VIRTUAL GUIDES: A Hybrid Approach

to Immersive Learning

David Fliesen Sonalysts, Inc.

Cynthia Calongne, D.CS Colorado Technical

University

Abstract

Virtual Guides blend the need for information with feedback and progress checks as learners perform learning activities within virtual world simulations and serious games. They offer a hybrid approach to immersive learning with alternatives for delivery and implementation. When students have a mentor or sensei to guide them along the path of knowledge, they are able to make decisions with increased confidence and the Virtual Guides provide it within the 3D virtual learning environment. This use of Virtual Guides has been conducted in multiple virtual worlds that use Second LifeTM, OpenSim, and Unity3D for serious game and simulation development. Conclusions and recommendations for future work include assessing the benefits of Virtual Guides for non-linear games and immersive learning applications.

About the Authors

David Fliesen is a virtual worlds & serious games designer with Sonalysts, Inc., where he has served as principal investigator for Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I contracts for the U.S. Navy on Virtual War Games and the Office of the Secretary of Defense on Medical Gaming, as well as project leader for the Navy’s Massive Multiplayer Online War Game Leveraging the Internet (MMOWGLI) feasibility study. His Sun Tzu automated avatar demo was presented at MODSIM World 2009 and he was a guest speaker on the topic of Virtual Intelligencei at MODSIM World Canada 2010. He has served as a futurist for the Department of Defense (DoD) and as a Master Training Specialist for the Defense Information School (DINFOS).

Cynthia Calongne is Chair of Emerging Media and Professor of Computer Science at Colorado Technical University. Her research features 100 conference presentations that blend computer science, emerging media, virtual worlds, education, interaction and game design, robotics, and innovation. Her team won the Federal Virtual World Challenge's Grand Prize at GameTech 2010 for the Mars Expedition Strategy Challenge.

Introduction

As Digital Natives ii(Prensky, 2001), today's learners comprise the majority of students in classrooms around the world, and they are restless. Growing up with the Web, online media, and gaming technology since birth, they know instinctively how to use it. The Internet has always been there for them.

Even young children can pick up an Apple iPad or a mobile phone and swipe or touch it to navigate, often in ways that their parents have yet to master.

As the French novelist Marcel Proust illuminated years before the dawn of the Internet and prior to virtual worlds, "The real voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyesiii." (Proust, 1993)

But just because many of these students were born in the X or Y generation does not mean that they are proficient with that technology nor are they necessarily independent learners, ready to set out on journeys of their own. Familiarity with the technology does not imply that every student is a gamer or that she or he is proficient in the use of virtual worlds.

In training and course development, the quest is to identify a learning and feedback model that will provide asynchronous and synchronous support for technologically sophisticated students given their disparate preferences, aptitudes, and skill levels.

Virtual Guides

One of the challenges in online education is to shift the intimacy and quality of learning experienced in the face-to-face classroom to an online learning environment through the use of voice, text, and visual communication tools that support the meeting of minds as participants share ideas, demonstrate their understanding, and interact with the course content.

Virtual Guides provide support as they offer information, interaction, and feedback during the learning process. As a learning guide, they serve as a source of information and support learners with diverse needs that extend beyond auditory/text, visual/spatial, and kinesthetic information to gain a balance

between theory, exploration, and activity-based learning. There are several different models for Virtual Guides to support different learning and interaction styles.

Fig. 1. Virtual Guide example from the Mars Expedition's Learning Center

An early example of the use of virtual guides in virtual worlds includes the Mars Expedition Strategy Challenge's Learning Center guide, who greets visitors and gives them a guided tour. During the tour, he walks around the center and shares the information via text chat. The guide wears a NASA flight suit and a white cowboy hat (see Fig. 1).

Visitors hear a female guide's instructions as they board the rocket to begin their journey. Earlier versions of the Mars Challenge included a prototype of HAL on board the Red Lion Deep Space Explorer to explore the use of humor in these interactions.

We All Learn Differently

Students have different styles of learning requiring different approaches to help them master the requisite knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA) for learning and retention in a multitude of disciplines (i.e. art, history, math, science, etc.).

A point that immersive training shares in common with traditional classroom education is that people learn differently. Information needs to be presented in increasing levels of detail and complexity coupled with activities and opportunities for interaction to promote comprehension and skill development.

Some students prefer to LEARN the theory behind the lesson first to intellectually understand what is being taught and why it is significant knowledge for them to know.

Others prefer to EXPLORE the training interactively with guided walkthroughs that teach the concepts and skills. This helps them to identify how to apply the knowledge with skills that they have learned in the construction of new knowledge.

Others need to PRACTICE the lesson both through applied learning activities, such as quizzes, and through simulations, to assess their abilities and comprehension.

By blending theory, exploration, and skill development through applied learning, students can more effectively learn and retain the course material.

Learning through Virtual Worlds and Serious Games

Virtual worlds provide an environment with both benefits and challenges to the learning process. By students freely choosing their own paths, they take more ownership for their end results.

But while they can lose themselves for hours in such immersive spaces without noticing the passing of time, that may not be the most effective use of their time. And as PBS pointed out in their episode of FRONTLINE entitled “Digital Nation: life on the virtual frontier"iv, such immersive activity can become quite addictive for some.

Student motivation varies depending upon the level of 3D intuitive design, past experience/familiarity with the environment, and motivational incentives for learning. Serious games, on the other hand, tend to provide more of a structured path with choices at key decision points along the road. A student’s choices may decide success or failure with decisions at one point influencing other aspects of the game play at another point. While this provides a somewhat more guided approach, it may feel a bit constrained for some students who wish to do things differently than the multiple choices presented within the serious game. In her book “Reality is Broken: why games make us better and how they can change the world,"v Jane McGonigal shares the four defining traits that all games share: (1) a goal; (2) rules; (3) a feedback system; and (4) voluntary participation. The goal is the focus of the player’s attention and serves as a sense of purpose that orients their participation throughout the game. Meanwhile the rules place limitations on the way that players can achieve that goal, often causing players to have to think more creatively to find solutions. The feedback system provides a method for the player to know how close they are to the goal. And voluntary participation requires the player to take ownership of the goal, the rules, and feedback while also establishing a common ground for multiplayer interactions and the ability for the player to leave the game and resume play at a later time.

A Hybrid Approach

Through combining aspects of virtual worlds and serious games together, we discover a hybrid approach to immersive learning with a Virtual Guide that helps students down the path of learning while

still allowing them freedom to make their own choices within a virtual environment.

This Virtual Guide serves as a sensei and can come in many forms and behaviors. First it may be a scripted, artificially intelligent character that resembles a humanoid avatar or has a different somatic representation (such as an animal, a water molecule, or a code fragment). SunTzu (shown in Fig. 2) is one example of a virtual guide developed by Sonalysts for U.S. Joint Forces Command in the virtual world Second LifeTM as part of the Open Virtual Collaboration Environment (OpenVCE).

!!Fig. 2. Artificially intelligent agent SunTzu

A Virtual Guide can also be driven by a human-in-the-loop who responds to inquiries and provides progress throughout the game or simulation in response to the training requirements. Instead of directing the students, they serve more as a guide along the path and interact differently depending upon the student’s skill level within the game.

The skill levels can be assessed using a baseline assessment series of questions developed with Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) on the training topic. This could be provided to the students in simple web forms at the start of their first game to identify their game level, and then the students would level up or down depending upon their performance within the game.

Virtual Guides could be used in many forms: Non-Player Characters (NPCs), Heads-Up Displays (HUDs), automated avatars, and prim-based 3D bots. Some examples include: NPCs in commercial games; Daden Limited’s Automated Avatars in Second LifeTMvi; Sonalysts use of a Medical Mentor in a HUD for the MEDATAR serious medical game (shown in Fig. 3); Staff Duty Office Moleno (A Virtual Tour Guide for Virtual Worldsvii) from the Institute for Creative Technologies in Second LifeTM; and various Second LifeTM 3D prim-based bot avatars, such as the Shop Assistantsviii from XD Fusion and Artificial Avatarsix from Etiq Praga.

Fig. 3. The MEDATAR serious medical game proof-of-concept with medical mentor.

The space time travel game Journeyman Project 3: Legacy of Timex (1999) provides a strong example of this concept. This game has an interesting application of an Artificial Intelligence (AI) agent name Arthur, who’s embedded into the space suit’s HUD.

Arthur provides comical antics along with his knowledge to guide the player along a journey of exploration within the historic narrative of the storyline, which is filled with challenges to intrigue the player to find solutions. Arthur also has a chattiness setting to customize his level of interaction and humor. After hours of play, Arthur seems like a real life character and friend that journeys along the player’s side.

What if that could be brought to training? Students could learn while having fun and have someone there with them to virtually guide them along the path of knowledge.

A Future with Virtual Guides that Know You and How You Learn

Personalization of the learning experience is the key to bringing greater utility to its application. While online learners like the flexibility of asynchronous training, which allows students to take training anytime and anywhere, they may feel lost with traditional online learning management systems and prefer to interact with a live mentor.

While synchronous training models the face-to-face classroom interaction, it requires having the students meet at the same time or providing instructors 24/7 to provide enough instructors for students that are online. There are tradeoffs and costs associated with each of these methods.

Virtual Guides can provide a more dynamic solution with a blended approach where

students feel like they have a real mentor watching over them and helping them, while allowing them to train when is most convenient for each of them. This also helps the school to better manage its training costs. Virtual Guides can be developed to understand and respond to the students' cognitive and learning needs based on their individual skill levels and to treat them differently depending on those things.

Game designer Jesse Schell talked about a similar concept with The Future of Virtual Charactersxi where characters like Mario and Luigi from the Super Mario series of video games by NintendoTM would accompany people throughout their lives, know how they learn, and what they need. Schell is a former Disney Imagineer, professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s Entertainment Technology Center, author of the book The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lensesxii, and designer of The Mummy Online MMOG.xiii

Future work is needed to characterize alternative feedback mechanisms for use in non-linear serious game development and to assess their benefits over current training and course delivery methods. The use of Virtual Guides in non-linear, quest-based games offers great potential for enhancing activity-based learning, competency, and skill development to reach an audience of both the Digital Natives born in a digital world and the Digital Immigrants, who have adapted to the digital world that has evolved around them.

NOTES !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!i Virtual Intelligence, MODSIM World Canada 2010: http://prezi.com/bcjqn-zkxvxh/virtual-intelligence ii!Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. From On the Horizon. MCB university Press, 9:5, October 2001. Retrieved December 29, 2011, from

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/prensky%20-%20digital%20natives,%20digital%20immigrants%20-%20part1.pdf!iii!Proust, M. (1993). In Search of Lost Time, Vol. V: The Captive. The Fugitive. Modern Library, Random House: New York.!iv Frontline: life on the virtual frontier: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation v McGonigal, Jane (2011). Reality is Broken: Why games make use better and how they can change the world: http://realityisbroken.org vi Daden Limited’s Automated Avatars: http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&hl=en-GB&v=9hte2MJ54CA vii Jan, Dusan; Roque, Antonio; Leuski, Anton; Morie, Jacki; and Traum, David (2009). A Virtual Tour Guide for Virtual Worlds. Institute for Creative Technologies, Marina del Ray, CA.: http://people.ict.usc.edu/~traum/Papers/SDO.pdf viii Shop Assistants from XD Fusion: http://xdfusion.wordpress.com ix Artificial Avatars: http://www.youtube.com/EtiqPraga x Journeyman Project 3: Legacy of Time (2009): http://presto.tommyyune.com/presto/journeyman3/mainindex.html xi The Future of Virtual Characters: http://vimeo.com/18407613 xii Schell, Jesse (2008). The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses. http://artofgamedesign.com xiii The Mummy Online MMOG: http://themummy.bigpoint.com