Jul 13 2010

Culture and Foreign Language, Virtually

Learning of foreign languages can be somewhat of a challenge in the United States, partially due to proximity to countries where another language is spoken, yet global perspectives are essential and better  addressed through a multi-lingual  and multi-cultural citizenry.  “According to the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, a higher percentage of students are studying a foreign language than at any time in history.”  The Case for Foreign language Classes Education Week ( July 12, 2010).  Students need to become prepared to conduct business and compete in a global economy, our competitors across the globe are addressing it.

Foreign language instruction is an area that can be handled effectively through virtual environment experiences.  Foreign language teachers will tell you that practice in the native tongue with native speakers is a “best practice”.  In real life it often includes field trips, at the very least to a local restaurant or community,  students from affluent homes may participate in a trip abroad.

In a virtual environment, students can be placed in a variety of social situations, with native speakers, to practice newly acquired linguistic skills. There are instant translators available in virtual worlds that can translate written text to a limited degree, and/or students may turn on voice and actually practice speaking with individuals from another country.   Environments can be constructed to elicit the practice of particular vocabulary such as sporting, arts, cultural, or social events.  Students (through avatars) engaged in conversation and interaction will naturally acquire cultural lessons as well.

ESOL students could use the environment similarly.  A characteristic that encourages language practice for the second language learner is the ‘security’ of the avatar.  Students learning a foreign language may express a reluctance to speak, for fear of being made fun of.  An avatar representation offers some shielding from potential or perceived ridicule.

A virtual setting may very well be the most ‘natural’ setting we can provide, at a reasonable cost, for foreign language instruction.

Jul 11 2010

Visual Arts in The Virtual World

The virtual world is of course a visual art in and of itself, but there is potential to provide learning experiences in a virtual setting that would otherwise be impossible in the real world.  In my experience, the world of visual arts can be brought to students to consume in 4 ways.

First the traditional way of walking around a museum and looking at the art.  One of the most extensive museums in the virtual world that I have seen is the Dresden Museum on Second Life (Dresden Gallery 120,128,26), which houses 750 masterpieces of European art.  An avatar can walk around the museum  and see the famous art, clicking on it to get information as it is desired. This method of learning about the art mimics a strategy used in the real world.

An avatar floats down Rumsey's Map Museum tower

The second method takes the display and viewing of works to a different level, literally.  Here an avatar can view a large collection of artwork in a “museum”  that can be traversed only in a virtual setting.  A wonderful example of this is the Rumsey Map Museum on Second Life ( Rumsey Maps 2 (193,201,715)).  The avatar visiting this museum  can fly through a tower to view the extensive map collection, stopping to click on any of interest to get additional information.

The third method of  learning about art in a virtual setting involves becoming a part of the art.  Art Box (Klaw 5,21,46) on Second Life has selected pieces of artwork with human subjects.

An avatar becomes a part of a famous piece of art in Art Box.

Participants are provided an opportunity to choose a painting and then click on a poseball to become the subject in the art.  The owners offer props and costumes for some of the art work.  Laguna Beach California has a real life, annual art show reminiscent of this strategy of enjoying art.  Actors dress and pose while backdrops and lighting are used to duplicate a painting in real life.   In the virtual setting the participant gets to make the art selection and become a part of it.  Certainly more immersive than just looking at it.

Sitting in Van Gogh's room. The builder created an elongated room to ensure groups of visitors had a correct view.

Finally, an avatar can visit a location and be completely immersed in the art.  In the case of Arles (168,23,29) on Second Life.  This amazing sim allows avatars to walk around Vincent Van Gogh’s paintings as they may have been seen by the artist.  The paintings are a 3D form and allow complete interaction.  An avatar can climb one of the famous yellow haystacks, sit in a cafe and enjoy the “starry night”, or even sit in Van Gogh’s bedroom.

The many museums in the virtual environment  each have policies regarding the use of the images they display.  It is best to experience them by visiting the location.

The places described here are not available to students under 18 years of age, but the methods may be used to create art locations in the Opensim grids so that students may interact with art and thus learn about it.  Better yet, students may become the producers and create these environments with art work in the public domain or even their own art work.

Jul 7 2010

Collaboration is a 21st Century Skill

Avatars collaborating on making hair

Employers complain that the incoming workforce lacks what is needed.  Are we preparing our students appropriately for their future?   Tony Wagner in his book, The Global Achievement Gap discusses what he calls the 7 survival skills for the 21st century.  According to him these skills are:

  1. Problem-solving and critical thinking;
  2. Collaboration across networks and leading by influence;
  3. Agility and adaptability;
  4. Initiative and entrepreneurship;
  5. Effective written and oral communication;
  6. Accessing and analyzing information; and
  7. Curiosity and imagination.

These are the kinds of things we discuss in our annual reviews with supervisors and we know these skills make us more productive and useful to the organization.

Most of these 7 skills are supported with project-based  participant production in a virtual environment.  Student production in virtual environments involves building, scripting and researching to develop content.  This type of activity lends itself to a collaborative atmosphere and the ‘network’ across which students collaborate can extend across the globe. (Collaborative building in Second Life – Palo Alto Research Center). Problem solving takes place while planning and again while producing.  Limitations must be considered and decisions about the best solution take place for effective results.  Students must use mathematics and communication skills as they work together to complete their intended product.  They may need to do some research and analyze information as they progress in their building.  Discovery can take place and a plan may change or students may need to adapt a plan and influence colleagues toward a different approach.  Of course, curiosity and imagination are always at play as students build what defies common perceptions and sometimes the laws of physics.  It is the process that is most important here, what the students have to do to achieve their goal – not the final product.

Jul 2 2010

VW Learning Curve

Teaching and helping someone makes the teacher a better teacher – (perhaps a case for peer mentoring).  Helping others to participate in a Virtual World requires patience, thorough comfort with and knowledge of the virtual environment, and practice.  My advice to anyone seeking to encourage colleagues to use a virtual environment for education is to first become something of an expert and practice giving assistance to others whenever an opportunity arises,  it will make you a better instructor.  Good teachers know the answers and how to best instruct partly because they have heard the same questions so many times and they have had to explain to many students with a variety of learning styles and requirements.  There is a learning curve in using virtual worlds.  When individuals become frustrated they often want to quit, give-up.  To keep the frustration at bay the teacher/helper needs the solutions in the adequate amount at the correct time in the appropriate modality for the learner.  Adopting the use of virtual environments in education is going to take time.

Jun 30 2010

Which Comes First – Problem Solving or Facts?

Perhaps they can be learned together in a more meaningful way. In a Frontline video James Paul Gee makes a case for using video games with students to teach 21st Century skills of problem solving and innovation.

We typically test students on the facts that they know but are less adept at assessing if they can use the facts to solve problems. We often attempt to ensure students know the vocabulary and facts before we give them experiences in which these words and facts are used. They are both important and require the other in order to be meaningful. You need facts to solve problems. A game or virtual environment has the quality of providing an experience in which a student can solve problems and learn facts and concepts simultaneously, they may even learn vocabulary after concepts are learned.

I watched a 7 year old playing a video game called Spore, the concepts were about evolution and biology and the game required manipulating an organism in varying stages of evolution. This little girl solved a variety of problems including avoiding predators, experimenting with mobility and communication and finding shelter and food. Among the concepts learned were the importance of a brain to a living organism, usefulness of camouflage, and the value of mobility types. She does not yet know all the vocabulary associated with these concepts but the frame of reference allows for a meaningful learning of facts and vocabulary. When told the word “predator” and “camouflage” in relation to the images on the screen that she had played with, it made perfect sense and the words were then used in conversation. Interestingly, none of this took place in a school classroom.

James Paul Gee describes games as being best for “preparation for future learning”, to give a foundation and background for learning that will take place later in another mode. What are the implications for children with limited experiences? Could a virtual environment provide that preparation for future learning effectively enough?

Jun 28 2010

Pixel Performances

How can performing in a virtual setting help aspiring musicians? Performing in a virtual setting includes characteristics of a

A "live" musical performance in the virtual world

real life performance as well as some unique qualities available only in a virtual world. A musician on Second Life told me it was more like being in a sound studio, missing are the auditory and visual cues that a real audience provides. In a virtual environment, you must ‘read’ your audience through chat. Setting up equipment so that you can see the computer screen while you perform allows a performer to be able to read the chat and thus respond to audience cues. Typically the audience will respond with applause and commentary, the commentary does not disrupt the performance and is typically a conversation about the performance (the lyrics, historical references, personal reflections). Another unique trait of entertaining an audience of avatars is that you can see all their names and additional ID tags providing the performer with a supply of information for personal interaction with the audience.

Technical aspects of performing online require some hardware setup as well as software to enable audio streaming. A basic requirement is a high quality microphone and a quality sound card. Some software is available online for free and some have an associated cost. Setting up to a streaming server and entering IP addresses are part of the setup. Then of course the performing avatar must develop their stage presence including attire, hair, appropriate instruments and animations. The ability to create supernatural effects to enhance a performance brings an additional magic to a virtual show that could be cost prohibitive or simply impossible in the real world.

A student who is interested in performance as a future career may be able to learn a great deal by performing in a virtual setting. There are the technical and studio aspects as well as the “live” aspects. The virtual stage can provide a feeling of “being there” without some of the barriers of physicality and on stage jitters that often accompany new performers. In a recent LA Times article, Thriving Music Scene, a musician who regularly performs inworld, and makes money doing so, states that “…the interactive experience that the virtual platform provides can actually surpass that of traditional live gigs.” Perhaps this venue can provide a “training stage” to help prepare future performers, something for our performing arts instructors/schools to consider.

Jun 12 2010

Safety In the Virtual World

Keeping students safe is of primary importance.  How to do this effectively and still provide opportunities and experiences that will enrich, motivate and instruct is a challenge that requires planning, development of content and activities and vigilant supervision.  It is easiest to simply block anything that may possibly have some content that is not appropriate, with a firewall.  This protects all students from anything potentially harmful and of course also protects a school system from potential legal action.  The downside to this type of blocking is that A) sites may be erroneously judged B) blocking for an elementary school child is not necessarily the same as blocking for a high school child and C) we are not helping students to discern between useful and appropriate and not useful  and inappropriate.

The careful monitoring and releasing for access of websites or virtual worlds does require time, work, and judgment.  Much of this falls on IT staff and not instructional staff.  IT staff members are typically given parameters for blocking and they apply the firewall to adhere to these parameters.  Instructors and other personnel may request for “unblocking” of specific sites and provide justification.  Ultimately, that decision is made by someone other than the classroom teacher.  For the most part this practice protects the student, the teacher and the school system.

I cannot help but wonder about the learning that  could take place, the guidance that could be provided as technology becomes more ubiquitous in our daily lives.  Should we be using social networking and virtual worlds in our instruction?  Do the benefits outweigh the risks?  Can teachers supervise effectively enough to ensure the appropriate use of these technologies?  Should our instruction include what is available in the world beyond the classroom walls?  Can the technology provide access to some areas for some children?  Are teachers prepared to discern between what is appropriate and what is not?  Can the issue be reviewed holistically?  Certainly everything carries risk – getting on the highway is one of the riskiest activities we have yet we put children in school buses and send them on their way, without seat-belts.  Perhaps we need to develop “seat-belts” for the ride on the Internet rather than blocking all the ramps.  Ultimately we need to prepare our children for a future we do not know, that future includes access to the Internet and the ability to determine value of what is found there.

Jun 9 2010

Black and White or Shades of Grey

In the WSJ article on June 5, 2010 Does The Internet Make You Smarter or Dumber?, Clay Shirkey author of Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age and Nicholas Carr author of The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains describe opposing viewpoints – who is correct?  As usual, they are both right and wrong.  I happen to agree more with Shirkey’s perspective but I have to acknowledge the research described by Carr. The bottom line is that it is a revolutionary time,  the digital world has arrived and it is what we do with it that matters.  There are always negative byproducts – we can’t stop innovation because of those – we need to learn to mitigate the negative while moving ahead with new developments, we simply cannot go back to the way things were.

To apply the title to the use of Virtual Worlds – Do Virtual Worlds Make You Smarter or Dumber?  Well, again – it’s what you do with it.  Some of it will be inane and meaningless and even bizarre, there are also positive aspects like collaboration, experiential learning, engagement,  constructivism, improved communication, and motivation.  As educators we need to take advantage of innovations and learn to use them to benefit our students.  That means as educators we will need to learn to do things differently, to use these technologies to instruct, assist and guide our students.  There are examples of this being done effectively.  Those who are at the forefront have intellectual curiosity, a sense of adventure, and the realization that it is a different world than the one we were students in.