Change how we teach

"We have to change how we teach because they have changed how they learn."

Phrase coined by me, on Nov 5, 2007.

This was a result of some discussion about using Virtual Worlds as training tools. It arose after an hour+ of discussion about VW-as-training, and someone saying a few things about how kids from little up to 22 or so have their brains getting wired differently because of early and continuous exposure to computers and electronic gadgets.

Virtual Worlds are implemented as something like a computer game, a la Oblivion (see other posts for thoughts on that game), or Second Life, which you can read about in the dead-tree newspapers.

I'm thinking this is a good idea, but it will of course not be trivial to implement such training. It will grow cheaper and more powerful over time, but at the moment, it ain't. Comparison: look at the credits list of names at the back of the Oblivion game book, and look at the credits list at the end of a mid-size Hollywood movie. Those lists are comparable in terms of number of people, and if you were to compare against a big sci-fi movie, there's probably an equivalent amount of CG production work AND TIME involved. Some big games now take large teams multiple years to create, refine, test.

So I'm writing a proposal about making a virtual world example of the "new campus" for a new building/etc as a demo, with the outer edges being the roads outside campus, and including parking spaces, walkways into the buildings, the exterior and interior of the buildings, and how to get everywhere inside. You'd be able to find offices, classrooms, the auditorium, restrooms, cafeteria/food-court, etc.

An interesting variant on this time is 3D PDF. If you have Acrobat Reader 7 or 8, click HERE to see an interesting example. This does not do the interactive drive-through I want, but it's a possible way to start from the 3D CAD model. Apparently there is a tool available that will take a SketchUp drawing and make a 3D PDF from it...which would be very interesting. Personally I don't like SketchUp, I was able to bend a rectangle into a pretzel in less than 60 seconds when I first test-drove it a year ago, so I threw it out immediately. But the general approach is the right concept.

With the right kind of fly/walk-through, the relocation from the current campus to new campus (which will involve the entire org) could be a much smoother episode.

And you could imagine adapting this process into teaching a variety of other things. And that new faculty and students are going to expect it as a standard approach...best to lead rather than follow, if the effort can be undertaken at reasonable cost.

All part of the "we need to teach differently" because "they learn differently"...which basically means that chalkboard and flipcharts need to go away, even if that means the teachers have to get replaced, too.

That said, there are undoubtedly things that continue to need to be learned face-to-face, but there are probably plenty of things that don't, and can have some automation work done.

One of the exciting things about Second Life is that you the user can create your own content, kinda like the web, and can use it immediately, and others can see it immediately. If this creation process is easy enough, more folks will do it.

I haven't figured out how that fits into the new campus idea, but suppose that Hyde U instructors could also have a presence in "their office" in the model, and you could voice-chat with them (or at least IM) through the VW? Would that encourage content creation? Do classes evolve from in-person to online? Do we reach the point where in fact the school ceases to have a physical existence at all, and only a virtual one? Could the same mission be achieved? That would certainly be interesting. If everyone is represented by an avatar as opposed to a real face, do you achieve the same teaching result? Do the avatars proxy for you adequately?