Andragogy and SL

Andragogy and Malcolm Knowles

I enclose the full bullets from the first reference below (#1 ) as I felt that they should be included. I remember these articles from many years ago when I worked on an MLE project for a consortium delivering teacher training qualifications. Now, when I re-read these points I am amazed at how many of these reflect my experiences in SL. The self-reflection and growth of the self, the close relationships and bonds that encourage that personal growth in friends. That we bond together and try to help those around us to reach their full potential.

In terms of relevance to language learners, the Fidishun article raises interesting points about the autonomous learner and the autodidact. This type of learning is actively encouraged in languages, and is a movement that started when student numbers started to reach capacities beyond tutor availability. Language resource or self-access centres support the independent language learner, whether they are studying for a full-time course or evening classes. One of the issues that I frequently talk about is the need for autonomous learners to have access to help in choosing instructional models and appropriate resources. That, even if they have some confidence in creating a structured environment, they may like support or a means to move forward in their learning. (#2) Autonomous learning materials in resource centres suggest activities but may not include support materials or a learning path. Web-based materials may indeed offer the ability to experience alternative scenarios, and offer the opportunity for reflection (#2), but there is a need for instructional design at some stage in the learning. I feel that there is an opportunity to create rich and interactive autonomous language learning experiences in SL with good pedagogy and with Knowle's informal education goals.

Malcolm S. Knowles (1950) Informal Adult Education, Chicago: Association Press, pages 9-10.

Learning goals for adult informal learning:

• Adults should acquire a mature understanding of themselves. They should understand their needs, motivations, interests, capacities, and goals. They should be able to look at themselves objectively and maturely. They should accept themselves and respect themselves for what they are, while striving earnestly to become better.

• Adults should develop an attitude of acceptance, love, and respect toward others. This is the attitude on which all human relations depend. Adults must learn to distinguish between people and ideas, and to challenge ideas without threatening people. Ideally, this attitude will go beyond acceptance, love, and respect, to empathy and the sincere desire to help others.

• Adults should develop a dynamic attitude toward life. They should accept the fact of change and should think of themselves as always changing. They should acquire the habit of looking at every experience as an opportunity to learn and should become skillful in learning from it.

• Adults should learn to react to the causes, not the symptoms, of behavior. Solutions to problems lie in their causes, not in their symptoms. We have learned to apply this lesson in the physical world, but have yet to learn to apply it in human relations.

• Adults should acquire the skills necessary to achieve the potentials of their personalities. Every person has capacities that, if realized, will contribute to the well-being of himself and of society. To achieve these potentials requires skills of many kinds—vocational, social, recreational, civic, artistic, and the like. It should be a goal of education to give each individual those skills necessary for him to make full use of his capacities.

• Adults should understand the essential values in the capital of human experience. They should be familiar with the heritage of knowledge, the great ideas, the great traditions, of the world in which they live. They should understand and respect the values that bind men together.

• Adults should understand their society and should be skillful in directing social change. In a democracy the people participate in making decisions that affect the entire social order. It is imperative, therefore, that every factory worker, every salesman, every politician, every housewife, know enough about government, economics, international affairs, and other aspects of the social order to be able to take part in them intelligently.

#1 malcolm knowles, informal adult education, self-direction and andragogyhttp://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-knowl.htm

#2 Fidishun, D. (2006). Andragogy and technology: Integrating adult learning theory as we teach with technology. Retrieved on January 3, 2006, from http://markmcmanus.ca/Resources/Adult-Learners-Integrating-Adult-Learning-Theory-with-Technology.pdf

Universal avatars

Take your SL identity between worlds. Interesting, but that could be an amazing tangle for authentication.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7038039.stm

Virtual Worlds and the Visually Impaired

So one of my questions on technologies to support visually-impaired residents in SL is answered by this project. It looks as if IBM do some very interesting research, and we can only hope that it becomes widely available. I can also see the usefulness of this project for helping teach those that have recently lost their sight, to move around in real life.

Sonar is something of a dream, the project idea for the London Underground hasn't materialised. I've seen this product by Wayfinder, called Wayfinder Access, though I haven't tested it out. Their other software works well though. www.wayfinder.com

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6993739.stm

British Sign Language and SL

This is a really interesting development in SL, and I'd love to see this in action. Particularly if there's a way to express BSL (British Sign Language) in all it's richness and subtlety. I'll never forget being in a crowded cafe which was filled with noise and energy as a group of excited teenagers talked with their teacher. However, the cafe to me was 'silent' and I didn't understand a word. I did enjoy watching and the experience though very much.

The enabling of signing communities could create a need for a whole new translator. One that translates between the different signing communities, and perhaps back into English, French, German, Greek and so forth. I'd hate to see any community be cut off from the potential to participate and build communities that we currently have. Just as voice can take away a hearing impaired person's ability to contribute fully, and the shy person's ability to participate.


Technique links words to signing
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6993326.stm

What is an Immersive Learning Experience in SL and what might it feel like?

Abandonment or enjoyment, or the ability to give oneself in, to immerse oneself totally in, the experience - in short, to live it to its full. No creative activity would ever be complete, or would lead to a meaningful and relevant conclusion without any of the [the following] conditions: Meaning, Questioning, Exploration, Experimentation, Adaptation, Open-mindedness, Insight, Fearlessness, Innovation and Risk-taking.
Creativity in Modern Foreign Languages Teaching and Learning, Margaret Anne Clarke http://complexworld.pbwiki.com/

Immersion is a powerful experience of gaming, and has been mentioned by gamers, designers and game researchers alike as an important experience of interaction. However, when trying to understand immersion for transfer to another domain, it is very difficult to find out what exactly is meant by immersion or indeed even whether the different research on immersion is talking about the same concept.

A Grounded Investigation of Game Immersion, Emily Brown and Paul Cairns http://complexworld.pbwiki.com/

What does an immersive experience mean to me as a learner?

I've been considering how an Immersive experience feels to me as a non MMORPG-er in comparison to the idea of 'stories' on the Complex World wiki. Whilst I can appreciate both these examples, they are not experiences that I would necessarily go out of my way to seek. At my institution I often represent the language learner perspective as an independent learner of Italian, so I began to explore writing on Immersive learning to compare to my own thoughts.

Brown and Cairns talk about the following conditions that are needed for full immersion or Presence to occur in Games, and discuss them in detail in their paper. Basically it involves the following:

• Access e.g. that the style of game appeals and the controls are easily mastered
• Investment of time
• Investment of effort and corresponding rewards
• Emotional investment
• Empathy
• Atmosphere

Obviously there is overlap with other kinds of immersive activity. As I'm not a gamer, the experiences of someone playing World of Warcraft have little meaning or appeal to me. I'm unable to even 'access' the game, I fail on the first hurdle. Personally I don't wish to waste my time learning the rules, I would rather know what they were at the outset and either 'get on' with the game or find a way to bend/break them. Immersive activities seem to me to have similar capacity to lose the self in creative or artistic endeavours, conflict/adventure based games, intensive experiences where you are placed 'in at the deep end'.

Creative or artistic endeavours or those involving other people have far more appeal for me, and interestingly I've found there are a number of ex-MMORPG ers in SL. They have moved world for the creative potential of SL. SL to me seems to address the later immersive aspects such as emotional investment, empathy and atmosphere quite well through its affordances of social interaction, community and creativity. I aim to continue looking at the literature in the hope of finding more work on immersive learning in virtual worlds that involve creative or language learning activities.
I certainly want to explore these further than the small project I currently am running.

SL and learning styles

I'm still intrigued by Johnson and Levine's idea of communicating in 3D in a virtual world* and that of showing. As a kinesthetic learner, I was happily considering this on the bus to work. It's hardly a revelation that something like a virtual world could accommodate different learning preferences, in addition to the necessary language skills such as reading, writing, speaking, but I started to consider Gardner's Intelligences and SL.**Within the space of a few minutes I'd started mapping aspects of SL onto modified intelligences and also to the ontology of our language learning and teaching Learning Object repository.. Though as I'm over this week's word limit I shall save that for another day.

*Lawrence F Johnson and Alan H Levine http://immersiveeducation.org/library/Immersive_Learning-Johnson_and_Levine.pdf

** David Gibson, Clark Aldrich and Marc Prensky, 2007, Games and Simulations in Online Learning

A scavanger hunt - an idea from my friend Ceclia

Here is the description: The Darkwood Trail (starting point SLurl) is a scavenger hunt introducing the player to many regions of Second Life while teaching SL basics, such as when and how to walk and fly, along with providing helpful tips on themes such as, building, scripting, vehicles, clothes, nightlife, poses and animations, pets and land. The player picks up lots of freebies along the way.

What is an Immersive Language Learning Experience in SL and where can I find one?

This week's post in an attempt at an answer for all those that asked...

'Hermeneutics is part of what Don Lavoie at George Mason University's Program on Social and Organisational Learning refers to as ‘interpretive approaches’. That is, a dialogue based approach that seeks ever greater understanding, in a social context, by entering conversation for the purpose of exploring.' Quoted from: Michael McMaster 1996 – Electronic Communication

‘When other people are also interacting in the same space at the same time, as in today’s massively multi-user environments, friendships, communities, and even societies and cultures can emerge, and the overall effect can become analogous to or an extension of experiences participants have in real world.'

‘Cultural mores and expectations can be very sophisticated, and socialization very much involves the learning processes of observation, reflection, and assimilation. ’
Lawrence F Johnson and Alan H Levine http://immersiveeducation.org/library/Immersive_Learning-Johnson_and_Levine.pdf

Languages are best learned in immersive environments where the learner has to use all the key language skills on a daily basis – they are surrounded by their target language. Many people think whole environments have to be constructed in SL to facilitate immersive learning, but there are many locations that enable speech, listening and reading to happen in a live and spontaneous way. As Johnson and Levine put it, communication is in 3D using texture, form, sight and sound. Virtual worlds encourage rich expression through tools, objects, video, images and demonstrations, as well as art, music, exhibitions and sculpture.

Many sims are focussed on particular language groups, for instance Parioli for Italian and Barcelona for Spanish. 'Though it’s possible to hear Russian, German, Japanese, Korean, and Portuguese to name but a few. There are sims dedicated to particular cultural goals, such as Virtual Morocco which aims to promote an understanding of Arab/Muslim culture. You might also find yourself suddenly in a multilingual place with a babble of different languages being spoken all around you.

After many hours of exploring SL, I have found many places that facilitate cultural immersion. There are French cafes, Italian Pizzerias, Russian shipyards, Swedish country homes. There are the New Wonders of the World such as Chichen Itza, opera houses, fantasy themes, outer space and nature all of which promote conversation and creative language skills.

For small groups of autonomous learners, simply exploring the Metaverse and communicating using their chosen language can be the most effective thing. Spontaneity is a key aspect of language acquisition, and unexpected sights and sounds can encourage the further development of grammar, vocabulary, verbs and so forth. Chat and IM enable learners to use learning support such as verb engines, translation tools, dictionaries in their web browers or translaters such as Babbler in world - in a live environment that promotes intercultural understanding. Kate Borthwick and Ann Jeffery, 2007, http://preview.tinyurl.com/2wb8jk
Piccolo Mondo: Virtual worlds for language learning: a look at Second Life

However, you can never dispense of the teacher. The teacher can offer a curriculum to ensure continued progression of language skills, and can identify where other learning support is needed for difficult areas.