Evaluation & Conclusions

The main anticipated benefit of this international project was being able to draw on the experience of people from a wide variety of backgrounds to help achieve the full potential of the use of ICT in language learning through teacher education. Anyone who has been in at the birth of new trends in language learning will appreciate how valuable it is to exchange experiences, profit from previous successes and avoid a few of the pitfalls that inevitably occur in innovative projects.

In concrete terms, what we hoped to achieve as a result of
this project was:

1. To identify relevant books and articles and web resources that would enable all those interested to browse and discover useful theoretical and practical information and interesting experiments at their own leisure;
2. To encourage any of those who had already tried and succeeded (or tried and failed) to integrate ICT in language teaching/learning in general and in distance language learning in particular to write up their experience in the form of a short case study, so that others can benefit;
3. To develop tools to enable teachers and learners to evaluate the appropriateness and effectiveness of specific tools for (distance) language learning and teacher education;
4. To carry out some (modest) projects where language teachers and teacher educators could try out ICT with the aim of designing a teacher education course module on the use of ICT in teacher education and (distance) language learning;
5. We all wished to profit from the experience of our Finnish colleague in the use of an interactive platform, BSCW, (Basic Support for Collaborative Work) for the exchange of ideas and experience, and the sharing of resources between teacher educators in different European countries.

The results that were achieved

1. The identification of relevant books, articles and web links
( click to consult the Bibliography and Webography). These now form part of an ongoing collection of resources concerning all aspects of language teaching and learning that can be found on the ECML web site. Every project has its own bibliography and some projects have their own webography. No list can be avoid being subjective; in fact we tried to encourage our contributors to be subjective and to explain why they recommended a particular publication or web site. Those interested will find other people's lists around the same topic worth consulting.

2. Case studies ( click to consult list of Case studies). Not all the workshop participants who had already experimented in the use of ICT discussed, demonstrated or used during the workshop, or those who tried them subsequently, managed to submit case studies. However, some of those experiences are recorded here either in the form of reports or in a format more typically identified as case studies.

3. Evaluating how appropriate and effective specific tools are for (distance) language learning ( click here to consult Introduction to Tier 2). Not enough workshop participants had had sufficient practical experience in using ICTs to feel they could select appropriate evaluation criteria. Some discussion did take place about existing approaches to evaluating ICTs, but ultimately other Strands took priority, and the concrete output of this Strand is a table created by one participant. Other references concern previously published articles and existing web sites.

4. The development of projects where language teachers and teacher educators could try out ICT with the aim of designing a teacher education course module ( click here to consult The Use of ICT in Teacher Education and Distance Language Learning). The projects carried out by participants concentrated mainly on the use of ICT in foreign language learning and less on the metalevel of teaching and learning. However, with presentations, discussions on the BSCW platform, projects and examples of students' work the total outcome shows a series of creative ways of using ICTs in foreign language teacher education, which could easily serve as the basis for course modules.

5. The interactive platform: the BSCW ( click here for a view of BSCW explanations and sample pages). The most innovative aspect of the project was the use of the BSCW interactive platform, as it was the only way participants were "allowed" to communicate with other members of the group during the workshop. The traditional tools previously used in interactive workshops (comments posted up on the wall, posters, etc), were replaced by a number of web pages created and used by the participants to report on group work and start discussion forums. We also know that the BSCW platform, which seemed so intimidating at first, was widely used by workshop participants for their own purposes and in projects above and beyond the initial objectives of the project. And that is exactly what we were aiming for - to have teachers learn to feel comfortable with sophisticated communication tools, in this case, an interactive platform.

Other outcomes of the project
Attracting the right type of participants to the ECML workshops has never been a simple task. ECML project coordinators discussed the problem at one of their meetings. We are happy to report that the participant profile defined for this project really worked. The 30 participants (including the project team) from 27 countries were all eager not only to give the others the benefit of what they had already accomplished in class, outside class, and in teacher education, using information technologies, but they also jumped at the opportunity to try out the tools set up by the ECML for the duration of the workshop.

Conclusions
The project was a very positive learning experience for all involved. This includes the realisation (probably obvious to distance teachers of all subjects) that it's easier to motivate people you see face-to-face than those you can only communicate with by phone, e-mail, or interactive platform after a workshop. Unless ICT is a core activity with clear objectives and outcomes, it is quite difficult to encourage teams (of students or educators) to use it regularly.

It is true that in 2003, the degree of use of ICT in distance language learning and in the education of language teachers is probably still the exception rather than the rule. Hybrid modes of learning/teaching are more common. ICT is expensive and adequate funding is not easy to come by. People with the technical know-how need to be encouraged to share their knowledge and expertise with language teachers and teacher educators. In addition, we all need the time to adapt the technologies to the needs of the learner, not the reverse.