The process of learning is typically supported by a variety of media to provide information and to help the learner to organize his or her growing knowledge. Each different medium has its own strengths and weaknesses. So media are selected to match specific learning problems and blended so that the weaknesses in one are overcome by the strength of another.
The main strength of the computer as a learning medium is its ability to process information very quickly and accurately. The set of rules (the computer program) which specifies the way in which the information is to be manipulated can be very complex, yet the processing can be completed so quickly as to appear almost instantaneous to the learner. This makes it possible for the computer to accept and act upon a variety of different kinds of response from the learner and to provide information in textual, graphical and animated form. The computer can control and co-ordinate information from other pieces of equipment
Modes of CALL
Within this medium of CALL, there are a number of modes. Each of these is described in turn.
Drill and Practice
Perhaps the simplest form of CALL uses the computer to present the learner with a series of exercises which he or she must complete by giving some response. The computer processes that response (according to the rules embodied in its program) to determine whether or not it is “correct”. It may then provide the learner with some feedback about answer in the form of a congratulatory message in it was right or a corrective comment if it was wrong with perhaps a noncommittal message if the computer was unable to recognize the response computer assisted language learning offers a means of providing endless drill and practice without repetition at a pace that can be controlled by the learner. It is possible to arrange that the nature of the exercises depends on the learner’s progress. Systematic mistakes can be deleted and the computer can adapt the pattern of exercise to rectify this weakness. This ability to drill and practice session to the progress of each learner combined with helpful feedback, can lead more effective learning.
Tutorial
The lay image of CALL is of ranks of students each seated in front of computer keyboard amid screen, all learning in their own way and at their own pace. There is an assumption that each student is participating in some sort of tutorial where he or she is taken on a journey through the learning material via a dialogue in which information is presented amid feedback is elicited through a process of question answer and challenge. This tutorial dialogue becomes a close resemblance to the programmed learning sequences found in print and on teaching machines in the 1960s.
In order to construct the CALL tutorial, the teachers (as a part of the production team) must set out the dialogue that they themselves might have with learners under various conditions, and the criteria which determine how they would adapt the pace and direction of their students learning.
Artificial intelligence ideas and tools can provide not only a representation of the knowledge to be acquired by the student, but also a model of the learning process which allows the computer tutorial to adapt to the learner’s needs in a heuristic way.
Simulation
Both the tutorial and drill and practice modes of CALL operate by providing information in a structured way according to rules specified by the author, tutor. Another facet of learning involves the student studying real life systems or phenomena.
The advantage of a CALL simulation over the use of other equipment and media is in the flexibility and control which the computer can bring. The computer is a general purpose information processing machine which is transformed into a machine to carry out a specific task by the program within it. Thus, with different programs the same computer can simulate different systems. As it runs the simulation, it can also mediate between the student and the analogue of the real-life system, guiding him or her towards experiences which are likely to be helpful and providing some tutorial assistance where necessary.
Modelling
This mode of CALL is similar to the simulation mode in that both help the student to learn while working with an analogue of a real-life system or phenomenon, expressed as a set of rules within the computer. However, whereas in a simulation, the analogue is specified by the tutor, in modelling it is the student who must construct the analogue. The student learns through this process and demonstrates his or her mastery of the learning through the final model.
As with simulations, the technique of learning by modelling is not unique to CALL, it is possible to devise systems of rules or equations which describe the behaviour of the system to be studies and to test these modes in new circumstances, without using a computer.
Interactive knowledge-Based Systems
The preceding distinction between simulation and modelling for imperative analogues of real-world systems has a parallel in interactive knowledge-based systems (IKBS). These two modes may thus take an alternative approach. The imperative analogue comprises a set of rules or equations which are used as instructions to the computer to govern the behaviour of the system. The IKBS comprises a descriptive model of the knowledge relating to a particular topic, system or situation.
The last of the six major modes of CALL uses the computer as a mentor and guide through a range of learning resources which might, but need not be themselves based on a computer. The power of the computer to store, retrieve and process information is used to help the student as he or she browses through the material responding to questions about related information, retrieving items which are needed, summarizing statistical data and suggesting possible lines of investigation that may be interest.
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