Language learning in the post-human communication spectrum: Mobile dimensions and edge effects

Paper

The concept of edge effects offers a playful framework that accommodates the overlapping and diffuse borders of language, multimodal communication, mobility, digital learning, and post-humanism that I am researching in mobile (m-) learning. My paper straddles two areas of inquiry in this conference, exploring edge effects:

• inter-, multi-, trans- disciplinary teaching and practice; and
• bridging differences across age, race, culture, language, and borders.

The medium of my exploration is language, which is intricately intertwined with culture. This interrelationship moves into uncharted terrain in the deterritorialized cybersphere. However, the relatively recent wildcard of mobile connection reterritorializes language by pinning both communication and the communicator to a geolocation. Into this reterritorialization can be inserted the anonymous digital conversational agent, an artificial intelligence program using a human voice interface. Thus, a communicator does not have to be human to be pinned to a location, as in the voice of the GPS system announcing bus and subway stops on the TTC. Newly occurring, nebulous junctures arising between language, communication, culture, and post-humanism invite exciting perspectives for (predominantly adult) language learning, and playfully engage the notion of edge effects.

Takeaway

How does digital mobility affect communication, and, more specifically, engage opportunities for language learners in the edge effects of human and post-human communication? The technical aspects of mobile digital connection involve GPS, ubiquitous wifi, and access points for, sometimes anonymous, digital conversation agents. Each of these technical extensions brings with it myriad new opportunities and challenges in pedagogical design. GPS ties communication to landscapes (and moving landscapes to the communicator in terms of surveillance!); wifi on-the-go enables just-in-time global connection and commentary utilizing multi-semiotic-or multimodal-design principles. Both GPS and wifi extension technologies invite the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) in voice-activated conversational agents; the inclusion of such digital agents engages, consciously or not, a post-human edge effect in the crossing of human communication with coded AI systems.

This short paper engages the questions: What opportunities might the multifaceted dimensional shift enabled in mobile communication open for language m-learning? What are the edge effects of post-human communication? Can these be harnessed for language learning? How?

I hope to take away a great deal on how and where art is front and centre in multimodal communication. I offer a perspective on and opportunities for exchange on post-human communication, particularly as applied to m-learning.

Abstract

Mobile (m-) learning of human languages invites opportunities to utilize innovative production pedagogies "in which learning actors are enabled to engage (multi)literacy, artistic, and/or practical design challenges and aptitudes through the making of authentic cultural artefacts-and with correspondingly real audiences similarly enabled to witness such acts of art and knowledge production" (Thumert et al, 2015, p. 797). Conditions of mobility enable the use of augmented reality applications for contextualized learning; and expand the potential role of the voice-activated digital conversational agent (colloquially referred to as a chatbot). But are these being used in language m-learning, and if so, how and where? Moreover, how could m-learning of languages merge the increasingly evident edge effects in the post-human communication spectrum into meaningful language learning opportunities?

Current research shows that m-learning has been largely colonized by commercial apps relying heavily on mid-20th century pedagogies that do a poor job of exploiting new dimensions in multimodal communication on-the-move (Lotherington, in press). Bright spots on the horizon include augmented reality language trails (Holden & Sykes, 2011; Pegrum, 2017), where learners follow a digital map, and utilize camera and recording functions in their check-ins en route. Heller and Proctor (2012) view the digital conversational agent as a potentially useful pedagogical tool given its programmed conversational abilities. This research questions whether chatbots are being utilized in geolocated activities in m-learning? If so, where and how? If not, how could this work positively for m-learning of languages?

Mobile communication has indelibly changed how, where and with whom humans communicate using mobile devices, creating new social venues and new context-sensitive rules for engagements, discourses, and even appropriate written forms. This short paper presents initial findings on the potential of design factors in mobile communication that engage edge effects in the post-human communication spectrum.

References

Heller, B., & Procter, M. (2012). Embodied and Embedded Intelligence: Actor Agents on Virtual Stages. In Intelligent and adaptive learning systems: Technology enhanced support for learners and teachers (pp. 280-292). IGI Global.

Holden, C. L., & Sykes, J. M. (2011). Leveraging mobile games for place-based language learning. International Journal of Game-Based Learning, 1(2), 1-18. Lotherington, H. (in press). Mobile language learning: The medium is ^not the message. L2 Journal.

Pegrum, M. (2017, July). Designing for situated language and literacy: Learning through mobile augmented reality games and trails. Paper in panel: Researching digital games in language learning and teaching, AILA World Congress, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Thumlert, K., de Castell, S., & Jenson, J. (2015). Short Cuts and Extended Techniques: Rethinking relations between technology and educational theory. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 47(8), 786-803.