Immersive Environments, Fall, 2008

Added by Jim Slotta, last edited by Monica Rettig on Dec 29, 2008  (view change)

Introduction - Immersive Environments 2008

Names of Group Members

Michelle Lui         Monica Resendes    Monica Rettig
         

Dates of Activities
November 6th, 2008
November 13th, 2008

Summary of our Approach

For our first class we wanted to give everyone some theoretical background before opening up the discussion. We tied our points to examples of existing immersive environments so that the class could see how educational theory relates to the practical examples. In the second class, the objective was two-fold: 1) we wanted the class to experience learning together in a immersive environment and, 2) we wanted the class to use the tools given to them from previous discussions and readings to create their own immersive environment.

The first activity had the class collectively buy items and furnish our virtual classroom, fostering feelings of connectedness with the rest of the class. This led directly to the video portion of the activity, where the class watched a Ted Talk video in the virtual classroom that everyone had contributed to.

For the second activity, everyone broke into groups, with each working on an original design idea. The aim was to have the groups think deeply about how their immersive environment would work, and how it would contribute to learning goals. Throughout the 2-week theme period, it seemed a lot of discussion surrounded the question of 'how' immersive environments supported classroom learning? It was also pointed out that there were not very many successful examples of immersive environment for educational uses. We hoped that a practical exercise allowed students to think deeply about these issues from another perspective and perhaps through this process, answer some of their own questions.

Pre-class Activities

NOVEMBER 6TH:

  • Go to Small Worlds, create an avatar and post your avatar's photo on Ning.
  • Read the following 2 articles and post your responses to a few questions about them on this wiki page: Homework readings Q&A
  • Have fun!

Readings
1. Emerging Technologies for Collaborative, Mediated, Immersive Learning by Jody Clarke, Chris Dede, and Ed Dieterle.
2. Virtual Worlds: Inherently Immersive, Highly Social Learning Spaces by Laurence F. Johnson and Alan H. Levine.

Suggested Reading
Virtual Worlds? "Outlook Good." by AJ Kelton ("AJ Brooks"). EDUCAUSE Review. 43(5) (September/October 2008).
This entire issue is dedicated to the topic of virtual worlds and higher education, so if it interests you, browse around here.

NOVEMBER 13TH:

  • Think of a design idea for an immersive environment (based on learning) for further exploration in class, post your idea here: Immersive Environments Design Idea Brainstorm
    • If you can't think of an idea, add to another existing idea in the 'comments' box
  • Earn some token $$ in SmallWorlds so we can all buy something to furnish our KMD2003 meeting room during class

Suggested Readings

Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2000). Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education. The Internet and Higher Education, 2(2-3), 87-105. Download PDF

In-class Activities

NOVEMBER 6th:

Review Homework
What is an Immersive Environment?
Three Avenues of Learning and Knowledge Sharing

Break
Small Group Discussion
Class Discussion

  1. Realism discussion
  2. Identity discussion
  3. Affectedness discussion
  4. Structure discussion

NOVEMBER 13th:
Experience time!

  • Everyone log into Smallworlds and furnish our 'KMD2003' room
    • Enter Smallworlds; click on "Places" (bottom screen); go to 'shops' (left side); purchase an item you can afford at one of the stores; go to "KMD2003"; furnish the room!
    • We'll all stay in the room to watch the Youtube video again (David Perry 'Ted Talk').
  • Finish the last 2 group's reporting session from class 1

Discussion time

Break

Design Time

Evaluation

What worked?

  • The "Design Time" section of the second class (Nov. 13th) went really well. Everybody got a chance to dig into some of the issues we had been talking about, but in much more active and engaging way. All the groups were very much into their designs, and the time was spent on really focused, creative and collaborative work.
  • Creating avatars also seemed to be something the class enjoyed. We were able to have a collective immersive experience by all gathering in one very busy room in SmallWorlds to watch the Ted Talk video - complete with cats meowing, dogs barking, and stomping footsteps in the background. For some, it was their first experience playing around inside a virtual world as well as creating digital representations or characters of themselves.
  • Our group worked very well together. Everybody did their fair share of work and we all tried to help each other as much as possible.

What didn't work?

  • We realized at the end of our first class that we spent too much time in lecture mode and not enough in discussion or design mode. There was so much information to get through, and we wanted to touch on a number of different theoretical points; however we underestimated how fast time goes, and we were left short for time and had to cut off discussion just when it started to get going.
  • Also, although it seemed that everyone enjoyed SmallWorlds, people tended to get a little lost in their own (small)worlds during class.  It took a lot more time than we planned out to have class tasks within SmallWorlds.
  • Although SmallWorlds worked out pretty well, it was originally a challenge to find an immersive environment that we could ask our entire class to join and experiment with. Many of the main IEs require large downloads, and we did not want to impose that on our colleagues. Also, some so-called "virtual worlds" were just chat rooms with assigned avatars. Luckily it seems like Flash-based IEs are on the rise – one example being Google's Lively which at the date of this project was still under development. Perhaps it will be ready by the time this project is take on next year!

What could we have done to make it better?

  • Definitely spend more time on group designs. The entire second class, and maybe half of the first as well, could have been devoted to planning out, developing, presenting, and discussing group designs. We could have done a brief introduction of the main points of the Immersive Environments theme, and kept deeper theoretical considerations in mind to be expanded on if/when they came up during any of the stages of group design work.

Nov 6, 2008
Nov 13, 2008

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