Create-and-Learn

The aim of this chapter is to argue how create-and-learn pedagogy can be used to direct and drive the development of virtual reality applications in academic settings. The chapter discusses the development of a synthetic learning environment that provides a context for new learning and twenty-first century education. A case study of an interdisciplinary project by university undergraduates in Japan designing, modeling, and programming a rudimentary virtual nuclear power plant provides the scenario for reflecting on the learning experiences. The chapter attempts to answer the question: How can education-appropriate virtual reality technology support students in their learning endeavors? The participation “in” technology, described in this chapter, advances the development of particular skill sets, applies knowledge to innovative situations, empowers positive attitudes to active learning, and promotes ethical considerations of the impact of technological implementations.

The Added Value of the Hybrid Virtual Learning Approach

This chapter maps the types of interactions that relate to the use of virtual worlds in hybrid virtual learning scenarios. Students were asked to state their opinions regarding their experiences and were also observed along the way. The results highlight that the learning activities and students' attitudes and experiences greatly affect learner engagement. It is vital, though, that instructional designers plan the learning activities thoughtfully and provide learners with enough time and support. Offering content with examples of the expectations of the teaching team can be invaluably helpful. Furthermore, a game-like content can be considered a great source of motivation. Moreover, the vividness of the virtual world makes the learning process more stimulating and less tedious. Additionally, avatars enable users to interact with the content and increase the opportunities for interactions with others. Nevertheless, learners' simultaneous co-presence in the physical classroom is a more immediate and preferred option, since it offers increased opportunities for collaboration.

The Learners' Isle

The multi-user virtual environment (MUVE) described in this chapter is aimed to promote learner agency and motivation by engaging students in authentic and challenging learning experiences aligned with educational goals to foster twenty-first century competencies. Principles of assessment for learning (AfL) and gamification will be integrated to design a MUVE governed by students. The students will engage in learning, assessment, and instruction-related activities. They will also initiate, manage, and monitor the activities. The relationship between The Learners' Isle virtual environment and the physical classroom environment will be complementary and reciprocal. The teacher (a digital immigrant) and the students (the digital natives) will be partners in the teaching-learning process. The design principles of The Learners' Isle, a scenario to illustrate blended learning, and its conceptualization through an activity theory framework will be presented. In addition, this chapter will discuss the educational context characteristics conducive to successful implementation of the MUVE.

The Affordances of 3D Virtual Learning Environments

The purpose of this chapter is to examine participants' perceived affordances of three-dimensional virtual learning environments (3D VLEs) in developing interpersonal emotional connections with their partners during the initial stage of the virtual exchange. To fulfill the purpose, two Japanese and two American students were paired and participated in sessions within two differently designed virtual environments using the same 3D virtual application. The results indicate that the participants tend to find avatars useful as a cue that helps in recalling previous conversations and in avoiding long silences. Additionally, the affordances of the 3D VLEs heightened the experience of co-presence. However, for non-native speakers, this experience also created increased anxiety. Finally, the results show the affordances affected the participants much more strongly during the first several sessions but were mitigated by other factors as the sessions continued.

Multi-User Mixed Reality Environments for Distance Learning

Technological innovation is changing every aspect of our lives and extending into education, where it is introducing profound changes to both the traditional classroom and online learning environments. This chapter explores the future of MUVEs, focusing particularly on immersive mixed reality learning environments and the challenges involved in the shift to multidimensional environments in education. It reviews the earlier developments in MUVEs and identifies a barrier to their deployment in science and engineering education: their inability to support physical collaborative laboratory work. The chapter then explains how advances in mixed-reality research may offer a solution to this problem through a case study of a cutting-edge example of such an approach, the BReal Lab, together with a summary of evaluation results gained from a trial involving students in 5 different countries. Finally, the chapter concludes by reflecting on the issues raised and speculates on possible future directions that work on mixed-reality MUVEs might take.

Factors Affecting Primary School Students' Learning Experiences When Using MUVEs

3D multi-user virtual environments (MUVEs) are considered a technological advancement that, in the coming years, will have a significant impact on how students learn. On the other hand, the factors that shape the learning experience in such applications are not well studied. This chapter is an attempt to fill that gap. It reports the development and validation of a scale to measure the factors that come into play when primary school students use MUVEs in formal educational settings. Perceived learning effectiveness, perceived ease of use, presence, motivation, perceived application realism, interactions, enjoyment, as well as collaboration were used to develop a questionnaire that initially included 34 items. A total of 352 sixth-grade primary school students used a MUVE in formal educational settings and the aforementioned questionnaire was administered to them. The exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis revealed the existence of 7 factors and 24 items that were retained in the final version of the scale. The factor structure of the questionnaire is also discussed.

Team-Based Learning and Team-Based Playing

Certain aspects of the popular online game World of Warcraft embody the tenets of Larry Michaelsen's team-based learning instructional method. However, team-based learning can fail when implemented incorrectly. This chapter aims to provide a theoretical basis for using World of Warcraft as an example of successful teamwork in order to better inform student understanding of collaborative, team-based learning, and introduce incoming college freshmen to the type of active, participatory learning that is critical to higher education. Through literature review and study of World of Warcraft itself, the author has established a framework for a future research avenue in unifying MUVEs and team-based learning. The author believes that using World of Warcraft as an introductory activity in a team-based learning style course can accelerate new team bonding, and can establish learning practices (such as individual accountability and preparedness for class) to benefit the entire college experience and subsequent professional career.

Contextualizing Language Learning With Street View Panoramas

The latest street view technology enables language learners to look around and navigate interactively from remote worldwide locations via the internet. In addition to the enhanced feeling of immersion, the realistic scenes in a street view panorama help to represent the real world and make language learning more engaging and meaningful. This chapter explores the potential for extending a virtual English as a foreign language classroom with online street view panoramas. The program aims to create an immersive environment within which students complete a task-based learning activity; the task design is based on Schank's (1996) goal-based scenarios. The results reveal that street view technologies hold great potential to enhance language learners' communicative competence. Future research is needed to look into learners' experience in this new learning environment and to examine the use of street view panoramas in other disciplines.

Task-Based Language Learning and Learner Autonomy in 3D Virtual Worlds

This chapter investigates whether a problem-solving task with an environment exploration component mediates learner autonomy in a 3D virtual world (VW). Two groups of English as a foreign language (EFL) learners were to collect information by exploring the 3D VW and eliciting information from player avatars to complete the task. An analysis of student interaction reveals that only one of the groups acted as autonomous learners by generating new topics based on their observations in the environment; eliciting information and controlling the topics when interacting with the player avatars; and initiating repair leading to input modification, negotiation of meaning, and modification of output. Results suggest that learner autonomy could be promoted in 3D VWs by improving the clarity of task instructions and by designing learning tasks in such a way that students would be able to complete the tasks only if they share their observations with peers and player avatars.

Designing for Collaborative Play

Games and MUVEs each have distinct features that make them rich environments for learning. The MIT Education Arcade has worked to capitalize on the affordances present in both genres by designing The Radix Endeavor, a multiplayer online game for STEM learning set in a rich virtual world. This chapter presents the game as an example of how collaborative learning theory can be applied to game design within a MUVE. It will discuss the process of intentionally designing game features and content with the goal of bringing about social experiences, as well as the concrete game features that resulted. Then it will describe the importance of implementation design and the ways that teachers can leverage a multiplayer educational game based on the Radix pilot project. More broadly, it will explore how this type of social game can lead to authentic scientific inquiry and deep STEM learning.