Although I have been keeping up with my course readings, writing regular posts into my blog and doing a spot of game creation using Google Earth, this course has given me an opportunity, or is that licence?, to reacquaint myself with computing / video / arcade games that I haven't really touched since my very late teens.

My peers have come up with some rather wonderful web-based games that include the sublime Grow v.1 by Eyemaze and the wonderful Fantastic Contraption; both of which enchanted me and brought out a child-like wonder in me (not seen since 1999) much in the same way as the "Living Books" CD-ROM series did in the early 1990s with Mercer Mayer's "Just Grandma and Me" (1992). Then there is the ingenious Wiki Paths: The Great Link Race, described as a "Wikipedia-based scavenger hunt game" though I would say that it would have more in common with the "six degrees of separation" idea and would seem to lend itself nicely to Prensky's suggestion that the, now irrelevant, digital native have hypertext-like minds - all I can say is that I found it frantic especially as you are up against the clock.

For my part, I have also reacquainted myself to the classic text-based "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" game which is now online over at BBC Radio 4 and graphical. I also did something that I haven't done since my late teens and that was to buy some computer games for the PC that were on sale. Like Gee, I went for something that interested me and were of very different gaming and literary genres - Agatha Christie's "Death on the Nile", "Lost" and Clive Barker's "Jericho".

Tune in tomorrow for a report on my experiences with the "Death on the Nile" game.

Week 4 of the course saw the teams being given an exercise that involved building a game around the Google Earth platform. Team 2 member, Nicholas Palmer, got the ball rolling by providing a useful mind map of the task at hand - this instantly gave us a quick, ready visual aid.

There was some suggestion that we should have some learning outcomes, which I, personally, was not keen because a) we didn't have an idea for a game; and b) is there such a thing as attributing learning outcomes to a game? attributing rules to a game, yes! but learning outcomes??

A quick Google search trawl came up with the following resources that might provide us with some inspiration for a game, included:

• Google Earth blog
• Google Earth Outreach
• Google for Educators
• Top 10 Games with Google Earth
• Google Earth Community

Marie Leadbetter suggested that we should meet up "virtually" using Skype to discuss the project and Bill Babouris gave the team the idea for a game based up the recently conceived New Seven Wonders of the World - the game idea was tentatively centred around the notion of a "knowledge quest".

On Wednesday evening of Week 4, the team met via Skype to thrash out the aims and objectives of the game and to decide who was going to contribute to what. It should be said that this was the most amazing brain-storming, project management session ever conducted virtually. We went from an idea to a fully-realised project plan in 1.5 hours.

One of the ideas we liked was a quiz that was created by My Wonder World on Asia. The quiz was created using Keyhole Markup Language (KML) which is an "is an XML-based language schema for expressing geographic annotation and visualization on existing or future Web-based, two-dimensional maps and three-dimensional Earth browsers" which I had been playing with a couple of weeks prior to the team project. Unfortunately, we were not able to see how the KML file was constructed as it had been compressed into a KMZ file. Bill Babouris came up trumps again for finding a KMZ-KML converter that us to uncompress the file to see how it was constructed.

It became very clear to me that the quiz would be very doable and that I probably should be the person to code it as I had already been using it as well as having a long and varied computer programming background. All that remained was to identify the tasks and action points to be done and to assign each one to a team member. By Sunday, all questions, introductory text, images, coding, testing was completed.

An interesting topic that came out of the discussions was the notion of feedback and how it should be presented to the user. We felt that terms like "right" and "wrong" seem too hard and final and that we should endeavour to use more softer, and less negative, language in the feedback boxes. This team exercise turned out to be a very fulfilling and fun ride from "Oh, what are we going to do?" to "Ta-da, it's finished".

I hate asking people for things - I'll buy a whole book of raffle tickets myself rather than try to sell any.  Yet I don't mind when other people ask me to buy a raffle ticket … or fill in a questionnaire. Not usually.

I didn't like being hounded by HESA to return their questionnaire, though - that felt intrusive, or would have if I hadn't already returned it at the second request.  I suppose it depends how many other things a person is juggling - in the last week, a few things I've agreed to do (write references, review papers, be an internal examiner, see students and many other things) have suddenly materialised rather too closely together.  If anyone sent me a survey just now, I'd be likely to ignore it (apart from people on the Research Methods module, of course).

When we ask someone to complete a survey for us, we have no idea what level of burden or anxiety it might be adding to an already overfull intray.  I suppose that is what causes me concern, especially if they see it as a pointless exercise for them.  I'm OK with piloting our group questionnaire on some of my colleagues - so I'm not recording a concern about that here.  While I was reading Robson this morning, I just became very conscious of my reluctance to use surveys in general, other than things that can be done very quickly (like the one-minute paper, as a classroom evaluation tool, for instance). 

When I have used the simple single open question surveys described in my last entry, these didn't put immediate pressure on any individual to stop everything to attend to my research.  Rather, I got a quick response from those who were interested in the topic.  That didn't feel as though it was being intrusive, though no doubt there were some who thought, "oh no - not another email from her".

I think that that my concern about being intrusive means that surveys are not for me.  It possibly also accounts for some of the idiosyncracies of my research history - and some other things that I'm still thinking about. But questionnaire fatigue is a real danger, especially among students.

 

Big quesion still lingering: do I need to measure learning or learner participation? In an ideal world, the former. But there are probably too many variables to do this. Therefore we have to assume that, based on the literature/theory, increased participation leads to increased learning - as long as that participation is ACTIVE. And from there, we measure participation.

I'm thinking at present that the best research method to do this will be a combination of direct observation and structured interviews (perhaps an attitude scale). Direct observation seems like the most logical method of gauging the extent of leaner participation, via blog, wiki and synchronous communication. Interviews appear a useful way of ascertaining a valuable insight into learners' own experiences, which could supplement data gathered in direct observation - and after all this is very much concerned with their own experience. ...or an unnecessary extra??

"how these 'embodied' role plays compare to avatar-less ones, in terms of your learners' experience" - very good idea, I think.  It must be a key concept of what I'm exploring.  My theory is that the online environment, especially in the form of role-play, might aid these particular learners. But the question is whether a traditional F2F role-play serves just as well!

There's a lot of common ground between our potential topics. Should be useful talking more about them. Are you considering anxiety as a conscious emotion experienced by learners?

Measurement of progress: might take a long time to measure properly - if indeed it can be measured at all, given the number of variables - aptitudes, circumstances, motivation of learners, etc.

Measurement of participation - of active involvement - manageable and, after all, the premise might be that active involvement improves language learning.

I'm half-dreaming of this stuff now - jeepers!

After re-reading, my potential project appears to be part-explanatory (Does extended online role-play cause improvement in particpation / linguistic ability?) and part-emancipatory (extending abilities of learners; enriching their experience). One more than the other? Hmmm... I *feel* that there is more explanation than emancipation going on here.

Is the learning to be measured or the participation evaluated, though?? This question (and its answer) would determine perhaps whether a fixed or flexible design is warranted.

Moving closer to a question, possibly, with an inversion of the starting point question. So 'what is the effect of cultural factors on Japanese online language learning?' or some such thing becomes:

How does online role-play overcome cultural barriers to language learning?

...which pleasingly allows for analysis of the course design vis-a-vis the cultural factors. 

The strange, overwhelming feeling fades; I feel freshly motivated.

It's official: I am a slow reader / thick.   But all is not lost. I'm dusting off some skimming first, and then scanning, reading skills that I learnt about many years ago. I also have had to develop a genius highlighting system. It means, however, that I won't be able to resell my copy of Robson! Perhaps I'll need it again after the MSc is over. Perhaps I'll make a magnificent fire with it in the back garden.

Having got somewhat lost with regard to research topics and methods, I return to my original idea of investigating Japanese learners, their culture and the use of an online role-play course.

I feel strongly that, for me, having a definite dissertation in mind brings a specific focus to the RM course, though it is wise to be schooled in all of the methods.

What lends the project more interest for me now is the idea of designing an in-depth role-play based course that takes place in various online formats, a blend of wikis (collaborative, but in this case I aim to develop a [possibly new] combative wiki activity), blogs (private reflection, a more honest account - in role, though), and synchronous role-play (SL for example?).

Then we will evaluate the premise that Japanese learners benefit from such in-role activity - which is aided by the (relative?) anonymity of the online environment. The hope is that, should this hypothesis be confirmed, such online role-play will be validated for all learning ...but with particular merit for leaners who might express some inhibition in participating face-to-face.