ELI_SituatedLearning_20080219
ELI Web Seminar
Virtual Worlds as a Tool for Situational Learning
February 19, 2008
speaker:
- Aaron Delwiche
- Assistant Professor, Department of Communication
- Trinity University, San Antonio, TX
Discussion Questions:
- In what ways do virtual worlds exhibit the potential to enhance teaching and learning?
- How has that potential been demonstrated to this point?
- Does the use of virtual worlds to support teaching and learning pose particularly challenges?
- What potential pitfalls do we need to consider?
- What ideas from this seminar best apply to your institution?
- What changes might you consider as a result?
Commentary
- prior experience in the group, teaching in virtual worlds?
- familiarity with virtual worlds?
- a number of various experience with various virtual worlds (looks like primarily gaming and social chat)
Background About Trinity University
- about 2,000 students
- robust library system
- great support and technological environment made these activities possible
Virtual Worlds Emergence Class
- slide shows students at computers in a classroom
- computer lab
- students are physically present together, but they are actually all interacting in different virtual spaces; all the interaction/dialog is happening online
- the class: theories of online marketing, online persuasion
- students read widely about marketing theory, as well as about current virtual worlds
- class group projects: set up a dating service within Second Life (SL) and marketed it
- http://www.elasticcollision.com
Understanding Virtual Worlds
- helpful to have a more specific definition
Characteristics of Virtual Worlds
- simulated environments
- increasing sense/look of realism
- give users the sense of being present "somewhere else"
- immersive, compelling environments-- can sometimes be too compelling
- users represented as avatars
- your character, or a representation of yourself
- can be either very similar or dissimilar from the user (both physically and emotionally/mentally)
- the avatars can be long-standing; users spend large amounts of time and energy creating and using them
- "Alter Ego"
- representations of avatars and their creators
- Robbie Cooper
- multiple users co-present at the same time
- "meta-verse" (Neal Stephenson)
- collaboration takes place in these spaces -- not just traditional game objectives and narratives
- WOW guilds gathering for events
- various social formations/events
- persistence (users can make persistent changes to the world)
- the world registers the changes that people make (changes remain stable and affective)
- able to create and decorate their own spaces
Social Virtual Worlds vs. Game Worlds
- Everquest, WOW traditionally conceived as game worlds
- Second Life a social world
- social VW's are defined/built/designed primarily by the users
- social VW's have more potential in the classroom because they present a blank slate
- but they aren't the only way to go; there are effective classroom uses for game worlds
- most SL users are over 25; a significant number are also over 35
- these aren't automatically or only avenues for youth
- real activities taking place inside VW's
- virtual personalities becoming actual millionaires
- "AvaStar" tabloid
- VW book-signing
- publishers of various types are considering this avenue of interaction with audiences (book fans)
Theoretical Context
- is this just a bunch of hype, a fad that will pass?
- a lot of faculty are still frustrated about having Blackboard or Powerpoint "shoved down their throat"
- in many or even most situations, these VW's probably aren't appropriate
- but there are situations that are perfect for it
- so why/when use VW's?
- these virtual spaces can be highly engaging
- "Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience" by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
- can help learning
- avatar role-playing can foster understanding
- RP is a powerful tool for getting people to identify with other perspectives, to think outside themselves
- VW's have the potential to liberate student imaginations and particularly help shy students
- promotes collaborative problem-solving
- overcomes distance limitations
- screenshot of class being virtually held online, with students in Texas and instructor in the UK
- mirrors 21st-century workplace
- the world that students will be working in, in the future
- virtual conference rooms look like real ones
- slide showing a lot of technology company logos
- poster for the silicon valley of Bangalor, India
- "The World is Flat," Thomas Friedman
- a global workplace
- situated learning
- re-conceptualizing knowledge
- knowledge is socially constructive
- students aren't just repositories for knowledge, but encouraged to react and influence body of knowledge
- communities of practice
Tips for Teaching with Virtual Worlds
- be prepared to make a deep commitment to the VW component of your course
- you must be immersed in the community
- be hesitant to pull SL into a curriculum unless you're determined to work with all the various hurdles
- plan for a steep learning curve
- access hardware access issues up front
- very demanding on system hardware, particularly graphics hards
- important to be sure that students have access to computers that will run this software (their own and/or computer labs)
- important to have very supportive IT dept.
- tap into extensive community resources
- in-world communities
- SLED (second life educators)
- out-of-world communities
- walk a fine line between freedom and control
- situated learning, lean more toward freedom, but need traditional types of debriefing to be sure that students can translate this knowledge into the real world
- anticipate blurred boundaries
- be prepared for a certain kind of intimacy or permissive environment
- the authority of the classroom and instructor isn't quite there
- you don't want to alienate students, but go into it knowing what your boundaries are
Questions
Q: about using Second Life
- SL is not the easiest learning curve, but it's possible if you're patient
- if you want to teach in SL, spend the semester beforehand using it and preparing
- there are a lot of great content creators in SL that would be happy to help design a class
Q: what kind of support do you provide faculty to use SL in their classes?
- Trinity has a robust technology team and library structure
- Aaron's done all the SL work himself, because he's excited about it
- there's not an institutional commitment at the moment to using SL, but there is interest
Q: how do you bring students up to speed in a SL class? (takes about 4 - 6 hours to adjust to SL)
- it's a problem/hurdle
- technically-gifted students may intimidate others
- give additional class time for adjustment, like a weekly viewing in a film class (a lab section)
- Joe Sanchez, UT Austin faculty member writing a lot about teaching in SL
Q: Accessibility issues?
- SL works in limited ways with visually-impaired students
- adaptive technology
- but at its heart, it is a visual medium
- users in SL with disabilities organize and discuss these issues
- we need to see accessibility increasing in VW's
Q: examples of research collaborations in SL?
- Karen Nova's blog on virtual worlds and collaborative projects
- an enormous amount out there
Q: is there room for interoperability for avatars between worlds?
- hot topic right now; how portable will our avatars be?
- blog, Virtual World News: industry discussions about interoperability
- blog, World Immersion Blog, also discusses these issues
Q: what is an appropriate class size for an SL class?
- smaller is better (15 or so)
- some have been successful with larger classes, but over 30 would be difficult
Q: using SL for advising services?
- works well for an informal advising session
- looking into incorporating it at an institutional level
- boundaries become blurred in VW's become teacher, advisor, student
Q: when and where will the white paper be available?
- the Elastic Collision site, next week