0229590_C6FC0_solomon_negash_michael_e_whitman_amy_b_woszczynski_handbook

Teaching IT Through Learning Communities in a 3D Immersive World

intRoduction

New technologies for collaboration have generated increasing interest in the formation of various kinds of online learning communities for distance education. A wide range of distributed learning communities are currently involved in training, education, gaming, social networking, and other emerging online endeavors. These distributed learning communities are available in different forms and demonstrate underlying frameworks that include collaborative text-based environments, Web-based text and graphical multiuser domains, and the more sophisticated CAVEs (projection-based automatic virtual environments). Each of the above presents its own unique technologies and possibilities for online distributed collaboration and learning. Each presents opportunities for group interactions in different ways that bring a sense of community to the task. This chapter will focus on the findings and experiences of various communities of learners formed within a 3D immersive Internet-based virtual world developed for graduate education.

Descriptions of a 3D Internet-based learning environment—called Appalachian Educational Technology Zone (AET Zone)—used by the instructional technology program in the Department of Leadership and Educational Studies at Appalachian State University have been noted in other research (e.g., Bronack, Riedl, & Tashner, in press; Riedl, Bronack, & Tashner, 2005; Tashner, Bronack, & Riedl, 2005). An Active Worlds universe server (http://www.activeworlds.com/) serves as the current platform for AET Zone, and provides a means to build virtual worlds for students, instructors, and other invited guests to meet and to work together in ways not found in other learning environments currently available.

AET Zone may be characterized by significant components of space, movement, physical presence and copresence, conversational tools with small and large group shared workspaces, and metaphors and artifacts that assist with collabora-

tion and learning online in unique and powerful ways. Students, faculty, and guests, graphically represented by avatars, move through the 3D world spaces interacting with each other and with artifacts within the worlds. These artifacts may be linked to different resources, Web pages, and tools necessary to provide content and support for various kinds of synchronous and asynchronous interactions. Small and large group shared workspace tools enable interactive conversations in text chats, threaded discussion boards, and audio chats. Group sharing of documents, Web pages, and other types of application software also are available within the virtual world.

Typical students in this graduate program are mid-career K-12 classroom teachers who want to learn more in-depth ways to integrate technology into their curriculum, or who want to become instructional technology specialists in their schools or chief technology officers (CTO) at the district level. Many of the students in the program teach within a 100-mile radius of the institution. However, recent initiatives have expanded opportunities to enroll K-12 teachers in a totally online experience.Forexample,severalMexicanteachers from the D’Amicis School in Puebla, Mexico, and faculty and students in Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia, are working within AET Zone. Without the ability to depend on face-to- face contact, these international collaborations are challenging us to rethink the way we develop and enhance the sense of community in distance educational settings.

The instructional technology program at Appalachian State University uses a cohort model, where students enroll and move though theprogramtogetherthroughaspecificsequence of courses. Students and faculty currently meet face-to-face regularly at the beginning of the program, with reduced numbers and frequency of meetings as the members of acohort become more comfortable working within the virtual world and gain understanding of course structures and expectations. While the virtual world is used for

Teaching IT Through Learning Communities in a 3D Immersive World

each class, the number of face-to-face meetings rapidly decreases after the first several courses to only an orientation class at the beginning and a final class session for student presentations at the end. A handful of courses during the final phase of the program are conducted completely within the virtual world, with no concurrent face- to-face meetings.

A set of four cohorts, consisting of 80 students who had experienced at least 2 years in the program, were asked several questions concerning ways they would describe their experiences as learners in this immersive 3D world. An informal qualitative analysis was conducted for the common themes expressed through the aggregated responses. These are presented and discussed below.

basic tenet

conceptual framework

A conceptual framework (Reich College of Education, 2005), based upon social constructivism (Vygotsky, 1978), was developed by the College of Education and provides a clear foundation that guides teaching and learning within AET Zone. These basic concepts are:

•Learning occurs through participation in a community of practice

•Knowledge is socially constructed and learning is social in nature in a community of practice

•Learnersproceedthroughstagesofdevelopment from novice to expert under the guidance of more experienced and knowledgeable mentors in the community of practice

•An identifiable knowledge base that is both general in nature and also specific to specialties emerges from the community of practice

•All professional educators develop a set of dispositions reflecting attitudes, beliefs, and values common to the community of practice

AET Zone reflects these assumptions about teaching and learning, and provides a powerful space through which effective learning communities are formed and nurtured. Students know and can see when their colleagues are logged into the world. They can approach other students and talk to them about life, work, or the latest news. Through these interactions, both planned and serendipitous, students begin to create knowledge together. They talk about the work they are doing inclass, they share ideas, processes, and resources with one another, and they contribute to the base ofknowledgethatexistsintheirfield.Throughout this process, they move from novice to expert, both in terms of knowledge and skills, but also in terms of their abilities to work collaboratively within a virtual learning environment using tools previously unknown to them. Their beliefs about teachingandlearningarechallenged,refined,and shaped by the process of learning together in an authentic social world of dialogue and discovery (Sanders & McKeown, 2007).

differences between conventional classrooms, traditional distance education and emerging environments

Table1describesthedifferencesbetweenconventional classrooms, traditional forms of distance education, and emerging educational environments such as AET Zone. These characteristics are based on observations of what occurs in each environment. One key factor is the continuity and persistence of the AET Zone setting in which students and faculty run into each other during all times of the day and night regardless of physical location. While one can argue that similar persistence and continuity can and does

Teaching IT Through Learning Communities in a 3D Immersive World

Table 1. Analysis of the principles of the RCOE conceptual framework

	Conventional Instruction1	Current Distance Education2	AET Zone3
Knowledge is socially constructed	Usually only within the con-	Rarely and if so within the	Within the entire virtual world
and learning is social in nature	text of each individual class	context of an individual class	community
Learning occurs through participa-	Usually only within the con-	Rarely and if so within the	Regularly throughout the en-
tion in a community of practice	text of each individual class	context of an individual class	tire virtual world community
The development of educators pro-	Rarely; contact with men-	Rarely; contact with men-	Exposure to and interaction
ceeds through stages from novice	tors usually limited to the	tors usually limited to the	with a wide range of mentors
to expert under the guidance of	course instructor	course instructor	throughout the virtual world
more experienced and knowledge-			community
able mentors in the community of
practice
An identifiable knowledge base	Limited by lack of exposure	Limited by lack of exposure	Regular contact with the
emerges out of the community of	to the broader community of	to the broader community of	broader community of practice
practice that is both general for all	practice	practice	develops a full and shared
educators and specific to specialties			knowledge base
and content areas
All professional educators develop	Limited by lack of exposure	Limited by lack of exposure	Regular contact with the
a set of dispositions reflecting at-	to the broader community of	to the broader community of	broader community of practice
titudes, beliefs, and values common	practice	practice	leads to sharing of beliefs and
to the community of practice			values leading to dispositions
			that are part of that commu-
			nity of practice

occur on traditional campuses, it should be noted that there is a distinct discontinuity between the confines of the classroom setting and the rest of the campus setting. In AET Zone, the learning environment and the social environment are one and the same. Thus, the community of practice is more explicit and becomes a more obvious factor in the experiences of students and faculty.

leaRning coMMunities

Learning communities have been characterized in many ways, and some division exists in current literature on the actual meaning of learning communities. “Communities of learners,” according to some, are groups formed to increase their understandingsorknowledgebaseinspecificareas.

Jonnasen (1997) cites the following necessary components for a learning community: active, constructive, collaborative, intentional, complex, contextual,conversational,andreflective.Others usetheterm“communityofpractice”whichseems

to indicate communities of similar practitioners who are currently exploring various aspects of theirendeavorstogether.Wenger(1998)statesthat communities of practice include: “a joint enterprise as understood and continually renegotiated by its members…, mutual engagement that bind members together into a social entity…. and the shared repertoire of communal resources (routines, sensibilities, artifacts, vocabulary, styles, etc.) that members have developed over time.” Others use the terms “learningcommunities”and “communities of practice” interchangeably.

developing online communities

In either case, the literature suggests several main themesthatemergeasusefulguidesfordeveloping online virtual communities. An overview from a recent conference on building learning communities states that such communities:

Foster peer-to-peer collaboration, communication, interaction, resource sharing, negotiation

Teaching IT Through Learning Communities in a 3D Immersive World

and social construction of meaning, and expressionsofsupportofencouragementamongstudents. A blended or online learning community must have its own meeting or gathering space, as well as a defined set of members’roles and norms for resolving disputes. (“Academic Impressions,”

2006)

A key element in the development of the community in AET Zone is that faculty members who teachinthisenvironmentstopthinkingofstudents in one section of a class as “their” students but instead they interact with all students across sectionsandacrossclasses.The“flattening”oftheir thinking is trickling down to students as well. Students are meeting each other online, learning what they have in common and how they differ, and then forming effective online partnerships and communities around real-world projects and activities (Sanders, Bronack, Cheney, Tashner, Reidl, & Gilman, 2007). Students just beginning in programs are interacting with students who are nearing graduation. Students in school administration, library science, higher education, and reading programs are interacting with each other and with instructional technology majors. Virtual worlds such as AET Zone are moving distance education efforts toward realizing the full potential of what distance learning might become. The virtual world serves as a catalyst for a learning community that reaches far beyond what normal classroom settings have been able to accomplish. Zhao and Kuh (2004) support this goal, asserting, “Learning communities are associated with enhanced academic performance, integration of academic and social experiences, gains in multiple areas of skill, competence, and knowledge, and overall satisfaction with the college experience” (p. 130).

The communities forming between and among students are beginning to resemble what Wilson and Ryder (2006) describe as “dynamic learning communities.” Such communities are defined as “groups of people who form a learning community generally characterized by the

following: distributed control; commitment to the generationandsharingofnewknowledge;flexible and negotiated learning activities; autonomous community members; high levels of dialogue, interaction, and collaboration; a shared goal, problem, or project that brings a common focus and incentive to work together.” These dynamic communities of learners are the ultimate goal in the process of applying social constructivist theory in the design and development of tools and spaces to support effective Internet-based communities for learning.

common themes in learning communities

Several common themes consistently emerge from these descriptions of learning communities. Communication, collaboration, and support are central to their development and maintenance. Other factors include shared resources and authenticreasonstojointogether.Recentlyemerging research and the emergence of 3D Internet-based environments for teaching and learning suggest the importance of the sense of presence and copresence in the development and evolution of online communities (Schroeder, Steed, Axelsson, Heldal, Abelin, Widestrom, et al., 2001). Using such characteristics as both a vision and a guide, theinstructionaltechnologygraduateprogramhas beenstudyingwaystodevelopanenvironmentthat continues to foster and to support a wide variety of learning communities that may be identified with these characteristics.

Development and support of communities within 3D immersive worlds used for learning require consideration of how students will move through the course environments in collaborative ways, how to provide means to enhance the communication between students, guests, and instructors, and how to ensure participants will interact with the various resources in the environment that contribute to building meaningful communities of learners.

Teaching IT Through Learning Communities in a 3D Immersive World

Figure 1. A community of learners collaborating in AET Zone

collaboration

Participants in courses and other activities within AET Zone express a strong sense of collaboration by those engaged in learning within the virtual world. This collaboration exists between students in a specific cohort as well as between students from different cohorts. In fact, students from one section of a course often collaborate on specific tasks with students from other cohorts enrolled in sections of the same course, thereby increasing their collaborative resources exponentially.

Additionally, students cite many instances of working with other students from different programareas whowerealsotaking differentcourses within the virtual world. It was indicated that students felt a strong collaboration with instructors, who served as knowledge guides rather than sole sources of expertise, as well. Additionally, studentsknowthatthecourseresources(including fellow students and faculty) will remain avail-

able to them through the AET Zone following completion of the course, and for graduates, even after completion of the degree program. They are free to visit other courses, to access various resources, and to engage students in other courses as resources in the learning process.

coMMunication

Learningisasocialprocesswhichrevealsaconflict between what is already known and what is being observed (Brooks & Brooks, 1993). To resolve this conflict, an effective learning process requires interaction between learners and content, between learners and their peers, and between learners and those more expert than they (Levin & Ben-Jacob, 1998). Tools for communication, topics about which to communicate, and an authentic need to communicate are requisite factors for effective communication to be sustained within learning communities or communities of practice.

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Teaching IT Through Learning Communities in a 3D Immersive World

Figure 2.

synchronous communication

In 3D immersive worlds, several kinds of communication tools are found to be necessary to support ongoing tasks and community building. Synchronous tools such as text-based and audio chatcapabilitiesarecriticalpartsoftheinfrastructurenecessaryforcreating learningcommunities. Such tools provide a means of working together at the same time in ways not otherwise possible. According to a recent analysis (Tashner et al., 2005), participants are able to develop and work together on authentic projects and topics because of the communication tools provided.

asynchronous communication

Asynchronous tools, however, also are important to the participants as ways of sharing ideas, research, and practice over time. For instance, a well-definedthreadeddiscussion board provides opportunities for participants to share ideas, opinions,practices,andresearch.Thiscommunication tool also provides for the element of reflection that is not immediately available in synchronous

environments. It is noted that the blend of these two communication tools within virtual worlds suchasAETZoneenableagreateropportunityfor interactions between and among participants.

Both formal and informal communication occurs in AET Zone and throughout the IT courses. Analysis further suggests that the informal communication is a powerful contributor to effective learning within 3D immersive worlds. Informal communication may spring up casually as faculty and students move around together in the world. Just as students on campus are thought to learn a great deal of content outside of structured classroom environments, so too, informal discussions in 3D immersive worlds may provide similar results. For example, students may join an audio chat room while simultaneously walking through the virtual world exploring together the artifacts that are present. Participants also may explore other topics of mutual interest that may or may not be part of their formal curriculum or agenda, but may still be tangentially relevant. This is an essential element of collaboration, communication, and community building.

Teaching IT Through Learning Communities in a 3D Immersive World

sense of PResence and coPResence

Much contemporary Web-based instruction is characterizedby“essentialists”viewofteaching and learning. That is, certain “essential” things are to be learned as set forth by the instructor.

Information flows in one direction, from the instructor and auxiliary materials to the student. Interactions that occur in such environments generallyarelimited to those betweenasinglestudent and the student’s instructor or in limited cases, between students enrolled in the same class. The student then shows the instructor by summative assessments that learning has occurred. When done online such environments lack many of the interactions and social aspects of learning that characterize communications within 3D immersiveworlds.Emergingconstructivistparadigmsas noted above can be used as guiding principles in designingenvironmentsinwhichstudentsengage in discussions with others across sections of the same class, different classes, and even different programs to deal with and to solve problems of interest from different perspectives. Such interactions include different forms of student to student, groups of students, instructors, and other experts interacting in various configurations to develop perspectives, to solve tasks, or to explore issues of mutual interest.

As 3D multiplayer games emerged in the late 1990s, researchersbecameinterested in exploring these types of richer participant interactions taking place within gaming environments. Research suggests that social networks are powerful components of online multiplayer games (Jakobsson & Taylor, 2003). Drawing from ethnographical and constructivist approaches, Manninen (2001) offers a taxonomy to conceptualize these forms of interactions based on components such as language-based communications, avatar appearance, body language (subconscious), and physical contact. Research has also focused on roles that presence and copresence may play in enhancing

participant interactions within virtual worlds

(Schroeder, 2002). While the term “virtual” has recently been applied to many different types of technologies and mediated environments, Schroeder’sdefinitionof“virtualreality”focusesonthe common elements linking these technologies and environmentstogether,specifically,“acomputergenerated display that allows or compels the user (or users) to have a feeling of being present in an environment other than the one they are actually in and to interact with that environment” (p. 2).

Presence

Schroeder (2002) argues that shared virtual environments “combine a high degree of presence with a high degree of co-presence because the sense of being in another place and of being there with another person reinforces each other” (p.

5). Furthermore, “presence and co-presence will be affected by the extent of experience with the medium”(Schroeder,2006,p.439).Themorefamiliar and comfortable users are with the medium and the social norms of the virtual environment, the more their sense of presence and copresence will be heightened. However, regardless of the users’ competence and proficiency working in a virtual environment, two users’ “connected presence”inthatenvironmentwillhaveanimpacton the overall experience for both users, simply as a result of being in the environment together (in a similar way to how ethnographers have noted that the act of observing influences that which is being observed).

As an immersive 3D environment, AET

Zone allows participants to “see” each other via representative avatars. Each participant moves his or her avatar through the virtual world using a keyboard or a mouse. As one moves, one’s perspective changes; thus what the environment looks like changes. This change in perspective as one moves creates a sense of “presence.” A participanthastheperceptionofbeingsomewhere else. In addition, as one observes others in the en-

Teaching IT Through Learning Communities in a 3D Immersive World

vironment, one has a feeling of being somewhere else with someone else or “copresence.” These concepts lead one to experience a connected presence or mutual awareness of others. As the mutual awareness increases, so does the desire for and feeling of heightened engagement in the world and in the activities conducted within the world. Emerging from these feelings is a strong theme of the importance of both presence and copresence in developing learning communities. Students report that the feeling of isolation and working alone diminished as they become accustomed to working in the environment. This was of particular import to both retention and to the individual successes of students toward their educational goals (Tashner et al., 2005).

Interestingly, presence is evidenced in several ways.Theforemostissensingthatyouareactually somewhere different than your physical location. As you move through the world and you sense the movement, your perspective changes and you become“there”aswellas“here.”Somestudents will desire to change their personas on a frequent basis by changing their avatar. When asked why, they state that they were “feeling different.[sic]”

On the other hand, some students do not see

“themselves” in the same way.

copresence

Copresence is characterized as being “there” with “someone else,” though the “someone else” is represented by an avatar. We have noticed that adults take into the 3D world some parts of their personalities and cultural more that they exhibit in the outside world. For instance, if one avatar gets too close to another, the second one will move in order to preserve “personal space.”

Novice students must learn to minimize windows so that they can “see” when others are trying to communicate with them. Some become disheartened when they speak to another avatar and the

“other” ignores them. Yet, we have also seen a reluctancetomeet“others”outsidetheirclass,to

converse with “strangers” in the 3D world. Such issues are worked through by assignments to meet others, explore courses together with “persons” you do not know, and many other techniques as needed. However, these examples demonstrate the importance of understanding the concepts of presence and copresence in immersive worlds.

Role of Presence and copresence in online communities

The sense of presence and copresence are critical factors in creating and maintaining deeply engaging online communities. As participants gain more of a sense of being somewhere and with somebody else, communication and collaboration are dramatically enhanced. According to Ahuna (2006), when constructs such as communication and collaboration combine to support the formation of community, “a semantic world of sharing knowledge, solving problems, working as a team, playing, building, quarreling, cooperating, planning and forming relationships develop.”The following screen shot illustrates an overviewoftheNetworkBasicsbuilding.Students move through the building, walking across the various components, clicking on components to access descriptions and resource information. For a slightly different perspective, students may choose to float above the floor. Various tools to enhance the cognitive awareness and understanding of the concepts and constructs are available to the learners. Group interaction is encouraged as an important piece of the learning process, in developing the learning communities, increasing collaboration, and to increase levels of content understanding. The combination of communication and small group shared collaboration tools with a sense of presence and copresence provides opportunities for developing authentic learning environments for Internet-based learning that goes far beyond attempts to replicate traditional classroom instruction using typical Web-based applications.

Teaching IT Through Learning Communities in a 3D Immersive World

Our experiences with graduate students in the AET Zone suggest that many forms of communities evolve as needed. Some will develop for specific tasks and time periods and then dissolve. These include task oriented communities, for example, where students will form groups to read and to discuss specific books and to inform other larger groups of what they are learning in various discussion formats. Hence, a groupoffour students may find themselves in discussions on ideas witheightyotherstudents.Anotherexample might be a task involving the development and implementation of certain projects that include ideas, knowledge and resources shared among a larger group who have similar interests. Others will remain intact for longer periods of time. For instance, different forms of social groups also have been noted in AET Zone that are more persistent. One group who met online each week to work on assignments decided to meet together at a different time for dinner. They cooked the

same dinner, drank the same wine and met, not face-to-face, but connected inside the 3D world in an audio chat room to enjoy each other’s company for a while.

Certainly, our experiences in thinking about the roles of presence and copresence in AET Zone helpusunderstandtheimportanceofthesesensory inputs in Internet-based instruction. However, we are deeply aware that we are dealing with very complex variables. We are exploring new questions that emerge from our observations. How might we develop a deeper sense of belongingness tothesecommunities?Aretherepedagogicalways to provide social networking within a series of courses or is it even desirable?

Instead of information flow in one direction only from a source to a receiver, many other possibilities emerge. The result is a vibrant, active, participatory, and engaging environment developed for community members to build new knowledge based upon the foundation presented by the group.

Figure 3.

Teaching IT Through Learning Communities in a 3D Immersive World

MetaPhoRical gRaPhical useR inteRfaces

One striking feature of AET Zone is its extensive use of metaphors in the design of the graphical user interface. As students move through the world, they find themselves in plazas, gardens, frontiers, and suburbia. Every space in the 3D world is built upon a metaphor or a series of metaphors to provide students with access to content, context, and tools for navigation. We have been verydeliberateinourselectionofmetaphorsinour designsandbelievethatthoughtfulandreflective choices about the metaphors to use are important to the success our students have working within the virtual world.

Cates(1994)citesLakoffandJohnsonindefining a metaphor as “understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another.” One thing,oftenfamiliar,isafigurativerepresentation of the other, often abstract or unfamiliar. According to Nicholson and Sarker (2002), Aristotle understood the value of a metaphor when he said, “Ordinary words convey only what we know already; it is from metaphor that we can best get hold of something fresh.”

Some suggest that simply a virtual representationofaphysicalspaceorartifactisnotmetaphorical, but rather, the virtual representation must be different in its representation (e.g., Cates, 1996). According to Cates (1996), a graphical user interface (GUI) that is metaphorical must be based on either an explicit or implicit metaphor, but it makes little difference as to whether the metaphor is obvious to the user or not. The important aspect is that the metaphor works to provide some insight into or aid in understanding of that idea, concept, or thing it represents.

According to Black and later expanded upon by Cates (1994), there are two types of metaphors: underlyingorprimaryandauxiliaryorsecondary. An underlying metaphor is the main metaphor used. For example, in one of the courses taught in the instructional technology program, the un-

derlying metaphor of the Wild West was used as the main metaphor throughout the course space within the virtual world. An auxiliary metaphor is one that is consistent with the underlying metaphor and is used to support or enhance this main metaphor. In the case of the aforementioned course, examples of auxiliary metaphors might include a “saloon” for meeting and conversing, a “general store” for finding useful content, and a “haystack” that links to useful search engines.

complimentary Metaphors

Complimentary metaphors are those that enhance the online teaching and learning environment. These are complementarily aligned with one anothertoassistlearnersindevelopinga“conceptual framework of understanding through which the learner can further enhance prior knowledge and conceptualize a higher level of understanding towards the knowledge being obtained” (Henry

& Crawford, 2001, p. 3). Henry and Crawford furthersuggestthatthroughtheutilizationofthese metaphorical graphical user interfaces (MGUI), “a sense of community is presented to the learner, and in turn, a collaborative e-learning environmentiswellonitswaytowardsrealization.”(p. 4)

This community emerges out of an immersive environment in which students “collaborate on projects, work in teams, and create material and artifacts together… Students assume a variety of roles…and students must negotiate as they will have to negotiate in the adult world” (Marshall,

2000, p. 5). For this to occur, auxiliary metaphors selectedmustbecomplementarytotheunderlying metaphor employed.

The effective use of metaphors in an online learning environment can be valuable in offering students a model to assist in understanding more abstract concepts in more familiar, concreteterms and can help students understand a concept and content more quickly than without the use of the metaphorbyhelpingstudentslearnandunderstand how things should work (Bishop & Cates, 1996;