Is 2010 the year of mainstream immersive online learning?
February 11th, 2010 by Tim Greenhalgh
Is this the year when immersive online learning goes mainstream? I think it might be.
Surveys, like the one just launched by Richard MacManus, editor of ReadWriteWeb will help by giving us a clearer picture of what kids want from their web time.
Richard is asking parents to sit with their kids and complete the quick survey. Out of that, we could spark a whole load of new ideas from bright young minds around how they want their fun and engagement delivered. There should also be strong indicators of how they’re learning through games.
Just to say, before going on, that this post was sparked by conversations with a client, MOOFU, that works in the 3D learning and planning space. Disclosure done!
The MD, Nick Palfrey and me (among many others!) both think that 2010 could see widespread adoption of games-based environments for collaboration, exploration and user-led learning. We’ve seen in the past three months particularly, a growing noise in the area of “learning as fun”.
This week, Flickr founder Stewart Butterfield announced he’s going back to his games roots with a multiplayer online game, Glitch. The BBC then reported that 13.3 million people in the UK regularly play casual games and spend around £280 million a year on that – according to data from the UK National Gamers Survey.
Glitch - massively multiplayer online game due Autumn 2010
It’s more common currency now that the idea of gamers as young, slightly asocial males is way too narrow to use in any useful analysis of game demographics. Mega-popular sites, like the girl-gamer Thumb Banditscontinue to demolish the view of games as man-terrain.
As games culture helps to shape the way people of all ages engage online, the acceptance of games-based learning as a lifelong tool will become generalised. We can look to the US for a lead here. UGM Social Media recently had a blog post showing how immersive learning is taking off, albeit schools-focused for now.
At the Quest2Learn school in New York City (funded by the Bill and Amanda Gates Foundation, among others) learners use a range of social technologies, from video games to social networking, to solve hypothetical problems.
Away from the digital elites, the Federation of American Scientists has developed a first-person shooter-inspired cellular biology curriculum. With Immune Attack, Young gamers explore the fully-interactive 3D world of an ill patient and assist the immune system in fighting back a bacterial infection.
Immune Attack - learning chemistry through immersive game
Dr. Melanie Ann Stegman evaluated the educational impacts of the game: “The amount of detail about proteins, chemical signals and gene regulation that these 15-year-olds were devouring was amazing. Their questions were insightful. I felt like I was having a discussion with scientist colleagues.”
As the Building Schools for the Future initiative matures, I’m sure that 3D immersive learning will need to be one the main elements, enabling communities to engage in virtual learning spaces that mirror the physical education environments and … pause for breath… make learning like, fun.
The UGM blog says that games-learning technologies are “on the cusp of freeing education from its 2D textbook prison” – and we can add that these socially inclusive tech innovations will free the learner from the physical boundaries of educations buildings. Exciting times indeed!
Tags: Federation of American Scientists, games, Gates Foundation, Glitch game, Immune Attack, learning, MOOFU, Quest2Learn school, Richard MacManus, Stewart Butterfield
