Teaching and Learning in a Virtual World
Immersive virtual worlds are providing a new frontier for online learning by expanding the kinds of interaction possible online. Virtual environments are being developed specifically for education while some innovative schools and colleges are experimenting with the educational applications of existing commercial virtual worlds like World of Warcraft. The following describes the experiences of faculty members integrating a commercial gaming world into a community college literature course.
Dona Cady, David Kalivas, Don Margulis and Matthew Olson
Middlesex Community College
In the spring of 2007, at Middlesex Community College in Bedford, Massachusetts, we undertook a radical experiment to use an online gaming world to enhance teaching and learning in a fantasy and science fiction literature class. Working from an established framework for technological innovation, this cutting edge project using new popular online environments has great potential to the future of education and provides us with pragmatic and technical guidelines. For information on our Model for Effective Learning Environments, see "Creating a Community of Practice to Support Technological Innovation in Instruction," (Cady, Kalivas, Margulis, & Olson) Community College Journal Oct/Nov 2006 at http://www.middlesex.mass.edu/PeoplePages/olsonm/CCJournal_Nov06.pdf
O Brave New World That Has Such People in It
For this project our goal was to extend the learning environment into the virtual realm many of our students are so familiar with (i.e. Second Life and EverQuest). In our case we selected the wildly popular World of Warcaft (WoW) online game. Put simply, WoW, a massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) is a virtual worldwide community of over nine million people, all interacting in a virtual fantasy world, all playing a game in which they set aside true identities and take on the roles of fantastic creatures and mythic heroes. While many in academia view these games as pure escapism, the possibility of igniting interest in previously disengaged learners was too enticing to resist. For more information about Virtual Worlds, see Don Margulis' blog, Beyond the Screen at http://beyondthescreen.wordpress.com/.
The WoW Assignments
To minimize the unpredictable nature of the online world, we structured a multi-part activity based on two components: the stages of the hero's journey (as described by Joseph Campbell), and the basic elements of fiction. These assignments asked students to analyze the background mythology of the World of Warcraft, develop a character, join a guild, complete quests, and perhaps most importantly, to keep a "travelogue" of their experiences in the form of an ongoing fantasy story.
Stories within the sci-fi and fantasy genres are often distinguished by their creation of a complicated, multifaceted world with its own mythos serving as a backdrop and context for understanding plot and characters. We asked students to compare the lore of the World of Warcraft with other literature covered in the course. Next, students created characters, on the side of good or evil, choosing gender, race, class, individual appearance, and name. By making choices in the creation of characters, the class was given a new lens for character analysis. In a later assignment, students reversed character gender roles, exploring concepts of perception and point of view. In addition to engaging issues related to mythos and perception, the WoW assignments also had the class establish a guild, which enabled participants to explore the virtual community and build connections with each other during their journeys.
All's Well That Ends Well
Students spoke positively about their gaming experience and the connections it helped them make in the class. Students connected with each other and with the course material in wholly new ways. "I enjoyed the camaraderie. It gave us a chance to relate on an outside level," said one student. "It really helped me understand a lot more...get into the characters' minds... and it helped me understand the stories a lot better," said another. In fact, one student observed the game's effect on our face-to-face sessions by noting, "You could use your imagination to jump off to discussions in class."
Our experiences have provided us with three guidelines for future use:
- Students and faculty need time, dedicated space, and equipment able to run the software.
- When students "put themselves out there," care must be taken to separate private and public identities.
- Design is essential for creating "order from chaos" and may require collaboration with instructional and academic support professionals.
In this project we advanced our understanding of the potential for virtual worlds in education. Through the virtual world experience we saw students form supportive social bonds that are so necessary to their persistence and success in college. We saw students engage course material in ways we have never seen before, creating deep and meaningful learning experiences. Finally, through their virtual world interaction students supported each others' learning creating a social learning experience so lacking in many of our traditional college courses. Truly we are only at the beginning of this new educational opportunity.
Virtual World Resources
Below is a list of helpful online resources for understanding the uses of Virtual Worlds in instruction.
- Beyond The Screen: On Teaching, Learning, Technology, Games and Virtual Worlds, Don Margulis, Middlesex Community College http://beyondthescreen.wordpress.com/
- The Virtual Education Research Group (VERG) at Middlesex Community College http://www.middlesex.mass.edu/VERG
- "Learning in a Digital Age," David Carew, Vanderbilt University http://sitemason.vanderbilt.edu/vanderbiltview/articles/2007/11/01/learning-in-a-digital-age.48427
- River City Project , Chris Dede, Harvard University http://muve.gse.harvard.edu/rivercityproject/
- Games + Learning + Society , University of Wisconsin http://gameslearningsociety.org/
- "The Learning Guild: MMORPGs as Educational Environments,"
Rodney Riegle and Wesley Matejka, Illinois State University http://www.uwex.edu/disted/conference/Resource_library/proceedings/06_4095.pdf