Educational Technology, Language and Technical Communication (ETLTC2020): Connecting the Dots

: This preface is an attempt to highlight how ETLTC2020 took an interdisciplinary approach to understand different research topics in the fields of educational technology, language and technical communication, and special topics in computer science, biomedical engineering and smart cities. This was a forum to explore how these different topics have different objectives and goals but how the researchers could collaborate and network towards more interdisciplinary research in these different areas of applied linguistics. Importantly, this conference was also an opportunity for student-student collaboration preparing them with project management and intercultural communication skills for the future workplace.


The Conference Focus
The ETLTC 2020 conference theme -Education Technology, Language, and Technical Communication was a collaboration between the use of technology in global education and the language that communicates such use to improve both education quality and customer satisfaction worldwide -was an opportunity to create synergy between educators and industry professionals across a wide spectrum of applications. The conference's three cross-cutting themes were designed to help unpack the interrelations of quality education, use of technology for academic and industrial learning, and the technical communication that will help people understand the details of the use of such technology through the lenses of linguists and technical communicators, consumers of technology, customers who handle e-commerce technologies and interfaces that lead to learning; teachers including corporate trainers; education specialists, school and corporate leadership, and school and corporate governance. ETLTC's community of educational researchers, policymakers, and practitioners increasingly recognize that educational and industrial challenges in the use of technology, language and communication are getting increasingly complex, dynamic and multidimensional. ETLTC was, therefore, an attempt to create a platform for exchange, learning, and collaboration between professionals who are working directly in the industry or in close association with it, and traditional faculty and students who work with different educational technologies in daily life. This platform also allowed the attendees to understand how to bridge the gap between what we teach in our classes, and how useful it is in real life industry (transfer skills).

The Fields of Research: Exploring the Topics with Opportunities for Interdisciplinary Research
Clearly, the overarching theme or question that binds educational or instructional technology, technical communication and language sciences, is how to design instructions in a way such that the design and use of language and/or the technology in combination, creates a channel, communicates a message or develop instructions for students, customers, vendors, clients etc. towards achieving a goal. When our papers for the conference talked about innovative approaches to teaching technical communication, it was mostly about the use of instructional technology or other educational software to foster technical communication pedagogy both for academic or industry [1]. Similarly, many of the languagerelated papers submitted for the conference focused on pronunciation research or language testing and acquisition but with the sole purpose of explaining or involving the use of an educational technology for the purpose of language learning, teaching and use in academic or commercial situations. Educational technology or instructional technology is a systematic application and a disciplined approach to using relevant technological processes and resources in teaching with the ultimate goal of improving student performance and learning [2]. The use of technological processes and resources must be relevant to the curriculum goals and milestones, and consistent with the needs of the institution and the community at large. The need and demand to engage with technology on a daily basis both in and outside of the classroom is like never before. Technology is part of their lifestyle and the time spent with smartphones and tablets, YouTube etc. is tremendous, making learning more fun and accessible for today's students. Now, teachers are demanding it too. Technology is making the engagement with students more diversified and time-independent, providing students with the much-needed flexibility both in terms of time and engagement patterns. Most importantly, technology is probably enriching the learning experience, and in this digital age such accessibility is becoming the new normal. However, that does not mean technology can replace teachers, and the argument is valid even with the onset of AI. Technology is there to complement human teaching, not replacing it. However, a big question to answer is does technology improve education? Some scholars will differentiate between enriching the learning experience and improving the learning itself. However, there could be strong reasoning to suggest that both experience and learning can happen simultaneously. When teachers use technology effectively, it will keep the students engaged in the learning process. Teachers need to pick the right tools for specific tasks, tests and goals. The flipped classroom model, and optimization of the blended learning format geared toward student needs could be a huge advantage, and added to that the flexible pace of learning, and collaboration in online teams should make both the learning and the experience better suited to student needs [3]. Another topic that is increasingly being researched in applied linguistics is technical communication. The academic community has been researching technical communication for a long time now, but much of that research is quite a bit independent and set apart from how technical communication is looked at, and used in the industry. Fortunately, academic research has addressed that point [4]. Technical communication in the industry is more into managing documentation processes including increased volumes, complexity and deliverables; delivering more languages to support more markets; reducing costs and shortening delivery timeframes; maintaining the highest quality, clarity and consistency to meet increased regulatory, legal and safety requirements in the 'physical' world [5]. The TC discussion in this conference shifted from the traditional research in academia and more into how digital transformation is creating challenges for traditional systems and organizational functioning to unify the customer journey. The discussion went further into exploring if there could be opportunities to reposition technical communication as a strategic activity unifying a company's conversation with the customer about products and services? The idea was to explore academia-industry relationships and partnerships and related perspectives [6]. Another interesting topic that we considered as a major theme for ETLTC2020 was the gradual shift from computer assisted language learning towards mobile assisted language learning [7], and should language teachers redefine the language context for a world in which language use is now a means to an end, where international people are using English alongside their own language in order to achieve real life purpose online. Many of the presentations in this conference also focused on different language learning, testing and administrative tools, including language learning apps, discussions on AI and big data that could have both academic, industrial and societal applications. Moreover, as part of this conference we wanted to open up discussions on special topics in computer science, biomedical engineering and smart cities as tracks to have a more comprehensive outlook on a wide-ranging topic in a way such that a diverse multi-disciplinary approach to teaching and research could be promoted, and more ideas and approaches discussed. Another important aspect of the ETLTC2020 was the semester-long collaboration between the students of the University of Aizu and the HSKA, Germany which is now in its second year and resulted in a collaborative project on smart cities and technical communication. The idea of the project was to promote intercultural exposure and project-based collaboration and language learning. So, this conference was designed to be a forum for networking where participants from diverse faculty with a missing link came together, and explored how they could communicate and collaborate for research and other projects in near future. Further, this conference clearly had a strong focus on student-student collaboration preparing them for collaborative professional projects in the industry by raising their project management and intercultural communication skills [8].

ETLTC2020 Attendance
The event was held in collaboration with the international symposium on spatial media (ISSM2020). ETLTC2020 had about 90-100 participants in total for the 5-day event. For the academic presentations and attendance, the following countries and universities were represented.

Conference Presentation
The conference included the following sessions:

Individual Paper Presentation:
Paper sessions were 90 minutes in length and included 5-6 papers, in general and included many research papers on educational technology, language, technical communication and topics in computer science.

Poster:
Poster sessions combined the graphicsdisplay of technical communication research materials with the opportunity for individualized, informal discussion of a project in research, policy and/or practice. Individual presenters set up displays in a large area with other presenters. Posters were set up to be during the final day of the conference.

Workshop:
Workshops (90 minutes long) offered a forum for discussion of a broad range of emerging and specialized topics of interest to the ETLTC community. Two workshops happened between the students of University of Aizu and HSKA, Germany. These sessions were interactive and more informal than paper sessions and involved extended discussion, group brainstorming sessions, mini-tutorials around key ideas, and proof-of-concept demonstration sessions.

Submission Genres and Topics
The SIX major genres for paper submission were as follows: • Working collaboratively to disseminate and adapt innovations so that they can be used by practitioners separated by location or culture • Growing innovation through collaborations across international institutions • Working towards worldwide collaboration for the sharing and re-use of digital language learning materials • Design and development of applications that cross geographical, physical, psychological, and financial boundaries • Catalyzing international cooperation for language learning • Open Educational Resources • Identifying priorities of particular languages, groups and/or regions, with the aim of increasing collaboration and growth • Facilitating wider access to multilingual quality language learning worldwide • Growing diverse online communities of language learners/teachers

5) CALL and Multidisciplinary Approach for Targeting Learners' Needs
• From needs analysis to multidisciplinary language learning materials design • Bridging the gap between language teachers' perspectives and new language learners' needs • Augmented reality in second language teaching and learning • CALL for matching learners' minds • Learners just want to have fun: technology and games for language learning • Game-based learning strategies in technology-enhanced language learning environments • Gamification and virtual reality • Language learning systems for targeting specific audiences • Corpus-aided language learning • Semantic Web 3.0

6) Teacher Professional Development and CALL
• Integrating CALL in initial teacher education • Integrating CALL from k-12 to tertiary education • Teacher training in ICT for enhancing language learning • Developing strategies for teacher education and professional development • CALL on a small budget • Extra-curricular study

7) ICALL
• ICALL and ITS systems for e-learning platforms • Natural Language Processing in language learning

Submission Topics & Scope
All submission types were blind refereed. The evaluators reviewed all submissions without the names of the authors and presenters.

Submission Guidelines
Papers were no more than 10 pages maximum (including abstract, references, appendix, etc.).

Evaluation of proposals
Proposals were blind reviewed in the EDAS system and evaluated by members of the ETLTC2020 Program Committee. Proposals were judged for their contribution to educational technology theory and application and technical communication policy, research, and/or practice, the quality of explanation pertaining to the aims of the presentation, theoretical perspectives, methods of inquiry and analysis, strength of results and conclusions, and connections to the conference theme.
• For long papers, we looked into completed research that clearly highlights how a study is conducted, the findings, the discussion of the results and its implications. • For short papers, we looked for studies in preliminary stages, but which clearly puts a detailed framework explaining the next course of action or expected results. • Extended Abstracts provided the opportunity for the author to share an initial work-in-progress report or an idea that could be tested through a paper and accompanying talks at the conference. An experience report is a reflection of their own industry experiences (e.g. challenges they have seen, what they tried and approaches they have taken, what worked and what didn't work).
• A Research Paper was complete with an introduction, data, and analysis of data, discussion and implications.
• A Tutorial clearly explained how software or a product (e.g., educational technology) could be used towards certain specific goals. • Teaching Experience papers clearly highlighted the course module, how it's designed, the pedagogical strategies, classroom experience (with some data) and implications for teaching. • The Project Experience papers clearly highlighted how the project was conceptualized, reasons for using the approach, people and resources involved, what was aimed and achieved, the learning that happened, and its overall implications. • The Software/Hardware Review papers clearly explained the purpose of the software/hardware, the domain of application, the design of the interface, how users are expected to use it, and how it's actually used, the learning that happens, the user experience and the reliability and trustworthiness of the product in the market, and/or in the specific community of use. • The Teaching or Research Position papers explained the idea behind an approach, whether such use or application is valid and reasonable, what are the theories backing such application, or any contrary theoretical evidence to suggest the failure of such research approach, or pedagogical strategy.

Publication
ETLTC2020 published an abstract proceeding with ISSN number. This proceeding included both the abstract and extended abstracts (up to 2 pages long) which were not submitted through the EDAS system. The 1 st drafts or the abstracts for all the short paper (four pages long) and long paper (up to 10 pages long) submissions were peer-reviewed and submitted for publication with SHS Web of Conferences. However, among the list of all final short and long paper

Sponsors
Major Sponsors -The University of Aizu, ACM Chapter on eLearning and Technical Communication, and Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences, Germany. Major Partners -University of Monterrey, Mexico, and Japan Technical Communicators Association Project Partners of the Japanese-German Academic Cooperation Project -DOCUFY is a leading software manufacturer for multi-level documentation systems and is the first provider of Multi-Level Documentation. Besides its software products, DOCUFY also offers consulting and development services and professional support. The ISO 9001:2015 certified company is based in Bamberg and employs around 120 people. The software specialist also markets its multilingual software worldwide via a network of partners. Since 1 May 2017, DOCUFY has been a Heidelberg Group Company. SCHEMA develops component content management and content delivery solutions for authoring departments creating product-related content. SCHEMA software supports businesses in describing complex products and in publishing and distributing content. The component content management system SCHEMA ST4 is one of the most frequently used systems for the modularised creation of documentation, package inserts, and marketing documentation. The system covers all areas of content creation in technical writing -from authoring assistance during input to the finished layout for printed catalogs. The SCHEMA Content Delivery Server provides businesses with a standard solution to automatically share intelligent information with end users. Expert Communication Systems GmbH, a company domiciled in Haar near Munich, is the maker of the browser based XML editing system "Smart Media Creator". Thanks to modern technology and structures, SMC excels with high efficiency and usability and can be run in many areas of technical documentation and technical marketing. Sample fields of application are: Manuals / instructions, catalogs / data sheet, software documentation / online help, web content and mobile devices, elearning or marketing media. Expert Communication Systems offers a wide range of services around the installation and application of the editing system, thereby contributing to a fast and safe ROI of projects in different dimensions.
ONTOLIS is a web-based software family for general knowledge management. Using the powers of ontologies, ONTOLIS enables you to depict all relations and coherences of your desired domain. Since ONTOLIS is highly configurable, it can easily be optimized for the customer's needs and use cases. The team behind ONTOLIS has 20 years of experience in DLM. This has left its mark: ONTOLIS offers innovative solutions for content management and delivery, which makes it the first CMDS. An essential part of this is QIRA -ONTOLIS' own language for querying, transformation and reasoning of ontology data. ONTOLIS delivers intelligence for your data. i-views -The company intelligent views from Darmstadt, Germany was founded in 1997 is the vendor of the semantic graph database i-views and is a leading provider of semantic-based information portals. The content delivery portal iv-content is based on our core engine and brings the full power of semantic web technologies to the area of content delivery portals. ivscontent supports a large variety of input formats for technical documents and offers a full metadata management system for the automatic and manual annotation of content. Intelligent searches, personalized access, and offline apps are further key features of the solution.