Youtube Language Learning - Mash it Up

I've written before about the Blendtec viral videos. These engaging videos encourage viewers to participate and create their own content. I love the way youtube opens up video and text conversations with people across the world. So how can we use this type of model for language learning?

When I'm in my Irish language class, I find that I have no interest in translating set text from a page. But if I'm asked an open-ended question, such as 'what did you do at the weekend', I really try to find the Irish to communicate what I did at the weekend. So this got me thinking about video conversations on youtube.

Taking a very basic idea, I wonder could a series of video clips called 'What did you do at the weekend' be used to open up video conversations in the Irish language. The starter clips could be carefully scripted for comedy and good use of images with audio. The learner could watch it. Then they have to answer with their own clip of what they did at the weekend, using the branding, images or video clips taken from the starter clips...

You could use this idea for specific vocabulary. If I had to teach GCSE students the Irish vocabulary for food and cooking, I think I'd make a series of very short cookery clips called 'What do you eat?'

So in each video, a chef shows the viewer a range of ingredients. Then they show how to very quickly put a dish together. Each clip would last for around the magic 2 minute mark, and would not only show the learner how to make a dish, but would give the language for the food stuffs and the cooking process. At the end of the video, the chef asks the question 'What do you eat?'

The learners are then encouraged to make their own video. So they have to find the ingredients, figure out the language for the process, make the video and post it.

There are endless subjects around which you could open up language-learning conversations...and using comedy, and not moderating the responses are all part of the learning experience.

Hmmmmm. Maybe I should get my camera out this weekend and give it a go. Subject - What do you like to drink in an Irish pub?

Driving Test

Well, I passed. And I found the test a lot easier than the lessons. Why? Because my examiner wasn't instructing me. He was letting me drive. So instead of making a mistake but then being distracted by my instructor pointing out my mistake, I concentrated on driving.

I hadn't managed to do a reverse around the corner under instruction. But I managed it twice in the test. I didn't do it perfectly...but I know that if I was out on the road and had to do that manoevre, I could.

But I will admit I'm highly nervous of going onto the road alone for the first time. Because although I know how to do things like check the oil and brake fluid levels in my instructor's car, I actually don't know how to put petrol in my own car.

Learning to drive was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. It was a strange mix of manual, cognitive and confidence skills. But I've passed my test. As my mother said, now it's time to learn to drive :)

BBC Jam - a Sticky Mess

So the BBC have decided to suspend their educational Jam service.

I'd like to blog about why I think Jam failed. Why I felt it was flawed from the start. On how the BBC could done things differently. But then I read the BBC press releases on the Jam suspension, and I thought what difference will my comments make?

Liz Cleaver, controller of learning and interactive has said that BBC Jam is "a highly distinctive service which absolutely represents the direction in which I believe formal learning from the BBC should be travelling".

Perhaps Jam really is the direction in which the BBC will take formal learning. But is that the direction that the general public want 'learning' to go in?

Are the BBC going to take this 'suspension' as a chance to sit back and look at what they delivered to the public, at the public's expense. To see what went wrong, not just with the content, but the internal processes, the technologies used, the management approach, the content production methods? To see what users really feel, and more importantly, to find out what the non-users think? I'm not convinced.

BBC Jam represents £150 million pounds worth of 'free learning'. That's about the same amount the government invested in another disastrous 'formal learning' experiment - UKEU.

And Jam's £150 million pounds worth of 'free learning' is being taken from the British public as of March 20. If BBC Jam had worked, if the content was good enough, if people really used and loved the service, would there not be protests? If it really is the 'highly distinctive service' that provides creative, innovative and imaginative learning content to pupils of all ages, where's the outcry?

Maybe the BBC should stop talking about Jam, and start listening.

BBC delivers Web 3.0

So the BBC has struck a partnership deal with IBM to create web 3.0 technology.

Now we all know that web 2.0 is getting a bit overused...I mean, the term's been around since 2004, and even your granny's web 2.0 these days.

But I'm more than a little uncomfortable with the idea that Ashley Highfield of the BBC is going to 'create' web 3.0 for us.

Web 2.0 was allegedly born in the aftermath of the 'dot com bubble'. That happened in the Autumn of 2001. So three years later we finally got a term for what had been evolving online.

And what had evolved online? A user-centred, application rich web experience. Websites that were filled with user content. Websites that facilitated communication and the sharing of ideas and content. Websites that were driven by people's need to learn and share knowledge.

The BBC has struggled with the idea of web 2.0. Their website is still heavily mired in the mud of its web 1.0 genesis. Much of their content reminds me of the type of thing telly and radio people who've done a Dreamweaver course and attended a few conferences think is good. It's still based on the viewer staring at a screen that will educate, entertain and inform.

So the idea of the BBC 'creating' web 3.0 for us, the users, is novel. So what are we getting for web 3.0. A video search system for CBeebies and CBBC programmes. Last time I looked, the under-5 market was not the influential technology shaper of the online world.

And while I agree that harnessing video search technology could be a make or break strategy for the BBC, it's probably not what your average web user thinks of as the next 'must-have' technology. I mean, not too many of us have got an archive of 1.4 million hours of video and audio to digitise and sort. Most of us could, with a little bit of effort, view and organise our multimedia in a week or so. Of course it would be nice if a machine would come along and do that for us, but it's not my next big Must Have technology.

So. The BBC is delivering us web 3.0, even as they struggle to adjust to web 2.0. Which, if I remember rightly, we delivered to them. Read more at the guardian.

virtual driving simulator

I've been Learning To Drive for about three years now. As someone who Loves Learning and has never failed an exam ever, I've found the whole experience desperately unnerving and very inefficient.

Experienced drivers are always telling me that they don't 'think' when they're driving. That it's natural. That it just happens. And I think this is because driving is a right-brain activity. Your verbal left brain isn't sitting there going 'OK, change into second gear now, and indicate to the right and mind the pedestrian'. It's all being dealt with wordlessly by the right brain.

So what I find most difficult about learning to drive is that I'm being verbally taught (a left-brain activity) a right-brain activity.

I experience left-brain/right-brain confusion constantly in the car. I'm trying to check out the road ahead, find my gears, steer, be aware of the space all around me - using my right-brain, but my driving instructor is talking to me, forcing my left-brain to engage.

My driving instructor talks about how I need to 'find the flow' when driving. This is the creative flow I can tap into when I'm doing a right-brain activity, such as swimming, painting, or walking. But I this is also a flow that can be interrupted by having to listen to anyone talk.

When my Art teacher taught a class, she talked about the lesson for 5-10 minutes, then let us start. She did not talk to us as we tried to draw or paint. And if she stopped to ask us a question, we had to disengage, 'wake up' and use our left-brain, before trying to refocus on our art, using our right-brain.

Computer games have a similar approach. You might get instructions on how to learn at the start of a game, and you can pause for help during it, but you're left alone to switch into right-brain mode for the actual gaming experience.

Granted, mucking up a picture or losing a life in a computer game is very different to the driving scenario - I wouldn't be happy on the road if we were to simply give learner drivers a booklet and set them off on their merry way. But I imagine there's a better way of teaching learner drivers. A way of teaching learners without a constant barrage of verbal instructions.

Is the answer something like a virtual car, which lets people get in, make mistakes, and learn by experience, rather than being told. Something that lets drivers get to a certain proficiency with the actual mechanics of the car, prior to having to deal with the stress of being on a real road, with real people, and real dangers?

Airline pilots learn their basics in flight simulators. I imagine there are more learner drivers in the UK every year than learner pilots. Perhaps the government could consider supporting a virtual driving simulator. I doubt it will be ready for March 16 though, when I take my test for the first (and hopefully last) time!