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Simulation in E-learning - Part 2
Simulation in E-learning: Real case studies
Let's examine some different software packages that attempt to design an efficient environment for learning through the use of simulations.
Name: GenScope
Area: Genetics
GenScope is an example of an educational simulation designed for middle and high school students in the area of genetics. GenScope provides the student with an interactive environment in which the relationships between chromosomes, genes, and observable traits can be both explored and tinkered with. The student is offered several different views of the same information. By gently moving from the idealized view to the real view, the student can gradually grow from a simple understanding of basic concepts to the application of those concepts in the messy and complex real world.
With a well-designed curriculum and by turning on or off various GenScope features, complications of real genetics can be gradually introduced to the student—something that can not be done so easily in real life.
Name: ActivChemistry
Area: Chemistry
ActivChemistry is an educational simulation that is a construction kit in the area of chemistry. It provides the student with a fixed set of parts (bunsen burners, chemicals of just about any composition, and a wide variety of meters and gauges, among many others). The student can combine these pieces in various ways to perform experiments, gather and graph data, learn about new concepts in interactive and dynamic lessons, or take interactive, dynamic exams that test not just the retention of facts, but the understanding of processes.
While ActivChemistry students cannot add new parts, they can combine those parts in many different ways. Students can interact with the simulation as they dispense different chemicals, measure different reactions, “wire up” different meters, and cause unique outcomes every time they conduct an experiment. The unpredictability (to the student) of ActivChemistry includes these measurements (pH, temperature, reactant concentration, pressure and volume of a gas, etc.) as well as the reaction products.
Name: CADSIM Plus
Area: CAD, chemical processes, Quality Control
CADSIM Plus is a fully self-contained process simulation platform which allows the user to quickly draw a process flowsheet drawing - and create a process simulation - all at the same time. It is a single tool that can both balance flowsheets and portray dynamic conditions. CADSIM Plus performs precise heat and material balances of any chemical process. It can be used for design, to find solutions for process bottlenecks, to track potential quality control problems, to refine process waste management strategies, to improve process efficiencies, to train operators. Name: Expert Role Players
Area: Social Skills, Customer service, Sales,etc.
Expert Role Players allow learners to develop and practice the "people skills" required for tasks like customer service and sales. For example, a customer service agent can practice by interacting with simulated customers. Conventional simulations expect the user to perform a role-play by navigating through a set of pre-determined menu choices. In contrast, Expert Role Players allow learners to interact in natural conversation. Expert Role Players improvise their behavior, responding and acting in a variable way, like real people. This offers a more authentic role-play experience in which learners must think about the situation "on their feet", in real-time, and create their own dialogue moves. Some features of these animated characters are:
• They interact with you like people using gestures and speech.
• Mixed-Initiative Dialogue: the learner or the role-play partner can take the lead
• Built-in variability and emotional dynamics
• They use natural language conversation to engage the user, listen, interact, and offer helpful advice and guidance.
Extempo provides the technology and tools for building three kinds of Expert Characters:
• Expert Adaptive Coaches, they can work with a variety of training material, exercises, quizzes, and simulations. Coaches use available assessment tools to monitor each learner's progress against objectives and make individualized recommendations for ongoing study and practice.
• Expert Guides help the user review any kind of corporate training content. They do this by steering the user through a customizable path of training content, providing personal support, and offering advice when asked. Answers ad-hoc questions about the training material. Hosts Q&A style quizzes. Provides progress report and detailed feedback.
• Expert Role-Players improvise their behavior, responding and acting in a variable way, like real people. They offer authentic practice through improvised role-playing and natural conversations.
Name:InfoMagic Explorer
Area: Network Simulations
The InfoMagic Explorer series combines a variety of media -- images, sound and text -- in order replicate the experience of signing on to a network and performing typical electronic tasks such as sending and receiving e-mail, searching online databases and navigating the Web.
This was done by taking "screen shots" of actual online sessions imported into Macromedia Director files where they were joined together with "hyperlinks" and coded to respond to user keystrokes or mouse actions -- the same key and mouse actions that users would execute in a real online session. A narrator's voice was added to guide users through typical navigation routines. Explorer programs are, by necessity, linear. In order to insure that each student finishes all of the mini-tutorials, they are guided through the program in a linear fashion, sometimes allowed to repeat -- but never to skip -- all of the units.
Name: eDrama
Area: Emotional learning / People skills
eDrama builds simulations of conversations with emotional people for the purpose of training in people skills. Its programs are people-skills "flight simulators" which are cognitively and emotionally realistic yet which do not hurt either the learner or the person they are working with.
eDrama Front Desk, requires learners to act as a hotel front desk clerk and perform face-to-face guest service. They must simultaneously deal with a face-to-face guest and a telephone guest.
The learner logs on, begins his or her "shift" and is greeted by a guest. The learner "talks" to guests by typing what he or she wants to say. The guest then responds with words or action, and a new facial expression. There are no multiple-choice questions
Simulation Interface Design
The educational interface of a simulation software can be constituted by a set of elements that can be of input, output and background types.
Input elements are for parameter alteration, or model interaction, and include editors, slots, potentiometers and spin buttons.
Output elements are for model behaviour representation. They can be editors, meters, tables, graphs and animated views.
Background elements are for giving credibility to a model and include pictures and icons. Let us analyse the interface of some simulation applications.
Tanro Break-Even Analysis
The interface is divided in 5 sections, with a navigation menu at the bottom.
The top section is for Production and Marketing decisions. It includes some sliders for grading initial factors such as Outsorcing dependencies and three blank slots in which fill in the initial assets in dollars: Marketing Investment , Pricing and Projected demand .
The section below is for the Break-even formula , and it contains three pull down menus with possible components of the formula.
On the top right side there is a section for the Key Performance indicators that requires to be filled in.
In the left bottom section there is a list of Elements for the Cost Classification (Physical plant, Raw Materials, etc) in which the user has to complete with the amount of money he /she thinks more appropriate.
On the bottom right side there is a break-even graph that will display the result of the choices made by the user.
On the bottom row there are some resources that allow to interacte with some experts (the CFO, the marketing and the manufacturing directors ) There is also a help section and a glossary .
On the overall, it's very interesting as it allows the user to predict and see in real time his/her results. This is the typical simulation in which you should have some prior knowledge before attempting to play it, due to the complexity of the financial concepts implied.
EIS Simulation
The EIS Simulation is a multimedia simulation addressing the challenge of Change Management, IT Innovation and People Management in organizations.
EIS SIMULATION INTERFACE
On the top bar there is a menu with the following options:
- Control Panel (People and Progress)
- Org. Chart - Org. Network
- Initiatives - Track Record - Insight / Issues
- Take decisions / Our strategy
On the main screen there is the campaign catchword of the software, and on the right side are graphically displayed the steps to be followed:
- First, Review our Mission
- Second, develop a good strategy
- (and as soon as you feel ready) Enter a new session
On the bottom bar there are the following links:
- Demo session
- Mission
- Score
- Print
- Quit
- Enter Simulation
The Mission is to change the way information is communicated, shared and used within and across functional areas. Adopting an EIS will not be easy, as it will have to deal with the process of changing how people think, behave and adopt new technologies in organisations.
The challenge is to persuade the managers of a company to adopt the EIS. The HQ has given you up to 6 months for this project. During this time, you will be able to:
- Gather information about the management team of the company,
- Implement different changes management intitiatives,
- Continuously monitor your progress in helping the members of the management team to move through the phases of Awareness, interest, trial and finally Adoption of your innovation.
Each time you implement an initiative, you will receive feedback about the impact of your decision
immediately. The objective is to get as many adopters as possible in the shortest time.
Each initiatives will take a certain period of time. For example, if you a sk the editor of the internal magazine to include a short article you write on the advantages that Executive Information Systems can bring to managers you will spend 3 days of your time.
WWW.Autoescuela.tv
This application is a very well-build Flash animation aimed at training and testing a driver theory knowledge. The main menu is divided into
• Training
• Car afety measures
• Driver safety measures
Let's consider one of the options available to not-registered visitors.
Correct position of the driver
There's a picture of a mannequin sitting on a car sit, driving a car.
There are four different sliders that allow the users to modify the position of the driver in a three dimensional space. After the user has played with the sliders he/she can check the most correct position of the driver. The correct position will overlap the one chosen by the user, and differences will be easily evaluated.
After having played with the position, there are a number of slides on the most common errors in the posture of the driver.
Section:
The front pannel with all the devices is shown and little animaitions give it a verosimilitude. Mouse over shows the function and name of each device.
For most parts of the car, there is only a two step presentation: a picture showing what they are, typical (avarie) causes and how to maintain them. There is a more instructional feeling.
It's particularly interesting the simulations aimed at assessing / teaching the priority rules
For each possible crossing there are three possible choices, and a simulation follows the choice of the user showing the consequence of the action.
Emotional Learning
Currently, teaching ways to deal with emotional people consists of either watching a video or role-playing in the classroom. Both methods have problems. Videos have no interaction whatsoever. Classroom role-playing can work well if the students are able to act. But this is rarely the case, and students may not take the risk of stepping into their roles in an authentic and engrossing way. Also, neither method can be immediately measured for success.
The emotions that simulated characters awake in students, during individual sessions on a computer simulation, are an intrinsic part of the task being learned. That is, the emotions occur during training in the same way and intensity as they would occur in the real world.
But the success of simulations depends on whether they do a good job replicating real workplace tasks — and in many cases, they don't.
Part of the problem is that the Web's standard interface makes it difficult to simulate human interactions. Keystrokes and mouse clicks work well for software training — after all, that's how we actually use software — but they reduce conversation to a mere caricature. How many customer service reps, in their everyday jobs, are asked to choose from a list of three or four simple replies (the typical format for most online soft-skill simulations) instead of calming irate customers in their own way?
One product that takes a different approach is eDrama Learning's eDrama Front Desk. Designed to screen and train hotel workers, the course asks learners to speak to a variety of fictional guests, each of whom has an array of quirks and problems.
The program begins when a guest approaches the front desk. After an initial comment (usually a gripe), the guest looks expectantly at the learner, who in turn is presented with … nothing. There are no multiple-choice selections or prompts for action, only a blank text box into which learners must type their response.
The program then matches that response to a list of pre-programmed possibilities and asks the learner to choose one. This prompts another comment from the guest, and the cycle continues until the conversation ends.
Model simulation
In the end of this paper an outline of a model simulation can be finally drawn.
Main features of a model simulation.
• Creates (or re-creates) a phenomena, environment, or experience . Can be either based in fantasy or reality. While many fantasy simulations are games, some educational simulations are purposely set in a fantasy environment so that the student won't confuse the simulation with reality.
• Provides an opportunity for understanding . The user should be able to learn something new.
• Interactive . Interactive “steering” of the simulation, i.e., the user's inputs must have some effect on the course of the simulation.
• Grounded . A consistent model of a theory.
• Unpredictable . Randomness, or an extreme sensitivity to user inputs.
The features of an optimal simulation can be summed up in this way:
• Puts the learner in a simulated work environment that mimics real-life work .
• Charges the learner with achieving certain goals in that environment. Tasks that the learner
• performs in the simulation are based on reusable design components , each of which is
targeted at a well-defined number of learning objectives.
• Provides the learner with the resources needed to complete the scenario (e.g., memos,
reports, simulated interviews, etc.)
Provides the learner with a reference system that supports the learning objectives.
• Provides feedback from a simulated coach or coaches. Rules-based feedback architecture is associated with each task designed component. The feedback also points to certain sections of the reference system and war stories based on knowledge gaps identified in the feedback.
• Provides opportunities for reflection after each task , wherein the task is reviewed and
suggestions are made that will further the learner's mastery of the subject matter.
Roberto Cuccu
Reference
Theory
http://www.certmag.com/issues/jul02/feature_vallejo.cfm
(virtual reality for Certification)
http://exchanges.state.gov/forum/vols/vol31/no4/p16.htm
(language simulations)
http://www.flashsim.com/pubDown/hbps/index.html
(Computer device design)
http://www.edrama.com/
White paper on "Natural Language in Conversation Simulations.”
http://www.cs.unm.edu/~raybourn/games.html
(compuer games design)
http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Tompkins-RolePlaying.html
(role-playing)
http://www.merl.com/projects/collagen/
(Natural Language experiments)
http://www.insead.fr/CALT/Encyclopedia/Education/Advances/games.html
(Simulation & Games for Education)
Simulation Sites
http://www.extempo.com/
http://www.edrama.com/
http://www.calt.insead.edu/eis/EISDemoDownload.htm
http://www.knowledgedynamics.com/demos/Breakeven/
http://www.autoescuela.tv/
Resources Listings
http://www.qarbon.com/products/viewlet/demos.html
http://ubmail.ubalt.edu/~harsham/ref/RefSim.htm#rgenRes
(Modeling & Simulation Resources)
http://www.sosresearch.org/simulationeducation/
(Simulation Education Homepage)
http://sg.comp.nus.edu.sg/
(The Internet Clearinghouse for Simulation/Gaming Resources)
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