Week 5 – Duolingo as a Classroom Technology Resource

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Today we are exploring the Language learning tool “Duo-lingo” in the classroom!

Duolingo is a language learning website/app that uses 4 different ways to learn and maintain the knowledge of another language.

1. Active recall challenges test knowledge that is generated from memory. This tests knowledge in a more realistic way and is proven to be more effective for memory retention.
2. Spaced repetition- because we forget things over time, duo-lingo strategically schedules practice for words and concepts when we are on the verge of forgetting them.
3. Core vocabulary- they design “skill trees” to teach more common words and concepts before diving into the more rare ones
4. Multimodal learning- visual, auditory and tactile (bodily) information while exercising new concepts. There is a variety of these in every lesson- listening, reading, interpreting pictures, typing, speaking, etc.. to help develop ideas consciously and subconsciously.

However, we decided to make a chart to determine the pros and cons of this “language learning technology resource”:

Information Collected by Duolingo:

An important aspect of Duolingo that needs to be acknowledged is that all the Information collected by Duolingo is stored in the USA. Additionally, Duolingo shares your information with third-parties such as “Amazon Web Services, search engine providers such as Google, analytics providers such as Crashlytics, and support providers such as ZenDesk.” Rich had shared with us that they share this information with third parties to receive money. They definitely don’t advertise that, but they do provide an example of why they share this information. One example they share says your information is shared to help find bugs in mobile apps. Duolingo also included that they only share the information temporarily by “implementing contractual protections” to limit the amount of personal data shared with the third-parties.

In the classroom, Duolingo could be implemented as an additional resource for learning a language. You could either assign it for 10 min a day or week or recommend students do it in the summer to maintain what they have learned.

In conclusion, Duolingo is a great resource to continue/maintain learning a language, but it could more effectively be used as a secondary resource for learning a language.

Photo retrieved from Unsplash.com: Hannah Wright