Venture lab –Design a new language learning environment - by the Creative Language Learning team
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The document outlines the creation of a new online language learning platform, addressing challenges such as student motivation, personalized learning paths, and the need for a realistic language environment. Key features include gamified learning, personalized lesson plans, and social community functions to encourage interaction among students and teachers. The business model aims to provide an engaging learning experience while leveraging existing resources in the market.
Venture lab –Design a new language learning environment - by the Creative Language Learning team
- 1. Venture Lab – Design a New Learning Environment Creation of a Brand-New Language Learning Experience Creative Language Learning 2012.12.16 1 1
- 2. Outline • Introduction • Goals of this project • New Approaches • Our business model • An example • Conclusion • Appendix 2 2
- 3. Introduction • Language learning has always been a challenging subject for online learning for the following reasons: Language learning requires long-term commitment, so keeping students motivated in continuous learning is one of our top challenges. Face-to-face lesson is often needed to get real-time feedback and correction. A well-designed on-line learning system must provide an effective way for teachers and students to achieve the same result as face-to-face learning experience. A realistic foreign-language environment is essential for students to practice their language skill. How to create an environment which is fun and challenging to students is a unique challenge for on-line language learning. • In this project, we are trying to tackle these challenges with new pedagogical ideas and the latest technologies 3 3
- 4. Goals of this Project • In this project, we identified specific goals which we would like to achieve with the new learning environment. We decided to emphasize on student’s motivation of learning. Three characteristics are identified to achieve this goal: Gaming elements are added to our program so it will improve the motivation and experience of learning. Students will be willing to come back to learn more because of it’s a fun and rewarding experience. Personalized lesson plans and learning paths can be created so students can pick a particular subject of their interest. For example, movies, TV shows, magazines, or architectures, etc. can be special learning subjects picked by students so that students will have more fun in learning. Social and community function is added to the learning environment. Students can make friends with other students to practice the new language. They can do joint-projects together, or simply share their common interests in the forum. 4 4
- 5. New Approaches (1) Gamified Learning • Gamified elements are added to our learning environment in two different ways: A. Game-based learning: for beginner level, students can perform self-study learning of a new language by playing in a series of games. Students can play the games on the Web (on PC or Mac), and on mobile-device app (smart-phone and tablet, iOS, Android or Windows Mobile, etc.) B. Gamified learning: for intermediate and advance levels, the learning environments are designed with adult audience. A traditional style learning environment with game elements (i.e. points, badges) available for tracking the learning progress. Leader-board option can be enabled on a selectable basis for the students who like competition to stimulate their learning interest. 5 5
- 6. New Approaches (2) Personalized Program • Each student’s lesson plan can be personalized in two ways: A. Self-study path: good for self-motivated students. Content/Topics are driven by the learner. The platform offers individualized browsing of content based on learner’s interest as well as his/her active vocabulary. A. Guided-learning path: better for students who are less-experienced or not sure about their learning goals. Syllabus and content are created by instructor. However, content can be categorized by five major language skills: reading, writing, listening, speaking and grammar. Learner can still choose one of special emphasis to enhance his/her weak point, or simply follow his/her personal interest. 6 6
- 7. New Approaches (3) Social Community enabled • Our system combines social networking functions which connects students and teachers into on-line groups and share their opinions and exchange resources and experiences. • Both students and teachers participate in online communities, then creating a friendly social environment is necessary to break the ice. • Online socializing functions include: setting up a personal profile, uploading member’s photo, emailing colleagues with additional information; bulletin board of the top five most-popular discussed topics, etc. 7 7
- 8. Our Business Model • We believe we can achieve our goal without re-inventing what’s already available in the market by following the below business model (from Business Model Generation Canvas) Key Partners Key Activities Value Proposition Customer Relationship Customers other language learning maintain the on-line We provide three features (1) for students: offer self-study and (1)adult students who want platform providers (e.g. community platform and designed for higher student teacher-assisted on-line courses, a to learn foreign language, Duolingo), publishers who provide guidance to students, retaining rate and student gamified learning environment, and (2)language teachers, and community for language practice and want to sell their textbooks, and resource and support to engagement: (3)training service for support; and those who provide paid teachers (1) game-based / gamified teachers. (2) for teachers: as a teaching online language learning learning environment; platform - content resources, service (2) personalized learning teacher assistant services, training to program; teachers, etc. Key Resource (3) community-based Channel (social network) study participants who make groups; reaching students/teachers via forums to grow in number on-line community, social and quality in providing new network, email, YouTube videos, ideas for language learning. SEO, etc. Cost Structure Revenue Stream (1) Creating and maintaining an on-line learning community platform. (1)advertisement (2) cost of advertising (for acquiring students). (2) selling digital textbooks or multimedia content (3) paid online service : commission-based (between student's tuition and teacher's income) 8 8
- 9. Example Online Course (1/4) • Before starting a course, each student will be given a questionnaire to check their past experience in language learning and preferences in the way of studying a new language. • Based on the result of questionnaire, instructor can prepare class materials according to student’s language skill strength/weakness (listening, writing, reading, speaking, grammar), and his/her personal preference. • If the student prefers to focus on listening and speaking, then the course will be designed to emphasis these two skills and the final goal of the course will be that student can submit a mini podcast to the teacher. • Student’s progress will be tracked by earning points and badges at each time student reaches a check point. This gamified design allows student to see his/her current status and improve his/her skill to meet the expected target. 9 9
- 10. Example Online Course (2/4) TITLE: Spanish class: Me gustas tú- How to express personal preferences LESSON SUMMARY: This is an introduction to talk about things we like in general. Lesson’s aim is to enhance speaking, listening and practicing Spanish pronunciation. CLASS / LEVEL / AGE: Level A1/A2 , target learners : adults LANGUAGE OUTCOMES: Being able to use correctly the verb Gustar (to like) TECHNOLOGY / ICT OUTCOMES: Smartphones, Pc/Mac App: Audioboo for voice recording as a final task MATERIALS: (incl. websites, technology…) www.edmodo.com http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BomWbLQAMc ( song by Manu Chao without lyrics) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2oIqlEkX5s ( with lyrics) Google hangouts 10 10
- 11. Example Online Course (3/4) PROCEDURE: 1. Flipped lesson, Offline: Student will listen and watch a video without lyrics on www.edmodo.com and as a pre-task will write down as many words as they are able to.( for example 8). ( student will obtain a reward , teacher adds comments) 2. Online : using Google hangouts in real time+ sharing document during the lesson. •Step 1. Student will write down the words from pre-task on one side and later more words will be added during the lesson . If a student write: Me gusta it will be then moved on another side. •Step2. Once again the song will be listened to and after short breaks student will repeat what have heard previously ( for practicing pronunciation ) and more words will be adding. •Step3. Sharing pictures to express preferences( by teacher), for example Spanish speaking Countries, famous people, places) by using: Me gusta… A mí me gusta...Te gusta...A ti te gusta... •Using and adding words to the list, lots of input and drills. •Step 4. The song will be heard once again but now with lyrics; student will underline all words that appear with the verb: Gustar. Student will be able to see the difference and deduce how this verb might be used. 11 11
- 12. Example Online Course (4/4) Step 5. As a final task/homework student will record 5 things/people/places he/she likes the most on Audiobobo with or without picture and send via email/sms . Student will obtain a final score for this task. •Extra task: upload 5 pictures with description on www.edmodo.com where other students will make comments. Note: Assuming student has accounts on Edmodo and Gmail, and also have internet- enabled mobile devices like smart-phones or tablets. 12 12
- 13. Conclusion • Our team combines the talents of experienced language teachers around the world (Poland, Hong Kong and Taiwan), as well as technology specialists in New York and Silicon Valley. • In a short 8-week period, we focused on the topic of online language learning, and achieved an incredible result of identifying what’s the most difficult challenges and had a conceptual design of online learning platform to overcome these challenges. • During hundreds of email messages and 2 Skype conference meetings, we exchanged many useful resources, and brain-stormed many great ideas which can be applied to the real-world learning environment. • Even though we realize there are many new online learning language learning platforms out there, we believe there is none which includes ALL the features we included in this presentation. • Because of the limited time and resource, we could not get a chance to implement a working prototype of our new learning platform. But we know what we have here is a very attractive platform that works. If it is implemented correctly in the real-world, it is definitely a platform of high market demand, and many people can benefit from it. • In summary, we have a wonderful learning experience of working on this project, and we are very grateful to Stanford Venture Lab for providing such a learning opportunity for us. Thank you very much! 13 13
- 14. Appendix A Additional comments on student motivations The following is a collection of tools which we believe can also be effective to enhance student’s motivation of language learning: • Progress bar and badges shows their achievement • Learners get a badge when they complete stage to their goal • Game elements as a motivator to increase participation • Students don't feel isolated even though they are "alone" • May make collaborative tasks smoother- not working with strangers • Help students identify with other participants , building an online community • Allows a trial run for upcoming more important graded tasks • Eases students into the course • Allows familiarity with VLE technology and task types • Students can express their individuality • Assessment: By using rubrics, quizzes ,badges, scores, comments ,test, online discussions, recordings ,writings tasks, peers evaluation. 14 14
- 15. Appendix B How social networking function works • Available features include: quizzes (useful for revision task or to test learning to date or existing knowledge); Jigsaw tasks (used as a review tool, synchronous chat as a whole group or in small groups guided and unguided). • Reflective tasks: online journals; temperature check which as a mini evaluation/reflection. • Apps that can be used for the whole groups are: for speaking practice Voxopop , to share ideas: Wallwisher. • Working in small groups on specific tasks and creating Groups: categories/ subcategories, languages, knowledge (vocabulary, grammar, culture, etc.), skills ( reading, listening, writing, translation), interest (travel, food, literature, business, science...) • Example of groups: . For business writing , For travel conversation , For exam study, etc. • Members exchange ideas: to plan one' s learning, to set one's goal, to choose learning activities, to use the service effective. 15 15
- 16. Appendix C Technologies Used • Various technologies are deployed to maximize the efficiency of the self-study as well as to provide useful tools to the teacher for content creation • Natural language technologies: topic identification, machine translation, information retrieval, etc. • Audio-Visual technologies: speech recognition, speech synthesis, image recognition, artificial intelligence (e.g. an iPhone/Siri app which has conversation capability to help learner practice in a new language) • Virtual world social-networking technologies: learner can practice listening and speaking skills in a virtual world environment (e.g. Second Life) which is completely surrounded by the target foreign language, etc. 16