The fourth level is the Performance Outcomes lens. This level simulates the observer tracking students in depth to identify the skills and knowledge that they have acquired from the learning activities. Because our research focuses mainly on educating learners on technical subjects using collaborative learning activities, students can acquire both collaborative and technical skills based on the activity they are doing. Thus, this lens should help the virtual observer assess the knowl- edge and skills of the individual learners.
Thefirst two layers of the observation lenses and the mechanisms to assess how best to translate teacher generated observation rules into descriptive logical rules are currently being developed. The plan is to determine the observing rules that should be created and when the rules should be activated. This will require the creation of a fuzzy model, which will be validated through a series of expert evaluations. In terms of assessing this approach for collecting learning evidence, the intention is to assess how much data should be collected to yield sufficient evidence of learning, and how much should be collected from natural agents and how much from software agents.
In this work a determination will need to be made as to how different types of data can be automatically grouped to demonstrate meaningful evidence of learning.
learning. For example, the Essex work to create an assessment lens should help students and instructors better assess the learning outcomes achieved.
A key aspect arising from this work is the challenge of designing more effective virtual spaces for learning. Our research has shown some of the benefits from taking a more constructionist approach to learning. This is backed up by other research (Ross,2013) that proposes a more student-centred pedagogy in which students are more involved and active in their learning and construction of knowledge. This has led to increased emphasis on active and collaborative learning activities and sub- sequently the creation of newMaker spaces(as discussed above) that incorporate a significant leaning role. The importance of the design of the environment on the learning outcomes is also reflected in other studies (Barrett, Zhang, Moffat, &
Kobbacy,2013; Perks, Orr, & Al-Omari,2016), that have focused on changes to the physical environment of classrooms and schools and its impact on the students as a space for learning.
Designing and building effective online spaces can be demanding and time consuming for stakeholders and also often requires high levels of technical expertise. User customization has the potential to improve engagement and expe- rience in virtual spaces, much in the same way as personalizing homes makes it feel and work better for its inhabitants. Thus, to achieve better online experiences, such 3D spaces need to be easier to build and well designed. Also, such environments need to provide its users with a rich experience and greaterflexibility to suit their needs. Jacobson further discusses some of these issues in Chap.3where he focuses on the challenge of creating authenticity in immersive design as a principle for guiding authors of educational immersive media.
Recent studies have found that the influence of physical and psychological design parameters influence the users experience in built environments. These parameters are linked to the‘responsiveness’of such environments. Virtual worlds show great promise for increased visualization, immersion and enhancing the users’ experiences but the current evidence suggests that they struggle to compete with their physical counterparts. One approach moving forward would be to capitalize onfindings from the design of built environments to try to develop better designs that can be used beneficially in 3D online worlds. According to Bentley (1985) a built environment should provide its users withflexible settings and opportunities to maximize the choices available in their environment. Such environments with these affordances are said to be‘responsive’and can be characterized according to well defined architectural and user characteristics. The challenge in creating new mixed reality spaces for learning is to combine the benefits of good architectural design with theflexibility and customizability that is afforded by the use of these digital 3D spaces.
Acknowledgements We would like to acknowledge the work of the team of researchers in the Immersive Education Lab in the School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering at the University of Essex that supports much of the research described in this paper. This particularly includes the contributions of Prof. Vic Callaghan, Dr. Anasol Peña-Rios, Ahmed Alzahrani, Samah Felemban and Salako Oluwatimilehin Samuel.
References
Barrett, P., Zhang, Y., Moffat, J., & Kobbacy, K. (2013). A holistic, multi-level analysis identifying the impact of classroom design on pupils’learning.Building and Environment, 59, 678–689.
Bentley, I. (1985).Responsive environments: A manual for designers. UK: Routledge.
Bloom, B. S. (Ed.), Engelhart, M. D., Furst, E. J., Hill, W. H., Krathwohl, D. R. (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives. InHandbook I: The cognitive domain. New York: David McKay Co Inc.
Borich, G. (2016).Observation skills for effective teaching, UK: Routledge.
Chiang, Y., & Schallert, D. (2012). Instructional design meets politeness issues in virtual worlds.
In S. D’Augustino (Ed.),Immersive Environments, Augmented Realities, and Virtual Worlds:
Assessing Future Trends in Education: Assessing Future Trends in Education (p. 123).
Information Science Reference, Hershey: PA, USA.
Dalgarno, B., & Lee, M. J. W. (2010). What are the learning affordances of 3-D virtual environments?British Journal of Educational Technology, 41(1), 2010.
Dooley, J., Callaghan, V., Hagras, H., Gardner, M., Ghanbaria, M., & Alghazzawi, D. (2011). The intelligent classroom: Beyond four walls. proceedings of the intelligent campus workshop (IC’11) held at the 7th IEEE Intelligent Environments Conference (IE’11), Nottingham.
Felemban, S., Gardner, M., & Callaghan, V. (2016). Virtual observation lenses for assessing online collaborative learning environment. iLRN 2016 Santa Barbara Workshop, Short Paper and Poster Proceedings from the Second Immersive Learning Research Network Conference.
Gardner, M. and Elliott, J. (2014). The Immersive Education Laboratory: Understanding affordances, structuring experiences, and creating constructivist, collaborative processes, in mixed-reality smart environments. EAI Endorsed Transactions on Future Intelligent Educational Environments, 14(1), e6. ISSN: 2409-0034.
Gardner, M., & O’Driscoll, L. (2011). MiRTLE (Mixed–Reality Teaching and Learning Environment): From prototype to production and implementation. Workshop ‘Learning activities across physical and virtual spaces’ (AcrossSpaces). EC—TEL 2011 conference, Palermo (Italy), September 20–23, 2011.
Milgram, P., & Kishino, A. F. (1994). Taxonomy of mixed reality visual displays. IEICE Transactions on Information and Systems,E77-D(1), 1321–1329.
Peña-Rios, A., Callaghan, V., Gardner, M., & Alhaddad, M. (2015). Experiments with collaborative blended-reality laboratory technology for distance learners. Published in the iLRN 2015 Prague Workshop, Short Paper and Poster Proceedings from the inaugural Immersive Learning Research Network Conference.
Perks, T., Orr, D., and Al-Omari, E. (2016). Classroom re-design to facilitate student learning: A case study of changes to a university classroom.Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 16, 53–68.
Potkonjak, V., Gardner, M., Callaghan, V., Mattila, P., Guetl, C., Petrovic, V., & Jovanovic, K.
(2016). Virtual laboratories for education in science, technology, and engineering: A review.
Computers & Education, 95, 309–327. (Elsevier).
Ross, K. C. (2013). Creating dialogical spaces in blended environments: A case study of classroom design.Practical Applications and Experiences in K-20 Blended Learning Environments,280.
Schmidt, M., Kevan, J., McKimmy, P., & Fabel, S. (2013). The Holodeck: Mixed-reality teaching and learning environment at the University of Hawaii, Manoa.Virtual Education Journal.
Witmer, B., & Singer, M. (1998). Measuring presence in virtual environments: A presence questionnaire(Vol. 7, No. 3, pp. 225–240). Presence: MIT Press.
Author Biographies
Michael Robert Gardner has a B.Sc. (Hons) in Computer Science (1984) and a Ph.D. in Computer Science (1991) from Loughborough University in the UK. Previously he worked for 15 years as a Research Scientist at the British Telecommunications (Adastral Park) research labs at Martlesham Heath in the UK. He then setup and became the Deputy Director of the Institute for Social and Technical Research at the University of Essex. Currently he is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering at the University of Essex. In this role he is also Director of the Immersive Education Laboratory. He has published over 100 papers which include conference, journal and book articles. His primary research interests are in understanding the affordances of immersive education technologies and developing systems to support co-creative collaboration in mixed-reality environments. He is on the board of the newly created Immersive Learning Research Network (iLRNetwork), which aims to develop and support a community of educators, scholars, and practitioners dedicated toward research in and on digitally-enhanced immersive learning environments.
Warren W. Sheafferis a visiting Professor at the University of Essex and is a faculty member in the department of Mathematics and Computer Science at Saint Paul College. He served as the department chairman of the Computer Science department at Saint Paul for 15 years implementing a variety of new programs and technologies including many which utilize virtual reality in education. His area of technical interest is man-in-the-loop optimization systems for scheduling problems within stochastic networks. His area of pedagogical interest is the use of virtual reality and visualization systems to improve learning outcomes. He is currently serving on a standards committee for computer science education for undergraduates.
Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games and Virtual Reality Combine
for Learning
Eric Klopfer
Abstract The places where Virtual Reality (VR) can really make a difference in learning are those in which the VR can bring a truly unique experience to students.
The simulated online world of games is an ideal way to take advantage of the capabilities of this new technology. Games provide a set of structures that not only scaffold learners in solving complex problems but also provide a great deal of freedom to explore personally interesting pathways. In particular, Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMOs) offer an environment that sup- ports social learning and exploration around increasingly challenging problems. VR can greatly enhance MMOs through opportunities for more natural and expressive communication and collaboration as well as ways to visualize the complex infor- mation resulting from interactions in this space. When this approach is applied in an educational context, learners can be presented with challenging problems, requiring participation from multiple players around realistic scientific concepts. As this genre moves forward it can explore interesting hybrid approaches that combine VR with Augmented Reality (AR) and traditional displays to meet the needs of schools, teachers, and learners.
Keywords Games
Learning Science education Collaborative learning