second life

2nd life was a fun experience for me, and a little unexpected.It does involve some hand to eye coordination, and in that respect for me it's a bit like my tennis, sometimes very good then not so good.


I didn't actually choose to be female, and that may have been a mistake because people kept walking quickly past me! Then I tried to change my gender later with little success. I do think all this fiddling about with appearance and clothing a waste of time though educationally. Yes, I agree it could be used for language learning, but all I saw were reading billboards, and that's not particularly interactive. The best thing would be to set up a private island or lab for learning. The other drawback is the amount of flirting etc. I followed a couple of avatars and they started kissing-it was a horrible, slurping sound, and I felt quite uncomfortable, and had to reverse out of the way, just like in real life!!!
As for 'Cancerland' for education-please...?!!!As an ex nurse, this is sending out totally the wrong message. I thought it was dreadful, some woman bleating on about being frightened about her thyroid cancer. What does that hope to achieve? It smacks of reality TV, and all that sensationalism; not suitable at all. This does however highlight the importance of teachers being involved in the development of virtual reality 'sets' for education.

Google Lit Trip for English literature or Language Classes

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Similar to veronica's idea, you could use a GoogleLit trip where books have more than one location in the content, but not all books would be suitable for this. Divide the class into groups for each chapter and get each group to either describe the location, add URLs and images relevant to the setting or story, write vocabulary questions or give word meanings and provide discussion starters for class based discussion on the reading. I think the discussion starters are great for getting the children involved in the discussion as they had to think of the ideas themselves. I tried an example from The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope, but I could not get the image up unfortunately as Im just a novice Google earth user!

Texting with Hand-phones

Texting by mobiles has become so popular nowadays. I remember at a New Years Eve celebration in London in 2004, sitting in the corner one- handed texting people. I got some very strange looks and comments. At the time, people in the UK were calling on hand-phones because they were being given monthly deals, and texting was thought 'pointless'and not fully appreciated. This I think is an unusual example of a technology use that actually grew first in developing countries rather than developed. Apart from economic advantages, the text is an ubiquitous form of asynchronous communication which does not require an immediate response However,the closer the friend the more immediate response and the greater the frequency of texting. It's mostly used for people who have met f2f previously. (ref.1)It is also useful for Romance and flirting with people you don't know well as this form of communication does make you feel braver. Research has found that removing the aural, visual and vocal signals increases bravery and makes it easier to lie.(ref 2) The other interesting thing about its widespread use is the way it has affected language itself, specifically vocabulary and grammar or shall I say lack of grammar. This has come about probably by a need to reduce costs and increase speed of the message. Because of its use mainly in more existing relationships a lot of its purpose is to tell the receiver what you are doing (like Twitter or Facebook) the state of your feelings, and arranging social meetings, especially in the short term. It is also a handy device for killing time while you are waiting for something else to happen providing you're paying attention.. I have lost so many hand phones to thieves!! Personally, I'm getting a bit bored with it , maybe cos I was an early adopter :) I would much rather speak on the phone to a close friend...

1. Baron and Ling (2007), Emerging Patterns of American Mobile Phone Use.
2. Castells M, (2007), The mobile Communication society, University of Southern California.

Map of the World

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sharing information

Now this is a good idea. Getting students to share together and set up study groups. But, is it necessary to use money and points in the UK to do so? Maybe it is in individualistic cultures. Maybe it wouldn't be necessary in Asia or the Middle East where people might just want to help each other. Who knows??? The site aims at University students, summaries are submitted from papers. I had look at one from a student at our uni and it was 'summarised' word for word from the original academic paper. Would we really chose to study by avoiding the actual reading, and explanation that goes with it? Some of us would...not me you understand, definitely not...

Context and familiarity in language learning games

It is really important nowadays that people have a knowledge of one of the world languages such as English, Spanish or Mandarin. This project explores language learning games for low income, disadvantaged children in India.They found that the poorest people have a desire to improve in one of these languages to stand any chance of getting out of their situation. Computer games were found to be ineffective for learning because of problems with usability (computer literacy) and poor interface design. Children were getting distracted and just guessing answers, not learning very much because the contexts of the games were too unfamiliar for them, particularly with the western design bias. The team realised how important cultural familiarity was for the successful playing of the game, and the use of culturally appropriate words and images.This localization of content in turn would more likely lead to learners adopting the language more.

The expense of computer game development combined with usability problems are big disadvantages compared to hand phone usage with easier controls basic enough to learn quickly. Also, phones are cheaper and much more readily available for disadvantaged groups. To ensure games are situated in familiar settings games should be designed by first establishing what type of context learners are used to as well as the social norms. This involved interviewing people in the local area finding out about their daily activities, and the type of words commonly used.

Games were designed using bow and arrows ( commonly used in regional stories) and trains, which are an established everyday transport form. Key people were given local clothes and objects were displayed in cultural colours. Pattern Activity Curriculum Exercise (PACE) refers to a pattern of steps current language learning software (eg Rosetta Stone) or text books use to develop a language point. This pattern can be used as a skeletal representation on which to base a game on. This in effect scaffolds game designers, who lack the backgrounds to implement language learning tasks in software. This same pattern could then be used for various levels of difficulty by substituting different language from the syllabi. However, if a pattern is followed on its own it does not make a very fun game. So, the games themselves are developed based on heuristics (guidelines) on designing enjoyable user interfaces. Malone(1998) demonstrated that in order for games to be playable and engaging, the story experience should relate to real life even though the setting is fantasy. He also found that players were more engaged if the people in the game were like themselves.

I think the use of cultural relevance would help promote learning in languages especially for these low level/beginners groups. It must be important to keep the flow of a game going for it to succeed at being fun and hence,for people to learn language from it. Mainstream games with just in time advice/coaching would not really work-who wants to be interrupted with an explanation of a word or a pronunciation guidance because then the whole point of using a game becomes a bit redundant. I think localized design could be the way forward for phone games,which are cheaper to develop than computer games.


http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~divya/CHI2007_pace.pdf
http://www.behavioristics.com/downloads/usingheuristics.pdf