NEALLT/NERALLT Fall 2009 Joint Conference Keynote address by Richard Kern, University of California, Berkeley

"Neither Here Nor There: What Happens to Space, Time, and Culture in CMC Videoconferencing Exchanges"

This talk explores how space, time, and culture get represented and negotiated in computer-mediated videoconferences between teacher trainees of French as a foreign language at the University of Lyon 2 and intermediate level French students at UC Berkeley. How adequately does the audio-visual interface render the "real" spatial/temporal settings in which participants are communicating? How does the interface affect representations of the spatial and temporal dimensions of each participant’s local world? How well do participants' envisionments of their interlocutors' spatial/temporal settings match the "real" settings, and what consequences come of mismatches? To what extent are participants aware of the role of the technological medium itself in forming its own context of setting? Conclusions will highlight the important role that interfaces play in the dynamics of collaborative multimedia teaching.