NERALLT Fall 2010 Conference


The Digital Native Language Learners are Here: How Do We Effectively Teach
Language 
                                              to the Digital Native?

                                            October 21st-22nd, 2010
                                                 Harvard University

When Marc Prensky coined the phrase in 2001 'Digital Native' in his article
"Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants", he identified a new type of learner
that had found their way onto higher ed and K-12 campuses. From birth, they
have been surrounded by the toys and tools of the digital age such as
smartphones, laptops, the web and video games. Most of us reading this call
fall into the "Digital Immigrant" category. This new world of technology has
not been a part of our entire lives.  With this gap in experience inevitably
comes a gap in expectations between educators and students.

Acknowledging their arrival is one crucial step towards closing the gap in
understanding between the digital native learners and the digital immigrants
teaching.  Next follows the question, "How do we effectively teach language
to the digital native?"  In order to continue providing excellence in
language programs, there needs to be a critical look at how digital natives
acquire, consolidate, process, and utilize information and knowledge. This
is key to wisely investing in electronic resources and instructional
technologies for these learners. In turn, this understanding will assist
language faculty in modifying their pedagogy to optimize the language
learning potential of these new learners.

As language educators, administrators and instructional technologist work to
balance the needs and preferences of these 'digital natives' with the
mission and standards of college and university language curricula, the time
has come to move beyond the identification of the digital native language
learner and to address their learning needs actively. To this end, the New
England Regional Association for Language Learning and Technology will
devote its 2010 fall conference to showcasing the innovative ways that
educators use instructional technology to engage our digital natives in
learning languages and how best to maintain their and enthusiasm and
momentum. The program committee is extending a call for papers and posters
in which language faculty and instructional technologists share the
strategies and instructional technologies that will energize our students to
learn languages while fostering the intellectual capacities needed to excel.
College and university language faculty, language resources specialists are
invited to contribute results of their practical experience and research to
help map out how technology used to optimize success in achieving the
intellectual objectives of language learning programs in higher education.

Potential topics include :
-Where are digital natives from: instructional technologies used in K-12
learning environments
-R U on-line: Language resources and integrated learning and practice in
K-12 or college/university environments
-Profiling the digital native: Identifying the digital language learner's
skills and weaknesses
-Placement, progress, and technology
-Going native: Learning to speak our students' language and teaching them to
speak somebody else's
-Accompanying the Unaccompanied Minor: Technology, Psychology and Language
Learning for Different Ages
-Whose country is it anyway: Technology and institutional missions
-Technological Darwinism: Are digital dinosaurs fit to teach today's students
-No More Teachers, No More Books: Educational Evolutions
-Burying the Fossils and Fossilized Errors: Generating Excitement and
Improving Linguistic Accuracy through Technology
-Assistive technologies
-Information overload and
-Privacy and safety
-Piracy and Privateering: Navigating copyright and teaching students to copy
right

Please send a 250-300 word abstract of the paper or poster you wish to
propose to Michelle Cheyne ([log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> )
by Monday, September 6th, 2010.

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