Towards Integrated Learning and Teaching Environments

Contents

• 1. Virtual Campuses: What can we do ?
• 2. Dynamic Worlds for Learning and Teaching
• 3. Advanced Learning Environments over the Internet ?
• About ourselves
• Appendix

Issues for discussion

1. As first issue we'd like to roundup opinions of the participants about the state of "Virtual Campuses" and more generally "Education on the Internet". This is partly related to our well founded hope that after 2 years of near absence we will manage to save our WWW Virtual Library on Educational Technology from "near death". A first trial is here (might be moved again). It's based on a MSQL data-base that needs to be filled in. In addition our unit has built a Swiss server for education (German/French only so far) that could profit from some insights.

2. As second issue we would like to address dynamic, persistent, multi-user worlds and their role in education (also in relation to more groupware-oriented "Virtual Campuses"). Such environments will without doubt become quite popular although it's a bit difficult to see in which direction we are heading and how future "educational worlds" might look like. We do have our own text-based multi-user world (the TecfaMOO) and currently are investigating VRML-based technology.

3. As third issue we wonder how we could better integrate research in advanced learning environments with the Internet. We'd like to refer to work done in the "Artificial Intelligence and Education" (AI&Ed) Community which over the last years tried to combine principles derived from artificial intelligence, cognitive science, human-computer interaction, and related fields. for the design of systems to support learning.

1. Virtual Campuses: What can we do ?

1. ``Teacher'' component: Its role is to provide something between loose guidance and direct instruction. It can be a human agent (present or distant), an intelligent agent, instructions like some text books provide, etc. This component provides information from the syllabus to the task level.
2. ``Monitor component: Ensures that something is learned. A role taken by either the human teacher, the learner (self-control) or by some program.
3. ``Fellow learners'' component: Improves the learning process (some research tries to implement artificial ones).
4. ``Learning material'': Contains what has to be learned in a very broad sense (knowing what, knowing how). It can be computational in various ways (exploratory hypertext, lesson and task oriented hypertext, simulation software, task solving environments, etc.).
5. ``External information sources'': All kinds of information which is not directly stored in the learning material (e.g. additional material, handbooks, manuals, etc.).
6. ``Tools'': Everything which may help the learning process other then the learning material (e.g. calculators, communication software, etc.)
7. ``School'' [a category we added]: Something that provides a curriculum and does student administration.

They typically come in separate form, Information and Communication being pre-dominant in the Internet World.

Issue 1 Questions:

1. Do you agree with Sandberg's figure and can we fill in every "function" with a good example (articles, deployed systems) ?
2. Now how can we combine Information, Communication and Computer based Learning systems to gain additional synergy ? After all, one major advantage of Internet is the possibility of integrating different kinds of content and communication.
3. What is the state of CBL over the Internet ? Typically, most CBL programs are built with specialized tools such as (Aysmetrix's Toolbook or Macromedia's Authorware). What is the state of tools and concepts available for Internet Content providers (including plug-ins provided for traditional authoring tools) ?
4. The major part of educational material on the WWW are course notes. Next, we find some structured and well designed teaching materials including texts, exercises and tests. More sophisticated applications are rather scarce, although educational philosophy advocated is changing as shown for example at the CyberEd site . Will we see more interactive "learning-by-doing" on the WWW in the nearer future ? And is it necessary ?

• Explorations in Learning & Instruction: The Theory Into Practice Database (http://www.gwu.edu/~tip/)
• Theoretical sources (http://www.cudenver.edu/~mryder/itc_data/theory.html) at the Instructional Technology Connections Site. Other sites worth a visit are Live Text (http://www.ilt.columbia.edu/k12/livetext/) and Instructional Technology Research Online (http://www.hbg.psu.edu/bsed/intro/).

2. Dynamic Worlds for learning and Teaching

1. Educational groupware:
   On-line materials + tests+ email + forums + student management + voice/video, e.g. systems like WebCT (http://homebrew1.cs.ubc.ca/webct/), the Clyde Virtual University (http://cvu.strath.ac.uk/) and WEST (http://west.ucd.ie).
2. Multi-user Worlds:
   Multi-user Worlds favor social immersion within a real-time multi-user environment. Most allow user-built extensions and are built on persistent objects. For a MUD-biased index, see our Educational VR page (http://tecfa.unige.ch/edu-comp/WWW-VL/eduVR-page.html). Within these we find 2 major types:
   • MUD-based worlds (some providing a 2D GUI).
   • 3D Worlds, (some of which based on VRML technology.

Issue 2a: Do different kinds of "educational worlds" favor different pedagogies ?

In the appendix we present a short comparison between groupware, VR and MUD - oriented worlds that answers this question positively. Issue 2b: Do different types of immersion favor different types of learning ? According to Zeltzer/ we can classify a virtual environment with the following dimensions:

1. Autonomy: how things react.
2. Interaction: how things are manipulated.
3. Presence: immersion of the user.

Issue 2c: How can we optimally use different media ? CMC technology implements an amazing amount of different media that can be categorized in various way (for an attempt inspired by Gay's and Lentini's "Use of Communication Resources in a Networked Collaborative Design Environment" paper, see the appendix) One of our research projects has shown that building shared problem representations (grounding) are facilitated when different media are available, but also that different users have different preferences. Different media bring different resources and constraints on grounding as well as having different associated costs. Any comments on that ?

Issue 2d: Structured vs. unstructured interfaces One of our research projects has shown that content type of utterances is related to the interface type usage. When do constrained (structured) interfaces help learners, when do they rather hinder it ? At at more conceptual level we can ask how we can "encrypt" optional conditions of collaborative learning within a virtual environment.

Issue 2e. Is it true that most things seen on the Web favor quite a traditional approach ? And is the situation really different in multi-user "worlds" ? Does the "virtual community effect" have any impact on learning, i.e. does "being there" help, at least by providing motivation ?

3. Advanced Learning Environments over the Internet ?

1. Nothing will change in the immediate future ? After all we did have networked computers for years in education (and nicely written text books too) and the issues at hand have not become easier. Proof for that statement is that most Internet educators ignore advanced research in learning technology (and the other way round). Have a look at the sessions of the last European Conference on AI in Education last fall. (or become a reader of the International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education). Also interesting are books like Tiffin's and Rajasingham's "In Search of The Virtual Class" who assign a major role to AI but blatantly ignore 15 years of well organized research in that area. Exceptions are rare, e.g. Brusilovsky's work.
2. Can we make learning environments more fail-safe by adding humans, e.g. tutors and co-learners ? (Artificial Tutors tend to get stuck in some situations.) In addition, since many researchers in advanced learning environments point out to "cooperation" as the hot topic, Internet may have it's chance there by providing at least better Collaborative Interactive Hypermedia on a wider basis.
3. Designing and prototyping software is very expensive. Over the Internet, cooperative projects could be done more easily, although ideal instruments are still lacking in our opinion. The "all-in-one-potential" of "Cyberdesktops" also does have appeal for development as it is shown for example in some MOO servers that are used for all sorts of purposes (virtual communities, on-line classes, simulations, collaboration research and more). In such worlds, people can built on top of what others are doing. Could we design a "virtual place" where researchers could develop their projects based on some shared infrastructure ?
4. Virtual Agents: In the AI-Ed community agents refer to tutors, coaches, co-learners and such whereas in the Internet community they mostly name some kind of smart search engines. Where is the potential of more versatile agents on the Internet ? Also, can we build simpler agents in virtual worlds ?
5. Persistence of user-created objects: In stand-alone applications, most things built by the user are lost at some point (or at least isolated from co-learners). Virtual worlds could boost co-learning by sharing objects with others. In addition, what could be gained from "walls with memory" in Virtual Worlds ?.
6. How could AI help designing immersive "conceptual spaces" or "living" representations of educational content ? After all, representation is one of the key research areas in artificial intelligence and so far only smart search engines have profited from this body of knowledge. How can we represent abstract concepts or writings within a virtual space and what does it buy us ?
7. Learning is experience: Does Internet favor that ? Can we build spaces where people experience a wide area of topics (e.g besides circular themes such as learning how to program within a multi-user programmable environment?) Furthermore: How can we avoid the "video game effect", i.e. people learning how to manipulate the "virtual" without learning from it for the real ?
8. How could we use smart WWW servers ?. Can we get more educational value out of specialized Web servers e.g. "webbed MOO servers" and the Common Lisp Hypermedia Server ? Smart (e.g. adaptive) hypertext certainly falls into this category.

About ourselves

Patrick Jermann is a research assistant at the Educational Technology Unit (TECFA), Faculty of Psychology and Education, University of Geneva, Switzerland. His current work focuses on the use of semi-structured interfaces in collaborative problem-solving. He is administrating a server dedicated to swiss educational research (http://agora.unige.ch) and collaborates to a programming course for educators and psychologists.

TECFA ("Technologies de Formation et Apprentissage") is a small academic unit active in the field of educational technology. It belongs to the School of Psychology and Education ("Faculté de Psychologie et des Sciences de l'Education) of the University of Geneva. TECFA's research covers a large area of interests, including: cognitive issues in learning technology, applications of artificial intelligence to education, cognitive effects of educational software, computer mediated communication and information systems in education, multimedia courseware, and distance education. Since Fall 1994 TECFA offers a postgraduate diploma (DES) in educational technology ("Sciences et Technologies de l'Apprentissage et de la Formation") within which we both use and teach Internet-based technology.

Appendix

Does the following table make sense ?

VR vs. MUDS vs. "Virtual Classrooms"

	immersive VR	"Virtual classroom"	"MUDs"	WWW pages
produced by	Computer people and artists	Instructional specialists	everybody	everybody
typical educational users	kids	students	larger audience mostly students	everybody students
favorite subject	visualization	all	human sciences	all
favored activity	object manipulation	questions/answers	discussion /construction	lecture
pedagogies	Piaget (constructivist learning)	Instruction (information-do-test loops	Vygotsky (proximal learning)	?
openness	no	sometimes	yes	yes
intrusion	yes	yes	no	no
"temperature"	hot	cold	cold	cold
deployed in education?	no	yes	yes	yes
persistant objects	sometimes	no	yes	no
user extensibility	sometimes	no	yes	yes
media	interfaces RV	groupware tools and voice video	text, but also HTML, VRML, GUIs
communication	few	yes	yes	few
virtual presence (via an avatar)	yes (sensorial)	no	yes (virtual self)	no
N users	2 (10)	20 (100)	200 (1000)
ease of use	medium	yes	medium	yes
intelligent agents	no	no	sometimes
research themes	interactive 3D graphics immersion effects	pedagogical effectiveness	collaboration and social learning on-line textuality

More on issue 2c

Here is a short attempt list various criteria for classifying CMC media.

Media Aspects

Type
Co-presence	Are participants "present" in the same location ?
Visibility	Are participants visible ?
Audibility	Can people talk and listen ?
co-temporality	Do people communicate at the same time ?
sequenciality	How fast do we get a reaction usually ?
reviewability	Can people review what has been uttered ?
revisability	Can people revise before they send something ?
archivability	Can the result be stored easily ?
user numbers	How many users can participate at the same time ? ?
proxemics	At what distance can people be within a medium
simultaneity	Can people "utter" at the very same time ? turn-taking ?
multi-channels	How many channels can participants use ?
multi-media	What kind of media does it support ?
instrusiveness	How intrusive is the tool ?
structuredness	How does the tool pre-structure conversation ?

Each of these features appear with different weight in various "Systems":

Media Aspects of a few types

	face to face	phone	video conf.	simple chat	MOO	Email	News	white board
Co-presence	yes	-	-	++	+	-	-	++
Visibility	yes	-	++	-	-	-	-	-
Audibility	yes	yes	yes	-	-	-	-	-
co-temporality	yes	yes	yes	yes	+++	-	-	+++
sequenciality	+++	+++	+++	++	++	+	-	-
reviewability	-	-	-	+	++	+++	+	+
revisability	-	-	-	+	++	+++	+++	+
archivability	-	-	-	+	++	+++	++	++
user numbers	few+	5	5+	5	7+	10+	10+	5
proxemics	yes	-	+	-	++	-	-	-
simultaneity	++	+	+	+	+++	+	+	++
multi-channels	-	-	+	-	++	-	-	-
multi-media	+++	-	+++	-	+	+	-	++
instrusiveness	+++	++++	+++	++	+	-	-	++
structuredness	+	++	++	+	+		++	++

(This table is filled in a bit randomly for now)

What makes a difference and which difference? Does it make sense to constrain an educational virtual world to a small subset of these ?

References

• Gay, G. and Lentini, M. (1995) Use of Communication Resources in a Networked Collaborative Design Environment, JCMC, 1. http://cwis.usc.edu/dept/annenberg/vol1/issue1/IMG_JCMC/ResourceUse.html
• Sandberg, J. A. (1994). Educational paradigms: issues and trends. In Lewis, R. Mendelsohn, P., (ed.), Lessons from Learning, (IFIP TC3/WG3.3 Working Conference 1993), pages 13--22, Amsterdam. North-Holland.
• Tiffin,J. and Rajasingham, L. (1995). In Search of the Virtual Class. London. Routledge.
• Whitelock, D. Bran, P., Holland S. (1996) What is the Value of Virtual Reality for Conceptual Learning? Towards a Theoretical Framework, Lisbon, EuroAIED 96 conference. http://www.cbl.leeds.ac.uk/~euroaied/papers/Whitelock1/
• Zeltzer D. (1992). Autonomy, Interaction,and Presence. Presence. 1(1):127-132.