Immersive Learning - A White Paper Presentation

Immersive Learning,
Training and Education
A White Paper
© 2013 www .daden.co.uk

Who are Daden?
 Immersive 3D learning and visualisation specialists
 Founded 2004, but experience since late 1990s
 Times Higher Education Winner 2009
 US Federal Virtual Worlds Challenge winner 2010
 Nearly 50 projects in immersive environments

What is Immersive Learning?
 Learning in a digital environment where
learner has a real sense of “being there”, of
context
 It's a subjective, not an objective, environment
 There is a wider course of action (and inaction)
open to users than in traditional eLearning
 Choices may be more complex
 It may be presented as a simulation, or a
serious game, or somewhere in-between
 You don't have to have an avatar
Through the
presentation
the blue
interstitials
provide most
of the same
case study
examples
and
additional
notes as the
sidebars in
the original
white paper.

Virtual Geology
● Combines a variety of modelling
techniques including aerial radar and
photography, photogrammetry, and
manual building from site visits
● As well as“real world” tasks, users can
also do things which are not possible in
real life, e.g. flying over the landscape,
and even bringing up a slice of geology
through the landscape.
● Implemented on PC/Web and iPad
● Whole app includes 6 sites, providing 6
nice “bite-sized” piece of learning.
● Even when used on the real landscape
the app provides students with
additional context and functionality that
can further enhance the learning
experience.
● Developed for the Open University
● Lets students go on a virtual field trip,
roaming over 100 sq km of the English
Lake District,
● Examine detailed models of rock
outcrops, and pick up specific rocks
scanned at an even higher level of
detail at particular sites of interest

Why Immersive Learning?
Lets compare the advantages and challenges of physical and
traditional eLearning, and then see the benefits that immersive
learning offers over each:

Emergency Management
● Students build a spatial awareness of
the problems of operating in a sprawling
building – they even learn short-cuts
● A high number of virtual characters
makes the place seem busy and some
tasks chaotic – just like real life
● All student actions are logged for later
analysis
● Trainers can change wording (and even
logic) from the web between each
session
● Simple scaffolding (arrows, task
markers) to ensure that student time is
used effectively
● Re-run after Superstorm Sandy to help
with lessons learnt and for validation
● Developed for the New York City's
Office of Emergency Management
● Puts students through a 4-6hr
simulation of managing a hurricane
shelter over 3-4 days of “game” time
● Over 60 student tasks
● Solo or group based

Roles and Uses
Exploring historic sites and speaking to historic personalities
Virtual geography, geology and environmental field trips, from volcanoes to
favela
STEM education – from visualising complex mathematical shapes to flying
inside the body and doing virtual experiments
Social skills, including anti-bullying and dealing with gangs, drugs and other
aspects of street culture
Vocational led courses such as health & social care, customer service & retail
NVQs etc
Vocational led courses such as nursing, medicine, paramedics, social work,
psychology
Land based courses such as civil engineering, geology, geography, history
Science based courses such as biology, molecular chemistry
Sector Specific Skills
Onboarder & Site Familiarisation
Health & Safety
Customer Care & Relationships
Inter-cultural & Language Training
Management, Leadership and Team Skills
Business Continuity & Emergencies
Area Uses
Schools
Colleges
Universities
Businesses &
Organisations

Extending Scarce Resources
● Three different experiments modelled
● Lab equipment modelled on the real
equipment in the physical lab
● The learning system guides the student
through the experiment
● Samples are correctly placed and
transferred between equipments
● To cope with large numbers each bench
was replicated multiple times
● Multi-user environment so student could
talk and help each other
● Molecular level animations ran above
each device, helping students to link
classroom theory with lab practice
● Developed for the University of
Leicester
● The University labs were heavily over-
subscribed and students were not
getting enough productive time in them
● The virtual lab lets students practice an
experiment virtually, so they can be
more effective when using the physical
lab

Does It Work? - Feedback
“Corporate training is facing major
challenges. Employees are no longer
engaging with traditional forms of training
including eLearning, finding the whole
experience ‘unexciting’ and ‘boring’.
Consequently, there is a need to make
training more engaging, relevant and ‘sticky’
because a well trained workforce impacts key
business drivers....
New models of training, more relevant to the
workforce of today and tomorrow need to be
explored. Games-based learning is one such
model.
There is empirical evidence to support its
learning effectiveness across all three
domains of learning … Serious games have
a valuable role to play … and should be
considered as an integral part of corporate
learning strategies”
- The Learnovate Centre
“The open nature lends itself
very strongly to creating a rich
and valuable decision-making
exercise.”
“It’s much better to be able to
actually perform treatments rather
than just talk about it.”
“Communicating with others
helped assess the situation and
gave me a better understanding”

STEM – Apollo 11
● Map (and terrain) is overlayed with
locations where photos were taken – and
photos can be matched to the students
position on the simulation
● Scientific equipment can be touched for
more information
● Students can stand at the bottom of the
ladder and play the “one small step”
video
● Rock sample locations can be highlighted
and detail imagery shown
● Students can walk around the site putting
all the material into context
● Lunar Module can be set to land and
take-off, so whole sequence of the
landing can be explored
● Originally developed for North Lanarkshire
Council and 40th
Anniversary of Apollo 11
● STEM engagement project
● Exploration of Tranquility Base – Apollo 11
landing site
● Students can bring up a “walk map”,
showing to scale exactly where Armstrong
and Aldrin walked

Styles & Pedagogies
Approach Key Points
Exploratory
Structured
Task
Assessment
● User moves through environment at own pace and direction
● Activates items (and learning nuggets) of interest as they go
● Ideal for a general introduction and to get students motivated and interested in
a topic
● Often followed by a more structured exercise
● Also useful when the student enters revision mode.
● Student led step by step through a learning exercise
● Minimal scope of action between (or even in) each step.
● Ensures that all the learning is covered
● Can demotivate if not well presented
● The student is given a particular task to do – but a relatively high degree of
latitude as to how they achieve it.
● Challenging to tutors to create as forced to think in a non-linear way.
● More like eDrama – with the student marshalling “props” and talking to “actors”
to achieve the task.
● Used once mastery has been gained
● “Task” type approach, but with no scaffolding so as to see how well a student
might be able to complete the task in the real world.
● Unlike much physical assessment we know that we have a completely
repeatable exercise, and a completely consistent scoring system.

Design Decisions
 Simulation vs Serious Game
 Do we use game mechanics?
 Linear vs Freeform
 How much structure/guidance we are going to provide?
 Realism vs NPIRL
 Do we reflect simple reality, or show things Not Possible in Real Life
 Avatar vs No Avatar
 Do we use avatars in all, or part, or as user choice (some users don't like them)
 2D vs 3D
 Do we use 3D for all, or mix 2D and 3D depending on what works best
 Single vs Multi-User
 Is this a single user experience, or for groups, or let the users choose?
 Synchronous vs Asynchronous
 Will the tutor (and others users) be in at the same time?

Feedback Models
● This matrix can be a useful way
of thinking about how feedback
is provided within an exercise –
and as a result where the
exercise sits on the game-
serious game- simulation
spectrum
● Games tend to have a high
degree of instant, out of context
feedback (power up bonus,
leaderboard positon etc)
● Simulations tend to focus on in-
context feedback (patient pulse
monitored by a pulsimeter) and
after exercise review

Basic & Customer Skills
● Basic Skills: First scenario focussed on
reading and number skills
● Virtual world environment overcame many
of the problems of teaching “reading” on
line, since environment was primarily
graphical
● Student completed a group task to plan and
buy things within budget for a party
● Customer Service: Second scenario had
students as shop assistants
● Tutor could trigger automated scenarios and
role play scenarios depending on student
performance. Other students could
“spectate” by CCTV or a one way mirror
● Use of avatars and “remote” spectating
overcame many problems of class-room
role-play – eg suspension of disbelief
● Developed for Learn Direct
● Two scenarios based in an English town
street
● Users accessed remotely, as a group,
with the tutor in world to help

Useful Design Models
Bybee's 5E Model
Merrill's First Principles
4 Dimensional Model
Balanced Scorecard

5E Model
Source:
Bybee
Immersive environments can help at all stages in the 5E model.
Relate to earlier Styles & Pedagogies table.

Merrill's First Principles
Source:
Merrill/Wikipedia
Immersive environments
can help at all stages in
Merrill's First Principles.
Note how the principle
stress real-world tasks,
context and problems,
which immersive
environments can provide
in a way that traditional 2D
eLearning cannot.

4 Dimensional Model
 Representation
– Fidelity: Environment,
Task, Interaction**
– Interactivity
– Immersion
 Pedagogy
– Associative
– Cognitive
– Social/Situative
– Explore/Teach/Practice/
Assess
* Based on Four Dimensional Framework, Prof. Sara de Freitas, University of Coventry, Serious Games Institute
** Prof. Bob Stone, University of Birmingham & MOD Human Factors Integration
 Learner Specifics
– Profile
– Role
– Competencies
– Experience/Attitude
– Accessibility
 Context
– Environment (eg bus)
– Access to Learning
– Support resources

Balanced Scorecard
Is everybody being satisfied?

Interpersonal Skills
● The first scenario is set in a supermaket
and look at workplace psychology
● Student is briefed by the supermarket
manager, and then speaks to the
marketing manager, a customer and a
check-out operator
● All roles are performed by bots and
driven by an open conversation system
● The second scenario is set in a
psychology practice
● In one task the student listen whilst a
client session takes place, both parties
being controlled by Discourse – similar to
a video but text can be changed and
updated at any point
● In a second task the student can talk to a
client – again the client is Discourse
controlled
● Developed for the University of West
England
● Provides two scenarios for psychology
students to use to practice and observe
techniques within a completely safe
environment
● Uses Daden's Discourse chatbot for
rich conversations and OOPAL/PIVOTE
for overall exercise management

Challenges - Technical
 Can the PCs handle the graphics? - We typically develop
for the “average” business PC, not high end game
machines
 Can the network handle the bandwidth? - Only
potentially an issue with multi-user environments, not
standalone 3D spaces, but even then it's typically only
position updates, and less with Unity3D than with SL.
 Are the firewall ports open? - Only a multi-user issue
again, but you may need to liaise with the IT department to
have them enabled, even with Unity3D.
 Can you change the desktop? - Might stop you
downloading a client, but with Unity3D we can run in the
browser

Challenges - Social
 What level of computer literacy do users have?
 What types of computers and devices will they be using –
and where?
 Are they familiar with computer game “norms” - in terms of
both behaviour and graphics?
 Will they have inflated expectations (eg from playing too
much Grand Theft Auto)
 Are they familiar with avatars – or are they hostile to them?
- we can make avatarless if so
 Will they treat it as “just a game” and not take the learning
seriously

Challenges - Learning
 Matching the experience and style to the desired learning
outcomes (see Bybee etc)
 Balancing graphical fidelity between pure eye-candy (which
can distract form learning) and too simple to engage
 Ensuring that the simulation accurately models the critical
parts of the real world task, otherwise there is a danger that
the students “learn the simulation” rather than learning the
real-world task.

Youth Citizenship
● NPCs can be aggressive towards
players – intimidating them and chasing
them out of an area – not what many
users expect
● Focus is on awareness and
interpersonal skills
● No “right answer” but provides a
valuable platform for group discussion
about the scenarios and real-life
experiences, and merits of different
responses
● Developed for the South Lanarkshire
council (on the edge of Glasgow)
● Lets young people explore local citizenship
issues such as gangs, knife crime and
racism
● All scenarios controlled via the PIVOTE
authoring tool – so can be changed via the
web interface
● Extensive use of non-player characters
(NPCs) to guide and challenge the
“players”

Costs and Cost Drivers
Area
Building
Complexity
Level of
Detail/Realism
Amount of
Interaction
Number/type of
training steps
Duration
Degrees of freedom
Complexity
Of Crowd/Traffic
Environment
(Day/Night etc)
In-world building
VLE/LMS & other
Integration
Delivery Modes
(Web, PC, iPad)
Complexity of NPCs
Sophistication of
Self-Authoring
Avatar choices
Typical range: £20k - £80k Project duration: 3 – 6 months

3D as User Interface
● Example might include a physiological
model of the human body, or a complex
electrical or hydraulic system or
chemical process model.
● This enables clients to leverage existing
investment in complex models, but
allow users to interact with them in a
whole new way
● For one client in the USA we have taken
an existing radio network simulator and
interfaced it to the immersive
environment. Students sit in virtual tents
and use accurate models of the radios,
so they get the benefits of immersion
AND the benefits of using a high grade,
high precision simulation engine.
● 3D immersive environments can
provide a highly visual, realistic and
engaging interface to sophisticated,
existing simulation systems and
engines
● The back end can take a detailed maths
based approach to how things actually
work – but the user can be provided
with the environment and equipment
interfaces with which they are familiar

Project Design - ADDIE
Conventional linear/waterfall models like ADDIE can face challenges
were the client is on their first immersive learning project and cant
really describe what they want til they're immersed in the
environment. So start simple, and then build up.

Project Design - SAM
The Successive Approximation Model is a more “agile” approach
than ADDIE, and often for suitable for initial immersive learning
projects, where clients are still learning the capabilities of the
environments

Chatbots
● We typically define 3 levels of NPC:
● Background: The people walking
down a street but who do not interact
with the learner, they just make a
place look busy
● Foreground: Characters with whom
the learner may have a brief
interaction, but not an extended
conversation
● Feature: Characters with whom the
learner will have an extended
conversation or interaction with.
● We have a sophisticated chatbot engine
that lets us model natural human
conversation in these NPCs
● Think of this in terms of appropriate levels
of fidelity, and again in terms of eDrama –
extras, walk-ons and real actors!
● “Non-player- characters” (NPCs) are
avatars that your learners see and
interact with in a learning environment,
but which are controlled by the learning
application rather than other learners,
tutors or actors.
● NPCs make a place come alive –
otherwise it can just seem live a deserted,
passive environment
● As well as playing the actor role such
NPCs can also do duty as virtual guides,
tutors and mentors.

Project Design – Typical Plan
 2-4 weeks* capture of current information, lessons and
assets
 4-8 weeks* iterative design
 8 – 12* weeks development
 1-2* weeks Daden Factory Acceptance Test and refinement
 2-4* weeks client User Acceptance Test and refinement
 Delivery
 Implementation/Pilot course
 Assessment and further refinement
 Roll-out
* elapsed not effort times

Alternate Interfaces
● The 3D environments are also
compatible with virtual reality headsets
such as Oculus Rift.
● We can also support Augmented reality
systems when you want to overlay real
and virtual worlds
● In all cases the only major changes we
typically need to make are to optimise
the user interface for the new platform
● Developing on standard platforms such
as Unity3D makes it easy to deploy
immersive learning exercises onto
tablets and larger smartphones
● We can produce iOS and Android
versions, and even Windows 8.
● We can also use alternate controllers,
such as motion/movement sensors

Daden's Trainingscapes
 User logon
 Multi-user (optional), inc. text chat, avatar
visibility
 First or third-person (avatar) navigation
 Click to focus navigation
 Avatar selection (optional)
 Simple scoring
 Simple countdown timing
 Tutorial
 Help
 Logging and audit
 2D management application (web or PC)
to control: Accounts, Users and 2D
content
 PC download or browser based
CORE FUNCTIONALITY CUSTOM FUNCTIONALITY
 3D environment to suit subject and at
appropriate level of detail
 Training tasks developed to your
pedagogy and specification
 Avatar and avatarless scenes
 2D, 2.5D and 3D scenes
 Role specific avatars (optional)
 In-world building (optional)
 Exercise authoring (in-world or 2D
app)
 VLE/LMS integration (also SCORM
and Tin-Can API)
 Closed and open user groups for
multiple users
 Student registration validation
 Tablet versions

White Paper
The full white-paper is
available for download:
http://www.daden.co.uk/
new-immersive-
environments-for-
learning-education-and-
training-white-paper/

Web: www.daden.co.uk
Email: info@daden.co.uk
Video: www.daden.co.uk/vimeo
Twitter: @dadenlimited

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