This blog was started as part of the final class I took to complete my M.S. in curriculum development and instructional technology. I am now a Master of Science!
I will remain Muffle Wumpus for as long as that identity serves as a touchstone for my continued efforts to realize the dream that started all of this. Perhaps it will become the "superhero" identity that has been at times a component of that dream. This post will outline a history of the dream and detail its current state, ending with a description of the roadmap as it stands now.
I.
My dream started as a desire to create intuitive, bite-sized bits of fun software that provides adult language learners opportunities to have a little enjoyment while advancing their proficiency. The intuition is not a new one, and there are many companies and people that would describe what they are up to as a variation on the theme. I conceived a desire to be part of that, and to contribute meaningfully to the development of this particular type of language learning technology.
After an abortive attempt at creating a Kana-memorization app in Java (I was studying Japanese at the time and was about 30 years old) I decided I needed to study CALL (Computer-Assisted Language Learning) formally. This began a five-year period of different types of formal study which may or may not have gotten me closer to my goal of being among the inventors of the worlds most effective language-learning software (In a later post I will spell out my current understanding of a) the state of CALL, b) what I think the next steps should be, and c) what I'm personally most ignorant about and am actively trying to know in greater detail).
The formal study began when I had the great fortune to study computational linguistics with Richard Sproat at the University of Illinois. At the time I was employed there as a "research programmer" and had the benefit of being able to take classes for free. I developed the intention to parlay that experience into a graduate career in CALL, which I had discovered was an entire field of academic inquiry, complete with its own scholarly journals and university departments. I wanted to study at one of those departments and follow that route to become a CALL professional.
At around the same time, I made a move that would seem to run counter to the achievement of my academic goal, but also serves as an example that underscores an important tension in the overarching ambition of bringing imagination and energy to the development of language teaching with technology. That tension, at least within me, is characterized by the combination, and sometimes clash, of twin excitements: that of the possibilities inherent in the current state of communications technology, and the excitement I get from teaching language skills to engaged and motivated students. The former has been a bit of a national craze since the beginning of the mass-popularization of the Worldwide Web, which was dampened only slightly by the dot-com crash of the early oughts, and continues today through the popularity of social media and the proliferation of mobile devices.
The move I made was to quit technology work and get a certificate in teaching ESL, and then get a job overseas teaching English in face-to-face classrooms. At the same time I had submitted what I thought was a strong application to the CALL program at a major university famous for its technology innovation and entrepreneurial orientation: Carnegie Mellon University. The first foreign country I got a job in was Brazil, and few months after I arrived there I got a belated notification that I had been accepted at CMU. There were, however, a couple of snags. First of all, I had already accepted another ESL position in Japan and was excited to go there, and second, the Language Technology Institute at CMU, where I'd been accepted, had discontinued it's CALL program. So I deferred acceptance and went to Japan for a year to teach.
