Public perceptions of teaching in Virtual Worlds

5 Comments

Comment by Rik Panganiban on May 15, 2008 at 10:55am

In my experience, virtual world education tends to fall within the "having fun while learning" meme for supportive parents, and the "I don't understand it, therefore its probably bad" meme for non-supportive parents.

I don't think the "having fun" perception is a bad one, and can be a leveraged into gradual acceptance and stronger understanding of the educational benefits of VWs.

Comment by Kamael Xevious on May 15, 2008 at 2:08pm

I have started asking people who point this out (and it's largely true--there isn't much good quantitative evidence that SL is an improvement over the classroom) to show me evidence that a blackboard and chalk is an improvement over sand and a pointy stick. My point here is, of course, that like chalk and a blackboard, SL is a teaching tool and as such is neutral. It's what you DO in it that makes it worth using or not.

Comment by Eloise on May 15, 2008 at 2:46pm

You might well be right at that. I remember a few years ago a big research project trying to meta-analyse data to find best practices to teach numeracy. They determined that each and every method worked with some of the learners but there was no "best method" you could simply choose which subset of the students didn't do so well because they didn't like a method.

There were, however, a few worse methods - methods which tended to alienate a larger proportion of the learners, but basically if the teacher was happy using their method, they would get, over time, broadly similar results.

Unless there's evidence that SL does this, we should probably encourage it.

I need to nag one of my teaching partners. We had a class that wanted to quit SL because "it wasn't fair." After some thought they decided to come back and wrote about the benefits that SL had over a normal classroom. It would be good to get them out and published somewhere - evidence that students see benefits is usually pretty powerful to wave in front of the doubters.

Comment by Trevor Meister / Lehnerd Euler on May 17, 2008 at 9:02pm

I see some similarities in how businesses first tried to build presence in SL and "some" early educational entries. The "if you build it, they will come" concept does not seem to attract people for very long. The concept of community and interaction were not as high a priority as they could have been and it is not simple or quick to develop vibrant communities with rich interactions. This discussion came up (in more of a business context) in the back chat (probably more than once) at a conference or Metanomics session. Hydra Shaftoe made a comment I will remember forever. -paraphrased- After finishing a complex Island build, I would advise clients to hire someone to act as a community manager, most didn't and after a while, no one showed up anymore and the builds were abandoned. On the other hand, someone like Jenzza (Jenzza Misfit) can get a hundred people to show up at a patch of dirt and enjoy being there. At least three well known professional services firms issued reports within the last two months regarding Virtual Worlds. Forrester, McKinsey & Company and KPMG, all with roughly the same message..the potential for Virtual Worlds to be used to engage employees, clients, and business partners in new ways should not be ignored. (The phrase "ingore at your peril" was used in more than one report) I would have to think that at the very least, Educational institutions may wish to pay a little more attention to trends in this area to avoid being left out of the loop altogether.

Comment by Milton Broome on May 17, 2008 at 9:40pm

I agree with Kamael. I’ve taught in real and 3D virtual worlds; sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. Over all, the best practices are probably those which work best for the individual educator. As MC Hammer used to say, let’s ‘Break it down…’: “I [personal opinion – lack of evidence base] took a look [didn’t actively try out a class] at Second Life and other virtual worlds [does not specify which, they are very different] a few months ago [that’s a long time in SL, things may have changed] and reached the conclusion [inflexible? Can the opinion be changed] that some people [who?] teaching at universities had spent a lot of time [how does ‘he’ know?] constructing sites, but there was precious little evidence [assumption that evidence is required or can even be obtained] that they were used to any good educational purpose [specific learning outcomes or secondary benefits?]. It seems to me [personal opinion – lack of evidence base] that our [or all?] students clearly see [attitudes or behaviour?] virtual worlds as places for fun, not for study [Can they exist alongside? My lectures are fun – woops!]. I am also concerned [Why? ‘He’ is not attending them or teaching them.] that the active life of a concept [not really a ‘concept’!] such as Second Life will be short […and will burn bright, as an example for the next innovation!] – again making the necessary investment of time very expensive [And so it should be, there’s the assumption that it’s somehow a cheaper option!].” I’ve been a bit harsh in parts but I’ve seen this naïveté before. Once people experience SL on a good day, just the same as a regular learning environment, it can work well. Under certain circumstances it can also provide an advantage, sometime it’s cheaper, more efficient, pedagogically superior… and sometimes it’s not. But, it only needs to be ‘as good as’ to justify itself as an alternative. The public perception of virtual worlds is important because it’ll feed into students’ expectations and this can prime them for a bad experience. I have seen this attitude but only from those who haven’t immersed themselves in it. I’ve conducted surveys of students (n=100 approx) and measured attitudes towards 3D MUVEs from students and the majority don’t like it before trying. Afterwards, they tend to be polarised into for and against, and this is often correlated with their experience of inductions. The initial learning curve seems to be the critical factor in overall attitude. I like the suspicion in the statement above but not the ignorance. The opinion tends to be strong on this subject, but that’s OK because it is opinion rather than an interpretation of evidence. I don’t agree but then I have a better sample of experience to draw from. The lack of evidence doesn’t mean the platform is negative - it’s the flying spaghetti monster argument all over again… We should keep chipping away at producing an evidence base whilst using pedagogically sound and ethical methodology.

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