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Todd Kelley and Melissa Vogelsang worked together to create the Language OnLine project, a multimedia Internet resource for vocabulary teaching and learning. In the fall of 1997 they wrote a proof-of-concept proposal to the Ameritech Corporation. Ameritech awarded the project $50,000 to create a working model of Language OnLine.
The extranet is not an entirely new concept but it has been a buzzword this past year in information technology circles. Customers, clients, partners and suppliers are forging new relationships and opportunities with technology, and many organizations have begun using extranets. Networks of all types appear to be making new relationships possible for business, government, and education organizations. In addition to the new network technology these new relationships require stretching institutional boundaries and missions. The Language OnLine Project does this through creating a cooperative approach to teaching and learning across institutional boundaries and extending teaching and learning beyond the traditional classroom. While the Language OnLine project is the context for our experience with using an extranet, the Language OnLine project has many facets and the extranet is just one important one among them. In this piece we will discuss the goals of Language OnLine as well as some of the management issues involved. We will detail some of the particular learning and structural goals for the project, and then introduce some of the benefits and challenges involved in using extranets for cooperative resource development. Lastly we will consider the project in the larger institutional context, i.e. how higher education is generally positioned for this type of activity, and how it is not.
What is an extranet and why is it important? Institutional organizations generally have three superordinate goals: they strive to meet goals; they strive to survive; and they strive for legitimacy. Through working together via an extranet, academic institutions can enhance their position vis-a-vis all three of these goals. An extranet can facilitate work that is common to participating organizations by allowing structures to be created, interactions to take place, and information to be shared. In short, extranets encourage new ways of doing business.
Just as an individual might invite someone into an office to transact business, the extranet invites others into an organizational Intranet to conduct business. Extranets are not based upon any particular standard. In creating an extranet it is important to consider first and foremost the purpose of the service. What are the goals to achieve? The goals should be made clear. The first extranet that was created at the Connecticut College-Trinity-Wesleyan Consortium was formed to make sure that all campuses had access to critical data: the on-line library catalog that is shared by the three institutions. The degree of use and the mission-critical nature of the catalog made the extranet a wise investment. Even with laudable goals, the extranet could fail if the actual users don't know how to navigate it, use it or otherwise take advantage of the service. In designing the extranet service, the questions of training and communication is critical. Is training necessary, or will the service be foolproof? Are their hardware or operating system constraints? If the network has to be formed on top of existing technological constraints, that will affect the service and should be considered in the decision to create an extranet? How much tending will the extranet take once it is created? This in part depends on the answers to the questions we have already asked. Then of course there is the issue of funds - the ubiquitous issue. There are also security issues with setting up an extranet. The usual concerns for data integrity and operating system access apply and need to be addressed.
There is some history behind our use of the extranet. The project began as a multimedia database done in FileMaker Pro on a desktop computer. We soon recognized that the project demanded the efforts and perspectives of more participants. We needed more participants so that we could expand to more languages. Most especially, however, we needed more people to represent and address the wide spectrum of philosophies about how to teach foreign languages. The extranet made it possible to work collaboratively with others to expand the database and expand the perspectives on language teaching. The lines of extranet communication were in place for the consortial library catalog, and we were able to tap into them using the existing FileMaker software, because of FileMaker's option to use the TCP/IP protocol. We experimented with the dedicated T1 line that connected the three institutions and found that we could work just as quickly and efficiently between and among our three campuses as we could within each of our Intranets. We were up and running. However, before saying any more about the extranet collaboration, a little more background will be helpful.
As already mentioned, Language OnLine began as a desktop project. What were our original motivations for creating a database for language teaching? The building blocks for vocabulary acquisition are really made up of many little bits of information. We tend to think of vocabulary as groups of words, but in fact each individual word represents a cluster of related information. To learn a word, one needs to acquire the whole cluster of associated data. And we human beings rarely manage to master all the many bits on just one exposure. So we need to review the cluster again and again, but preferably not in a monotonous and tedious manner. Indeed, authentic language presents us with words and their clusters in an infinite variety of configurations. Therefore we needed an efficient storage mechanism that would enable us to organize and then access the words--and all their associated bits of information--repeatedly and in novel configurations. Obviously we needed a database.
What are some of the bits of information to which we keep referring? Clearly when we acquire a new word we learn what it means. However we also need to know how to pronounce it and how to spell it, and not just in its dictionary entry form, but in its irregular forms and past tense forms and plural form. We learn when and how to use the word, which involves knowing something about its cultural and grammatical context. When we say cultural context we mean that in every language and culture many expressions are appropriate in one context and problematic in another. It is one thing in our culture for a person to pick up someone at the airport and quite another to pick up a person at a bar. An example of a grammatical context would be knowing that the preposition "for" follows the verb "to wait". I wait for someone, I do not wait of or to or about something. All of this contextual information is what a person needs to know in order to use the word "to wait" or the expression "to pick up" appropriately. Finally, when we know a word we generally can paraphrase it, talk around the word if for some reason we have not been understood or have forgotten a word. We know how to rephrase our thoughts. We know antonyms and synonyms. In our own language we reference all this ancillary knowledge virtually automatically. For the learner of a second language these bits of information and their associations have to be rehearsed repeatedly before they can be, gradually, assimilated. In summary, 'learning a new word' involves learning these five points: word meaning, pronunciation, orthography, context and rephrasing. These five points guided our choice of which fields to include in the database.
What fields are in the database? What bits of information are associated with each individual word? Obviously there are corresponding words in other languages. There are also graphical representations of a word. We can know what a word means by having a mental image of it, or by reproducing an equivalent word in another language. In terms of pronunciation the database includes a number of sound files associated with each word, including the pronunciation of the word in isolation and in all its various forms (e.g. 'sing, sang, sung' for the verb 'to sing'). Very importantly, the word is also spoken within the context of a full sentence. In terms of orthography there are complete verb charts, plural forms for nouns and irregularities for adjectives and adverbs (like 'good, better, best') so that learners see how to spell the word in all of its various permutations. The database contains several example sentences for each word, which helps with contextualization. That was the fourth point mentioned above. Also in connection with context, there are usage tips like the kind of information one might find in a stylebook. There is a field for sayings, proverbs, and quotations, which serves a dual purpose. Not only do such phrases put words into a linguistic and grammatical context; they also provide additional cultural information. There are synonyms and antonyms chosen to enable students to negotiate around the word in the target language--the fifth point.
In addition to the fields based on the five points, there are other important fields associated with each word. Among them are grammatical and semantic fields. These enable the user to go to the database and say, 'give me a lesson, a group of words, that have to do with animals in Africa.' Or 'I'm studying the economic union in Europe, so please give me banking and money terminology, but also vocabulary about political systems.' Using the grammatical fields a learner could choose to practice irregular adjectives or transitive verbs. In summary, the first group of database fields corresponds to the pedagogical needs, or what one needs to know in order to know a word. The second group of fields enables the user to sort and select among the words.
We have described the database as it was envisioned prior to the Language OnLine project. What were the next steps? What were the changes? And what makes Language OnLine even more than a really smart electronic multimedia dictionary? With Language OnLine we move from simply identifying what it is that students need to know to the problem of how we going to teach it to them. How are we going to have them rehearse all these bits of information? What activities are they going to do so that they have an opportunity to review, use, study and practice the full range of each word cluster? Language OnLine takes the data and then formats and delivers it so that the ocean of information becomes a useful pedagogical tool. But the questions we have been asking basically boil down to "how". How do we learn the data? In developing the system we were particularly sensitive to methodological diversity.
As soon as we moved beyond amassing data and began talking about pedagogy we opened a real professional can of worms: which philosophy and methodology shall we choose. We educators pretty uniformly agree that it is important for language learners to expand their vocabularies. Further, we can more or less agree about the five points: meaning, pronunciation, orthography, context and rephrasing. It is the next step that is controversial. Should educators focus on communicative strategies, or grammatical accuracy, should they focus on conversational skills or reading? There are a sundry of approaches and theories informing language pedagogy today. If we want to move to the next step ... and we do, and did ... and if we do not want to alienate significant numbers of our colleagues, then we need to have a lot of people involved in the development of Language OnLine, each representing her or his 'take' on how to teach language. One of the overwhelming motivations for making Language OnLine a collaborative project was to safeguard its democratic and inclusive applicability. It is our hope that having collected and organized all the fundamental data many diverse people will want to take advantage of the database as they best deem fit. We want the data to be used in as many varieties of ways as possible. Each collaborator brings a new approach.
The students are no less important in bringing their viewpoints and approaches. They take the tools, they take the database and use them in unique personalized ways We watch them and say, 'ah ha...' and modify the design to better accommodate the broadest possible spectrum of needs. Not only are our students the targeted users, they have also become an integral part of the database development. It is empowering for them and it is fruitful for the project.
The collaborators, then, are colleagues at the partner universities and all of our students. We are linked by the extranet, the dedicated T1 line connecting the three campuses. All of us continue to expand and edit the database. All of us are likewise involved in designing templates for student activities, drills, exercises and games. The templates automatically extract and re-present the bits of vocabulary information which are stored in the database.
Once again, used alone the database is a valuable tool as a dictionary, thesaurus, a style guide-in terms of correct syntax and word order, a talking dictionary, a visual dictionary and then importantly as a dictionary of quotations, proverbs, and sayings; it is a resource of cultural information. But as we suggested above, the facet of the Language OnLine project that is most exciting is the link between the data and their use as activities. The potential variety of Language OnLine interactive learning templates is endless. An activity might be as simple as a drill. Based on the fields that we described above, one can easily imagine flashing up verbs and asking students to type in the principle parts, or hearing a sentence spoken and asking a student to do a dictation. Drills are self-evident. But games are also a possibility. We have already brain stormed about bingo, crossword puzzles, card games and others.
The Language OnLine activities could be used by someone at home in individual study. They can be used in conjunction with classroom work, either by individuals or with groups. A learner may log on to Language OnLine just for fun, or to stay in touch with the language over the summer, or after they have graduated in an effort to maintain and build upon their language skills. Significantly the templates provide immediate feedback, so learners can work independently.
The students are in control. They are empowered to learn. That is probably the bottom line and most exciting aspect of Language OnLine. The choice of methodology and the choice of content are user-driven. For us teachers, the benefits are enormous. We get to work with each other and steal ideas. It reduces our sense of isolation and prevents routines from becoming ho-hum. And it certainly is cost effective in our development of curricular materials, when we are all doing it together.
As mentioned above, we have an Ameritech grant and our short-term goals for this grant are to create a working proof of concept model. We want to demonstrate two things. First, we want to show on a small scale that such a collaborative effort is viable and productive. Secondly, we want to demonstrate the idea of the database, the templates, and the connections between them. Our project grant goal is to develop a database in German for the first two or three thousand words that students will learn. In order to demonstrate the transformation of the data into activities, we want to have at least two working activity templates that take the information directly from the database and at the press of a button create an activity. As we stated above, the database is in FileMaker Pro and the activity templates are in a design and beta stage. A final goal for the very short term is to get Language OnLine up on the WWW so that we can solicit further participation and collaboration from colleagues at other universities.
Midterm objectives for Language OnLine include a standard record format for vocabulary. Standard record format for on-line dictionary media entries would be such an achievement for teaching and learning. The same kind of agreement on a record format standard for bibliographic data was agreed on almost thirty years ago by librarians and look what they have achieved with on-line catalogs, cooperative cataloging and access to information. There are several database platforms represented by vendors at this conference. They are open, extensive, robust and flexible. The toolkits that come with these platforms are ideal for creating the database apparatus for input, and user and learning activity interfaces.
Language OnLine could grow much faster and the work and benefits could be shared more readily if other institutions participated at some point in its development. The investment needed for moving beyond the proof of concept stage would be easier to secure with wider participation in the project.
Our primary long-term project goal is to create a cooperative, multimedia lexical system. We could positively impact language acquisition across the country and around the globe. More vocabulary could be learned with Language OnLine not only because it is accessible but because it uses many modalities. Different learning styles are accommodated and supported through these modalities, using voice and graphics as well as text. A cooperative multimedia lexical system would help join together language learners of all ages in many countries. Our initial model is in German, but we have big dreams of expanding to include any number of languages. Once we have the working model in German, adding additional languages will be streamlined. For instance, other languages can use many of the same data as well as much of the semantic and grammatical organization. Such information can be cross-linked to many languages. As soon as there are three or more languages in the database, one will be able to link two languages in any combination. If an Italian speaker wants to learn German, or if a French speaker wants to learn Italian, the combinations are completely user-driven. New languages and new templates can be added as rapidly as new collaborators become involved with the project.
While the origins, use and meaning of words seem almost ready-made for such a cooperative effort, other disciplines might benefit from using this model to create cooperatively the basic learning materials of their disciplines as well. Through providing a model with Language OnLine other educational entrepreneurs might be encouraged to initiate similar cooperative efforts.
As we mentioned before, this model could lead to other inter-institutional cooperative endeavors. One issue for extranet development is selecting tools that everyone can use. If we use the web interfaces for all classes of participants, that would be one way to make sure that everyone could use the extranet both to create and to use Language OnLine. The issue of quality control for a cooperatively created database is probably one of the most critical issues. This issue doesn't seem so important when all the participants know each other personally, but if quality control isn't built in at the beginning, the quality of the database will certainly suffer down the road as the number of participants grow.
The extranet helps to create a secure cooperative network environment, but it also creates the possibility of potential abuse. Passwords are not entirely perfect, and most systems have weaknesses. Good sense and a little bit of caution are probably the best approach. The qualities of networks are an important issue to consider. Is the network an exclusive network? Does it have the bandwidth that is required for the task at hand and can it handle the protocols that will be used?
While much of the business world has been using proprietary network protocols over the last twenty years, higher education has been able to move ahead through the use of the TCP/IP standard. It appears from press reports that most business organizations are moving toward the TCP/IP standard. In addition, many software developers and network operating system developers are converging towards TCP/IP. It appears that bandwidth, reliability, and access and security are more the issues for extranet projects, although protocol is still a factor. Several months ago GTE services, the largest EDI vendor in the United States announced that they were moving towards TCP/IP. The manager of their extranet service unit stated: "The difficult issues are not the extranet but organizational policies, cultural attitudes, power relationships fostered." As John Cage has said "technology is the easy part. People are hard."
What are some of the larger and long-term issues that institutions have to confront to support such projects as Language OnLine? Are group efforts rewarded? Traditionally higher education has provided rewards for the individual, but very little has been provided for cooperative group efforts. The entrepreneurial spirit for the creation of digital resources should be more strongly encouraged and rewarded, but in ways that promote cooperation and the development of synergy among individuals and organizations. And more start-up capital is required. The cost is small, relative to what it will cost if investments in digital technology and resources for teaching and learning aren't made in the higher education community.
Some first steps are required. Standards - establish them, especially for multimedia vocabulary. Scholarly resources, such as Language OnLine - construct them as a partnership between technologists and scholars. Policies on reward and promotion - change them. Partnerships - encourage them. Educational entrepreneurs - support them. New approaches to technology and learning - create them. Language OnLine is a bold step that has implications for institutions, teachers, scholars, and students. Whether it succeeds will depend less upon extranets and technology and more upon the realization that people and their need to learn are the heart of the changes that are taking place.
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