Healey(2007) has made a brief but concise discussion of the four perspectives in autonomy and language learning in CALL. The four perspectives that CALL educators need to take into account are the technical, psychological, sociocultural and critical perspective. In terms of the technical perspective, Healey also further elaborates on the relationships of content and locus of control. The technical environment in CALL can be determined by how structured the content is and how much control teachers and learners have. In the psychological perspective, Healey argues that learners’ motivation is perhaps the key factor in determining the success of learning. As a result, it’s crucial to provide venues such as web sites or podcast for students’ work so students may have a sense of achievement and higher motivation. Healey also points out that autonomy does not equal isolation. Drawing on sociocultural theorists such as Vygotsky (1978) and Wenger (1999), Healey(2007) argues that internet access can help create community of practice among learners around the world and can foster autonomous learning through active interaction among learners. The author also reminds us that the need to rethink the relationship between technology and power. Just as other human artifacts, technology is not neutral and is also deeply influenced by power and ideology. CALL educators need to make students aware of the political and critical issues in language learning.
I enjoyed reading Healey’s work in CALL and autonomy. As she points out, autonomous learning is one of the major learning goals for most language educators. I was also very impressed by her discussion of autonomy from four different perspectives. I agree with Healey’s point that motivation could be increased by giving learners control and power to make choices. However, I also believe a well structured instructional environment and appropriate scaffolding are just as important. Too much freedom and little guidance often result in waste of valuable instructional time and both learners’ frustration. Therefore, inquiry-based learning such as webquests can be ideal instructional model. Lastly, I would like to echo Healey’s point in the political-critical perspective. Just as printed reading texts often only reflect values and ideas of certain groups of people (people of the dominant groups), we need to make students more aware that online reading texts also encourage certain voices and discourage others. Who does technology privilege and who is silenced by it? These are questions we need to think hard about.

reflection 2: interaction

First I need to apologize for being so late this time and the confusion about the posts. I have been under the weather especially it's been so hot in Taiwan! Also, I thought I saved the first part as a draft and it turned out to be a post!!! techonlogy....

Anderson (2003) discusses the concept of interaction in CALL in this nicely titled article " Getting the mix right again". He first reviews the various definitions of interaction in the filed of education and refers to earlier educaitors such as Dewey for the definition and values of interaction in education. He then proposes the concept of equivalence of interaction or the equivalence theorem, as he terms it. He further argues that as long as one of the three forms of interaction is active, the other two forms of interaction can be at a minimal level without damaging the educational value. I appreciated Anderson's effort in theorizing "interaction" in education, Particularly in distance education in this article. As he rightly points out, the idea of interaction has long been a debate among educators. What counts as active interaction and participation in regular as well as distance educaiton classroom can be very different. He draws on the interaciton theories such as Wegner's "community of practice" as one of the framework to conceptualize interaction in education. He also details modes and equivalency of interaction and categorizes three types of interaction: student, teacher, and content interaction, and further provides examples of applying the equivalency theorem to popular education delivery modes.
Anderson(2003) has made some good points regarding the issues of cost and communities. With technology as well as strategies such as web-conferening, it's possible to connect students and teachers and increase significantly the student interaction. However, it will also raise the issue that whether its cost effective.

Although I appreciate his effort to theorize the concept of interaciton and the suggestions to put it into distacne education. I have my questions and concerns regarding a few arguments in this article. First of all, as I poit out in the last paragraph, Anderson(2003) draws on theorists from the pragmatic (Dewey) and socicultual (Wegner) tradition. In my understanding, interaciton among participants is the key factor in learning and knowledge construction from the sociocultural perspective. However, Anderson(2003) argues that human interaciton(teacher-student, student-student) can be replaced as long as the content interaction and its instructional design is right. This argument is where I have been wondering about CALL. From my personal experience of having a course such as this, my fellow students sometimes tend to interact with content and there's little interaction between and among students. How to write to create and build a relationship in a virtual classroom has long been my question as a student in distance educaiton and possibly an instructor in the future... Can we really substitute human interaciton as Anderson suggests here without degrading the educational experience? This is a question I have in mind when thinking about Anderson's title "Getting the mix right again" and I am wondering what exactly goes into the pot. How do distance educators strike a balance among student-student, student-teacher, and content-student interaction? Or is it possible to do so?

reflection 2: interaction

I appreciated Anderson's effort in theorizing "interaction" in education, oarticularly in distance education in this article. As he rightly points out, the idea of interaction has long been a debate among educators. What counts as active interaction and participation in regular as well as distance educaiton classroom can be very different. H draws on the interaciton theories such as Wegner's "community of practice" as one of the framework to conceptualize interaction in education. He also details modes and equivalency of interaction and categorizes three types of interaction: student, teacher, and content interaction, and further provides examples of applying the equivalency theorem to popular education delivery modes.