Huddled around a campfire, you attentively discuss last week’s reading with your classmates and your professor. If the discussion wasn’t so captivating, the glossy green laurel surrounding the camp would almost be distracting. As your professor wraps up this week’s discussion, you say goodbye to your classmates and close your laptop, leaving the virtual world behind you. It’s time to study for next week’s mid-term; because you don’t want any distractions, you shut your bedroom door…
As part of the Carleton Virtual Pilot Program, this scenario is one that many Carleton students faced in 2011, and will continue to enjoy in the future. Associate Professor of Interactive Multimedia, Ali Arya has created an online platform in the same vein as SIMS and Second Life, which replicates the Carleton University campus and beyond. This 3D virtual learning environment knocks down the constraints of classroom walls, allowing students to experience things and learn in ways that would not be possible in a traditional context.
Peggy Hartwick, Instructor of English as a Second Language for Academic Purposes and ESLA Coordinator, has just completed her first semester using the online platform to teach her ESL class. This sort of thing was totally new to Hartwick, so her skepticism was natural.
“I’d seen my kids play SIMS, but I had personally never experienced anything like this before. I didn’t think it would work as a classroom. Once I started playing, I was surprised how easy the platform was to use. It is a fun way of learning; it brings out the kid in you. I was immediately hooked.”
Creating and being represented by a customizable avatar means students have a degree of anonymity that allows them to shed some timidity and increase their confidence in a new language. In this environment, Hartwick saw many of her students flourish.
“I had one student who was particularly shy in class and rarely spoke. In the virtual environment, while she was hooked up to a headset and her laptop, she was able to let this go and emerged as a well organized leader who wasn’t afraid to practice her English in front of other students.”
The platform proved to be a popular option amongst her students. When given the choice to perform their end of term presentation either in class, or in the virtual world with all their classmates present, fifty percent of the students selected Virtual Carleton.
Department of History Professor, Shawn Graham, who is well known for his innovative teaching methods, embraced Virtual Carleton as a tool to introduce a module on Archaeology in one of his courses. Graham used the venue as a meeting space for his long distance students, and as a way to augment the classroom experience.
“In many situations, we’re loath to let students get their hands dirty. An archaeological excavation can happen only once – to excavate is to destroy. If I can record that data in a 3D world, preserving and reconstructing the three dimensional relationships inherent in archaeological data, others can ‘re-excavate’ and ideally, interrogate the archive anew… Archaeology can also be dangerous. The virtual world lets us try things out, and try them again, where it is safe to fail.”
Graham believes the most valuable aspect of projects like this, is that it presents students with differentiated learning opportunities.
“People learn in different ways – not everyone responds well to a lecture. Projects such as this offer multiple avenues to learning, to formative development, and it’s exciting that FASS and Carleton support it.”
Both Hartwick and Graham will continue piloting the project, and working out the inevitable kinks. This fall, Hartwick will teach a non-credit ESL course in the virtual learning environment.
For those interested in experiencing learning in a 3D Virtual environment and as an avatar, Hartwick will be facilitating a Teaching Roundtable hosted by EDC on September 21st. For more information on the Roundtable
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