Thursday, May 24, 2007

Initial Research & Change Report - Virtual Education Environments

Initial Research and Change Report – Virtual Educational Environments
By David Russell

Prior to the approval of my Faculty Learning College Plan (FLCP) report, I have engaged in research on my first scheduled FLCP component - virtual educational environments. The purpose of this initial research phase was essentially a reconnaissance and familiarization exercise with virtual technologies and environments with a specific focus on the Second Life simulation. The goals of this phase were as follows:
  • Familiarize myself with the process of creating an ‘avatar’ (a virtual representation of the self). My avatar was named Russell Sautereau
  • Familiarization with the simulations means of locomotion / transportation (e.g. walking, flying, transporting, map usage, etc)
  • Acquiring basic goods such as clothing, and other objects for recreational and educational activities
  • Familiarization with how to interact / communicate with other avatars in the virtual world in general and specific communities in particular
  • Familiarize myself with the technologies used to create objects in the virtual world. Although I did not own ‘land’, I visited a number of so called ‘sand boxes’ where I was able to build things and had access to videos showing others demonstrating this design technology
  • Participate as a learner in virtual education conferences
  • Join in the discussions at NSCC (nsccsecondlife@googlegroups.com) on virtual education in general and in Second Life in particular.
  • Research topics that presented themselves as being worthy of examination based on my initial experiences in Second Life. These were:
    - Blogs and feedback from people who participated in virtual education as students
    - The psychology of virtual environment users. Integration into existing communities of users with different levels of virtual experience, examing your preconceptions and behavioural assumptions, cultural norms, etc.
    - Attaining a list of those things that actually work and don’t work well from an educational perspective in virtual environments. This was an attempt to put a little science into my research.
  • Come to a conclusion as to whether this component of my FLCP was in fact ‘doable’, that given the current state of technology it was correctly placed in my overall FLCP timeline, and whether I had a genuine interest in pursuing this goal.

For the record, I attempted and for the most part accomplished everything that I had hoped for in this initial reconnaissance. Evidence of all the above mentioned points will accompany this report in its appendices. I would like to focus now on my last research goal, which was to ascertain the viability of this component and its positioning within my FLCP timeline.

My conclusion in a nut shell is that avatar based virtual education (as exhibited in Second Life) is ‘not ready for prime time’ – at least for me. My initial experience gave me a glimmer of what I think will one day be a transformative means of transacting distributed meetings, delivering certain kinds of distributed or blended educational experiences, and perhaps the future of social networking. There are however a number of serious liabilities in the current technology at this time that have convinced me to reorder my FLCP to place this component furthest in the future (i.e. making it the last, not the first component I should attempt). In doing so, I hope to be able to see and take advantage of the changes in technology that take place over the next few years. Given that IBM and other major players in the IT industry have now taken notice of this technology and recognized it transformative potential (initially in reducing business travel) I have no doubt that there will be significant changes when I revisit this component in a few years.

I will now try to list and explain the main factors that have lead me to this decision:

  • An object design engine that is overly complex and would be difficult for an average user (instructor) to master in a reasonable amount of time. This means that most instructors would need to use off the shelf objects / full simulations with clear instructions as to their use. Nor should one expect an average instructor to necessarity have the time, design skills or interest in building there own objects.
  • A lack of these pre-made objects / simulations of educational pedigree. Let’s assume that you would like to make a course on the inner workings of a plant and take your students there al la ‘Miss Frizzle’ (from the PBS - Magic School Bus Series). This would be a perfect use for a virtual environment. However, there is not currently a huge repository of these things nor has the for-profit sector stepped up to produce high quality simulations with supporting instructor materials for that purpose (yet).
  • Very poor graphics quality compared to other mature avatar based visual technologies in wide scale use today. Examples would include, World Of War craft, Halo, or other popular combat avatar simulations based on innumerable massive multi player engines.
  • Student training will also be an issue. The use of virtual avatar environments is increasing dramatically in the general population compared to only a couple of years ago. At this time however, one could not assume that most students could feel comfortable enough with this technology without having already used it or something very similar to it.
  • As one educator in Second Life so aptly put it – “you would not believe the kind of nuts there are in here”. This immediately brings up the issues of security, codes of conduct, and even legal issues within the virtual classroom. ‘Virtual Law’ is in its infancy and is itself a most fascinating topic. I personably believe that until a school is able to control or contract control of a secure instance of a virtual environment, that this would be a real cause for concern.
I really don’t want to come across as being too negative here. I strongly believe that once this technology has matured a bit, that it has the capacity to be transformative in the fields of distance and blended delivery. I chose this very topic because I am a believer in this fact. For the record I also want to state that NSCC is very lucky to have so many staff that has entered into this technology, already planning to be early adaptors. Some of the amazing discussions on the NSCC Second Life web board are a tribute to that fact.

I however, have designed my FLCP so that each component will actually lead to at least two deliveries of existing learning outcomes using new technologies. Given the above issues that I believe exist with Second Life, the bottom line is that I would not want to try to build a deliverable course component with it at this time. I do however wait with great expectation for what will unfold in the next few years before I pick this back up again.

David Russell
david.russell@nscc.ca


Appendices –(evidence of learning)

  • Familiarize myself with the process of creating an ‘avatar’ (a virtual representation of the self). My avatar was named Russell Sautereau
  • Familiarization with the simulations means of locomotion / transportation (e.g. walking, flying, transporting, map usage, etc)
  • Acquiring basic goods such as clothing, and other objects for recreational and educational activities
  • Familiarization with how to interact / communicate with other avatars in the virtual world in general and specific communities in particular


  • Participate as a learner in virtual education conferences (Example)





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