Introduction: UT, Knoxville  27,000 students  1,915 Total FTE Teaching staff  1,049 FTE Tenure stream  273 FTE Non-tenure stream  593 FTE Graduate Teaching Assistants  ITC Staff: 21 FTE, 10 GAs, SAs

ITC Services to the campus Blackboard; Saba/Centra administration Faculty Assistance Projects; Faculty Grants START program Workshops; Events Research/Evaluate Emerging Technologies Contract Projects/External Grant work

Working Together: History 1999, Center for Academic Transformation's Pew Grant Program in Course Redesign 2000, Teaching with Technology Grant 2000 & 2001, National Alumni Assoc/CUE/ITC Grant 2001, Wireless Instructional Strategies Grant 2008, Project RITE Grant (also a campus pilot) “Angling for Language Acquisition with TACLE: Leveraging Second Life to Create a Technology-Assisted Constructivist Language Environment for Spanish 111/112” –Dolly Young, Professor, Modern Foreign Languages & Literatures –Doug Canfield, Coordinator, Language Resource Center, Modern Foreign Languages and Literatures

What are student perceptions of SL as a language learning tool? Four SL Tasks were integrated into the curriculum of six sections of Intensive Spanish (6 hour credit). The design criteria for the tasks included ensuring: –a) the task had a problem-solving element –b) the task was interactive (students had to use Spanish to express themselves orally or in writing)

What are student perceptions of SL as a language learning tool? (con’t) The design criteria for the tasks included ensuring: –c) the task was collaborative (students had to depend on each other to complete aspects of the task) –d) the task had a specific purpose, and –e) the task included an accountability component (some aspect of the task had to be submitted to their instructor)

Data collection After finishing each task, students completed a questionnaire to gauge their immediate perceptions of the task. At the end of the semester, students completed a 40-item Likert scale questionnaire that elicited general feedback on technological aspects, task effectiveness and learning value of SL. In addition, instructors offered written feedback after each task.

Results Results of the questionnaire indicated that 20% to 40% of the students responded feeling neutral to questionnaire items. At least 50% of students: –(Q3), had problems with the headphones working correctly –(Q4), had problems hearing their avatars when talking (as opposed to textual chats) –(Q14), had technical problems (such as teleporting) –(Q18), did not enjoy learning how to use SL

Results (con’t) At least 50% of students: –(Q20), preferred to speak with a partner in class as opposed to in SL –(Q22), indicated that the tasks were interactive –(Q23), recognized that how much they learned in each task depended on them –(Q32), enjoyed Task 1, where they met up with a partner avatar in a university building to conduct an interview with him/her

Successes The Instructors were successful in ensuring that all students obtained the appropriate SL orientation. We were also successful in integrating SL tasks into the Spanish curriculum. With the exception of a few items, students were either neutral or found the SL tasks somewhat fun and recognized that the SL tasks required them to speak when they would otherwise not have. We were successful in designing interactive SL tasks (as opposed to mechanical, non-communicative ones), and in writing relatively clear instructions for the task.

Implications The university must ensure technological components, such as headphones, are in working condition. This implies that personnel are in place to maintain, replace, and verify working condition of hardware. Serious consideration should be given to when students will be online in SL. Teleporting issues occurred when more than 30 students were online at one time.

Implications (con’t) Projections of the amount of time, effort and money needed to write, set-up, design, implement and assess new technological applications should be realistic (as much on the part of the researchers as the administrators).

Now What? Presentation with University Administrators about future deployment of several synchronous learning tools, including SL, occurs next week!