Video conferencing software has made enormous strides in the last few years, and most people probably have encountered multiple applications that can easily facilitate virtual, face-to-face conversations with friends, family, and colleagues from phones or computers.  In the “olden days”–that is, even just three or four years ago–tools like Skype or Google Hangouts would crash, …

In general, there is evidence that technology can provide educational opportunities to people who would otherwise not have them, which is going to have an enormous impact on the lives of millions.  However, the online courses we offer still tend to be replicas of their face-to-face counterparts, and we are not nearly as innovative or disruptive as we could be when it comes to instructional design.  Perhaps part of the problem is that we are not harnessing the power that technology-driven instruction can bring to learning science.

We know from copious amounts of research that instruction works best when it is personal. Yet daunted at the prospect of sorting this out, many language programs revert to the outdated approach of just assigning everyone the same thing. However, maybe incorporating individualized instruction into a group curriculum isn’t as hard as it might seem.