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The purpose of this paper is to present a specific case of CALL task design adopting the patterns-based learning design approach. The approach provides a common framework/vocabulary for educational designers, particularly teachers, to systematically capture, articulate, make explicit, share and reuse expert knowledge of teaching and good design. Over the past 10-15 years, considerable advances have been made in both learning design (LD) and learning analytics (LA) research in terms of research outputs. However, the anticipated impact and benefits, e.g. the patterns-based approach, to the everyday practice of teachers and learners have been invisible or mostly unrealized. Research to explore CALL task design with reference to LD and LA is underrepresented in the literature. The aim of this paper is to explain the challenges faced by CALL designers/teachers in task design and reflect on them methodologically with relation to the patterns-based approach. It firstly provides an overview of the CALL task design literature to highlight the gaps and weaknesses in the research and practice, followed by an introduction of the concept of "design patterns." This paper then examines three CALL tasks from two current online language learning beginners courses in a New Zealand university, and develops them into design patterns. Explanation of how they were developed and discussion of the possible added value of design pattern to the design of CALL tasks are provided.

University students involved in online courses play an active role in adapting the tasks they are set and the environment(s) in which they work. They also make adjustments to their working relationships with other people in an effort to improve their learning and/or fit study demands into wider life. The term "co-configuration" refers to the ways in which students customise what has been designed for them. Co-configuration is important but often invisible to the teachers and designers responsible for the courses. In this study, we focused on students' co-configuration where it has a strong social character. We drew on concepts from "realist evaluation" and the "activity-centred analysis and design" framework to examine students' social co-configuration. Twenty-six online language learning students were interviewed. Two main areas of social co-configuration emerged. Firstly, students coconfigured working methods and relationships, roles, and divisions of labour in order to tackle group tasks. Secondly, students purposefully wove learning activity into their wider social environment, creating a social fabric that further enhanced and enriched their learning opportunities. The findings provide insights into students' social co-configuration. We argue that this is important for educational designers who aim to understand the mechanisms that connect educational designs to learning outcomes. Implications for practice or policy: Help educational designers and teachers to: (1) understand social co-configurative activity in online language learning; (2) know what goes on in the gap between teachers' designs and students' activities; (3) acknowledge that online language learning is socially situated; (4) acknowledge students' agency in reshaping what is designed for them; and (5) shift design focus to student configuration, context, and mechanism.

This study investigates how university students taking fully online language-learning configure their learning environments to enhance opportunities for learning and meet broader academic and social-emotional needs. The study adopts a view of learning as both physically and socially situated, acknowledging that the physical (material, digital and hybrid) resources available in each student's learning environment, as well as the opportunities they have to interact with other people, can play very significant roles in shaping learning activities and outcomes. The paper focuses on how students reconfigure the learning environments designed/provided for them by their teachers and the university. Through interviews with 26 students, a mixture of deliberate, creative and spontaneous actions they took were revealed. Students not only reconfigured the physical environments in which their learning activities were situated, but also the tasks they were set and ways of working with other people. There has been a growing interest in student contributions in task, task engagement and processes in CALL research. This paper extends this research into the physical and social domains, with a focus on students' contributions to 'place-making'. It argues that design for CALL is best seen as a process in which learning situations are co-configured by teacher-designers and students.

This exploratory review brings together research that investigates computer-assisted language learning (CALL), and research in the field of learning design, paying particular attention to the theoretical frameworks and approaches of "design for learning." The attempts of connecting the two fields stem from two critical foci and commitments of "design for learning": (1) on the contemporary "learning context" which has become increasingly learner-centred and technology-rich and (2) on the "learning process" which is, now widely recognised and accepted, constantly evolving, configurative, dynamic and complex. "Design for learning" asserts that technology-enhanced learning (TEL) could only be partly designed; the other part--the learning process--is emerging and created through the actions of participants in the learning networks. Therefore, the ecology and architecture of a learning network become the focus of investigation. This author argues that "design for learning," which is firmly grounded in the contemporary theories of learning, merits being seriously looked at by CALL. A preliminarily synthesis of the two fields is presented, which signals potential synergies. The synergies will broaden the understanding of CALL and strengthen its design.

This study reports on a teacher's ongoing design activities in a fully online language course when the class was in progress. The aims were, firstly, to provide first-hand experience and insight into a teacher's design work in a real-life, technology-enhanced learning (TEL) classroom; and secondly, to facilitate reflective analysis of the emerging design events. A hermeneutic phenomenological approach was adopted for data collection, and the analysis of data was further aided by the framework of "forward-oriented design for learning" (Goodyear & Dimitriadis, 2013), which considers educational design as a continuing and forward-looking practice including processes of orchestration, configuration, reflection and re-design. Fifteen design events were collected, which provided a snapshot of how and what design activities emerged from a complex, constantly evolving TEL classroom. The interpretation and analysis reveal insights related to various design processes. The findings highlight the forward-looking, ongoing, process-oriented and cyclical nature of TEL design.

This study builds on this author's 2011 article in which the author reflects on the pedagogical challenges and resultant changes made while teaching two fully online foreign language papers over a four-year period (Y. H. S. Sun (2011). Online language teaching: The pedagogical challenges. "Knowledge Management & E-Learning: An International Journal," 3, 428-447). Drawing on current literature, the present study surveyed learners (n?=?46) in an attempt to investigate the difficulties that confronted them and the ways they had adapted to fully online learning. The quantitative and qualitative data obtained from a questionnaire were integrated and analyzed with an inductive method. Results identified six major difficulties: (1) following the schedule and studying regularly, (2) getting hold of classmates and finding suitable time to work together, (3) pairing/teaming up and working collaboratively, (4) ensuring constant engagement with the class, (5) keeping self-motivated and being a self-directed learner, and (6) socializing.

Estimation of patient prognosis plays a central role in guiding decision making for the palliative management of metastatic disease, and a number of statistical models have been developed to provide survival estimates for patients in this context. In this review, we discuss several well-validated survival prediction models for patients receiving palliative radiotherapy to sites outside of the brain. Key considerations include the type of statistical model, model performance measures and validation procedures, studies' source populations, time points used for prognostication, and details of model output. We then briefly discuss underutilization of these models, the role of decision support aids, and the need to incorporate patient preference in shared decision making for patients with metastatic disease who are candidates for palliative radiotherapy [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the Chinese immigrant community in Auckland, New Zealand and how they address the question of first language maintenance in their largely new English-speaking environment. Shows that language maintenance, especially the written language is going to be an uphill struggle. (Author/VWL)