First of all, I’d like to apologise for having neglected this blog a bit. I have been blogging over at http://slexperiments.edublogs.org about my English course and lesson planning in Second Life and my reflections on teaching and learning in Second Life.
I am happy to say that my SLexperiments blog has been nominated for the Edublog Awards 2008 in the category of “Best new blog“.
If your answer to the question above in the title is “No”, watch this video by David Truss. If it is ”Yes”, watch it anyway 
If you cannot watch YouTube in your location, watch the blip.tv version.
Teachers are often asked to re-evaluate their roles and alternatives like facilitator, mentor, friend, learning partner, guide, et.c, etc. are suggested. I don’t like this discussion too much because the way I understand, interpret, use and try to live the expression “teach” or “teacher” has always encompassed all of the above to a greater or lesser extend. Still there seems to be one more role and skill we need to add to the list and that is being an IT specialist.
Many say and I do agree that as teachers we cannot ignore technology when teaching. Not only can it enhance learning but is also a real life skill that our students and course participants need to learn. Most importantly, technology can be a great motivator, especially but not exclusive for young learners.
As I said before, I can identify with all the roles suggested for a teacher and I have always liked technology but I am not a trained technician or IT specialist. That is why sometimes I do wish I had a specialist at hand who could maintain my website for example so that I could invest more time in improving my teaching and coming up with new motivating, fun and effective learning and teaching ideas. After all, we’ve always been told that technology makes life easier and saves us time, right?
The reason why I felt like writing this post is that I spent most of yesterday with website maintenance upgrading the LMS (Learning Management System) Moodle and installing Sloodle (a Second Life mash-up module for Moodle) and learning more skills in Second Life® that are deemed essential for educators. If you are interested in more details, I posted about this in my Second Life experiments blog.
Having said this, I still like technology and integrating it into my lessons The video in my next post states pretty much where I stand in that regard.
Here are two machinima (videos produced in Second Life) that illustrate some of the educational uses of Second Life, a 3D virtual world. Enjoy!
My first Second Life English course has finished, certificates handed out, the SLexperiments Wiki and group has been constantly growing since we started it and I have been exploring Second Life‘s potential for language teaching for a while now. Throughout this journey and as a member of the Webheads (an online community of practise), I have learned and experienced that sharing what one knows is a very powerful way of learning more.
This and the fact that reflecting on one’s learning and teaching helps one to become a better teacher and learner were the reasons why I had decided to blog about my Second Life English course and publishing my lesson plans. I do hope there will be more feedback and comments on the lessons and my reflections so I and other teachers can benefit even more and improve our teaching.
The logical next step is to give a public online presentation about this fascinating journey, my explorations and teaching experience. The presentation is mainly directed towards teachers but some of my students will (hopefully) also be present and learners wanting learn about new ways of improving their language skills or companies looking for effective and motivating language courses are most welcome to attend.
The presentation will be on the WiziQ virtual classroom platform and is scheduled for Thursday, 28 August 2008 at 3pm GMT. Here is the link where you can sign up for the session.
I am looking forward to seeing you there.
Update:
If you missed the live presentation, you can watch the recording using the same link as above (for signing up). Above, you can see the slides of the presentation.
On 9 July 2008, I my first English course in Second Life started. So far, we have had three lessons and today will be the fourth. I have decided to publish my lessons plans online and blog about my experience by writing about the process of planning the course and the lessons, writing post-lesson evaluations and providing some tips. You can click here to go to the blog or use the SLexperiments blog link in the Sidebar.
Here is a link to all my Second Life postson this blog.
We are always talking about how teaching and learning has to change to in the 21st Century. And I frequently hear that a lot of research needs to be done in order to find out what works and how to implement that into existing teaching and learning environments. But I wonder how effective research is in a time when everything changes in such a fast pace.
I’ve just read a call for chapters for a book about technology and education. The writers have to submit their proposals in autumn 2008 and the final chapters at the beginning of 2009. The book will be published in 2010 including research data about the “latest” technologies used in education in 2008.
How relevant can such a book be in a time where everything changes so fast. I can’t help myself but think that in the near future it won’t be researchers who decide whether a new technology is effective in learning but it will be the learners by adopting new technologies that help them learn and discard the ones that don’t, not waiting for research data to prove their effectiveness. If a tool is useful and helpful it will stay if not it will disappear.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying we do not need research anymore. What I am saying is that we talk a lot about the fact that teaching and learning has to change to adapt to the new situation and I believe this is true. However,research and the process of publishing it and implementing changes according to it has to change as well.
One way forward is publishing more e-books. Here data can be published faster and updated more regularly. Now, that there are publishers who promotes this, we will hopefully see it happen more frequently. Here is a good example of a new start-up company publishing open textbooks.
Language teachers are always on the outlook for ways of motivating their students and helping them to learn faster and retain more. Naturally, I wanted to find out what that hype over Second Life was all about. A 3D immersive virtual world sounded just like the right thing to engage students and provide a safe environment for practising languages. So, as I mentioned in Second Life experiments, it was out of curiosity that I signed up for Second Life. I even felt a bit guilty because what I had heard about online 3D games had been rather negative.
Potential of Second Life
Now, that I know more about Second Life, I see its potential for language education. It is …
Formal versus informal learning
The question is: “Should learning in SL be formal or informal?” Some say it is, after all, a game and teachers should not mess with it. Learning should be entirely informal (e.g. practising speaking with native speakers).
As in Real Life and as I know from my own experience of learning foreign languages, I think the combination of formal and informal learning works best for optimal results (e.g. attending classes in a language school in the morning and immersing oneself into the language outside class by going shopping, meeting people, going to the cinema) In Second Life, we give students the safe environment and provide them with language input and controlled practice to make sure they have the language and use it correctly. This gives them the courage to go out into the open SL world and seek opportunities to practise it. Lessons should include field trips to places where it is easy to contact and speak with other residents to give students an idea where to go in their own time. Teachers could also visit events together with their students after preparing them to participate in discussions. This should give students enough self-confidence to go out by themselves and practise their language skills further without needing a safety net and any formal instructions any longer.
Limitations and strengths
SL has limitations when teaching (e.g. limited gestures, facial expressions which result in more teacher talk- though there are first steps like lyp synching), no whiteboard to write or draw on quickly. On the other hand, there are possibilities that you do not have in RL (e.g. going on field trips, teleporting to places, making and copying objects indefinitely to name a few). So, I think when planning and conducting a lesson, it is crucial to keep these in mind. What happens often is that we try to replicate Real Life. I wonder why? Are we so used to thinking in boxes? Is it too much freedom? I’m sure with time we will see much more innovative SL-ways of teaching and maybe these will even influence our Real Life teaching in a positive way.
Reservations?
Yes. It won’t suit everybody. Some will feel uncomfortable due to the double challenge of getting to grips with the language and the technology. When students pay for the course they will be unhappy when things don’t function properly or things take long due to lag, etc. I also sometimes feel responsible for students that I bring into Second Life. What if they get addicted, visit inappropriate mature locations or fall prey to residents whose intentions are not good? This is why I prefer to teach those who are already in SL and even if I bring students there from outside, they are adults and responsible for themselves.
Conclusion
Despite the challenges of teaching in Second Life and the technical issues like instability and lag, I see the potential of SL for teaching languages and prefer to be part of finding out how best to teach in SL instead of waiting for researh results.
Finally, Second Life is fascinating but it is, after all, only a tool. And tools are only then helpful in reaching your goals when you choose them appropriately taking students needs and wants into consideration and not deciding based on your personal love affair with a tool.
An online friend of mine and ESL teacher, Dennis Newson, asked a good question in our SLexperiments discussion group:
“What would be the components of a training course for teachers who want to use SL in and for their teaching?”.
He added some ideas to start the discussion:
There are some other Second Life skills that teachers should know (e.g. writing and sending notecards, group chat, etc.). While these are all important technical skills teachers should know and would make up one component of the course, this alone will, of course, not be sufficient to make teachers good educators in Second Life.
The second component would be to look at the pedagogical side of teaching in SL. I would have teachers share their believes about teaching and learning in general and what they think teaching in SL would be like. Why they want to teach in SL in the first place?
If possible, I would have them observe some SL lessons (maybe good and bad examples) and ask them for feedback.
Have them think about “How much about what they know about teaching in RL can be transferred to SL?
Have them think about what makes SL unique. What are the strengths of SL compared to RL classes? When does it make sense to teach in SL and when in RL? Is there a special SL pedagogy? Many teachers and schools simply try to replicate Real Life in Second Life building traditional looking classrooms.I have visited different schools, talked to directors and observed lessons, and what I have seen was sometimes appalling.
Finally, you can only really learn how to teach by actually teaching. This is also true for teaching in Second Life. Therefore, the last component of the course would be teaching either peers or, even better, real students and receiving peer and tutor feedback and reflecting on their teaching.
At the end of such a course, teachers will also be able to decide whether they really like teaching in SL or not.
Besides the content of the course, a trainer would also have to decide on how to deliver the course — entirely in Second Life or only partly. If in Second Life, the trainer would naturally lead by example and conduct the session using SL pedagogy
This is not a complete list and I’d love to know what others think. So:
If you were a teacher interested in teaching in Second Life, what would you like to see covered in the course?
And if you are already a teacher or teacher trainer in Second Life, what would you add to the list?
We are launching our first Second Life English course in cooperation with Islamonline.net, an innovative organisation, who have two islands in Second Life devoted to training.
The free 6-week general English course is intended for pre-intermediate level students and will take place twice a week on Wednesdays and Saturdays, 11.30 am – 1.00 pm SLT/PDT (6.30 pm GMT) for 90 minutes each. Start is on 9 July 2008. We will use voice during the lessons and the course will be complemented by a Moodle component for review and further practice and discussion.
The target audience for this course is mainly people who are already familiar with the Second Life environment and have basic SL skills (e.g. moving their avatar, camera control, teleporting, offering friendship, writing and sending notecards). However, if there is demand, we will also provide one SL skills session before the course.
The places are limited and as they are being announced in-world and on Islamonline.net’s Arabic website, they might fill up quickly. So, if you know somebody who might be interested, tell them to send me an e-mail message as soon as possible or IM me (Daffodil Fargis) in Second Life. If you can read this post and understand it, the course will be too easy for you
Deutsch:
Wir bieten einen kostenlosen sechs-wöchigen Englischkurs für die Stufe Pre-intermediate in Second Life an. Der Kurs fängt am 9. July 2008 an und findet jeden Mittwoch und Samstag um 11.30 SL Zeit (20.30 MET) statt und dauert jeweils 90 Minuten. Die Plätze sind begrenzt. Wer interesse kann mich über die Kontaktseite erreichen oder mir eine Nachricht in SL schicken (Daffodil Fargis).
Türkçe:
Second Life sanal dünyasinda alti haftalik ücretsiz ingilizce kursu baslatiyoruz. Seviye pre-intermediate olacak. Kurs Temmuz‘un 9′unda baslayacak ve her çarsamba ver cumartesi olacak. Ders saati: 11.30 – 1.00 SL zamani (21.30 Türkiye saati ile). Kurs çabuk dolabilir, o nedenle, katilmak isteyenler biren evvel basvursunlar (ya contact sayfasinan bana mesaj gönderin veva Second Life’dan IM gönderin (Daffodil Fargis).