I would say 50 percent of my students would rather not use technology in the classroom to study English. I haven’t collected all of the data yet, but if my hunch is correct, I expect them to say that using computers is barrier to improving English. It’s like having to learn to fly a plane in order to get a job flipping hamburgers in the next state.

So is it necessary for me to present on the benefits of using Second Life in the English classroom when most students don’t even like using computers? Why introduce something so advanced when we don’t even have acceptance on something so archaic as CALL?

Technology is a tool. We don’t need to improve if no one is even using it. Back to the drawing board; PowerPoint anyone?

How to do it?

FIREWALL
No problem. I don’t know what will happen to future versions of Skype, but if you download Skype onto a USB stick and then drag it into your network folder at school where students can access it, you might be able to run. I can. I just can’t access Skypecasts for some reason.

To get your students going, have the group leaders come to your desk using your Skype Credited account to call information in America (1 - area code - 555 1212). Have them get the number for a hotel or restaurant and then call to ask a question or two. That’ll get them excited and start a buzz around school. Who knows, maybe administration will get wind of it.

Next step for me is to get six paid accounts (one for each group) so they can call on their own.

I am looking into first year students being taught using a more teacher-centered directed method in the first semester, learner-centered second semester, second year being student-centered project based and collaborative, and third and fourth students being completely student-centered collaborative problem solving environments that utilize technology to communicate via Skype or similar technologies to help solve a problem.

More to come…

Who are the really great teachers? Looks like Walter Lewing is doing something good over at MIT. He recently appeared on Martha Stewart Living and has quite a few videos on YouTube of his fun classes. Professor Lewin teaches Physics.

Professor Walter Lewin - MIT Physics

Here in Japan, teachers with the most recognition are the ones who treat English class as a form of edutainment. It’s the ones who can keep the students attention long enough to get them involved in an activity that garners them the title of “good” teacher. Keeping the motivation high in the classroom means choosing material that is easy to make entertaining and fun to use. Some of my favorites include: restaurants, directions, shopping, invitations, introductions, emergencies, small talk, and complaints. I just wish I had all the props that Dr. Lewin has.

As I continue using Facebook, my students are becoming more and more interested with the ability to use this popular social networking program in English. Next week, they will begin adding “friends” by searching for people with similar interests. The word “friend” in Japan means someone you have some kind of connection with. More than what we as westerners would think. Take for instance meeting someone at the gym. You may meet them only once, but the next time you see them you may introduce them to someone as a friend, “This is my friend, Gina.” Japanese on the other hand would only introduce by last name. This means simply adding “friends” feels strange. Pressing a button that says “Add as Friend” is like a commitment.  What do they think of this “Face” “Book”?

Making these commitments is one hurdle, but a bigger problem may occur once they have overcome the fear of making friends with strangers. How much information about their life are they willing to share?

For instance, in 2005, The Dog Poop Girl story featured a South Korea University student who refused to clean up the feces of her dog in a subway compartment was posted on the Internet. The story soon hit the national headlines and even the Washington Post. The Internet users were not merely content to expose her wrongful deeds. They hunted her down, and exposed her personal data. Facing mounting public pressure, the girl eventually resigned from her university (Cheung, 2007).

Programs like Facebook allow you to see what every one of your friends is doing. To take it one more step, Twitter has the ability to show what your friends are doing almost 24 hours a day, meaning your life is so exposed and transparent that it almost feels like you are living together.

This closeness can also be a great reward for my students. In a country that is made up of groups and circles, sharing your daily life is almost commonplace amongst the cell phone connected youth. If students are able to create anonymous profiles from which they build a network of friends then categorizing them into lists such as close, school, or other, they can then open another account with their real name and invite only those friends who they wish to become closer to. Such is the case in my classes. They have all opened Facebook accounts with fake names and limited personal information. This makes it possible for them to experiment with the concept of making friends this way.

Even with this anonymity in the first stages, are Japanese students going to be able to open up enough to the world? What will it take for them to “reach out and touch someone (a reference to an AT&T slogan)”?

• Do your students like using computers?
• Do they have a computer at home that can access SL and run without a lot of lag or crashing?
• Do they have a USB headset?
• If you are teaching English, are they at least intermediate level speakers?
• Are your students motivated to use technology to learn?
• Are they bothered by troubleshooting computer problems?
•  Would learning in Second Life benefit them more than traditional means of learning the material?
• Have they ever played a video game on their computer?
• Are they skilled at using applications such as Word, Excel and basic sound recording?
• What will you do to compensate for frustration in your students?
• Will your grading represent their efforts well?
• How will you provide assessments and feedback?
• Would using Second Life enhance their main objective in the class or would it detract from the course objective?

The first year student may not be able to use Skype, at least not this semester anyway. I’m not sure if any of the students will be using Second Life yet. I’ve started a cub after school but virtually no one is showing up. This makes me think how honestly motivated students are to learn English. “I really want to learn English” might be true, but are they willing to actually work at learning? I want to be rich, but am I willing and able to do what it takes?

I am recording my experiences in podcast format due to a lack of time. This Summer I will compile my notes and records into a paper which will be presented to the university and at various conferences and presentations.

You are free to comment and lend any ideas or support to make this project a success for educators worldwide.

Chatbots aren’t new, but the fact they have been around for almost 10 years, and haven’t been exploited to their full potential, baffles me. Sites like Oddcast and Sitepal have been putting faces to them for years, but we still haven’t figured out how to make them mainstream. Don’t you think our students would love to sit in class with their cell phones practicing English?

OK. Maybe that sounds a little far fetched, but is it? Imagine if we could involve them in conversations with virtual friends who become their partners for a semester. The students could train them to say how to respond to every question posed to them. How fun would that be? Yes, of course that would be a very advanced exercise, but in the simplest form it would mean we could at least get students to communicate in the classroom in a way that is much more interactive than the 3 minutes they have with a native speaker.

Here is a video I recorded today of a chatbot I made. I’m going to experiment with it to see how the students take to using it. It’s also available through the web so those without Second Life can also access it.