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242 SIMON SERGEANTattention.Technocentrism is endemic in CALL research and evaluation as well as in the wayteachers, students and managers perceive computers in cducation. It often leads to thcassumption that having provided the opportunity to use computers, lcarning happens liyitself.The ecology of CALL innovationCALL, like any classroom innovation, takes place at many levels. ‘The first important thingis that change is systcmic, that is to say it takes place in an cnvironmcnt which consists of anumber of interrelating systems’ (Kennedy 1988).Kcnnedj employs a ‘wheels within wheels’ diagram in which classroom innovationforms the centre of the whcel, and institutional, educational, administrative, political andcultural levels form progressively outer circles. Chin and Benne (1 976: 33) discuss theproblems of introducing new ‘thing’ technologics (for examplc, audio-visual devices,television, computers) into school situations:As attempts arc made to introduce these new thing technologies into school situations,the change problem shifts to the human problems of dealing with the resistance,anxieties. threats to morale, conflicts, disrupted interpersonal communications andso on, which prospective changes in patterns of practice evoke in the people affectedbv the change.Paisey (in White 1988: 1 16) reminds us that. . . it is people who inhabit an institution, and an organisation consists of networksof relationships tietween people acting and reacting on each other ~ thus organisationscontain rational as \vel1 as non-rational clcments . . . Most crucially, an educationalorganisation is operated by the persons who arc themselves thr instruments of changc.Without their willingness and participation, thcrc will be no change.These writers give some idca of the dynamics of introducing ‘thing’ technologics intointeracting systems and sulisystems, although they fall short of providing a detailcd modelof the curriculum in a state of flux.Innovation or change?White (1 988) defines innovation as ‘a deliberate effort, perceived as new and intended tobring about improvement’. It is distinguished from change, which is any difference betweenTime 1 and Time 2. Delano et al. (1 994) define innovation more narrowly for the ESLcontext in terms of change, development, novelty and improvement. An innovation in asecond language teaching programme is an informed change in an underlying philosophyof language teaching/learning, brought about by direct experience, research findings, orother means, resulting in an adaptation olpedagogic practices such that instruction is betterable to promote language lcarning.Kemmis et al. (1 997) make a distinction between minimal and maximal curriculuminnovation. Minimal innovation occurs when there is a change in the way a particular aspectof the syllabus is presented to students.Thc course will be altcred to accommodate the newidca. Maximal innovation would be evident in a massive reorientation of a course influencedby the CALL aspect of the course.

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