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This panel discussion explores the theory-informed utilization of smart technologies in language learning, focusing on contextualized, authentic, and communicative approaches. Integrating advanced smart technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, learning analytics, and robotics into language education offers new avenues for enhancing learner engagement and outcomes. Panelists will present and discuss studies involving various pedagogical strategies that align with contemporary language learning theories. Case studies and research findings will illustrate effective smart technology integration in language classrooms and beyond, addressing practical considerations, challenges, and strategies for leveraging these tools to support second language acquisition and other language learning contexts. The panel aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of how to harness smart technologies to create engaging, effective, and theory-aligned language learning experiences, contributing to the academic discourse on the transformative potential of these tools in fostering meaningful language education.

Computer-based writing (CBW) has become integral in language education, enabling personalised learning and online collaboration. In Singapore, CBW is being introduced in Chinese Language (CL) classes, yet challenges persist, particularly for students using the phonetic-based pinyin input method. This study investigated the impact of partially replacing paper-and-pen-based writing (PPBW) with CBW in primary schools. Using mixed-effects modeling, we compared post-CBW and post-PPBW scores, considering CL achievement levels. Results indicated CBW's positive influence on writing quality regardless of prior competence. Furthermore, CBW significantly benefits low and medium-achieving students' performance. Typing speed and handwriting speed are influential for these students, while different writing strategies play distinct roles. Informed by the findings, we propose an online writing community platform, WeeWrite, incorporating generative AI to enhance CL CBW skills, offering personalised and collaborative learning experiences.

The logographic nature of Chinese script is a major dissuading factor for learning handwriting. The challenge is the complex psycholinguistic process behind handwriting. Thus, we developed AI-Strokes, a Chinese handwriting learning tool that assists teachers in facilitating students’ handwriting practice in various modalities, and provides personalized feedback for the students. By leveraging a trainable Machine Learning back-end framework, the tool diagnoses and scores students’ handwriting errors. This paper reports a pilot study in a Singapore primary school with an early prototype of AI-Strokes. Two classes of students went through AI-Strokes-based Chinese handwriting lessons (the experimental group) and conventional lessons (the control group) respectively. Pre- and post-tests were administered, and their handwriting processes were analyzed regarding errors in stroke orders, extra/missing strokes, and errors in stroke directions. The results show that the experimental group has yielded significantly better learning gains than the control group. It is posited that the personalized feedback of AI-Strokes has formed a feedback loop to support students’ trial-and-error process in improving their handwriting skills. The multimodal handwriting task design may have also fostered their orthographic awareness through the activation of alternative psycholinguistic pathways during their handwriting lessons.

This study attempted to carry out interdisciplinary learning activities which integrate computational thinking into language learning. The participants were 56 5th-grade Chinese as a Second Language (CSL) students in Singapore. The students were required to learn the ability to apply conditional complex sentences in Chinese language and learn the conditional structural logic through coding educational robots to interact with each other in Chinese. The results showed that the students improved significantly in the linguistic knowledge. Furthermore, the computer programming self-efficacy of the students has also promoted significantly in terms of logical thinking, control and debugging. The students had also shown a high level of learning engagement, low anxiety and a high intention in the robot coding activity. This study presented the empirical results of this cross-domain integration of educational robots and language learning, providing a reference and teaching practices for future teachers.

To assist young learners of Chinese Language in developing general orthographic awareness (i.e., the knowledge of Chinese character structures), a novel mobile game-based learning intervention was designed. In playing the “Chinese-PP” game in a 1:1 (one-deviceper-pupil) setting, each of the 31 participating 9-year-old pupils was assigned a Chinese character component in her smartphone. A pupil may make use of her own and peers’ character components to form a legitimate Chinese character, and invite the peers with matching components to join her group, resulting in rapid social negotiation. In this paper, the students’ collaborative learning processes in three game sessions are analyzed. The relationships between pupils with varied learning styles and their game behaviors and learning gains are unveiled. Through the intervention that stimulates active peer coaching and social learning, we discover that all the pupils (regardless of their learning styles) became active learning participants and achieved high learning gains towards the last game session.

Scaling and translation constitutes essential challenges for educational fields. Gold standards are not possible in education because student-centered processes assume variability in different situations rather than adopting a ‘one-size fits all’ form of instruction. This paper proposes a more nuanced ecological model to describe the scaling efforts of educational innovation within the Singapore context. In this model, innovations “flourish” under different conditions with various structural supports depending on their complexity. The spreading of educational innovations from a centralized agency would be limited. Instead, teacher/researcher-led and school-led innovations would be encouraged and supported throughout the system. By going through multiple local instantiations of innovations, efficiency and cost effectively issues are addressed and teacher agency is nurtured through professional learning communities and communities of practice. System-wide baseline data is encouraged to keep tab of the growth and spread of innovations, identify gaps, and recognize areas where nudging and further supports are needed.

Integrating InfoComm Technology (ICT) into teaching and learning poses challenges for teachers, such as the lack of know-how, self-efficacy and time to design interventions. A possible solution is the design of sound Technology-Enhanced Learning (TEL) environments with relevant content and pedagogical tools to reduce teachers' design efforts. Technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) could be used as a framework for understanding how teachers could integrate ICT into classrooms. Originally developed for informing teacher development, recent scholars called for ‘repurposing’ the framework to guide the design of TEL that encapsulate holistic TPACK knowledge. We therefore employed TPACK to design the TEL environment of ‘MyCLOUD’ to advance the use of mobile and cloud technologies for seamless Chinese Language learning. In this paper, we unpack how the distributed TPACK resources has contributed to the design of MyCLOUD. The analysis is accomplished through our coding and consolidation of 42 researcher-teacher meeting minutes throughout the developmental period where rounds of design-implementation-reflection- redesign process were jointly carried out by the participants. This is followed by a study of students’ perceived usability of the platform. This study therefore demonstrates how the development of TEL can be attained by leveraging TPACK as a basis of technical design.

Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) has been used as a conceptual framework for understanding how teachers harness various domains of knowledge for technology integration. Guided by the research goal of discerning how a teacher’s ICT integration effort can co-evolve with interactions between technology, pedagogy and content knowledge, we examine, in this paper, a Chinese language teacher’s evolving TPACK on seamless learning (continuity of learning moments across locations, time, technologies and social settings) via the complexity constructs of distribution, enaction and emergence. Complexity theory is employed as it foregrounds the interconnectedness of constituents in a learning ecology, paralleling the philosophy that the three TPACK knowledge bases should be studied in totality. The research questions are: (a) How was the knowledge of seamless language learning distributed in the process of knowledge creation? (b) How was the integration of technological, pedagogical and content knowledge enacted during the seamless language lessons? (c) What emerged as a result of the complex interactions between technological, pedagogical and content knowledge? Data is drawn from interview transcripts, student artefacts, meeting minutes, lesson plans as well as fieldnotes collected over two years’ of lesson observations and professional development sessions. Our analysis attenuates two findings that are underplayed in the TPACK literature on language learning: 1) the integration of formal and informal learning activities, which can be enhanced by affordances of technological platforms, is pivotal for encouraging output (artefacts); 2) building a participatory culture offers students more opportunities for sustained and self-organised peer learning. The paper concludes with the discussion on the pedagogical implications of findings and future directions for research.

Appropriate design of collaborative learning activities for students using 1:1 handheld devices can lead to peer scaffolding, building up students‟ collaborative skills. Building on such prior studies in mCSCL (mobile Computer Supported Collaborative Learning), we derived Chinese-PP, a novel design of in-class mobile synchronous collaborative learning game on constructions of Chinese characters from components, with the unique characteristic of spontaneous small group formations. In this paper, we propose a framework, namely, “SCaffold Analysis and Provision Envisioning” (SCAPE) to guide us in examining and refining/revising the interplay among various forms of scaffolding in the learning model across various Design-Based Research (DBR) cycles of our study on Chinese-PP. We believe a generalized SCAPE framework has the potential to inform TEL research in a structure to embark on the iterative process of enacting and redesigning the socio-techno-pedagogical frameworks developed by individual research projects.

The aim of this study is explore the writing performance effect of a collaborative writing approach mediated by a computer-assisted collaborative learning tool for elementary school students. To increase students‟ interest and performances in Chinese essay writing, we facilitated co-writing peer learning programs are executed on Tablet PCs with Group Scribbles software for students‟ practicing themes about Taiwan with VSPOW (Vocabularies → Sentences → Paragraphs → Outlines → essay Writing) writing model. Through the peer collaborations, the pooling of rich vocabularies and corpus, and face-to-face discussions, the students‟ motivation and quality of writing had been enhanced. Keywords: Collaborative writing; Language learning; V.S.P.O.W.; Group Scribbles

This paper presents “Move, Idioms!”, a Mobile-Assisted Language Learning design that emphasizes learners‟ habit of mind and skills in making meaning with their daily encounters, and associating those with the knowledge learned at the formal classes. The students used smartphones on a 1:1, 24x7 basis to take photos in real-life contexts related to Chinese idioms, made sentences with the idioms, and posted them onto a wiki space for peer reviews. In this paper, we focus on investigating students‟ cognitive processes and patterns in artifact creation. Through two case studies, we gained better understanding of how (1) physical settings in the informal contexts, (2) parental support, and (3) technology facilitated students‟ meaning making in their daily life. We hope to contribute to the literature of mobile learning by exploring virtually limitless learning opportunities that informal contexts and parental involvement may offer to learners.

This paper proposes and examines a design of technological scaffolding for cooperative learning. An application for learning fractions with handheld devices was designed and tested in a primary three classroom. The outcomes were interpreted according to a two-dimensional framework consisting of the cooperative learning principles (maximum peer interaction, equal opportunity to participate, individual accountability and positive interdependence) and the observed interplay of social, technological and teacher scaffolding which emerged throughout the activity. The focus of our analysis is the technological scaffolding and the support it can give to cooperative learning activities based on the feedback received from two sources: primary school children using the software and a group of teachers trying out and reflecting on our design.

In this paper, we propose a MMS (Multimedia Message Service) -based Interactive Mobile Learning model for adult learners to update their CPR (Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation)-related knowledge and skills. Informed by N. A. Crowder’s (1960) branching version of B .F. Skinner’s (1958) Program Instruction approach, we designed an interactive learning process that requires the learners to make series of decisions and then be informed by the system of their consequences, thereby achieving “by making and reflecting on mistakes”. A feasibility study was conducted in three phases with volunteered adult learners being engaged in the MMS learning process. Through the process of learning content development and our analysis of the learner data, we gained better understanding in the feasible activity modes and the factors that may potentially affect the learning process and learner perceptions toward the learning model.

This paper reports a pilot study on mobile-assisted language learning that focused on both creative learner output and seamless learning. In learning Chinese idioms, students proactively used smartphones on a 1:1 basis to take photos in their daily lives, subsequently in-class or online sharing and discussions took place, enhancing the students’ understanding in the proper usage of the idioms. Our analysis of the student artefacts in both product- and process-oriented aspects reveals the students’ cognitive process and learning strategies during the course of content creation. The students’ ongoing, open-ended, personal-to-social meaning making process and learner-created authentic content have indeed shown some indicators of seamless language learning and induction-based peer learning that has the potential of transforming language learning into an authentic learning experience.

Over a year of time, we co-designed primary three science curriculum to integrate 1:1 mobile technology with teachers. The form teacher of the experimental class in a Singapore school enacted the curriculum as her regular teaching. This paper proposes a cyclic model of how to “mobilize” the curriculum in align with the national primary science syllabus. Preliminary results of the enactment are also presented.

In the tutoring agenda planner (TAP) project, we study the feasibility of implementing the inquiry teaching method of Collins and Stevens (1991) as tutoring software. This paper describes the software architecture for TAP-1-a simple inquiry tutoring shell based on the theory of inquiry teaching. The inquiry teaching style has the objective of teaching scientific reasoning skills through a "localized" sequence of well-planned inquiry dialogue. To complement the "localized" dialogue planning framework inherent in the theory of inquiry teaching, the TAP-1 architecture has adopted the "global" curriculum planning technique. TAP-1 has successfully demonstrated the inquiry teaching style through an inquiry planner within an intelligent tutoring system shell. In addition, PADI-a geography tutor that delivers inquiry teaching style-has been implemented using TAP-1. A group of students performed well in an evaluation activity of the tutor. They also foresaw the potential of TAP for achieving the aim of cultivating scientific thoughts.