BPN 1021 Building a virtual world at school

It is quiet around Second Life. No longer are governments, municipalities and banks wasting money and storming into the virtual world to show the world how internet savvy they are. But now a Dutch language (sorry; please try the translation facility) evaluation report Best practices: Virtual Environments in Education has been published about an education project using virtual environments. The conclusion is that virtual environments are valuable additions for education, provided that the virtual environment project is bundled in with the teaching content.

Seven high schools have participated in the pilot project. Four experimented with Active Worlds and three were active in Second World. The Dutch organisation Knowledge Net offered training and technical support. The pilot fits in the SURFnet/Knowledge Net Innovation program for education.

The report offers a series of recommendations in the field of technology, organisation, and didactics and practical tips for schools which want to start virtual world projects. Here are a few hints:
- Test the environment well beforehand and arrangements with system maintenance about support;
- Make a special section in the electronic teaching environment for the participating pupils and teacher;
- Produce a plan with clear objectives;
- Offer the pupils a special section in the system, where they can experiment;
- produce a map of the environment with the object to be built and a division of tasks;
- Bundle the project in with concrete teaching content;
- Keep the pilot small;
- Make the pupils depended on each other, which will promote cooperation.

In the report two examples are offered, which can be used during classes. In a module on Roman architecture, the teacher can show a lot of examples of temples and houses. Parallel with the lectures the pupils can start building a temple or a house with an atrium. Another exercise could be modelling the school (see illustration).

The report stresses that the virtual environment should not be a project for project’s sake. But it should be an exploration trip in which pupils can work together and use the knowledge they have picked up. A virtual environment object should help the pupils to gather information about a subject. Cooperation in such a project is essential. The virtual environment also serves to excite pupils and to activate them to learn something about a subject like Roman architecture.

In my opinion the teacher will be essential in starting such a project. And almost every teacher regardless of the subject which he/she teaches can start such a project. Of course subjects like chemistry, physics and biology as well as art can use virtual environments. But also language teachers can offer a virtual world around the Eiffel tower and have the pupils chat in French. Even those pupils following abstract subjects like math and philosophy can use virtual environments. What about building the cave of Plato and discuss the problem of representation of knowledge.

It looks all exciting, but these types of projects will depend on the enthusiasm of the teacher, his/her computer versatility and the factor time.

See movie.

Blog Posting Number: 1021

Tags: education, virtual world, virtual environment

Aussies and Kiwis sampling Dutch broadband (7)

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Now there are three presentations available about:
- Amsterdam Internet Exchange
- Amsterdam CityNet
- Almere Smart City
The presentations can viewed and downloaded from
Budde.Com.AU website
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(c) Elaine Sullivan

As said before education is one of the key areas in broadband development. It was interesting to hear Mr Toine Maes, managing director of KennisNet (Knowledge Net/ ICT at School). It is an ICT support organisation with 160 FTE and a budget of 35 to 40 million euro. The organisation exists since 1997.

He immediately put down a statement: it will take three to five years to marry broadband and education. This was rather a shock. But he made clear that educational models change due to broadband. Of course broadband is fine for the teacher to select resources for the classes. Yet the educational model will change to the learner’s model, where by the pupil goes after learning resources.

Another reason why it will take long before broadband will be accepted in school is the present acceptance of computer in schools. Pupils might play till the moment that they go to school in the morning and start again when they arrive at home again. But at school they will not use these media for a lot of different reasons. So for the pupils and teachers it is difficult to make a total shift.

Primary schools have now roughly 30 to 40 PCs per school. The telecom company KPN provides 75 percent of the 8.500 schools with broadband connections of 2Mbps. There are 750 primary schools using fibre up to 100Mbps.

That broadband has the potential to shake up education is clear. It creates unlimited access to learning. Pupils use already resources YouTube, Delicious, Wikipedia, Flickr and Friendster. Comparable to this the educational broadcast company Teleac has developed Teleblik, a collection of contemporary and historic resources from the archives of the public broadcast companies and Polygoon Journal. It contains thousands of hours, from full programs to custom made fragments of a few minutes. The teachers can use the material to spice their lessons, while pupils can discover subjects. Besides these audio and video resources, a distant expert is needed, who can be called upon when a pupil gets stuck.

It is clear that education is on the move and that the basic position in The Netherlands is not bad. Yet innovation is slow and broadband innovation in education will take up to five years. Yet broadband and education are really closely related. Most challenging will be an innovative cooperation project by which pupils create content by themselves.

Blog Posting Number: 698

Tags: broadband, education