Maximising the educational affordances of a technology supported learning environment for introductory undergraduate phonetics

New technologies afford a range of opportunities that can transform teaching techniques and offer enhanced possibilities for learning. This potential is often not grasped by the technologist or the educationalist when introducing new technologies into the learning situation and a situation arises which can be described as “New technology, no new pedagogy” This paper examines why this situation arises, before progressing to suggest a set of target areas the affordances of new technology ought to transform when introduced into the socio–cultural learning environment (Vygotsky, 1978). This set of target areas is illustrated through the presentation of a technology supported learning environment for introductory undergraduate phonetics. Each course module is discussed in relation to these targets and how the affordances of new technology are used to meet them. The student and lecturer reflections on the course indicate that the use of new technology as applied in this introductory undergraduate phonetics course was appropriate, although not always 100% successful.