By: Samantha Wright Allen
Peggy Hartwick sits before her computer, mouse clicking rapidly as she directs her red-shirted avatar to walk, then run, between virtual campus corridors.
“This is me in 3D,” says Hartwick, who teaches ESL for academic purposes at Carleton – with a twist.
She uses the online environment, which was designed at Carleton, to help her students become more comfortable with the language. She can share any indoor or outdoor space on campus with her students’ avatars and get them to communicate in a variety of ways – from talking on headsets to using a webcam to typing instant messages.
“In order to accomplish something, they have to speak, so it pushes them to take risks with their language,” Hartwick explains.
The 3D environment even includes a replica of downtown Ottawa, complete with a market and residential homes, that prompts learning of items in those spaces.
“The barriers of time and place are gone,” says Hartwick, who has been teaching for 10 years. “We can replicate spaces that a traditional classroom couldn’t offer.
“I think what technology does is that for the most part everybody’s communicating, whereas in a traditional classroom, people will sit and be very passive.”
She’s become known in her department for creative technology-based methods and it’s one of the reasons why Hartwick was one of the 2013 Excellence in Teaching with Technology Award winners at Carleton.
But it’s been years in the making. She was approached to use the program in a pilot project a few years ago and she’s never looked back. Now French and Russian classes are using them too and Hartwick hopes the university can eventually offer virtual lessons before international students even arrive.
She says she became a believer when a normally shy student, who never uttered a word in the traditional classroom, became the group leader online.
“She just blossomed,” Hartwick says. “That’s what really hooked me.
“The biggest thing for me as a language teacher is that they feel comfortable speaking. They don’t care about making mistakes. Seeing them helping each other in the environment is thrilling.”
In fact, she’s so fascinated by its potential that in September Hartwick started her PhD, which will centre on a theoretical underpinning for the 3D space’s capabilities.
“I believe in it. I don’t think it should take over the classroom at all. I think this is in addition to. It’s about providing alternatives and making learning accessible and interesting,” Hartwick says. “It’s still the early days and I just want to keep pushing the limits.”