ARU: Integrating social networking and simulation based dynamics in on-line language learning communities J. Glasgow1, R. Calvo1 and B. Cano2 1
CEDS S.A., Guatemala City, Guatemala 2 IO, Guatemala City, Guatemala
Abstract—CEDS S.A. has operated as a language and communication training program design and delivery service since 2005, developing courses for clients in Central America, Mexico, India and the Philippines. In 2009, CEDS began work on an innovative approach to teaching language and communication skills on-line that would combine social and simulation-based learning and would be focused on the needs of Latin American participants. The result of these efforts is ARU, a web-based language learning community that integrates e-learning modules with dynamic business simulations and social networking channels. The objective of this community is to provide participants with access to the resources required to develop and practice meaningful language skills that can be applied to real world professional and cultural contexts. Index Terms—Language learning, self-directed learning, simulation-based learning, social networks for learning
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INTRODUCTION
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DESIGN AND DELIVERY METHODOLOGY
At the core of the ARU design process is a very specific approach to blended learning as a system and the manner in which it can be applied to a differentiated instructional methodology, as defined by the research of Carol Ann Tomlinson [1]. CEDS views blended learning as a practical approach to utilizing various delivery resources by defining them by their inherent strengths and weaknesses, thus determining their suitability in a specific educational context. These delivery resources can include, but are not limited to, the instructor, textbooks and print material, artwork and graphics, in-class activities, assessments, and e-learning platforms. In applying this approach, it is vital to first identify the specific learning objectives of a particular educational experience. These objectives can be divided into three separate, but not mutually exclusive categories:
On May 4 , 2011, CEDS S.A. launched ARU, a free on-line English language learning community focused on a user base throughout Latin America. ARU combines social networking with language learning modules and an integrated business simulation to provide participants with opportunities to apply and share the language skills they are developing and take an active role in shaping their own educational experience.
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Concepts: The student understands why the subject matter is important. (“Why you need to know it.”)
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Content: The student understands what information is important about the subject. (“What you need to know.”)
Since the launch of ARU, more than 7500 people from countries throughout Latin America and the United States have joined the community. The majority of participants enter the community with zero English (English 1 on the internal scale).
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Skills: The student understands how to apply the concepts and content in a meaningful way. (“How to use it.”)
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The objective of this presentation is to explain the educational and design methodologies used in the development of ARU and share the CEDS design team’s experiences during the creation of the platform. This presentation will also discuss some of the issues and obstacles CEDS faced in growing the community and influencing participant behavior and the solutions implemented.
When the objectives are clearly defined and the characteristics of a particular resource are identified and understood, additional resources can then be added to the delivery processes to compensate for any weaknesses and/or emphasis strengths. One of the most important considerations in the design of ARU was the integration of the content and delivery channels into a social and simulation-based learning environment. During the design process, the use of social learning and simulation-based learning was founded on three principals:
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Provide participants with clear and user-friendly communication tools.
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Provide participants with clear and easy-tounderstand reasons for communicating.
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Reward participants for engaging.
The third principal is perhaps the most vital to creating an effective social-learning platform. It involves assigning specific values to the mastery and application of skills and knowledge, which can then be represented to the learning community at large as “badges”. The success of this system to act as a motivating factor is largely dependent on the community’s ability to intuitively appreciate the value of these “badges” without extensive explanation. For example, the number of “followers” one has on a specific social network has no real intrinsic value, but it does communicate information to the community about one’s popularity and ability to influence others.
In ARU, these four badges work in combination with more traditional progress assessment measurements, specifically grades for activities and evaluations and time required to complete modules. With regards to the use of simulations in ARU, it was decided to focus on the development of the professional English communicative skills of the community members. Therefore, simulations based on real world business tasks set in “virtual companies” were determined to be the most effective setting for the simulations. When a participant joins the ARU community, he/she is automatically assigned to one of four virtual companies.
In the case of ARU, CEDS decided to apply four badges to both measure success and act as motivators: • the participant’s position or rank in a virtual company hierarchy (this demonstrates success with the learning modules) • the amount of money earned in the simulation (this demonstrates the ability to work with others and complete assigned tasks) • the total number of the participant’s contacts and social interaction (the demonstrates a degree of influence within the community) • “Red Flags” which can be assigned by other community members for unsatisfactory project management and lead to additional learning opportunities. The four badges are displayed prominently in the “Public Profile of a user:
Figure 2: Sample Company in ARU
Within each company, the departments of the organizational chart correspond to an English level (1 to 10). It is the task of the participant, through the development of his or her English language and business skills, to complete activities and assessments within the individual modules and open projects in order to move from one department to the next. In this way, the participant can rise from the position of “New Employee” within the virtual company to become a Site Manager. The departments within each virtual company focus on one specific area of business operations: Figure 1: Public Profile on ARU with Badges
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English Level
Department
English 1
New Employee
English 2
Customer Service Representative
English 3
Sales Representative
English 4
Logistics Coordinator
English 5
Executive Assistant
English 6
Senior Accountant
English 7
Production Supervisor
English 8
Sales Manager
English 9
Marketing Manager
English 10
Site Manager
Figure 3: Language Levels and Departments in ARU
By moving through the departments, the participant is exposed to an overview of typical business operations while simultaneously learning the vocabulary associated with specific areas of business. The activities and projects related to that department allow the participant to apply his or her developing language skills to real world tasks. Additionally, the inclusion of this type of game play, with realistic goals and clear benchmarks for performance, make the objectives of a particular module or project easier for the participant to understand and appreciate, which serves to further motivate the learner.
these projects requires participants to perform tasks that would be common in a real world business environment, such as designing advertising campaigns, tracking shipments, preparing sales presentations and communicating with clients. With the successful completion of each project, the participant earns virtual money, the amount of which is then displayed on his or her public profile. In order to complete the projects, participants must not only apply their English language skills, but also study additional material (articles, videos, audio, presentations) focused on the business skills they will need to achieve success. C. ARU Be The BE section consists of the various communication and social networking channels participants can access to communicate with other members of the community. These include an internal message system, instant messaging, group video conferencing, forums, a calendar to invite other participants to meetings and events, displays of other participants’ progress, public profiles, contacts, blogs for each of the virtual companies, website links, and links to popular external social networking sites.
III. THE INTEGRATION OF E-LEARNING, SIMULATION BASED LEARNING AND SOCIAL LEARNING IN ARU The CEDS ARU on-line learning platform consists of main three areas: A. ARU Learn The Learn section consists of CEDS English language training material and combines grammar and vocabulary instruction with a variety of practice activities. The content of these learning modules is structured on a set of standards that allow the participant to acquire new knowledge and skills while simultaneously reinforcing previously learned content. Each module is built on a set of competences required for successful performance in a specific area of business (customer service, accounting and finance, production, logistics, marketing). The language and communication content is then aligned with these competences, allowing participants to easily identify the practical applications of the material and immediately begin practicing their developing skills. B. ARU Do The Do section is a completely integrated business simulation. In this simulation, participants are rewarded, using the aforementioned badge system, for the successful completion of peer assigned projects. Each of
Figure 4: Group Video Conferencing in ARU
IV. THE FUNCTIONAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EACH AREA AND THE PARTICIPANT EXPERIENCE For the participant, his or her experience within ARU begins with the on-line placement test, the results of which determine not only the English level but also in which position the participant will start work as part of one of the four virtual companies. There are currently 10 departments in each company, starting with New Employee (Level 0) and ending with Site Manager (Level 10). The participant then begins with the English training modules, which are aligned with the chapters in the ARU Workbook. Each chapter begins with a Study Guide, which presents the objectives to the learner and shows
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him or her the specific actions he or she must complete in order to be successful in the module. The next step is the Sector Learning Environment (SLE), where the participant is presented with a business task or tasks. He or she then needs to acquire the language and business skills necessary to successfully complete the task by moving through the additional training material. Once a participant has completed the second chapter of a module with a grade of 80% or higher, he or she can then participate in the ARU Projects. ARU Projects are peer assigned activities that allow the participant to earn money for his/her department and company. There are four project levels ($500, $1000, $5000, and $10,000) that increase in difficulty, time required and the number of language and business skills used. ARU Projects may require participants to make sales calls, track lost packages, design advertising campaigns, or manage production processes. The participant’s position in a company, the number of projects he or she has completed and the money earned is displayed on the public profiles. By visiting the public profiles of other participants, participants can add them as contacts and communicate with them to collaborate on projects or ask questions using the ARU Message system. Participants can also present the results of their work in the ARU Forums, and the best work is selected to be published on the blogs of the virtual companies. Other participants can leave comments and suggestions on the work. As the participants successfully complete the training modules and the projects, they advance through their company’s hierarchy. V.
CONTENT STRUCTURE, LEARNING TIMES AND EXPECTED RESULTS
ARU is divided into ten English levels, with four to six chapters in each level, for a total of fifty-four chapters. Each chapter consists of: • The Study Guide for that chapter • The Sector Learning Environment (SLE), which presents the business related task or tasks the participant is expected to complete • One to three English language grammar modules, the topics of which relate directly to the task in the SLE. • A final assessment for that chapter The grammar modules focus on one specific grammar topic and/or the vocabulary related to the task the participant needs to complete. Each grammar module contains: • An explanation screen for that topic • An examples screen • 2 to 4 activities for the application of knowledge
The Study Guide at the start of each chapter presents the objectives for that chapter and the activities the participant is expected to complete. Each Study Guide is designed to provide the participant with one hour of learning practice four to five days a week. If the participant completes all the activities in the Study Guides, he or she will have completed approximately 245 hours of learning and practice. With this learning time, it is expected that a typical participant using ARU will be able to attain 60% fluency in the English language. VI.
THE USE OF ARU IN A BLENDED LEARNING PROGRAM
In addition to the on-line material, ARU also includes the resources necessary to deliver a complete blended learning program. This means providing instructors and participants with workbooks, lesson plans, study guides and classroom based assessments that are completely aligned with the web-based components. The CEDS design team also realized the need to create meaningful “bridges” that would allow participants and instructors to easily transition between the tools they are using on-line and what was happening in the classroom, while keeping the learning objectives intact. These bridge activities form the core of the classroom experience, and adhere to the methodology of utilizing the best delivery resources to achieve specific objectives. Since the use of ARU has been integrated into the services offered to CEDS’s corporate clients, there has been an increase in in-class participation by the students observed by the instructors and course managers, and an average 12% increase in the grades of the participants in the blended learning programs. Instructors also report that more class time can now be devoted to activities, role plays, simulations, and dialogs providing the participants with more opportunity to apply the skills they are developing, since they are now fulfilling most of the concept and content objectives via the activities on ARU. VII. PARTICIPANT PROFILE AND GROWTH OF THE COMMUNITY Since the launch of ARU in May of 2011, more than 7500 users from countries throughout Latin America have joined the learning community. Following are relevant statistics from May 16th to September 9th, 2011 related to the profiles of users and behavior. Age and Gender: Male: 60% Female: 40%
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Age Group 16-25 26-35 36-45 46+
Percentage 46% 30% 16% 8%
English Language Level at Point of Entry: English Level English 1 English 2 English 3 English 4 English 5 English 6 English 7 English 8 English 9 English 10
Percentage 69% 2% 9% 1% 12% 2% 4% 1% <1% <1%
Average Time On-line per Visit Month Average Time on Line May 36 minutes June 39 minutes July 40 minutes August 46 minutes September (to date) 39 minutes Participant Return Rate • 67% return rate in August and September • 40% returning 9 times or more • 30% returning 15 times or more Number of Levels Advanced Number of Levels 1 Level 2 levels 3 Levels 4 Levels 5+ Levels
Percentage 38% 42% 12% 5% 3%
VIII. CHALLENGES Based on the data collected from the first four months of the community being operational, many of CEDS assumptions about the type of participants that would use the resources and their behavior within the community were proven to be correct. However, CEDS did find it necessary to make some changes and modifications to the platform to meet some unexpected challenges. Game Mechanics When ARU was originally launched, the final screen of each chapter and module provided a link to the next chapter or module in order to help participants navigate the course. What was not anticipated was that some participants would approach the simulation literally as a “game”, in which the objective was to simply pass from
level to level as quickly as possible, as opposed to taking the time to explore all the resources available and fully meet the educational objectives. The link on the final screen was helping to facilitate this attitude and behavior. When this behavior was discovered, CEDS made three significant changes to the participant experience. First, the links to the next chapters and modules on the final screens were removed and replaced with links to the Study Guides and the other available resources (flashcards, games, Network Updates page, company blogs, and forums). Second, the Study Guides were featured more prominently at the start of each chapter so that the participants could quickly see the type of learning behavior that would optimize their educational experience. Third, when a participant logged in to ARU, a pop-up appeared that informed participants of the different resources available to them and offered tips and strategies for maximizing their time in the community. As a result of these changes, CEDS has found that participants have significantly slowed the pace at which they are moving through levels (average time is now three weeks as opposed to ten days before the changes were made), and spending more time in each level. Additionally, users are now not only visiting more pages, but there has been a significant increase in the number of views of the secondary resource pages. Peer to Peer Interaction Stimulating peer to peer interaction in ARU has been a greater challenge than expected. Participants are provided with several communication resources: • Every appearance of a participants’ name acts as a link to his or her public profile • Participants can add other participants as “Contacts” from their public profiles • When a participant invites his or her friends to join ARU, they are automatically added as Contacts • Participants will need Contacts in order to successfully complete some of the Projects • Participants can use the internal messaging system to send “e-mails” to each other • Participants can write their status directly on their Dashboards • The recent successes of a participant’s Contacts and their status updates are posted on a Network Updates page, where they can leave comments • Participants can schedule meetings with each other using the video conferencing system • Participants can leave comments and responses in the forums While the engagement between the CEDS team and the participants has been increasing, it has been difficult to motivate participants to communicate with each other. CEDS is taking several steps to improve this interaction: 1. Some of the ARU Projects are being redesigned to further emphasis the need for the participants 5
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to communicate with each other for successful completion. CEDS is recruiting community managers from the community to act as “ambassadors” to new users. These community managers will be responsible for engaging with the other participants using the various communication channels, answering questions from the community and recommending other community members as Contacts. CEDS has created “Public Posts” for the Network Update page that communicate to the community at large when a new participant has joined ARU and when a participant been promoted (successfully completed a module). On both the Network Updates page and the Contacts page, users will now see a list of three “Suggested Contacts” that have been selected from the community. CEDS will be hosting a series of “town hall” meetings with the community using the internal video conferencing platform on ARUto answer questions and receive feedback. IX.
CONCLUSIONS
Since the launch of ARU in May of 2011, the growth of the community, the data collected about user engagement and behavior, and the assessment results from each chapter and module indicate that the platform is meeting most, but not all, of its educational objectives. Additionally, the participants’ use of the Projects and the products generated by those Projects indicate that the objective of having participants successfully apply their
knowledge and skill outside of the formal learning environment (in this case the SLEs and the grammar modules) is also being met. Furthermore, the use of ARU in blended learning programs has been successful, based on the observed increase in participant engagement in the classes and an increase in grades from quantifiable and formal assessments. However, in order to sustain and even increase the growth of the community, a higher degree of peer to peer engagement is required. CEDS’s planned actions as outlined in VIII above should have a positive impact on this engagement. It will remain a constant priority, along with the consistent revision and improvement of the learning material.
REFERENCES [1]
C.A. Tomlinson, How to Differentiate Instruction in Mixed Abilities Classrooms (2nd edition). Columbus, OH: Merrill, 2004.
AUTHORS J. Glasgow is with CEDS S.A., 4 Ave A, 21-25, zone 14, Guatemala City, Guatemala, 01014 (e-mail: jkglasgow@ cedsgt.com). R. Calvo is with CEDS S.A., 4 Ave A, 21-25, zone 14, Guatemala City, Guatemala, 01014 (e-mail: rcalvo@ cedsgt.com). B. Cano is with the IO, Guatemala City, Guatemala (email: benjamin@)io.com.gt).
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