Darren’ts talk at the Wireless Ready conference in Nagoya February 21. If you’re interested in the issues and options of personal learning environments, then you will enjoy this.
CALL FOR PAPERS
Immersive Technologies for Learning: A multi-disciplinary approach
First Annual Conference of the International Virtual Worlds
Research Group (iVERG)
28-29 June 2010, Teesside University, Middlesbrough, UK
Keynote speakers will be confirmed shortly.
Abstracts of no more than 200 words should be submitted electronically to s.m.martin@tees.ac.uk. Abstract submission deadline: Friday 26 February 2010.
The Organising Committee encourages submission of individual abstracts in the following general areas:
Collaboration in immersive learning environments;
Communicating in immersive learning environments;
Designing learning environments and experiences;
Implementing tasks in immersive learning environments;
Innovations in immersive learning environments;
Learning in Digital Worlds – identification, metrics and effects;
Multidisciplinary approaches in virtual worlds;
Place and space: physical, virtual and social;
Planning educational experiences in virtual worlds;
Problem-based learning in immersive learning environments;
Rethinking learning in virtual worlds;
Rethinking pedagogy in virtual worlds.
Schedule dates:
Abstract judgments due to authors 26 March 2010 Full conference papers due 3 May 2010 (5,000-7,000 words)
*All accepted conference papers will be published online in the iVERG Conference Proceedings. Selected papers will be included in a special edition of the Journal of Computer Assisted Learning.
Pia Sundqvist recently completed her PhD study on how learners acquire a foreign (not second!) language outside the school. As one of the few evidence-based of such studies, I highly recommend anyone interested in learner autonomy, strategies and motivation to read this. It is available for free download here.
The abstract:
he present study examines possible effects of extramural English (EE) on oral proficiency (OP) and vocabulary (VOC). The study is based on data collected from Swedish learners of ESL in grade 9 (aged 15-16; N=80; 36 boys, 44 girls) over a period of one year. EE was defined as linguistic activities that learners engage in outside the classroom in their spare time. EE was measured with the help of a questionnaire and two language diaries, each covering one week. In the diaries, the learners recorded how much time they had spent on seven given EE activities (reading books, reading newspapers/magazines, watching TV, watching films, surfing the Internet, playing video games, listening to music). There was also an open category. Speech data were collected with the help of five interactional speaking tests; learners were in random dyads on each occasion. Each student performance was assessed by three raters with the help of a profile scheme, resulting in an overall grade. Based on these grades from the tests, a mean grade for OP (the OP grade) was calculated for each student. OP was defined as the learner’s ability to speak and use the target language in actual communication with an interlocutor. Learners’ VOC was measured with an index variable based on the scores on two written vocabulary tests. For a selection of ten learners, additional analyses were made of oral fluency and the use of advanced vocabulary in speech. A mixed methods research design was used, but the lion’s share of data was analyzed using inferential statistics.
Results showed that the total amount of time spent on EE correlated positively and significantly (p < .01) both with learners’ level of OP and size of VOC, but that the correlation between EE and VOC was stronger and more straightforward than the one between EE and OP. The conclusion drawn was that although EE impacts both OP and VOC, the causal relationship is more salient in the case of VOC. Results also showed that some activities were more important than others for OP and VOC respectively; i.e., the type of EE activity mattered. EE activities that required learners to be more productive and rely on their language skills (video games, the Internet, reading) had a greater impact on OP and VOC than activities where learners could remain fairly passive (music, TV, films). An important gender difference was identified. Boys spent significantly more time on productive EE activities than girls; therefore, EE had a greater impact on OP and VOC for boys than for girls. Four background variables were also studied. The conclusion was that EE is an independent variable and a possible path to progress in English for any learner, regardless of his or her socioeconomic background.
Just came across an interesting article that investigates the effects of game play on the experience of learning a skill (programming, in this study). There are a lot of comments plastered all over the internet, including some of my own, about the potential of games to increase motivation, but how this actually works in practice is unclear. This study attempts to make a start on describing the effects of gaming on the learning experience.
Here is the abstract: Learning to program is difficult for novices, even for those undergraduates who have majored in computer science. The study described in this paper has investigated the effects of game strategy and preference-matching on novice learners’ flow experience and performance in learning to program using an experiential gaming activity. One hundred and fifteen novices participated in the experimental activity. Two types of game strategy were employed: the matching-challenging strategy and the challenging strategy. Participants were categorised into one or other of the two groups based on individual preferences. The results of the study showed that: (1) the challenging group had higher flow experiences than the matching-challenging group; (2) participants’ performance was enhanced with the use of the matching strategy; and (3) a compensation effect existed among the preference-mismatched learners who performed better in the challenging game-play.
In this free issue of
I came across an article titled ‘lessons learned about signing augmented Realities’ in the freely available inaugural issue of the International Journal of Gaming and Computer-Mediated Simulations. In it the authors talk about augmented reality and a project in which they provided middle and high school students with handheld devices equiped with GPS. In the words of the authors: ‘As the students move around a physical location, such as their school playground or sports felds (Figure 2), a map on their handheld displays digital objects and virtual people who exist in an AR world superimposed on real space (Figure 3). When students come within approximately 30 feet of these digital artifacts, the AR and GPS software triggers video, audio, and text fles, which provide narrative, navigation, and collaboration cues as well as academic challenges. In Alien Contact! the students are presented with the following scenario: Aliens have landed on Earth and seem to be preparing for a number of actions, including peaceful contact, invasion, plundering, or simply returning to their home planet, among other possibilities. Working in teams (four pupils per team), the students must explore the augmented reality world, interviewing virtual characters, collecting digital items, and solving mathematics and literacy puzzles to determine why the aliens have landed. Each team has four roles: chemist, cryptologist, computer hacker, and FBI agent. Depending upon his or her role, each student will see different pieces of evidence. In order to successfully navigate the augmented reality environment and solve various puzzles, the students must share information and collaborate with the other members of their team’ (pp 4-5).
This is very neat indeed. I tried doing something similar before by using podquests, but these did not have inbuilt GPS so obviously were limited compared to this project. This is an excellent use of technology to encourage - and support - out-of-class learning.
The International Journal of Gaming and Computer-Mediated Simulations was recently launched and its first issue is available for free online. One of the articles by Steinkuehler and Johnson talks about the need for ‘computational literacy’: ‘ Based on our analysis, we argue for reconsideration of computer literacy as computational literacy, authorship as collaborative and negotiated rather than individually achieved, and digital media literacy
practice as one involving design and production, not merely passive or critical consumption.’
I very much like this idea of ‘literacy’ as a dynamic, and social capacity. Although Steinkuehler and Johnson do relate this to language learning, I do see overlap with for example the use of technology-mediated tasks (as attested in the book I recently edited with Michael Thomas). How can we involve learners in language production that is grounded in meaningful, social interaction, and that involves ‘building’ something (either an online character or a network or a strategy) in a game environment with language?
Beyond the Classroom by Rosalyn Black is an interesting book published by the Australian Council for Educational Research in 2008. It talks about the ways in which education can be extended beyond the school and into the community, and how the community itself plays a crucial role in its children’s education. ‘…tinkering around the edges of schooling will not provide solutions to the widening gaps in education and life outcomes that limit opportunities…we need new models of schooling that recognise the future of children and young people is the responsibility of the whole community, and which form the basis of a social alliance for all young people to tak an active – if not a leading- role in their community’ (p. 2). Wise words indeed. The book then goes on to describe different types of community networks and ways of making them work. An interesting read, especially for those involved in education at the primary and secondary school levels.
Google just launched Buzz, its social networking tool built into Gmail (if you can’t see it yet, wait a couple of days). ReadWriteWeb explains what’s radical about this. I’m loving it!
