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It is essential for second/foreign/additional language teachers to develop their competence in the use of digital technologies for language teaching in digital environments. This article explores language teacher development in technology integration in terms of exploration, communication, collaboration, and reflection (ECCR). It presents the results of two case studies that investigated how language teachers explore, communicate, collaborate, and reflect for technology-enhanced language teaching (TELT), how they approach ECCR, how much they engage with ECCR activities, and what they need in order to improve their competence in TELT. Data were collected from online questionnaires and semi-structured interviews with groups of in-service language teachers in Hong Kong in Study 1 and Taiwan in Study 2. Findings indicate that the teachers in both studies are engaged with various ECCR activities with different interests and competencies in their contexts. They enhance our understanding of language teacher development and provide practical implications for research and practice.

This paper reports on the design, implementation, and results of a video-based study that focused on supporting an individualized viewing experience, keeping a record of what was noticed, providing a degree of guiding framework, and facilitating a combination of individual and collaborative reflections in noticing activities for STEM professional development. A cohort of 20 prospective mathematics teachers at a public university in Hong Kong participated in the study. The participants engaged in a series of blended learning activities with a feature that allowed them to leave comments while viewing of a lesson video, which focused on technology integration in mathematics classrooms. The designed activities were helpful for the participants to document and reflect on their observations, while viewing videos outside the classroom allowed them to meaningfully engage with the course materials. Moreover, the use of videos supported the participants’ broad but crucial STEM classroom practices that would help them prepare for future lessons.

With the development of robot technology, robot utilization is expanding in industrial fields and everyday life. To employ robots in various fields wherein humans and robots share the same space, human safety must be guaranteed in the event of a human–robot collision. Therefore, criteria and limitations of safety need to be defined and well clarified. In this study, we induced mechanical pain in humans through quasi-static contact by an algometric device (at 29 parts of the human body). A manual apparatus was developed to induce and monitor a force and pressure. Forty healthy men participated voluntarily in the study. Physical quantities were classified based on pain onset and maximum bearable pain. The overall results derived from the trials pertained to the subjective concept of pain, which led to considerable inter-individual variation in the onset and threshold of pain. Based on the results, a quasi-static contact pain evaluation method was established, and biomechanical safety limitations on forces and pressures were formulated. The pain threshold attributed to quasi-static contact can serve as a safety standard for the robots employed.

The precision and effectiveness of the communication between air traffic controllers and pilots is quite literally a matter of life or death. Speakers of aeronautical English, the language of communication in the realm of aviation, are required by the ICAO to meet a minimum standard of language performance across the communication skills of listening and speaking, yet miscommunication and misunderstandings across channels persist, potentially resulting in catastrophic collisions and incidents. This English for Specific Purposes (ESP) paper reports on the creation of an aeronautical English training unit guided by principles of the ADDIE (analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation) model of instructional design developed to assist Korean army enlisted soldiers and noncommissioned officers who are serving as air traffic controllers in the improvement of integral aeronautical English skills. Designed materials were assessed with the assistance of four subject-matter experts (SMEs) as a pilot test, and results of the evaluation demonstrate the potential for application of the ADDIE model of instructional design for future ESP instructional units. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the concept of digital literacy and presents a digital literacy questionnaire containing questions related to the use of digital technologies and the level of digital literacy skills. It also reports the results of two studies that used the digital literacy questionnaire to investigate the digital literacy level of 100 English for academic purposes (EAP) students at a university in Australia and 70 English as a foreign language (EFL) students at a university in Japan and examine factors affecting their use of digital technologies for learning English. The findings of the studies provide some insights into the students' awareness and use of digital technologies and their views of the use of digital tools and resources for language learning. Each group showed a different level of expectations and needs in their digital literacy skills with a different background and experience. It is suggested that the expectations and needs of respondents to the digital literacy questionnaire should be taken into account when the results of the digital literacy questionnaire are presented and interpreted in different contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]