Sociolinguistics and Language Education.pdf

Multimodal Literacy in Language Classrooms 319
Technology
The word technology, as it is used herein, generally refers to communication
using computers and the internet, though this communication could
also be done via mobile phone. Leander and Lewis (2008) use the term ‘networked
technologies’ to separate technologies that facilitate communication
between individuals and communities from technology that an
individual can practice on his/her own, such as gaming. Regarding early
developments of the internet, Leander and Lewis report that Minitel, an
online service launched in France in 1982, was a precursor of the world
wide web. Customers could use this service to make reservations, chat,
check stock prices, etc. much like customers use the internet today. More
importantly, Minitel (also called Teletel) affected educational practices at
home due to the use of homework help lines, databases with model answers
to national examination questions and online registration for university
courses.
Castells (2000) in his monumental work on how technology has changed
society writes: ‘Among information technologies, I include, like everybody
else, the converging set of technologies in micro-electronics, computing
(machines and software), telecommunications/broadcasting, and optoelectronics’
(Castells, 2000: 29). Castells thinks that the information technology
revolution is as far reaching as was the 18th century industrial revolution
in that it has created a dichotomy between the way people lived, worked
and displayed their identity before and after this revolution. According to
Castells this fundamental change started with the origin of the internet in the
1960s by the US Defense Department Advanced Research Projects Agency
(DARPA) ‘to prevent a Soviet takeover or destruction of American communications
in the event of nuclear war’ (Castells, 2000: 6). Though its origins
may be ominous, the internet today is a common household technology that
is widely available in most affl uent countries at low cost for everyone.
Castells’ defi nition is much broader than the way the word ‘technology’
is used in the emergent area of language and technology. McGrail
(2006, printed from online source, no page) in a study of secondary school
language teachers’ attitudes toward technology writes:
The term technology, as it applies in this study, is associated predominantly
with computer technology, electronic communication (the
Internet, e-mail, chat rooms), and multimedia design tools (digital
audio and video). The defi nition is inclusive in that it embraces the
machine-hardware and its peripherals (printers, scanners or servers),
software (Inspiration, PowerPoint or Censor [a central monitoring
system]) and educational applications (multimedia presentations,
online discussions of reading).
We take McGrail’s defi nition as this is very much what language
students and teachers think of as technology.