Michelle Gallen :: Blog :: A blank canvas...language learning in a 3D world

http://www.liquidelearning.com/2007/06/blank-canvaslanguage-learning-i

I've been thinking about how an immersive 3D environment could help language learning. I've worked on a project where we created an entire house and garden as an environment for learning Irish. The learner could click and explore all the objects in the house, and clicking certain objects opened up language learning games or activities.

This worked well for the average learner - they could see an object, click to hear how to pronounce the name of the object, and also see a text label.

But we decided what went in the house, what was placed where, what the learner had to learn.

What I'd love to experiment with is a 3D environment that has nothing in it. Just a big white space that the learner enters with an avatar.

The idea is that as the learner learns words, the objects appear in the 3D world. So if they learn the colours of the rainbow, a rainbow appears in the empty space. If they learn the words for sky and grass and trees, these appear. As the learner progresses in the language, the world fills out. The learner makes the world. If they discover how to say 'I have a blue dog and five friendly sisters' then a blue dog and five friendly sisters appear in the world.

And learners could connect with each other via text chat or audio...populating their world with real conversations.

But learning a language isn't just about learning a word and ticking a box. It's also about retention...so in this 3D world, objects could begin to fade if the learner doesn't use the vocabulary...every time they log in they could be presented with a list of endangered objects that they must 'save'.

Right. Who's got a few million in development funding for me?