Multi-User Virtual Environments - Teaching through Multi-User Virtual Environments - page 296

ronments would approach the SIE as Explorers
because it is the in-game behavior pattern that
most closely emulates typical game play. That is,
they would opt for activities such as searching,
exploring, experimenting, and interacting with
the SIE much like a video game because that is
what their previous experiences leads them to
do. This is congruent with the “cultures-of-use”
framework, in which Thorne argues that practices
within digitally mediated spaces emerge based on
“the historically sedimented characteristics that
accrue to a [computer-mediated-communication]
tool from its everyday use” (Thorne, 2003, p. 40).
Interestingly, in the study presented above,
the three participants who reported themselves
as gamers in multi-user spaces (MMOGs) fell
into three distinct groups - one was classified in
the Explorer group, one in the Student group, and
one in the Presenter group. While this may appear
to be surprising, it can actually be explained by
the cultures-of-use model in that one participant
viewed the space as representative of the gaming
experiences with which he has been previously
involved. For this particular participant, language
was a part of his typical game play experience in
that he often utilized his collaborative activities
in Xbox Live to speak Spanish. 10 This scenario is
very comparable to the participants in previous
research, which indicate gaming spaces as viable
contexts for meaningful interaction in a second
language (Nardi, Ly, & Harris, 2007; Thorne,
2008). It is not necessarily surprising that the
SIE was also used by this participant as a space
for exploration and meaningful language activ-
ity, since it coincided with other elements of his
typical game play.
However, in the case of the other two par-
ticipants who reported MMOG experiences as
a regular part of their daily activities, a different
picture emerges. It could be that they approached
the SIE as a separate collaborative/learning genre
that was part of their educational frame, and not
the personal/gaming frame, a common caveat as-
sociated with educational gaming spaces (Michael

& Chen, 2006; Prensky, 2001). Based on this
frame of reference, their activities more closely
resembled that of traditional classroom activities
(i.e., activity completion and sufficient work to
complete the task) rather than game play (i.e.,
exploration and experimentation).
In the case of the participants who did not report
previous experience with MMOGs, there are also
participants in each of the four groups. This sug-
gests that, while the background of the learners
(i.e., culture-of-use) may play an important role in
individual behavior, there are other factors which
influence these patterns. Exploration of these
factors is especially important since the majority
(N=50) of the participants were not avid users of
immersive spaces or MMOGs.
The design of SIEs and tasks should carefully
consider how the complexity of learners' previous
experiences affects their participation in MUVEs.
This includes their technological abilities, but,
more importantly, the ways in which the learners
themselves construct, and are constructed by, par-
ticipation in digitally mediated spaces as a whole.
Consideration #2: Task design should include
a large number of tasks for participants to choose
from, making it challenging to complete all of the
tasks. These tasks should be complex (e.g., contain
multiple stages), varied (e.g., include different
types of objectives and approaches), and flexible
(e.g., allow learners to successfully complete the
task in a variety of ways).
It will not be surprising to those who work in
this area that a central consideration for under-
standing the individualized behavior patterns of the
participants concerns task construction and learn-
ing objectives of the activity. This is true of any
learning activity constructed for use in MUVEs. It
has been well documented that task design plays
an important role in the L2 learning in face-to-
face (Ellis, 2003; Collentine, 2006) and digitally
mediated spaces (Blake, 2000; Hung and Chen,
2003; Smith, 2003, 2004; Sotillo, 2000; Vick et
al., 2000). 11 While learners in Croquelandia were
encouraged throughout the unit to experiment,