The Impostor: Exploring narrative game design for learning Korean as a foreign language

In recent years, digital language learning games and applications have proliferated. However, most existing apps employ methods and theoretical approaches that are not designed to teach learners practical language competence. Additionally, commercial apps tend to focus on languages with large markets, leaving smaller languages like Korean unsupported. The objective of this thesis is to explore language learning and second language acquisition (SLA) theories and their practical applications to find teaching methods that are best suited for improving practical language competence of Korean. Having identified such methods grounded in socio-cultural and ecological SLA theory, the thesis further integrates the teaching methods into a conceptual design of a digital language learning game for learning Korean as a foreign language. This thesis demonstrates that a grounding the fundamentally messy digital language learning game design process in SLA theory is not only viable but a good starting point. Key findings indicate that the designers need to identify the targeted learning objectives, learning experiences and game experiences as clear design goals early on, to efficiently guide the inherently messy design process. Furthermore, the thesis highlights that digital language learning game designers need to develop and nurture knowledge both in the target language instructional domain and in game design.Viime vuosina digitaalisten kielten oppimista varten luotujen pelien ja applikaatioiden määrä on lisääntynyt voimakkaasti. Valtaosa olemassa olevista applikaatioista soveltaa kuitenkin käytäntöjä ja teoreettisia lähestymistapoja, jotka eivät opeta käytännön kielitaitoja. Lisäksi kaupalliset applikaatiot keskittyvät lähinnä kieliin, joilla on suuret markkinat ja eivätkä tue pienempiä kieliä kuten Koreaa. Tämän opinnäytetyön päämääränä on tutkia kielten oppimisen ja vieraan kielen omaksumisen teoriaa sekä niiden käytännön sovelluksia ja löytää opetusmenetelmiä, jotka soveltuvat parhaiten käytännöllisen Korean kielen taidon opiskeluun. Työn tuloksena löytyi sosiokulttuurilliseen ja ekologiseen kielten omaksumisteoriaan pohjautuvia menetelmiä, jotka integroitiin osaksi opinnäytetyön osana suunniteltua oppimispelikonseptia. Tämä opinnäytetyö havainnollistaa, että pohjimmiltaan sekavan digitaalisten kieltenopiskelupelien suunnitteluprosessin pohjaaminen kieltenoppimisteoriaan on paitsi mahdollista myös erinomainen lähtökohta suunnittelutyölle. Työn päälöydökset osoittavat, että suunnittelijoiden tulee tunnistaa tavoitellut oppimistavoitteet, oppimiskokemukset ja pelikokemukset ajoissa, jotta suunnittelutyö etenisi tehokkaammin. Lisäksi tämä opinnäytetyö korostaa, että digitaalisten kieltenopiskelupelien suunnittelijoiden tulee perehtyä syvällisesti sekä opiskelun kohteena olevaan kieleen että pelisuunnitteluun

D9.2 Report, containing internal deliverable outcomes ID9.2-ID9.11

The aim of this deliverable is to report on TENCompetence training activities from the project month 13 to 30The work on this publication has been sponsored by the TENCompetence Integrated Project that is funded by the European Commission's 6th Framework Programme, priority IST/Technology Enhanced Learning. Contract 027087 [http://www.tencompetence.org

A Supporting Architecture for Generic Service Integration in IMS Learning Design

De la Fuente Valentin, L., Miao, Y., Pardo, A., & Delgado Kloos, C. (2008). A Supporting Architecture for Generic Service Integration in IMS Learning Design. In P. Dillenbourg & M. Specht (Eds.), Times of Convergence. Technologies Across Learning Contexts - Proceedings of the Third European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning, EC-TEL 2008 (pp. 467-473). September, 16-19, 2008, Maastricht, The Netherlands: Lecture Notes in Computer Science 5192 Springer 2008, ISBN 978-3-540-87604-5.Learning Design offers the possibility of capturing the process, activities, user organization and resources used in a learning experience. But a wider set of scenarios appear when generic services are considered. Integrating such services in a Unit of Learning is difficult due to the lack of a defined bi-directional protocol for information exchange. In this paper the Generic Service Integration paradigm is presented. It extends the Learning Design specification to use generic services, first at the design stage of a Unit of Learning, and then at the deployment and run times. The framework allows for bi-directional exchange of information between a Unit of Learning and a service. The consequences of the approach are that services can be configured to suit the needs of activities in a learning environment, and a Unit of Learning may adapt its behavior based on the events that took place in any of the used services

ICOPER Project - Deliverable 4.3 ISURE: Recommendations for extending effective reuse, embodied in the ICOPER CD&R

The purpose of this document is to capture the ideas and recommendations, within and beyond the ICOPER community, concerning the reuse of learning content, including appropriate methodologies as well as established strategies for remixing and repurposing reusable resources. The overall remit of this work focuses on describing the key issues that are related to extending effective reuse embodied in such materials. The objective of this investigation, is to support the reuse of learning content whilst considering how it could be originally created and then adapted with that ‘reuse’ in mind. In these circumstances a survey on effective reuse best practices can often provide an insight into the main challenges and benefits involved in the process of creating, remixing and repurposing what we are now designating as Reusable Learning Content (RLC). Several key issues are analysed in this report: Recommendations for extending effective reuse, building upon those described in the previous related deliverables 4.1 Content Development Methodologies and 4.2 Quality Control and Web 2.0 technologies. The findings of this current survey, however, provide further recommendations and strategies for using and developing this reusable learning content. In the spirit of ‘reuse’, this work also aims to serve as a foundation for the many different stakeholders and users within, and beyond, the ICOPER community who are interested in reusing learning resources. This report analyses a variety of information. Evidence has been gathered from a qualitative survey that has focused on the technical and pedagogical recommendations suggested by a Special Interest Group (SIG) on the most innovative practices with respect to new media content authors (for content authoring or modification) and course designers (for unit creation). This extended community includes a wider collection of OER specialists. This collected evidence, in the form of video and audio interviews, has also been represented as multimedia assets potentially helpful for learning and useful as learning content in the New Media Space (See section 4 for further details). Section 2 of this report introduces the concept of reusable learning content and reusability. Section 3 discusses an application created by the ICOPER community to enhance the opportunities for developing reusable content. Section 4 of this report provides an overview of the methodology used for the qualitative survey. Section 5 presents a summary of thematic findings. Section 6 highlights a list of recommendations for effective reuse of educational content, which were derived from thematic analysis described in Appendix A. Finally, section 7 summarises the key outcomes of this work

Applications of Artificial Intelligence in Military Training Simulation

This report is a survey of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology contributions to military training. It provides an overview of military training simulation and a review of instructional problems and challenges which can be addressed by AI. The survey includes current as well as potential applications of AI, with particular emphasis on design and system integration issues. Applications include knowledge and skills training in strategic planning and decision making, tactical warfare operations, electronics maintenance and repair, as well as computer-aided design of training systems. The report describes research contributions in the application of AI technology to the training world, and it concludes with an assessment of future research directions in this area

Empowering Learners for Lifelong Competence Development

Sligte, H. W., & Koper, R. (2008). Empowering Learners for Lifelong Competence Development: pedagogical, organisational and technological issues. Proceedings of the 4th TENCompetence Open Workshop. April, 10-11, 2008, Madrid, Spain: SCO-Kohnstamm Instituut, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.These proceedings consist of the peer reviewed papers presented at the Fourth TENCompetence Open Wokrshop. This workshop was organised by the EU 6th Framework integrated project TENCompetence, and took place in the Hotel Santo Domingo, Madrid, Spain, on the 10th and 11th of April 10 2008. The objective of the workshop was to identify and analyse current research and technologies in the fields that provide design guidelines and evidence for powerful interfaces, interaction and navigation support, and tailormade competence development opportunities for individual learners, teams and organisations. These actors and organisations (will) use open source infrastructures that contain all the services to (further) develop their competences, using all the distributed knowledge resources (including actors), learning activities, units of learning and learning routes/ programmes that are available online. The main theme of this workshop is to provide an overview on current research on support and empowerment of learners in relation to their competence development. The papers are grouped in the following thematic sections: 1) Pilots & Practices; 2) The Integrated Architecture; 3) Group interaction and group learning; 4) Assessment.The work on this publication has been sponsored by the TENCompetence Integrated Project that is funded by the European Commission's 6th Framework Programme, priority IST/Technology Enhanced Learning. Contract 027087 [http://www.tencompetence.org

A Web-Based Tutorial for the Instruction of Spanish Pragmatics

In this paper, we present a Web-based tutorial (WBT), developed forinstruction on Spanish pragmatics. The WBT was designed to teachlearners of Spanish as a foreign language about the speech acts ofcomplaints and requests, and the content of the WBT is based on availableempirical evidence about these speech acts. We describe and illustrate, indetail, the format, structure, and various sections of the WBT, including:lessons, ancillary support, and assessment. In addition, some technicalconsiderations in the development of the WBT, such as the user interfacedesign, are also discussed. The paper concludes with suggestions forimplementing this open access WBT in various teaching contexts, as wellas a discussion of directions for future research. Given the paucity ofmaterials available for the instruction of Spanish pragmatics, either inprint or on the Web, the WBT fills an important gap and provides a modelfor the development of future online pragmatics-focused materials