In an earlier post I argued why Duolingo was not in fact unpedagogic despite a perception among some educators that it is. I argued that Duolingo does work (to an extent) and the success in learning vocabulary through a motivating and well designed learner experience was a good example of digital learning. However, the perceptions
My Product Marketing Manager asked me this week why Duolingo was seen as unpedagogic, i.e. why it’s approach to teaching language is poor. She’s picked this up from general conversations on language learning apps within the product development team. I started off by counter arguing this – that there is a lot that is pedagogic
Wibbu English is a game for English learners that is currently in beta. It is designed for learners who speak Spanish, Portuguese and Chinese as a first language. The learning takes place inside a game environment where the learner takes control of a central character, Bethany, and guides her through a series of tasks interspersed
I’ve always had a soft spot for Flashsticks since buying some of their French language learning Post-it notes and it came with a postcard which had clearly been passed around their office and was personalised and hand signed. A lovely touch. Flashsticks, if you’re unaware, provides printed Post-it notes for language learners. They have the keyword,
This is today’s (16 April 2015) top twenty highest grossing educational apps in the China Apple App Store. Annotated with focus and colour coded for kids/adults apps. The filled call-outs indicate a focus on English language learning. This may not be the sole focus but has English learning at least a core objective. Click on
Been travelling in Vietnam and carrying on using French language learning apps. This meant I was off network data, and reliant on hotel WiFi which was patchy at best or no connection at all on transport across the country. This post therefore focuses on the accessibility of the apps offline. I’ve also added another one to the
I’m going to share some thoughts of learning French with a couple of elearning tools – Duolingo and Busuu. As someone who works in digital language learning I feel I need to spend time learning a language digitally. I’ve been using both tools on the desktop and the apps. I hope to make this the
As mentioned previously I have been making a concerted effort to improve my Mandarin Chinese – and using my mobile phones (my job means this is plural) to help me do so. I’ll start my reflections with a review of one of the apps I have been using. In fact the one I have been
I’m going to start using this blog as a reflective journal as I try and learn a bit more Mandarin. Apart from the being able to practice what I preach I have a real motivation to learn Mandarin.
My first article for the eLearning Guild’s Learning Solutions magazine is available now.