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Master's Graduate Program's Use of Virtual Reality
The document discusses the integration of virtual reality (VR) into higher education at SUNY Empire State College, highlighting the timeline, initiatives, and impact on student engagement and community. It outlines the challenges faced in promoting VR among faculty and the evolution of course offerings from Second Life to open-source platforms like Kitely. The emphasis is on the benefits of immersive environments for learning, creativity, and collaboration, despite ongoing concerns regarding costs and institutional support.
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Master's Graduate Program's Use of Virtual Reality
- 1. CHALLENGING GOLIATH: BringingVirtual Reality into Higher Education Creating courses and community within academia Eileen.oconnor@esc.edu Avatars invade the hallowed halls from SL open source All images taken and owned by Eileen O’Connor unless otherwise noted
- 2. Topics and areascovered • Timeline – 2006 (SL) 2011 (open source) • Meetings and courses – pragmatic / utilitarian design • Graduate Course - student work — examples provided • Steps towards greater usage – Institute for New Paradigms • Most recent – VR Residency – meet faculty & colleagues while reducing cost and minimizing socio-economic entry barriers
- 3. • State Universityof New York (SUNY) - Empire State College • Total enrollment approximately 18,000 • Graduate School • Education Division • Master of Arts in Learning and Emerging Technology
- 4. Value in highereducation — particularly in online courses and programs • Overcomes isolation; creates a sense of community • Creates a sense of space and presence • Encourages experimentation and shared development • Allows modeling of best practices • Encourages innovation and creativity with new immersive medias • Still hard to get other faculty to see and understand the power
- 5. SUNY Empire StateCollege Saratoga Springs East Campus Alumni House @28 Union Ave. SUNY Empire State College Alumni House in Second Life Initial Second Life (SL) funding for Dr. Allain lead to the re-creation of a campus building and the premise for the “Future of Being Human” course
- 7. Initial foray withSecond Life by O’Connor — 2007 Support from Empire State College: — training on basic artifact creation — support during meetings — some artistic island developments — small grants for private islands with K12 -> pilot study & publication (O’Connor’s interest)
- 8. Bringing to otherfaculty and instructional designers • Grassroots effort to bring to other faculty and instructional designers: • Some participation, however, no ongoing support from ESC • O'Connor and Allain continued to work in their own SL environments; as did several other faculty • Faculty effort to maintain islands once funding ceased and islands became more expensive • Move to open source, Kitely, 2012
- 9. Research & publicationon VR applications, here is a study of community &collegiality; third meeting: sandbox-level shared building Oh my goodness! It looks like your group had so much fun.You definitely let your creative juices flow! I'm jealous, I generally stayed within realistic limitations. I feel like I totally missed the fun of being in a VIRTUAL environment! Good job! – quote from discussion board, after the session
- 10. Initially in SL,moved to open source — a platform where students could work as well • Explored several different vendors — kitely proved to be reliable and cost-effective • Moved course meetings into this space and developed a course where around working in open-simulator environments • Created a complete set of start up developer materials https://sites.google.com/view/vrmarian/home
- 11. Students develop theirown islands, during a course • Beg, borrow, and Creative-Commons steal • Learning, risk taking, experimenting • Teacher level or proof of concept • Curriculum / events • Other components • Assessment / evaluation • Over 40 islands designed
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- 15. ● Acclimation to American culturefor second language learners https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frobt.2016.00074/full#h10 an EXCELLENT open-access articles on the growing activities in and importance of VR environments
- 16. Historic Japanese setting, for K12 socialstudies instruction – 2016FA1 in Kitely Islands may change
- 17. Setting for social workerprofessional development; many venues on these islands – this section replicates a theory- foundation institute Parent Education Network in Kitely Islands may change
- 18. Students move beyond the course– using instructor- developed online tutorials (Creative Commons) A social-worker, to the left, discusses his VR social work environment at an international conference Other students join in peer- reviewed publication efforts Image owned by and shared by Wales Brown
- 19. The student worked remotelyinto a conference using video conferencing too
- 20. Real-World Practice for FinancialEducation
- 21. Budget Exercise Task List •Groceries • Gift for a Friend • Lunch • Buy a Need • Buy a Want • Pay Credit Card • Savings
- 22. VR - immersive 2d/3d Innovativedesign from graphic artist – immersive creative instructional experience for his students Eugenio Trainer in Kitely Islands may change
- 23. Continued promoting withinthe SUNY system — "soft" promotion within the graduate school • Interest seems active, however: • Not sufficient time wit instructors to do all the professional development needed to bring in colleagues • Instructional designers not always supportive— too much overhead • Islands were perceived as expensive; • Competition from other e-communication tools • Engaged other faculty in research and development • Some concerns surfaced • Innovative technologies can be considered disruptive and threatening
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- 36. Immersive Residency – October13, 2018 • 9:00 AM - tech prep / Dean / faculty & alum intros • 9:30 - 10:30 AM: The Virtual to Augmented Reality Continuum - Eileen O'Connor, Ph.D. • Break; move to Empire Learning Design in Kitely; you will be given directions • 11 - 12:00: VR World building - Nicola Allain, Ph.D. • Break • 1 - 1:30 PM: Arts & Media in Virtual Worlds - Nicola Allain • 1:30 - 2:00 PM: STEM group activity - Eileen O'Connor • 2:00 - 3:00 PM: Game Design and Unity Game Engine - Mark Lewis, MA Second Residency October 2019
- 37. Conducting an ImmersiveResidency, with the Dean, students across courses and programs, and alumni Eight years prior to this event, a previous Dean had come in and spoken as well
- 38. Instituting a think-tankto grow and preserve progressive technology- threaded education ideas
- 39. PLAN - Executive; logistics -Scheduling; activities - Advertising; announcing DO - More interactive meetings - Events – island visits / hops – by others - Activities / mini courses - White papers - Others? THINK - Research / pubs - Yours / mine
- 40. Ready Player One?Integrating real and virtual; past & present – within a story line
- 41. What are wecreating for their future?
Editor's Notes
- #10 After the three meetings where students posted within the discussion board, conviviality was the overall tone. After the third meeting, when the students had created their own, on-the-fly virtual setting one student wrote, on seeing another team’s posting with a piano bar: Oh my goodness! It looks like your group had so much fun. You definitely let your creative juices flow! I'm jealous, I generally stayed within realistic limitations. I feel like I totally missed the fun of being in a VIRTUAL environment! Good job!
- #20 Later in the day we had live one on one sessions for participants to try out the games designed. Again the campus internet did not allow virtual world connectivity so we used skype conference.
- #21 As a student of Learning with Emerging Technologies at ESC I became enamored with designing virtual spaces in Dr. O’Connor’s virtual practicum courses. My profession is in financial education so I was inspired to create an environment in which people could have fun while learning something that can be considered boring and also stressful and intimidating. What you are seeing here is an aerial view of the shopping center that serves as the backdrop for financial ed. I created an environment – named Pix-Elated – in which individuals can experience real-world practice and have fun, and then conducted a pilot study to test the environment and examine how to bring financial education into a virtual space. The design is a mixture of realism and simplicity, with a little humor sprinkled throughout. For example, there’s a restroom – as every shopping center needs a restroom.
- #22 This is an example of a shopping list that can be used to teach budgeting, saving, and prioritization of needs and wants while enabling autonomous decision-making.