From simulations to (3D) virtuality: Mirorring tasks from language learning
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The document discusses the use of multi-user virtual environments (MUVEs) for language learning and identifies three types of tasks used: 1) direct-transfer activities that replicate offline tasks without adapting for the virtual environment, 2) activities designed specifically for the MUVE that engage students, and 3) integrated MUVE tasks involving collaboration, problem-solving and meaningful interaction within the virtual world. It concludes that effective MUVE tasks should make use of the unique features of the virtual environment and be communicative to maximize student language learning.
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- 1. From simulations to (3D) virtuality: mirroring tasks for language learning Joan-Tom às Pujolà Cristina Palomeque Miquel Llobera
- 3. MUVEs as VLEs social dimension interaction: environment, objects, avatars immersive experience multimodal communication Languagelab.com
- 13. muves and gaming encourage experimenting reduce tensions offer a new way of exploring language and reality can develop critical thinking are fun Languagelab.com
- 17. direct-transfer activities doesn’t take the environment into account, no or little adaptation of learning materials reproduces the real world exactly, even with its shortcomings Casa del Español Babel
- 19. activities with MUVE make-up dramatic engaging take into account environment Languagelab.com Languagelab.com
Editor's Notes
- Hello, we are …. Today we are going to look at language learning tasks implemented in 3D virtual worlds. We have visited several language learning institutions in SL to carry out this exploratory study.
- Virtual worlds in learning are becoming increasingly popular and there is an extended belief that VW can be used as VLEs basically for 4 reasons. VW allow for multimodal communication: voice chat, text chat, private and public. There is a strong social dimension as users are represented by avatars. The residents of VW are usually quite friendly and willing to help newcomers. Apart from interacting with other avatars, you can interact with objects (e.g. when you open a door) or with the environment itself (you can contribute to create the environment). It is an immersive experience: the environment really makes you feel like if you really were in that place.
- virtual worlds offer a very strong sense of presence through the avatar. the user feels a strong link with his/her avatar, which is the user’s virtual identity. E mbodiment refers to the ability of the user to employ an avatar (a digital representation of one's self in a virtual world) Cassell (2008). In contrast to traditional e-learning and VoiP interactions, where the user is generally focused on documents or text, or is limited to audio, MUVE users see their avatar talking with their own voice to other avatars within a particular setting. The input received by users is inextricably connected to their own projected identity, the interpretation of others' identities, as well as paralanguage.
- users can create in a virtual world practically anything they can imagine. VW can recreate the real world in an incredibly thorough way. Learners do not have to imagine that they are at the beach, they can actually be there in a virtual world. Teachers can design ‘real’ tasks in ‘real environments’. This contributes to create an immersive experience for the learner.
- users can create in a virtual world practically anything they can imagine. VW can recreate the real world in an incredibly thorough way. Learners do not have to imagine that they are at the beach, they can actually be there in a virtual world. Teachers can design ‘real’ tasks in ‘real environments’. This contributes to create an immersive experience for the learner.
- this VW isn’t a closed product which is given to the user. Second Life has been created by its users and it changes and evolves every day. This means that the users have the power to create and change their environment. This is a great feature to foster an active role of the student when carrying out learning activities. Appart from that, learners need to use their imagination to create objects from basic primitive shapes and they don’t necessarily have to reproduce something from the real world, the possiblities are much broader.
- Second Life is not only a virtual world, it is considered a ‘serious game’. Serious games are games which have an educational purpose. Many places offer a real gaming experience for those students who like playing video games. This is a picture taken from a game called ‘Dark Mines’ in Languagelab. This game created to learn English through working collaboratively with other users in an informal way. The game was designed by an English teacher and an IT person who was into gaming. Teachers are usually concerend of learning and think of a game that can help the learning of a certain structure. Here the first concern was having fun and incidental learning would follow naturally.
- Timeline showing the grassroots of MUVES. MUVEs aren’t something new. We can track their origins down to the simulations carried out in classrooms in the 70s. The ground idea was the same: learners were asked to imagine a certain situation and to interpret a certain role. Instead of having a computers, they had desks and notes. When computers/the internet became popular a new kind of virtual simulation called MOO came into place. MOOs are text based simulations …. MUVE (plural MUVEs) refers to online, multi-user virtual environments, sometimes called virtual worlds. While this term has been used previously to refer to a generational change in MUDs, MOOs, and MMORPGs, it is most widely used to describe MMOGs that are not necessarily game-specific. The term was first used in Chip Morningstar's 1990 paper The Lessons of Lucasfilm's Habitat. A number of the most popular and well-known MUVEs are listed below, although there are a number of others. Modern MUVEs have 3D isometric/third-person graphics, are accessed over the Internet, allow for some dozens of simultaneous users to interact, and represent a persistent virtual world. Habitat (1987) and Club Caribe (1988) could be considered the first graphical MUVEs.
- situational, not a role-play, PBL, cognitive challenge, different type of assessment. Simulations were very successful in the 70s as it proved to be an effective way getting away from the strict classroom context and carry out an immersion-like task
- Simulations had a very defined structure
- A MOO (MUD, object oriented) is a text-based online virtual reality system to which multiple users (players) are connected at the same time.
- After simulations and MOOs we come to MUVEs. Technically speaking, MUVEs open the classroom to the whole world, students don’t have to be people from the same classroom as in simulations, as long as you have a computer and an internet connection, you can take part in a MUVE class. Also, MUVEs are not text-based, they are graphic-based. Learners don’t need to imagine the environment like in MOO it’s already there. Apart from these technical differences, can we talk of MUVE methdology? Is it different from face to face methodology? In MUVEs we can reproduce a traditional classroom setting like on the left or we can have a class inside a clothes store like in the right.
- We visited different language learning centers for our exploratory study and we found a wide range of different language learning tasks. We classified them into 3 groups.
- some activities reproduce the traditional classroom exactly. They even scan photocopies they use in RL and put them on a board in SL. On the left you can see an activity which in a computer so it doesn’t take advantage at all of the environment.