Link to Mini Project 3 Description

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddx83npd_23j69whxd6

Thoughts on Podcasting...

Second Life and Language Learning

I am not convinced that Second Life (SL) has a place in language classrooms. After experimenting with SL in class and reading the Stevens and Vickers articles, I view SL as more of an aimless wondering in a second world than a targeted activity that is conducive to learning a language. One question that I have is whether or not there is any advantage to communicating with another avatar in SL (I mean in terms of having a successful SL?). It seemed to me (during class) that the only advantage was social and that you didn't get new tools or start traveling in groups or anything when you interact with another avatar. So, maybe SL is less about social interactions and more about discovering new places and increasing your inventory. I'm not really sure, still, what the point of SL actually is.

However, I do think that virtual reality games could be good for second language learning if the point of the game were something like traveling to all the cities in a country and having to talk with people to get information that could help you pass to the next level (city?). I just think that the virtual reality game would have to be created in such a way to encourage interactions between people.

I also like the idea of using voice in a virtual reality game. However, I don't think that technology is ready to utilize voice recognition to the extent that would be necessary to make voice interactions productive in such a virtual reality.

Overall, I am more convinced about the utility of podcasts, blogs, emails, and chats for language classrooms than I am about the utility of SL.

Mini Project #2

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddx83npd_222mhp25zc

Intercultural Learning

I think that the best circumstances for intercultural learning are those where individuals are able to have personal interactions with several "others." I think that the interactions have to be somewhat personal (including personal opinions, beliefs, etc.) because otherwise instead of understanding nuanced details about the "other", the "other" may be seen as more of a flat caricature which will be more likely to inforce general stereotypes.

That being said, I do think that CMC can lead to this type of intercultural learning, but I am not sure that it can be as powerful as being submersed in the world of the other (like traveling/studying abroad). One of the activities from the articles that seemed to be especially condusive to examining what constitutes "self" vs. what constitutes "other" (the idea of recul) was the textual chats with video conferencing that centered around real (one that are likely applicable to the student) discussion topics. This seemed to promote intercultural learning since students could express and react to each other's idea in real time and focus on better understanding an aspect of their partner's worldview (in relation to their own and other people that they know).

However, one question that I have about engaging in such activities in a classroom vs. outside a classroom is how much does the fact that transcripts will be seen by a teacher affect/censor the type of conversations that students will feel comfortable engaging? I would imagine, at least from my own experience, that there is a sort of distance that is maintained so as not to share one's personal beliefs or ideas to too great a degree when a teacher will be reading the transcript. I wonder if studies have looked at this and how it has been addressed...

Video Ideas

So far I have three ideas for the final video project. My target audiance will be an ESL classroom--the proficiency level is yet to be determined. The first idea is recording a few short speeches (those with "good" and "bad" traits) and having students both make outlines of the given speeches by noting what the intro, transitions, main points, and conclusions were and then talking about strengths and weaknesses of the speeches. This idea would be good for a higher English proficiency group and would help to prepare students for giving their own speeches--which they will likely do if they continue on an enter the university.

My second idea is doing a jigsaw video were I show one half of the class the video without sound and the other half only get the audio without the picture. Then the students would be paired with someone who had heard/seen the opposite version and would be asked to reconstruct the scene. The video could be a scene that encouraged the use of certain vocabulary, such as cooking terms for a video that takes place in the kitchen. Also, students would have to negotiate meaning to reconstruct the scene--and much of the research has shown that jigsaw activities with such negotiation are beneficial to language acquisition.

Finally, a third idea is taping two couples (seperately) who are discussing something from different points of view. For example, one couple is speaking about the benefits of traveling abroad, and the other is speaking about why they would rather travel in the U.S. The students would be asked to find areas of agreement and disagreement between the two discussions and would then be divided into two groups to continue the debate/ discussion in class. This would also include target vocabulary (so it would have to be a discussion related to something being taught in class) and would encourage meaning negotiation as the students participated in the debate. It would also encourage comparing and contrasting skills which are important in academia.

Please feel free to give suggestions and/or specific ideas of topics for the second and third ideas :-)

Flickr in the Language Classroom

I think that Flickr has some promising capabilities for the language classroom. It is a primarily a social networking site that focuses on searching for and sharing photos. However, it also has a map organizer where the user can choose a map to work with and then upload pictures for the different locations on the map. So, when learning directions or studying culturally significant places in the the classroom, students could create their own maps and present them to the class. Also, if previous students are studying abroad, they could create photo maps detailing where they have already visited and embed their photo map into a blog or even post comments on their photo map to share with the current students who may be planning to study abroad in the future.