Wednesday 9 December 2015

Week 11 - Virtual Worlds in Education

Virtual World are some of the first images that springs to mind when people think of futuristic technology. From the Matrix, to Tron, people have been fascinated by the ability to 'live' in cyberspace, to create their own characters, personas and abilities.

But is the allure of Virtual Worlds another example of trying to fit the methodology around the tool  or is there worthwhile learning to be gained in Virtual Worlds as opposed to a real-life classroom? In order to better understand interacting and socialising in a virtual environment, I created accounts at Virtual Worlds - Small Worlds and Second Life, and also the sand-box video game phenomenon Minecraft.


Benefits of Virtual Worlds

Virtual Worlds, particularly those within a Role-Playing Game (RPG) can easily immerse you in their world. While walking around and interacting in SmallWorlds, I quickly lost track of how much time I was spending there.The ability to stay on task can be a major hindrance to learning. For most people it is very difficult to sit and study textbooks for hours on end. Virtual Worlds offer some appeal as a way of sustaining interest and staying on task. While it would be naive to think that an activity would be any more interesting or fun simply by taking place in a Virtual World, nonetheless, the motions and actions involved, such as scrolling, messaging and moving your avatar around, may be all the stimulus required to keep you on task. Taking a walk around a virtual museum can feel more pleasurable than say flicking through the pages of an art book, even though the information may well be more easily accessed from the book. As Taylor (2002: 42) puts it 'Users do not simply roam through the space as “mind”, but find themselves grounded in the practice of the body, and thus in the world'

That being said, Virtual Worlds can offer a host of opportunities unavailable in the real world, such as the ability to explore replicas of real world locations, converse with native speakers of a language you are learning, or even for some, simply the ability to walk, talk or be treated the same as any other person in the world.  Second Life has been known to help people with Asperger Syndrome learn social skills. 'they ae free to create a "second life" with a level of social interaction that, for reasons of their condition, has been hard to come by in their real lives.' (For an indepth list of the affordances of SL for Education, see Warburton, S. 2009: 421)

Second life even gives you the ability to fly

Virtual Worlds start you on an even playing field, without having to worry about physical appearance, fashion, or other factors that may cause a person to be anxious, and could be a major boost to aid social development, and thus better influence language learners in communication.

Virtual me is acne-free

It being a virtual world also opens up the possibilities of exploring methods of teaching that would be impossible in the real world. Students could learn the value of teamwork by working as a team to take down a monster in an MMORPG or what problems astronauts face in zero-gravity.

People may also become attached to their Virtual Avatars and personas. While exploring Minecraft, I became quite attached to the home I had built for myself and was fearful of dying in-world, as it would mean losing everything I had built so far.


Home, Sweet Home

Marcus Dickinson, an avid EVE Online player, lost 45lbs in an effort to closer resemble his macho avatar from the game. This linking of your personality to your online persona can go a long way to establishing an online presence and overcome what Dreyfus ( 2001: 39) describes as 'the Net's limitations where embodiment is concerned' Taylor (2002: 42) again notes 'that the avatar comes to signal to the user their continued participation in the space. Unlike text-based worlds, in which presence is performed via conscious action (or signaled through a room listing), presence in graphical worlds is rearticulated to both others and self by the simple inclusion of an avatar.'

Disadvantages

Though the uses of Virtual Worlds may only be limited by your imagination, there may be some potential drawbacks. Computer problems and lag may be amplified on such large networks. I found the lag on Second Life quite jarring, as well as the limited view on Small Worlds making it hard to know where I was going. I found it very easy to get lost in Minecraft, with places all starting to look the same. Taylor (2002: 44)  continued that 'Seeing people inadvertently walk through walls or suddenly disappear are persistent problems in many systems. This feeling of being suddenly pulled back out of the virtual world highlights the fragility of multiple forms of embodiment, especially in relation to the digital' and takes away from the online presence we worked so hard to achieve, mentioned in the previous paragraph. 

Socially, it can be no utopia either. Your world might be prone to unwelcome guests or 'griefers'. Interaction, or lack of, is more pronounced with an in-world avatar than more text-based mediums. Cliques huddling together, or players ignoring another character are much more noticeable than say on a forum. The lack of identity, while allowing greater freedom, also makes it hard to read people and how to gauge their responses. Am I talking to a child or an adult? Is this person joking, or crazy? (For a more indepth list of barriers v potential in the use of SL see Warburton, S. 2009: 422)

Social Interactions in Virtual Worlds

Virtual Worlds offer the opportunity for large groups of people to interact online. It was truly fascinating to see how people behaved and learned socially through this medium and I have decided to follow this path in my upcoming assignment for the course. Ducheneaut & Moore (2005: 89) note that 'some game designers have clearly expressed the intent to create games where socialization is encouraged and rewarded' Such intent is noticeable in games with overpowered enemies, which require players to team up to defeat them, or games such as Team Fortress 2, where player must work together to defeat other teams, each player having a different role to play. As Ducheneaut & Moore (2005: 91)
 'gamers need to do much more than mindlessly accumulate experience points (xp): they also need to increase thier social capital within the game's society. In other words, they need not only learn the game commands, but they must also become socialized into the game community'
Conclusion

From what I have seen from Virtual Worlds, they seem like an ideal place for role-playing and team exercises. The potential to create scenarios that engage the student's in problem-solving situation and communication is very high and I someday hope to take advantage of this in my classroom. I recently came across an English lesson using Minecraft  and in fact saw several websites and blogs dedicated to teaching through the use of Minecraft. Minecraft is very popular with my students and is accessible using their smartphones, making it relatively easy to access in class. One student even invited me to his Virtual World, and though he immediately killed my character, he was engaging me in English, telling me where to go and what I should do, drawing parallels with what Rama et al (2012: 335) state that

'From the moment a game starts, players are immersed in a target language context where they have multiple options for engaging in authentic communication via speaking, reading, writing, and listening with a range of interlocutors, often in ways that allow risk-taking and reflection in the target language'

What more could one possibly ask for in a Language teaching tool?

Bibliography:

  1. CARLSON, D. Chubby gamer loses 45 pounds to look more like his avatar [online] Inquistr News (2010) [viewed December 9th 2015] Available at: http://www.inquisitr.com/377809/chubby-gamer-loses-45-pounds-to-look-more-like-his-avatar/
  2. Dreyfus, H. (2001) On the Internet, 2, pp. 26-49, London: Routledge
  3. Ducheneaut, N. & Moore, R. (2005) More than just XP: learning social skills in massively multiplayer online games, Interactive Technology and Smart Education, 2, pp.89-100
  4. LOFTUS, C. Virtual world teaches real world skills [online] New York: NBC News (2005) [viewed December 9th 2015] Available at:  http://www.nbcnews.com/id/7012645/ns/health-mental_health/t/virtual-world-teaches-real-world-skills/#.VmeZjtIrLct
  5. Rama, P et al (2012) Affordances for second language learning in World of Warcraft. ReCALL 24, 3, pp.322-338
  6. Taylor, T, L. (2002) Living Digitally: Embodiment in Virtual Worlds. In Schroeder (Ed) The Social Life of EAvatars: Presence and Interaction in Shared Virtual Environments. London: Springer-Verlag, (chapter 3)
  7. Warburton, S. (2009) Second Life in higher education: Assessing the potential for and the barriers to deploying virtual worlds in learning and teaching. British Journal of Educational Technology, 40, 3, pp.414 - 426


Tuesday 8 December 2015

Week 10 - Technology and Pedagogy - Different Technologies as different tools

This week all the posts seemed to gel and integrated in a tight-knit web of everything we had studied so far. In the readings, there were mentions of Digital Natives, PLE's and various other aspects we had previously covered. I am beginning to see how all of these factors combine to view different opinions, theories and practices for online education.


Our task this week was to find an article relating to our course and do a presentation on it for our classmates. I chose 'Social media, Collaboration and Social Learning - a case-study of Foreign Language Learning' by Margrethe Mondahl and Liana Razmerita. I chose this article as it covered some interesting subject matter in collaborative learning and problem-solving for SLA. It also linked very well with previous lessons we had, again discussing VLE's, PLE's and Digital Natives. I was also interested in the business perspective taken from the article, as it was from Copenhagen Business School, and being from 2014, it was a very recent study and therefore up-to-date with advances in technology.

This week's Task

The key technology utilised was Podio, a business orientated online work platform, mainly utilised by businesses to create, manage and complete projects.



Overall, the tone of the article was that modern students are 'pragmatic and results orientated' and 'may not by particularly academically minded' (Mondahl, M. & Razmerita, L, 2014: 339) While this may be true of some business students, I don't believe it to be an accurate representation of the modern student, in particular those interested in learning a foreign language. In fact, the students seemed to be more pragmatic and disinterested in the the case-study due to their upcoming final exams. 'Very few students were active throughout the course - and peak activity was close to hand-in deadlines.'  (Mondahl, M. & Razmerita, L, 2014: 349)

It was also disappointing that few conclusions were made with regards to language learning as the students were 'not particularly willing to “invade each other’s turfs” when it comes to correcting/discussing/making changes to language.'   (Mondahl, M. & Razmerita, L, 2014: 349) While Podio may have been a good platform for businesses and gave the students a realistic view of the business world, it may not have been the best tool for facilitating communication in a second language.


The Right Tool for the Job

In fact, it was quite a common theme of this week's discussions of choosing the correct platform to suit the language needs of the class or the pedagogy being taught. Whether it was dependent on personal factors, such as Facebook revealing too much personal information, or using twitter as a means of CMC, when a simple SMS style app would be more appropriate. I must remember to be careful in choosing any digital technology for my class and ensure I am choosing the right approach. As noted by McLoughlin (2010: 30), there are several key areas that using digital technologies must provide if they are to be used as part of a pedagogy, particularly in relation to PLE's:

'Green, Facer, Rudd, Dillon and Humphreys (2005) summarise four key areas pivotal to enabling personalised learning through digital technologies. According to them, pedagogy must:


  • ensure that the learners are capable of making informed educational decisions:
  • diversify and recognise different forms of skills and knowledge:
  • create diverse learning environments: and
  • include learner focused forms of feedback and assessment.'


Here, student self regulation and reflection are seem as key factors in their understanding and learning and I must ensure that I allow my students to be able to reflect on their work and not just get caught up in all the 'bells-and-whistles' of  digital technology. This very blog is a good example of using digital technology as a means of self-reflection, where I think about and discuss all the articles and discussion I have studied during the week.  As Wei (2010: 279) notes 'blogging seems to promote these learners to generate deep reflections upon the research writing process, the evaluation criteria, and the research topic ' And though this task is coming to a close next week as a formally assessed task, I an keen to continue it, as it has been most beneficial to me in these hectic times.

Bibliography:
  1. McLoughlin, C. & Lee, M. (2008) Future Learning Landscapes: Transforming Pedagogy through Social Software. Innovate, 4, 5. 
  2. McLoughlin, C. & Lee, M. (2010) Personalised and self regulated learning in the Web 2.0 era: International exemplars of innovative pedagogy using social software. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 26(1), 28-43. Available at:http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet26/mcloughlin.html
  3. Mondahl, M. & Razmerita, L. (2014) Social media, Collaboration and Social Learning – a Case-study of Foreign Language Learning,  The Electronic Journal of e-Learning Volume 12 Issue 4, (pp339-352) Available at: http://www.ejel.org/front/search/index.html
  4. Wei, Z. (2010) Blogging for Doing English Digital: Student evaluations. Computers and Composition. 27. 266-283.
File

Wednesday 2 December 2015

Foreign Language Anxiety

My blog seems to have come full circle this week. In my first post, I mentioned how people might feel some anxiety when using technology. Now, in this week's topic,the focus is specifically on the anxiety felt through learning and utilising a foreign language.

Learning a language is a difficult task, for many combining both academic and social fears. It is fundamentally a social task. Whereas people may study math or science to better understand their area or expertise or to fulfill their duties, unless you are studying ancient texts, poetry or something, usually the goal of language students is to communicate with others.It can be a daunting task for many as Horwitz et al (1986: 128) note 'Probably no other field of study implicates selfconcept and self-expression to the degree that language study does.'


How does Anxiety affect Language Learning?

 Anxiety can be a major stumbling block for learning. As von Worde (2003: 1) points out 'student's who are anxious may learn less and also may not be able to demonstrate what they have learned. Therefore, they may experience even more failure, which in turn escalates their anxiety.' It is easy to see how a negative experience can cause you to become more anxious the next time and thus further subject you to further negativity. It is a common cliche in football terms to 'get a good early touch on the ball' to give you confidence and allay some of the fears and doubts you had before the game.

Doubts can creep in, in both football and 
language learning | Credit: The Mirror

 Perhaps in language terms, it may be likened to an ability to make small talk. I always like to start my classes off with basic questions so that the students feel at ease speaking English. Hello. How are you? How's the weather? etc. Horwitz et al (1986:126) noted that the 'more anxious student tends to avoid attempting difficult or personal messages in the target language'. I too have often felt this way when struggling to make a sentence, it is often easier to just 'go with what you know' rather than challenging yourself and trying to make complicated sentences. Others may avoid questions, or even avoid showing up to classes.

Another frustrating element of language learning can be the inability to truly express oneself or complex issues or thoughts. As an adult, it can be often difficult to express the nuances of your feelings in another language, especially when talking to other adults, as perhaps, not only do you want your opinions to be heard, you want them to be respected. I have often found it easier to talk to children in Korean as their more basic use of language suits my limited vocabulary "I'm sad.' as opposed to 'I'm melancholy'. 'Do you like computer games?' instead of 'What are your thoughts on Global Warming?'  I again agree with Horwitz et al (1986: 128) in their opinion that 'adult language learners' self-perceptions of genuineness in presenting themselves to others may be threatened by the limited range of meaning and affect that can be deliberately communicated.'

How to deal with Foreign Language Anxiety

Anxiety is a difficult condition to overcome. One can not simply over-ride their emotions, flip a switch and become calm again. Stella Hurd (2007: 498) in her study of Foreign Language Anxiety, asked her students for their strategies in dealing with FLA. Table 9 below shows their responses

Strategies used to cope with anxiety Hurd (2007:498)

Living abroad, I have many friends who have invested interest in learning a second language, be it English, Korean or another. I created a poll with these methods and via FaceBook, asked my friends to select which strategies they would use to combat FLA. I was curious to see if the results would correlate to Hurd's findings.

Poll Results as of December 2nd 2015


As you can see, the results were pretty similar, with risk-taking the clear majority in both. However, it was noted on our Moodle that while risk-taking may be the best way to improve your language skills, it doesn't really show a means of coping with FLA, other than to try and change your mindset.

In both polls, pretty unsurprisingly, positive self-talk came next. The general consensus seeming to be that people tend to view anxiety as a personal issue, with Hurd's (2007:499) students remarking that

'I think the materials/tutorials are fine - it's me!'
'Not a problem with the course - it's the rest of my life!' 
With such an emphasis on themselves (me, my life), it probably shouldn't have surprised me to see 'Let my tutor know I am anxious' so far down the list, but I actually thought it would have placed higher. In fact, what I assumed was wrong as it slid even further down the list in my friends' opinions.

However, Foreign Language Anxiety is not just an issue for the individual to deal with by themselves. One of the foremost things a teacher can do to ease the anxiety of students is to create a positive atmosphere within the class, that the students can feel at ease speaking. It may also help to ease students into their work, giving them time to formulate an answer to questions before 'putting them on the spot' and always be encouraging. Practicing meditation or other stress-relieving activities may also be incorporated into the lessons. 

Conclusion

As someone who suffers from Foreign Language Anxiety, I must admit, I was unaware that the condition, to such specifications, even existed. I studied French in secondary school and was quite a good student, but I failed the oral exam miserably, due to being too nervous to speak. I'm also quite competent at Korean, but also often find myself befuddled when forced to speak it, usually in unnatural settings and terms such as 'Oh you speak Korean? Say something in Korean?' Again creating an atmosphere that I am being judged by these people and not being given a natural flow of conversation.

One thing I learned quickly was that all native speakers are not like teachers. Many will refuse to speak at your level, issuing a tirade of words you can't begin to understand. Others dismissing you and harshly criticising you for your attempts 'Oh, you're Korean isn't very good. You're friend is much better.' As such, they can be quite intimidating.

Knowing what I know now about Foreign Language Anxiety, I really wish I had been taught about it in school and helped to overcome my obstacles. It is the role of the teacher to ensure a safe learning environment for the students and I think discussing and demonstrating techniques for coping with FLA could have a very positive effect on the language classroom. I myself will try to be more aware of FLA in my classroom and take from Horwitz et al (1986: 131) that

'teachers should always consider the possibility that anxiety is responsible for the student behaviors discussed here before attributing poor student performance solely to lack of ability, inadequate background, or poor motivation.'


Bibliography:
  1. Horwitz, K. et al (1986) Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety. The Modern Language Journal, 10, 2 (Summer 1986), pp.125-132
  2. Hurd, S. (2007) Anxiety and non-anxiety in a distance language learning environment: The distance factor as a modifying influence. System, 35, pp. 487 -508
  3. von Worde, R. (2003) Students' perspective on foreign language anxiety. Inquiry, 8, 1.