A "Brave New Digital World"

I've recently done some reading in this great book called "Brave New Digital World" by Robert Blake and I would like to share with you some ideas of his that have intrigued me and I am hoping they will spark some thoughts in you as well! Throughout this book, Blake aspires to answer two significant questions:

(1) What does technology have to offer for an L2 (Second Language) classroom?
(2) How can you tie in technologically assisted activities into the foreign language curriculum?

The first chapter of this book gives an overview of SLA (Second Language Acquistion), Language Teaching, and Technology. There is not one idea in particular that stood out to me, however, several ideas really got me thinking about my future classroom in regards to implementing technology. This author is interesting yet informative, so I took a lot out of what he had to say. I would like to share with you a number of quotes that have helped/inspired me from this first chapter in hopes that you too might be able to take something away from it. I will highlight the ones that I thought had the most impact on my own thinking.

• "People's interactions with computers, television, and new media are fundamentally social and natural, just like interactions in real life." ---Reeves and Nass (1996, 5)
• "Computers can make a significant contribution to the SLA process because the students themselves feel that they are interacting with the computer in a real social manner." ---Robert Blake via Reeves and Nass
• "More important, the web gives all peoples a channel to express their voice, promote their self-image, and legitimize their goals. This sense of authenticity provides endless topics for cross-cultural analysis and discussions in any content-driven classroom." ---Robert Blake
• "Networked exchanges seem to help all individuals in language classes engage more frequently, with greater confidence, and with greater enthusiasm in the communicative process than is characteristic for similar students in oral classrooms." ---Swaffar (1998, 1)
• "One of the most significant problems facing computer-using teachers is that no education curriculum can prepare them for the swift and continuing changes that take place in the world of technology." --- Hanson-Smith (2006, 301)
• "Will technology expand in the future from this complementary role to replacing the teacher and the classroom venue completely? A rational response to this question might be that technology will not replace teachers in the future, but rather teachers who use technology will probably replace teachers who do not." ---Robert Blake via Clifford (1987, 13)
• "...L2 learners need input that is both challenging and accessible; they need comprehensible input that is within their grasp, input just slightly more complex than their current, still emerging, mental representation of the target language, or what researchers have called their interlanguage." ---Robert Blake via Gass and Selinker (2001, 11)
• "Technology, then if cleverly designed and properly implemented into the curriculum, has a vital role to play in augmenting the opportunities for L2 learners to receive target-language input." ---Robert Blake

I will leave you all with this one final quote which had the greatest impact on me throughout this reading. This chapter serves as a wonderful eye opener to all educators and I know I have certainly put a lot more thought into becoming a technologically advanced L2 educator!

"An increasingly multicultural world in global and local contexts will put intense pressure on our profession to find the most efficient and readily accessible ways to learn another language. To that end, using technology is a challenge that language professionals must squarely face and to which they must endeavor to find pedagogically principled responses."---Robert Blake