SPRING 2009 / Volume 8 - Issue 3
 | Teaching Phonology in Second Life
BY SHANTAE ROLLINS
Barbara Karman is taking a hiatus from reality to join the ranks in the virtual world. Karman, a lecturer in the Department of English at Kent State, teaches phonology, the study of patterning and distributing speech sound. She is using Second Life to merge the real and virtual worlds for her students.
“I first became interested in the potential of gaming activities in education as a result of exposure to James Gee, a linguist, in doctoral classes,” Karman says. “I applied for and received a Moulton Technology Scholarship in 2007. As a result of the scholarship, I became a member of iLive, a campus wide committee interested in gaming and simulation activities for educational purposes.”
Karman began using Second Life to explore machinima as a presentation tool. Machinima allows for real-time rendering of characters in a 3-D virtual environment using video-game technologies.
Second Life was first being used for education in writing courses, but Karman saw ways it could be used in other areas of study and adapted to various learning styles.
“I realized that the platform Second Life was an interactive environment that might appeal to a variety of learners,” she says. “Because of my background in linguistics and familiarity with Gee’s work, I then became interested in the adaptation of course material in introductory phonology for a virtual environment. I knew that other disciplines might also be interested in some use of this material.”
Students are able to download the software, create an avatar, enter a virtual maze to complete exercises and view streaming video to help them better understand the course material. Students can also access other helpful Web sites using links in the maze to help them study independently.
Karman says the language maze is a collaboration between the departments of theatre, computer science, teleproductions and English. Those who do not have the technological accessibility required to view the videos, can access them using YouTube.
“In the future, Second Life will hopefully prove to be available to students for distance learning and appeal to a broader spectrum of learners,” Karman says.
For more information about Karman’s use of Second Life, visit http://www.sl.kent.edu or http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type
=&search_query=kentlinguistics&aq=f.
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