Although Opensim has much functionality, the environment alone does not suffice as an educational platform and it has to be further customised. The majority of objects used to equip virtual worlds are available for free through the web, to use for non- commercial purposes. During the investigation of other cyber campuses, several tools that provide educational functionalities and support learning activities in virtual worlds were identified. The most common example is the Moodle and Sloodle integration (Morozov et al., 2013). Moodle12 is an open source LMS that provides functionalities
such as managing users, courses and learning material through an interactive web based environment. The deployment of Moodle caters for resource management and provides the opportunity to organise and prepare materials to support learning activities. Moodle can be partially integrated into virtual worlds using the Sloodle13 components, offering a
series of learning tools and functionalities to be ported in the virtual environment. Sloodle components establish communication with Moodle through objects in the virtual environment, allowing a number of activities to be retrieved within the virtual world. In particular, Sloodle allows to make presentations, collect feedback, complete quizzes, submit and manage assignments, link identities and other functionalities, transforming the virtual world into a dedicated virtual learning environment. Sloodle also allows to manage students who are present at the time of the activity (Afonso et al., 2009). A complete list of Sloodle tools and description of their functionality is shown on Table 4.2.
12 http://www.moodle.org 13 http://www.sloodle.org
Sloodle Tool:
Description:
Distributor A tool in which the teacher can fill with items for students to obtain such as notecards, objects and other material.
Presenter Presentation board that can be used for slideshows, video streaming and web pages viewing. Presentation slides are uploaded in Moodle and retrieved within the virtual world. Material can also be reviewed offline through Moodle.
Quiz Chair A tool to undertake quizzes in the virtual world and record the performance in Moodle. Moodle can automatically grade responses. Pile On Quiz Multi user quiz.
Prim Drop Allow students to submit assignments in the virtual world. Web
Intercom
Chatroom that merge communication as established within the virtual world to Moodle. This tool also records conversation for later reviewing.
Sloodle Toolbar
Head’s Up Display (HUD) toolbar that the users attach on the top of their viewer. This tool enhances the virtual world interface by providing a range of classroom gestures; save notes to Moodle and lists the nearby avatars.
Sloodle Toolbar Lite
A lighter version of Sloodle Toolbar, limiting functionality only to classroom gestures.
Choice tool Allows voting.
Tracker Logs and tracks interaction in the virtual world. Meta-Gloss Glossary tool.
Awards Awards system using points in scoreboard to assess students during activities.
Reg Booth Tool that checks if avatars are registered in Moodle. Access
Checker
Tool that checks if avatars are allowed to be in the classroom, restricting access if unauthorised.
Login Zone Registers avatars to Moodle as they appear in a pre-defined zone Table 4.2 - Sloodle plugins description
The deployment of Moodle and Sloodle has enabled to equip the SHU3DED with appropriate tools to facilitate online learning activities. Moodle enables the design of a series of learning activities and Sloodle allows the use of intuitive objects to retrieve them in the virtual world. The Sloodle Presenter and Registration Booth are used in the classrooms of SHU3DED to allow presentations and monitor attendance accordingly. Quiz Chairs and Pile on Quiz are used in the examination area, retrieving tests designed through Moodle. The Web Intercom is implemented to record the chat communication as achieved within the environment, and the Sloodle Toolbar Lite was used to enable classroom gestures functionality to avatars.
Technical Testing
4.3.
After the initial prototype was developed, a technical testing of the environment was conducted in two phases. The first phase comprised the use of automated client bots using pCampBot14. The pCampBot tool is a bot management framework that developers
can use to emulate users behaviour in the virtual world such as walking, running, flying, chatting etc. To test the environment, 50 bots were generated in the virtual world, and the environment performance was monitored to identify lag or other bugs. While the bots were logged in the environment and engaged in random behaviour, it was observed that the server was behaving properly, i.e. there was no lag or resources overload; indicating that it could handle users coexisting and synchronously interacting. Therefore, a technical evaluation with the involvement of real users in the second testing phase was conducted.
At the time of the second testing phase, the environment was not yet configured to allow access from remote locations. Thus, 13 Sheffield Hallam University students (8 males - 5 females) situated in a university lab room were involved. The purpose was to test system stability and identify bugs during a collaborative team building activity. Each student had a computer at his/her disposal with the Imprudence viewer preinstalled, and the technical characteristics of the computers are shown in Table 4.3. The learning outcome of this activity was for participants to learn the basic navigation, communication, object design and manipulation functionalities of the virtual world, and to put the knowledge gained in practice during a collaborative activity.
System: Description:
Operating System Microsoft Windows 7
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-4130 CPU, 3.40 GHz Installed Memory (RAM) 6.00 GB
Table 4.3 – Users computers specifications
4.3.1. Tutorial Booklet
A tutorial booklet containing all the information and instructions of the session was designed (Appendix 4.1) and administered to users, organised in four sections:
• Part 1 - Account creation: The first part of the booklet instructed participants to setup their accounts and login to the virtual world.
• Part 2 - Basic Interaction: This part explained how to navigate in the virtual world, use the local chat to communicate, change avatar clothes, use of the inventory and teleport.
• Part 3 - Object Manipulation: This part explained the basic object design and manipulation controls of Imprudence, i.e. adjust camera controls, create, position, rotate, resize, colour, change texture and duplicate a basic object.
• Part 4 - Team Building: The last part of the booklet instructed participants to mutually agree on an object design from a suggestion list and collaborate to build it. This part was issuing time restriction on the collaborative task (20 minutes). In a recent study, Perera et al. (2014) have identified that providing in-world training instructions is likely to be more effective than document based approaches. However, this paper was not yet published at the time this evaluation was conducted, but was identified after. Nevertheless, the reasons that a document based approach was used in this occasion were the following: Firstly, the sandbox area of the environment was used to conduct this activity, and it was decided to keep it empty for users to build content rather than filling it with information boards demonstrating building instructions. A second reason was to ensure that users would follow exact procedures, numbered explicitly in the booklet, instead of choosing what to learn. Lastly, it was preferred that users could refer to the booklet when needed to review particular information rather than navigating away from the activity area to look for information or instructions they could have forgotten.
4.3.2. Procedure
Prior to the interaction of participants with study materials, informed consent was sought using the form included as Appendix 4.2. Next, the tutorial booklet was administered to them. Users followed the booklet’s instructions and created their account, logged in the system and started learning the basic functionalities of the virtual world. Participants were instructed to choose from a set of predesigned avatar figures. Participants were allocated to small teams based on their physical location in the room to ensure that all communication would be facilitated through the public text chat. Participants then teleported to designated areas assigned for each team, and followed the booklet instructions on basic object design and manipulation. At the end of the tutorial, they learned how to communicate, design and manipulate basic objects. Participants were then instructed to put the knowledge gained into practice and work with their team members on a team building activity. Examples of the teams designs are shown in Figures 4.11 - 4.14.
Figure 4.12 - Example screenshots during team building activities
Figure 4.14 - Example screenshots during team building activities
Observations during this session suggest that effective collaboration was achieved within each team. Participants divided the work among them to achieve the desired result, and used the public chat for help and co-ordination. Participants also showed enthusiasm and involvement in the design process. During this initial testing, the system was behaving properly i.e. no lag, crashes, delays or bugs. The environment interactions and outcomes were performed without delays, the system was rendering all avatars, and the nearby text chat communication was working properly.
Chapter Summary
4.4.
This Chapter provided details of the design and development of SHU3DED cyber campus. The environment has been deployed in Opensim virtual world, and has a realistic look and feel, providing recognisable environments and conveying formal learning atmospheres. The cyber campus consists of a number of rooms that each provides different functionalities. To provide educational functionalities to the environment, Moodle and Sloodle components have been implemented.
An initial technical testing of the environment was conducted with the participation of 13 users through a team building activity. During the session, the performance of the environment was tested and no delays or bugs in the user interaction with the environment or communication were observed. Therefore the environment was considered stable to conduct further experiments. The next Chapter presents the results of the initial evaluation of the efficacy of SHU3DED to support online learning activities.
Chapter 5 - Initial Evaluation of
SHU3DED
Introduction
5.1.
The previous Chapter provided details of the design and development of SHU3DED cyber campus prototype. The development of this environment was crucial in this research project, in order to use it as a mean to conduct empirical investigations with. A technical testing of the environment was performed, and no problems were observed, implying that the environment was stable to proceed with further experimentation. Following the research plan as prepared in Chapter 3, the next stage in this research project dictated the evaluation of the efficacy of the prototype to support online learning activities. An experimental study was conducted (Section 5.2), initially evaluating the efficacy of SHU3DED to support online learning activities and is presented in this Chapter. However, due to some limitations of the research design of the study, an additional study was found necessary to be conducted to address these limitations, and is also presented in this Chapter (Section 5.3).
This Chapter presents the preparation, the procedures, and the results of these initial evaluation studies, together with their discussion and associated limitations.
Environment Evaluation Through a Collaborative
5.2.
Team Building Activity
The purpose of this study, as planned in Chapter 3, was to evaluate the users perceptions of presence, awareness, communication and sociability of SHU3DED through a collaborative team building activity, and details are presented in this Section.