miLexicon: Designing Support for Personal &

Collaborative Language Learning Environments

SCARLET: SCAffolding Rich Learning Experiences through Technology

In a world of ubiquitous computing and information overload
language learners often lack the knowledge and skills to
make adequate choices about the resources that can support
their learning. How can we design technology to help learners
identify, manage and make more effective use of the myriad
social and informational resources now available to them?
PhD Student Aims
Joshua Underwood, LKL  To identify and design: adjustments that improve learners’
(junderwood@ioe.ac.uk)
access to resources, and scaffolding that structures learners’
interactions with resources so as to promote learning
Supervisors:
 To increase our understanding of the ways technology-rich
Rosemary Luckin &
contexts can be designed to support language learning
Niall Winters
of language-learning contexts and also in order to guide
design decisions. miLexicon’s design is grounded in analysis
of narratives derived from interviews with experienced and
successful language learners. In these I identify a recurring
pattern; encountering language, forming tentative
hypotheses about meaning, investigation using varied
resources and attempts to use the new language.
Importantly, these activities frequently take place across
varied times and settings. miLexicon aims to help learners
coherently link these activities, access appropriate resources
and reflect on their learning and resource use. An Android
prototype is being used and evolved on Nexus 1 phones.

Project time frame

Oct. 2008 to Oct 2011

Web Sites
http://m-ilexicon.blogspot.com
http://sites.google.com/site/
joshunderwood

Keywords
Computer Assisted Language
Learning, Context & Design, Bibliography
Scaffolding, Mobile Learning,
Design Approach Luckin, R (2010) Re-designing Learning Contexts: Technology-
Open Learner Modelling
The miLexicon software aims to support self-initiated rich, Learner-centred Ecologies. Routledge, London.
language learning across in/formal settings. Its design both Underwood, J., Luckin, R., Winters, N. (2010) miLexicon
SCARLET Project
implements hypotheses about how we might achieve this and Harnessing Resources for Personal and Collaborative Language
EPSRC: EP/E051847/1
serves as a tool through which to evaluate and evolve these Inquiry. ITEC 2010 Conference, Kortrijk, Belgium.
hypotheses in realistic settings. I use the Ecology of
Underwood, J. (2009) Designing technology enhanced learning
Resources model (Luckin, 2010) to frame an understanding
contexts. Proceedings of CSCL 2009. ISLS, Rhodes, Greece.

exploring the future of learning with digital technologies. 23-29 Emerald Street, London WC1N 3QS, +44 (0)20 7763 2137, www.lkl.ac.uk