David:
I was excited to see your post on the educational potential of video games 
and Second Life in adult education. I have been interested in the 
educational aspects of video games, alternate reality games, and virtual 
worlds as an Instructional Technology student at the University of 
Virginia and in my work at the Virginia Adult Learning Resource Center in 
Richmond, VA. I also am a big fan of James Gee. 

First, I want to say at the outset that I see Second Life and video games 
as two very different things. While SL can be as immersive as a video 
game, it is fairly open-ended and user-controlled. A video game on the 
other hand is usually a closed, structured environment and, if it is any 
good, involves players in some kind of problem or mission. 

That said, I heartily agree with you that both video games and virtual 
worlds like SL have much to offer adult learners, and I think the field of 
adult education is a good place to explore their use as educational 
technologies. The possibilities are endless. I have imagined a spy-type 
video game for low literacy adults who have to "go undercover" by adopting 
a specific work/professional role to catch "bad guys" who have infiltrated 
a company or government organization. Players have to learn appropriate 
work skills--to blend in--as well as practice "decoding" word clues to 
uncover who the gad guys are and win the game. Or in SL,  manipulating 
floating letters into words, and words into sentences. When the 
words/sentences come together correctly, you hear them read. There is so 
much exciting stuff you can do. 

While these are exciting possibilities, there are also significant 
barriers to overcome. SL requires a high-end computer graphics card and 
pretty sophisticated computer skills, and designing an educationally 
specific video game can be an expensive affair. Still, I think these 
barriers will be less and less of a problem in the future.  And, as 
younger non-completers enter the adult education classroom, they are going 
to be more responsive to and comfortable with using these technologies to 
learn. 

We are very interested in using SL at the VALRC, and are looking into 
developing a presence there to serve both adult learners and adult ed 
professionals. Of course, we don't want to duplicate the efforts of 
others, so we would be very interested in talking to or working with other 
interested parties to make this happen. 


Richard Sebastian
Instructional Technology Specialist
eLEARN Virginia
http://www.elearnva.com
(877) 376-9433 toll free
(804) 828-7537



technology-request at nifl.gov 
Sent by: technology-bounces at nifl.gov
06/16/07 12:00 PM
Please respond to
technology at nifl.gov


To
technology at nifl.gov
cc

Subject
Technology Digest, Vol 21, Issue 14







------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 07:40:16 -0400
From: "David J. Rosen" <djrosen at comcast.net>
Subject: [Technology 1076]  A new vision for online learning
To: The Technology and Literacy Discussion List <technology at nifl.gov>
Message-ID: <FD4001A1-28F4-49CD-99A8-9F864F2E6DD3 at comcast.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed

Hello Nancy, Heidi, and others,

I have previously mentioned on this discussion list the book by James 
Gee,  _What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and 
Literacy_. Gee invites us to look at what we can learn from the most 
successful, and brilliantly designed, computer games about how to 
create classroom learning experiences.  I would like us to look at 
what video games have to teach us about _online_ learning for adults.

[Caution: this message contains vision.]

1. When you begin to play a video game you know it will be 
challenging, but it always begins at the easiest level and gradually, 
level by level, gets more difficult. Is this always true of online 
learning for adults?

2. Video games (Gee points out) usually have no written instruction 
manuals.  You are expected to learn how they work from playing them. 
They are designed that way. You _can_ learn how they work from 
playing them. Can students learn how an online course works just from 
taking it?

3.  In a video game you can take as little or as much time as you 
need to go through any level.  You can replay a level any time you 
want -- to strengthen your skills for the difficult challenges that 
you know lie ahead, or for fun.  In an online course, even an 
asynchronous one, you usually have to complete the assignment within 
the week.

4. In a video game you are rewarded each time you learn something, 
and at the end of each level.

Although Gee lists more principles I think you get the idea.  Gee 
learned these principles from studying video games. He describes them 
in detail throughout the book and conveniently lists them in the 
appendix. Examining typical classroom activities in light of these 
learning design principles, you realize that many students are 
disengaged with K-12 classes and drop out because the classes are so 
poorly designed as learning environments, whereas video games engage 
them. Most classes just cannot compete with video games, or many 
other engaging life learning experiences. As Mark Twain put it, "My 
whole life was an education, except of course for my years in school".

Of course, this kind of thinking may lead us back to the drawing 
board, to reconsider whether we should be offering online "classes" 
at all. The answer to the National Institute of Literacy's question 
about how much literacy is needed for online learning  might be "only 
very basic literacy skills" or even "no literacy skills are required" 
to participate in online learning if reading and writing could be 
learned entirely through playing an online video game.

Some of you are chuckling at the very notion. Consider however Second 
Life, the online environment where those with low-level reading 
skills can even now learn how to do many things without reading. 
Suppose users could have Second Life signs, notices, billboards, 
letters, e-mail and other written documents -- or parts of these -- 
read out loud if they wished, for example when they got stuck on a 
word. Suppose they could attend completely asynchronous reading 
improvement groups when and if they wanted to in an online learning 
center, reading groups which took advantage of computerized 
assessment features. In a large-scale, online reading group 
environment, people could be assigned to a reading group with those 
who had their interests, and same reading level. There could, of 
course, be scheduled real-time discussions for those who wanted them.

I learned recently that some people with physical disabilities (who 
describe themselves as "differently abled")  are active in Second 
Life.  Like everyone else there, they can choose who they want to be, 
can pick or design their own avatar (a mobile, animated icon that is 
"who you are" in Second Life) but also -- for the first time -- they 
can walk, run, even fly. One physically disabled user said that this 
mobility is liberating. Could Second Life be "liberating" for low- 
literate adults?

Where am I going with this vision?

The National Institute for Literacy, and/or other public and private 
funders should invest in creating an online environment -- perhaps 
build a learning center island on Second Life -- where adults, 
including young adults, -- can improve their reading, writing and 
numeracy skills in an interactive, online environment. This would be 
a bold step.  There is nothing like this now -- although I understand 
a new GED center has just opened on Second Life and there is a 
massive center being built there for post-secondary education.

Suppose participants learned to improve their reading, writing and 
numeracy skills as they were doing other things, and that the 
"scaffolding" was there to support literacy improvement. Perhaps the 
U.S. and Canada could co-invest in a Second Life adult learning 
environment where adults could go to pursue some compelling learning 
goals, and could -- at the same time -- get the assists they needed 
to improve their reading, writing and numeracy skills, not 
necessarily through online classes, but as they learned construction 
skills, learned to maintain a computer, improved their bowling 
skills, learned to fully use the features of a new mobile phone, or 
some other personal goal or objective.

Such an environment, originally designed for English users or English 
language learners, might be adapted for learning other languages as 
well.  It might become a world literacy learning environment.

David J. Rosen
djrosen at comcast.net





------------------------------

----------------------------------------------------
National Institute for Literacy
Technology and Literacy mailing list
Technology at nifl.gov
To unsubscribe or change your subscription settings, please go to 
http://www.nifl.gov/mailman/listinfo/technology

End of Technology Digest, Vol 21, Issue 14
******************************************

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.nifl.gov/pipermail/technology/attachments/20070620/7088da5b/attachment.html