Learning in Immersive Worlds - thoughts so far

Does the virtual world have to be better than other learning environments, can it be a replacement, is it necessary to be better?

A scenario could be where a lot of money goes towards development, a launch then enthusiasm falls after a few weeks and the number of visitors to an island drops off dramatically. Uni of Derby’s rationale for going in was to investigate opportunity for creative social learning experiences for psychology students - i.e. for medical practitioners it is easier to put ‘objects’ into a scenario and create a medical situation with problems to be solved, psychology deals with theories and concepts so if it is experiential learning, needs to be carefully thought about how it can be applied.

Non-verbal communication an issue - most communication in Second Life is via text chat, an avatar might be communicating with others, different gestures, moving away, moving back - not a lot of realism in face gestures etc Haven’t really sorted gestures in immersive environments - can be muffling for some - stops them expressing their emotions, for others it can be limiting. These things can seem very important to students and staff in their social interaction in these environments.

What about next gen - consensus in the room is that the next gen student is not majority, a lot of students require technology support and not as enthusiastic about spending time in that environment compared to other activities or work they would like to do. Uni of Derby had advantage in that already had game design lab available for use. For their learning activities in world, they created SLabs - which were basically empty slabs of land, with not additional ‘visual stuff’ that could be distracting - just a piece of land and any learning-activity specific content could be added and removed as required.”A space to remove everything we don’t need and just put the stuff we do”. The psychology students did not like it because they were busy enough and this was another thing to learn. They pre-created avatars so students could choose from an out-of-the-box avatar or create their own account.

A balance between creating something magic, beautiful and keeping it simple enough for students and staff to use. By contrast, a comment from Matthew Wheeler at Uni of Leicester - they have got their training down to 40 mins, scaffolding their second life experiences and the students have really enjoyed it and come back for more than their 4 allotted sessions. Another comment was that as with any technology, it is essential to to be clear about the purpose of the sessions or why the students are there if it is a directed activity of any kind.

Open Uni had a series of projects (attachment to follow) Immersive Learning Environments 2008 and ILE 2009. Students were encouraged to go and explore Second Life over Christmas (e.g. supplied notecards of places to visit), then had a theoretical introduction then shortly after a practical building induction. Mixed thoughts re different projects.

Some discussion - voice ? Mixed uni experiences with Second Life voice, some going back to text to provide better experiences, not just technology, but with live voice - no record of conversation, less thinking time, interruptions etc In some cases students not told that there was voice so issue did not arise. Some issues around identity and persona - if you create a SL persona and then wish to change or remove that persona, how to extricate yourself from that persona not just in SL, but other online environments.

Open Habitat Project - spaces can be social, flexible, dynamic, inspiring - can create different environments and scenarios for different choices of students - makes it more engaging and fun for students. Distance students enjoy sharing the same social spaces as other distance learners? If do Second life in real classroom and in Second life at same time, can be confusing for communication - do you talk to each other in real or virtual life? How to build sense of trust, what are good icebreaking activities if have different avatars as e.g. animals for example.

So where do virtual vs physical worlds fit - together ? mirrored ? augmented ? separate ? game-based ? alternate? which works best with which types of learning activities such as problem-based, role play etc. Authentic details are useful in 3D virtual worlds - e.g. for one Uni with international students, they wanted to see authentic city details before coming to UK, e.g. a simulation of how to put your hand out for a bus etc. Its important to build in reflection time as well as engagement.

Useful with alternate reality in that you learn without realise you are - because you are using your technology / communication method of choice such as blog, photos, video, so no learning curve - ‘under-the-surface’ learning.

Professor Maggi Savin Baden summing up, mentioned about VW special issue of ALT-J in November and new CURLIEW Coventry Uni project:

1. Boundary issues in IVWs
2. Distance versus blended learning in IVWs.
3. Amplification of RL character in SL
4. Patterns that inform - scenarios/ways of doing/ideas that seem to work
5. Trust - how do you know what honesty, trust is in SL
6. Cooperation vs collaboration in these environments
7. Relationship between embodiment and learning - do you feel more real as an avatar.
8. Interrupts concept that identity is hegemonic.

This entry was posted on 23/10/2008 at 04:08 pm and is filed under virtual world. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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