Five Video Games for ESL and Language Development

Kathy Sargent, outgoing editor for TechEdge, (who is a great editor and has done a remarkable job over the years as Director of Communications for TCEA) recently accepted my article on “Virtual ESL” for the next issue. This post expands on the article with games suitable for ESL and the ongoing development of English skills. Certain video games are particularly well-suited to language acquisition and development, a point I made here a couple years ago. There is a heavy dollop of personal opinion in the assertions below, and I welcome dissenting views. Some of these suggestions are relatively expensive, some are free, and all but one are available online.

1. Second Life
   Second Life has a long history of educational adaptation, and the idea of using the environment for ESL purposes was adopted early. Like many efforts with no external motivations however, some formal ESL initiatives have fizzled over time. One still going strong is the Second Life English Community. Founder Kip Boahn had a nice article profiling his work in Forbes a while back. Players from almost 100 different countries regularly gather for such online ESL activities as phonetic treasure hunts through SLEC.

   The global reach, open nature, and ease of use offered by SL, (not to mention the fact it’s free), have helped academics around the world key in to the platform for language training. Since avatars can type or talk over a simple computer connection, engaging native speakers in an interesting 3D environment that is not overly taxing to most hardware results in an ideal environment for language learning.
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2. World of Warcraft.
   Of the millions of players frequenting the popular MMORPG, you might be surprised to learn there are some engaged in educational activities amidst all that medieval fantasy action. The most famous group devoted to exploring pedagogy in WoW is the guild Cognitive Dissonance, run by Lucas Gillespie and Peggy Sheehy. Lucas’ blog EduRealms follows his educational efforts in the game.

   It is very easy to start up groups and guilds in WoW, and while Asian gold farmers have annoyed North American players in the past, Dr. Edd Schneider over at SUNY-Potsdam gained considerable attention in 2007 for suggesting WoW was a promising platform for ESL in Asia, provided stateside supervised guidance was included.
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3. My Word Coach
   Although available for the Wii, the DS version of My Word Coach offers players an easier time writing, with its included stylus and touch screen. Plus, the “DS factor” makes it more portable and affordable for classroom or after-school use. It’s not promoted as an ESL product, but the vocabulary training couched in a gaming environment works just as well for non-native speakers.
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4. Webkinz
   The popular children’s game tied to collectible plush dolls offers a restricted communications feature. “Kinz chat” uses basic sentence elements for players to communicate. While Webkinz probably is not suitable to older ESL students, for the younger crowd it offers a fun and relatively painless way to introduce English. It’s also offered in 12 other languages, so gamers can play in their native tongue as well as the Queen’s.
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5. Whyville
   Whyville is the free online world designed for children learning, and it has an impressive pedigree with corporate and government sponsorship stretching back several years. Although its strengths lie in STEM games and activities, one of the key features of Whyville appealing to teachers is the sanitized chat feature where cursing is automatically edited out.

In the process of investigating the many mini-games out there, a couple of nifty titles rose to the top. The advantages to using online mini-games for ESL include the fact that teacher supervision is not as heavily needed as it is for the above examples. On the other hand, mini-games typically focus on a much narrower skill set, and kids may tire of them quickly.

A couple of my favorites in the mini-game category included Word Frog, which is a neat way to drill antonyms and such, ala Number Crunchers. I also enjoyed Grammar Ninja,which drills identifying parts of speech in a playful way.

Rural Broadband, Tech Trends 2008, & TCEA 09

Kathy Sargent, editor of TechEdge, the journal for the Texas Computer Education Association, featured my article “Rural Broadband: High Speed Access Outside the Country School” on the cover of the Fall 08 issue. The cover shot is really interesting, showing a fellow sitting cross legged in the middle of a rural highway, working on a laptop. A nice thing about being published by TCEA, they make my words look good.

I was browsing through the online archives today and found my article from the Spring issue, “Tech Trends 2008.” That’s worth a read for an informal survey of education and industry leaders to capture their thoughts toward trends in education, including some folks heavily involved in educational video games. Click here for the PDF (large file warning).

Now is a good time to remind readers of TCEA 2009, which will happen the first week of Feb. I’ll be involved in two sessions, participating in a round-robin discussion on gaming with Lee Wilson in one and presenting on educational gaming in another.

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A Presentation in Huntsville

I’ve been invited to present on classroom video games at the ESC 6 Educational Technology Conference in Huntsville, TX in November. In years gone by the ESC 6 conference was quite big, and usually held on the campus of Texas A&M University. It seems the state conference came to overshadow it and other regionals as the state conference grew gargantuan in size. Alas, in recent years teachers have tended to focus exclusively on TAKS (the state exams) after Christmas, causing many core teachers to miss the big TCEA Conference in February (or at least not go all 4 days). Now these regional conferences are gaining in popularity, especially for teachers who can’t get to Austin in February. I think they’re also good for vendors who are looking to target teachers and administrators directly. So, if you’re in the Huntsville area north of Houston next month, drop by the conference. More details here.

Third in ‘Programmed to Learn’ Series Published by CSTA

The third part of my article, “Programmed to Learn,” has been published in the latest issue of the CSTA Voice, the Computer Science Teachers Association’s quarterly publication. I wrote a while back about CSTA picking up the article, which first ran in TCEA’s publication, TechEdge. One nice thing about it appearing in CSTA Voice: every issue is online. The article appears in Vol. 3, issue 4; Vol. 4, issue 1; and Vol. 4 issue 2. All are available here.

Panel Discussion and Presentation at TCEA 2009

As noted earlier, I’ve been invited to participate in a panel discussion on educational gaming at TCEA 2009 in February. This will be similar to the panel discussion I was on at FETC earlier this year, and promises to be an interesting time.

The TCEA folks also invited me to present on educational gaming, and so I’ll speak on a topic thread based on everything teachers want to know about educational video games but are afraid to ask. I’m looking forward to TCEA’s 29th annual convention in Austin, and hope to report more on it as the date draws near. TCEA remains one of the premier ed tech conventions in the country, drawing in thousands of educators and most major vendors.

Educational Games to be a Focus of TCEA 2009

I was asked recently by the folks over at the Texas Computer Education Association to serve on a panel discussion about educational videogames at TCEA 2009. This proves to be similar to the one I was involved with at FETC 2008, to which Lee Wilson invited me. With educational gaming being a focus at the conference, TCEA 2009 is shaping up to be extremely interesting.

A New Chapter Book on Virtual Learning

I opened the mail the other day and found a new book I’ve been expecting: Virtual Reality: Concepts and Applications, edited by Pramod Rao and Sameer A. Zodgekar. Way back in July last year, I noted that the Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts of India University Press picked up an article of mine, “The (Virtual) Classroom of Tomorrow” that originally ran in TechEdge. The article focuses on the educational aspects of Active Worlds, Second Life and Dr. Greg Jones’ Created Reality Group classrooms.

The book is divided into two sections, Concepts and Applications. My article leads off the applications section, which also has several other fine chapters. Find the complete table of contents here. If you’re in the states, and you don’t mind waiting for overseas delivery, the book is only $16.50.

CSTA Publishes Educational Game Programming Article

I opened the mail today to find the latest issue of CSTA Voice, a quarterly for members of the Computer Science Teachers Association. Late last year Dr. Chris Stephenson, Executive Director of CSTA, and Pat Phillips, Editor of CSTA Voice, arranged to reprint my article, “Programmed to Learn.” The article focuses on using Logo, Scratch, and Alice for teaching STEM topics. The article first appeared in TechEdge, the journal of the Texas Computer Education Association. The article will be printed in three parts in CSTA Voice.

The Computer Science Teachers Association is funded in part by the National Science Foundation. Below is the introductory paragraph from their website, explaining their raison d’être:

The Computer Science Teachers Association is a membership organization that supports and promotes the teaching of computer science and other computing disciplines. CSTA provides opportunities for K-12 teachers and students to better understand the computing disciplines and to more successfully prepare themselves to teach and learn.

The first part of my article, appearing in the March 2008 issue of CSTA Voice, focuses on the programming language Logo and the Logo Foundation at MIT.

TCEA 2008: Created Realities Group’s Chalk House Offers Virtual World Literacy

Dr. Greg Jones over at University of North Texas is part of a new generation of professors interested in researching gaming and virtual worlds for educational purposes. I had the distinct pleasure of attending classes in a virtual lecture hall hosted through his company, Created Realities Group. In 2006, I profiled CRG and the distance learning experience in an article for TechEdge, the journal for the Texas Computer Education Association. Here is a bit of what I wrote back then:

When UNT students meet together for a session in Dr. Jones’ Created Reality Group (CRG) virtual classroom, they have three primary ways to communicate. First, they can speak through microphones attached to their computers. When one talks, others listen. In this way, students can share with one another and professors can give lectures. If multiple groups of people need to carry on conversations at the same time, they can go into different classrooms in the virtual school building for private conversations.

Second, a text chat window is also available. This is particularly useful for those students without a microphone. It also allows students to type in questions while someone is lecturing. The software keeps track of written activity, allowing the professor the opportunity to review it at a later date. The chat window can be moved and resized on students’ screens.

Finally, presentation slides can be shown during lectures. Each student sees the same slides as the lectures progress. The teacher (or student) giving the presentation is in control of when the slides advance. This results in lectures similar to what we are used to hearing and seeing in real life, the difference lying in the remote location of the participants.

In short, teaching elements found in the typical classroom are replicated in the CRG virtual classroom. The question remains, how do students like it? In his research with UNT students using the software at a distance, Jones and his colleagues discovered new students displayed an almost universal urge to explore the environment their first time logging in (Jones, Morales, & Knezek, 2005). Other elements lent themselves to a need for familiarity with the new environment before settling down and using it as the teaching tool for which it was designed.

After getting used to the software, students have expressed enthusiasm with the idea of three dimensional virtual classrooms. Many students, both in high school and at the university level, are used to traditional distance learning software. Commercial titles include WebCT and Blackboard, which have now merged, and open source products including Moodle and Sakai. All these distributed learning environments offer a two dimensional replication of paper learning. Students read the assignments, submit papers, take online quizzes, and post to discussion forums. On occasion, a real time text chat may take place.

Software like Dr. Jones’ CRG environment offer the next step in online learning: a three dimensional representation of a school building users can meet in and take live courses from the teacher at a distance. As Dr. Jones’ research continues, he posts updates of papers on his site at UNT: http://courseweb.unt.edu/gjones/

In the last couple years, Dr. Jones’ CRG team has kept busy refining and adding to the company’s offerings. I was intrigued to discover a CRG booth at TCEA 2008, and dropped by to visit with my professor and see what his team has been up to. What I discovered was a brilliant concept for teaching students at the middle and high school levels, a new product from CRG called Chalk House. Here is the introduction from the CRG website:

Chalk House, the first in a series of situated learning modules being developed as a collaboration between Created Realities Group and the Design+Research Collective, is an online computer-based 3D environment in which game play and engaging narrative are used to improve student literacy skills, namely reading and writing, are the key focus of learning. Chalk House uses the CRG 3D online learning environment to deliver this learning module.

One thing became clear while I played through Chalk House at CRG’s booth: students used to modern videogames will feel right at home in the environment. Quest givers and fulfillers use common nomenclature and symbolism. The environment uses situated learning, placing students in the role of investigating a spooky house. Several literacy events ensue, involving an engaging narrative and requiring much reading and writing for students. A six step writing process is required of students in which they go through a pre-writing step, create rough drafts, revise their drafts, engage in peer editing and teacher editing, and finally turn in a polished product.

Chalk House offers a product specifically tailored for students resistant to traditional text teaching. By couching extensive reading and writing in a virtual world, the program offers pedagogical opportunities students won’t find in many other places. It’s a well-polished product backed by extensive research. For more info on Chalk House, and a bibliography of the papers backing up its philosophical and functional frameworks, visit http://created-realities.com/chalkhouse.html

References:
Jones, J. G., Morales, C., & Knezek, G. A. (2005). 3d online learning environments: Examining attitudes toward information technology between students in internet-based 3d and face-to-face classroom instruction. Educational Media International, 42(3), 219-236.

Rice, J. (2006, Spring). The (virtual) classroom of tomorrow. TechEdge 25(3). 14-15, 41.

FETC 2008 Pits Educators in Competitive Videogame Tournament

I was honored to be invited to apply for press credentials to cover FETC in Orlando later this month by Todd Schimpf at PR firm RB Oppenheim Associates. FETC is one of the three biggest and most important ed tech conferences, along with NECC (national) and TCEA (Texas). I’ve noted previously the sessions on academic gaming that will be covered this year. I was also intrigued to note in the latest press release the following:

One of the most anticipated components of FETC 2008 is the Tabula Digita Multiplayer Educational Video Game Tournament, which will give educators the chance to step into the roles of today’s Generation.NET students as they compete head-to-head for valuable prizes. By using their algebra skills in a video game format, educators will advance through qualifying rounds to the final championship match on Friday, Jan. 25.

This seems an interesting way to introduce teachers to math drills via videogames. We’ll see how it works out.