Case study compiled by: Cristina Stefanelli, FOR.COM (IT)
email: c.stefanelli@forcom.it
twitter: @c_stefanelli
DRAFT
Status: 70% completed
The lack of ICT use in teaching is a predominant issue in secondary schools throughout Europe. The AVATAR project was aimed at enhancing the level of ICT use in education by providing teachers with new methodological and pedagogical tools.
The AVATAR training course addresses secondary school teachers in Austria, Bulgaria, Denmark, Great Britain, Italy and Spain. The course covers the educational design of virtual world (VW) teaching, the management and construction of virtual objects and learning environments and examples for learning activities in virtual worlds.
The pilot course was delivered during January – May 2011. During the course, teacher trainees developed a project work or virtual lesson plan/activity in Second Life related to a subject matter and test it on a group of their students.
1.1.1 The Challenges
- How do you motivate and engage secondary school teachers in virtual worlds teaching?
- How do you design a teacher training course that truly empowers teachers giving them the knowledge and skills required to design and carry out teaching and learning activities in virtual worlds?
- How do you support teachers and help them benefit from the potentials and overcome the pitfalls of delivering a virtual worlds course to their pupils?
These are the question that introduces the preliminary results of the EU funded AVATAR “Added Value of teAching in a virTuAl woRld” project (http://www.avatarproject.eu).
1.1.2 The Research phase
The project envisages, as first step, conducting comparative research on existing V-learning platforms, assessing the quality of their didactic laboratory features and functions. Research results have been uses to define the guidelines of a suitable V-learning platform for the experimentation of the training course, to identify the most efficient didactic methodology that utilizes virtual worlds as a laboratory for instruction and has been ultimately used for the preparation of the training course.
Components of the research phase are:
a) Analysis of the Best Practices for teaching in a Virtual World
b) Interviews with Experts on virtual world teaching and learning
c) Analysis of suitable Virtual World platforms for teaching in secondary schools
a) Analysis of the Best Practices for teaching in a Virtual World
In the first project phase, learning theories and best practice within the field of virtual worlds teaching and learning was also studied to learn from existing practice. Best practices and tips for teaching in Second Life, didactic methods, learning perspectives and educational case studies were compiled in the document “Didactic Methods to Teach Using V-platforms” (University of Hertfordshire 2010).
The studies point to the extra competencies that pupils can achieve by participating in teaching and learning activities in a virtual world. Teachers are, furthermore, encouraged NOT to transfer existing teaching practices to the virtual world in question, but to adopt new methods and learning perspectives such as the “Six Learnings Framework” that endorses approaches which help realize and optimize the learning potential of virtual worlds (Lim 2009). The six perspectives are:
Learning by exploring
Structured or unstructured explorations of objects and landscapes in the virtual world and subsequent analysis of the data obtained.
Learning by collaborating
Learning in teams via problem-solving tasks or in other forms of structured inquiry.
Learning by being
Explorations of self and of identity. Role-playing e.g. in a virtual setting designed to resemble an existing and/or historic location.
Learning by building
Learning by building objects and/or scripting them.
Learning by championing
Learning by studying a certain cause and attempting to raise awareness and educate the general public about this particular cause.
Learning by expressing
Focuses on the representation of in-world activity to the ‘outside world, i.e. This allows for reflections and for practicing presentation skills using different forms of communication. (Lim 2009:2-3)
b) Interviews with Experts on virtual world teaching and learning
The following video interviews have been conducted with secondary school teachers, educators, project managers and experts on virutal world teaching and learning during the period 2010 - 2011
Interview 01 More information & Video
Interview by: For.Com, Italy
Interview with: Andrea Benassi
Details of Interviewee: Andrea Benassi is an Educational Researcher and an expert in virtual worlds
Institution: ANSAS, the Italian Institute for Educational Development in Florence.
Virtual Worlds discussed: Second Life
Interview 02 More information & Video
Interview by: For.Com, Italy
Interview with: Andrea Benassi
Details of Interviewee:Andrea Benassi is an Educational Researcher and an expert in virtual worlds
Institution: ANSAS, the Italian Institute for Educational Development in Florence.
Virtual Worlds discussed:Second Life, Open Sim, Wonderland, Active World
Interview 03 More information & Video
Interview by: For.com, Italy
Interview with: Maria Guida
Details of Interviewee: Maria is an expert on virtual worlds, a teacher of maths and physics and a teacher trainer for learning technologies
Institution:Liceo Scientifico Statale, Sorrento Italy
Virtual Worlds discussed: Second Life
Interview 04 More information & Video
Interview by: For.com, Italy
Interview with: Luisa Panichi
Details of Interviewee: Luisa is an expert on virtual worlds and an educational researcher. She also teaches English as a foreign language.
Institution: ANSAS, the Italian Institute for Educational Development in Florence. Language Centre, University of Pisa
Virtual Worlds discussed: Second Life
Interview 05 More information & Video
Interview by: BFU, Bulgaria
Interview with: Stanislav Simeonov
Details of Interviewee:Lecturer in Computer Networks, Operating Systems and Computer Architecture
Institution: -
Virtual Worlds discussed:Custom built virtual environment for a training course. Kaneva? Second Life?
Interview 06 More information & Video
Interview by: UH, England
Interview with: John Woollard
Details of Interviewee: Lecturer in Information Technology, School of Education
Institution: : University of Southampton, England
Virtual Worlds discussed: Second Life
Interview 07 More information & Video
Interview by: UH, England
Interview with: Fiona Littlejohn
Details of Interviewee: Fiona is a research assistant and an expert in the use of virtual worlds for education
Institution: University of Edinburgh, Scotland
Virtual Worlds discussed: Second Life, Teen grid, Open Sim
Interview 08 More information & Video
Interview by: UH, England
Interview with: Dr. Trevor Barker
Details of Interviewee: Trevor is a principal lecturer in the School of Computer Science and carries out research into the use of virtual worlds in education
Institution: University of Hertfordshire, England
Virtual Worlds discussed: Second Life
Interview 09 More information & Video
Interview by: Eric Dell, UH, UK
Interview with: Fiona Grindy
Details of Interviewee: Fiona Grindy is the Project Co-ordinator for Second Life projects
Institution: University of Southampton
Virtual Worlds discussed: Second Life
Interview 10 More information & Video
Interview by: Eric Dell, UH, UK
Interview with: Alex
Details of Interviewee:Alex is a student teacher and virtual world enthusiast
Institution: University of Southampton
Virtual Worlds discussed: Second Life, IMVU
Interview 11 More information & Video
Interview by: FHU, Austria
Interview with: Thomas Kretschmer
Details of Interviewee: -
Institution: -
Virtual Worlds discussed: Second Life
Interview 12 More information & Video
Interview by: UNED, Spain
Interview with: Sara Montero Sanchez
Details of Interviewee: Sara is a researcher on a project on Virtual Worlds and Education
Institution: Long Distance University, Spain
Virtual Worlds discussed: Wonderland
Interview 12a More information & Video
Interview by: UNED, Spain
Interview with: Luis Sotillos
Details of Interviewee: Director, researcher on virtual words
Institution: Nueva Tierra Network Company, Research on Second Life, presenter, teacher in some courses
Virtual Worlds discussed: Second Life
Interview 13 More information & Video
Interview by: SDU, Denmark
Interview with: Inge Knudsen
Details of Interviewee: Inge is a teacher in a corporate training centre. She both teaches about Second Life and creates learning environments.
Institution: Business College Horsens, Denmark Virtual Worlds
Virtual Worlds discussed: Second Life
Interview 14 More information & Video
Interview by: SDU, Denmark
Interview with: Signy Oskarsdottir
Details of Interviewee: Signy comes from Iceland and teaches business methods at Hбskуlinn б Bifrцst http://www.bifrost.is/ (Bifrost University), she uses Second Life for communication and lectures
Institution: Hбskуlinn б Bifrцst http://www.bifrost.is/ (Bifrost University)
Virtual Worlds discussed: Second Life
c) Analysis of suitable Virtual World platforms for teaching in secondary schools
As a starting point of the project a research and comparative analysis have been conducted on existing virtual world platforms assessing the quality of their teaching/learning features and functions. The analysis also focused on the user friendliness of the platform and the important aspect of access for pupils below the age of 18. The following platforms were included in the analysis: Second Life, Second Life Teen Grid, Active Worlds, Open Sim, Unity3D, Blue Mars, Sirikata and There.com. The platforms were assessed according to the criteria listed below:
Essential Criteria
• Multi user world
• Persistent state world
• Integrated building tools
• Text communication
• Easy to run client for school machines
• Suitable for people below 18
• The developer must have experience and tools to build the environment in the specified time
Desirable Criteria
• Ease of access for the development team
• Web on prims
• Voice chat
• Low bandwidth
• Language support
• Intuitive building tools
• Ability to restrict access and building rights
Cost Criteria
• Free or very low cost client
• Legal, open source end solution
• Server provisions – bandwith, setup and maintenance costs
The virtual world that most optimally supports the educational design of the project, namely Second Life, has been selected for the next phase of the project.
Originally, the idea was to train the participants in Second Life (access for people aged 18 and above) and then let the participants use Teen Grid (access for 13 to 17 year olds) with their own pupils. Unfortunately, Linden Lab has decided to close down Teen Grid by the end of this year by which time people aged 16 and 17 will be allowed to enter Second Life Main Grid (Korolov 2010). This gave rise to a number of discussions on how the AVATAR project which is aimed at the secondary school sector could continue. It was decided to delimit the project to teachers with pupils aged 16 and above. The latest news, however, reports that 13 to 15 year olds can also be transferred to Second Life Main Grid, but under special circumstances (Linden 2010).
The above illustrates some of the challenges connected to working with open source platforms and connected to working under a tight schedule. Fortunately, it has been possible to adjust the project plans along the way to take into account the altered situation.
The AVATAR course addresses a specific target group: secondary school teachers in Europe. The main benefit created by the project is to empower educators by giving them the confidence and skills to successfully customize and incorporate this tool so it best fits their teaching needs and is relevant in regards to their students.
In the four months the course covers educational design of virtual world teaching, the management and construction of
virtual objects and learning environments and examples of learning activities in virtual worlds. During the course, teachers develop a project work and use it directly in the classroom with their students. The project work incorporates a practical application of knowledge and skills gained during the course with regards to the creation of a virtual world learning environment and learning activities for a specific subject.
The overall learning objectives of the AVATAR course are for the participants to:
- develop skills and confidence in using various social internet resources as well as massively multi-user online worlds such as Second Life (SL)
- develop a deeper understanding of these environments and their uses with regard to learning scenarios
- gain knowledge of teaching methods, best practices and educational design usable in virtual worlds
- identify and reflect upon the efficacy of the outcomes of different learning activities carried out in-world
- design strategies, activities and resources for learning different subjects in virtual worlds
- integrate virtual worlds as an innovative means in their daily teaching
- experience virtual worlds with their students
- evaluate the educational use of virtual worlds in their classrooms
The experimental/target group constitutes about 120 teachers from 5 partner countries for the purpose of conducting an effective evaluation of the V-course and didactic methodology encompassing teachers who represent different cultural and linguistic backgrounds and who works in diverse EU regions and school districts.
National groups of teachers were moderated by national moderators (virtual world’s experts) who communicate in their native languages. Participants also partake in transnational activities and reflection in English.
Course participants were grouped together by school subject (e.g. science, etc) and design and develop a project work with other teachers in their same subject group. Subsequently the implementation and testing of the project work on their students will be considered as an indirect result of the project and reinforce the significant outcome of the development of new skills of EU teachers.
The AVATAR project was awarded an European Commission grant under the Lifelong Learning Programme Comenius (Project number 502882-LLP-1-2009-1-IT-COMENIUS-CMP) during the period 1 December 2009 – 30 November 2011. AVATAR multi-actors include seven organizations from six European countries: Consorzio FOR.COM (Italy), FH Joanneum University of Applied Sciences (Austria), Burgas Free University (Bulgaria), University of Southern Denmark (Denmark), Universidad Nacional de Educaciòn a Distancia (Spain), University of Hertfordshire Higher Education Corporation (UK), SOPHia In Action Consulting (Italy).
The Avatar Consortium stipulated an exploitation agreement as an extension of a fruitful collaboration set in the frame of the AVATAR. The agreement states that the AVATAR course contents, including modules, recorded lessons and guided tours, are licensed under a Creative Commons Licence “Attribution-Non commercial- Share Alike 3.0 Unported License” (CC BY-NC-SA). The full licence can be consulted on http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/. This will allow a wider audience to access, use and benefit from the course contents. Users will be free to copy, distribute and transmit the course contents and to remix and adapt them, given that they distribute the resulting work under the same or similar license.
The AVATAR V-platform is composed by individual builds/locations and it has been built in Second Life. The table below provides a brief description of the individual builds/locations that are part of the AVATAR estate: the HUB, the Resource Centre, the Dissemination Path, the Sandbox and the Auditorium.
ADD IMAGES
Fig. 1: The plan of the AVATAR estate
Fig. 2: The HUB is the point of entry into the AVATAR estate. It is intended to offer information about the AVATAR project, partners, destinations and short user guides.
Fig. 3: The Resource Centre offers textures, scripts, object accessories and teaching aids for teachers and students to collect free of charge at their own initiative and short user guides.
Fig. 4: The Dissemination Path is situated around the outer edge of the Sandbox facing the surrounding ocean. It provides teachers and classes with campsites for presenting and sharing their activities in-world.
Fig. 5: The Sandbox is the place where teachers and students can place and/or create objects. There they can experiment with various building tasks in Second Life, gather to discuss their explorations and carry out project works
Fig. 6: The Auditorium holds up to 100 users simultaneously and is used for presentations, seminars and conferences.
The V-platform is accessible in Second Life searching for “AVATAR project island”.
Introduction
The AVATAR training course addresses secondary school teachers in Austria, Bulgaria, Denmark, Great Britain, Italy and Spain. The course covers the educational design of virtual world (VW) teaching, the management and construction of virtual objects and learning environments and examples for learning activities in virtual worlds. During the course, teacher trainees will also develop a project work or virtual lesson plan/activity in Teen Second Life relative to a subject matter and test it on a group of their students.
Purpose of the Course
The lack of ICT use in teaching is a predominant issue in secondary schools throughout Europe. The AVATAR course aims at enhancing the level of ICT use in education and providing teachers with relatively new methodological and pedagogical tools.
Virtual Worlds, for example Second Life, can be used as an innovative teaching tool for teachers and educators that guarantees an efficient teaching method capable of offering students key skills and information regarding different subject matter, while incorporating collaborative learning and a learning-by-doing approach.
Overall Learning Objectives
The overall learning objectives for course participants are to:
Learning Perspectives of the Course
The course has 3 basic learning perspectives, namely collaborative learning, learning through reflection and learning by doing.
Course work consists of:
Delivery Method
The course is delivered through an e-learning and v-learning platform including individual tutorials, group activities and practical tasks.
Each country class of trainees are moderated by a national tutor.
Course Modules and Activities
Local meetings have been held in each partner country before the course.
Based on indicators, an external evaluator designed a survey to evaluate the methodology and contents of the project. It was done collecting participants’ (teachers) opinions about the Course by means of an online survey.
The Evaluation report of V-course methodology and contents provides a detailed insight in the applied didactic methodology, the quality of the contents and activities, experimentation results, as well as the usability and transferability of the developed course modules and contents.
Lim, Kenneth (2009). Editor’s Corner: The Six learnings of Second Life: A framework for designing curricular interventions in-world. Journal of Virtual Worlds Research, Vol. 2. No. 1, Pedagogy, Education and Innovation in 3-D Virtual Worlds. Available on http://homepage.mac.com/voyager/SLEDcc08_kenlim_paper.pdf. Accessed on June 25, 2012.
Professional Papers and Articles
Special issue of eLearning Papers nº 25 with the title “Game-Based Learning: new practices, new classrooms” was published in July 2011. It features 9 articles reporting on research results and on-going projects in this area. AVATAR’s contribution is in the section “From the field articles”.
PIVEC M., STEFANELLI C., CHRISTENSEN I.M., PAUSCHENWEIN J. (2011), AVATAR – The Course: Recommendations for Using 3D Virtual Environments for Teaching, Special issue of eLearning Papers nº 25 Game-Based Learning: new practices, new classrooms. elearningeuropa.info. ISSN 1887-1542.
Available at http://www.elearningpapers.eu/en/node/107280 ;
Full text: http://www.elearningeuropa.info/en/download/file/fid/23296
International Journal Publications
AVATAR’s contribution in Special issue of eLearning Papers nº 25 was also published in The Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education (TOJDE) in August 2011, with the permission of the authors and eLearning Papers. Reference below.
FormaMente is the official journal of GUIDE, the Association of Global Universities In Distance Education. It is an international academic publication dedicated to the multidisciplinary research in ICT. Reference above.
International Conference Publications
(UNED), Proceedings International Conference DIM- ICT Classroom Didactics and Multimedia, 19 March 2010, Barcelona;