Schedule: 2009-09-11 (12:00 - 12:45)
Parallel Session 3 (Room A-1)

Title: Learning to share in the Language Box: a community approach to developing an open content repository for language teachers and learners
Authors: Kate Borthwick, Miguel Arrebola, David Millard, Yvonne Howard
Abstract: The Language Box is the focus of a JISC-funded project (Faroes) which seeks, through the deployment of an innovative teaching and learning repository, to foster a culture of resource sharing within the Modern Foreign Languages community in the UK and Ireland (initially), and to explore the issues around the use and re-use of open educational resources.
The creation of the Language Box was informed by the work of several previous projects led by the University of Southampton, focusing on the Languages community (JISC –funded L20, Claret, and MURLLO projects), which found that language teachers were enthusiastic about sharing their teaching and learning resources in a repository environment - but that environment should be easy to use, with minimal metadata. They also wanted it to incorporate some of the best practice features of the Web 2.0 sites that they were using more frequently: that they are social, interlinked, evolving and flexible.
Further technical development of the Language Box took place in direct response to such input from the MFL community through a succession of workshops, and the repository has now become a living space designed for language teachers by language teachers, where users can store working documents; manage their resources; create personalised collections of resources; and share and re-use open educational materials. The Language Box has also been trialled with a group of students in an attempt to discover attitudes towards becoming producers of course content as well as consumers.
Since going live in a beta version in October, 2008, the Language Box has been joined by a rising community of 130 language teachers within the UK and is now open for use worldwide. Through questionnaires, interviews and observations, an analysis of usage is underway, investigating how the languages community approaches open content, identifying and minimising obstacles where possible, and exploring in depth issues such as copyright, IPR, quality control, and issues around the re-use and re-purposing of digital content. Early indications are that teachers are keen to share core resources by re-using and re-purposing them according to their own context, and are more likely to do this if they trust the community-base which has created those resources. Copyright and IPR remain complex and problematic issues but seem to generate less fear than they used to, and use of the Language Box within a trusted community, indicates more relaxed attitudes in this area. Student usage of the Language Box points to a positive experience with students relishing being producers rather than simple consumers of educational content. Creating their own resources to share formally and informally with others has provided an interesting and challenging task, and engendered an impression of greater ownership over learning.
This presentation will introduce the Language Box and will include a guided walk-through of the live Language Box site and a demonstration of its key features. It will describe how the language teaching community informed its development and will describe the project findings in relation to the usage of Language Box by language teachers and students.
Keywords: repository, share, language, web 2.0, community, teachers, learners

Main topic: Research in new language learning environments

Biodata: Kate Borthwick is elearning project officer for the Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies. She is a pedagogic advisor to the Faroes project and is an experienced English language teacher. She has been involved with several research projects exploring the use of repositories with the languages community. Miguel Arrebola is senior lecturer in Spanish at the University of Portsmouth. He is a pedagogic advisor to the Faroes project, and has contributed to many research projects exploring issues around the online learning of languages and the creation of community language repositories. David Millard is a lecturer in computer science within the School of Electronics and Computer Science Learning Societies Lab at the University of Southampton. He is principal investigator on the Faroes Project. He has extensive research interests in the use of information and knowledge technologies. Yvonne Howard is a senior research fellow at the University of Southampton School of Electronics and Computer Science. She has considerable experience in the project management of technical projects and is project manager of the Faroes project. Her research interests lie in the use of Agile Software Engineering techniques.
Type of presentation Paper presentation

Paper category Research & Development

Target educational sector Higher education

Language of delivery English

EU-funded project No

Schedule:	2009-09-11 (12:00 - 12:45) Parallel Session 3 (Room A-1)
Title:	Learning to share in the Language Box: a community approach to developing an open content repository for language teachers and learners
Authors:	Kate Borthwick, Miguel Arrebola, David Millard, Yvonne Howard
Abstract:	The Language Box is the focus of a JISC-funded project (Faroes) which seeks, through the deployment of an innovative teaching and learning repository, to foster a culture of resource sharing within the Modern Foreign Languages community in the UK and Ireland (initially), and to explore the issues around the use and re-use of open educational resources. The creation of the Language Box was informed by the work of several previous projects led by the University of Southampton, focusing on the Languages community (JISC –funded L20, Claret, and MURLLO projects), which found that language teachers were enthusiastic about sharing their teaching and learning resources in a repository environment - but that environment should be easy to use, with minimal metadata. They also wanted it to incorporate some of the best practice features of the Web 2.0 sites that they were using more frequently: that they are social, interlinked, evolving and flexible. Further technical development of the Language Box took place in direct response to such input from the MFL community through a succession of workshops, and the repository has now become a living space designed for language teachers by language teachers, where users can store working documents; manage their resources; create personalised collections of resources; and share and re-use open educational materials. The Language Box has also been trialled with a group of students in an attempt to discover attitudes towards becoming producers of course content as well as consumers. Since going live in a beta version in October, 2008, the Language Box has been joined by a rising community of 130 language teachers within the UK and is now open for use worldwide. Through questionnaires, interviews and observations, an analysis of usage is underway, investigating how the languages community approaches open content, identifying and minimising obstacles where possible, and exploring in depth issues such as copyright, IPR, quality control, and issues around the re-use and re-purposing of digital content. Early indications are that teachers are keen to share core resources by re-using and re-purposing them according to their own context, and are more likely to do this if they trust the community-base which has created those resources. Copyright and IPR remain complex and problematic issues but seem to generate less fear than they used to, and use of the Language Box within a trusted community, indicates more relaxed attitudes in this area. Student usage of the Language Box points to a positive experience with students relishing being producers rather than simple consumers of educational content. Creating their own resources to share formally and informally with others has provided an interesting and challenging task, and engendered an impression of greater ownership over learning. This presentation will introduce the Language Box and will include a guided walk-through of the live Language Box site and a demonstration of its key features. It will describe how the language teaching community informed its development and will describe the project findings in relation to the usage of Language Box by language teachers and students.
Keywords:	repository, share, language, web 2.0, community, teachers, learners
Main topic:	Research in new language learning environments
Biodata:	Kate Borthwick is elearning project officer for the Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies. She is a pedagogic advisor to the Faroes project and is an experienced English language teacher. She has been involved with several research projects exploring the use of repositories with the languages community. Miguel Arrebola is senior lecturer in Spanish at the University of Portsmouth. He is a pedagogic advisor to the Faroes project, and has contributed to many research projects exploring issues around the online learning of languages and the creation of community language repositories. David Millard is a lecturer in computer science within the School of Electronics and Computer Science Learning Societies Lab at the University of Southampton. He is principal investigator on the Faroes Project. He has extensive research interests in the use of information and knowledge technologies. Yvonne Howard is a senior research fellow at the University of Southampton School of Electronics and Computer Science. She has considerable experience in the project management of technical projects and is project manager of the Faroes project. Her research interests lie in the use of Agile Software Engineering techniques.
Type of presentation	Paper presentation
Paper category	Research & Development
Target educational sector	Higher education
Language of delivery	English
EU-funded project	No