Facilitating Collaborative Learning in 3D Virtual Worlds. A Qualitative Meta Study.

This master thesis serves to investigate how collaborative learning can be facilitated in 3D virtual environments. The objective was to see how 3D virtual worlds could be applied when conducting collaborative learning, both formal and informal. I was also interested in reflection as a part of collaborative learning processes, and chose to integrate this into my research questions: 1. How can 3D virtual worlds, like SecondLife, facilitate collaborative learning? 2. How can one use virtual worlds for collaborative learning-purposes in both formal and informal learning situations? 3. In what way can reflection be beneficial to collaborative learning in virtual worlds? SecondLife is a widely used 3D virtual world, utilized in a variety of learning situations. Its design and layout seem conducive to creating spaces that facilitate collaboration, and supports both formal and informal learning. I have used a variety of theoretical frameworks and perspectives to structure the thesis, and form the basis for the discussions and conclusions. I have utilized constructivist learning theory to describe the collaborative learning facilitated through virtual environments. This is due to the generous focus on collaboration and team-work throughout this thesis. As collaborative-learning situations enable the creation of shared practices and understanding, I will discuss the perspectives surrounding communities of practice, first coined by Lave and Wenger (Wenger 2000). Computer-supported collaborative learning is a perspective that serves to integrate technology and learning, and I have relied on this to contextualize the examples used, the CAMO-project being one of them. Its objective was to create cultural awareness in military operations, through collaborative simulations in a virtual Afghan village. The other example involved nursing students, who practiced communication skills with fatally ill patients and their relatives. Both examples highlights the opportunities for collaborative learning in virtual environments. Taking advantage of new technology for learning purposes, could create new possibilities for learning, maybe particularly collaborative learning. This is an important topic, as it could facilitate better and more motivating learning methods. Research Method and Data Analysis As this thesis is a qualitative Meta study, I relied on interviewing as my main data collecting method. I interviewed three practitioners within the field of technology and learning. They had earlier collaborated as facilitators in the CAMO-project, and also possessed a variety of experiences with 3D virtual worlds and learning. The data collected was analyzed and categorized through an iterative process. I worked with the transcribed interviews and notes, in several stages to analyze and attain the best categorizations for the data gathered. These five categories included: 1. SecondLife as a Learning Environment, 2. Comparison Between Different 3D Virtual Worlds, 3. Collaborative Learning, 4. Formal and Informal Learning and 5.Dialogue and Reflection. These categories helped me present the most valuable data andformed the basis for the discussion. Findings and Main Conclusions The informants and the theoretical framework both supported 3D virtual worlds and the opportunities within these platforms to contain great potential for collaborative work. As collaborative learning requires participants to socially interact and communicate with each other, the suitability relies on the communication options and features within the learning platform. SecondLife and other 3D virtual worlds are often created to serve as arenas for socialization, they are therefore well equipped with the necessary communication tools. To facilitate both formal and informal learning there are aspects that need to be present. Within 3D virtual worlds there needs to be possibilities to plan and design formally structured exercises, as well as unstructured informal activities. The informants were generally favorable to utilizing virtual environments for informal learning purposes, but disagreed on the formal learning possibilities. However, there are numerous examples of 3D virtual worlds being utilized for formal learning practices, and all the informants have had positive experiences with lectures and seminars conducted virtually. Reflective practice, most notably known through the work of Donald. A. Schön, proposes the importance of dialogues and reflection sessions, for participants in collaborative learning activities (Schön, 1983). This was a major part of the CAMO-project, and enabled the participants to express, challenge and reflect on the learning experience. The informants were unanimous in their perceived importance of reflection, to attain the most valuable learning outcome. They saw this as an important aspect of collaborative learning

Systemic intervention for computer-supported collaborative learning

This paper presents a systemic intervention approach as a means to overcome the methodological challenges involved in research into computer-supported collaborative learning applied to the promotion of mathematical problem-solving (CSCL-MPS) skills in schools. These challenges include how to develop an integrated analysis of several aspects of the learning process; and how to reflect on learning purposes, the context of application and participants' identities. The focus of systemic intervention is on processes for thinking through whose views and what issues and values should be considered pertinent in an analysis. Systemic intervention also advocates mixing methods from different traditions to address the purposes of multiple stakeholders. Consequently, a design for CSCL-MPS research is presented that includes several methods. This methodological design is used to analyse and reflect upon both a CSCL-MPS project with Colombian schools, and the identities of the participants in that project

Editorial - Introduction to the special issue on deliberation with computers: exploring the distinctive contribution of new technologies to collaborative thinking and learning

Abstract not available

The Role of Group Learning in Implementation of a Personnel Management System in a Hospital

A new HR system was introduced in a Dutch hospital. The system implied collaborative work among its users. The project planning seemed to be reasonably straightforward: the system's introduction was intended to take place gradually, including pilots in different departments and appropriate feedback. After some time, the system was successfully adopted by one group of users, but failed with another. We conceptualize the implementation process of groupware as group learning to frame the adoption of the system, and analyze the qualitative data collected during the longitudinal case study. We found that in the user group with strong group learning, adoption of the system occurred effectively and on time. In another user group with rather weak group learning, the use of the system was blocked after a short time. The results provided a first confirmation of our assumption about the importance of group learning processes in the implementation of groupware

From conditioning to learning communities: Implications of fifty years of research in e‐learning interaction design

This paper will consider e‐learning in terms of the underlying learning processes and interactions that are stimulated, supported or favoured by new media and the contexts or communities in which it is used. We will review and critique a selection of research and development from the past fifty years that has linked pedagogical and learning theory to the design of innovative e‐learning systems and activities, and discuss their implications. It will include approaches that are, essentially, behaviourist (Skinner and Gagné), cognitivist (Pask, Piaget and Papert), situated (Lave, Wenger and Seely‐Brown), socio‐constructivist (Vygotsky), socio‐cultural (Nardi and Engestrom) and community‐based (Wenger and Preece). Emerging from this review is the argument that effective e‐learning usually requires, or involves, high‐quality educational discourse, that leads to, at the least, improved knowledge, and at the best, conceptual development and improved understanding. To achieve this I argue that we need to adopt a more holistic approach to design that synthesizes features of the included approaches, leading to a framework that emphasizes the relationships between cognitive changes, dialogue processes and the communities, or contexts for e‐learning

The pedagogical challenges to collaborative technologies

Collaborative technologies offer a range of new ways of supporting learning by enabling learners to share and exchange both ideas and their own digital products. This paper considers how best to exploit these opportunities from the perspective of learners' needs. New technologies invariably excite a creative explosion of new ideas for ways of doing teaching and learning, although the technologies themselves are rarely designed with teaching and learning in mind. To get the best from them for education we need to start with the requirements of education, in terms of both learners‘ and teachers‘ needs. The argument put forward in this paper is to use what we know about what it takes to learn, and build this into a pedagogical framework with which to challenge digital technologies to deliver a genuinely enhanced learning experience

Chapter 4: New Assessment Methods

The OTiS (Online Teaching in Scotland) programme, run by the now defunct Scotcit programme, ran an International e-Workshop on Developing Online Tutoring Skills which was held between 8–12 May 2000. It was organised by Heriot–Watt University, Edinburgh and The Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, UK. Out of this workshop came the seminal Online Tutoring E-Book, a generic primer on e-learning pedagogy and methodology, full of practical implementation guidelines. Although the Scotcit programme ended some years ago, the E-Book has been copied to the SONET site as a series of PDF files, which are now available via the ALT Open Access Repository. The editor, Carol Higgison, is currently working in e-learning at the University of Bradford (see her staff profile) and is the Chair of the Association for Learning Technology (ALT)

Assessing collaborative learning: big data, analytics and university futures

Traditionally, assessment in higher education has focused on the performance of individual students. This focus has been a practical as well as an epistemic one: methods of assessment are constrained by the technology of the day, and in the past they required the completion by individuals under controlled conditions, of set-piece academic exercises. Recent advances in learning analytics, drawing upon vast sets of digitally-stored student activity data, open new practical and epistemic possibilities for assessment and carry the potential to transform higher education. It is becoming practicable to assess the individual and collective performance of team members working on complex projects that closely simulate the professional contexts that graduates will encounter. In addition to academic knowledge this authentic assessment can include a diverse range of personal qualities and dispositions that are key to the computer-supported cooperative working of professionals in the knowledge economy. This paper explores the implications of such opportunities for the purpose and practices of assessment in higher education, as universities adapt their institutional missions to address 21st Century needs. The paper concludes with a strong recommendation for university leaders to deploy analytics to support and evaluate the collaborative learning of students working in realistic contexts