Generative AI and Digital Literacies: Affordances and Constraints for Language Learning - Livestream

Given the rise of ChatGPT and other generative AI (GenAI) platforms that create texts, images, and videos from big data, this talk discusses how these technologies offer various affordances and constraints for language learning, while also presenting potential pitfalls. It recognizes how the use of such tools is circumscribed by various inequalities: the unequal recognition of low-resource and high-resource languages, the differences between free and premium platform versions, and between mobile and laptop access. Drawing on studies of how secondary school and university students use these tools for informal language learning, it demonstrates how learners can develop contrasting dispositions towards GenAI, and how the designs of GenAI platforms can also steer learners towards particular digital practices. Recognizing how GenAI interactions are contextual and situated, shaped by devices, platforms and evolving cultures-of-use, this talk outlines how a digital literacies approach to integrating GenAI in the language classroom can help learners construct effective prompts, validate generated texts, and synthesize information, and encourage teachers to think about the implications of these platforms for genre-based pedagogy, translation, and writing assessment. By fostering critical digital literacy, learners and teachers can engage with GenAI to achieve various intentions in ways that are agentive, equitable and inclusive. 

Speaker: Ron Darvin, University of British Columbia

Register at weblink to receive Zoom information