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Enhancing Learning Through Multi-User Virtual Environments: River City and Whyville

Discover the transformative power of Multi-User Virtual Environments (MUVEs) in education, exemplified by River City and Whyville. In River City, students navigate a 1800s river town as avatars to investigate health crises through inquiry-based learning. Meanwhile, Whyville serves as an interactive online forum where students explore disease spread. Both MUVEs foster collaboration and critical thinking, ensuring a hands-on learning experience while teachers guide students in their inquiries. Addressing challenges like access and parental skepticism, these innovative platforms significantly boost engagement and understanding in biological concepts.

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Enhancing Learning Through Multi-User Virtual Environments: River City and Whyville

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Presentation Transcript

  1. Learning in Another World By: Dustin Smith

  2. What’s a MUVE? • -multi-user virtual environment • -online simulation of a geographical location • -students navigate an avatar around an environment similar to a SIMS game in order to learn

  3. River City • Leading educational MUVE • Created by several professors from a group of universities • Virtual Reality • -students gather data to determine the cause of health crisis • students work through their avatars to interview inhabitants of an 1800’s river town and explore the geographical terrain to determine the source of the medical problem • -students are able to interact with other students in other school systems to develop a theory for what is causing the disease in River City

  4. Making an Impact • -Not All Fun and Games • -parents are skeptical of the technology because they are unsure to what extent their children are interacting with others • -controls are setup to monitor chatting and email activity • -professors monitor the chat areas to ensure there are no inappropriate activities going on inside the chat room • some children may not have access to a computer at their home • -teachers help these students find access to the internet at public libraries • -teachers help these students find access to the internet in computer labs on campus

  5. -2004-2005 Integrative Technology Research • -Students introduced to Whyville technology showed improvement in biology • -after the study, students showed a 32%-35% increase of knowledge of biology using the Whyville technology • students learned inquiry-based learning by using the technology based on their responses to how and why the disease spread throughout the community • absenteeism decreased after integrating Whyville into lesson plans

  6. Next Stop: Whyville • -open internet forum • -students used Whyville to learn how disease spread • -interactive, avatar driven environment

  7. Who, What, and Whyville • -Teacher as the guide • -teachers are guides rather than answer givers • -teachers become more proficient at inquiry-based learning and teachers teach students by allowing them to ask and answer their own questions • Students learn to teach themselves and each other by interacting within the virtual environment

  8. Why I Would Use Whyville It encourages inquiry-based learning, which is essential for teaching biology It forces students to discuss problems and ideas within the virtual world and elicits class discussion

  9. References • Blaisdell, M. (2006). Educational gaming: all the right MUVEs. The Journal. Retrieved February 2, 2010. <http://thejournal.com/articles/2006/09/01/educational-gaming--all-the-right-muves. • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcNP7xjWKk4 • www.whyville.com

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