Immersive worlds

Page history last edited by Lou McGill 10 months, 3 weeks ago

Immersive worlds can contribute to a wide range of curricula by providing ‘authentic’ learning experiences that mirror real world situations. They have particular impact on practice-based subjects. Atelier-D, Duckling, and Generation 4 have been investigating the use of immersive worlds - in particular Second Life (SL). Whilst all of these projects acknowledge the potential value of Second Life most identified significant challenges relating to student and staff access, equipment requirements, steep learning curve and costs. Duckling made effective use of an existing oil rig created by an individual, thus avoiding costs of developing their own environment from scratch, and after further development they have released this as an Open Educational Resource (OER).

‘Second Life was considered to have many weaknesses in this context, students in the focus group ranking it below paper PBL for clinical reasoning and identified usability; clumsy dialogue; distracting virtual environment; time consuming process; lacking realism, particularly for medical examination and difficult to focus on Learning objectives as significant problems .’ Generation 4

‘staff had difficulties in engaging in the Second Life pilot, since Second Life is not currently supported across the institution, and staff could only use the platform at home or in the University of Leicester‟s Media Zoo.’ Duckling

‘There are still considerable limitations to the effective use of Second Life for learning and teaching purposes. Access issues, technical problems, demand for support and training, discomfort with SECOND LIFE features and managing students in different time zones together (when required for the task, as in the Psychology pilot) are challenges for the sustainable integration of Second Life into the two disciplines.’ (Duckling)

‘The Second Life pilot helped staff of both disciplines to see the potential of a virtual world as a safe environment for practising skills and realise what was involved in the design and implementation of Second Life teaching activities. (Duckling)

Generation 4 continued the development and use of the Virtual Patient and Open Labyrinth which has been specifically designed for medical education and have enjoyed considerable success with this approach. They found that their discipline specific approach didn't translate well into Second Life.

G4 OpenLabyrinth vs DSim comparison

INTEGRATE highlighted the general caution from academics to the use of Second Life.

‘Many staff from the Business School attended an enthusiastic presentation on this, but it failed to capture the interest of any of them for teaching purposes, and also did not support the direction that at that moment in time we were moving towards, and that was the strengthening of face-to-face interactions.’(INTEGRATE)

More information about the use of immersive worlds in the delivery programme is included in t his blog post from CETIS.

Relevant Delivery project outputs include: