Share the message: CALL’s got potential!

I keep reading Teaching and Researching Computer-assisted Language Learning (Ken Beatty; Pearson Ed. Ltd.2003; click on the picture for details). From chapter 8, “Theoretical and pedagogical concerns”, I’d like to remember the following quotes:

• “Learners often seem unaware of, or unconcerned with, some of the resources that would help them complete a task” (p. 150; my bolds): I remember reading (and probably posting something somewhere too) about teachers being unaware of the potential of computers as a reason for not integrating them into their lessons. Beatty suggests “better software programs could perhaps be more active in advertising their resources through timed prompts“. At a personal level, I take it as a “duty” to keep advocating for CALL to those “unaware of or unconcerned with” its potential.
• “the environment of traditional schools is not usually or ideally suited to the delivery of CALL or other types of computer-aided learning in a collaborative context… A learning environment built on the traditional library model, with individual carrels isolating each computer and each user with signs urging learners to be quiet, is unlikely to promote collaborative learning … Similarly, if computer access is restricted, either in terms of time (e.g. 15 minutes at the end of a class) or space (e.g. please find the teacher with the key) then CALL will be discouraged.” (p. 154) “it is too often the case that a school willing to spend lavishly on the setting up of a classroom set of computers will not set aside appropriately matching funds for software, training and upkeep. This means, in some cases, computers remain idle” (pp. 170-1): no comments, working for a school that three years ago set up a beautiful “multimedia lab” with 10 computers all logged onto to the Internet, never even discussed its setting with teachers or promoted its use in any way, and then little by little dismantled it by “borrowing” the hardware for clerical positions, until we’ve gotten to the point where all that’s left of that lab is the label at the door. !