PENSA 2023

PENSA: Professionalization of Teachers using Digital Technology to Support Autonomy and Citizenship 

PENSA, a rather creative acronym for ‘Professionalization of Teachers using Digital Technology to Support Autonomy and Citizenship’ is an Erasmus+ Project involving several European universities led by Aix-Marseille Université, France. You can read more about the project here.

This event, entitled ‘Promoting students' digital citizenship’ was hosted by the UOC (Open University of Catalunya) at one of its centres: a converted factory in the Glòries district of Barcelona.

Jo Hopkins, director of the Centre for Modern Languages at the UOC, welcomed the attendees (from all over Europe and beyond), by recommending six places to visit ‘off the beaten track’ in Barcelona. Rather unusually, Jo had asked ChatGPT to compile his list! The itinerary was not entirely surprising, although it did include ex prison, La Modelo prison, which I’ve yet to visit.

The event opened with a keynote speech by Françoise Blin (Emeritus Professor, Dublin City University): ‘Acting upon affordances for the promotion of student digital citizenship: for good or for ill?’

In her talk, Françoise explored the meaning of ‘affordances’, now quite widely used in discussions about Foreign Language teaching 

She began by defining affordances

Image credit: Joan-Tomàs Pujolà on Twitter @JoanTomas

She then focused on the interface between digital citizenship, digital literacies and artificial intelligence.

Image credit: Olivia Espejel on Twitter @oliele10

Digital Citizenship 

‘the ability to safely and responsibly access digital technologies, as well as being an active and responsible member of society, both online and offline.’

(Futurelearn, 2021)

Digital Literacy

‘(…) the individual and social skills needed to effectively interpret, manage, share and create meaning in the growing range of digital communication channels’ 

(Dudeney, Hockly & Pegrum, 2013) 

Digital Literacy focusing on Artificial Intelligence

‘A set of competencies that enables individuals to critically evaluate AI technologies; communicate and collaborate effectively with AI; and use AI as a tool online, at home and in the workplace'. 

(Long & Magerko, 2022:2)

Obviously, the use of AI has been at the forefront of everyone’s minds since ChatGPT seemingly burst onto the scene in November 2022, but Françoise pointed out that this is nothing new, -- ChatBots of this type have been around for a while, but we are increasingly aware of the 

‘shift of focus from technology ‘used by’ people to technology ‘used on’ people’. 

(Selwyn, 2022)

Image credit: Joan-Tomàs Pujolà on Twitter @JoanTomas

Parallel sessions

Photo credit: Jackie Robbins on Twitter, @jax_115

Creative Writing
Sabina Gola, Beatriz Calvo Martin and Sandrine Eschenauer’s session on a Creative writing module for teachers conducted via Moodle had us thinking about the various uses of a pen, and writing our own 3-5 line short stories from three short prompts.
- I was never prouder of myself than when….
- My favorite place when I was a child was….
- The surprise of my life came when…


More information, as the presenters say, on their ‘Moodle from our Module’, see link on the slide below.

I particularly enjoyed the session on Infographics as a form of Mediation to promote Digital Citizenship by Susana Lorenzo-Zamorano, head of the languages department at the University of Manchester, UK. 

There is a slight obsession with all things mediation at the moment, due to the publication of the companion volume to the CEFR.

Mediation in the CEFR

In this highly practical session, Susana showed how infographics satisfy many of the criteria of mediation, as described in the following slide.

She also pointed out that, as infographics are summaries which transmit information accessibly through organized, multi-modal means, they are shorter and easier to mark for busy teachers than more traditional written assignments.

In the next short session, WhatsApp as a language teaching tool for online EFL courses: Aspects of digital citizenship education to be considered for adult learners. Bridget Murphy (UB) presented findings from her 2021-2022 study.

After lunch, Christian Ollivier, Université de La Réunion (a small island near Madagascar, Christian helpfully explained) presented a project conducted with Catherine Jeanneau, University of Limerick on Online Real World Tasks as opportunities to integrate digital citizenship education in language teaching and learning 

This project involved students writing for publication in real-world fora, such as wikivoyage, where feedback is reflected in the number of likes, upvotes or comments they receive!

Christine Appel and Jackie Robbins brought some much-needed energy to the final session of the day: Facilitation strategies to promote online language learner engagement

Jackie defined engagement:

‘Learner engagement occurs when learners are emotionally, behaviourally and cognitively connected to their study’

(Kahu et al., 2014:523)

We looked at these different types of learner engagement and discussed in groups how we could promote them in our different teaching contexts.

Image credit: Joan-Tomàs Pujolà on Twitter @JoanTomas

Jackie finished on a very ‘meta’ note by asking us how engaged the participants in this photo were (it was us!)

Who's that in the photo?

Thanks to all the conference organisers for their hard work and dedication in organising such a well-run event.