Title: Second Life as a Social Learning Environment
Presenters [avatar names]: Howard Vickers & Pierre Moussy [ Howie Yoshikawa & Mieszko Beck ]
Second Life offers language learners a place for meeting others to practice a foreign language. This two-part presentation hears from a language learner about his experiences in Second Life and from a language educator about the lessons learned for encouraging conversation practice in virtual worlds.

• What are the advantages of using Second Life for conversation practice?
• What are the experiences of language learners? What are their motivations?
• Where do they see limitations to this approach? What are the differences between the in-world voice system and text chatting?
• What can we learn from learners about how best to promote fluency through conversation practice in Second Life?

Time: 05.00 – 06.00 (Second Life time = PDT)

Date: Saturday 9 May 2009

Location: EduNation III Amphitheatre in Second Life.

Hope to see you there!

Some related links…

• Scott Thornbury in Second Life
• Jeremy Harmer in 3D – Interview in Second Life
• SLanguages 2009: Dogme ELT for Virtual Worlds

Real-Life Activities Online – with a Social Element

The internet now has an enormous range of content (audio, video, images, text and applications) and is also becoming increasingly interactive and social. Under the general title of “web 2.0”, the new internet allows us to do more and more tasks online and engage with others in the process. A few examples…

• Shopping (for almost anything) and reviewing the products on the store’s website
• Planning (for travel, holidays and events) and sharing our plans and experiences
• Researching (for background information, daily news, opinions) and giving feedback comments
• Socializing and meeting others: chat-rooms, conferences (in virtual worlds), video-conferencing
• Creating and sharing content: uploading YouTube videos, slideshare presentations, podcasts, writing blogs and editing Wikipedia

With such a huge range of real-life, social activities that are now carried out online, there is an infinite quantity of language learning material available on the web. This material is up-to-date, interactive and very real. It is therefore especially relevant to language learners who do many of these tasks online in their own language and therefore would like to feel more confident doing them in another language.

Example Lessons with Web 2.0

Over the next few weeks this blog will look at some 2.0 tools and discuss how they can be used in language lessons. Some offer more social experiences, such as using Second Life for language learning and others draw on the practical uses of the internet such as using Google Maps Street View in a language lesson. Our students are also producing presentations that are hosted on Slideshare.net (a YouTube service for PowerPoint presentations) and have created podcasts which are hosted on Blip.tv. Others have written and edited Wikipedia articles, while some preparing talks for conferences in virtual worlds. All these examples demonstrate how the web 2.0 can offer a more relevant, real-life focused way to learn a language.

Dogme ELT: Inspiration for Web 2.0 Teaching

Using the internet in this way leads to a very different kind of learning from that offered in a textbook-based lesson. And so the ideas of the Dogme ELT movement (of educators who prefer not to use coursebooks) are particularly relevant to language teaching with Web 2.0 tools. Dogme ELT started in the mid 1990s and took its inspiration and its name from the Dogma 95 film movement. Dogme ELT promoted the use of real content in the language classroom in place of the artificially created materials from coursebooks. This real content serves to create real discussions within lessons and these discussions become the basis of language learning. Language then emerges from the communication in a more organic way than the structured and ordered approach of coursebooks.

Dogme ELT Principles

Scott Thornbury, one of the founders of the Dogme ELT movement, has highlighted several key principles of the Dogme approach. Here is a quick summary…

• Learning happens most directly through interactivity (eg between teachers and learners) and so knowledge is co-constructed in learning rather than transmitted by the teacher.
• Learning takes place through communication and conversation, through which language emerges. The learner’s voice (beliefs, knowledge, experiences) are valid content in lesson.
• Content should engage learners to enable learning – the learners themselves should supply this to ensure relevance. The teacher enables the emergence of language and guides the students toward it

* all emphasis my own

Dogme 2.0

These principles fit well with the teaching opportunities of web 2.0. In fact web 2.0 applications strengthen some of the most important aspects of Dogme ELT approaches: learning is more interactive, knowledge is co-constructed between many more people and materials are re-edited by students to reflect their voice.

• Knowledge is co-constructed amongst a far wider pool of players when using the internet. Communication is not just between teachers and students, but also with other web surfers, who watch slideshare presentations, read lonelyplanet.com reviews and attend (virtual) conference presentations.
• The distinction between consuming content and producing content is now blurred. For example, in a paper-based lesson, a newspaper article remains unchanged by the class activities (at most a letter to the editor could result). In a web 2.0 lesson the texts can be from a Wikipedia article and are therefore editable by the student, or from a blog post, which can then be commented upon by the student.

So perhaps we are looking here at an opportunity for the Dogme ELT approach to evolve into a “Dogme 2.0”, where the “2.0” tag represents the ability for students to engage, interact and create online.

3dxplorer is an interesting addition because it doesn’t even require a plugin download.  3dxplorer allows you to create your own 3D space for free and then add it to your webpage.  I haven’t yet found how to embed it into a blog (although I think this is normally possible), but I can show you my new room on the Avatar Languages website:  www.avatarlanguages.com/3dexplorer.htm.  You don’t need to register to access my space, but you will need to give your guest avatar a name in the popup box.

The below YouTube video shows how to customize an avatar and how to create a virtual space…

Objects can link to external web pages and objects can play music, so there is a level of interactivity built into 3dxplorer. However, this is not really to be likened to an entire 3D virtual world such as Second Life.

3dxplorer is clearly more complex than Lively or Hangout.net, and I will need to take some more time to see how it could be used for language lessons.  Look out for further posts on this…

Exit Reality is one of a few new similar services that are not virtual worlds as such, but instead offer a 3D virtual experience for visiting normal web pages. It is a small add-on program that turns your browser (Firefox or Explorer) into a 3D browser, complete with avatar that can walk around the pages you are viewing in your browser.

It’s an ingenious little tool that allows you to meet and socialize with others who are visiting the same page you are (at that very moment). Exit Reality is designed to work best with social networking pages such as MySpace or Facebook and maps out a MySpace page into a 3D room. So, videos on the MySpace page will always appear on the television set that is in this room. Likewise any audios will be available on the jukebox and images are in painting frames.

Although it is intended for surfing the conventional (2D web) it is possible to also surf 3D spaces that have a simple URL (web page address), such as this jungle scene that I got to walk around recently.

Tools like Exit Reality have the potential to radically change the way we interact with the web, perhaps even to a far greater extent than 3D virtual worlds such as Second Life. It has several advantages, such as there being no need for special graphics cards, a very small download and an interface that integrates with normal web browsers. And best of all, we can visit regular 2D content with a third dimension added.

Avatar Languages is already looking for ways to create 3D, social spaces for language learning. Stay tuned…

The project has developed out of our students creating podcasts and slideshow presentations about topics that interest them. Often students research for their presentations using Wikipedia and so it was an obvious next step that they should then complete the circle and add to Wikipedia itself. In fact the students are using the normal Wikipedia to find information (as well as many other sources on the web and even through interviews in Second Life), whereas they are adding to the Simple English version of Wikipedia.

Some initial findings are…

• Students find this extremely motivating.  Although slideshare presentations and podcasts open up student work to the whole world and some of their presentations have been seen hundreds of times by the general (web-surfing) public, the students seem to be motivated even more by the prospect of not just creating interesting information, but useful content.
• Students are often reluctant to start! It seems to be quite a responsibility and there is a fear of making mistakes (although their teacher will be helping them to correct the text).
• Texts need more correction than with the slideshares and podcasts (which are not so heavily corrected and therefore still contain some small gramatical mistakes when published on the web). Writing in Wikipedia is setting the bar higher.

So far we have not made public who is actually making these additions to Wikipedia – perhaps we will do so in the future. This may help create a sense of achievement for the students and help generate interest in this type of task-based language learning.

We’re not the first to talk about this approach to language learning – AskOlli blog has posted a few articles about it over the last few months – and AskOlli suggests various ways to use Wikipedia in language lessons. However, it does seem to be a very new approach that is gaining interest among language educators.

| View | Upload your own

| View | Upload your own

We are already starting to prepare for SLanguages 2009, when I’m sure there will be many more presenters (and very many more attendees). In the meantime there will be smaller events, workshops, presentations and activities at the EduNation island in Second Life. These events will be advertised on www.slanguages.net (News and Events section). I hope to see you there!

This video below (from Google themselves) explains how Google Docs works…

Google Docs is a simple way for teachers and students to colaborate on a document at the same time. We have found it just great for jointly correcting student work or for student lessons. Google Docs isn’t quite as immediately responsive as online whiteboards like WhiteBoard Meeting, so we use it where structure (of text) is more important. We use it in combination with online whiteboards, Skype and, of course, Second Life.

I’m sure many other educational institutions will follow!

Avatar Languages is very pleased to be sponsoring this year’s event, which promises to be bigger and better than the 2007 conference.

| View | Upload your own

This slideshow shows pictures from the 2007 conference…

En muchos aspectos Twinity es como Second Life, pero de verdad es más como There.com respecto a su apariencia y a la forma de las limitaciones de la creación de contenidos. Y este último punto es tal vez la diferencia más grande y significativa entre Twinity y Second Life. En Second Life se puede construir lo que quieras – directamente empezando desde cero o comprando algo ya hecho por otra persona. Lo que se refiere a Twinity todavía no se sabe cuáles serán las oportunidades de crear tu propio contenido, pero parece que la creación de contenidos será más limitada que en Second Life. Esto es algo que se nota desde la primera vista, porque en Twinity el paisaje y las calles ya están hechas.

Lo especial de Twinity es que se basa en el mundo real – es decir, que todos los lugares son ciudades o espacios que existen en la tierra. Y parece que la idea es representar todos los lugares del planeta, como se ve en el mapa del “Lobby”, que es la pantalla principal del programa.

El Lobby de Twinity

Desde el Lobby se elige un lugar para visitar y ya desde el principio se puede ver cuantas personas están en este lugar. Entonces seleccionas el lugar más concurrido para visitar. Además, el lobby te da la opción de escoger lugares en ciertos países. Así, puedes restringir tu elección a solamente las ciudades que prefieras, como por ejemplo las ciudades alemanas.

Como en Second Life y There.com hay un sistema de voz, aunque en mi poca experiencia con Twinity existe una preferencia por el chateo, cuyo texto aparece encima del avatar en burbujas coloradas.

Lo interesante de Twinity, sobre todo para los estudiantes de idiomas, es que habrá una representación del mundo real más fiel que hasta ahora hay en Second Life. Y este aspecto probablemente dará formación a comunidades lingüísticas mejor formadas.

Berlín en Twinity

Cuando yo fui a Berlín en Twinity me encontré con unos alemanes y así tuve la oportunidad de chatear un poco en alemán. En Miami me conocí con hablantes de inglés y español. Entonces, ya desde el principio, Twinity tiene comunidades en varios idiomas.

Chateando en español en Miami

Creo que todavía se construyen las calles porque la vista de la ventana en Miami parece mucho a una calle en Ámsterdam, como son las casas punteadas. Son los detalles que muestran que el proyecto todavía esta en una versión beta.

¿Miami o Ámsterdam?

Bueno, beta es beta y no se puede esperar demasiado de una obra en construcción. La verdad es que parece una adición prometedora al rango de los mundos virtuales, sobre todo para los estudiantes de idiomas.