All posts by Dan

This site is about me, so a bio is probably not necessary.

VR Education……….just ignore that stuff from the 2000s

Lawnmower Man was the beginning of my journey into the use of VR for education. That one didn’t end so well 🙂

Since then, VR has gone through a few hype-cycles, each time ending up in disappointment and disuse. However, each iteration brings graphics and experiences (and expectations) that blow away the previous versions and do so in smaller and (arguably) cheaper boxes.

The most recent iteration is a two-pronged focus. Dedicated VR boxes (similar to gaming boxes) with headsets are doing amazing things with realistic graphics and the processing power required to reach realistic virtual experiences. Some of these are Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and PlayStation VR. The second prong is mobile-based VR. This seems to be the stronger of the two at this point, most likely due to the lower cost of entry for consumers and the portable nature of the hardware. On the low end, Google Cardboard (or other viewers based on the Cardboard standard) can be found for as little as $5. These enable users to experience VR, but do so without many bells and whistles, and they can be used on most modern smartphones. The only “button” on cardboard devices is a chooser button on the top of the viewer. On the slightly higher end, but still rather inexpensive are viewers like the Samsung Gear VR and the relatively new Google Daydream VR. The Gear VR has been around for a couple years. It connects to your smartphone via bluetooth and includes buttons for volume, directionality (to a limited degree), selection, and focus. These types of headsets tend to fit better and block out more outside light for better viewing.

Apps for both of these types of VR hardware tend to be similar. Games rule the roost as they are immersive and engaging. There are many good games, but most are little more than a 180 degree view of action and not true 360 or spherical. I’m guessing this is due to both processor power and cost of development. In addition to games, 360 degree video and images are also popular. 360 videos are of the fly-through variety. This is wonderful for experiencing the natural wonders of the Grand Canyon or the excitement of Rio’s Carnival, but there is little to no engagement. 360 images, on the other hand, with hotspots for linking to extra information take the museum approach. Think Google Street View inside a museum, a city, and so forth. These are not video but rather single pictures with a 360 degree view or a series of pictures (stations) as in the museum example. At least one YouTuber (LearnEnglishInVR — was LinguaPractica) has put these together by recording and narrating the view around rooms to listen to and identify objects for English language learning.

Aside from a few projects here and there, there are vary few examples of using these VR options for language learning. This is an ongoing problem with educational software. There have been many new technologies over the years with great potential for education, but little development. In the end, cost seems to be the biggest barrier. Not just the cost of development, but the lack of a return on that investment. For example, the cost of developing a game might be high, but imagine if that game was only a one or two week lesson in school. Then, imagine providing 30-40 weeks of instruction. The difficulty of development and the cost to do so would be staggering. And, in the end, who will be able to pay for that? Will you recoup your costs? It’s unlikely. Billions of dollars are spent on educational technology, but much of that is not for the provision of content, but rather the management of students. So, what does this mean for those interested in using VR for language learning?

Teachers have been re-purposing materials for use in classes since the beginning of education. The use of video games for learning over the years have mainly taken the form of entertain games for the purpose of education. For example, how could League of Legends be used for language learning? Turn the settings to English and try to engage English speakers in the game. These games weren’t make for language learning, but they have been used for such. For most teachers, VR will be the same (at least in the near future). Virtual visits to sites and events through 360 images and video are already used by many teachers (see Google Expeditions) and I’m sure some are using available games to accomplish their goals.

However, like many recent technologies, VR will not be widely used by teachers until easy-to-use authoring tools are available. The better and easier (and cheaper) authoring tools become, the more teachers, students, and anyone interested can develop their own VR materials. The lower the barrier of entry, the easier this becomes. Some services are already available for 360 images (not yet video), such as ThinkLink. When authoring systems like this become accessible to teachers, you will see many materials developed for classes.

I hope to be discussing this topic more in the near future. I have been interested in virtual worlds for language learning since getting involved in MUDs and MOOs in graduate school, but particularly so when discovering SecondLife. Wikipedia has a good page on virtual world language learning. Now that Linden Labs (creator of SecondLife) is launching a new virtual world built for VR hardware called Sansar, I have to say that I’m getting excited again. However, I’m afraid we may just be seeing history repeat itself. SecondLife was(is) great, but usage completely crashed. The public lost interest even with a substantial amount of investment initially heading there. To have a GOOD experience, users needed a high-end computer and fast connection. Most went in with less and the experience wasn’t very good. Even these days, I have problems accessing it from a work computer with a nice processor, but only a built-in graphics. I only have one computer that will play it and it’s the one I built with my son for PC gaming ($$$). Let’s see what this year brings.

NoRedInk for offloading grammar diagnostics, instruction, and practice

2016 KOTESOL International Conference

Davis Ellis and I presented on our experience using NoRedInk with our academic English writing courses in the English Education department at a university in Seoul, South Korea. Our experiences, as well as the students’ experiences, were overall very good. The presentation provides suggestions for future implementations and one sincere desire to have access to the paid version of the site (still waiting on that one).

Abstract
This study investigated the use of NoRedInk, an online adaptive learning system with a focus on English grammar, by students in a first year writing course in an English Education program at a mid-sized university in Seoul, South Korea. It was noted that students in this course made a broad variety of grammar errors in their writing, which made addressing grammar topics during class time difficult. Previous instructional interventions had been both scattershot and time consuming. The extracurricular use of NoRedInk was seen as a way to address multiple challenges: class time, diagnostics, instruction, and practice. The questions this study addressed were: (1) how did students perceive the implementation of NoRedInk, and (2) did the use of NoRedInk correspond with a reduction of specific grammar errors in student writing. To answer these questions, data—end of course survey/interviews, NoRedInk reports, and student writing pre-/post-intervention assessments—were collected and analyzed. Survey data were analyzed to identify patterns to student perceptions and feedback, with follow-up interviews to further confirm and explore. Data from NoRedInk and the pre-/post-intervention writing assessments were analyzed for change in error rate as correlated with NoRedInk usage and performance. This presentation will detail the implementation of NoRedInk and the subsequent findings regarding student perceptions and performance.

Korean Flipped Writing Classes: Learning from Doing

Wall Flip, by JB London

2015 KAMALL-GLoCALL International Conference

Abstract:
Flipped learning approaches are being eyed for their potential to improve learning through reorganizing both the classroom and homework experience. Front-loading content and lower-order thinking activities normally provided during class time can free time during class to focus more on higher-order thinking activities. The purpose of this action research was to evaluate the flipped classroom model as implemented in an academic writing class at a Korean university and to use insights from student performance, student perceptions, and applied practice to revise instructional design. This action research was conducted with 137 students over two semesters of an academic English writing course. Data were collected through course assignments, end-of-course surveys, and student interviews. Findings indicate overall approval for aspects of the flipped classroom approach, including the use of instructional video and the focus on higher-order thinking activities during class. However, aspects of instructional methodology and content development were seen to be in need of modification and reconsideration. These findings will benefit teachers who are struggling to develop writing courses in a similar context.

PPT File (2015 KAMALL-GLoCALL_Korean Flipped Writing Classes)

 

The Moth – The Tyranny of the 10-Speed Bike

I first listened to this on the Moth podcast. It really stopped me in my tracks. This wasn’t because it was a new concept, but rather that is was such a great metaphor. I encourage you to listen to this story and I hope that you take away something from it as I did.

ALAK 2014 CALL Fair – Screencasting Apps Evaluation

Free Screencasting Web Apps and Software for the Creation of Flipped Classroom Video Lectures (ppt)

This is an extension of the presentation that I did the previous week at KAMALL. I evaluated a number of different Screencasting (and presentationcasting) PC, mobile, and Web tools. It was interesting to see what they were all capable of. My favorite is still Screencast-O-Matic, but I may upgrade to Camtasia in near future (Christmas present to myself?). Check out the PPT (above) for more information.

 

Add some of your own reviews of screencasting apps using this form. I’ll try to update the form itself based on feedback.

KAMALL 2014 – Challenges and Opportunities in a Flipped Writing Classroom

I was happy to present on my attempt to “flip” my writing class last semester.  This presentation was really a preliminary look at the data, but the more I looked, the more interesting it became. This is the type of design-based research that both informs technology and practice.

Dan in Video Lecture

Challenges and Opportunities in a Flipped Writing Classroom (PPT)

Abstract:

This study evaluates the implementation of a Flipped Classroom approach in two academic English writing courses at a Korean university. The Flipped Classroom approach inverts a traditional class design with students viewing lectures at home and doing homework in class. It was developed in response to a perceived lack of classroom time for engagement and an increase in access to computer and Internet technologies.

Two writing courses for 67 English majors at a Korean university were flipped with the intention of reducing lecture time and increasing students’ discussion of and engagement with writing concepts and practice during class time. Instruction was designed to match these goals. For each major topic, students watched a video and took an online quiz to assess their recall of ideas from the video lecture prior to attending class. In class, students were given time to ask questions about the lectures and assignments. They were then asked to do class activities that encouraged them to come to a deeper understand of the course content. These activities included worksheets, a range of group activities, self- and peer-review of essays, and writing.

PowerPoint presentations were created for major topics in the course (7 total). From these presentations, video lectures were created. Four different screencasting programs were used (Movenote, ActivePresenter, knovio, and Present.me) in order to evaluate which of the programs best fit the development needs of the instructor and the viewing preferences of the students.

This research was conducted as a type of action research (Lewin, 1946). The researcher was also the lecturer for the two writing courses. As such, the focus of the research was to better understand and improve on the instructional design of the course.  To accomplish this, data were collected from numerous sources, including quizzes, one-on-one and whole class interactions, a research journal, and student survey responses. Preliminary findings will be presented in three categories: student perceptions, teacher perceptions, and instructional design.

Based on student and teacher experiences, the there are a number of instructional design changes that will take place in future classes. Videos will be shorter. This will be accomplished by making more videos that focus on fewer elements in each. Quizzes remain a good way to encourage students to watch the video lectures and to assess their understanding of the content prior to coming to class. It is clear, however, that a better way to push students to both view the videos and take the quizzes is needed. Lastly, more/better activities need to be developed for classes. In particular, I found that we had too few writing samples, too few opportunities to correct negative examples, and too few opportunities to write for the instructional objectives of the day.

http://tinyurl.com/kamall2014flip (PPT – Google Docs)

Preparing Teachers to Teach Listening

Ian Britton
Ian Britton
http://www.freefoto.com/images/9910/12/9910_12_2253—Stop-Look-Listen-Sign_web.jpg

In my last post (Discovering Field’s Diagnostic Listening Instruction) I explained how I am approaching listening instruction with both a listening class and a teaching listening class using Field’s Diagnostic Listening Instruction.  In this post, I want to focus on what I do with the Teaching Listening class.  I’ll include a good deal of the materials as well as some design tensions that have arisen in the past and how I’m trying to deal with them now.

My main goal is to focus students on modifying texts (audio) and tasks to best assess for gaps in listening skills and to provide skills training to fill those gaps.  In doing so, we focus largely on Field’s Decoding and Meaning-Building Processes.

Chapters 2-4 discuss beginning, intermediate, and advanced level learners (in addition to other topics mixed into each chapter).  These chapters provide for a good launching off point in the discussion of text & task modification for diverse learners.  Students in the class have to consider learner abilities at each level (ACTFL Guidelines are a helpful framework).  They then have to analyze texts (audio) for potential difficulties that learners may encounter.  Doing this for imaginary learners is less than ideal, but this lack of authenticity is address later in the course (see below).  These analyses then inform how the texts and tasks are implemented in instruction.

The activities/lessons that arise out of these activities are rather predictable.  Students tend to focus on aspects of background knowledge, vocabulary, speaker dialect and speed, number of speakers, background noise, and so forth.  This is when the students usually have to be pushed to refer to the decoding and meaning-building processes.  This takes them out of their comfort zone (based on their own learning experiences) and requires them to think about a wide range of processes that inform listening.  Follow-up assignments that required referencing the processes list tend to show a greater variety of modifications and task-types.

Take the following example.  You have a group of largely low-level English language learners.  Through initial assessments of their listening comprehension, you have found that many are unable to distinguish certain phonemes, they have difficulty finding word boundaries (isolating individual words in multiword utterances), and they have difficulty understanding many dialects that differ noticeably from the North American dialects that they have grown used to.

Knowing this about the learners, you have to choose appropriate texts and tasks to address these gaps.  While you certainly can address more than one at a time, it might be helpful here to isolate our learning objectives.  Let’s take the word boundaries issue first.   We should be addressing this specific performance gap and the processes that can help: stress-timed rhythm, stressed and unstressed words (content vs. function), pronunciation of unstressed syllables, common features of connected speech (linking, blending, elision, etc.), and so forth.

Text: Given the objective, the focus should be more on listening to each word.  In order to do this, it would probably be best for the text to be naturally spoken by a familiar speaker (teacher) or in a familiar dialect.  The text should feature content and vocabulary/expressions that learners are largely familiar with.

Task: The task is focused on these listening processes.  Teachers can explicitly teach some aspects like the features of stress-timed rhythm or these aspects can be gleaned by exposure to the language (likely mixed with some guidance by the teacher).  The tasks, however, should be focused an a particular learning objective.  For stress-timed rhythm, students can be asked to mark all of the stressed words in phrases, sentences, or paragraphs.  That task can then quickly move into a discussion about the primacy of syllables over words in listening and pronunciation.  This then leads into discussion/tasks on the pronunciation and identification of unstressed words and syllables.  This can (and should) continue until each of the learning objectives have been addressed.

These tasks are good at focusing learners on modification and role that student variables play in instructional design. However, this is largely an empty academic task.  This year, I have the good fortune to be able to offer a little more authenticity.  Learners in the Teaching Listening class will be developing lessons for actual listening classes offered by the university and taught by me.  This is the first semester that the course has been offered and I was asked to design and implement it.  I decided to eat my own dog food and attempt to apply the principles of a diagnostic listening approach to the course (I’ll write more about that experience later).  In addition, I realized that this could be a great opportunity for the English Education students to design instruction for real learners.

This semester, the Teaching Listening students will spend much of the second half of the semester developing instruction that I will implement in my classes.  The plan is to have small groups be responsible for developing lessons that address common listening problems as diagnosed by the listening class’s midterm exam.  The students will be given access to anonymized testing and assessment data, which will guide their lesson development.  Lessons (with all materials) will be submitted to me and if I think that they would benefit the listening class, I’ll teach those materials.  I’m even considering having the English Education students run the instruction, but I’m not so sure that I’ll do that.  Anyone want to convince me either way?

That’s about it for the overview.  See below for a bunch of materials related to the class.

PowerPoints that I use in the course. The chapter presentations do contain some information and  resources not in the book.

Other course materials:

 

 

Discovering Field’s Diagnostic Listening Instruction

Photo by garageolimpo
Photo by garageolimpo

When I was first given a class on teaching listening, I scoured the bookstores for a textbook.  It was at that point I realized just how little respect listening instruction receives in publication.  There are a handful of books that cover a mix of speaking and listening, including a well-respected book by Paul Nation, Teaching ESL/EFL Listening and Speaking. Most of these books short change listening, though Nation treats it better than most.  A class dedicated to the practice of teaching listening shouldn’t have to share a text with speaking instruction.  A focused class deserves a focused text.

I finally found John Field’s book, Listening in the Language Classroom.  Field’s book is an amazing take on listening instruction.  He promotes using a “diagnostic approach” to listening instruction, which he contrasts with what he refers to as a “comprehension approach.”  This changed the way that I approached language instruction and the preparation of teachers who will have to do the same. I was one of the many who treated listening as a kind of solitary unit that learners either got or didn’t get. I never thought thought about WHY they had difficulties understanding past the obvious (and overly emphasized) issues of speed and vocabulary.

I was excited to use this with my students at the time and did so in that first semester.  It was one of the biggest disasters of my teaching career.  I rightfully had high expectations for the students in the class (all English Education majors), but I so completely misjudged the difficulty of the text.  It was a rookie mistake and both the students and I suffered for it.  I ended up sidelining the book and created outlines and presentations for the students to read/listen to instead (those outlines can be found on this Posterous site until the service closes down on April 30, 2013).  While that experience soured me on using Field’s book with my students, it did nothing to dissuade me from using his ideas with future classes.

I now try to integrate Field’s concepts and approach to instruction with a much easier, accessible text for learners in my classes (Practical English Language Teaching: Listening).  This series of books is written to be as accessible as possible to novice learners in the field of TESOL.  The “Listening” book is no exception.  In the past, I’ve spread the book out over the duration of a semester while sprinkling in concepts from the Field book to add depth.

This semester I’m trying something new.  The first 4 chapters will be done primarily as self-study, while I put more of a focus on Field’s concepts and the application of those concepts with different groups of learners (in parallel with chapters 2-4 in the PELT: Listening text).  The second half of the semester students will primarily be developing lessons for two listening courses taught at the university, with a focus on diagnosing student problems and implementing instructional interventions that address these weaknesses.  I’m quite excited about this partnership and a little nervous as well.

I’ll be following up here on this project throughout the semester, discussing the challenges and, hopefully, successes throughout.

 

I’d love to hear any thoughts that you have.  What experiences have you had with teaching listening or with teaching teachers how to to teach listening (that’s a mouthful)?  Anything I should look out for? Anything I should try?  Any great lessons that go beyond simple comprehension?

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