A Proposal to Create Learning Environments in Virtual Worlds Integrating Advanced Educative Resources

Social Networking has been a global consumer phenomenon during the last few years. Online communities are changing the way people behave, share and interact within their daily lives. Most of such communities are mainly focused on sharing contents and communicating using a traditional web interface. However, social virtual worlds are computer-simulated environments that the users can "inhabit" and in which they can interact and create objects. Education is one of the most interesting applications of virtual worlds, as their flexibility can be exploited in order to create heterogeneous groups from all over the world who can collaborate synchronously in different virtual spaces. In this paper, we highlight the potential of virtual worlds as an educative tool and propose a model to create learning environments within Second Life or OpenSimulator combining the Moodle learning management system, embodied conversational metabots, and programmable 3D objects. We have implemented the proposal in a learning system for several subjects of the Computer Science degree in our university and show that it fostered engagement and collaboration and helped the students to better understand complex concepts.Research funded by projects CICYT TIN 2011-28620-C02-01, CICYT TEC 2011-28626 C02-02, CAM CONTEXTS (S2009/TIC-1485), and DPS 2008-07029-C02-02.Enviad

An approach to develop intelligent learning environments by means of immersive virtual worlds

Merging Immersive Virtual Environments, Natural Language Processing and Artificial Intelligence techniques provides a number of advantages to develop Intelligent Environments for multiple applications. This paper is focused on the application of these technologies to develop intelligent learning environments. Education is one of the most interesting applications of immersive virtual environments, as their flexibility can be exploited in order to create heterogeneous groups from all over the world who can collaborate synchronously in different virtual spaces. We highlight the potential of virtual worlds as an educative tool and propose a model to create learning environments within Second Life or OpenSimulator combining the Moodle learning management system, embodied conversational metabots, and programmable 3D objects. Our proposal has been applied in several subjects of the Computer Science degree in the Carlos III University of Madrid. The results of the evaluation show that developed learning environment fosters engagement and collaboration and helps students to better understand complex concepts.This work was supported in part by Projects MINECO TEC2012-37832-C02-01, CICYT TEC2011-28626-C02-02, CAM CONTEXTS (S2009/TIC-1485).Publicad

An approach to develop intelligent learning environments by means of immersive virtual worlds

Merging Immersive Virtual Environments, Natural Language Processing and Artificial Intelligence techniques provides a number of advantages to develop Intelligent Environments for multiple applications. This paper is focused on the application of these technologies to develop intelligent learning environments. Education is one of the most interesting applications of immersive virtual environments, as their flexibility can be exploited in order to create heterogeneous groups from all over the world who can collaborate synchronously in different virtual spaces. We highlight the potential of virtual worlds as an educative tool and propose a model to create learning environments within Second Life or OpenSimulator combining the Moodle learning management system, embodied conversational metabots, and programmable 3D objects. Our proposal has been applied in several subjects of the Computer Science degree in the Carlos III University of Madrid. The results of the evaluation show that developed learning environment fosters engagement and collaboration and helps students to better understand complex concepts.Spanish Government TEC2012-37832-C02-01Consejo Interinstitucional de Ciencia y Tecnologia (CICYT) TEC2011-28626-C02-02Project CAM CONTEXTS S2009/TIC-148

Perceptions of pre-service teachers about a Science Lab developed in OpenSim

With the integration of technology in the educational area, use of virtual learning environments has allowed the adoption of new practices and forms of learning. Areas like Science has an interesting field of research involving the use of Virtual worlds, being possible to integrate virtual tasks with the practical work carried out in the real world, providing features such as immersion, interactivity, virtual reality, collaboration and visualization of phenomena through animated 3D objects. This article presents a virtual world composed of three laboratories for teaching Science in elementary education, whose objective is to demonstrate how it can assist educators in the process of teaching, mixing activities of the real and virtual world. OpenSim was used for the development of the virtual world, which has several types of educational content in the format of videos, slides, texts, questions and 3D simulations of practical experiments. These prototype were tested and validated by pre-service teachers of Science in a federal institution, with the objective of evaluate the benefits and difficulty involving this approach and the resources available in this environment. The results demonstrated a wide acceptance and satisfaction in using this virtual world, showing that the users felt motivated to use in their pedagogical practice and believe that it can assist students in their learning process

Virtual learning scenarios for qualitative assessment in higher education 3D arts

Using enhanced learning technologies (TEL) including immersive virtual reality environments, we are seeking to achieve a new way of assessing subjects of 3D arts. We have developed a project based on Scenario Centered Curriculum (SCC), where the students have to think, design, convey, validate, and build a civil project using new technologies that help in the assessment process. We have used gamification techniques and game engines to evaluate planned tasks in which students can demonstrate the skills they developed in the scenarios. The assessment is integrated in the creation of a 3D complex model focused on the construction of a building in a virtual space. This whole process will be carried out by gamification techniques to embed the assessment of the 3D models with the objective of improving students learning.Author's final draf

The Use of Learning Analytics Interactive Dashboards in Serious Games: A Review of the Literature

The learning analytics in serious games, corresponds to a subject in increasing demand in the educational field. In this context, there is a need to study how data visualizations found in the literature are adopted in learning analytics in serious games. This paper presents a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) on how the evolution of studies associated with the use of learning analytics interactive dashboards in serious games is processed, seeking to investigate the characteristics of using dashboards for viewing educational data. A bibliometric analysis was carried out in which 75 relevant studies were selected from the Scopus, Web of Science, and IEEExplore databases. From the data analysis, it was observed that in the current literature there is a reduced number of studies containing the main actors in the learning process, as follows: teachers/instructors, students/participants, game developers/designers, and managers/researchers. In the vast majority of investigated studies, data visualization algorithms are used, where the main focus takes into account only actors, such as teachers/instructors and students/participants

ETeach3D: Designing a 3D virtual environment for evaluating the digital competence of preservice teachers

The acquisition of teacher digital competence is a key aspect in the initial training of teachers. However, most existing evaluation instruments do not provide sufficient evidence of this teaching competence. In this study, we describe the design and development process of a three-dimensional (3D) virtual environment for evaluating the teacher digital competence of future teachers, through a performance-based, collaborative and contextual evaluation. This environment, named ETeach3D, has been constructed using the educational design research approach. It is based on successive iterative cycles and is in accordance with the criteria of usefulness, validity, and effectiveness. In addition to the research team responsible for the project, participating in this study were 187 Spanish undergraduate students of Education and 22 experts in the field of educational technology. Results show that these environments, in addition to other characteristics, should (a) function smoothly and have simple interfaces, realistic scenes, and interactive activities and (b) follow a systematic evaluation procedure that integrates several strategies and levels of complexity. This research helps to improve the initial training of preservice teachers and contributes to the growing number of educational design research studies that focus in the field of evaluation of the curriculum domain.This research is funded by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of Spain, SIMUL@B (ref: EDU2013-42223-P), and supported by the Secretary of Universities and Research, Department of Economy and Knowledge, Government of Catalonia. The project is coordinated by the ARGET research group (ref: 2014SGR1399)

Player agency in interactive narrative: audience, actor & author

The question motivating this review paper is, how can computer-based interactive narrative be used as a constructivist learn- ing activity? The paper proposes that player agency can be used to link interactive narrative to learner agency in constructivist theory, and to classify approaches to interactive narrative. The traditional question driving research in interactive narrative is, ‘how can an in- teractive narrative deal with a high degree of player agency, while maintaining a coherent and well-formed narrative?’ This question derives from an Aristotelian approach to interactive narrative that, as the question shows, is inherently antagonistic to player agency. Within this approach, player agency must be restricted and manip- ulated to maintain the narrative. Two alternative approaches based on Brecht’s Epic Theatre and Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed are reviewed. If a Boalian approach to interactive narrative is taken the conflict between narrative and player agency dissolves. The question that emerges from this approach is quite different from the traditional question above, and presents a more useful approach to applying in- teractive narrative as a constructivist learning activity

A multimodal conversational agent for personalized language learning

Proceedings of: 5th International Symposium on Ambient Intelligence (ISAmI 2014), Salamanca (Spain), June 4th-6th, 2014.Conversational agents have became a strong alternative to enhance educational systems with intelligent communicative capabilities. In this paper, we describe a multimodal conversational agent that facilitates an independent and user-adapted second language learning. The different modules of the system cooperate to interact with students using spoken natural language and visual modalities, and adapt their functionalities taking into account their evolution and specific preferences. The results of a preliminary evaluation show that users' satisfaction with the system was high, as well as the perceived didactic potential and adaptive functionalities.This work was supported in part by Projects MINECO TEC2012-37832-C02-01, CICYT TEC2011-28626-C02-02, CAM CONTEXTS (S2009/TIC-1485)

The Development of Transactive Memory Systems in Collaborative Educational Virtual Worlds

The use of 3D virtual worlds in the form of cyber campuses has been introduced in higher education over the past decade to support and enhance stu- dents’ online learning experiences. Considering that students learn in socially constructed ways and through peer collaboration, the development of Transac- tive Memory System - the collective awareness of the group’s specialization, coordination, and credibility - is found to be beneficial for educational purposes. This paper presents the results of a study investigating the extent to which a TMS can be developed within a 3D virtual world educational setting