English Course in Second Life
Article Review
Bump, J. (2007). Teaching English in Second Life. Retrieved Apri 5th, 2008, from http://currents.cwrl.utexas.edu/spring07/bump
The title of this article, Teaching English in Second Life, caught my attention immediately. I have sporadically read some articles about Second Life (SL). However, in my impression, there is little research on SL and English teaching/learning. As I mentioned somewhere else, I made a mistake by taking SL as a game at the very beginning. Later, I knew SL is a virtual learning environment instead of a game. I have had a Second Life (SL) account and roamed in SL before. I also observed one middle school boy wander around Teen Second Life. If there is no special forum or project dedicated to English learning/teaching, English learning opportunities may mainly remain in reading English in directions and writing English in text messages. So, I’m very interested in this article when I saw the topic.
The article mainly focuses on a research project on introducing SL to a two-semester freshman English course at the University of Texas at Austin’s Computer Writing and Research Lab (CWRL). Dr. Bump mentions that his students in his rhetorics of cyberculture course are required to be involved in a virtual community, for example, SL and later to write research reports on their virtual experience. The virtual environments turned to be a good place for students to do their “semi-ethnographic research.” Dr. Bump adds that the students wrote about their experiences exploring SL thought they did not write in SL. The students’ writing experience in this course laid the foundations for the project at CWRL. Thus, writing is geared to a pioneering area of writing pedagogy: “exploring the cyberculture of a particular virtual community.” Dr. Bump stresses that one innovative goal of CWRL SL project was to “re-integrate aspects of print literacy” in the virtual world.
One course assignment about social interaction was the most successful in SL. All students were assigned for different locations on the island in SL to discuss their topics for the assignment. The student survey reflected that most students had positive response to their discussion experience in SL. For example, 84% found the discussion in SL was engaging and 67% agreed that it was a good learning experience. Meanwhile, some disadvantages existing in text-based chats, for instance, “the loss of coherence,” “the loss of voice communication,” and so on, were also reported. In another assignment of constructing buildings in SL, all students agreed that their “awareness of campus architecture has increased” after finishing the assignment. On the one hand, the students’ response to the virtual campus of their university in SL was very optimistically consistent; on the other hand, their feedback to writing in SL was controversial. The students’ positive feedback to the idea of integrating SL in a literature and writing course dropped from 56% in the first semester to 6% during the second semester. In analysis, Dr. Bump states that the students did not accept the notion that “writing” in SL includes “visual as well as verbal rhetoric.” According to Dr. Bump, SL seems to be not only “basically nonverbal, but even antiverbal.” So, the students felt they could not improve their writing skills when they were in “a world of very few words.”
In closing the article, Dr. Bump restates “advocates of online literacy may well have to rescue and re-integrate aspects of print literacy.” Also, he cites Richard Lanham’s words, saying “we can neither preserve the educational system unchanged nor throw out the ‘literate’ ways of thinking. We have, in some way, to move the humanities from the old to the new operation system.”
This CWRL SL project demonstrates the potential of SL in the English writing course. SL provides a virtual environment for students to be engaged in some certain tasks, especially those focusing on social interaction. However, SL per se cannot enhance English writing due to lack of verbal input in SL. As Dr. Bump suggests, one solution is to ask students to write about SL since they do not write in SL. Also, Dr. Bump emphasizes the essentiality of integrating print literacy in new literacy. Undoubtedly, our time has seen a dramatic evolution of the “old page” to the “new page” (Kress, 2003). As Short, Harste & Burke (1998) argues accepting a new alternative does not mean devaluing the contribution of one’s current or past beliefs (as cited in Albers, 2006, p. 76), our attitudes towards reading the “old page” and the “new page” should be embracing both rather than either this or that. Though the ability of screen reading is important, the value of traditional reading should not be diminished. The further research should examine if connecting virtual environment to real life can optimize learning process.
References
Albers, P. (2006). Imagining the possibilities in multimodal curriculum design. English Education, 38(2), 75-101.
Kress, G. (2003). Literacy in the new media age. New York: Routledge.
Lanham, R. A. (1993). The Electronic Word: Democracy, Technology, and the Arts. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Short, K., Harste, J. C., & Burke, C. (1996). Creating classrooms for authors and inquires. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Bump, J. (2007). Teaching English in Second Life. Retrieved Apri 5th, 2008, from http://currents.cwrl.utexas.edu/spring07/bump
The title of this article, Teaching English in Second Life, caught my attention immediately. I have sporadically read some articles about Second Life (SL). However, in my impression, there is little research on SL and English teaching/learning. As I mentioned somewhere else, I made a mistake by taking SL as a game at the very beginning. Later, I knew SL is a virtual learning environment instead of a game. I have had a Second Life (SL) account and roamed in SL before. I also observed one middle school boy wander around Teen Second Life. If there is no special forum or project dedicated to English learning/teaching, English learning opportunities may mainly remain in reading English in directions and writing English in text messages. So, I’m very interested in this article when I saw the topic.
The article mainly focuses on a research project on introducing SL to a two-semester freshman English course at the University of Texas at Austin’s Computer Writing and Research Lab (CWRL). Dr. Bump mentions that his students in his rhetorics of cyberculture course are required to be involved in a virtual community, for example, SL and later to write research reports on their virtual experience. The virtual environments turned to be a good place for students to do their “semi-ethnographic research.” Dr. Bump adds that the students wrote about their experiences exploring SL thought they did not write in SL. The students’ writing experience in this course laid the foundations for the project at CWRL. Thus, writing is geared to a pioneering area of writing pedagogy: “exploring the cyberculture of a particular virtual community.” Dr. Bump stresses that one innovative goal of CWRL SL project was to “re-integrate aspects of print literacy” in the virtual world.
One course assignment about social interaction was the most successful in SL. All students were assigned for different locations on the island in SL to discuss their topics for the assignment. The student survey reflected that most students had positive response to their discussion experience in SL. For example, 84% found the discussion in SL was engaging and 67% agreed that it was a good learning experience. Meanwhile, some disadvantages existing in text-based chats, for instance, “the loss of coherence,” “the loss of voice communication,” and so on, were also reported. In another assignment of constructing buildings in SL, all students agreed that their “awareness of campus architecture has increased” after finishing the assignment. On the one hand, the students’ response to the virtual campus of their university in SL was very optimistically consistent; on the other hand, their feedback to writing in SL was controversial. The students’ positive feedback to the idea of integrating SL in a literature and writing course dropped from 56% in the first semester to 6% during the second semester. In analysis, Dr. Bump states that the students did not accept the notion that “writing” in SL includes “visual as well as verbal rhetoric.” According to Dr. Bump, SL seems to be not only “basically nonverbal, but even antiverbal.” So, the students felt they could not improve their writing skills when they were in “a world of very few words.”
In closing the article, Dr. Bump restates “advocates of online literacy may well have to rescue and re-integrate aspects of print literacy.” Also, he cites Richard Lanham’s words, saying “we can neither preserve the educational system unchanged nor throw out the ‘literate’ ways of thinking. We have, in some way, to move the humanities from the old to the new operation system.”
This CWRL SL project demonstrates the potential of SL in the English writing course. SL provides a virtual environment for students to be engaged in some certain tasks, especially those focusing on social interaction. However, SL per se cannot enhance English writing due to lack of verbal input in SL. As Dr. Bump suggests, one solution is to ask students to write about SL since they do not write in SL. Also, Dr. Bump emphasizes the essentiality of integrating print literacy in new literacy. Undoubtedly, our time has seen a dramatic evolution of the “old page” to the “new page” (Kress, 2003). As Short, Harste & Burke (1998) argues accepting a new alternative does not mean devaluing the contribution of one’s current or past beliefs (as cited in Albers, 2006, p. 76), our attitudes towards reading the “old page” and the “new page” should be embracing both rather than either this or that. Though the ability of screen reading is important, the value of traditional reading should not be diminished. The further research should examine if connecting virtual environment to real life can optimize learning process.
References
Albers, P. (2006). Imagining the possibilities in multimodal curriculum design. English Education, 38(2), 75-101.
Kress, G. (2003). Literacy in the new media age. New York: Routledge.
Lanham, R. A. (1993). The Electronic Word: Democracy, Technology, and the Arts. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Short, K., Harste, J. C., & Burke, C. (1996). Creating classrooms for authors and inquires. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
posted by Zhuo(Joel) Li at
5:19 PM
2 Comments:
Hey Zhuo,
I have been posting about the uses of Second Life in education as well and this class as an example demonstrates the infant stages of application purposes for simulations. Its interesting to see students felt that Second Life promotes a positive learning experience for social discussion and spacial recognition of environments but not in printed writing for assignments.
It appears as though there is still a need for trial and error application of simulations such as Second Life to succeed in classroom subjects to discovery the appropriate discourse of implementation. However, this represents a good start and invaluable research point for other classroom designs.
By
Ben Emihovich, at 6:44 PM
Hi Zhuo,
As I read your posting a thought came to mind about the type of writing the students are primarily doing if they are writing about their experiences in SL. It seems it would be mainly narrative with lots of descriptive. I wonder it this would be confining for some students instead of increasing their creativity.
This is a creative way to use SL. Thanks for sharing this article.
:) Garnette
By
Garnette Knapp, at 12:59 AM
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