Advanced Teaching Technologies: Brave New World

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River City Project

Advanced Teaching Technologies: Brave New World

12/28/2006

By Joseph C. Panettieri

Next-Gen Teaching Tools: 5 Hot Tips

As you consider next-generation learning systems, keep this advice in mind:

Stick with completed standards. Many wireless vendors that specialize in mobile learning, for instance, are expected to promote 802.11n hardware in the first half of 2007. However, the 802.11n standard won’t be completed until 2008, which means current products may not interoperate.
Consider hardware appliances. A growing number of hardware companies sell specialized multimedia appliances. Generally speaking, appliances are less costly to manage because they are highly reliable and designed for a single purpose.
Be skeptical. Many technology consultants will likely jump on the telepresence bandwagon. However, true experts on the technology can be difficult to find. Only about 14 Cisco Systems partners, for instance, are currently trained to deploy and support telepresence.
Take a tour. Cisco, HP, Polycom, and other companies are offering telepresence studio tours across North America. Similarly, you can register and log on to many multi-user virtual environments (MUVEs) to get a feel for 3D learning environments.
Start small. Don’t forget: In the mid- 1990s, you thought the web was going to be easy! But a decade later, most universities are still struggling to organize, maintain, and protect their websites. The same trend will likely be true for MUVEs, which can grow quickly—and just as quickly become unwieldy.

Turning the Corner

Fast forward to the present, and the situation is decidedly different. For instance, the cost to manage and store rich video information, digitized lectures, and other multimedia data continues to fall rapidly. In 1997, the average large data center paid $1,136 per gigabyte of storage. Today, the price is closer to $90 per gigabyte, with some organizations paying as little as $10 per gigabyte, according to Computer Economics, a research and advisory firm specializing in strategic and financial management of information systems.

Broadband internet connections have also become more plentiful across college campuses and in homes. Roughly 62 percent of US households will have broadband links by 2010, up from 29 percent in 2005, according to technology and market research company Forrester Research. And Ed Golod, president of Revenue Accelerators, a New York-based tech consulting firm, asserts, “Rich online learning environments are finally ready to thrive because of widely available broadband, cheaper storage, and faster microprocessors.”

There is deep-seated antagonism toward games in education. Some educators feel that anything fun can’t be educational, which couldn’t be further from the truth.
—Jeff Cooper, Concordia University

Moreover, so-called Web 2.0 technologies— such as Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML)—have empowered software developers to design rich internet applications that scale to support thousands and even millions of users.

Birth of MUVEs

Those technology trends have paved the way for next-generation learning systems, particularly MUVEs such as River City, Indiana University’s Quest Atlantis 3D learning environment, the Tapped In online workplace, and Whyville.

“The benefit of educational MUVEs is that students will be more motivated to learn rather than when they are simply given a textbook to study and test from,” says Jeff Cooper, an education technology support consultant for the Tapped In HelpDesk, and adjunct professor at Concordia University (OR). “With MUVEs, learning becomes interactive and studentcentered, which is in line with the modern pedagogy of constructivism.”

Generally speaking, MUVEs are distant cousins of multi-user dungeon (MUD) games that were first written for minicomputers in the 1970s. “MUVEs are a natural progression from MUDs,” says Harvard’s Dieterle, adding, “but MUDs were mostly text-driven. Now, we’ve added graphics and sound to MUVEs. And instead of slashing and slaying a dragon, and saving a princess in a MUD, in a MUVE we show how to become a scientist.”