Virtual Worlds for Training and Education 2010

8/7/2019 Virtual Worlds for Training and Education 2010

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Virtual Worldsfor Education and Training

April 2010

www.daden.co.uk

[email protected]

+44 (0)121 250 5678

1 2010 Daden Limited


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Introduction

One of the most significant areas of use of virtual worlds is proving tobe in training, education and learning. Virtual Worlds Watch

[KIRREMUIR2009] estimates that over 95% of UK Universities are nowusing or experimenting with virtual worlds, principally Second Life (SL),and the SLEducation Wiki lists over a hundred US educationalinstitutions in Second Life. We are also seeing activity amongst FurtherEducation (FE) colleges (e.g. Barnfield College), and both Secondaryand even Primary schools. In the adult sector large multinationals likeBP and Cigny are using virtual worlds to educate their employees, andhospitals (e.g. St George's London, Governments (e.g. CanadianBorder Security) and the Military (e.g. USAF MyBase in Second Lifeand TRADOC in Active Worlds being just two of many examples) arealso exploring the use of this technology.

The aim of this white paper is to outline why it is that virtual worlds are

sensible places to be doing education, training and learning, and whatyou need to think about if planning to use them to support youractivities in this area. We will also provide some frameworks to helpeducators and trainers understand how virtual worlds can be usedwithin their fields.

Throughout we are conscious that both public and private sectororganisations are facing significant pressures to cuts costs and do morefor less. As such we realise that any training or education organisationis only likely to invest in a new system if it enables them to delivereither:

the same quality of learning/training for less cost, or a higher quality of learning/training for the same/affordable cost

In this document we will use the sidebars to present case studies drawnfrom the work of Daden clients and other thought-leaders within thevirtual world space, and to examine particular issues or topics in moredetail.

Virtual World Platforms

The table overleaf summarises the platforms typically presented asvirtual worlds, and which we believe are suitable for enterprise use.Note that there is a distinction between the technical platform whichcreates a virtual world experience, and how a virtual world experienceis presented to users. For instance the Second Life platform can be

used to create as diverse experiences as a paramedic trainer, an air-traffic control visualisation tool, a building consultation tool and ashared social entertainment and leisure experience.

In this paper what we are really interested in is how virtual worldstechnology can be used fundamentally to provide a 3D userinterface for learning experiences - what that experience isdesigned to achieve is solely at the discretion of the builder ortutor.

To us this is a vitally important distinction which is lost on manypotential users. The virtual worlds we are interested in are purely toolsyou can use to build the environments you want to create for the task at

hand. Whether you, or your students, also use them as a 3D socialnetwork is a completely separate issue.


"it is evident that every UKuniversity except one (the

University of the Highlandsand Islands) has members ofstaff who have developed, orare developing, something in avirtual world"

John Kirremuir, Virtual WorldsActivity Snapshot #7 Winter 2009

Defining a Virtual World

First, how do we define avirtual world, and how is suchan environment different froma serious game or aMassively Multi-Player OnlineRole-Playing Games(MMORPG)?

We would define a virtualworld as a digitalenvironment, which iscompletely delivered over theInternet or Intranet, whereusers:

1. are represented by avatars2. can interact with each

other3. can interact with and effect

their environment in apersistent manner

4. have no more restrictionsplaced on them than theycan expect in the realworld

5. can decide from a widerange of actions, or eveninaction

6. can build and create withinthe world, without having to

master additional tools7. can use the world for a

wider variety of differentpurposes

Against these criteria seriousgames typically fail to meet allbut (1) or (2), and MMORPGstypically fail to meet all but(1), (2). Number (6) isprobably the most challengingcriteria, and is currently onlymet by two platforms.


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World/Owner URL Description

Alpha World

Active Worlds Inc

www.activeworlds.com Pre-dates all the other so simplergraphics, but has good user interface(UI) and programmability, andrelatively low bandwidth/graphicsrequirements

Olive

SAIC

www.saic.comhttp://www.forterrainc.com/

An enterprise solution with manyGlobal 500/Government users,recently acquired by SAIC in theirtakeover of Forterra Inc.

OpenSim

Opensource

www.opensim.com An open-source version of SecondLife, still in beta

Protosphere

Proton Media

www.protosphere.com A relatively new entrant aimed at theEnterprise space

Second Life

Linden Lab Inc

www.secondlife.com Both a consumer world (Second Life)and increasingly an enterprisesolution (Second Life Grid/Project

Nebraska)Teleplace

Qwaq Inc

www.teleplace.com A meetings orientated virtual world(or virtual meeting room to beprecise)

Vastpark

Vastpark Inc

www.vastpark.com A relatively new entrant, recentlyplaced its code in open source

Web.alive

Avaya

www.projectchainsaw.com/WaStore/

A browser based solution from Nortel,more an engine than a virtual world.Just sold to Avaya.

Open Wonderland

Open source

http://openwonderland.org/ An open source virtual world writtenin Java. Was supported andpromoted by Sun, but Sun supportwas discontinued after their takeoverby Oracle. Now a community project.

Daden produces a more in-depth analysis and comparison of thesevirtual worlds in the Choosing a Virtual World Platform guide which isavailable to Daden consultancy clients.

Our personal preferences are shown in the sidebar, but each virtualworld project should really aim to make its own choice based on its ownneeds and constraints.

Why Second Life/OpenSim?

For us Second Life (or the open source OpenSim variant) is probablythe best choice for 90% of virtual world projects. Why? Well primarilybecause it is the only one offering reasonable graphics with in-worldbuilding tools, and as a result high levels of flexibility. Active Worldsdoes offer in-world building, but the graphics see very basic by today'sstandards. Second Life also has the most active user community andso sees very high levels of innovation. If the shared hosting of theSecond Life main or Teen grid are a blocker to adoption (or there is aneed access across the age 18 divide) then Second Life Enterprise(Second Life behind the firewall) or OpenSim may be a solution.


Southampton Solent

Southampton Solent

Universities first move intoSecond Life was basedaround a requirement toprovide their fashion studentswith greater opportunities toplan cat-walk shows, and toexperience some of thecommercial issues of runninga fashion business. Dadenbuilt a virtual cat-walk,complete with lighting andsound effects on which thestudents could practiceputting together shows beforethe limited time they had on a

physical cat-walk.

We also built a small retailwhere students could set uptheir own fashion shops,selling digital copies of theirfashions to other avatarsusing Second Life's in-built e-commerce system.

"3D environments like SecondLife can be valuable tools [forlearners]" Andy Harris, HMInspectorate for Education inTalisman, Dec/Jan 2010
http://www.activeworlds.com/http://www.saic.com/http://www.forterrainc.com/http://www.forterrainc.com/http://openwonderland.org/http://www.saic.com/http://www.forterrainc.com/http://openwonderland.org/http://www.activeworlds.com/


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Ways of Using Virtual Worlds

We have identified five broad ways of using virtual worlds for learning.Whilst in some ways these may represent a maturity ladder, there is noexplicit progression and use at any level is valid at all times.

Summary DescriptionRemote Learning The virtual world is used as a remote working/learning/collaboration

space only. Real world activities such as speech, text chat,Powerpoint, posters, whiteboards are the predominant means ofinteraction/teaching learning, and it may include team-building, oreven team building (with prims!).

Exploration The virtual world is used to create a predominantly passiveenvironment or exhibit which the user explores in the same way thatthey might explore a museum (or even living museum), or historicalsite. The information is communicated by the environment eithervisually, via text or other multimedia and is passively consumed bythe user. The user is outside the activities although they may havean influence on them

Visualisation The virtual world is used to visualise a process or set of data whichthe user then explores, or uses as the basis for further analysis or

decision making

Simulation The virtual world is used to create a simulation of the real-world inwhich the user is a key player

NPIRL The virtual world is used to create environments which would justnot be possible or safe in real life, from grand simulations likewalking on the moon or inside a volcano, to impossibilities likeexploring the inside of a cell or flying through clouds of datahanging in space.

For all but the first there are two modes of delivery:

where the world is just used as a visual-aid, with the teacherusing it purely for demonstration (so the whole audience may be

physically together looking at a single projection screen), where each member, or groups of members, of the audience is

controlling their own avatar and is an active participant in theworld.

It should be noted that these levels are by no means clear-cut, butrather represent points on a continuum from glorified IM/audioconference to complete fantasy environment.

Our feeling is that some 50% of current education/training projects inSecond Life are only at the Remote Learning level, 30% atExhibition/Visualisation, 15% at Simulation and 5% at NPIRL.

Why Use Virtual Worlds?

We have identified 6 areas where virtual worlds can help deliver betteror cheaper learning or both. They are:

Supporting distance learning Changing learner dynamics Delivering better learning & retention Gaining a subjective view Reducing costs Doing the impossible

For an alternative view look at the Benefits of Virtual Learning sidebar.


PREVIEW Project

Daden worked with bothCoventry University and StGeorge's Hospital, Universityof London to develop problembased learning scenarios inSecond Life as part of theJoint Information SystemsCommittee (JISC) project.With Coventry University thefocus was on inter-personalinteraction within care-homemanagement, so we used ourautomated avatars to create avariety of situations which thestudents could interact with.

With St George's theemphasis was more onprocedural based simulationto train and assessparamedics. We developed asystem which used theMedbiquitous Virtual Patient(MVP) standard to create andmanage scenarios on theweb, but to play them as fully

immersive experiences inSecond Life. This system hassince been released intoOpen Source as PIVOTE, aweb based system which canbe used to author a widerange of exercises for anysubject on the web but playthem in multiple virtual worlds

See www.daden.co.uk/pivotefor more information.

"In about three years, we willsee the widespread availabilityof robust and easy to useauthoring tools andenvironments, mostly with thefunctionality described in theupcoming The Complete Guideto Simulations and SeriousGames (and foreshadowed inPIVOTE)...This is a big step

Clark Aldrich Brandon HallResearch, Virtual Worlds,Games, and Simulations: TheChallenges of the Next Five

Years 2009 [ALDRICH2009]
http://www.daden.co.uk/pivotehttp://www.daden.co.uk/pivotehttp://www.daden.co.uk/pivote


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- Supporting Distance Learning

Even with conventional presentation based teaching virtual worlds canbe the ideal way to support distance learning students. Unlikeimpersonal, asynchronous discussion boards, or disembodied

conference calls, or technically complex web-meetings and videoconferences, virtual worlds can allow students and teachers to meetvirtually in avatar form, wherever they are geographically. Theparticipants can still use speech for the primary discussion, but textchat provides a rich and public back-channel, and conventionalteaching materials such as Powerpoint and video can be used.

Indeed in our experience remote learning can lead to better outcomesthan a classroom session. For instance in one project the students hadbeen used to role-playing customer services scenarios in theclassroom; but the exercise was never fully successful as the studentscould see one-another and the tutor during the role-playing. In thevirtual world, however, not only were the students working in immersivesimulation of a retail shop, but the students' and tutor's avatars weredressed according to their roles. Even though the students knew theavatars were being controlled by their colleagues the lack of immediatevisual confirmation of that allowed them to better suspend belief andengage with the learning situation.

- Changing Learning Dynamics

Much of the early use of virtual worlds for teaching just leveraged thefact that a class had a different dynamic when the participants wererepresented by avatars (of varying sex, species and dress-sense),gathered round a virtual camp-fire on a virtual tropical island. Not onlydoes the setting change the mood (possibly encouraging more creative

thought), but studies also suggest that since the brain stores memoriesbased on ambient factors [CLARK2003] then just changing the meetinglocation each time can help better imprint the topics discussed.

Also important is the fact that students have both speech and text chatavailable to them. This means that it is far harder for one person todominate, and that quieter students can come more to the fore (both bybeing able to talk over a dominant character in text, and by feelingsafe behind the front of their avatar). Removing typical fears andanxieties generated in a more traditional classroom environment. Thishas been a common finding of many vLearning studies [e.g.MARTINO2007].

Finally the persistent nature of the virtual environment allows forcontinuing and growing social interactions, which can serve as a basisfor collaborative education [FALLON2010] . Indeed cyberspace canact as a support for particular social activities and relationships, ratherthan acting as commonly thought as a substitute for real experience[WOOLGAR2002].


Benefits of Virtual

Learning

Writing in the British Journal of

Educational Technology (Jan2010), Dalgarno and Lee[Dalgarno2010] identify 7learning affordances of 3Dvirtual environments:

Facilitating learning taskswhich lead to thedevelopment of enhancedspatial knowledgerepresentation

Facilitating experientallearning tasks which wouldbe impractical or impossible

to undertake in the real world(including simulations)

Creating simulation ofabstract environments whichembody concepts andprinciples which are notnormally accessible to thesenses (via Winn & Jackson1999, also referred to asmicroworlds)

Facilitating learning tasks thatlead to increased intrinsicmotivation and engagement(due to high levels ofpersonalisation andimmersion and being in theflow)

Allow learners to approachconcepts as first-personnon-symbolic experiences,in contrast to most instancesin which information iscodified and representedthird-person symbolic (viaWinn 1993 and Dickey 2005)

Facilitating learning tasks thatlead to improved transfer ofknowledge and skills to realsituations throughcontextualisation of learning(i.e. learning in anappropriate realisticsimulation)

Facilitating tasks that lead toricher and/or more effectivecollaborative learning (due tothe 3D social interaction andnegotiation)


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- Better Learning & Retention

Many readers may be familiar with the legendary NTL [WOOD2004]hierarchy of learning.

This neatly summarises the typical way that student retention rates varybased on how content is delivered or presented. Virtual worlds arecapable of being used in every way although teaching others is

perhaps a bit more challenging given the lack of facial cues that oftenserve to indicate understanding or confusion. Learning projects thatoperate at Level I of our classification above are focussed on the top 3activities. Level II (virtual museums) typically brings in moredemonstration, and with simulation (Level III) we move significantly intoPractice so hopefully achieving 75% retention rates.

That such performance enhancements are indeed possible in virtualworlds is borne out by the quantitative and qualitative results of manyrecent virtual world projects.

Virtual worlds provide us with a relatively simple and cost-effective wayof letting students experience and do far more things that most

conventional technologies. We can immerse them in a human body, oron a building site, or in a Roman city. But does such virtual doingequate to physical doing? The evidence suggests that the answer isyes. For example:

A study by Blitz Games for their Triage Trainer [DEFREITAS2009]showed that students using the trainer did have a higher retentionrate than those who learnt conventionally. They found that therewas significantly higher tagging accuracy in the game trainees [x2 =13.126, p


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- The Subjective View

One of the unique features of virtual worlds is the way that you see theworld through the eyes of your avatar not that of someone looking ata PC screen. This sense of immersion gives you a very involved and

subjective view of the environment or data, helping you to gain a betterunderstanding and to aid retention. For instance:

You can visualise a 3D data set and then walk inside it to gainnew insights and to better appreciate patterns and outliers thiscould be any sort of data from stock market pricing to real-timelocations of aircraft around an airport

You can have a meeting about spatial locations (be they depots,cities or volcanoes) while walking over a map of those locations and remembering what was said by which feature the speakerwas stood by

You can change your avatar to almost literally put yourself in acustomer (or colleagues) shoes and experience what it is like toinhabit a world or take part in a process as them

- Saving Costs

The second main justification for using virtual worlds is to delivercheaper training.

With remote learning activities the focus is on reducing training coststhrough reducing the financial and time costs of moving students fromtheir place of work/learning to the place of instruction. This is more

important for enterprise rather than academic learning where learnersare more likely to be located in offices or depots spread across thecountry (or even globe). Bringing them into a central point to receive aset of PowerPoint slides and join in discussion groups can be verycostly. Simple maths can soon show the benefit of virtual worlds. Forinstance IBM [LINDENLAB2008] estimates the ROI (Return OnInvestment) for the Virtual World Conference was roughly $320,000and that the Annual Meeting was executed beautifully at one-fifth thecost of a real world event..

We often resort to lecture presentations and PowerPoints becausedoing the real thing would just cost too much, or their just aren't thestaff or resources (due to cost pressures) to support it. By doing the

activity virtually we may have a greater initial set up cost, but in the longterm repeat running costs can be minimal. Whilst we would not wantcost considerations to drive out all physical world face-to-face andpractical training they can provide a useful adjunct to help tight budgetsto that little bit further and help us regain that doing retention bonus.

With simulations the savings come from a cost comparison betweendoing things virtually as against physically. For instance to do a Virtualpatient exercise in the physical world involves hiring actors to act aspatients, using cosmetics to simulate wounds, setting aside rooms forthe simulation, and providing staff to mange both students and actors.Every time you do the exercise the costs will be almost exactly thesame. In a virtual world you can create what in many ways is a morerealistic exercise a street-scene complete with ambulance, crashedcar, pedestrian bystanders etc will have none of the logistical issues ofa real-life simulation. And you can re-use the same scenario time and


Six barriers to innovation inlearning and teaching in

MUVEs

Steven Warburton of King'sCollege [WARBURTON2008]wrote an interesting piece onthe barriers to using virtualworlds in education. Heidentifies 6 main barriers:

Technical - machine andhuman related [andstandards related]

Identity - the tensionbetween playfulness andprofessionalism

Culture - reading thecodes and etiquette of thevirtual world

Collaboration - buildingtrust

Time - even simple thingstake time

Economic - nothing is forfree

But strategies are developingto address each of these from improvements to theclient to reduce technicalissues, through reductions intime and cost from greaterexperience and pre-builtsolutions, to avoidance ofculture issues from stand-alone solutions.


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time again for minimal (or even no) extra cost. You can also createexercises which whilst physically possible in the virtual world may bejust impractical in the real world for reasons of cost or time (like flyingyour film-crew students to an oil-rig to assess the health & safetyimplications of using the location as a film set and all within a 2 hourlesson).

The commercial sector appears to be better at tracking ROI for virtualworld education than the academic sector. Such as:

The Highways Agency saving around 65,000 for each day oftraining they did in the virtual world instead of in RL [SGI2009].

US enterprise training consultancy ACS using Second Life and theForterra Olive platform with blue-chip clients including IBM[BADGER2008]. They report that we have determined anopportunity for a positive return will be when companies are able toamortize their 3D world development costs and leverage theirmonthly user costs against travel savings for multiple classes... thehard cost of one face-to-face class in the real world could be aminimum $1,000 per participant for a one-day class*. Additionally,there is the soft cost avoidance by minimizing the time participantsare away from their work since the travel time and stress isdiminished.

*This cost is based upon information received from clients for an average, major U.S. cityhotel cost of $140 per night for a two night stay and an average U.S. airfare of $510 (nonrefundable, weekday travel) plus meals, tips, etc for 16 people would be $15,000.

An added benefit of the cost-saving build is also that it can become a24/7 resource, rather than something that is only available duringlesson time. For instance in the PREVIEW project [PREVIEW2008] thestudents thought that as well as using the simulation as a teacherdirected assessment aid, they could also use it as revision aid for thenight before the exam!

- Doing the Impossible (or too costly/infeasible)

Only virtual worlds let you hold a genetics class sat on the bases of astrand of DNA, or literature class in Shakespeare's Globe, a scienceclass on the moon or a motor servicing class inside an engine block.More mundanely few schools or businesses could fly their languagestudents to France every lesson, but all could log into the Frenchspeaking part of Second Life. Virtual worlds let us create environmentsthat would just be too costly, unsafe, impractical, or just physicallyimpossible to do in the physical world.

- Supporting Different Learning Approaches

Whilst there is some debate about differences between learners interms of their preferences for reading, listening, discussing or doingthere is no doubt that people have different preferences about what andhow they learn diverse topics and in different situations. Virtual worldsare probably unique in terms of eLearning technology in that they canaccommodate all learning styles [FOREMAN1999]. For instance avirtual learner can:

Read text within the virtual world be it through virtual books, or

museum-style display boards, or data gardens, or simple webpages and text documents brought into the virtual world


eLearning Principles

In 2003 Clarke & Mayer[CLARKE2003] wrote a wellreceived book entitledeLearning and the Scienceof Instruction.

Although aimed at 2D webbased eLearning systems(and a feel of 1997 about it),a lot of their guidelines areequally applicable to 3Denvironments and in manyways virtual worlds provide abetter solution to their issuesthan the web.

The Multi-media Principle use words and relevantgraphics, rather thanwords alone

The Contiguity Principle place corresponding wordsand graphics near eachother

The Modality Principle Present words as audiorather than as text

The Redundancy Principle Presenting the samecontent as words andaudio content can hurt

learning The Coherence Principle

Adding irrelevantinteresting material canhurt learning

The PersonalisationPrinciple Useconversational style andvirtual coaches

In particular Clark and Mayerconcluded that Practicemakes Perfect and that:

learners benefit from

periodic opportunities topractice in job relevantways

interactions should mirrorthe job

critical tasks require morepractice


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Watch and listen to a presentation or demonstration either givenlive by another avatar, or recorded on a robotic avatar or as avideo feed from the real-world, or a pre-recorded video

Discuss with each other by voice or text chat virtual worlds areinherently social spaces

Act and do immersing themselves in simulations of the real world

at any scale

Fidelity

One key question when deploying a vLearning solution is what level offidelity is required i.e. how closely should the experience resemblereal life. In the 1980s when virtual reality was all the rage there was ahuge focus on fully immersive high fidelity within the limitation of thetechnology then available. Most Virtual Reality (VR) systems came withhead-mounted 3D displays and tactile gloves. Since then the focus hasswitched to a more emotional interpretation of immersion a teenagerplaying Grand Theft Auto is probably far more immersed than those 80spioneers.

Professor Bob Stone of University of Birmingham has a model of fidelity[STONE2008] which can be useful in assessing the correct platformand approach to a vLearning application. He identifies 3 areas in whichfidelity of a simulation can be measured:

How lifelike the context/environment is (which may include theuser's avatar, although others [DALGARNO2010] separates thisout as a separate area)

How lifelike the task (i.e. processes and procedures) are How lifelike the actual user interactivity is

For most virtual worlds the emphasis is on task fidelity rather than on

environment or interaction. Top level game engines and somededicated simulation solutions do score highly on environmental fidelity,and for interaction fidelity you really need haptics or other advancedinput devices. By focussing on task fidelity you can make sure that youget maximum value for money as long as the level of environmentfidelity is sufficient to deliver an adequate sense of immersion (and notto detract from the simulation), and interaction fidelity is covered bymore specific (and often cheaper) physical world training (eg practisingdoing IV injections on an orange!).

Exemplar Learning Projects

Whilst we'd like to think that our projects are good examples of the useof virtual worlds for training and education there is no doubt that thereare others out there doing great things. Here are some of our favouritenon-Daden projects in virtual worlds (all SL unless otherwise noted):

Theatron a Kings College project to use SL to visualise ancienttheatres for theatre studies students [THEATRON2009]

Various medical projects at Imperial College (hygiene - [TORO-TROCONIS2008]), University of Sunderland (midwifery) and OhioState University (doctor-patient interviews - [DANFORTH2009])

Play2Train's emergency preparedness sim for the state of Iowa[PLAY2TRAIN2009]

The SL Ecosystem virtual ecology on the Second Nature 2 sim[SLECOSYSTEM2007]

The Globe build by the SL Shakespeare Company[SLSHAKESPEARE2008]


Apollo Simulation

North Lanarkshire Council

were looking for an innovativevLearning application toshowcase the capabilities ofvirtual worlds on their newSecond Life island. Dadendelivered them a simulation ofthe Apollo 11 moon landing.But rather than being just asimple bounce around on themoon simulation this was afully immersive exploratoryenvironment.

Dressed in spacesuits (withsound and motion effects)

visitors could switch on anoverlay that showed the exacttracks followed by Armstringand Aldrin as they worked onthe moon. At selected pointsthe Head-Up Display wouldshow the actual photos (andeven videos) taken from thepoint where the learner wasstanding helping to placematerial in context far betterthan any diagram. Each pieceof scientific equipment couldalso be touched to bring upimages, a description and alink back to a relevant webpage.

And at the end of the visit atouch of the LEM would sentit back up to orbit.


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Dr Doug Danforth's human testis walk-through [DANFORTH2008] Derby University's virtual quarry site for Health & Safety training

[DERBY2010] Teeside University's midwifery simulations by Kate Boardman

[BOARDMAN2009] University of Ulster walk-through computer [ULSTER2009]

Open University's First World War immersive poetry archive[OU2009]

Authoring Tools and Building for the Future

One of the biggest decisions facing an organisation moving intovLearning for the first time is the decision about which virtual world touse. At the moment (Apr 2010) there are multiple virtual worlds whichcan be used for vLearning, but no clear winner and no commonstandards. As a result there can both be concerns over the safety ofany investment in a particular world, and a potentially a significanttraining requirement for eLearning support staff and domainexperts/content authors as they need to learn a completely new set oftools.

An alternative to creating exercises purely within a virtual world is tomake use of authoring tools which are PC or ideally web based, andwhich can support more than one virtual world (and ideally non-virtualworld environments as well).

Under the JISC funded PREVIEW project Daden and St George'sUniversity of London developed the open-source PIVOTE vLearningAuthoring system. This is a web based application which lets authorscreate the structure and non-3D content of a training exercise on theweb, and then allow users to play the exercise in a virtual world, oreven on the web or a mobile phone. For each environment all the

developers have to do is create the visual interface be it 3D objectsand environments in a virtual world, or HTML or Flash on the web ormobile phone.

This approach has three major benefits:

For the institution the investment in the exercise is largely protectedfrom any future technology changes since at best all that needs tobe created is a new user interface within PIVOTE, and at worstexport and translate the XML definition of the exercise to a newformat

For the domain experts they can largely create and maintain theirexercises just with a knowledge of how to use a web application,

leaving only 3D content creation to eLearning specialists For the student they can run through the exercise on whatever

devices are to hand be they computers running a virtual world, orin a web browser or even a mobile phone. Of course the level offidelity and immersion will change with each platform but the corelearning remains the same.

The PIVOTE system also captures all student interaction so that it canbe reported back to a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE)/LearningManagement System (LMS), and the system also includes a chatbotengine so that dialogues with non-player characters can also becreated. There are also plans to create not only a graphic editor for thestructure of the exercise, but also a graphic editor for the 3Denvironment itself.


Birmingham City

University (BCU)

BCU currently trains filmstudents on the Health &Safety issues of a shoot byhaving them set up shots attheir Millennium Point campusbuilding. The problem is thatthe constraints of lesson timeand cost limit the students tothe area around this onelocation only. By recreatingthe location in Second Life wecould create a virtual versionof the same exercise. Havingvalidated this against thephysical exercise BCU arethen free to create verydifferent virtual environmentsfor the exercise, lettingstudents deal with Health &Safety problems just notfound on campus.


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PIVOTE has now had over 120 downloads of its server code, and wehost over 20 institutions on our PIVOTE hosting service, and we've hademails from organisational users as far away as Australia, Canada andArgentina.

There is more information on PIVOTE at www.daden.co.uk/pivote.

Issues to Consider

In developing a virtual world vLearning exercise there are a number ofissues which need to be considered. Some of the key ones are:

Which virtual world to use Daden can provide a summary of thekey features of each of the enterprise-ready virtual worlds. A keyconsideration is whether you want to allow users (or developers) tobe able to create content in-world without using expensive 3Ddesign tools. If you do then the Second Life family is actually theonly real option.

How to host the world Most enterprise virtual world platformsexpect you to set up the servers to host the virtual world yourself.With the Second Life family there are also options to host theworlds with either Linden Lab itself or with a third party provider

How to present the experience is the learning experiencesimply a better Health & Safety training system (say), or anadventure in a virtual world which might involve Health & Safetytraining. User and management) expectation will vary considerablydepending on how you present the system.

How learning is designed particularly in terms of the pedagogicapproach being taken (see Annex A). For instance[FOREMAN1999] sees that avatar based environments areleveraged most effectively when they support learner centredteamwork, and [FALLOON2010] advocates Inquiry Learning a

constructivist [GIRVAN2009] informed approach to learning inwhich students have ownership of their learning starting withexploration and questioning and leading to investigation into aworthy question or issue .

How will users be represented in a virtual world they can typicallynot only look like anyone (or anything) but also be called anything.Whilst this may be applicable for some vLearning it is probably notapplicable to most. Should users just use their real names andadopt avatars that look like them? There is a lot of current researchin this area.

How differences in learners preferences will be managed particularly in terms of the styles of presentation used (micro-adaptation), and even the order of material (macro-adaptation)

[DIMITROVA2010] How secure does the environment need to be both from a user

point of view (particularly when working with children or vulnerableadults), and from a network perspective. Most virtual worlds canoffer behind-the-firewall solutions for ultimate security.

Project Elements

In setting up a vLearning project there are a number of elements thatneed to be addressed:

Establishing a clear requirement specification and take a view as tothe most appropriate pedagogic approach and virtual learning type

Being clear as to the benefits expected from the project both forthe learners and the organisation


Getting Engagement

One of the biggest

challenges in developingand deploying vLearningsolutions is in getting theengagement of othertutors and staff ratherthan just the students.We have found this in ourown projects, and it'sgratifying when initiallysceptical tutors actuallyengage with thetechnology and come tosee how it can help themovercome some of their

own personal challengeswith teaching.

[FALLON2010] reportswork that he did withNew Zealand teacherswhere it was their firstexposure to avatars, andit was necessary toestablish a soundly-based rationale for theiruse. To achieve thisFallon circulated a

range of researchsummaries in advance ofthe workshops, and thefirst hour or so in eachworkshop was allocatedto exploring and debatingthe relevance ofconcepts and ideascontained in them...Onceteachers becomeinvolved in reading itwas gratifying to note aconsiderable change in

their attitudes.


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Developing a detailed description of the learning exercise from astudent and tutor perspective and specifying learning outcomesand any metrics that need to be captured

Creating the virtual world environment either by software installor by buying space on a hosted environment

Creating an induction path to bring students typically from their

PC/web/intranet to the exercise location, including an registrationrequired, platform orientation and specific exercise orientation Building the 3D environment in which the exercise will take place,

including any objects used by participants and including ambientcomponents (including sound and bots) to make the environmentseem alive

Coding the exercise itself, ideally in a vLearning authoring toolrather than directly into the world itself

Putting performance data capture facilities in-place, ideally part ofthe vLearning tool, and ideally linked back to the VLE/LMS

Testing the exercise with the tutor/eLearning team, and refining Testing the exercise with tame students, and refining further Producing any supporting documentation required by learners,

eLearning staff or tutors

Daden have a vLearning Planning Guide which outlines each of thesesteps in more detail, and provides an idea of cost. Please contact us ifyou'd like a copy.

Integration with LMS and VLEs

To support both off and on line learning recent years have seen theemergence of (usually web based) Virtual Learning Environments andLearning Management Systems (VLE appears to be a UK/educationterm, LMS a US/training term). The aim of these systems is to manage

the learning experience in terms of registering students, giving studentsaccess to course-ware, sometimes creating course-ware, managingdiscussions and exercise submission, and collating and analysingmarks so that tutors can manage their cadre. As a management toolthe VLE/LMS should be agnostic as to whether the training is takingplace in a virtual world or elsewhere.

For instance SCORM is a US DoD (Department Of Defence) standard(now used elsewhere) for integrating topic specific eLearning packageswith an LMS. It meant that you could manage any SCORM complianteLearning package from your core LMS, having consolidated userregistration, content deployment and results capture. However SCORMwas originally conceived for individual training on network connected

PCs outside of the web. Whilst it is possible to box-tick SCORMcompliance for a virtual world based training package or system itmeans little in practice. There now appear to be at least two separatestrands of work (ADL and LETSI) aimed at creating a SCORM 2.0which will both support web content and web services, and virtualworlds.

Despite the SCORM issues the ability to integrate virtual worldstraining with VLE/LMS management systems is highly desirable. TheSloodle project has been one example of this, extending some of thecapabilities and content from the Moodle VLE into Second Life andOpenSim. Since web services were lacking in Moodle Sloodle has hadto take a relatively bespoke approach to the integration but the idealsituation (and what the SCORM 2.0 initiatives are looking at), is that theVLE/LMS has web services which expose all its functionality (e.g. userregistration, content deployment, discussion boards, project



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submission, results scoring), enabling us to bring as much or all of thisfunctionality into the virtual world.

Another, related, possibility is how we use the data visualisationcapabilities of a virtual world to provide superior analysis andunderstanding of the data within a VLE. Virtual worlds are potentially

ideal environments for visualising multi-dimension data sets, and usingdata within simulations or models of the real-world world. Both couldoffer significant advantages to larger education and training providers.

Beyond vLearning

So far this white paper has talked about why you should be using virtualworlds for eLearning; but the argument is far wider than just trainingand education. Virtual worlds are fundamentally about social interaction without that they feel like ghost towns. But social interaction is a keyelement of many (indeed almost all) activities, including meetings,collaboration, consulting on a new building visualisation, collectivevisualising rich data sets all are about people in a shared virtualspace.

In our view just as the web has become the predominant architecturemodel for transactional based systems so too will virtual worlds becomethe predominant architecture model for real-time social interactionbased systems. And just as having one web world has led toconsiderable savings in application design, development, deploymentand training costs so too will having one virtual world underpinning awide range of business applications lead to similar savings.

So when you are considering deploying your first virtual world solutionfor an eLearning remember that that same platform could soon besupporting a wide range of other business applications.

Next Steps

If you are interested in using virtual worlds to support the teaching,training and learning of your students, employees and otherstakeholders then we would be pleased to provide you with ademonstration of the use of virtual worlds for vLearning. You can alsoview videos of many of our vLearning projects athttp://www.youtube.com/dadenmedia , and read case studies athttp://www.daden.co.uk.

You can also email us at [email protected], call us on +44 (0)121 2505678, or of course visit us in Second Life on Daden Prime.


Glossary

AI Artificial IntelligenceAvatar- A 2D or pseudo-3Drepresentation of a person orcharacterFlash - A programme forcreating dynamic 2D and 3Dgraphics on the webHUD Head Up Display anoverlay on your screenLMS Learning ManagementSystem, 2D (web) applicationto manage learners, coursesand contentMUVE Multi-User VirtualEnvironment (a more

academic term for virtualworlds)RL real lifeRW real worldSL Second LifeVLE Virtual LearningEnvironment, actually an LMSand nothing to do with virtualworldsVW virtual world
http://www.youtube.com/dadenmediahttp://www.daden.co.uk/http://www.youtube.com/dadenmediahttp://www.daden.co.uk/


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Annex A

Supporting Different Pedagogies

Recent years have seen the rise in a number of pedagogies aimed at

moving away from chalk-and-talk and towards more real-world learningstyles. Virtual worlds are ideally placed to support such pedagogies inan effective way. The table below summarises some of the commonapproaches to learning design and pedagogy.

Table 3.1 Theories to inform design (from Savin-Baden, M. (2010) APractical Guide to using Second Life in Higher Education. Maidenhead:McGraw Hill

Pedagogical

approach

Related

theory

Theorist Types of Second

Life activities

that matchPBLConstellation9 Problem-basedlearning fortransformationand socialreform

Critical

pedagogy

and social

action

Freire (1972,

1974)

Hooks (1994)

A scenario that

prompts students

to examine

structures and

beliefs

Activity-ledlearning

Complexity

model

Barnett and

Coate (2005)

Team-led

activities such as

designing a set

for a production

of HamletCo-operativelearning

Co-operative

Education

Heron (1989,

1993)

Johnson et al.

(1991, 1998)

Defined by team

in relation to

assignment

Dialogiclearning

Community

action

Mezirow

(1985)

Flecha (2000)

Student-led

learning teams

that focus on

discussion and

reflectionActionLearning

Change

management

Revans (1983) Group-led

discussion and

reflection on

actionProject-basedlearning

Cognitive

learning

theories

Vygotsky

(1978)

Ausubel et al.

(1978)

Tutor-set,

structured tasks,

such as building

tasks



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Pedagogical

approach

Related

theory

Theorist Types of Second

Life activities

that matchInquiry-ledlearning

Discovery

learning

Bruner (1991)

Dewey (1938)

Students decideon their own

about issues thatemerged during apractice orfieldworkcomponent oftheir course, andthey set their ownobjectives as towhat they want tolearn.

Game-basedlearning

Experiential

learning

Gee (2004)

Kolb and Fry

(1975)

Trivia games,

Role play,

SimulationsLeaderlessgroupdiscussion

Humanism Rogers (1969) Student-led

discussion



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Annex B

References:

[ALDRICH2009] - http://clarkaldrich.blogspot.com/2009/03/virtual-worlds-gamessimulations.html[BADGER2008] - http://www.trainingindustry.com/media/1765454/recipe%20for

%20success.pdf[BOARDMAN2009] - http://eat.scm.tees.ac.uk/blog/2009/08/31/advances-in-midwifery/(accessed 16 Mar 10)[CLARK2003] Clark RC & Mayer RE; E-learning and the Science of Instruction: ProvenGuidelines for Consumers and Designers of Multi-media Learning; John Wiley & Sons;2003[DALGARNO2010] Dalgarno B & Lee, MJW; What are the learning affordances of 3-Dvirtual environments; British Journal of Educational Technology Vol 41, No 1, 2010;doi:10.1111/j.1467-8535.2009.01038.x[DANFORTH2008] - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1YuRSyzBAE[DANFORTH2009] - http://www.citeulike.org/user/giorgiobertin/article/5377270[DEFREITAS2009] -http://repository.alt.ac.uk/453/1/Webinar_serious_games_20090616_Sara_de_Freitas.ppt[DERBY2010] - http://www.derby.ac.uk/connected/stories/virtual-quarry[DIMITROVA2010] - User-adaptive Games: Opportunities and Challenges presented at theSerious Games Institute , 10 March 2010.

[FALLON2010] Fallon G; Using avatars and virtual environments in learning: What dothey have to offer?; British Journal of Educational Technology Vol 41, No 1, 2010;doi:10.1111/j.1467-8535.2009.00991.x[FERRIDAY2009] - http://www.flickr.com/photos/fezzette/3399704536[FOREMAN1999][GIRVAN2009] -http://www.scss.tcd.ie/postgraduate/msctl/current/Dissertations/Carina_Girvan_Theisis.pdf[KIRREMUIR2009] - http://virtualworldwatch.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Snapshot-7.pdf[IMPERIAL2009] - http://knowledgecast.wordpress.com/2009/07/10/icl-tour2/[LINDEN2008] -http://secondlifegrid.net.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/Second_Life_Case_IBM_EN.pdf[LINDEN2009] https://blogs.secondlife.com/community/learninginworld/blog/2009/07/10/case-study-loyalist-college-massively-improves-test-scores-and-training-outcomes-using-second-life[MARTINO2007] -

[OU2009] - http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/secondlife[PLAY2TRAIN2009] - http://www.socialtext.net/play2train/index.cgi[PREVIEW2008] - http://www.elu.sgul.ac.uk/preview/blog/[SGI2009] - http://www.seriousvirtualworlds.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=Schedule[SLECOSYSTEM2007] -http://network.nature.com/people/joannascott/blog/2007/10/24/creating-an-artificial-ecosystem-in-second-life-the-report[SLSHAKESPEARE2008] - http://slshakespeare.com/[STONE2008] - http://www.hfidtc.org/pdf/HFIDTC-2-8.7.2-1-HF-Guidelines-for-SG.pdf[THEATRON2009] - http://cms.cch.kcl.ac.uk/theatron/[TORO-TROCONIS2008] - http://www.elearningimperial.com/SL/J-CyberTherapy-Rehab_Toro-Troconis_V04.pdf[ULSTER2009] - http://scis.ulster.ac.uk/Virtual-Worlds-Research.html[WARBURTON2008] - http://warburton.typepad.com/liquidlearning/2008/07/six-barriers-to.html[WHITE2009] Open Habitiat: What can you do with Second Life? Presented at the 2009

Coventry National Workshop on Learning in Immersive Worlds[WOOD2004] - http://www.bioscience.heacademy.ac.uk/journal/vol3/beej-3-5.aspx[WOOLGAR2002] -

Further Reading

BECTA: Emerging Technologies for Learning: Emerging trends in serious games andvirtual worlds. http://partners.becta.org.uk/upload-dir/downloads/page_documents/research/emerging_technologies08_chapter4.pdf

JISC: Getting Started in Second Lifehttp://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/generalpublications/2009/gettingstartedsecondlife.aspx

JISC: Serious Virtual Worlds Reporthttp://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/reports/2008/seriousvirtualworldsreport.aspx

Second Life; Learing In-World Blog:https://blogs.secondlife.com/community/learninginworld

http://clarkaldrich.blogspot.com/2009/03/virtual-worlds-gamessimulations.htmlhttp://clarkaldrich.blogspot.com/2009/03/virtual-worlds-gamessimulations.htmlhttp://www.trainingindustry.com/media/1765454/recipe%20for%20success.pdfhttp://www.trainingindustry.com/media/1765454/recipe%20for%20success.pdfhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1YuRSyzBAEhttp://www.citeulike.org/user/giorgiobertin/article/5377270http://repository.alt.ac.uk/453/1/Webinar_serious_games_20090616_Sara_de_Freitas.ppthttp://www.derby.ac.uk/connected/stories/virtual-quarryhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/fezzette/3399704536http://www.scss.tcd.ie/postgraduate/msctl/current/Dissertations/Carina_Girvan_Theisis.pdfhttp://www.scss.tcd.ie/postgraduate/msctl/current/Dissertations/Carina_Girvan_Theisis.pdfhttp://virtualworldwatch.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Snapshot-7.pdfhttp://virtualworldwatch.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Snapshot-7.pdfhttp://knowledgecast.wordpress.com/2009/07/10/icl-tour2/https://blogs.secondlife.com/community/learninginworld/blog/2009/07/10/case-study-loyalist-college-massively-improves-test-scores-andhttps://blogs.secondlife.com/community/learninginworld/blog/2009/07/10/case-study-loyalist-college-massively-improves-test-scores-andhttp://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/secondlifehttp://www.socialtext.net/play2train/index.cgihttp://www.elu.sgul.ac.uk/preview/blog/http://www.seriousvirtualworlds.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=Schedulehttp://www.seriousvirtualworlds.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=Schedulehttp://network.nature.com/people/joannascott/blog/2007/10/24/creating-an-artificial-ecosystem-in-second-life-the-reporthttp://network.nature.com/people/joannascott/blog/2007/10/24/creating-an-artificial-ecosystem-in-second-life-the-reporthttp://slshakespeare.com/http://www.hfidtc.org/pdf/HFIDTC-2-8.7.2-1-HF-Guidelines-for-SG.pdfhttp://cms.cch.kcl.ac.uk/theatron/http://www.elearningimperial.com/SL/J-CyberTherapy-Rehab_Toro-Troconis_V04.pdfhttp://www.elearningimperial.com/SL/J-CyberTherapy-Rehab_Toro-Troconis_V04.pdfhttp://scis.ulster.ac.uk/Virtual-Worlds-Research.htmlhttp://warburton.typepad.com/liquidlearning/2008/07/six-barriers-to.htmlhttp://warburton.typepad.com/liquidlearning/2008/07/six-barriers-to.htmlhttp://www.bioscience.heacademy.ac.uk/journal/vol3/beej-3-5.aspxhttp://partners.becta.org.uk/upload-dir/downloads/page_documents/research/emerging_technologies08_chapter4.pdfhttp://partners.becta.org.uk/upload-dir/downloads/page_documents/research/emerging_technologies08_chapter4.pdfhttp://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/generalpublications/2009/gettingstartedsecondlife.aspxhttp://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/reports/2008/seriousvirtualworldsreport.aspxhttp://clarkaldrich.blogspot.com/2009/03/virtual-worlds-gamessimulations.htmlhttp://clarkaldrich.blogspot.com/2009/03/virtual-worlds-gamessimulations.htmlhttp://www.trainingindustry.com/media/1765454/recipe%20for%20success.pdfhttp://www.trainingindustry.com/media/1765454/recipe%20for%20success.pdfhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1YuRSyzBAEhttp://www.citeulike.org/user/giorgiobertin/article/5377270http://repository.alt.ac.uk/453/1/Webinar_serious_games_20090616_Sara_de_Freitas.ppthttp://www.derby.ac.uk/connected/stories/virtual-quarryhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/fezzette/3399704536http://www.scss.tcd.ie/postgraduate/msctl/current/Dissertations/Carina_Girvan_Theisis.pdfhttp://www.scss.tcd.ie/postgraduate/msctl/current/Dissertations/Carina_Girvan_Theisis.pdfhttp://virtualworldwatch.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Snapshot-7.pdfhttp://virtualworldwatch.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Snapshot-7.pdfhttp://knowledgecast.wordpress.com/2009/07/10/icl-tour2/https://blogs.secondlife.com/community/learninginworld/blog/2009/07/10/case-study-loyalist-college-massively-improves-test-scores-andhttps://blogs.secondlife.com/community/learninginworld/blog/2009/07/10/case-study-loyalist-college-massively-improves-test-scores-andhttp://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/secondlifehttp://www.socialtext.net/play2train/index.cgihttp://www.elu.sgul.ac.uk/preview/blog/http://www.seriousvirtualworlds.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=Schedulehttp://www.seriousvirtualworlds.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=Schedulehttp://network.nature.com/people/joannascott/blog/2007/10/24/creating-an-artificial-ecosystem-in-second-life-the-reporthttp://network.nature.com/people/joannascott/blog/2007/10/24/creating-an-artificial-ecosystem-in-second-life-the-reporthttp://slshakespeare.com/http://www.hfidtc.org/pdf/HFIDTC-2-8.7.2-1-HF-Guidelines-for-SG.pdfhttp://cms.cch.kcl.ac.uk/theatron/http://www.elearningimperial.com/SL/J-CyberTherapy-Rehab_Toro-Troconis_V04.pdfhttp://www.elearningimperial.com/SL/J-CyberTherapy-Rehab_Toro-Troconis_V04.pdfhttp://scis.ulster.ac.uk/Virtual-Worlds-Research.htmlhttp://warburton.typepad.com/liquidlearning/2008/07/six-barriers-to.htmlhttp://warburton.typepad.com/liquidlearning/2008/07/six-barriers-to.htmlhttp://www.bioscience.heacademy.ac.uk/journal/vol3/beej-3-5.aspxhttp://partners.becta.org.uk/upload-dir/downloads/page_documents/research/emerging_technologies08_chapter4.pdfhttp://partners.becta.org.uk/upload-dir/downloads/page_documents/research/emerging_technologies08_chapter4.pdfhttp://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/generalpublications/2009/gettingstartedsecondlife.aspxhttp://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/reports/2008/seriousvirtualworldsreport.aspx

Documents

Virtual Worlds for Training and Education 2010