it 5 million times; rather because I associate it with Godzilla (chinesepod/lessons/godzilla-in-shanghai/discussion). I don't mean to be trite, but without the panicky announcer and roaring monster, I'm not sure it would have stuck. This might be the one of the differences between a useful language learning site and the "content-dump" described in the blog. (In fairness to textbooks, their dialogues are only part of the learning package.) BTW, I'm sure this has been frequently commented on, but before all you "young men" get too proud of the whole Web 2.0 deal, while at my parents' house over Xmas, my Dad (91 years-old) overheard the Drug Dealer lesson. He said its reminded him of 1930's radio dramas!

Wikis are not forever, they are changed all the time. That is sort of the point of them. And web pages are only available as long as someone is willing to pay for keeping them online. They can be removed any day. If they are freely available today, they might be expensive tomorrow. Everyone that has found an interesting link collection that has not been updated for half a year old knows about that. One point in favour of books is that if you have them, you have them. With electronic forms of storage, that just isn't so clear. If you want to go back and review what you learned a year ago, it is not so clear that this is possible. I guess one could in principle take snapshot of the relevant parts of the net and download everything to a harddisk, but we don't do that, do we? I agree that multimedia is very helpful in language learning, and I believe that they have been used extensively for many years. Also, the appeal of online communities is well known even if it has not been used so much yet for serious teaching. I was part of one fifteen years ago. In that case, the community was very effective for learning certain Completely Useless Facts. It also created a sense of identity, and even loyalty to the community, much like we see it on CPod. The thing which is new is not the multimedia thing, and it is also not the web thing but the combination of the two. I think that it is a very powerful and useful blend, and it will certainly be copied! The multimedia part is arbitrary scalable while it is not clear that the community part is. Anyhow, for now it is great fun to be here and see how this thing develops..:)

Goulnivky, Thsi is defijnitely the future for the lofe long, independent learner. I beleive ti is an incredibly efficient and flexibleway to do it, but I think that scholols will resist adopting these tools for obvious reasons - possibly for a quite a long time - and this wil lput them completely out of touch with how young people are doing things.