#WEEK 1: History of CALL

Reflections

The use of computer in the process of learning and teaching is a current way of delivering knowledge to the learners. The reason is simply because technology is giving us so much impact and everyone on Earth tends to use technology in most of their daily activities. We do our laundry using the washing machine, we communicate with each other using the telephone which was invented by Alexander Graham Bell and even to do a simple mathematical equation, some of us would need to use the calculator. Technology made our life easier and it provides so much comfort in life. Without the technology, we would be likely spending most of our time to do some of our basic necessities. Therefore, the deployment of computer in learning and teaching process is something good and beneficial to the learners and also the educators.  

Virtual Classrooms

Attending class does not only mean that we have to literally go to class, sit on the chair with a small table attached to it and listen to the lecturers speaking in front of the class. With the rapid development of technology, now we can attend virtual classrooms and learn anything that is offered by the websites. Here, we provide some websites that functions as the virtual classrooms on the internet:

1) The Cyberitalian site is a place to learn the Italian language, discover the Italian culture and enrich their lives. It provides interactive lessons with audio, pronunciation guides, videos, self-administered exercises and exams and fun learning activities like puzzles, cross-words, reading/listening comprehension, sing along, cooking and many others. There will be also some new activities that will be added regularly.

2) The second example is the Madinaharabic site where learners can learn Arabic without having to pay anything to them. Therefore for students, especially the IIUM students, they can actually surf the website and extract the knowledge simply by clicking some of the buttons there.

Interactive Way of Learning

There are bundles of methods in Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL). Quizzes and fun games are two top approaches of computer assisted learning. An example of the website that uses this kind of approaches is quia.com. It assists the instructors to adopt books, create classes and even to tract students’ progress. For the students, it helps them to complete their assignment in a fun way. They just have to register an account. That’s it!

Compact Disc

Even though we are not connected to the internet, the learning progress can still take place only with the presence of a computer. A CD (the abbreviation of a compact disc), which is a small plastic disc with a metallic surface on which information is recorded, also can be used as a process of learning. We still remember, during out school time, a CD used to be attached in each of our textbooks and teachers usually use it to explain the lessons and to keep students awake during the lesson time.

Virtual Connections

Social networking, instead of using it for the sake of socializing, it can also be used to maintain connections between the instructors and the learners. Connecting students to authentic environments is getting easier and more user-friendly with threaded discussion groups such as Google Groups and also Facebook Groups. It is becoming very popular during these recent days.

Conclusion

With the rapid growth of technology, the ideas and the implementation of it also changes from time to time. Some outstanding things have been done as a result of computer application and we believe that the use of computer as an aid for learners to acquire knowledge will experience an on-going development simply because of the facts that technology will be always springing up like mushrooms after the rain throughout out life.