Towards Usable Collaborative Virtual Reality Environments for Promoting Listening Comprehension

This chapter investigates whether an educational virtual environment can be developed to practice listening comprehension skills that meets second language student needs, complies with usability criteria, and is motivating to use. The chapter also investigates whether the usability of virtual reality(VR) technology positively affects language learning listening comprehension. It provides background research and information in Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL), VR, and second language methodology. It then presents a technical and qualitative description of Realtown, a virtual environment designed to promote listening comprehension. This chapter also describes a usability study of Realtown. Student errors, motivation, and ease of use, among other features, were positively measured on listening comprehension activities in Realtown. Future work includes longitudinal studies on learning issues, first-person, and collaborative experiences in VR, including the impact of VR on learning and knowledge transfer when combined with traditional instruction.

Object Design in Virtual Immersive Environments

The ubiquity of digital technology and the pervasiveness of the Web have led to a paradigm shift in life and work. Never before have so many tools for communication, contribution, and collaboration been so globally interconnected. The Object Design program at Towson University engages the network effect of emergent technologies developing pedagogy to keep pace with global developments. Students learn 21st century skills as they engage virtual immersive environments as a digital design tool, for iterative prototyping, as a virtual presence augmenting traditional studio practice, to engage new economic platforms, and as a virtual learning environment for global dialogue and collaboration. Steady growth in virtual immersive environments support a burgeoning virtual goods market and further exploration for learning, training, and innovation across social sectors: enterprise, education, and government in the evolution of society.

Cross-University Collaborative Learning

Over the last two decades, communication and collaboration tools to support student project work have evolved significantly, with an expanding array of options. Most recently, 3D virtual worlds (VW) have emerged. This chapter explores the use of collaborative tools in a cross-university course where student (“virtual”) teams engaged in a multi-week project. The student project teams had access to a collaborative toolkit that included Web 1.0 (traditional) and Web 2.0 tools, as well as collaboration spaces in a VW. Findings suggest that more successful student teams were better able to match Web 2.0 and VW collaborative technologies to project activities, while other lower performing teams defaulted to more familiar Web 1.0 technologies. The VW played a key role in facilitating relationship building in the collaborative learning process. The findings are particularly relevant to instructors seeking to integrate and use VWs in the classroom for collaborative project work and distance learning settings.

Why Videogames are not Teacher-Proof

This chapter considers the crucial role that the teacher plays in supporting successful use of immersive technology in the classroom, focusing particularly on the use of an interactive, online, multiplayer videogame called Quest Atlantis. This chapter presents an account of successful strategies for integrating immersive technologies into teaching practice, such that the game does not replace the teacher, nor the teacher replace the game, but rather the two are integrated in their mutual support of student learning. The authors focus specifically on two distinct roles that teachers can play in leading whole-class discussions: attuning students to important concepts and connections in the game, and deepening opportunities to learn beyond what is afforded in game design. For each role, the authors present two contrasting cases with the goal of illuminating the central role that a teacher can play when integrating complex technologies into the classroom. Differences in the ways that teachers support their students while using games like Quest Atlantis are not trivial; it is argued that differences in teachers’ support of whole-class conversations can create dramatically different opportunities for students to learn.

Immersive Education Spaces using Open Wonderland From Pedagogy through to Practice

This chapter presents a case study of the use of virtual world environment in UK Higher Education. It reports on the activities carried out as part of the SIMiLLE (System for an Immersive and Mixed reality Language Learning) project to create a culturally sensitive virtual world to support language learning (funded by the UK government JISC program). The SIMiLLE project built on an earlier project called MiRTLE, which created a mixed-reality space for teaching and learning. The aim of the SIMiLLE project was to investigate the technical feasibility and pedagogical value of using virtual environments to provide a realistic socio-cultural setting for language learning interaction. The chapter begins by providing some background information on the Wonderland platform and the MiRTLE project, and then outlines the requirements for SIMiLLE, and how these requirements were supported through the use of a virtual world based on the Open Wonderland virtual world platform. The chapter then presents the framework used for the evaluation of the system, with a particular focus on the importance of incorporating pedagogy into the design of these systems, and how to support good practice with the ever-growing use of 3D virtual environments in formalized education. Finally, the results from the formative and summative evaluations are summarized, and the lessons learnt are presented, which can help inform future uses of immersive education spaces within Higher Education.

Virtual Learning Environments

The growing experimentation with multi-user virtual environments for educational purposes demands rigorous examination of all aspects of these digital worlds. While their use appears to enhance and expand traditional distance learning, educators acknowledge that barriers to access remain, including a steep learning curve for orienting users to MUVE navigation and functionality. The application of Adams’s Knowledge Development Model for Virtual Learning Environments provides a framework for the design of in-world learning opportunities and activities, many of which tend to mirror pedagogical best-practices in Real Life (RL).

Using the Interaction-Combinations Integration Model to Explore Real-Life Learning in User-Created Virtual Worlds

User-created virtual worlds are emerging technologies with rapidly growing acceptance in education. Of the various reported educational uses of these virtual worlds, the focus of this chapter is on virtual worlds for constructivist learning activities, because this use has application to many real-life courses and has the potential to transform teaching and learning. To assist educators with recognizing and understanding virtual world learning activities, Antonacci & Modaress (2005, 2008) developed the Interaction-Combinations Integration model. However, this model has not been studied in actual virtual-world learning practice. Using a case study method, this chapter examines the usefulness of this model to organize and describe actual virtual world learning activities, provides additional learning activity examples, and describes what was needed to implement and conduct these learning activities.

Mapping Current Teaching and Learning Practices to Multi-User Virtual Environments

During the course of this chapter, the authors will examine the current methods of pedagogical teaching in higher education and explore the possible mapping into a multi-user virtual environment. The authors consider the process of construction and delivery for a module of student education. They examine the transition of delivery methods from the established, slow changing traditional media, to the modern flexibly of community based, open source driven methods which are the foundation of virtual environments.

Teaching Project Management with Second Life

Project Management is a field of intellectual and pragmatic enquiry that is inherently inter-disciplinary. It typically involves the integration of areas such as: project scoping, time, cost, and human resource management, whilst the management of effective inter-team communication, project risk, and procurement aspects are all central to the discipline. To try to cover all of these areas within a single university assignment presents somewhat of a challenge. This chapter demonstrates that the deployment of a Multi User Virtual Environment can indeed encompass these areas in an effective manner, both from learning objectives, realism, and assessment points of view. The chapter has emerged from the experience of three years deployment of Second Life as an integral part of a unit on Project Management, offered as part of both undergraduate and postgraduate courses within the Department of Computer Science and Technology at the University of Bedfordshire. Examples illustrate the work that has been produced by the students of these courses.

Science through Second Life

The purpose of this chapter is to provide educators with a case study of the design, development, and implementation of a Multi User Virtual Environment as a core medium in a high school based blended learning system. Science through Second Life focuses on the opportunities and challenges encountered by educators in the creation and realization of a series of virtual learning environments in Teen Second Life on the topic of environmental sustainability. This chapter considers instructional approaches to support scientific literacy and thinking, the optimal use of multiple media for supporting media literacy growth, and the use of the blended environment to motivate students, gain their attention, and foster a longer term interest in science. Specific examples of learning activities, supportive instructional materials and the pedagogical reasoning are woven into a larger narrative detailing a semester long, 9th grade science class. By reporting the design and development process and the subsequent course of implementation of instructional activities, this chapter provides pre- and in-service teachers and instructional designers with a model of instructional design and practical considerations for developing MUVEs in a blended instructional environment.