Journey with me into my second life! #IDT1314

   
 Well, what was bound to happen has happened! After spending 31 years living in the “real” world its expected that one would become bored with the day to day rigors of continuously drawing breath, blinking, brushing 32 cream colored teeth three times per day, using lips, a mouth, tongue and vocal chords to speak, and especially walking, which I’m sure I grew tired of after turning 17! So, with that said, disinterested and browbeaten from the doldrums of daily living, I’ve cast aside this material world and decided to live digitally in the frontier lands of virtual reality!

   In this short posting (LOL, you’ll get this joke later, no pun intended!) I intend to discuss my experience as a participant in a virtual world along with some of the affordances and challenges highlighted in the IDT1314 discussion we had in Small Worlds last week. I will also share my thoughts on the integration of virtual world activities into curriculum and the potential for virtual worlds to increase motivation and the quality of student created content.

Personally, I had a blast designing my avatar and I feel like there were plenty of options when it came to modifying the contours of his (or should I be saying my?) face, eyes, lips, nose, and head shape along with choosing different tones of skin, thickness of facial hair, glasses, and the overall ethos of my visage. Prior to our tutorial, I wandered around the virtual world, taking a tour of my house, searching for other people, having a small chat with Angelos, and completing a few of the Small Worlds missions to earn a little coin and see whether or not second life gaming is an activity I’d like to incorporate into my weekly schedule. Given the tone of my introduction (boredom), I also hoped to discover whether existence in second life would differ from the lifestyle, activities and routines I cycle through in the here and now. After spending a whopping whole hour in a simulated space, I’ve tentatively concluded that as a person with too many hobbies already, I doubt I could find the time or sacrifice another hobby to pursue a second existence in a non scripted, reality based virtual world, especially since I love video games and haven’t made time in the last ten years to play any computer, portable or console based systems that have a plethora of games a bit more entertaining and engaging than Small Worlds which I guess, technically is not a game. Gee that was a long sentence…I shall need to find a way of breaking it up.

Anyhow, as characteristic of my long-winded nature, I digress…

   As much as I enjoyed the experience of meeting people I’m familiar with in a virtual setting, I did find the unbounded nature of our meeting (which are usually driven by a set of publicly aired objectives) and the rampant, uncontrollable conversation a bit nerve wrecking! I actually found it harder to focus when the chat box was turned on, which I thought was a bit awkward since I assumed communication would be aided by the use of this feature. Alternatively, I would also say that like any system, whether it is figuring out how best to use a new smart phone or starting an exercise regime, it takes some time to trouble shoot, navigate and build endurance. I’m sure with time and practice some of the quirks that bothered Jane and I would become less tenacious and more enjoyable. I also quickly realized that it would be quite a challenge to catch and retain everyone’s attention due to the setting of our meeting. The physical features of each avatar, appearances of random avatar strangers who were not even in our Ma programme, limitless availability of root beer, coffee, cake, crisps, a large rear garden with a campfire and a spacious living room with a You Tube TV all served as huge distractions for Jane and I, and at times even Brian got off task either in conversation or movement.

Again, I believe these are all introductory challenges that will be overcome as users become more accustomed to what eventually will become a familiar space where they might be expected to follow the rules and procedures that govern what could be used as a task oriented virtual space for communication and language learning.  Overall, I think Small Worlds is a wonderful virtual space with great instructional potential and despite the few criticisms aired on the DTLT forum; I’m convinced that the strengths of most second life platforms outweigh a majority of the weaknesses.

Now, let us move on to a brief discussion of the affordances provided by virtual worlds and the positive limitations of asynchronous communication.

   As so clearly presented by Milton, the language classroom is not the idea environment for language learning. (Milton and Meara, 1998) I tend to agree with this statement on the grounds that there exists a mutual understanding that he means the language classroom is not the idea environment for a students’ sole interaction with a foreign language. As Milton goes on to discuss further, it takes hundreds, if not thousands of hours to fully learn a new language and logistically, based on timetables, course hours, university cost and profit per hour fuzzy math formulas, along with students needing to balance their work load and other reasons, its just not possible to spend hundreds of hours in one classroom during two or three semesters. So of course, one of the wonderful affordances of second life and virtual worlds is the extension, flexibility (in terms of convenience and time) and variability (non scripted, uncontrollable interaction that more accurately mirrors real world communication) of experiences that one might have in and out of the language classroom.

One of the biggest problems I and other language teachers encounter is not related to having too much or too little time to work with students. I’m of the opinion that there is always too much time in our language classes. The big mooskhilla (Arabic for problem) is the students are not presented with the opportunity to use the new language outside of the classroom.  I think its safe to say that the more time you spend in class, the more the level of boredom and non-absorption increases so adding time is far from an effective remedy for improving retention. If my students had the opportunity to practice their English in a virtual world that catered to their interests and values I think they might spend their time there effectively practicing communicating in English and perhaps they might become noticeably motivated and positive about learning.

   As mentioned by Milton and numerous others, I agree that there is a positive set of thoughts and emotions produced when people think and speak about video games.  To gamers, these virtual spaces are filled with a range of entertaining, attention grabbing activities. If more curricula, objectives and assessment criteria were designed and presented in a format familiar to students, these emotions, along with the zeal that accompanies playing video games, could be transferred from the spaces reserved for activities associated with leisure, recreation and entertainment and hopefully this transformation of how students perceive learning would remove the negative stigma attached to learning within the static spheres designated for formal education. (Milton 2013, p.3)

Surprisingly, one of the affordances provided by digital worlds is presented in form of a problem. Though I can’t say I reaped the benefit of enduring this occurrence during our tutorial in Small Worlds, Milton introduced me to what I found to be a perplexing, stress inducing experience as a native speaker in an English language digital world. According to Milton and Rama, et al, the limitations of asynchronous communication have the potential of benefiting struggling language learners by providing them more time to decipher difficult input and construct intelligible output.  Normally, delay in response is perceived as a negative in conversation, whether f2f or not, but within the context of gaming a higher focus is placed on the development of communicative competence. I think the study of Emilio (the developing student of Spanish) serves as an excellent example of communicative competence within a task based second life simulation. By this study I was able to observe exactly how delays caused by asynchronous communication were used to a learners advantage. Emilio’s reliance on emoticons and idiomatic acronyms served as a stalling technique that provided him more time to digest and decipher tricky input and develop a comprehensible response. (Milton 2013, p2; Rama, et al., 2012) I believe a portion of the positive effects of real time oral interaction in second life settings may be attributed to the familiarity and more natural presentation of multiple environments. In my opinion this reduces anxiety, induces disinhibition and has the potential to make the learning experience more interesting and engaging for all participants.

   As a way of concluding this discussion, I thought it would be helpful for my own future reflection and brainstorming of how to incorporate what I’ve learned though this module into my teaching by trying to contextualize these arguments, ideas and reflections to my daily experience as a teacher here in the United Arab Emirates. I browsed a few resources related to social interactionist theory in relation to task based competitive environments and held this tidbit as the most valuable and applicable to my situation. Students need to feel that their utterances hold meaning and see the effects of their communicative outreaches in the result of action or a response that aligns to their objectives, desires and assumptions. (Xin, 2012) To spur interest, create urgency and force communicative competence, life or death scenarios are common to most task based video games (sports, first person shooter, MMOG games and so on).  I noticed that within both studies (Milton 2013, p.3; Rama, et al., 2012) a live or die approach to language usage within virtual worlds and second life environments forcefully required students to apply genuine effort to the digestion and extraction of value from difficult input. Equal effort was necessary for the construction of comprehensible output, even when a simple utterance, emoticon or idiomatic acronym was the most students could manufacture. If I could find a way to incorporate game based learning and the sense of survive or die urgency that accompanies these simulations into the learning experiences students have inside and outside of my classroom, I think this would be tremendously beneficial for all parties involved.

Week 10: The Social Web, Pedagogy and Web 2.0. #IDT1314

Making space for student autonomy and content creation within the technology enhanced classroom.

   Well, the last two weeks have certainly been a doozy! For those unaware, doozy is another one of those peculiar Southern Expressions that we country people use all throughout Texas and the surrounding states. It’s an adjective used to describe a range of activities that might require tremendous effort or have a high level of difficulty. Doozy can also be used positively and negatively to describe objects, observations and experiences that might be interpreted as awkward or extraordinary. I can’t claim the etymological origin of this word to be rooted in the South, but I’ve frequently heard my mother, relatives and strangers, along with my 86 year old grandmother using this word since I was in baby shoes so its probably another case of us country folk adopting a word and giving it our own definition regardless of its true meaning. Ok, please forgive me for venturing down that non-blog related tangent; we shall now get back to business!

   A number of the week 8-10 readings discussed the challenges of balancing teacher presence within COI and methods for providing students more autonomy to personalize their own learning interests, including the design of content and the choice of which tools to use throughout this process.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for putting power into the hands of students and challenging them to take responsibility for their own learning but I must say that incorporating some of the ideas presented through the readings will pose a daunting task.

In theory, I agree that one of the positive outcomes of web and pedagogy 2.0 is, when properly aligned with assessment objectives (teacher defined and institutional) there is the potential to immensely enhance individual and group learning experiences while de-formalizing the learning process and dialogue between teacher and student. Ideally this allows for multiple role-plays, the expression of multiple opinions and greater accessibility to non-text and teacher directed knowledge. (McLoughlin & Lee 2010) I also agree that self regulated learning allows students the chance to pursue content attuned to their personal interests which increases their motivation, comprehension, quality of created products and higher order thinking but I do have my reservations when it comes to viewing pedagogy 2.0 as a cure all for creating student centered learning environments. (Stubbe and Theunissen, 2008)

It seems that web 2.0 and pedagogy 2.0 transfer the power (whether it be feeling and being perceived as an authority figure, or having your thoughts, words, time and commands honored and followed based on the consensus that this knowledge holds value and is essential for success both in and out of the classroom) of possessing knowledge and deposits it in the great unmanageable, inconstant space (or at times, void) that is the student mind. I don’t mean this literally, there is always something cooking in the minds of students. I mean to say, when viewing the classroom as a giant group think where all learners are striving to develop a similar set of skills, there are times when nobody has a clue what they are doing either because they haven’t received useful information related to the task or everyone is struggling to understand what has been taught. So in these situations, which are frequent in some classrooms, its a bit of a gamble to trust that students are aware of what is best for their learning and believe that they know best how to pursue this information.

If this were a f2f conversation, I’m sure at this point you would like to interject with some comments about the necessity of scaffolding and specific methods for developing scaffolds and calculating teacher presence when using Web 2.0 technologies so I intend to do just that!

   McLaughlin & Lee suggest that in order for pedagogy and web 2.0 integration to best suit the needs and enhance the learning experience of students, the scaffolding, assessment criteria and approaches to informal learning need to be revised. (McLaughlin & Lee, 2010) In my opinion, one of the larger challenges presented by web and pedagogy 2.0 is establishing a teacher-mediated balance of enabling self-direction while also functioning as a guide for learners by providing effective scaffolding. Referencing Wood, Bruner and Ross, McLaughlin and Lee shine light on the necessity of scaffolds and instruction attuned to students’ learning techniques and perspectives by mentioning the following: “The meaning of scaffolding is no longer confined to its original association of expertise provided by a knowledgeable other, but has expanded to include learner selected assistance, peer interactions, or could be embedded in technology.” (Wood, Bruner and Ross, 1976)

Though faintly presented, I find this to be a potentially massive obstacle for teachers attempting to incorporate pedagogy 2.0 into their planning. If scaffolding is not coming from a "knowledgeable other" in a classroom where student learning is personalized and self directed, then an arsenal of scaffolding technologies will be needed as available resources for students to choose from...which in turn, may require the teacher to possess operational knowledge of each resource.

As the weeks unraveled and more radical thinking was presented through the readings I began to wonder how I could experiment at implementing a few of these ideas into my lesson planning and instruction but first I felt it necessary to alleviate some of my doubt, apprehension and revulsion by finding substantive, agreeable answers to a few of my inquiries.

First I defensively wondered how ideal is it that students are to be so involved yet liberated in their own spheres of personalized learning, designing and creating content when they have either voluntarily enlisted or been conscripted to a course in order to become experts and, please excuse the mundacity of this expression, “learn how to learn”. Secondly, perhaps out of concern for my profession, I became emotional and possibly these expressions can be interpreted as displays of inadequacy in regard to my competence, but how are students capable of making vitally important decisions on what and how they choose to learn while they should be fully engrossed and occupied with “learning how to learn”, especially since they have little experience nor qualifications in the realm of curriculum and instruction?

Lastly, I curiously wondered if this campaign for pedagogy reformed towards personalized student centered learning and the impact of web 2.0 incorporation lessened the qualitative value of education and the educational experience in general? Sener (2007) believes that student generated content has been pigeonholed to represent value only as templates for numerical success that students should emulate if they want a high mark. In my experience, aside from classroom displays of student created content that has met the criteria of teacher mandated directives, student developed materials do not command respect nor allocate autonomy to the creator. Nor is it stored in an accessible database that can be referenced by current and future students as a primary resource. I am guilty of this and I can see that this doesn't align with student methods of gathering, exchanging and communicating important information. I now realize and agree that using student developed content as a primary resource and teaching tool within the classroom empowers students by bolstering their confidence, furthering their interest and motivation and also providing them opportunities to role- play as peer mentors and instructors.

   Over the course of this module I have begun to realize that practice is sometimes more valuable than research and content absorption. Meaning, possessing a practical understanding and knowledge of how to maneuver, manipulate, and mold these technologies to my desired outcomes is much more valuable than having a grasp of the content by storing uncountable sums of words and articles written by tweed wearing nosey say who academics in my mind. :)  

In an attempt to find answers to the unanswered questions posed in this posting and at the urgings of Dr. Goria and Angelos, I researched an article loosely related to these questions and decided to make a video about my thoughts and concerns in relation to autonomous student learning and the calculation of teacher presence within a vle. 

Knovio presentation on teacher presence and autonomous student learning.

   I do realize that a number of my objections and concerns in regards to web and pedagogy 2.0 implementation, plainly view these suggestions at face value without considering the unseen, deeply embedded processes that lie behind curriculum, instruction, learner development and the student learning environment. I also realize that within the tightly drawn boundaries of classroom tasks, teachers will be aware of varying student learning styles, levels of individual competence and learner confidence. Based on this knowledge it is obvious that teachers will calculate their degree of necessary presence and make the call on when to catch and release students to learn collectively and autonomously.

As mentioned by McLaughlin and Lee, I think the most valuable insights I’ve received from the discussions held during the last two weeks is that now it is blatantly clear to me that there is a significant gap between my idealized and practiced pedagogy and the methods of learning that students expect to practice and refine while in school. (McLaughlin and Lee, 2010) It is my hope that by experimenting and developing my confidence and competence with a range of web 2.0 tools I can reform my instructional methods and calibrate my level of presence to align with student perspectives, interests and their modes of learning.

 

Week 9: Anxiety, Disinhibition and Learning while online. #IDT1314

 

   Seeing as we live in an increasingly connected world where a majority of our experiences can be customized to suit our desires and many of the gadgets we use can be highly personalized to suit our self-perceptions and identity projections. It’s only natural to expect that that our interactions and experiences as learners should be tailored to our comfort, enjoyment and preference. We could think of it as bespoke education! Certainly, we all have a trove of old unpleasant memories carefully stored away in the dusty, cobweb filled corners of the brain space we allocate for memories. You know, the section that contains those dreaded scenarios of you feeling terribly anxious and sweaty palmed with knocking knees' as you sat in your desk begging God that the teacher wouldn’t choose you to answer that French or Spanish question that you find difficult though it seems everyone else has got it and are ready to move on to the next thing! I certainly have a corner filled with these dreadful experiences as a struggling student of French and I suspect that the residual effects of these negative experiences have had some impact on my dislike of French people (just kidding…sort of.) and my apprehension to enroll in evening language classes.

If only then I had known about disinhibition! I could have separated my conscience from my physical body and given answers using my less anxious ethereal phantom presence!

   As mentioned by Cunningham in Liminality and Disinhibition in Online Language Learning (2011) and defined by Joinsen, disinhibition is “any behavior that is characterized by an apparent reduction for self-presentation and judgment of others” (Joinsen 1998, p.44). Following this study, I was intrigued to discover that in many cases, the occurrence of disinhibition within cmc was accompanied by displays of negative behavior due to loosened social cues, a sense of lessened responsibility and the assumption of anonymity, but like Cunningham, I agree that in light of these occurrences, disinhibition is a phenomena that can be used to the advantage of language learners and I hope to find a way to help students engage this state of mind within my physical classroom.  

Since access to ICT is a bit of a challenge in my school, I tried to brainstorm a few non technology-requiring methods for reducing anxiety and inducing disinhibition in the classroom.

- At the start of each trimester, each student creates a personalized fabric finger puppet to represent himself and each student should also decorate his desk as a comfortable home space for his puppet.

- After naming their finger puppet (perhaps using a western English name would be helpful for inducing disinhibition?) students will not communicate f2f with each other and the teacher but rather, speaking through their finger puppet and they could also develop a special voice to use when speaking. Students can also make video presentations using their smartphones to record (I can upload them to my laptop and share with the class using the projector) and conversational tasks could also be practiced, recorded and filed for later revision.  

- The teacher could also have a puppet whose demeanor, voice and role differs from the actual teacher. This might reduce anxiety for students since they will be aware of the role definitions of teacher (authority figure and assessor) and teacher as puppet (friendly / helpful) and also know what role they should play depending on the mode of the teacher.

-  Separate content: In the Pasfield-Neofitou article (2011), some of the interviewed students woefully remarked that they might always feel like Japanese foreign language speakers regardless of how much they practiced (outside of total immersion). A few also pointed out a few advantages to being a permanent foreigner, one of which was always having the freedom to make mistakes since it is known by all participants in the conversation that the initiator of conversation is not a native speaker. 

I also found it clever that some students had devised their own techniques for reducing anxiety and diverting native speaker aggression by publicly announcing that they were passionate language learners who would make a plethora of mistakes and in some instances they managed to avert aggression by issuing an apology in advance. I felt that this willingness to acknowledge a lack of proficiency, issue an apology, then exist and operate within the role of permanent learner / foreigner functioned as a method of inducing disinhibition and in the absence of ICT I could possibly devise this climate in my classroom by separating content.  While focusing on heavily academic, topic related content that is distributed by the ministry of education, we could all function as ourselves (non-puppet) given the seriousness and weight of government assessments. When focusing on more pliable skills (speaking and listening, light conversational topics, new English vocabulary) and generally fun, interactive activities, students could switch back to their finger puppets knowing that it will be perfectly acceptable, natural and a consequence free environment to practice and develop their skills in English.

   Everyday, as a language teacher and a less than mildly competent learner of Arabic, I find myself functioning as a trained master of torture by subjecting my poor Arabic speaking students to an unending onslaught of unanswerable questions, verbal inquiries, unintelligible dictations and assessed tasks that serve as harsh spotlights rooting every timid, mute, illiterate, introverted, extroverted, apathetic and enthusiastically energetic student out the nooks and crannies of their comfort zones and onto a stage where their inabilities are showcased in front of their peers. 

Bravo, bravo! Encore, encore! I certainly deserve a pat on the back don’t I? Seriously, all sarcasm and jesting aside, this is not a job that I am proud of an certainly, even given the context in which I am expected to perform, there is certainly a better way of doing things and I am grateful that this week’s readings were able to shine a guiding and insightful light onto a better path for instructing language learners.

Role confusion and reversal within CMC as a byproduct of COI

  As we enter the 8^th week of our module in DTLT the focus has shifted to the benefits and challenges of online learning. Generally, I would describe the learning experience up to this point as extremely satisfying and I have really enjoyed navigating Moodle software and taking advantage of the affordances provided by online learning. I can honestly say that so far I have few objections to the format of online learning but as time has passed I have also realized that online learning is not the utopian experience one would automatically assume it to be.  Anagnostopoulos, Basmadjian, and McCrory (2005) point out that online learning, unbeknownst to some users, entails a multiplicity of unexpected and loosely defined role plays and reversals that can pose challenges to all participants within the online learning environment. I recall this comment instantly resonating with my f2f undergraduate experience when compared to my most recent post graduate experiences as an online, distance learner. As I mentioned in week 8 tutorial session, as a student, I interpret my role firstly as subservient in relation to what I know and hope to learn in comparison to the knowledge and experience of the tutor. As an online learner, I expected to spend more time reading, listening and responding to questions, followed by positive or negative feedback in regards to the correctness of my responses. As a result of these long held expectations, I experienced a bit of anxiety and uncertainty when presented with the occasional tasks of initiating forum discussion, repeatedly being asked to present my own opinions, and at times being expected to present content and direct discussion in the same method as the module tutor.

 Burbules and Callister (2000) point out that as a result of students not expecting the necessity of defined and redefined roles within f2f and online learning, there is the issue of value allocation for the content gained and the interaction that takes place within the online classroom. I can concur with this statement as I have experienced a measurable degree of frustration over what I had viewed as an absence of teacher presence (content/structure) and social presence (setting climate) of my tutor and the over abundant forum presence of my academic peers within my cohort. Placing these feelings into words will prove difficult, but as a student I had expected, or rather imagined that throughout the entire learning process (forum, discussion, email, tutorials) I would be hearing and receiving (or seeing in text) more direct, one way, non-negotiable content from my tutor as this is a mirror image reflection of my learning experience in a physical classroom. Again, as a result of these assumptions and expectations, frustration, confusion, angst, apprehension, and fear are some of the sporadic emotions I have experienced throughout this module. I spent some time trying to pinpoint the trigger for each of these emotional responses and can’t say that I’d had much luck until coming across a few words from Idhe. He mentions that it is a false expectation to think an online learning experience will enhance learning, alternatively, it’s a false assumption to believe that online learning is a lesser experience due to its copied learning format. (Idhe, 2004) I think Idhe hit the nail dead center on the head by saying “People want what technology gives but refuse to accept the limits of technology.”(Idhe, 2004)

I imagine that this unannounced exchange of roles and the ensuing role plays that develop within online learning environments pose a challenge for some learners and I think it would be helpful if some discussion or introductory activities highlighted and informed students of the variable learning experiences to be expected in comparison to f2f learning in a physical classroom.

Lastly, I was also interested to find that one of the larger challenges of COI and CMC in the online learning environment is the continuous successful transmission of intelligible communication. Considering how direct communication is via sms, email, asynchronous and synchronous communication, it is peculiar yet also a no brainer that COI doesn’t fully attribute credible meaning to every utterance. Hopefully, I’ll be successful in my presentation of content in the week 10 tutorials…hint, hint, can you sense my anxiety?