T-Life - A teacher's immersive environment

T-Life (A virtual teaching environment/experience)

An Immersive Community for Teachers

Overview

Knowledge Community

Distributed professional communities have many obstacles to overcome such as support, professional development and opportunities to exchange ideas. Certain knowledge communities need the added feature of practicing and role-playing within their environment. An immersive environments provide not just a social space for the knowledge community but the sharing of experiences.

This immersive environment is designed for a specific community for teachers (K-12). It is an environment which will provide social and professional growth. As an immersive environment that will create (or recreate), a teaching space where teachers can mentor, role-play and develop practical and necessary pedagogical skills for the teaching profession. This environment will have practical applications for other distributive communities, where role-playing and scenarios will provide valuable information and skills. This virtual world will explore the classroom environment that mimics the 'real classroom' without the ethics or dilemmas of 'trial and error' approaches within classroom environments.

A teaching community is a naturally distributed community because of the nature, logistics and structure of the occupation. The community is starving for community sharing and discourse which promotes professional development and growth. Workshops, seminars, and conferences are often difficult to attend due to costs and problems of scheduling. The teaching community needs to have easy access and the luxury of both an asynchronous and synchronous environment. This immersive environment will be a community with an open source mindset.

Examples of other distributed communities which could use this immersive environment are:

Lawyers courtroom
Geographic/environmentalist
Medical diagnostic
Social working
Business Community - for small business (objects indicators), social indicators

Vision Statement

Virtual environment based on learning and community models rather than instructional models of professional development
Open sharing and open sourcing of teacher resources, curriculum resources and software development
Environment makes the tacit knowledge explicit so it can be shared reality.
Virtual space where everyone can observe, dialogue, reflect the theories and practices of teachers and learning community

Design Graphic (mark-up sketch)

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general community (knowledge - distributive)

Design Approach - Specifics

Role-Based: Simulated environments (classroom scenarios) provide specific knowledge about subject disciplines and strategies. The actual reality of teaching within an immersive environment allows you to test out new teaching strategies and practice your skills within a simulation. Collaborative efforts from other teachers/avatars within the environment can offer mentorship and support.

The simulated teaching environment will be rich, complex, and filled with interesting yet plausible detail. Complexity in the environment is limited to tasks and functions that relate directly to the goals of system - other elements are diversions.

A virtual role-playing environment can be a powerful mechanism of mentorship for any profession, provided it is authentic. To succeed in a virtual world learners must master the concepts and skills required to play their part.

Avatar - A brief introduction

An Avatar is defined as an 'Internet' user's self-representation. Representation is three dimensional for virtual world. Avatar in this community could become mentors or be mentored depending on their own comfort level.

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Types of Avatars:

Instructor and Teacher (pre-service)
Teacher and Teacher (distributed communities)
Teacher and Student (virtual)
Student and Student (virtual - interaction understanding deeper knowledge * building from their perspective - use knowledge theories for student profiles/portfolios)
teachers could take on different persona (i.e. mean more authoritative teacher, 'nice' teacher, etc...to see effect in classroom).
students could take on different persona (meta cognition that teachers would be forced to see things in the teachers eyes. )

Goal-Oriented: within the environment, rewarding teachers with professional certificated and qualifications of understanding.
Based on Learning - by - Doing: Part of teaching is the very real need for an environment (hetrogenous in nature) to practice techniques and activities on. The style and your own flavour added to the strategy helps with the implementation of the strategy or activity. Time constraints, variables of resources, and possible interactions and criteria of learning difficulties or behaviours within classroom (difficulties) can all be variables that can be integrated into this virtual environment. All players within the virtual environment would be players (i.e. teachers role-playing that would be assigned characteristics).

Game of Pretend:
Engagement of player in game-scenario; best case scenario more applicable within a teaching context. Interactive environment where software is practical and robust enough to handle the multiple facets of the environment.

Multi-user:

Common in dispersive communities is lack of connections. In immersive environments there is a sense of community by virtue of the environment itself. There is an opportunity for collaboration and cooperation to obtain the best teaching strategies for specific environments. Teachers and administrators could play a variety of roles (i.e. using specific examples from own classroom environments - exemplars and scenarios. Multi-user and client software should support multiple simultaneous users. Thus, simulations and role-playing become richer and results in a community which needs to develop trust, and cooperation.

Educational Environments and Role-Playing:

provides multi-user opportunities
exploration
provides spatially-oriented virtual worlds
practical planning and decision making

Advantages of Virtual Worlds:

Collapse virtual time and distance
Allow physical or practical impossibilities
Participate from anywhere
Interact with other users, virtual artifacts, and software agents
Multi-user collaborations

Immersive:

In an immersive environment, spatially and temporally oriented. Immersive is role-based learning where there is strategic thinking and authentic content for teachers to model. Students will explore and control their own environment. Promotes a pedagogical environment where learners are self-directed in control and can structure, construct and internalize their own experience.
Spatial Oriented

tilting and perspectives
location and placement of students
logistics discussed
equipment and classroom artifacts

Temporally Oriented:

asynchronous and synchronous

Assessment:

Not "multiple choice" recall
Content specific:
Problem solving, real-life practice (with support system)
Assess computer literacy
PreTest/Possible scenarios comparisons
teachers propose course of action or solution
engage in learning experience
evaluation/feedback/reflection

Design Details

Technical Approaches:

Networked, internet-based, client-server
MultiPlayer
Simulation-based
Implemented in Java applets

Because of the significant levels of computational power required to navigate in a large scale graphical multi-player environment certain minimal system requirements should be observed. The following system requirements are taken from Second Life:

PC Minimum System Requirements:

Internet Connection*: Cable or DSL
Operating System: Windows XP (Service Pack 2)
o OR Windows 2000 (Service Pack 4)
Computer Processor: 800MHz Pentium III or Athlon, or better
Computer Memory: 256MB or better
Video/Graphics Card**:
o nVidia GeForce 2, GeForce 4mx, or better
o OR ATI Radeon 8500, 9250, or better

Mac Minimum System Requirements:

Internet Connection*: Cable or DSL
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.3.9 or better
Computer Processor: 1 GHz G4 or better
Computer Memory: 512MB or better
Video/Graphics Card**:
o nVidia GeForce 2, GeForce 4mx, or better
o OR ATI Radeon 8500, 9250, or better

Sample Environments

Virtual Cell

http://vcell.ndsu.edu/

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Virtual Cell is a virtual learning environment where students can learn about general cell information and perform a series of experiments. This environment is useful because in many ways it resembles a "real life" classroom/lab environment. This is useful in virtual learning settings to keep users reminded of the function of the environment. Environments that are too fantastical run the risk of falling to far into the realm of "edutainment", thus losing focus.

Resembles Lab/Classroom Environment

Geology Explorer

http://oit.cs.ndsu.nodak.edu/menu/

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Geology Explorer is a virtual environment that allow users to explore an alien planet as a geologist, traveling to different places to take ore samples and learn about geology in a rich and entertaining environment.

Geology Explorer uses several interesting features that should be considered in the creation of T-Life:

Knowledge Nodes
Lobby Portals
Experiential Environments

1. Knowledge Nodes
The idea of "Knowledge Nodes" is that there are several sub-sections or sub-themes that spring from from a central idea (such as educational practices in T Life). In the case of T-Life these sections could be the different areas of education that teachers might be interested in working on, such as: diverse classroom dynamics, conflict resolution, or specific subjects like math and history. Each of these knowledge nodes are connected by the overall concept of educational practices, but are significantly diverse enough for the need to be spatially separated to avoid confusion. These nodes can then be further sub-divided into specific areas or functions: as with the Library, Play Room, and Boardroom in T Life (see below). Knowledge nodes need not be separated as depicted in the Geology Explorer diagram, but could also be stacked on top of each other like floors of a high-rise building in a 3D model.

2. Lobby Portals
Lobby portal serve as a staging area for the rest of the virtual environment. These portals serve as a physical embarkation point for users' avatars to the rest of the rooms in T-Life (i.e. The Library, Play Room, and Boardroom). These Lobbies also add the additional benefit of being a uniform point for each "Knowledge node" for users to begin from, while the other rooms (or sub-nodes) could be significantly different between "floors".

3. Experiential Environments
This feature highlights the ability to construct environments within T-Life for users to interact and explore in. These would be the virtual "hands on" environments that could be customized for the specific function of that particular knowledge node (see Play Room below in Design Sketch Up). Functions of the Experiential Environments might include: classrooms, where teachers could enact real-time class scenarios; virtual modeling, where teachers could create and try out digital models for in-class instruction (i.e. a model of the circulatory system).

Second Life Community:

http://www.secondlife.com

Second Life is a commercial virtual environment where users can create their own characters, move about a 3D landscape, and interact with multiple users in a world of their own design.

This virtual space is currently being examined by many educational institutions for its suitability for educational purposes.

There are several key features in Second Life that would be very useful in constructing a virtual learning environment like T-Life.

Manipulation of objects In Second Life objects can be interacted with and/or manipulated by the users in the environment: chairs can be sat in; books can be opened, read, and moved; and videos and other rich media can be played directly in second life with a few simple mouse clicks.
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Ability to create complex objects/structures In Second Life, users can create objects (such as books, tables, and chairs), and structures (such as homes, stores, and libraries), which can then be interacted with by other users' avatars. This is an extremely powerful tool, as Second Life puts very few restrictions on the types of objects that can be created. Full classrooms, and other educational environments can be created - complete with desks, chairs, and even smartboards.
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Creation of tutorials/demonstrations Individuals can further enhance the educational environment in Second Life through the creation of building and objects that work as walk-throughs or tutorials of complex topics. Below is an example of one part of a "Heart Murmur" tutorial that teaches users about heart murmurs - including how to they happen, and how to diagnose them. This kind of interactive setup can be replicated across a wide range of topics and disciplines.
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Ability to integrate outside information inside the environment Second Life does an excellent job of allowing for links to information that cannot be displayed inside the Second Life environment to be clicked launching an external browser window for the information. (this is the cases of .pdf files for printing, and more complex pages like wikis which are not part of the virtual environment itself).
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Secondlife currently has several key disadvantages associated with it that make it difficult to use as an educational evironment:

The program is designed with entertainment and gaming first in mind and not specifically for education
There is a lot of 'virtual' spam in the program, making navigation difficult
The environment is spatially huge, making navigation difficult
The interface is very 'open', which makes it difficult for non-tech-savvy users
The system is graphics and network intensive which means computers running Second Life must be very powerful to avoid lag (see system requirements)

currently Second Life is not a feasible avenue for education specific initiatives

Additional Second Life Resources

Second Life Education Community
Institutions and Organizations in Second Life
Second Life Education Wiki

Design Sketch Up

The learning environment proposed consists of four main rooms: The Lobby, The Library, The Boardroom, and The Play Room ~ Each of these rooms has a different purpose towards facilitating the collaborative learning of the participants. (To download the complete version of the SketchUp file click here)

The Lobby

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The lobby is the entrance to the learning environment and has several key functions:

The Water Cooler - This object within the lobby simulates the 'water cooler' found in many offices, where people congregate to talk. It is designed for a similar purpose here as a portal to chat rooms, where participants can talk about any topics they wish (i.e. general educational, and social topics)
The Bulletin Board - This object will allow participants to post notices and announcements to other users.

The lobby also provides access for users' avatars to travel to the three other rooms

The Library

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The Library is used as a repository for relevant learning materials for educators on a topics such as: teaching methodologies, educational theory, learning practices and environments.

The users would be able to run their mouse over the bookshelves in the library to find out what kinds of materials are available for each subject, and by clicking on desired materials the user would then be able to download a document (in .pdf format) or a browser window would open up for the selected resource's web page. similar practices are have already been used successfully in environments such as Second Life

The Boardroom

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The Boardroom would be used as a formal conference and discussion area (unlike the casual water cooler) where groups of educators could get together and talk and brainstorm about a single educational topic. Here multi-media tools could be imported to appear on the 'virtual smartboard' so that all the participants could view them at the same time.

The Play Room

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The Play Room is a virtual environment where real-time simulations can be enacted to address a range of in-class situations. The idea of this room is that educators can get together and go through a scenario multiple times, trying different techniques, to attain methods of 'best practice". Ideally the actions in the play room could be recorded and then replayed in the boardroom for discussion at a later time.

Activities

This immersive environment will have rooms (environment-spaces) where various activities can occur.

Library - Resource Room
Play Room - Simulation Room; Real-Life Classes
Board Room - Collaboration and Discussion
Lobby - Chat Room (Focus Groups or Individuals)

Examples of Focus Groups
"Theme of the Month"

Educational research [^Constructism examined review_Fox.pdf],[^Bruner1.pdf]
Collaborative Learning [^dedi constructivist and immersion.pdf],[^p79-benford virtual collaborative environ.pdf]
Building Learning resources [^p128-fraser interaction.pdf][^Virtual Worlds and learning.pdf]
Building virtual environments for learning [^p179-hahn.pdf]

Interactions

Teaching Communities are inherently distributive. Whether within one school or school districts, teachers have limited contact on a regular bases to enhance professional development. This community will develop based on social tagging, theme months, and emerging issues.

Social Tagging:

learning communities, learning environments, real-life class rooms, class, school, teaching practices, pedagogy, subject, grade teaching strategy

Metacognitive Elements

Reflective teaching communities are in need to connect and have discourse. The "Board Room" allows for discussion and deconstruction of events that occurred in "Play Room". It is an way that teachers and school communities can enhance the learning environment of their community.

Implications for Immersive Environment

Implications of Virtual Environment for professional distributed communities are several fold:

increased community and sharing
the opportunity for real-time and authentic experiences within the classroom
the immersive environment can be evolving as the educational systems change. I.E., the variables of demographs, or policy can be added to the software system
allows for rich and detailed discussion before, during and after simulation of classroom activity
trail and error of various strategies occur within a simulation prior to classroom
increases synchronous and asynchronous opportunities with teachers (look and feel similar to authentic experiences.

Applications of this environment can be for many other professions:

law and court room simulations
business and presentations (to variety of different audiences)

Cost Efficient:
The initial costs of setting up this virtual environment (with maintenance) is more cost efficient than conferences, workshops and courses (face to face).
It decreases:

time spent away from actual classes (no need for supply teachers)
decreases cost of travel
decreases the cost of conferences etc.

Limitations and Future Challenges

initial costs of set up and maintenance
sustainability
evolving community and needs must change
universal broadband