Final Project Step 1: Immersive Learning Spaces

I had this assignment for a different class with Prof. Walsh. The article is very interesting and made me think of a lot of benefits to be had from using immersive virtual worlds for education, this is what I found... (see source at bottom)

The Library and Museums article that we found from the link in the lecture notes (http://JiED.org​) was something I found interesting! In the overview, they summarize how they are coming up with ways to use virtual worlds and other immersive technology to create a kind of virtual museum/library. I think this is a great idea for a few reasons, one being a topic that we touched on earlier in this course, that being many schools/students do not have the money to fund a field trip to go visit a real museum. Trips like that include admission fee, gas and bus costs, food and chaperoning; if the museum was virtual, students could visit museums in another way from the comfort and safety of a computer lab at their school.

Another use of this technology they touch on is the creation of virtual study places. This would be helpful to both younger students (such as the age group that would be taken to a museum; middle school, etc) because it would seem like much more fun, and the students would get more out of it instead of being forced to study/do work by themselves at home, as well as college students like myself. Collegiate level education includes many more group based projects and hectic schedules, these two things make it hard to collaborate a time to meet and do work, a virtual study place would eliminate a lot of stress in dealing with collaboration.

The members of this group are aiming to design a museum and library that have two components; a client side and a server side. This would also be beneficial because the two areas could be added to at any time, and by anyone with access to the server side. This could take collaboration on the design to a great level because people could be adding to and editing the museum without having to shut down the link on the client side. This kind of thing happens a lot in video games on platforms like Xbox 360, updates are done elsewhere and then added to the game when complete, without stopping public play.

I like this diagram when I was reading through the article. It shows how student 1 and student 2 are in different places on their computers, but the arrows (representing their individual input) show how congregation in an Immersive Education Study Room results in different forms of productivity. Eliminating a huge step (as I mentioned before) of students having to meet in person to do work or group based projects.

In conclusion, I love the idea of immersive libraries/museums. Technology like this can be used to our advantage even more so than state of the art technology because it is affordable and has a long list of pro's that greatly outweigh the con's. Things like this would help students of all different ages, anywhere in the world that has access to an internet connection. In cases dealing with younger students, virtual field trips to museums such as this could drastically reduce school budget costs, which could then be allocated to other things benefiting young students.
Source: Immersive Education Libraries and Museums Technology Working Group (LAM.TWG)