assignment

Focussing in on the details of the assignment now. Lots of time taken up with the various Research Methods ones, and pleasingly a potential dissertation avenue is gelling …and now, the online language learning course design, and rationale…

Most of the design is there in my head. Now to attempt to convert that to (virtual?) reality.

The collaborative experience

Interesting to compare the collaborative wiki on the OLL course and the RM course. Like all comparisons, there are some variables which reduce the poignancy of any potential conclusions …but, the OLL has a very clear task, deadline and we have together (sort of) forged our individual responsibilities. The RM wiki was a useful forum for editing a list of interview / survey questions, but there was so much politeness that it took ages to get anywhere. There were too many verbose comments (including mine) to wade through. We failed as a group to identify individual responsibilities and – for me – motivation waned.

On the downside of wikis generally, they still feel cumbersome to edit and use. Perhaps this simply improves with practice. There not beautiful creatures, though…

stakeholder theory and collaboration

I have been noticing common themes in the work of Mary Parker Follett (Schilling M 2000, Decades ahead of her time: advancing stakeholder theory through the ideas of Mary Parker Follett, Journal of Management History) and in collaborative learning / knowledge. Both decentralise authority / power / decision-making away from a few key stakeholders.

On a personal level, I like the levelling out, the sort of egalitarianism of all this. For learning, it provides opportunities for increased social learning in e-Learning, and can potentialy be used effectively in role-play.

Wikis – competition vs collaboration

This overlaps with the Research Methods course. The idea of designing a role-play that utilises a competitive wiki still appeals. It might be a good way of facilitating language learning. It might need to be complemented with synchronous meetings.

The Research Methods bit – I was thinking of comparing Japanese learners’ participation in such an exercise / project with a face-to-face role-play along similar lines – faltered because there are just so many variables that it seems impossible to draw any conclusions whatsoever, no matter what the outcome.

Instead, there is now the idea of comparing an online collaborative role-play – like the Loch Ness exercise – with an online collaborative / competitive one. Thus the research is purely exploratory, and there isn’t so much pressure to come up with explanatory data. It might show, if used with several groups, some pattern of participation. Are learners more involved when in competition – particularly if set up as a kind of points-acquiring game.

Data can reasonably simply be drawn from observing the history of changes in the wiki and how many entries are made.

Very important: set-up of the exercise needs to be extremely clear to ensure learners understand the (possibly) motivating factors.

Maybe…

“Those with either auditory or kinesthetic learning preferences frequently find themselves at a great disadvantage in the web-based learning environment.” (Tongdeelert 2003.)

Bummer. (My intuited concerns confirmed.)

SL conference on language learning

Learned of a SecondLife virtual conference about language learning in SL in May 2009. Worth ‘attending’.

mind-controlled games?

Prensky’s ‘digital wisdom’ article had link to a company that have made a headset/helmet that reads your facial expressions to control a wheelchair! Is the next step that it will read your mind so that you can play games without lifting a finger? My 6-year old daughter was fascinated and wants one for her birthday …:-/

(Belated) notes on SecondLife – from Learning Technologies exhibition

I wanted to (belatedly) write about an impressive presentation by Maria Toro-Troconis (Imperial College London – Head Learning Technologist) at the Learning Technologies exhibition in London at the end of Jan 2009.

She demonstrated how SL has been used to help train medical students through use of role-play. She explained that there was some debate as to whether SL is a game or not. (Surely not?) Games provide a risk-free environment for learning; when using games, players are still engaged after over an hour. (Tell me about it: football game!) As such, she seemed to feel that SL is a game or at least has some of the same characteristics as games.

She also referenced Prensky’s ‘digital natives’ theory. And ‘flow theory’.

SecondLife has no pre-defined goals, however, she says. These need to be imposed to take advantage of the space that it offers for the learner to manouevre in.

Spoke of the need for:
– scaffolding
– cyclical content
– experiential approach
– 4 hours getting used to SL before going on to learning

Link to her work.

Digital speed

Becoming more attuned to my adopted digital nation: I was about to e-mail some links for further reading to work from home, before stopping and realising that I can just paste them here; it’s quicker!

Johnston, B and Webber, S “Information Literacy in Higher Education: a review and case study” Studies in Higher Education vol 28 no 3, August 2003

Rogerson-Revell, Pamela (2007) Directions in e-learning tools and technologies and their relevance to online distance language education Open Learning vol 22 no 1

Warschauer, M. (2000). The death of cyberspace and the rebirth of CALL. English Teachers’ Journal, 53, 61-67.

wiki arguments

(Copied this from my discussion board post for my reference. Any comments welcome!):

Came across this article via my ’subscription’ to bloglines: http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/02/08/0116224&from=rss

It raises the issue of arguments over wiki construction and how quickly those in disagreement will ‘revise’ each other’s contributions. For me, that presents a useful idea for language learning: a deliberately controversial wiki, perhaps one in which contributors take on roles and must aim to have the wiki reflect *their* views (in role). In this sense, the wiki is used sort of for collaboration, but in fact for polite confrontation.

By golly, I think I have a useful idea for my assignment!