Pioneering in the Virtual World Frontier

Immersion in virtual worlds presented opportunities for simulating the qualities valued in face-to-face classes with the flexibility afforded by online learning. Immersive learning engaged educators, curriculum designers, campuses, conferences, and educational community groups to devise new ways to collaborate and engage learners. Dreaming of opportunities that were not possible in the online classroom, educators saw the potential of building communities in virtual worlds. They gathered to share their and to employ novel approaches to address educational challenges. This chapter explores the phenomenon of selfhood and society integral to the development of a vibrant educational community. At the heart of virtual world education is an ecosystem of institutions, groups, and conferences comprised of the early adopters and pioneers who stimulated their imagination and pooled their resources to encourage and strengthen the community and cast their eye to the future.

Cognitive Apprenticeship for Teaching Computer Science and Leadership in Virtual Worlds

Cognitive apprenticeship refers to the development of skills under the guidance and tutelage of a domain expert. This chapter covers the theory and highlights 10 years of virtual learning experiences and 52 classes using the cognitive apprenticeship model. It reflects on the impact of presence and explores how learning communities develop as students assume roles and learn by working next to skilled faculty. The examples reinforce the value of deep immersion and identity in situated learning. The software design activities illustrate the benefits experienced when students assume ownership and structure their activities. Through self-reflection, learners illustrated the power of design thinking through group and individual design studios. The chapter concludes with observations from 400 eighth graders and reflections on future work in the design of sustainable learning programs for computer science and leadership education.

Make It Real

Several schools and colleges under Air University have found utility in using a mixed-reality approach to developing leadership acumen in this unique risk-free environment. This chapter will describe the power of collaboration between Air University and Auburn University at Montgomery while demonstrating the impact of this mixed-reality approach on developing military leaders. These mixed-reality exercises (MRXs) leverage an environment that establishes a practical laboratory for developing leaders to interact with avatars using a combination of virtual immersion and human intelligence (live simulation engagement). This innovative approach to “real play” allows real-time learning to take place in real time through virtual immersion.

The Claim on Human Conviviality in Cyberspace

This chapter sets out by defining conviviality in a way that allows the term to be simultaneously applied to face-to-face and virtual experiences. The educational context is introduced as one of many that can benefit from both types of experience. Impairment of the components of a shared learning experience (self, others, teacher) does not have to occur if educators understand the unique combination produced by the content to be learned plus the markers of the type of learning experience selected. Matching the content to the medium produces the optimal results. The authors conclude that conviviality in a specific application is not only possible, but potentially highly productive in cyberspace, minimizing the logistical, high-risk, and cognitive constraints identified by Calandra and Puvirajah that can impair other forms of communication and specifically non-cyber learning experiences. This chapter contributes to new era of human interaction literature in the age of virtuality.

Transdisciplinary Collaborative Development of Healthcare Virtual Simulations

There is a need for collaborative, participatory exploration into emerging simulation technologies supportive of distributed, interdisciplinary practice to promote cultures of collaborative praxis. Higher educational institutions are adapting curriculum to support interprofessional education among healthcare students such as in medicine, nursing, and social work to build the ability to practice with greater safety for patient care. An analysis of critical supporting factors and challenges for distributed teams seeking to develop virtual simulations is presented with guidelines for distributed development and delivery using emerging simulation platforms applicable to healthcare teams and beyond.

Advancing Personal Learning and Transdisciplinarity for Developing Identity and Community

Personal learning is an idiosyncratic ability built upon metacognition that fosters identity development. When supported with virtual learning using avatars, collaborative virtual environments (CVEs), and combinations of emerging technologies, personal learning advances identity exploration and community development. Virtual participation in groups and events fosters mentoring for community enrichment especially for vulnerable populations such as persons with disabilities, the elderly, and those in need of recovery. Emerging technologies such as extended reality (XR) and the internet of things (IoT) present opportunities to combine physical and virtual world media/interactions useful for improved learning engineering. New expressions of Gemeinschaft and Gesselschaft are possible to co-create the future when empowered stakeholders collaborate to design smart, enabled, blended physical and virtual cities/communities. This chapter explores how concepts from systems thinking, presence research, and transdisciplinarity can advance personal learning and transcend human limitations.

Self-Analysis Technology, Roles, and Cybersecurity in the Virtual Learning Environments

The focus is on how technology impacts the learner and educator identities, especially focusing on safety, privacy, and the cybersecurity of the technology-centric learning environments. Questions arise which will need to be resolved by designers of these systems. This chapter was completed at the end of the annual CES, Consumer Electronics Show, held January 2019 at Las Vegas. The justification for this approach was to assert the influences products displayed at this consumer show will have on future identities of the self among learners and educators. Concepts such as self-analysis technology are proposed and discussed, and challenges affecting learners and educators related to identity, authentication, authorization, and accountability are highlighted. It is concluded that solutions to these challenges are not a single entity but instead a combination of diverse continually evolving techniques.

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

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.

Get in the GROOVE

Over the last few decades there has been a rise in the prevalence of overweight and obesity in American youth. This chapter describes the rationale for the virtual world features of an obesity prevention project that engaged middle-school-aged girls in a 3-week summer science enrichment program. The Get in the GROOVE! program was designed to promote self-efficacy for health behavior change, increase health knowledge, facilitate healthy behaviors related to physical activity and nutrition, encourage a healthy body image, and promote the development and consolidation of a health self-identity. The virtual world, which was explored by the girls via realistic and healthy avatars, supplemented experiences and reinforced curriculum and concepts learned in the physical world component of the program. Findings suggest that a virtual world is a promising platform to promote a health self-identity and healthy lifestyle in children.

Who Am I as a Healthcare Provider?

The U.S. healthcare delivery system relies on the formation of ad hoc teams of experienced, highly trained providers of various specialties. The providers work in interprofessional teams that converge to address situations around acute patient care. Various models of virtual training provide structured opportunities for interprofessional education, whereby learners engage with roles and responsibilities essential for their professions and active collaboration with other team members. This learning is transformative as it influences the development of professional identity and teamwork skills needed for successful collaborative practice in interprofessional teams. This chapter explores the role of training healthcare professional students using virtual simulations and the emerging potential of virtual and augmented reality for health professional education.