Learning Problem-Solving Strategies in Virtual Worlds That Encourage People to Respect Human Rights

Author(s):  
Kara Bennett

This chapter will discuss educational projects for learning problem-solving strategies in virtual worlds that encourage people to respect human rights as a lifelong learning experience. The discussion includes philosophical issues concerning the need to design new models for virtual learning that engage a person's own ways of thinking and interacting with the educational content. For example, the instructional design for these projects is based on adapting the think aloud and means-end analysis research methods for evaluating how learning about human rights in a virtual environment might transfer to the real-world community. The projects have been presented over the past 10 years in the virtual worlds of Second Life and the Open Sims.

Author(s):  
Kara Bennett

This chapter will discuss educational projects for learning problem-solving strategies in virtual worlds that encourage people to respect human rights. The discussion includes philosophical issues that concern the need to design new models for virtual learning that engage a person's own ways of thinking and interacting with the educational content. For example, the instructional design for these projects is based on adapting the Think Aloud and Means-End analysis research methods for the evaluation of how learning about human rights in virtual environs might transfer to the real life community. The projects have been presented over the past eight years in the virtual worlds of Second Life and the Open Sims.


Author(s):  
Lia DiBello ◽  
Whit Missildine

Instructional design has not kept pace with the growth of the globalized knowledge economy. In the area of project management, a volatile global economy requires immersive learning and training exercises targeted to expert learners that have not yet been widely adopted. The authors developed a 16-hour, immersive collective learning experience for mid- to high-level project managers. The exercise was carried out in the Second Life Virtual Worlds platform and aimed to accelerate learning among participants. In addition, the authors tested a number of questions about the capacity of Virtual Worlds to be used for running complex, immersive learning and training. Results indicate that participants experienced high levels of engagement with exercise and, in the second iteration, were able to achieve goals within the exercise. Various technological breakdowns pointed to both the downsides as well as the opportunities for Virtual Worlds to be used for immersive rehearsal engagements.


Author(s):  
Lia DiBello ◽  
Whit Missildine

Instructional design has not kept pace with the growth of the globalized knowledge economy. In the area of project management, a volatile global economy requires immersive learning and training exercises targeted to expert learners that have not yet been widely adopted. The authors developed a 16-hour, immersive collective learning experience for mid- to high-level project managers. The exercise was carried out in the Second Life Virtual Worlds platform and aimed to accelerate learning among participants. In addition, the authors tested a number of questions about the capacity of Virtual Worlds to be used for running complex, immersive learning and training. Results indicate that participants experienced high levels of engagement with exercise and, in the second iteration, were able to achieve goals within the exercise. Various technological breakdowns pointed to both the downsides as well as the opportunities for Virtual Worlds to be used for immersive rehearsal engagements.


Author(s):  
Yueh-Hui Vanessa Chiang ◽  
Diane L. Schallert

Attempts at incorporating emerging and innovative instructional technology, like virtual worlds, into educational settings requires efforts to understand new discourse patterns that may develop and bring in a learner-centered instructional design that takes the affordances and constraints of the new technology into consideration. These efforts can contribute to an effective and positive learning experience for learners. Drawing upon observations of different types of learning activities held in Second Life, an increasingly popular virtual world, this chapter aims at initiating a discussion interweaving the concerns for politeness, reflecting learners’ psychological needs during their interactions with fellow learners and technology, with considerations of instructional design in a virtual world as a new learning context. Such a discussion has the potential of more effectively exploiting what new immersive environments can offer for learning.


Author(s):  
Christophe Duret

This chapter will propose an ontology of virtual environments that calls into question the dichotomy between the real and the virtual. This will draw on the concepts of trajectivity and ‘médiance' in order to describe the way virtual environments, with their technological and symbolic features, take part in the construction of human environments. This theoretical proposition will be illustrated with the analysis of Arcadia, a virtual environment built in Second Life. Finally, a mesocriticism will be proposed as a new approach for the study of virtual environments.


Author(s):  
Shalin Hai-Jew

The design of learning does not often emphasize on how much high-concentration “focused time” and other time learners spend on particular endeavors: reading, viewing, listening, writing, assessing, problem-solving, researching, communicating, collaborating, and others. And yet, how time is spent in purposeful learning—in assignments, fieldwork, research, collaboration, invention, co-design, and assessments—is thought to have a clear impact on the learning and the learning experience. This work explores some of the research in the area of time in learning and proposes some methods for including “focused time” design and time awareness in instructional design for online learning, particularly given the available tools for learner check-ins, time monitoring, and other tools.


Author(s):  
Ivonne Citarella

Over the years, the virtual space has been changing, and the skills acquired by users have been improved, and the avatars, as well as the settings, have graphically become more and more sophisticated. In virtual reality, the avatar without an appropriate animation would move in jerks in a disharmonious way similar to a robot, but endowing it with a particular postural animation, you make a conscious choice of what information you want to transfer with its appearance and its posture. In recent years, research has focused on the study of communication and its importance. The purpose of this contribution is to analyze the animations present in Second Life trying to trace a socio-psychological picture of the non-verbal communication process in a virtual environment.


2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 102-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Branden Thornhill-Miller ◽  
Jean-Marc Dupont

This article highlights virtual reality (VR) as perhaps the safest, most fully developed of the emerging technologies of cognitive enhancement and as an underused tool for the enhancement of creativity in particular. We argue that researchers, educators, trainers, designers, managers, and others concerned with innovation should be more informed about virtual reality technologies (VRTs) both because of their widespread and growing accessibility and because of the significant, synergistic contributions they can make to human performance and understanding. We present a brief consultative survey exploring the potential use of virtual worlds (VWs) such as Second Life among a group of professionals (N= 20) working in the area of creativity and innovation training. In addition to providing some useful perspectives and creativity strategies for implementation, results suggest that the possibilities represented by VRTs may not be fully appreciated by those who could make the most use of them. We argue that VRTs offer a cost-effective means of implementing and optimizing nearlyallconventional individual and collaborative creativity enhancement techniques while also offering potent new possibilities and combinations not available by other means. Thus, we outline five ways VR can be used to enhance creativity and problem solving: (a) by changing aspects of the self and self-perception; (b) by optimizing interactions and collaboration with others; (c) by optimizing environmental conditions and influences; (d) by facilitating guidance orgamificationof the problem-solving process; and (e) by offering an arena for the integration of other technologies of creativity enhancement such as pharmacological enhancement, brain stimulation, and neurofeedback. The article ends with a discussion of this technological convergence within the growing sciences of innovation and cognitive enhancement.


2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 485-512
Author(s):  
Sevda Ceylan Dadakoğlu ◽  
Şeniz Aksoy

Depending on the rapid development of technology, many environments, tools and methods are being developed in the field of education and training. These innovations include education in virtual worlds and three-dimensional education technologies that we have encountered frequently in recent years. With the improvement of three-dimensional education technologies, it is known that learning is used in "3D virtual worlds". Accordingly, it is mentioned that virtual environments are used in all levels of education, learning and teaching process.In this study, the virtual world of Second Life, which is a three-dimensional online life simulation and can be defined as an alternative teaching environment, was examined. The aim of this article; Introducing Second Life, a virtual environment that can be used in art and design education, to provide a theoretical perspective, to contribute to researchers and teachers who want to use 3D virtual worlds for educational purposes and to create a theoretical basis for the researches in this environment.Therefore, first of all, 3D virtual worlds are examined from a general perspective. Then, the Second Life application from 3D virtual environments was examined in detail and its general characteristics were defined.In addition, the use of Second Life in education, construction and content creation within the application, art and design making and art education were discussed. For this reason, examples of the artists using the Second Life application were given and some of the educational practices related to how Second Life was used in art and design education were included. In the conclusion part, with the development of technology and the use of virtual worlds in education, the gains that can be achieved in art classes were also included. In this context, the importance of the use of technology, various computer applications (VR, augmented reality applications, etc.) and 3D virtual worlds was mentioned in terms of today's art education gains. It was also stated that the ways of incorporating technology into art education should be questioned. ​Extended English summary is in the end of Full Text PDF (TURKISH) file.   Özet Teknolojinin hızla ilerlemesine bağlı olarak eğitim ve öğretim alanında birçok ortam, araç ve yöntem geliştirilmektedir. Bu yeniliklerin içerisinde son yıllarda sıkça karşılaştığımız sanal dünyalarda eğitim ve üç boyutlu eğitim teknolojileri de yer almaktadır. Üç boyutlu eğitim teknolojilerinin iyileştirilmesiyle beraber “3B sanal dünyalarda öğrenme”nin ön plana çıktığı bilinmektedir. Buna bağlı olarak eğitimin tüm kademelerinde, öğrenme ve öğretme sürecinde sanal ortamların işe koşulduğundan söz edilmektedir. Bu araştırmada üç boyutlu, çevrimiçi bir yaşam simülasyonu olan ve alternatif bir öğretim ortamı olarak tanımlanabilen Second Life sanal dünyası incelenmiştir. Bu makalenin amacı; sanat ve tasarım eğitiminde kullanılabilecek sanal ortamlardan Second Life’ı tanıtmak, bu konuda teorik bir perspektif kazandırmak, 3B sanal dünyaları eğitim amaçlı kullanmak isteyen araştırmacı ve öğretmenlere katkı sağlamak ve bu ortamda yapılacak araştırmalar için kuramsal zemin oluşturmaktır. Bu nedenle öncelikle 3B sanal dünyalara genel bir çerçeveden bakılmıştır. Ardından 3B sanal ortamlardan Second Life uygulaması detaylı bir biçimde incelenerek genel özellikleri tanımlanmıştır. Second Life uygulamasının eğitimde kullanılması, uygulama dâhilinde inşa ve içerik oluşturma, sanat ve tasarım yapma ve sanat eğitimi konusu tartışılmıştır. Daha sonra Second Life uygulamasını kullanan sanatçılara örnekler verilmiş ve Second Life’ın sanat ve tasarım eğitiminde nasıl kullanıldığına ilişkin eğitim uygulamalarından bazılarına yer verilmiştir. Sonuç kısmında teknolojinin gelişmesi ve sanal dünyaların eğitimde kullanımıyla beraber sanat derslerinde elde edilebilecek kazanımlar yer almıştır. Buna bağlı olarak teknolojinin, çeşitli bilgisayar uygulamalarının (VR, artırılmış gerçeklik uygulamaları, vb.) 3B sanal dünyaların eğitimde kullanılmasının günümüz sanat eğitimi kazanımları açısından önemine değinilmiştir. Ayrıca sanat eğitimine teknolojinin dâhil edilme biçimlerinin sorgulanması gerektiği ifade edilmiştir.


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