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TECHNICAL KNOWLEDGE. Assess your abilities using technology at the end of the course, using a 0-5 scale where 0 means no knowledge and 5 means excellent. Feel free to make comments wherever relevant.

Figure 1 TECHNICAL KNOWLEDGE. Assess your abilities using technology at the end of the course, using a 0-5 scale where 0 means no knowledge and 5 means excellent. Feel free to make comments wherever relevant.

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Four Stages for Measuring Cross-Cultural Awareness The virtual world of VRoma offers Latin students and teachers a place for maximizing cultural understanding. The VRoma program provides a reconstruction of the city of Rome in the mid-second century CE that gives students a spatial realization of the city of Rome, that organizes Roman history, values, and culture in a spatial and physical context. More- over, the program does not segment culture into distinct spheres but shows, instead, how culture impinges on the social order and how the political realm affects the religious world of the Romans. When students visit the Roman Senate Building in the Forum, for example, they see images and descriptions of Roman clothing and the Latin vocabulary used to describe it. They understand this vocabulary within a cultural, visual, and spatial context that gives it more cultural specificity than simply a garment of clothing called a toga. It is garment that marks status, class, and gender and helps reinforce the Roman political and social hierarchy. If students try to “put on” the toga, they are greeted by a senatorial scribe who takes it back, contemptuously remarking that it is worn only by curule magis- trates. As a result, students feel the effect of their own class on their abil- ity to participate in (virtual) Roman culture. In a similar way, visitors to Rome not only read descriptions of monuments but also come into con- tact with a flying crow (corvus) that used to greet the emperor each day. Such a blending of fact and anecdote, culture and history has its roots in
Four Stages for Measuring Cross-Cultural Awareness The virtual world of VRoma offers Latin students and teachers a place for maximizing cultural understanding. The VRoma program provides a reconstruction of the city of Rome in the mid-second century CE that gives students a spatial realization of the city of Rome, that organizes Roman history, values, and culture in a spatial and physical context. More- over, the program does not segment culture into distinct spheres but shows, instead, how culture impinges on the social order and how the political realm affects the religious world of the Romans. When students visit the Roman Senate Building in the Forum, for example, they see images and descriptions of Roman clothing and the Latin vocabulary used to describe it. They understand this vocabulary within a cultural, visual, and spatial context that gives it more cultural specificity than simply a garment of clothing called a toga. It is garment that marks status, class, and gender and helps reinforce the Roman political and social hierarchy. If students try to “put on” the toga, they are greeted by a senatorial scribe who takes it back, contemptuously remarking that it is worn only by curule magis- trates. As a result, students feel the effect of their own class on their abil- ity to participate in (virtual) Roman culture. In a similar way, visitors to Rome not only read descriptions of monuments but also come into con- tact with a flying crow (corvus) that used to greet the emperor each day. Such a blending of fact and anecdote, culture and history has its roots in
Students’ Responses to Questions on Experience Using Technology Volume 18 Number 2 Table 2
Students’ Responses to Questions on Experience Using Technology Volume 18 Number 2 Table 2
Means of Students’ Improvement in Language Learning by Category This result is confirmed by the open-ended comment section at the end of the evaluation. In response to the question “what was the biggest ben- efit of using the MOO?” students reported 19 times that the cultural and historical information embedded in the text and images of the MOO en- hanced their understanding of ancient Rome (see Table 4). Table 3
Means of Students’ Improvement in Language Learning by Category This result is confirmed by the open-ended comment section at the end of the evaluation. In response to the question “what was the biggest ben- efit of using the MOO?” students reported 19 times that the cultural and historical information embedded in the text and images of the MOO en- hanced their understanding of ancient Rome (see Table 4). Table 3
Means of Students’ Views of Specific MOO Activities Table 5
Means of Students’ Views of Specific MOO Activities Table 5
In addition, the activity that students favored most was the Treasure Hunt, the activity that in their eyes most explicitly presented information about culture (see Table 5).
In addition, the activity that students favored most was the Treasure Hunt, the activity that in their eyes most explicitly presented information about culture (see Table 5).
Number of Times Students Mentioned Categories in Evaluations Note: The number of comments in the Interaction column is based on 2000 data.
Number of Times Students Mentioned Categories in Evaluations Note: The number of comments in the Interaction column is based on 2000 data.
Students recognized a third benefit of using the MOO. Even though we had not allowed space for questions of motivation and learning styles in the rest of the evaluation, many students stressed in their write-in com- ments that the MOO provided a different and motivating resource for learning language and culture. Eight students commented that the MOO provided a break from classroom routine or from the textbook, seven noted that the visual and spatial aspects helped them understand Roman life with a new perspective, and six simply stated that it was fun (see Table 4 above). In short, students found the MOO to be a place to learn culture and language in a space that is motivating and adapted to different learn- ing styles.
Students recognized a third benefit of using the MOO. Even though we had not allowed space for questions of motivation and learning styles in the rest of the evaluation, many students stressed in their write-in com- ments that the MOO provided a different and motivating resource for learning language and culture. Eight students commented that the MOO provided a break from classroom routine or from the textbook, seven noted that the visual and spatial aspects helped them understand Roman life with a new perspective, and six simply stated that it was fun (see Table 4 above). In short, students found the MOO to be a place to learn culture and language in a space that is motivating and adapted to different learn- ing styles.
First, some students tried moving from room to room with the @go command and were transported to unofficial sections of the MOO where students from other schools had created rooms with similar names. D ur- ing the Treasure Hunt exercise, students were occasionally unable to find all the requested items because they did not explore the site deeply enough to take advantage of all the available on-line resources. On other occa- sions, communication broke down and students failed to say where they were going so that others could interact with them. Students also men- tioned that collaboration was a problem four times. At times, during Quaere for example, students failed to greet each other as they entered rooms or say farewell as they exited. This situation left students who wanted to exchange objects frustrated. At other times, during Indicium, some stu- dents were confused about when to take a turn which left the other mem- bers of the group waiting for either a suggestion or a confirmation that they had a clue. Finally, a few students were too competitive and tried to circumvent the rules so that they could win the game. How do You Say “MOO” in Latin?
First, some students tried moving from room to room with the @go command and were transported to unofficial sections of the MOO where students from other schools had created rooms with similar names. D ur- ing the Treasure Hunt exercise, students were occasionally unable to find all the requested items because they did not explore the site deeply enough to take advantage of all the available on-line resources. On other occa- sions, communication broke down and students failed to say where they were going so that others could interact with them. Students also men- tioned that collaboration was a problem four times. At times, during Quaere for example, students failed to greet each other as they entered rooms or say farewell as they exited. This situation left students who wanted to exchange objects frustrated. At other times, during Indicium, some stu- dents were confused about when to take a turn which left the other mem- bers of the group waiting for either a suggestion or a confirmation that they had a clue. Finally, a few students were too competitive and tried to circumvent the rules so that they could win the game. How do You Say “MOO” in Latin?
Number of Student Comments on Ways to Improve the MOO In addition, they also thought that sessions should be longer and more frequent so that they could become more familiar with the rules and nu- ances of the games. They also suggested restricting the interactions to Latin. Although the use of Latin was our intent, a review of the transcripts indicated that sometimes students reverted to English. In many cases, switching to English was understandable because students’ language lev- els varied, and, once one student started using English, the others joined in. This problem could have been exacerbated by the bilingual nature of typing in VRoma. Because VRoma is designed to appeal to a larger audi- ence, much of the textual description and all of the MOO commands are in English. Additionally, students were not able to use case endings as they were picking up and dropping objects because all the objects needed to be labeled i in the nominative. A117 won 1171 1 171 row
Number of Student Comments on Ways to Improve the MOO In addition, they also thought that sessions should be longer and more frequent so that they could become more familiar with the rules and nu- ances of the games. They also suggested restricting the interactions to Latin. Although the use of Latin was our intent, a review of the transcripts indicated that sometimes students reverted to English. In many cases, switching to English was understandable because students’ language lev- els varied, and, once one student started using English, the others joined in. This problem could have been exacerbated by the bilingual nature of typing in VRoma. Because VRoma is designed to appeal to a larger audi- ence, much of the textual description and all of the MOO commands are in English. Additionally, students were not able to use case endings as they were picking up and dropping objects because all the objects needed to be labeled i in the nominative. A117 won 1171 1 171 row
Related topics:
Ancient HistoryComputer Assisted Language LearningHigher EducationVisual ArtReal-Time CommunicationCultural Awareness
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