blending learning: real experiences with virtual worlds

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Blending Learning: Real experiences with virtual worlds

John G HedbergSchool of Education

Macquarie University

Saudi ArabiaFebruary 2011

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Textbooks and representationof ideas

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Digital technologies disrupt!

• Disruptive technology — a new technological innovation that displaces an existing dominant technology (Christensen, 2003)

Time

Per

form

ance

Low quality use

High quality use

Disruptive

technology

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Digital technologies disrupt content delivery

Tutoring Tools

Online courses

Teacher deliveredIn

crea

sing

Custo

miza

tionIn

crea

sing

Cos

ts

eg Web 2.0 Social networkingNow

In five years

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Putting technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge together

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Earlier lessons of Blending

• Dependence on student-driven learning strategies

• Need to understand how teachers and students communicate between and among

• Students need to take the initiative, and to judge and interpret

• How the technologies underpin the learning activities

Lefoe & Hedberg (2006)

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Web 2.0basic service: web1.0 web 2.0 characteristics:

Online advertisement

DoubleClick Google AdSense

Dynamic advertisement based on the page content

Photo sharing Ofoto Flickr & MySpace

Personalized templates, tagging, annotating & commentWebsite personal

websitesblogging

File sharing Akamai BitTorrent Peer to peer source & each downloading machine becomes serverMusic sharing mp3.com Napster

Online encyclopaedia

Britannica Online

Wikipedia Open content & collaboratively written

Online event organizing

Evite upcoming.org & EVDB

Event request & comments from collective users

Identity domain name speculation

search engine optimization

Marketability

Visitors volume page views cost per click Navigation behaviourinterfacing 2

programsscreen scraping

web services Merging into 1 platform: The Web.

Centralized authorship

Publishing participation Democratization of authorship

Centralized managed content

content management

wikis Open content

Pre-defined directories (taxonomy)

tagging ("folksonomy"

)

User-defined

Single provider stickiness syndication Federated provider

O'Reilly, 2005

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Characteristics of Web 2.0

• open content (creative commons sharing) • microcontent—focus on small relevant

elements• user generated • collective intelligence • social construction of knowledge

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ICT in the next 5 years

• One Year or Less– Mobile computing including

geo-aware applications– Open content

• Two to Three Years– Electronic Books– Simple augmented reality

including mashups• Four to Five Years

– Gesture-based computing– Visual data analysis

Educause 2010 horizon report

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and again … http://www.go2web20.net/ in Wordle

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Choice of representation

Teacher/Designer’s representation

Manipulable representation

Constructed representation

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Shared creation of content

http://voicethread.com/

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Dialogic digital content

http:/www.xtranormal.com/

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Annotation for scaffolding and personal reflection

• Using other content you can overlay a set of your own resources with your own folksonomies

Video and dialogue linked

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Digital representation and engagement

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Quest Atlantis —3D MUVE

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Virtual versus Real contexts

• Virtual worlds offer unique opportunities for authentic learning contexts– Simulated social phenomena – Represented by dynamic characters – Learners can explore concepts and ideas in safe

and scaffolded learning contexts– Experience can transfer to the real world– Possible to explore assessment options– Need to choose a course of action to achieve a

goal

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Virtual versus Real contexts

• Real worlds require flexible, non-linear narratives with uncertain outcomes

• In the virtual context the verisimilitude of the context will determine how closely the learner achieves goals, chooses representations and interacts with objects

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Design Characteristics of the Virtual world

Representational opportunities

Strategies for meaningful interpretation

Space Design narrativeTime Exploratory narrativePlace Role play narrativeAvatars  Supportive modifiers  Type of goals  Game elements  Scaffolding  Collaborative options  User contribution  

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3D Worlds

• Designing and creating not just playing

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Multi-User Virtual Environments

“electronic environments that visually mimic complex physical spaces, where people can interact with each other and with virtual objects, and where people are represented by animated characters” (Bainbridge, 2007)

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Situated knowing and learning

• People learn and solve problems by: – reflecting on their previous embodied

experiences, and

– using the resources that are situated within their current context.

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Situative embodiment

Students need to: – Enter into a situation narratively and perceptually– Be goal-directed– Have a legitimate role– Perform consequential actionsBarab, Zuiker, Warren, Hickey, Ingram-Goble, Kwon, et

al. (2007)

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The Challenge of Construction

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Opportunities

• Engagement with problems through the manipulation of spatial artefacts. – A different set of conceptual tools may be applied

by students to solve these problems.

• More flexibility for student-generated narratives.

• Opportunities for links to the ‘real’ world and for collaboration.

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Challenges

• Learning the construction tools. – May require different approaches for students of

different ages.

• Aligning the learning outcomes to the problems/activities. – Need to reconsider the types of activities within

the constraints of the MUVE platform.

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Project Overview• Explore how using virtual world construction tools

for modeling impacts student design processes and development of spatial awareness.

• Student objective: Create site-specific artworks within the school– The virtual world is a modelling tool for

students to individually model their ideas for the final artwork.

– Final (physical) artworksare constructed in groups.

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3D Worlds

A picture of the real world wall

and the same wall inside the 3D world

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Activities 1 & 2Learning the Construction Tools

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Activity 4Modelling the Site-Specific Artwork

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3D Worlds designed for students to practice within

and some ideas for how to build a sculpture within them

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Activity 4Modelling the Site-Specific Artwork

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Teacher Feedback

"This is truly innovative! The limitations of working in a real world/site space are now defunct as the virtual world has negligible limitations on what you can create. The spin-off is that concepts can be realised quickly allowing for creative solutions."

"The whole program has been very positive in building the kids self confidence.I feel they are more empowered and have stronger initiative. Wonderful to see."

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Mobility and meaningful learning contexts

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Designing for mobility

• Pedagogical decisions often include:– positioning field work within the teaching sequence

of the topic being studied,– the content and structure of the day’s activities,– selection of appropriate technologies to support

student activities,– organisation of student groups and student roles

within the group.

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Mobility, social learning and geographical ideas • How do students help each other explore and

navigate unfamiliar environments• What is the nature and quality of non-mediated, real-

time, text-based debate between students, and how they might use multimedia recorded in situ to augment their views

• How students transpose their conceptions of locations into two-dimensional representations, and how these transpositions can be successfully communicated to their peers

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Structured academic controversy

• Team A explores an area, gathering evidence to support a given point-of-view

• Team B explores same area, gathering evidence to support a different point-of-view

• Engage in a Structured Academic Controversy regarding the optimal land-use of the given area

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Preparing arguments

Time 0037 0010 0300

1557 Here has a lot of clinics provide for people to use...

1601 We can find many food stalls therefore people can find a place to eat very easy. Here we also dry and wet markets.

1605 There is no mrt nearby so it’s very inconvenient. The streets are very dirty and dusty because of the heavy traffic. Roads very congested. Flat construction take very long. Supported by the photos we send just now. 3 yrs.

Senior citizen corner provide a place for elders to gather. Fitness corner and swimming pool allow residents to exercise to stay healthy.. Community club allows different races to build relationship.

1606 There is lots of wet market, bus stops banks recreation shopping centre

1608 Lots of markets,bank, shopping centre,provision shop,coffee shop, mini mart, a community centre,bus stop, citizen corner, playground, upgrading on hdb

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Results — Structured Academic Controversy

Phase This study

Pilot Garrision et al, 2001

Fahy, 2002

exploration 60%(483 out of 806)

63% 75% 62%

integration 30% (241)

28% 19% 14%

resolution 10% (82) 9% 6% 20%

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Outcomes

• Structured Academic Controversy in the context of a field-based mobile-telephony learning environment does result in a worthwhile contribution to practical inquiry and increased written output.

• High number of messages sent during the integration phase can be accounted for by the structure imposed by the Academic Controversy.

• Garrison et al (2001) suggest integration appears to be “more challenging than exploration” for learners,

• As a consequence, “students will be more comfortable remaining in a continuous exploration mode”

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Pedagogies in the networked digital age

• Re-creation of narrative• Transduction especially visualization of ideas• Dimensionality — virtual worlds• Re-use and re-mix of resources• Annotation in a variety of media• Mobility — changing place and time, screen size,

cloud computing• Social construction of knowledge — locus of control

and group participation

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Contact

John G HedbergProfessor ICT and EducationSchool of EducationMacquarie University NSW 2109Australia

e: john.hedberg@mq.edu.au