Session 6: Enhancing Learning in Virtual Worlds (2)
2nd Global Conference
Monday 12th March – Wednesday 14th March 2012
Prague, Czech Republic
Using Virtual Worlds to Support Interaction Design Studio Courses
Panayiotis Koutsabasisa
Department of Product and Systems Design Engineering, University of the Aegean, Hermoupolis, Syros, Greece
Interaction Design Studios are project-based courses in which students collaboratively design interactive products following formal methodologies. Typically the goals of these courses are to let students acquire the practical skills to apply theories and methods from relevant courses in the context of a real-world problem, and to develop their collaborative and organizational abilities that will be required in their professional work. An interaction design studio course usually adopts the typical product life-cycle process and consists of discrete phases, such as: requirements analysis, conceptual design, detailed design, prototyping and evaluation.
Virtual Worlds (VWs) have a number of unique affordances that may be used to support an Interaction Design Studio by offering an experiential, collaborative and constructivist learning environment. During the conceptual design phase students may construct a rough form of their concepts, present them in-world to their group, and embed related documents in a shared workspace. In the detailed design phase students may take advantage of the interaction and animation capabilities of VWs and collaboratively refine both the form and (part of) the functionality of the product. Virtual prototyping can be employed as a prototyping method: the product may be presented in a realistic context and have a simulated interactive behavior. Finally, in the evaluation phase remote users may test and evaluate the product and send feedback.
The aim of this paper is to assess the potential of VWs as a supporting medium for Interaction Design Studio and to propose a paradigm to integrate them through the various phases of the course. We present an Interaction Design course that ran through a whole semester with the support of a VW. We have implemented a number of supporting tools, set up the appropriate learning workspaces, and performed formative and summative evaluation of the learning process and the medium throughout the course.
Download Draft Conference Paper (pdf)
Branching out through VirtualPREX: enhancing teaching in Second Life
Yvonne Masters (and Sue Gregory via Skype)
University of New England, NSW, Australia
Virtual worlds have been incorporated into the repertoire of higher education teaching and learning strategies for more than a decade and there are numerous reports of the efficacy of this form of learning for both student engagement and enhanced student outcomes. The affordances of these worlds are also being used to enhance another aspect of many higher education courses; work integrated learning.
In teacher education courses, practice teaching (also referred to as practicum, placement, workplace learning and professional experience) is a core component of such courses. However, research has highlighted quality preparation for practice teaching (or lack thereof) as problematic. This is a particular challenge for distance education students and it has necessitated approaching teacher preparation in new ways.
The emergence of virtual world technologies, with their active experiential learning affordances, has provided the authors with a capacity to develop classroom and playground environments which are currently being tested as effective spaces for developing a range of critical teaching skills prior to preservice teachers entering a physical classroom. The students have opportunities, through interaction in and with the virtual environment, to practise skills and apply concepts in a realistic setting that is risk free. There have been few attempts to try this form of approach in Australia prior to 2011.
In this paper, the authors discuss the problems of preparation for practice teaching and the ways in which a virtual world, Second Life, is being currently tested, as part of a larger funded project, as a site for enhanced teacher preparation. The results of the first trials are described and the future of the project explored.
Download Draft Conference Paper (pdf)
Comparison of Role-Plays in a Virtual World
Yvonne Masters (and Sue Gregory via Skype)
University of New England, NSW, Australia
Since 2009 the authors have been conducting role-plays in the virtual world of Second Life with both on and off-campus pre-service teachers at their university. To date, two different role-plays have been undertaken. Initially the role-plays were trialled on-campus so that any technical issues could be eliminated prior to extending the teaching strategy to off-campus pre-service teachers where troubleshooting was going to be more difficult.
The first role-play activity, undertaken for the first time in 2009, was de Bono’s (1985) Six Thinking Hats, a teaching strategy that enables pre-service teachers to think about their thinking. Since the first trial with on campus pre-service teachers de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats role-play in a virtual world has also been taught to off-campus pre-service teachers.
The second role-play activity, which began in 2011, is virtual professional experience (VirtualPREX). Professional experience (or practicum) is a mandatory component of preservice teacher education, providing pre-service teachers with authentic learning in the workplace. However, pre-service teachers often feel that they would like to experience more professional experience than is provided. Professional experience in a virtual world is a space where this can be undertaken without encroaching on real classrooms and teachers already used to their maximum. Pre-service teachers were provided with the opportunity to teach a short lesson in a virtual world with their peers role-playing students, either “good” or “naughty”. Strategies had to be developed by the pre-service teacher in the teacher role to manage the students and engage them in their lesson.
The authors compare the two different role-play strategies over three years in a virtual world with both on and off-campus pre-service teachers. Both role-plays were undertaken with different cohorts of pre-service teachers and surveys were completed at the end of each role-play session for comparison. The results of these role-plays and survey analysis are discussed in this paper.
Entries (RSS)