Ken Hudson’s Finland Keynote: They Became What They Beheld
At the Learning in Different Worlds conference held in Lahti, Finland, my colleague and contributor to “Learning in 3D’ is presenting about virtual immersive environments and discussing different attitudes toward these environments and describing how educators can use these environments for learning.
For the next two days, you can follow the tweets at #oem2010. The conference is running in Second Life and is streaming Ken’s (and other’s) presentation and the conference is displaying a live Twitter feed…so we have technology all around.
Opening of Learning in Different Worlds Conference
Ken discussed how an avatar can impact a learner and how virtual worlds can be used to immerse learners in engaging activities. He then described that role plays have limits but virtual worlds do not. He discussed training at a Port of Entry in Canada.
Ken Hudson Describing How Virtual Worlds Can be Used for Learning
Ken described how successful the virtual training program was for training border patrol officers as a pre-training exercise and as an in-class exercises.
Border Crossing Example
He reported results of 37% increase in grades, accelerated learning and increased confidence among the learners. The directors of the training could “tell” who had done the pre-training in the virtual immersive world as opposed to those who did not.
Live broadcasting of Presentation in Second Life shown in Real Life
Ken also discussed other examples of how learning has occurred using a virtual immersive environment.
He discussed how he is creating an introduction course for skill trade in construction. Students assume different roles of a skilled trade and each time they do a different activity as a tradesperson. They build a virtual house and learn to become a worker in the skilled trades. They are using the 3D software Unity 3D.
His final thought “technologies are not simply technologies, instead technologies are cultures, when we approach our students they have a world view different than what we group up with. We need to link into the technology/culture of these learners.”
