Second Life has been a phenomenon in terms of engaging adults in “real life” experiences that occur in a 3D virtual environment in which users exist as an avatar and interact with other residents. In her presentation “3D Virtual World Learning Environments (i.e., Second Life) in blended and online education”, Victoria Lynn Walker shared her experience creating, implementing and learning from a pilot study in learning nonclinical counseling and group therapy skills. She states, “Virtual environments offer instructors the opportunity to make their classroom come alive. By using well-designed educational environments that match program and course needs, students can be inspired to explore learning and develop understanding of course content”. I was very pleased to realize there is a growing community of researchers who study the educational use of highly interactive technologies that students love using. I would be very interested giving support from WSSU-CETL to WSSU faculty members willing to participate in similar studies.
Google Earth has been also a great success, as long as it provides users with the possibility of easily and accurately exploring places on earth that are of their interest. It was announced that this tool “combines the power of Google Search with satellite imagery, maps, terrain, and 3D buildings to put the world's geographic information at your fingertips”. I had the opportunity to participate in a demonstration by a group of foreign language professors from UNC Charlotte in which Rosalba Esparragoza Scott, a Spanish teacher, shared her experience using Google Earth-supported web quests as a means of learning foreign language, literature, and culture in an effective way. According to her, “Students can annotate maps on Google Earth with vocabulary terms, historical facts, literary information, or write sentences in the target language describing virtual visits to foreign cities”. Way to go!
I got a couple of coincident clear messages from the above two presentations:
- Integrating technology into higher education courses requires effort from faculty, in the exploration of educational potential of digital tools as well as in reengineering their learning environments.
- Students love courses where faculty make sound educational use of digital technologies they use with other purposes; they become engaged and participate more effectively.
Director CETL
Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning
1 comment:
Adding a 3D virtual environment to a course requires effective design for the course needs, faculty interest, and student willingness to explore a new learning environment.
I have found that many online courses need a more authentic environment for education and training activities than a typical chat software or conference software can offer. Building an environment that meets the needs of the course is most important. A fatal design issue would be to build an environment with the expectation that faculty will find a use for it. Faculty are most interested when they can see a solution to a problem they are familiar with. Students are often willing and open to engagement when they see that using such an environment will benefit them in improving their education.
Victoria Walker
SL - Zeana Tammas
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