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Virtual Environments and Educational Role-Playing Games for Teaching Science

Alan White Donald Schwert North Dakota State University. Virtual Environments and Educational Role-Playing Games for Teaching Science. NDSU WWWIC World Wide Web Instructional Committee Paul Juell Donald Schwert

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Virtual Environments and Educational Role-Playing Games for Teaching Science

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  1. Alan White Donald Schwert North Dakota State University Virtual Environments and Educational Role-Playing Games for Teaching Science

  2. NDSU WWWIC World Wide Web Instructional Committee Paul Juell Donald Schwert Phillip McClean Brian Slator Bernhardt Saini-Eidukat Alan White WWWIC faculty supported by large teams of undergraduate and graduate students. WWWIC’s Virtual Worlds research supported by NSF grants DUE 97-52548 and EAR-9809761.

  3. Teaching with Games • Educational software should be: engaging authentic entertaining supportive attractive constructive flexible • Games are extremely powerful if they are: engaging interactive entertaining attractive flexible • But, games often fail to teach . . . . . (anything useful)

  4. Capitalizing on Human Nature People will play if you let them but Students will tire of rigid tutorials. People will play roles if you ask them but Students will quit if the experience is not sufficiently authentic.

  5. Capitalizing on Human Nature People like to play (and play roles) ifSimulations are sufficiently authentic but not: Tediously detailed or Too predictable

  6. Capitalizing on Human Nature Simulated environments should: Promote the right mind-set by making it easy to become involved

  7. Educational Role-playing Games“Learning-by-doing” Experiences • MultiUser • Exploration • Spatially-oriented virtual worlds • Practical planning and decision making

  8. Educational Role-playing Games“Learning-by-doing” Experiences • Problem solving • Scientific method • Real-world content • Mature thinking

  9. Advantages of Virtual Worlds • Collapse virtual time and distance • Allow physical or practical impossibilities • Participate from anywhere • Interact with other users, virtual artifacts, and software agents • Multi-user collaborations and competitive play

  10. WWWIC ProjectsContent from Anthropology to Zoology • Geology Explorer • Virtual Cell • Visual Program • ProgrammingLand • Dollar Bay Retailing Game

  11. WWWIC ProjectsContent from Anthropology to Zoology • Blackwood Village • Virtual Polynesia • Crystal Growth • Tree Identification • Development Tools • Tutoring Agents • Assessment Tools

  12. Technical Approaches • Networked, internet-based, client-server • MultiPlayer • Simulation-based • Implemented in Java applets

  13. Technical Approaches • MUD = Multi User Domain • MOO = Object Oriented MUD Multi-user database for implementing objects and methods to represent rooms, containers and agents

  14. Technical Approaches • MUDs and MOOs are typically task-oriented with keyboard interactions • Ours are also graphically-oriented, point & click interfaces

  15. The Geology Explorer: Planet Oit

  16. Real World of Planet Earth

  17. The Virtual World of Planet Oit • Planet Oit: Recently discovered. • Similar to Earth. • Same orbit. • Directly opposite the Sun.

  18. The Geology Explorer: Planet OitGame Scenario • You are a geologist. • Explore this new planet. • Authentic geologic goals. - Locate and report valuable minerals. • Must learn geoscience content.

  19. The Geology Explorer • 50 Places • 90 Different Rocks and Minerals • 15 Field Instruments • 25 Laboratory Instruments • Software Tutors

  20. Maps of Planet Oit

  21. The Geology Explorer

  22. Virtual Field Instruments

  23. The Geology Explorer

  24. The Geology Explorer

  25. The Geology Explorer

  26. 360º PANORAMAS

  27. Date: Thu, 26 Mar 1998 10:18:38 -0500 From: tibbets <tibbets@texasonline.net> To: slator@badlands.nodak.edu Subject: Please send quick ans. Hello, You are very busy, no doubt, but would you please take a second to send an explanation (via email) to my son’s first grade teacher that the story of Planet Oit was a fictional story for a geology teaching project? She thinks that NASA has indeed found this planet that is like Earth, and is telling her students such. Just send it via my email and I’ll print it. Thank you, M. Tibbets Plainview, TX

  28. FUTURE PLANS • Add process measurement and data interpretation. • Allow subsurface exploration. • “Redesign” planet: sophisticated geologic map + tectonic setting.

  29. The Virtual Cell

  30. The Cell Rendered in VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language)

  31. The Laboratory

  32. The Laboratory

  33. The Laboratory

  34. The Virtual Cell User Interface

  35. The Cell

  36. The Cell Users can “fly around” inside the cell.

  37. The Cell Users are assigned goals For example: Identify 6 different organelles

  38. The Cell Users set up experiments to accomplish their goals

  39. Experimentation Take samples from the cell back to the laboratory Use instruments, inhibitors, and mutations

  40. Tutors are NeededIn Virtual Environments: • Students can join from any remote location • They can log in at any time of day or night • Human tutors cannot be available at all times to help • Students can foul things up and not know why

  41. Tutors are NeededIn Virtual Environments: • Information is readily available • The simulation can track actions • The simulation can generate warnings and explanations • Tutor “visits” are triggered by user action

  42. Tutors are NeededIn Virtual Environments: • Student interact with the intelligent tutoring agent • Students can ignore advise and carry on at their own risk

  43. Intelligent Tutoring • Student actions are tracked • Students make errors and are tutored • Timely and appropriate remediation

  44. Software Tutoring Agents • Deductive Tutoring: Provides assistance with deductive reasoning needed to solve a scientific problem • Case-based Tutoring: Presents examples of relevant experience (case studies) • Rule-based Tutoring: Provides assistance when student actions break encoded rules for the domain

  45. Assessment • Not “multiple choice” recall • Content specific: Geology Cell Biology • Problem solving, hypothesis formation, deductive reasoning

  46. Assessment by Scenarios • Assess computer literacy • PreTest: Present scenario, students propose course of action or solution • Engage in learning experience Control vs Virtual • PostTest: Present similar scenario, student response • Analysis of assessment data

  47. The Geology Explorer: Assessment Protocol, Fall, 1998 Pre-course Assessment: 400+ students Computer Literacy Assessment: (244 volunteers) Divide by Computer Literacy and Geology Lab Experience Non-Participant Control Group: (150 students, approx.) Geology Explorer Treatment Group: (122 students) Geomagnetic (Alternative) Group: (122 students) Completed (78 students) Non-completed (44 students) Completed (95 students) Non-completed (27 students) Post-course Assessment: 368 students

  48. The Virtual Cell: Assessment

  49. To visit the Virtual Cell: www.ndsu.nodak.edu/wwwic Select: Projects Virtual Cell VRML Images 8. Latest Version To view VRML files, you will need a Web Browser Plug-in: CosmoPlayer

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