Pedagogical Design of Learning Experiences Within Virtual Worlds

Sleepy Littlething & Esox GravesCarina Girvan & Timothy Savage

Centre for Research in IT in Education

Trinity College,University of Dublin

girvanc@tcd.ie

Background• Early adopters focus on

– Replication (Winn, 2005)

• Next stage– Relationship between pedagogy and technology

(Savin-Baden & Ward 2008)

• Aim

– Identify and analyse pedagogy in action

– Design pedagogically informed learning experiences

This presentation...

• Outline emerging model

• Present initial implementation

– Second Life– 20 educators

• Experience of Second Life

– 5 groups

• Focus on pedagogical design of the learning experience

• Evaluation of implementation

Model of Best PracticeIdentification of a

pedagogy

Design learning experience

Implementation

Analysis

• Evaluation

- Learning experience

- Pedagogy in action

Affordances

Affordance

• Gibson (1979)– Relationship between organism and environment– Perception-action

• Kirschner (2002) Educational affordance– “Characteristics of an artefact that determine if

and how a particular learning behaviour could possibly be enacted within a given context”

Educational affordances of Second Life?

• Sense of self and presence resulting in immersion (Cross et al, 2007; Kemp & Livingstone, 2006)

• Socialising and collaborative learning (Cross et al,

2007; Minocha & Roberts, 2008)

• Construction of objects and environments

• Flexibility

• Persistent

Communal Constructivism (Holmes et al 2001)

• Active engagement in knowledge construction

• Interaction with the environment

• Active collaboration

• Publishing knowledge

• Technology integral

• Transfer of knowledge between groups

• Adaptive course

Mapping pedagogy to affordance

Pedagogy Second Life

Active collaboration Collaborative learning

Active engagement Immersion

Interaction with environment Construction of environment

Publishing knowledge Construction of objects

Transfer of knowledge Persistent

Adaptive Flexibility

Murias

Mapping pedagogy to affordance

Pedagogy Second Life

Active collaboration Collaborative learning

Active engagement Immersion

Interaction with environment Construction of environment

Publishing knowledge Construction of objects

Transfer of knowledge Persistent

Adaptive Flexibility

Data Sets

• Artefacts

• Chat logs

• Researcher’s Observations

• Semi-structured interview

Evaluation 1: Learners’ perceptions• Within-case themes– Successful group– Construction• Knowledge & books

• Cross-case themes– Internal group dynamics– Between group dynamics– Time

Mapping pedagogy to affordancePedagogy Second Life

Active collaboration Collaborative learning

Active engagement Immersion

Interaction with environment Construction of environment

Publishing knowledge Construction of objects

Transfer of knowledge Persistent

Adaptive Flexibility

Evaluation 2: Pedagogy in action

Outcomes

• Positive learning experience

• Affordances leveraged to meet design criteria

of pedagogy.

Future work

• Explore other pedagogies

• Leverage different combinations of affordances

• Develop mapping process

• Develop overall model of best practice

ReferencesCross, J., O’Driscoll, T. & Trondsen, E. (2007, March 22). Another Life: Virtual worlds as tools

for learning. eLearn Magazine. Retrieved September 22, 2007, from http://www.elearnmag.org/subpage.cfm?section=articles&article=44-1

Gibson, J. J. (1979). The ecological approach to visual perception. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company

Kemp, J. & Livingstone, D., (2006). Putting a Second Life “metaverse” skin on learning management systems. Proceedings from Second Life Education Workshop 2006.

Kirschner, P. A. (2002). Can we support CSCL? Educational, social and technological affordances for learning. In P. Kirschner (Ed.), Three worlds of CSCL: Can we support CSCL (7–47). Heerlen: Open Universityof the Netherlands.

Minocha, S. & Roberts, D., (2008) Laying the groundwork for socialisation and knowledge construction within 3D virtual worlds. ALT-J, 16(3), 181 – 196

Savin-Baden, M. & Ward, R. (2008). Editorial: Learning and teaching in Immersive Virtual Worlds. ALT-J, 16(3), 137-138

Winn, W. (2005). What we have learned about VR and learning and what we still need to study. Proceedings from Virtual Reality International Conference. Retrieved March 14, 2008, from http://depts.washington.edu/edtech/laval.doc