| Edited by Dr. David J. Ayersman, Mary Washington
College, and Dr. W. Michael Reed, New York University |
formerly Journal of Research on Computing in Education
JRTE, Volume 32, Number 2, Winter
1999
Dilemmas in Designing
Multimedia Software
for Learners of English as a Second or Foreign Language
Gulbahar H. Beckett, Lynne McGivern, Kenneth
Reeder,
and Dasha Semenova
The University of British Columbia
Abstract
This article reports several dilemmas that a team of university- and
industry-based
designers encountered as they collaborated on the design and
development of
a software program for teaching academic writing to intermediate
English as
a second or foreign language learners. The findings show that software
design
includes more than following a list of guidelines. Each step of the
process
introduces decision points as designers define a program’s
purpose, content,
and execution. Because many of those choices are equally valid within
their
own framework of values, some of these decision points create dilemmas
for designers.
The purpose of this article is to contribute to the effectiveness of
educational
software design by informing interested professionals about possible
design
dilemmas.
Contributors
Gulbahar H. Beckett is a PhD candidate in the
Department
of Language Education at the University of British
Columbia
(UBC) in Canada. Her research area is the
education of minority
language students in mainstream classes at
secondary and
postsecondary levels. Her research interests also
include
CALL instructional software development and
bilingual, bicultural,
and multicultural education.
Lynne McGivern is a member of the PhD program in
language
education at UBC and has taught ESL and EFL
internationally
for more than 17 years. Her research interests
include academic
writing for ESL students, second language
acquisition and
teaching methods, and pragmatics in second
language learning.
Kenneth Reeder is a professor in the Department
of Language
Education at UBC and a member of the Centre for
Intercultural
Language Studies. He teaches in the fields of
applied linguistics
and child language in education. His current
research includes
early language and literacy development, French
immersion
education and its effects on first language
literacy, and
software design and development for ESL learners.
Dasha Semenova is a member of the MA program in
the Department
of Language Education at UBC. She taught ESL, EFL,
and Russian
as a foreign language in Eastern Europe and North
America.
Her research interests include CALL instructional
software
development, English for special purposes, genre
theory,
and cross-cultural pragmatics.
Address: Gulbahar H. Beckett and Dasha Semenova,
Department
of Language Education, University of British
Columbia, 2125
Main Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4 Canada; kgbeckett@sprint.ca
or dsemenov@interchange.ubc.ca.
A PDF file of the full article is available. Contact: jrte@iste.org. Please specifiy Volume
and Issue number and article name.
Copyright © 1999,
ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education).
All rights reserved.
| CALL software,
cultural sensitivity,
design dilemmas, ESL/EFL writing, language and
content, varieties of English. |
|
