Socialisation in distance education using virtual environments

Socialisation in distance education using virtual environments Angelina Macedo

Lina Morgado

Universidade Aberta Rua da Escola Politécnica, 147 1269-001 Lisboa, Portugal Telephone no.: 213972300

Universidade Aberta Rua da Escola Politécnica, 147 1269-001 Lisboa, Portugal Telephone no.: 213972300

angelina.m.macedo@gmail.com

lmorgado@univ-ab.pt

ABSTRACT In this paper, we describe the preliminary findings of a pilot case study that is still in progress which examines the potential and drawbacks of Moodle and Second life in fostering socialisation and social presence in distance education courses. This study focus on the 4-week introductory module of the Masters course “Pedagogy of eLearning” at Universidade Aberta of Lisbon. This module was designed to provide students with some insights about some online tools (used in the course) and the pedagogy of teaching and learning online adopted at Universidade Aberta (its model). This study intends to understand how Second Life and Moodle can foster social presence and socialisation among distance students for collaboration and learning outcomes. The group is formed by twenty students and two tutors. Some online discussion forums were set in Moodle and three sessions were held in Second Life. The learning activities have their foundation on Salmon‟s five-stage model of online learning and the data was recorded in moodle foruns and chat logs. Interviews are being prepared to collect further information. The data is being analysed according to Salmon‟s 1st and 2nd stage model: “access and motivation” and “socialisation”. We are also revisiting indicators of social presence in online discussions (Rourke at al., 2001) [1] and McKerlich & Anderson‟s (2007) 2] adaptation of the previous indicators to quantify the quality of an educational event in Second Life concerning social presence. We present some preliminary conclusions and questions for further research concerning distance education courses in virtual environments.

Categories and Subject Descriptors The ACM Computing http://www.acm.org/class/1998/

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General Terms Your general terms must be any of the following 16 designated te

Keywords Social presence, socialisation, distance education, second life, LMS, immersive learning, Web 2.0 tools

1. INTRODUCTION The constant evolution of ICTs and the demands of the 21st century made learning the fuel of our knowledge and networked society. Therefore, companies and the industry are interested in skilled and competent workers as a way of enhancing their outcomes.

Lifelong learning, continuing professional training and development, are a must in our society. As workers are very busy with both their professional and personal lives, taking a face-toface course is almost impossible. So, distance education is an emergent solution along with the advances in ICTs. Virtual environments such as Moodle (Learning Management System) and Second Life can promote interaction, cooperation and collaboration between students and e-teachers and between peers.

One of the drawbacks of traditional distance education has been the fact that students tend to feel lonely, isolated and therefore, the drop rates are very high. These virtual environments can allow new pedagogical approaches that enhance a synchronous interaction between participants as well as Web 2.0 tools such as blogs for personal reflection, wikis for collaborative work, Flickr to share pictures, Twitter for microblogging, among others.

Therefore, the study that is being conducted intends to know the affordances of Moodle and Second Life for fostering socialisation and social presence in distance education courses. This study is being done with a group of students of “MPEL – Masters in Pedagogy of eLearning” at the Lisbon Open University. Most of them weren‟t Second Life users, only one had a SL account and an avatar. On the other hand, nearly all of them were familiar with Moodle and used it in a regular basis for professional work.

2. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE Early Computer-mediated Communication research states that CMC was inherently antisocial and impersonal what contributed to students‟ feelings of loneliness and isolation (Grubb & Hines, 2000; [3]), dissatisfaction and high drop rates. Distance education means the physical separation between a learner and his/her tutor and his peers. Moore (1993) [4] argued that the emotional and psychological communication gap between them was perceived by the student according to one‟s personality and background. So,

this author proposes the concept of “transactional distance” to describe the above described gap.

Nowadays, online educators argue that CMC can provide interpersonal communication and support a social learning practice, even though nonverbal and relational cues are filtered out. Online learning can be supported by tools that allow the learners to project themselves as being “real” as well as interact with others. Researchers like Gunawardena (1995) [5] and Tu (2000) [6] studied the sociability in online education when people communicated online in order to determine how people interact and are perceived as “being there” (Danchak, Walther & Swan, 2001 [7]; Gunawardena, 1995; [5] Gunawardena & Zittle, 1997 [8]). Consequently, these researchers are further developing the theory of social presence developed by Short et al. (1976) [9]and reconceptualized social presence theory by focusing less on the medium and more on people, showing that CMC in online learning environments can be quite social and personal. Based on their research, they stated that learners, when participating in written online discussions were able to project their personalities into online discussions and create social presence (Swan, 2003; [10] Swan & Shih, 2005 [11]). These researchers state that online students were able to project themselves as “real” and “connect” to others when communicating in online learning environments by using emoticons, humor or sharing stories (Rourke et al., 2001; [1] Swan, 2003 [10]). These works have increased the academic interest in social presence, online socialization and CMC as evidenced in the increased research on social presence. So social presence has multiple definitions. Some examples are shown below. It has been defined as:  “the degree of salience of the other person in the interaction and the consequent salience of the interpersonal relationships.” (Short et al., 1976) [9]  “„the feeling of contact‟ in a mediated communication situation” (Williams, 1978, in Shin, 2002) [12]  Social presence is defined as the ability of learners to project themselves socially and affectively into a community of inquiry.” (Rourke, et al., 2001) [1]  “a student‟s sense of being in and belong in a course and the ability to interact with other students and an Instructor” (Picciano, 2002) [13]  “the degree to which a person is perceived as a „real person‟ in mediated communication” (Gunawardena & Zittle, 1997 in Shin, 2002)  “the ability of online learners to project themselves into a textual environment which has few visual or contextual cues…” (Stacey, 2002) [14]  “the degree of awareness of another person and the consequent appreciation of an interpersonal relationship” (Tu & McIsaac, 2002) [15]  the “sense of being with another” (Biocca, Harms & Burgoon, 2003) [16] The medium allows the design of structured activities that can enable the reduction of psychological and emotional impacts of distance (Swan, 2003) [10]. Bates (2005) [17] also states that several technological media have been used in distance education in order to reduce the feeling of isolation and distance among participants (peers and tutors) and to enhance collaborative learning activities. Although mediated through technology, online

discussion forums have shown that the technological media was be able to create a feeling of presence and a learning community (Gunawardena & Zittle, 1997 [8]; Rourke et al., 2001 [1]).

Research states that online group discussions can potentiate learners‟ effective construction of knowledge (Jaques & Salmon, 2007 [18]; Salmon, 2002 [19]; Stacey, 1999 [20]). As Salmon (2004) [21] refers this kind of collaboration is successful provided that the learners feel at ease and had the opportunity to socialise online. Gilly Salmon (2004) [21 created the 5-stage model based on her own work and experience for computer-mediated communication.

The author points out that issues of access and induction are prerequisites to successful collaboration. The first stage “Acess & Motivation” intends to acclimate the learner to the online environment through taking part in interesting and meaningful eactivities. The second stage “Socialisation” focuses on social processes and community building. People should develop their online identities either as individuals and as groups by sharing hpes and expectations, establishing group norms, exposing, exploring and explaining differences in order to build trust and mutual respect to work together at common activities online.

ICTs and virtual worlds are constantly evolving and increasing the potential for distance education. Second Life, for instance, has been arising the interest of the academic community for education.

In 2007, the Horizon Report [22] stated that 3-D environments would have “strong potential for teaching and learning”. Recent literature states that Second life is a MUVE that allows students and teachers to collaborate actively in projects, exchange ideas and information in-world.

This virtual world has the potential to develop a simulation of „real life‟ skills and competencies or to create new worlds (De Lucia et al, 2009) [23] rather than „academic life‟, that is, it can enhance an experiential learning through activities such as simulations and role-plays.

It also promotes immersive learning as the learner can experience as closely as possible the emotions and the way of thinking of someone in a stressful or other situation.

The possibility of creating communities of practice where people learn by sharing is also of paramount importance. These communities can be described as groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly. (Wenger, 2000) [24]. The Iowa State University has already created the NMC Educational Community and below is their virtual representation of Wenger‟s Communities of Practice. (SL Island: Teaching 4 231, 155, 25).

Figure 1 – NMC Educational Community (author proposal) Second Life is a world that tries to reproduce the real one having its rules and even its economy. People are represented by their avatars (their 3D representations) and they communicate through chat (voice or written text), notecards, their profiles, IMs. If the resident is not online when the IM is sent, it will be delivered when he/she log in.

Second life also provides educational resources, links, and a wiki for educators, among others. Linden Research (2006) [25] made an agreement with ISTE, for example, to help new people in-world and it also supports teaching in SL (Terdiman, 2004) [26].

Livingstone and Kemp (2006) [27] also studied and gathered the main features that make SL a good tool for education.

As it has been showing a great potential, several companies and educational institutions have their own lands/islands in there.

Some institutions are using it for training and skills development.

In what the Health field is concerned, SL allows the immersion in an authentic context that enhances a deeper knowledge of situations or circumstances. For instance, the Heart Murmur Sim aims to provide a training cardiac place where the participants can visit virtual patients, listen to their cardiac rhythms and make a diagnosis.

Another important work is being done by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. It has created the visualization in real time of some weather phenomena such a tsunami simulation and another showing the effects of melting glaciers on the ocean level. This island‟s goals are to incentive scientific discussion and reflection upon climate issues and, at the same time, allow participants to participate in simulations that wouldn‟t be possible in the real world.

This virtual world is also being used for training in-service and future professionals as it enhances social interaction, collaboration, the awareness of social global issues, events, data visualization, simple simulations and education.

It allows a new model for distance education and new opportunities for a virtual learning. Students and tutors can meet in-world, share information and resources (audio and video files, for instance), discuss projects, make presentations, and do group projects. Second Life eases communication and sharing, key elements in the learning process. Students can make simulations where they can learn from their mistakes and develop new skills to apply in their real life.

Several educational institutions like the Harvard University, the Leicester University, the Universidade de Aveiro, do Porto, the Open University (UK), among others, have their own educational spaces where they deliver some courses in several fields.

The NMC (New Media Consortium) Campus is the most important educational institution in SL. It supports events, classes, demonstrations, art exhibits and educational experiences.

Several well-known educators such as Howard Rheingold, Henry Jenkins and Daniel Reed, have been in conferences at this campus.

The Harvard‟s Berkman Center for Internet and Society delivers a course to create and present Internet and Web 2.0 tools such as Wikis e blogs. The students also meet in-world at Berkman Island.

The Texas Wesleyan University has got the Genome Island in SL, which was developed by Professor Mary Anne Clark with the aim of teaching Genetics. With the help of building tools and scripting, she built laboratories where the students can participate in virtual experiences and produce data for analysis. The students can also interact with experts in Genetics to broaden their knowledge.

Besides the above institutions, BBC realized the SL potential to teach foreign languages, mainly English, having created its own space at Virtlantis 116.114.21 (PG). This institution blends SL with Internet pages, supporting the learning of several issues. Virtlantis island is formed by foreign language educators and is an example of best educational practices in SL. Also another excellent work is being developed by Jo Kay and Sean FitzGerald [28] about Second Life which can be found in their wiki Second Life in Education.

Facilitating informal learning is also one of the concerns in SL. Museums, libraries, Historical Recreations, Art and Music Literature, Machinima, debating social issues, Politics, Civics, Economy, Commerce, Architecture, supporting disabled people, virtual tourism, cultural immersion have a strong implementation in SL. In what SL pedagogical activities are concerned, it seems that SL has the ability to create a sense of belonging, a shared space and sharing experiences makes it ideal to develop pedagogical activities such as discussions, debates, presentations, simulations, role play, conferences, exhibits, Treasure Hunts and virtual quests. You can also visit the Sistine Chapel, enter a Van Gogh painting, simulate flights at NASA… The presentations through white boards may be kept in the participants inventory and retrieved later on. You can also learn anatomy and animate different body parts.

Real time conferences, with people – avatars from all over the world, in the same virtual room, at the same time, allows debating topics that are important to them. Fashion students can organize a fashion show. The Management learners can create a company and check the way it works with taking real risks with real money.

In conclusion, SL has a great potential for distance education, supports computer mediated cooperative and collaborative work, simulations and formal/informal learning and training. It allows each individual to develop skills and competencies, try new ideas and learn from the mistakes they make. It also contributes to enrich the curriculum and complement face-to-face education.

Nevertheless, research about the potential of 3-D MUVEs (MultiUser Virtual Environments) in education is at the beginning.

Further research is required to have evidence of Second Life affordances “for learning and to develop pedagogical models to use in supporting and enhance student learning” (Edirisingha, Nie, Pluciennik & Young, 2009 [29]).

3. METHODOLOGY This is a pilot case-study that was carried during four weeks. It focuses on the introductory module of the Masters course “Pedagogy of eLearning” at Universidade Aberta of Lisbon. The objective of this module was to acclimatize students with the online tools used in the course and the teaching and learning model adopted at Universidade Aberta. In order to understand

how social presence and socialisation can be enhanced in virtual environments in distance education courses, in particular in Second Life and in Moodle for collaboration and learning outcomes, some online discussions forums were set in Moodle and three sessions were carried out in Second Life.

The learning activities have their foundation on Salmon‟s fivestage model of online learning and the data was recorded in moodle foruns and chat logs, all in written text. Interviews are being prepared to collect further information. The data is being analysed according to Salmon‟s 1st and 2nd stage model: “access and motivation” and “socialisation”. We are also revisiting indicators of social presence in online discussions (Rourke, Anderson, Garrison & Archer, 2001) [1] and McKerlich & Anderson‟s (2007) [2] adaptation of the previous indicators to quantify the quality of an educational event in Second Life concerning social presence. The group is formed by twenty students and two tutors.

Table 1. Sessions and activities in Second Life Second Life

A brief description of the activity, its objectives and what was accomplished

Session 1

Welcome to SL and encouragement; Ice-breakers; Creating the group and adding all the participants; Communicating in SL; Setting the rules/netiquette Sharing the difficulties.

Session 2

Improving communication in SL; Analysis of the interface (Friends, in particular); Creating a notecard; Finding Linden dollars for free.

Session 3

Expressing doubts and exposing difficulties; Going shopping; Commenting on one another‟s appearance and see individual improvements; Sharing positive and less positive SL experiences Buying things and saving them in the inventory; Editing appearance and changing clothes.

Table 2. Discussion forums in Moodle - Help and Feedback - Individual presentation (RL and photo) - Second Life (activity 1 - session 1 in-world)    

System Requirements Accounts of first time in SL Doubts and difficulties about SL navigation Summary of the in-word meeting

- Second Life (activity 2 – sessions 2 & 3 in-world)     

Individual presentation of the avatar (photo postage using Flickr and SL name) Issues related with SL Sharing reflections about SL exploration Justification of not attending SL meetings (Internet connection problems and technical problems connected with the system requirements) Summary of the 2nd and 3rd in-world meetings

The resources needed to develop the activities were made available in moodle.

It was also created a social area that was the Café where students posted news, made invitations, shared stories and made arrangements to go to conferences / events. This is an informal space where people interact and socialise in order to get to know one another‟s better what also contributes to the building of trust and of the learning community.

Table 3. Model and Template for Assessment of Social Presence Category

Indicators

Affective

Expression of emotions Use of humour Self-disclosure Asking / answering questions Participating in a discussion Complimenting, expressing appreciation Expressing agreement with others Asking for help / helping Reference to real life among avatars Vocatives Addresses or refers to the group using inclusive pronouns Phatics, salutations Initiation of after class activities Group tag Quantity and quality of the messages produced

Interactive

Cohesive

Participation

This model and template is based on Rourke, Anderson,Garrison & Archer, 2001) [1] proposal, on McKerlich and Garrison (n.d.)

[2] template and adapted to Second Life context.

Data collection involves observations of Second Life sessions, participation in in-world activities, collating chat logs, online discussion forums in Moodle and interviewing participants (soon).

The data is being analysed to identify instances of socialisation and social presence. As Rourke, Anderson, Garrison and Archer (2001) [1] observed “social presence supports affective objectives by making the group interactions appealing, engaging, and thus intrinsically rewarding.”

4. DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION Although the results of the research are preliminary and it is still in progress, we can state that the participants manifested social presence according to the categories and indicators stated below.

Table 3. Assessment of Social Presence Category

Indicators

Affective

Expression emotions Use of humour Self-disclosure

Interactive

Examples (translated by the authors) of

Asking / answering questions Participating in a discussion

Complimenting, expressing appreciation Expressing agreement with others Asking for help / helping

Cohesive

Reference to real life among avatars Vocatives Addresses or refers to the group using inclusive pronouns Phatics, salutations Initiation of after class activities

Group tag Take snapshots

Participati on

“heheheh” “He danced like Travolta” “I don‟t understand how to do this” “Do you have the notecards?”

“Why are islands in SL that are not safe?” / “Ah… lots of places aren‟t safe…”

“Nice outfit” “A very good idea” / “Yes” “I need help to go shopping” / “Avatar 1*, click on the 1st landmark” “I have just had dinner…” “oh, avatar 2…”* “We create one, with our own ideas” / “This way we could learn how to build things” “Hi everyone” “There‟s a party after the conference” “Yesterday we were here doing the group work” “How do we place the group tag” “I took a snapshot so that I can remember later” (group meeting) Data being processed

Quantity and quality of the messages produced *The names were replaced by avatar 1, 2…in order to keep the privacy of the participants.

The data also provided insights into the nature of in-world socialisation and its impact on community building, and about the first two stages in Salmon‟s 5-stage model. It was stated that these two stages aren‟t separate, on the contrary they are interrelated.

In what the nature of in-world socialisation and its impact on community building are concerned, it occurred smoothly, easily and quickly. From the analysis of in-world sessions, we can state that participants were excited for being together for the first time, they were very curious about one another‟s avatars and appearance. They discussed their ability to interact with the environment pointing out what they could or couldn‟t do and asked for help. They also shared their technical problems The interactions between peers showed that the questions were answered and help was provided. At the same time, it was easier to perform certain activities like detaching something from the avatar when in-world and having an immediate answer. After each session was formally over, the participants still stayed on for some time to discuss informal subjects like the football match that took place in real life.

Considering the first stage of Salmon‟s model “Access and motivation” the participants pointed out some difficulties concerned with the system requirements, lag and crashes. They also had some difficulties in communicating as they all wanted to talk at the same time. On the other hand, they enjoyed being together and the same time, the sense of immediacy provided by this technological means and the richness of the media: visualization, immersion, reading and writing (voice chat was not used).

The data about the second stage in Salmon‟s model “socialisation” showed that participants liked the synchronous sessions in-world where they were all together. One of them remarked it was the first time that he was acknowledged and could in fact communicate, so he was happy to be with people he knew.

Participants commented that being in SL was a projection and a complement of Real Life as they were all of in different geographical locations in Real Life and probably they would never meet in RL. They asked about the community rules and the grounds were set.

In conclusion, Moodle and Second Life (and Sloodle) represent an exciting new phase in internet technology, and offer endless possibilities for distance educators.

5. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR RESEARCH AND PRACTICE The present pilot study-case provides insights about the potential of using Second Life and Moodle for developing social presence and socialisation in distance education.

However, technical issues have to be solved in order not to frustrate and demotivate users.

As preliminary conclusions, we can state that the communication between avatars was more informal and spontaneous; there is a great quantity of messages in each in-world session; there is evidence of the group cohesion and of the formation of a learning community; participants ask and answer questions on the topic and written text is used predominantly even to express emotions and feelings.

SL enabled the creation of “immediacy” and social presence, leading to the building of trust and collaboration. The tools and the media available in SL provided a high-bandwith solution for social presence and socialization as Short et al. (1976) [9] stated in social

presence theory. Synchronous chat medium and the immersive feature of Second Life are superior forms of CMC and online presence than asynchronous forms. Participants‟ experience of socialisation stated positive feelings about the nature of the immersive feature of SL and their experience of if, reporting that it conferred a certain realism what supports Sander‟s (2005) [30] proposal that MUVEs could help students who report lack of social presence to experience it in asynchronous CMC. This way, Second Life gives students more realistic opportunities to interact with their peers and tutors, leading to higher levels of social presence. Nevertheless, further research is required to see whether people feel their avatars are able to represent their identities and activities and to what extent. Another issue is to see if the increased social presence in SL contributes to better learning outcomes and retention in distance education courses.

To conclude, it is important to notice that this study is still in progress and it is a small scale one which raises issues that require further study.

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