A new course in Icelandic for smart phones and tablets was launched earlier this September by Icelandic Online. The first on-line course in Faroese, faroeseonline.fo, was published at the same time.
The first Icelandic Online course was launched in 2004, but now there are a total of seven available. The courses are open to the public through a specially designed system for language teaching. Over 166 thousand people, both in Iceland and abroad, have visited the courses. There are 45 thousand active users, only a third of whom are located in Iceland. The courses are not only used for self-study but also in connection with courses in Icelandic at the University of Iceland, and at foreign universities that offer modern Icelandic.
Birna Arnbjörsdóttir, Professor and Project Manager at Icelandic Online says this an important contribution on behalf of the University of Iceland for immigrants in Iceland as they can start learning Icelandic immediately via smartphones and tablets, free of charge.
Programming for smart technology began two years ago at the incentive of the President of Iceland and the University Rector. Students in computer science have developed a new programme for the courses under the supervision of Patrick Thomas, grammarian and computer scientist. Thomas has consulted on the project management ever since the work on the first course in Icelandic Online began. The first reprogrammed course was open for public use last week. This course is called Bjargir (survival course) and is designed for immigrants who are beginning to learn Icelandic. Work on reprogramming other courses is currently in progress.
Össur Ingi Jónsson, Programmer at Icelandic Online, was a student in computer sciences when he began working on this project. According to him some changes have been made on the website in addition to the making it smartphone friendly. These changes enable teachers to easily insert material and change courses. Furthermore, the website is no longer Icelandic specific. This provides us with the means to offer courses in other languages than Icelandic, as proven by the collaboration with the University of the Faroe Islands.
Kolbrún Friðriksdóttir, Adjunct Lecturer and Project Manager at Icelandic Online, says that the original aim of this project was to provide people with the opportunity to learn Icelandic whatever their location in the world. However, the project has become important in University Operations; both in teaching and research. She says there is a great effort behind the pedagogy in Icelandic Online as well as in the technical implementation. Interest in the system in other countries is based on its success, and the fact that students achieve success when taking these courses. The pedagogy has been developed along with the technology and the content; saving years of work in development of language teaching, work that that is both time consuming and expensive. The University of the Faroe Islands has already made use of this fact and the University in Helsinki is currently examining the possibilities of using the system to teach Finland-Swedish. The possibilities of offering courses in more languages are being explored according to Kolbrún, for example in German. Icelandic Online, could create jobs in Iceland if the cards are played right.
Research and development on Icelandic Online is not complete and ahead is the challenge of developing a more comprehensive monitoring system to evaluate its success in more detail. This includes how students work, what proves most difficult and whether the pedagogy gives the intended results. The University of Iceland already participates in the global discussion on the functionality of open source courses at a University level.
Icelandic Online is a collaboration between the University of Iceland's School of Humanities, The Vigdís Finnbogadóttir Institute of Foreign Languages and the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies. In addition the University of Iceland's Rector's Office and the collaborative institutions, The Icelandic Directorate of labour, Nordplus voksen and Nordplus sprog programmes have supported the reprogramming of Icelandic Online and the collaborative project management with the University of the Faroe Islands and the University of Helsinki.