Computing Research Methodologies Propsal

Title

The Chaotic Laboratory – Can a virtual world inform real world learning?

Aims

To create a facility in Second Life to test the idea that interactive simulation can be used to improve health and safety awareness for trainee science teachers.

Research

Articles supporting the concept of using Virtual worlds to teach skills in the real world:

Bainbridge, W.S., 2007. The Scientific Research Potential of Virtual Worlds. Science, Vol. 317, No. 5837, pp. 472-476.

Billinghurst, M. and Dünser, A., 2012. Augmented Reality in the Classroom. Computer, Vol. 45, No. 7, pp. 56-63.

Borrows, P., 2006. Health and safety in science education. In Wood-Robinson, V., (Ed.) ASE Guide to Secondary Science Education. Hatfield: Association for Science Education.

Open University, 2008. Researching Learning in Virtual Environments - ReLIVE08, [Online] Available at: http://www.open.ac.uk/relive08/ [Accessed 1 July 2012].

An Existing example:

London Metropolitan University, Clipper Logistics Group Ltd, The Chartered Institute Transport and Logistics (UK) and Anglia Ruskin University, 2011. The 3D Warehouse. [Online] Available at: http://learning.londonmet.ac.uk/epacks/clipper/website/ [Accessed 27 June 2012].

Main development environment resource:

Linden, 2012, Second Life software, Linden Research Inc., [Online] Available at: http://lindenlabs.com [Accessed 26 June 2012].

Methodology

Build a virtual laboratory to simulate real world incidents. (Construction)

Record and control interaction from participants. (Observational)

Evaluate with testers and questionnaire. (Hermeneutic / Empirical analysis)

Evaluation

Personal view from education dept expert. (phenomenological)

Heuristic usability test. (Empirical)

Testing with cohort of trainee science teachers and questionnaire. (Quantitative data for qualitative research)

Deadlines

(deliverable deadline, based on semesters)

Requirements capture from expert from education dept. (wk 1)

Outline design and story board for key training events (wk 4)

Implementation of laboratory in second life (wk10)

Implementation of HTTP web site (sem 2 wk 2)

Initial Testing (sem 2 wk 4), final testing (sem2 wk 6),

First draft of write up (sem2 wk9)

Resources

Second Life account, MySQL / PHP web server.

Open Sim server. Survey Monkey questionnaire account.

Benefits / Rationale /

Improve / supplement teacher training without increasing the demands on limited facilities.

Risk Factors

Ethics approval for testing, getting sufficient test subjects willing to participate, time and skills to build resources, rely on external hosting of test system (i.e. Second Life may go offline or change radically). Data protection issues for subject data (SL is in USA and needs to know who owns which avatar).