SIMiLLE

SIMiLLE

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…investigation of virtual world technologies to create meaningful contexts for learning a foreign language by addressing the students’ lack of cultural and social context….

SIMiLLE

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The team:Dr. Michael Gardner – Project Management & Best Practice John Scott – Design and Build Dr. Joy van Helvert – User needs Dr. Adela Ganem – Trials and evaluationProf. Chris Fowler – Pedagogical consultant

Language learning domain• Distance learning students unable to experience the cultural and social

immersion when learning a language • Enrich and control the cultural content for students already located in the

host environment • Non-verbal communication in the form of voice tone, facial expression, body

language and spatial positioning accounts for the majority (97%), of information exchanged in any social interaction

• Need to support:– High Quality, synchronous, communication. – Realistic settings and behaviours which provide contextual cues and sign

posts for meaningful discourse and interactions, and to support a ‘sense of presence and self’

– Reflection, Imitation and Practice where the learner has an opportunity to reflect on what is learnt and to take remedial action through further imitation and practice

– Personalised to support learners of different abilities, styles, and learning pace

– Transparent teaching so learners become less distracted by the mechanics of the teaching and more focussed on the learning process and content.

– Motivating through greater realism, autonomous interactions, and compelling scenarios.

Application scenario

• A multi faceted world/environment containing multiple resources for teachers to develop and refine their teaching scenarios to fit the needs of their students

• The emphasis is on supporting both teachers, in developing their learning scenarios, and students in navigating the tasks set by them

• Tools required:– Construction tools (activity templates, role templates, object

archives, examples, etc.) – Observation tools (visible/invisible presence, record and playback) – Tools to allow the development of signposts, cues, etc. – Assessment and diagnostic tools

• Formative evaluation/development: -> Dec 09• Summative trial/evaluation: Jan – Mar 10

SIMiLLE PLATFORM COURSE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

Object Library Virtual Worlds Teacher generatedreusable Activity Plans

1. generates or reuses existing Activity Plan2. may enhance world to support plan

Role and task descriptions

carries out activity accesses

contains

observes student activity

enhance

Student evidence:VW recordings,written reports etc.

Teacher

Student

gathers

assesses

SIMiLLE overview

SIMiLLE ImplementationENVIRONMENT A virtual environment with various pre defined

attributes that provide a backdrop for teachers to develop interaction SCENARIOS that meet the learning needs of their students.

SCENARIO A learning activity defined by teachers that takes

place within/utilises a SIMiLLE ENVIRONMENT

RESOURCES The objects and functionality available to

teachers for developing scenarios (e.g. cues & signposts)

ACTIVITY TYPE One of three kinds of learning orientation:

1) Information gathering; 2) Role play; 3) Reflection and discussion

Learning activity: Information gathering

• For example:– Pairs of students exploring a 3D world together,

making and discussing observations or gathering clues.

– The learning objectives and the details of the activity, such as clues, objects to be found or phenomena to be observed will be defined by the teacher.

Learning activity: Role Play• For example:

– The opportunity to explore one or more everyday life roles within the community, such as a customer (restaurant/ shop etc), waiter, shop keeper, shopper, librarian etc.

– Scenarios and roles will be defined by teachers for students in accordance with the appropriate learning objectives.

– Teachers may take part in the scenario assuming roles that challenge students to develop their language skills.

– Alternatively students may take turns in playing various roles within the teacher defined scenario or students with higher levels of competence may assume roles that facilitate both their own and lower level students’ language skills.

Learning activity: Reflection & Discussion

• For example:– The opportunity to replay interactions within the

world stimulating a critical evaluation of performance either personally or with others (peers and/or teacher).

– Such evaluations could be either spoken or written.

– The details of the activity (i.e what should be recorded and played back and the form of the evaluation) will be defined by the teacher.

SIMiLLE video (formative evaluation)

Implementation: Wonderland 0.5

• Cultural settings: University campus

SIMiLLE evaluation (1)Evaluation criteria and questions

Prac

tical

ity &

ac

cept

abili

ty Does SIMiLLE allow the implementation of the tasks satisfactorily?

Are the identified benefits of SIMiLLE greater than the identified drawbacks?

1 2 3 4 5

Training session was helpful.

Time allocated for training wassufficient.

Training documentation was helpful.

Training documentation was clear.

Ability to use the world independently,after training session.

1 2 3 4 5

Access SIMiLLE

See my avatar

Change my avatar's appearance

Walk my avatar

Run my avatar

Visit different places in SIMiLLE

Raise my avatar's hand

Sit my avatar down

Talk to other avatars

Write notes in-world

Search for information using a browser

Record my conversations in SIMiLLE

1 2 3 4 5

Ease in carrying out a role-play task inSIMiLLE

SIMiLLE was a good environment for thistype of task

SIMiLLE environment facilitated interactionto complete the task

Ease in writing notes in-world

Ease in searching for information in abrowser in-world

Overall SIMiLLE experience

Role-play works better face-to-face than ina virtual environment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q7ge1PyDbE


Prac

tical

ity &

ac

cept

abili



Is there a strong correspondence between the SIMiLLE tasks and the type of tasks learners carry out in non-pedagogical contexts?

Are learners able to see the connection between the SIMiLLE tasks and tasks they need to perform as part of their life in the UK?Au

then

ticity

1 2 3 4 5

Ease in carrying out a role-play task inSIMiLLE

SIMiLLE was a good environment for thistype of task

SIMiLLE environment facilitated interactionto complete the task

Ease in writing notes in-world

Ease in searching for information in abrowser in-world

Overall SIMiLLE experience

Role-play works better face-to-face than ina virtual environment.


Prac

tical

ity &

ac

cept

abili



Is there a strong correspondence between the SIMiLLE tasks and the type of tasks learners carry out in non-pedagogical contexts?

Are learners able to see the connection between the SIMiLLE tasks and tasks they need to perform as part of their life in the UK?

Lear

ner fi

t Are the SIMiLLE tasks appropriate for the learners, e.g. in relation to age, computer experience, needs?

Is the difficulty level of the SIMiLLE tasks appropriate for the learners to increase their L2 ability?

Auth

entic

ity


L2 le

arni

ng

pote

ntial

Do the SIMiLLE tasks provide opportunities for learners to achieve the target tasks and L2 learning objectives, e.g. in relation to interaction, collaboration, co-construction of knowledge, focus on form and meaning?

Do the learners have a positive learning experience with SIMiLLE?

Does SIMiLLE support / foster learner autonomy, e.g. learners are able to carry out the tasks independently, learners have control over resources, language, etc.?

Are there any distinctive characteristics of SIMiLLE which contribute to the positive – or otherwise – learning experience?

Impa

ct

• Collaboration, co-construction of cultural and linguistic knowledge, cultural awareness; • Motivation; • Listening, speaking, reading and writing in the L2; • Negotiation of meaning: they had opportunities to pose questions, make requests, ask for information, clarification, and practice functions such as agreeing and disagreeing; • Vocabulary

1 2 3 4 5

Being comfortable in the virtual environment

Ease of interaction in the virtual environment

Ease in conveying emotion in SIMiLLE

Overall experience in SIMiLLE

SIMiLLE as facilitator for interaction

Relevance of experience in SIMiLLE for L2learning

Frustration level in the virtual environment

Institutional and Practitioner Issues

• Management support• Information Systems Support• Integration into existing curriculum• Staff/student training and support• Client requirements eg. headsets, graphics, etc• Teaching templates eg. activity plan, role descriptions• Access to in-world content eg. 3D models, interactive

activity tools, etc• Integration with LMS eg. Moodle• Recording sessions, replay and reflection

Wonderland (0.5) implementation• Make use of Google Warehouse resources• Server deployment infrastructure (one world per server)• 15-20 concurrent users• Teacher configuration of SIMiLLE environment• Jumping between worlds (portal)• Recording and playback• Limited/no learner personalisation• In-world access privileges• Group collaboration tools• Good quality audio communication

SIMiLLE deliverables

• Wonderland implementation (Open Source)• Requirements document• Evaluation reports• Best practice guides• Papers and reports

• Ends April 2010

End

[email protected]

Documents

SIMiLLE