EDU625: Blog 3
- Rosa Conti
- Dec 11, 2022
- 8 min read
Integrating Technology into Learning: A 3-Part Reflection Series
In this course, I am exploring ways that technology can be used to create valuable learning experiences. Part 3 of this blog series offers my impressions and insights from the sixth and seventh units of this module.
KEY ISSUES + CONCEPTS
3D VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS
Until the past year or so, my only window to contemporary video games or 3D virtual worlds has been through my son, who was born a digital native and was an early adapter of the first versions of PlayStation and Minecraft. His pure joy and intense immersion in these games never faltered. I never considered that, alongside his happiness, he benefited from the many positive effects of these experiences.
For example, one benefit that strikes me as particularly interesting is the widespread belief that video games are detrimental to one’s vision. Research has shown that gamers are better than non-gamers at tracking data and “quickly parsing through mass amounts of information to identify specific data points” (Hult.edu, 2021, para. 4).
And amazingly, according to research, adults with lazy eyes could improve their ability to recognize smaller letters on eye charts by patching their good eyes while playing 40 hours of video games (Li et al., 2011). In other words, playing video games can actually strengthen weak eyes. Not only that, but video games can help develop greater mental focus, make multi-tasking more efficient, and make young people more empathetic, helpful, and sharing (Fleming, 2013).
My first knowledge of virtual reality (VR) used in education was at the start of the COVID pandemic. The media quickly offered many options to keep kids entertained and educated safely, namely through online virtual reality tours that allowed one to “visit” replicas of ancient times or contemporary museums. While these learning resources had existed in the world already, they hadn’t been publicized broadly in the news until then. I was impressed to learn that they existed.
Virtual Reality (VR) has become a popular and emerging digital training tool that offers many benefits. For example, it can create an emotional connection that helps to provoke feelings (like empathy and connection) and improve learning and retention. Especially when these real-life, visceral experiences are designed to educate, VR can offer learners things they never knew.
MOBILE LEARNING
Mobile learning (m-learning) allows people to access courses anytime, anywhere, via their mobile devices, from their homes, or while commuting (Brown, 2021).
While there are several m-learning concepts essential to designing m-learning because they all have merits and bring value harmoniously, I was struck by three in particular.
Perceived ease of use – There is good competition nowadays for m-learning, from full-on courses like Linked In Learning and Udemy to informational talks like TED and others. If mobile learning apps don't work well, people won't fuss and bother when there are others waiting around the corner. According to one Google study (Kirkpatrick, 2016), 53% of mobile website visitors abandon a webpage if it doesn't load in three seconds. Our cultural impatience is remarkable. This reminds me of how I felt trying to navigate Second Life, a virtual world, last week.
Self-efficacy – You may be familiar with the term 'self-actualization' from Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which describes the realization of one's highest potential. One might say that self-efficacy is the precursor to this psychological development, as self-efficacy is the confidence required to believe those achievements are possible at all. Technology can be challenging, especially for the digital divide, but believing in oneself and having the fortitude to "keep at it" can make a difference when trying to conquer mobile learning.
Flow theory – When learners enter a mental state of energized focus and full involvement, they reach an optimal state of experience called "flow." Therefore, when mobile designers create learning activities that are interesting and engaging to learners, they are more likely to keep their concentration focused. Learners would also be more "responsive to clear goals" (Wankel & Blessinger, 2013), embracing the mobile learning at hand.
There are several design strategies that support these three concepts, and they complement each other in subsequent order.
For example, when mobile learning is easy to use, it is inviting to try, and a feeling of self-efficacy sets in when learners realize that it is possible to grasp. This makes them feel confident to roll up their sleeves and "get into it," which can lead to a sense of flow and focused attention. Therefore, to achieve this desired triad, mobile learning should, at the very least, consider the device and user experience for which the learning is being designed, as well as how imagery, fonts, buttons, and input fields will be affected.
MY OVERALL EXPERIENCE + OBSERVATIONS
My overall experience these last two weeks pushed me outside my comfort zone in two ways. First, it required me to dive into and experientially explore two areas I would not normally be interested in: (1) creating an avatar and visiting a virtual world and (2) creating a mobile learning app. As an educational technology student, it also caused me to admit that I do not care for VR gameplay. On the other hand, it introduced a new area of interest: designing mobile learning.
VIRTUAL WORLDS
I have conflicting takeaways after learning about virtual worlds for the first time.
I see the absolute value of VR immersive experiences, such as learners being able to “walk” on the moon, NASA simulating rocket travel, and physicians practicing with VR technology before working on actual patients. However, I don’t care for creating avatars, building new worlds, or shopping at virtual marketplaces in games like Second Life or SimCity. The former feels 100% educational, with fun and play as the secondary factor. The latter seems like fun and play are the main goals with only peripheral benefits, such as self-expression, critical thinking, and collaboration (in multi-player scenarios).
Therefore, I have cognitive dissonance over whether the good outweighs the bad. For example, I realize the many positive aspects of gameplay in VR environments, such as helping students reach higher on Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy by offering opportunities for users to view, analyze, evaluate, and create content (Wheelock & Merrick, 2022). This is its most significant positive aspect, in my opinion, because I have become a new, huge fan of this classification tool since learning about it in this class.
However, I also see negative fallouts to gameplay worlds. For example, virtual gameplay can be primarily an isolated experience, and removing oneself from reality (especially if addiction ensues) is dangerous for one’s mental health. Also, we don’t yet fully know how this type of cognitive activity affects one’s perception, real-life self-esteem, and mental wiring from a physiological standpoint. Lastly, I strongly feel that educational purposes aside, having our heads tucked away in VR worlds pulls us further away from being in and appreciating the vastness of real life. I am not loving the idea of VR “taking over.” Visiting virtual museums or tracking whale sightings or weather patterns is one thing. But creating new “realities” in VR is in another ballpark and can be dangerous when depression is a common illness worldwide. Getting “lost” in fake, virtual worlds is too easy.
As for my experience exploring a virtual world in Week 6 of this course, I was glad to peek under the hood of creating an Avatar and stepping into a virtual environment such as Second Life. However, my impression of this experience is that for virtual learning to be successful, it should be easy to understand, as I discuss here. My studies on this topic confirmed my lack of interest and provoked new concerns, as I shared.
MOBILE LEARNING
My biggest takeaway when learning about mobile learning (m-learning) is that it is not the commonly held assumption of simply taking a computer-based course and transferring it to a mobile device, such as a smartphone or tablet (Wankel & Blessinger, 2013). While I suspected some responsive web design work would be required for m-learning (to make the content fit within the screen), I didn’t realize how much science and art went into the designing process – or why I intrinsically liked some e-Learning courses more than others.
For example, I learned to use Articulate Storyline in my last course. One of our weekly resources was this course housed on LinkedIn Learning. If you look at this course, you will see that all of the content is categorized into sections, which are then segmented into video lessons that are between 1-5 minutes in length. One designer tip I read this week said to “keep chunks of information down to two minutes or less with animation and a conversational style” (Davis, 2022, para. 7). The author of this Storyline course does both, along with short videos, which is probably why I absolutely loved and got into the "flow" of this LinkedIn Learning course.
Another factor I liked validated is that not all e-Learning will work across all devices (Articulate, n.d.). The Storyline e-Learning course I created in my last class would not work well in an m-Learning environment because of its hover and drag-and-drop features and font styles and sizes. Before learning Storyline, I thought a computer-based course could easily be “converted” to an m-Learning course because when designing this portfolio website on Wix.com, each page (except the blog pages) offers a “Switch to Mobile” button that allows me to edit aesthetics while in mobile mode. I thought e-Learning operated the same way.
I enjoyed creating a mini-mobile-learning course titled How to Feed Giopoppy (my dog) using Easy Generator, as I discuss here.
QUESTIONS
A few questions arose for me over the last two weeks.
Are virtual worlds audited in any way to prevent virtual cyberbullying (and if so, how)? For example, what is to prevent someone from knocking down another user's Minecraft creation or sending a message of a foul or abusive nature?
Is the majority of players across metaverses generally the same population? In other words, I wonder how many are natives vs. first-time users. Virtual gameplay is not an easy or inexpensive hobby to begin, requiring an investment of time, energy, patience, and cost (e.g., headset, subscriptions, etc.). Unless someone is already immersed in using some form of virtual gameplay technology or was inspired by someone they know, it's hard for me to conceive someone spontaneously deciding to invest in the big learning curve of virtual worlds.
Can self-efficacy be taught? We look to mobile designers to create m-learning that provokes a sense of "can-do-ness" and inspires flow. However, rather than making the learner a dancing monkey, shouldn't some of this mental fortitude come intrinsically from one's discipline and habits? I think so.
CONCLUSIONS
In closing, there are advantages to game-based learning in virtual environments if they are designed to do so. Some VR worlds lean towards fun as the main goal, while others are more strategically and creatively designed to create learning experiences for learners.
Easy-to-use mobile learning has leveled up the education industry by crossing divides and offering connection and contact to those otherwise left out. Mobile devices and smartphones give access to people of all ages, education levels, languages, and walks of life access to the same information. The Internet brought the world together, but not everyone can afford a computer or the Internet, and mobile learning is a viable solution to fostering widespread learning.
This video discusses the benefits and challenges of mobile learning and offers steps instructors can take to set up learners for success.
References
Articulate. (n.d.). Best practices for designing mobile learning like a pro. https://community.articulate.com/articles/design-mobile-learning-like-a-pro-best-practices-for-mlearning
Brown, D. (2021, October 20). Importance of Mobile Learning. Retrieved from https://www.edapp.com/blog/importance-of-mobile-learning
Davis, C. (2022, September 14). 31+ mobile learning tips for instructional designers. SweetRush. https://www.sweetrush.com/31-mobile-learning-tips-for-instructional-designers
Fleming, N. (2013, August 25). Why video games may be good for you. BBC. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20130826-can-video-games-be-good-for-you
Hult.edu. (2021, November 2). Why video games are good for you—Really good for you. Hult International Business School. https://www.hult.edu/blog/why-video-games-are-good-for-you-really-good-for-you
Kirkpatrick, D. (2016, September 12). Google: 53% of mobile users abandon sites that take over 3 seconds to load. Marketing Dive. https://www.marketingdive.com/news/google-53-of-mobile-users-abandon-sites-that-take-over-3-seconds-to-load/426070
Li, R., Ngo, C., Nguyen, J., & Levi, D. (2011, August 30). Video-game play induces plasticity in the visual system of adults with amblyopia. PLOS. https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1001135
Wankel, L.A. & Blessinger, P. (2013). Increasing student engagement and retention using mobile applications: Smartphones, Skype, and texting technologies. Emerald Group Publishing.
Wheelock, A. & Merrick, S. (2022, August 4). Explore these virtual worlds for learning. ISTE. https://www.iste.org/explore/classroom/explore-these-virtual-worlds-learning
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