COTE NOTE
The Center for Online Teaching Excellence
What I know about Virtual Reality Instruction Eileen O’Connor Before entering the world of academia in the 1990’s, I had been a chemist for the government and for industry and then I went to work for IBM in the 1980’s – working with government, industry, and healthcare. During that time I achieved a Masters in Civil Engineering in the field of Environmental Science and Engineering. In the 1990’s I began teaching chemistry and intro-to-computers while pursuing a Ph.D. in education and in instructional technology, with a focus on STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) areas. I worked at SUNY Oneonta and the University at Albany in temporary or part time positions and for RPI as an assistant director in K12 program development. Since 2004, I have been a full time faculty member at Empire State College, working in science education and in mostrecently in an exciting new area – the Masters of Arts in Learning and Emerging Technologies. I have published and presented on the uses of technology in education and communication and I pursue research on the use of emerging technologies (including virtual technologies) in teaching, learning, and communication. In spring 2015, I will be on sabbatical to develop, pilot, and study an immersive environment to bring science education to students in both America and Africa through e-based interactions (much work has to be done though to enable the computer interactions).
“Virtual reality can be
ANYTHING that you can conceive, build, and invite others to join – given of course your knowledge, funding, persistence, and vision.
”
I would like to share what I know about Virtual Reality Instruction I will share experiences over the past seven years with incorporating virtual reality into different courses and with different “students” – in middle school and in graduate school. Virtual reality has allowed me to build community through shared experiences that my students even though we meet from our home computers across NYS and even across the country. I now teach a course where others begin developing their virtual reality experiences, and we are starting to see some very new ideas coming forward. I hope to tell you about the power and joy this work has given to me and my students.
What is it Virtual reality is an environment created by the users (at this line is 2.5 minute video overview - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6YcqtaWZ2c&feature=youtu.be). The environment can look like a game (such as World of Warcraft), but it can be whatever you create (which could be a game). Second Life was created in 2003 and allows users to buy and create their own “islands.” Technically avatars can join for free and use the islands that are open to the public. Empire State College has owned island since about 2005 (other SUNY campuses have islands too) allowing me to create interesting course experiences.
How it works As a prefatory remark, virtual reality can be ANYTHING that you can conceive, build, and invite others to join – given of course your knowledge, funding, persistence, and vision. Thus, given my limited skill and time, I developed approaches that could optimize what I wanted to and could do with my students, as you will learn. I can share the publications, resources, and videos that I have compiled over the years. However, I really would encourage all who consider virtual reality to think well outside any box that I show. Let’s work together to create much richer experiences.
What I did By using virtual meetings several ways. With my online graduate students I was able to have collaborative, immersive classes. After beginning, with meetings, presentations, sharing ideas, and break-out sessions, we would later in the semester progresses to field trips, students giving presentations, shared video-observations, even poster sessions (depending upon the class). Generally I would “loop back” a virtual meeting with an online discussion to extend the conversations. With middle school students, I piloted work on immersive virtual environment for STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics).
How I did it I began by working / playing within a virtual location at my college (Empire State College, ESC) in about 2007. Since earlier work with K12 students, I had wanted the platforms that students used in gaming, but then such platforms were not available. So, when ESC offer virtual spaces, I was very excited about developing applications for MY students (soonto-be K12 science teachers) that they could someday bring to their classrooms. Thus, I brought my own students into these spaces, learning how to navigate and developing minor building skills. My graduate students were awkward at first, but we all learned better
The Open SUNY Center for Online Teaching Excellence
September 10, 2014 • Volume 2 • Issue 1
COTE NOTE Staff The COTE Community Team: Alexandra M. Pickett, Associate Director, Open SUNY; Martie Dixon, Assistant Academic Dean, Distance Learning & Alternate Programs, Erie Community College; Patricia Aceves, Director of the Faculty Center in Teaching, Learning & Technology, Stony Brook University; Lisa Dubuc, Coordinator of Electronic Learning, Niagara County Community College; Christine Kroll, Assistant Dean for Online Education, Graduate School of Education, University at Buffalo; Deborah Spiro, Assistant Vice President for Distance Education, Nassau Community College; Erin Maney, Senior Instructional Designer, Open SUNY; Lisa Raposo, Assistant Director, SUNY Center for Professional Development This publication is produced by the Open SUNY Center for Online Teaching Excellence under the SUNY Office of the Provost.
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how to use this space. To help my students (since I became essentially my own help-desk) I created tutorials and handouts to get them acclimated. When I procured some funding for a private island for K12 students, I conducted a pilot study, learning how well but very differently K12 students worked in these spaces. Given that K12 students are looking for “a game” I designed a project to capture and sustain their interest. The pilot resulted in a publication and my continued efforts to build develop private islands, as well as using the ESC islands for my graduate classes.
Why I did it As mentioned above, I began to use virtual reality initially because I wanted to help my pre-service science teachers engage K12 students in immersive learning environments – the type that K12 students used after school. It was an amazing-rich teaching / learning opportunity; I had hoped to develop this in earlier work at RPI. As I learned and explored the virtual environment, I brought in my online students, getting to know them much better in the process. My graduate school applications grew and I struggled to bring in K12 students. I was constantly challenged by issues of privacy, security, costs, district mandates and the like, but I was finally able to break through with a pilot K12 study. I continue to work with development for K12 (I will be on a sabbatical in spring 2015 for this efforts) and have expanded to teaching a newly-designed gra duate course on developing immersive environments.
What happened when I did it The results on integrating immersive, virtual experiences have been rich and rewarding. I know that my classes have been more “friendly,” engaging, community-building, and authentic because my students have made a commitment to their peers. In a very virtual/ real way, they are now connected in a way that you will generally only see in face-to-face situations. I was able to develop opportunities that could not have been done in almost any other (at least feasible) way – for instance, a virtual conference, were students presented poster sessions of their science-education projects, faculty and peers visited, and then voted on the posters. Another time, the K12 pilot students presented their work to the pre-service teachers. With great pride, a 10-year old girl told a room of virtual adults about the ways coyote families bonded and a 13-year old boy spoke about mining. These are only a few examples of the possible wonders. I will admit the pathway to creating these experiences has been quite “challenging.” If it were not for a personal passion for and belief in this environment, it would have been tough to have survived the challenges. But no one said that being an innovator would be easy.
What I learned When you can create your own world and its rationale and rules, you have plentiful opportunities to assemble realities that can be immersive, engaging, and complex. And, students can become involved across time and distance in rich and personal ways – I was often amused when a student who may have been struggling to keep up in class would still come to all the virtual meetings. As one such student said in a discussion board: “I didn’t want to let the class down.” Innovation is often a lonely place professionally, but virtual environments can be a comforting place as a teacher.
References
This publication is disseminated under the creative commons license AttributionNoncommercial-Share Alike 3.0
https://sites.google.com/site/3dvirtualexamples/past-virtual https://sites.google.com/site/3dvirtualexamples/ http://www.interactivelearningsolutions.net/tutorials/sabbatical2014/sabbatical2014-v4.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvgXca-xf00
The Open SUNY Center for Online Teaching Excellence
September 10, 2014 • Volume 2 • Issue 1