Week5 Theory of Project Based Language Learning

We started off with a discussion about CMC & PBTELL theories, and then moved on to another discussion about tools that we could use for our first online meeting. In this entries, I want to first talk about the lists of tools that we explored and then focus on those theories.

We went through a list of tools like Skype, google+ and etc. All of those tools were great because they enable us to video chat with our group members. Skype and google+ are the most common tool that people use to chat online, but it seems to me that both of them don't work really well when it comes to video chat across countries. In this case, one thing that I wish we could have done in class was to test the quality of all the tools in groups.

Now I want to talk about those CMC theories. There are three major concepts mentioned in class: behaviorism, cognitive and sociocognitive. These concepts, to a certain extent, help explain the process of language learning. For behaviorism, its reinforcement theory gives us a new perspective to perceive how telecollaboration can enrich its use. Learners in a telecollaboration project can provide positive and negative reinforcement for each other. For example, English native speakers can give English learners feedback to help those learners achieve better learning outcomes. For sociocognitive theory, telecollaboration project can still play an important role in helping learners learn a language because there will be a lot of interaction involved in the project. The peers can interact with each other either via video chat or written forms.

Week 4 Preparation for collaboration & Screen recording software

We did a lot of preparation for the collaboration and explored Camtasia this week.

We signed the contract for collaboration, discussed about TEAMMATES evaluation system and talked about the focus of 1st group meeting. Other than that, we also drafted a nice email to welcome our groups.

Another activity this week was explore the functions of Camtasia because we need to do a technical review by recording ourselves. Camtasia was brand new to us, but it was an awesome tool to me based on what I have learned from the tutorial. You can do screen capture, film editing, audio editing and many other things with Camtasia. These functions will serve really well for technical review since we need to record our screen and voice. I believe this tool can also be useful for teaching--especially online teaching--because it gives us an opportunity to demonstrating what we want the audience to know while keeping our voice. The function of adjusting the window of the screen and ourselves allows us to emphasize things we want.

Week 3 Other Virtual Environment and Setting

Tuesday

we had a discussion about upcoming collaboration with students in Spain. It was really exciting to know that we were going to collaborate with other language learners. After the discussion, we talked about making an individual and class introduction video for our collaboration group in Spain. Then we moved on to a Second Life building activity which was the most interesting part in today's class. Last week, we have explored things in Second Life, so the building activity today allowed us to investigate the pedagogical potential of Second Life. Building things in this VW might sound a bit simple, but the reality was the opposite. It could take you an hour to build a chair.


After this activity, I realized this VW actually had immense potential of helping people learn a language. We can build up a museum for language learner to explore items in there by themselves. We can also create a Scavenger hunt in the VW so that leaners could be exposed to more vocabulary. Other than this function, Second Life can also be used to hold a conference or a meeting. This use sounds amazing to me because it makes telecollaboration more accessible and effective. With this use, we don't need to fly all the way to Europe or somewhere else to attend a conference. We can just invite educators to share their insightful findings in Second Life. How cool is that!!!

Thursday

we went out shooting class intro video! Great experience!

 

Week 2 Second Life and Education

In this class, we mainly explored the Second Life. We had a tour in Second Life and learn some basic skills in this virtual world. I started to get the idea about why Second Life was introduced in this class. As we were doing the tour, I was surprised about how virtual worlds could be used for language learning. The fact that lectures and meetings could be incorporated in the virtual world really shocked me because I have never thought about the pedagogical purposes of virtual worlds. I used to play Legends of League, and I knew we could also play against people from other countries. However, I did not use it for pedagogical purposes. Another case that occurred to me was one of my best friends who did meet people from Europe or America when playing an online game. He told me it really helped him with language learning. Surely, unlike LOL or games like that, Second Life is more education-focused since there weren’t a lot of games going on in there.

In the first time when I logged in Second Life, I ran into an avatar who started talking to me in Spanish!! I was quite excited about that since I planned on learning Spanish as my 4th language. As we digged deep into Second Life, I came to realize that a great many tools that we had been using could be applied for language learning or teaching. All we had to do was to figure out the way to use for language learning.

After reading the article Language learning in virtual worlds: Research and Practice written by Sadler and Dooly in 2013, I got to know more about using technologies for language teaching. In that article, they presented some statistics of  an experiment they had conducted in a class in Spain. They tested the effectiveness of Second Life on assisting children's language learning. The data demonstrates that the use of VW in language learning has enriched the education purpose. Using VW for language learning helped learners--especially those who were intimidated by speaking to others in person--gain confidence in talking and learning. In addition, VW helped learners achieve the “5Cs” as they can explore new things ranged from specific subjects like art to a broader scope e.g., culture. The knowledge of the potential of VW gave me some insights into teaching Chinese students who were struggling with learning English back in China.