Gabriel’s E-Learning

Case Studies – Additional Assignment Post.

A virtual world is “an interactive simulated environment accessed by multiple users through an online interface”. There are many types of virtual worlds, but they all share a few common features: Shared space (Many users participating at once), Graphical User Interface (GUI), Real time actions, Interactivity, Persistence (the world existence continues regardless if the users are online or not) and socialization \ community (encouraging in-world social groups) (http://www.virtualworldsreview.com/info/whatis.shtml).

For our E-Learning project, my group chose to concentrate on how virtual worlds are used for educational purposes. This was because we believe that virtual worlds can really revolutionize the way we approach education. We wanted to explore the reasons those organizations and companies toke up the challenge of implementing their learning into a virtual world and how did they overcome the obstacles. Further more, we wanted to answer the question: Is the use of virtual worlds for education, in its current form, really benefits learning and how?

This paper will review the case studies as well as compare and contrast how the different organizations depicted in those studies approach the use of virtual worlds. Finally it will try show how the points that arise from the case studies affect educators as a whole.

The case studies –

The first case study concentrated on Hewitt Packard’s (HP) venture to integrate its training program into a virtual world. The reasons for the venture were mostly economic. The main benefit from such a move was to eliminate the costs, both to HP and to its customers, of face to face training such as: transit (either of trainers or the trainees) and equipment. The case study states that it was a challenge to implement such a project, but once it was in place, it turned out to be a big success with over 200,000 students a year using the virtual facilities (Harris 2005). Jane also notes that the case study fails to mention how the trainees learn to use the VW software in the first place (an obvious challenge to the effectiveness of VW education).

The second case study describes the Second Life (SL) Island Simulation (Sim) that was built by the US ‘National Oceanic and Atmospheric’ Administration (NOAA) – a scientific agency of the US Commerce Department who researches the global oceans, atmosphere, weather and climate (http://www.noaa.gov/(2007)). NOAA’s concern with education falls mainly with educating the populace about threats that arise from phenomena that are part of NOAA’s expertise such as hurricanes, tsunamis and global warming. By creating the Sim, NOAA were able to introduce students and even adults to live simulations of those threats, which produced not only engaging learning but a greater impact. Although the Sim does include a virtual lecture hall, it seems like NOAA concentrated on creating an environment that compliments learning (about the presented topics) rather then using the virtual world as a learning facilitator in itself.

The last case study reviews Second Health, an educational project made in collaboration of the English National Physical Laboratories (NPL), the Imperial Collage of London (ICL) and the New Media Consortium (NMC) Virtual Worlds. The project built a Sim that told a “visual story about a unique vision for the near-term future in real life”, the vision being a medical facility based on a “new system of healthcare — one based on the central idea of wellness as opposed to illness” (http://virtualworlds.nmc.org/portfolio/second-health/ ). The Sim aspires to educate the medical community about the above vision in a visual and experiential way. Along with the actual simulation of a whole hospital with all the proposed wards, the Sim also features ‘in-world’ videos of real time medical simulations made with the help of volunteer doctors from NPL.

It is interesting to note the different ways the above organisations decided to integrate virtual worlds to achieve their educational goals. One notable difference is the scope of use. For example, if NOAA had gone along the lines of HP, they would implement a team of scientists to run the simulations real time with explanations to the visiting students, as part as a whole online curriculum. Of course, it is easy to see that such a venture is unrealistic and unneeded for the specific scope of learning (demonstrating different phenomena). While HP’s massive venture is viable because of the size of the operation and the return on investment (ROI) that HP expects from the project. This can be seen to show that virtual worlds can be used for different sides of the scope spectrum from small projects meant to compliment a small part of an educational agenda to using the virtual world as the ‘be all, end all’ educational tool.

Another interesting difference is which virtual worlds’ tools and inherited benefits did the organisations saw as the most important to accomplishing their objectives? In the case of HP, the company obviously valued the access anywhere (eliminate travel expenses), the ‘real’ equipment simulation (eliminate equipment expenses) and the ‘shared space’ which means that both students and trainers can interact with each other. On the other hand, NOAA valued the ability to simulate and thus allow the experience of phenomena that are otherwise impossible to ‘see’ first hand. Lastly, the Second Health project valued the ability to build a simulation of a facility that does not yet exists and being able to simultaneously interact with it in order to learn (and show others) how to do things better (without investing any [major] amount of money).

It seems like the vast array of benefits that inheritably come with virtual worlds, along with simpler and simpler design and scripting tools can cater to many different needs and goals. This opens up possibilities that were previously closed to many of the smaller educational enterprises. Once it was only possible to create a simulation from the ground up, which meant that only objectives that were big enough to warrant such an investment were able to use such a tool, now a teacher can use the virtual world’s tools to create a much smaller simulations (both in scope and in investment). This allows educators to take the next step and engage with students and learners in ways that were not possible before.

In conclusion, different organisations and institutions use the same virtual worlds in different ways, valuing different benefits and tools that help them accomplish different goals and scopes (such as the ability to access the worlds from anywhere, the ability to build and interact with simulations and the ability to ‘exist’ simultaneously with hundreds and thousands of others in the same virtual space). The relative ease in which one can use the virtual worlds in order to create the needed educational environment (compared to past technologies) opens that possibility to many more educators and organisations then was previously possible. This by itself demonstrates how powerful this technology is and how we can expect it to be integrated more and more into educational ventures.

References:

Harris, J. 2005, Case Study: How HP Rolled Out its Virtual Lab for Global Customer Training, ASTD Learning Circuits, viewed 26th September 2007 <http://www.learningcircuits.org/2005/jun2005/harris.htm>

Johnson, L. 2006. Virtual Worlds Case Study: Second Health, viewed 26th September 2007
< http://virtualworlds.nmc.org/portfolio/second-health/ >

Olmstead, J. 2006. Second Health: The future of healthcare communication, viewed 26th September 2007
< http://secondhealth.wordpress.com/ >

Virtual Worlds Review 2007, What is a Virtual World, Virtual Worlds Review, viewed 26th September 2007 < http://www.virtualworldsreview.com/info/whatis.shtml >

Add comment September 28th, 2007

Activity 1.7 – E-learning Advantages and Disadvatages

Just like everything else, E-learning has its own advantages and disadvantages. Knowing those can help determine if E-learning is the best delivery solution or not.

Advantages:

Consistency – The same E-learning experience is run across the board, making it easy to makes sure that everyone is on the same page.

Interactive – E-learning is engaging, since it allows the learner to interact in a way that can not be achieved in a ‘normal’ classroom

Structured – The thought that must go into developing E-learning usually means that the experience is very structured and easy to follow (assuming good design), making for better learning.

Immediacy – Unlike conventional learning experience, E-learning rewards the learner with immediate feedback and more experience as he goes through the program thus increasing the learning impact.

Easy to deliver – Structured, well developed E-learning programs are very easy to deliver, as they either run themselves or help push the program along with the trainer or teacher.

Very cheap to run – After the initial development costs (see below) an E-learning program requires very little overheads to run (e.g. hosting and bandwidth). This means that over a long term period the Return On Investment (ROI) can be extremely high.

Anytime / Any place – Web-based E-learning allows the learner to log-in and learn anytime and from anywhere he / she desires, which both encourages learning and might even cut down on man-hour costs.

Own pace – On the same line as the above point, the learner can learn at his / her own pace, which reduces stress and encourages learning. Again, this can also contribute to a reduction of man-hours needed for training.

Easy to track compliance – E-learning learning softwares can easily be made to track who read what, who passed which quiz / exam etc. This makes it very easy for the instructors and the organisation itself to track compliance, both inter-organisational and governmental (e.g. OH&S)

Disadvantages:

Technology must match and be standard – If a learner tries to open an e-learning software or access an e-learning website without the right plug-ins or using an old browser, he will encounter difficulties and might not be able to enjoy the experience. This means that the organisation must take steps to ensure consistency of technological framework both at work and at home.

Very expensive and time consuming to set-up ($100k+; 200+ hours) – The initial development expenditure of an hour of E-learning can be massive and very time consuming. This makes it impossible to use E-learning for anything but big, long term projects.

Issue with maintenance \ Re-programing – Firstly, the organisation needs to realize that there will always be IT issues with E-learning (which means more expenses). Secondly, it is difficult and time consuming to update the content of e-learning programs when needed.

Design might be impersonal (experience) – If not careful, an organisation might find that all its learning experiences are very impersonal, discouraging social behavior and group collaboration. If the learners only sit in front of the computer screen while learning and while working, this can be a problem.

Poor design – If not designed well, even an E-learning with the best, most engaging content will fail as the learners will have difficulties understanding how to progress (what to do next), where to find help and even how to interact with the software.

Add comment September 16th, 2007

Activity 1.4

What is an e-Zine?

An E-zine is an online electronic magazine. It’s basically an online publication about a certain topic, just like a normal magazine. What makes it even better though, is the fact that it can link other pages on the net, other pages can link the e-zine and the readers can actually comment on the articles, allowing for a level of interactivity that was impossible before.

What is an e-Newsletter?

E-newsletters are subscription based email news / update reports and articles. They are emailed directly to the subscriber.

How do you judge their relevance?

There are several ways of judging e-zines and e-newsletters relevance, as well as how reputable they are. The first is to look at the ‘About’ section of the publishing site, which usually clearifies what is the publisher really wants to achieve by publishing the material: is it for pure information sharing (more relevant and reputable) or is it for advertising \ promotion (less so).

The second method requires a bit more investigating. By searching references to the actual publisher in other topic relevant pages online, one can find how known and reputable the publication is in the relevant ‘circles’. This may seem like a bit of work but it is usually a good indicator and might save time later by preventing the reader from reading non-relevant or inaccurate information.

Where do you start searching?

The best way is to start from a search engine such as ‘Google’, it usually yields good, relevant result (aside from using the main search function, it’s also a good idea to search for the term under the ‘groups’ tab).

How do you subscribe?

It is very easy to subscribe and there are two main ways to do so. The first is as simple as clicking the ’subscribe’ link which will ask you for your email and will start sending you the e-newsletter right away. The orange ‘RSS’ icon is the second way; clicking that icon will allow you to choose the reader you want to use to read the ‘RSS’ feed, once you choose, you will be able to see the updated posts and articles in the reader itself, never missing anything, without the need of actually visiting the site.

Add comment September 1st, 2007