Report from the 2015 CALICO Conference, Boulder, Colorado.
By Edwige Simon, Foreign Language Technology Coordinator at the Anderson Language & Technology Center, the University of Colorado Boulder.
The 2015 Computer Assisted Language Instruction Consortium (CALICO) conference was hosted by the University of Colorado Boulder May 26-30. This year’s theme was “Places & Spaces: Redefining Language Learning.”
On Wednesday evening, keynote speaker Deborah A. Fields (Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Professor in the College of Education at Utah State
University) kicked off the conference with a talk entitled Connected Play: Mischievous Cheating for Serious Learning in which she discussed the role of “cheating” and its affordances for students’ learning in gaming environments.
Throughout the conference, 300 attendees listened to their peers and colleagues present their latest work in the field of Computer Assisted Language Learning through 5 pre and post conference workshops, 142 sessions and 18 digital poster presentations. The sessions covered a wide range of topics, including gaming in language education, digital storytelling, tellecollaborative exchanges, professional development, Open Educational Resources and Computer Assisted Language Learning research.
Between sessions, attendees visited the exhibition hall to (re)discover organizations such as the Center for Language Education and Research (CLEAR), the International Association for Language Learning Technology (IALLT), the Center for Open Educational Resources and Language Learning (COERLL), the Center for Applied Second Language Studies (CASLS), OWL Testing software, Mango Languages and CAN-8 VirtualLab.
Next year’s conference will be held by Michigan State University (East Lansing), on May 10-14.
Philip Hubbard (left, Stanford University) succeeds Scott Payne (right, McGraw Hill Education)) as CALICO President.