Designing a hackathon challenge of L2 content creation for university students in digital language education

Designing a hackathon
challenge of L2 content
creation for university
students in digital
language education
Katerina Zourou, Ph.D.
JALTCALL conference 2021

Katerina Zourou,
Web2Learn, Greece
Researcher in open, social and
digital learning
Advocate of open access, open
science and citizen science
Katerina Zourou, JALTCALL 2021

Extending the JALT CALL 2020 presentation:
“Language learning as agency for a social purpose:
examples from the coronavirus pandemic”

“Widening
participation in
Computer Assisted
Language Learning”
(Frederiksen, Larsen, Bradley, Thouësny, 2020)

Informal ways of learning form a
fast-growing landscape
(portability, technology, community-
based learning as drivers)
self-access, out-of-school and
distance learning; informal,
non-formal and naturalistic
learning; non-instructed
learning and self-instruction;
autonomous, independent,
self-directed and self-regulated
learning, and learning beyond
the classroom
A wealth of terms (Benson, 2011):

Out-of-class learning
Learning that "occurs naturalistically, using resources not
specifically tailored for educational purposes and which are
situated outside of any institutional context" (Sockett,
2014).
“Digital wilds” refer to non-instructionally oriented contexts
that support social activity (…) They present (…) compelling
opportunities for intercultural exchange, agentive action,
and meaning making” (Thorne et al., 2015)
Alm & Ohashi, 2020; Thorne, Sauro, & Smith, 2015, Sauro & Zourou, 2019)

Agency and social action in L2
• Sociocultural understandings of learning: emphasis on learners as social
actors shaping their discourse and identity through agentive action
• Agentive action (through participation) transforms and re-creates a new
world that becomes part of one’s own.
• Developments in technology (mobile devices that afford connection and
social interaction anytime and anywhere, social networking tools) offer
possibilities for user-driven, self, and group-initiated practices that
redraw models of production, distribution, and reuse of knowledge
(Lave, 1998; Thorne, 2010; Reinhardt 2018; Zhao, Ellison & Lampe, 2016; Warner & Chen, 2017)

4 main types of
digital activism and
their potential for L2
use and learning
Massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs)
Hacktivism, data activism, and open practices
Grassroots activism
1.Citizen science
Zourou, K. 2020. Language learning as the
agency for a social purpose. Alsic journal.

Training future
language teachers
in out-of-class
learning

Raising pre-service teacher awareness on language
learning beyond the classroom
Starting point:
Teacher training: contexts within which (future) teachers develop pedagogical skills
are mostly formal learning ones, incl. cross-institutional ones;
Limited opportunities for pre-service teachers to engage in critically reflective
activities about informal language learning in their educative practice.
Hauck et al., 2020; Orsini-Jones, Brick & Pibworth, 2013; Liu et al., 2015, Potolia & Zourou, 2020

Scope,
methodology

Scope:
• familiarize future language teachers with the unpredictable, non-linear, self-
directed aspect of informal (language) learning
• Understand the implications for professional development by exploring novel
practices in teacher education
Methodology: action research “as the process of studying a school situation to
understand and improve the quality of the educative process” (Hine, 2013:152);
also as a methodology that facilitates teacher empowerment (Johnson, 2012).
Post-event survey to elicit attitudes, opinions related to this experience.

Solution devised
Set up of a Challenge during the annual Hackathon
DigiEduHack (a pan-European Hackathon in the field of
education taking place every November; 2020 edition:
54 challenges, 2600 participants)
We submitted an application to host one of the
hackathon Challenges. The topic of our Challenge: Put
language learning in the service of a social purpose!
Objective of the Challenge=> creation of language
learning materials by university students/ future
language teachers, meeting a social purpose
Landing page of the Challenge: https://digieduhack.com/en/thessaloniki-citizenscience-inos

Context
• 22 university students (pre-service teachers of languages) at Aristotle
University of Thessaloniki, Greece, enrolled in a Master’s programme
on Digital technologies in language education
• Attending the course ‘plurilingual and pluricultural teaching and
learning resources” (delivered by Associate Professor Evangelia
Moussouri) in November 2020
• 2 tutors: the academic tutor responsible for the university course
(Evangelia Moussouri); a business tutor on language learning and
open innovation (Katerina Zourou)
• Part of the activities of the European Union funded project INOS

Organisation of the Challenge
• A week before the start of the Challenge: an introductory session.
• a Zoom meeting with all students + the 2 tutors: presentation of the setting, roles,
timing, communication tools (Slack, Zoom, Google Drive); accounts activated for all
participants
• Students formed groups of 4 university students and chose a topic from an indicative
list (overall theme: language learning for a social purpose) prepared by the tutors
• During the 5-day challenge:
• Regular feedback from the academic and business tutor on Slack;
• Last day: Pitch presentations by each team
• videorecordings available online with students’ consent Link 1, Link 2, Link 3
• One month after the event: survey to collect views on this experience

The hypothesis
Participation to a Challenge would enable cross-fertilization of points of view
between students and, due to the informal learning context of a hackathon,
allow them to reflect on what out-of-class learning entails
• => the idea of setting up a Challenge during an annual Hackathon as an
opportunity for future language teachers to create language resources in
an informal learning context
• participating to a tailor-made hackathon as a learning/ teaching
opportunity embedded in their university curriculum.
A survey administrated 1 month after the end of the Challenge, in
respondents’ mother tongue; answers translated by the tutors

Preliminary results
(Scholar paper in progress; qualitative analysis of survey results)
• Enthusiasm with new forms of peer learning
• Reluctance on variety of technologies used in short time (Slack for
intra-group communication (mandatory), Whatsapp (optional),
Google Drive and Zoom for inter-group interaction
• Ability to connect this experience with the potential of language
learning informally
• Public access to group solutions largely considered very positive

All
solutions
are open
access
https://digieduhac
k.com/en/thessalo
niki-citizenscience-
inos#_solutionsTab

Some concluding remarks
What teacher education could focus more on:
• More opportunities for university students to familiarize themselves
with forms of social action (citizen-driven innovation; digital activism;
citizen science) that afford (informal) language learning and teaching
• Designing pre-service teacher training in a way that it connects to
contemporary claims for a more active role of citizens (language
learners and teachers) in decision making and the shaping of policy
agendas
• Acknowledging university students/ future language teachers as
social actors who are in the capacity to “instill”/ “diffuse” active
citizenship and experiential learning principles to their learners along
with language instruction

Bibliography (1)
Alm, A., & Ohashi, L. (2020). From self-study to studying the self: a
collaborative autoethnography of language educators as informal
language learners. In K.-M. Frederiksen, S. Larsen, L. Bradley & S.
Thouësny (Eds), CALL for widening participation: short papers from
EUROCALL 2020 (pp. 1-6). Research-publishing.net.
https://doi.org/10.14705/rpnet.2020.48.1156
Benson, P. (2011). In Beyond the language classroom. Palgrave
Macmillan, London.
Frederiksen, K-M; Larsen, S; Bradley, L; Thouësny, S (Eds), CALL for
widening participation: short papers from EUROCALL 2020
Liu, M., Abe, K., Cao, M. W., Liu, S., Ok, D. U., Park, J., Parrish, C. &
Sardegna, V. G.(2015). An analysis of social network websites for
language learning : Implications for teaching and learning English as a
Second Language. CALICO ,32.113-152.
Sauro, S., & Zourou, K. (2019). What are the digital wilds? Language
Learning & Technology, 23(1), 1–7. https://doi.org/10125/44666
Sockett, G. (2014). The online informal learning of English. New York:
Palgrave MacMillan.
Thorne, S. 2015. Rewilding Language Education and Catalysing
Futurisms. Keynote talk, 4th International Conference on Language,
Education and Diversity (LED 2015), Auckland, New Zealand.

Bibliography (2)
Thorne, S. L., & Reinhardt, J. (2008). " Bridging activities," new media
literacies, and advanced foreign language proficiency. Calico Journal,
25(3), 558-572.
Thorne, S. L., Black, R. W., & Sykes, J. M. (2009). Second language use,
socialization, and learning in Internet interest communities and online
gaming.The modern language journal, 93(s1), 802-821.
Thorne, S. L., Sauro, S., & Smith, B. (2015). Technologies, identities, and
expressive activity. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 35, 215-233.
Zourou, K., Potolia, A. & Zourou, F., 2017. Informal Social Networking for
Language Learning: Insights into Autonomy Stances. In M. Cappellini, T.
Lewis & A. Rivens Mompean (Eds)Learner Autonomy and Web 2.0.
Equinox Publishing Ltd, 141-167.
Zourou, K. 2020 « Language learning as the agency for a social purpose:
examples from the coronavirus pandemic », Alsic , Vol. 23, n° 1 | 2020,
URL: http://journals.openedition.org/alsic/4880
Zourou, K. 2021. Digital activism: challenges and opportunities for
language learning. Invited talk
https://www.jyu.fi/hytk/fi/laitokset/kivi/opiskelu/tutkinto-ohjelmat-ja-
oppiaineet/englanti/research/seminars/2020-21

Thank you! Questions?
Slides available at
https://www.slideshare.net/Web2Learn_eu
Katerina Zourou
katerinazourou@gmail.com
@web2learn_eu
Google scholar

Designing a hackathon challenge of L2 content creation for university students in digital language education

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Designing a hackathon challenge of L2 content creation for university students in digital language education