Professor Merryman

Class Notes #1 - 4-17-08

These are my class notes for the first week of classes. We are using Facebook, Skype and Second Life this semester to help increase the student’s exposure and motivation in learning to communicate in English. Over 100 students, in three classes (1st yr Speaking, 2nd Adv Conversation, 3rd yr Writing) are taking part in this project.

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.

 

 Class Notes #1 4-17-08 (10.2MB 14:12): Play Now | Play in Popup

Chatbots in Second Life 2

If a Japanese student is going to stand a chance walking up to a foreigner and starting a conversation, they should at least be able to ask 5-10 questions with the utmost confidence that what they are saying is correct. The only way to do that is to practice asking the same questions many times. But how can they do that when the only chance they have to ask a foreigner even one question happens on a very rare occasion? Introducing chatbots.

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.

Article in Japanzine - Second Life Kobe

Looks like my article (Alternate Universe–I didn’t title it. In the Magazine it is titled Second Life Kobe: Special K goes Virtual. ???) was published in the April issue of Japanzine, a popular English magazine here in Japan. I was approached a couple weeks ago and asked about a group I had advertised in their magazine. After explaining more about my intentions, the reporter asked if I could write up some information about the club. I didn’t expect they would cut and paste the article word for word into the magazine. I’m glad I at least proofread it once. Whew.

So now it looks as though I’ll be going forward with this group. I had to step back plans to begin to make it happen because of my work scheduale, but since this article puts me on the spot, I had better produce . I’m going to the meeting space today to book the roomat KICC  for Saturday, May 10th from 3:00-5:00 in Sannomiya (not confirmed) .

Here is a map to KICC and the website

The first meeting will be to introduce the group, and see what interest there is in getting something like this going. Very casual and free. English and Japanese spoken.

Chatbots in Second Life

I am trying to find ways to connect my students with the outside world by utilizing virtual worlds and various communication devices. But just as is the problem with meeting people in real life, so is the problem in Second Life. There just aren’t that many chances to meet people. This makes it incredibly difficult. Collaborating with schools halfway across the globe is extremely time consuming and very undependable. So what is we could have a place which was available 24 hours a day and was always available for interaction?

Here’s the concept. We make a place in Second Life that is always advertised as having someone real or not available for chatting. Let’s say for instance I am learning English and I would like to practice. I know that I can go to English Village and text chat with a robot, but that’s kind of boring. So where do I go? Nowhere. I give up because I don’t know where to go. But what if there was a chance that some real people might show up at that robot chat place? Then I could practice my English with a real person. So I teleport over there to see if there is anyone else around. Lucky for me there is someone there talking to the robot. So I walk up and say “Hi.” Pretty soon we have struck up a conversation, and I have made a new chat buddy.

More to come.

Self-Esteem and Relevance

How important is it for us to make English learning as real-world as possible? Should we focus more on developing ways to get a higher TOEIC score instead? I came across this article which brings up an interesting point about how unimportant it may be for us to keep trying to make our lessons more relevant.

A quote from: For Math Students, Self-Esteem Might Not Equal High Scores
U.S. Lags Behind Countries That Don’t Emphasize Self-Regard

By Jay Mathews
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 18, 2006; Page A02

…But the Brookings Institution is reporting today that countries such as the United States that embrace self-esteem, joy and real-world relevance in learning mathematics are lagging behind others that don’t promote all that self-regard.

…

In Japan, the report found, 14 percent of math teachers surveyed said they aim to connect lessons to students’ lives, compared with 66 percent of U.S. math teachers. Yet the U.S. scores in eighth-grade math trail those of the Japanese, raising similar questions about the importance of practical relevance.

Read More 

Education Testing Reform

Why do serious games work?

The following is quoted directly from CorpU because I think it will help me to explain my thoughts better.

Why do serious games work?

Hard Fun. Quinn goes on to say that “Learning can, and should, be hard fun.” Serious games, when done right, are hard and challenge the learner. When the player fails, they learn something about why, are motivated enough by the story to try another approach, and ultimately get rewarded in a fun way.

Deep Learning. Highly engaging learning games also work because they have the potential to assist in deep learning. Dr. Merrilea Mayo of The National Academies has presented it this way:

• Learning by doing: Players make decisions that have consequences; they actively participate in the game environment.
• Learning by experimenting: Players can safely try out multiple solutions, explore and discover information and skills.
• Life-like learning situations: Virtual worlds can provide environments that respond the same way the real world responds, allowing the player to transfer knowledge and experience between the two.
• Believing in abilities: Rewards and levels in games foster the belief you can achieve goals. This generates a positive attitude towards overcoming obstacles and increases the player’s success rate.
• Clear objectives: Well-defined game goals allow players to make more progress toward learning objectives.
• Team learning and skills: Multiplayer games allow for group problem solving, collaboration, social interaction, negotiation, etc. Players learn not only from the game, but from each other.
• Learning without limitations: Game environments naturally transcend barriers of language, geography, race, gender and physical abilities. Players who are self-conscious in real life because they are “different” have no way of being set apart online.

Video Games as Learning Engines

David Warlick’s slide presentation

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Video Games in Education

Orange County Department of Education

One box does it all

Can they mix? Some advocates of Cyworld, the hugely popular social networking site in South Korea and now Japan, America and China, say that it is able to combine 3D and 2D worlds. I signed up today to check it out but found it only let me edit my room. The features for uploading photos and all of the other bells and whistles are very nice but it’s not a virtual world. So this got me to thinking whether we are going to run into too many choices. Just what is it that people need in order to say they are happy in their social network.

I was talking to my wife about this tonight and posed an idea to her. I asked if she would want to buy a social networking computer. 「何？」　Was her reply. I explained that it would be a small laptop computer that would open up with a browser into your virtual room, apartment or house. You would be able to navigate to four sections of your life: Friends, family, work and a club (English school was my example). All of these areas would share one main calendar (like Google calendar), one main social netwrking platform (like Mixi) and one main media library (like a YouTube/Flickr). The idea is that this 40,000 yen machine would be all you would need to share, download and send files in your social network without being bothered with Outlook, Excel or any other programs that find there way into your computer.   Hmmm.