|
\\ Home Page : Pubblications
List of articles required.
Articles of 20/03/2004
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 studentsomething 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)
 To Article  All Articles  Print
Simulation in E-learning - Part I
Simulation in E-learning Part I
Abstract:
This paper will consider the role of simulation activities in e-learning environments and then will discuss in detail models and examples of online learning services based on simulation. In the end a model simulation for e-learning courses will be proposed.
Introduction
The most relevant fact about simulations is that they allow to build both environments characterised by learning by discover and instructional learning. A simulation creates an interactive environment in which the student learns through experience and partecipate in first person to the construction of his/her own knowledge.The feedback is in real time, usually visual and auditory, and learners "see" and "hear" immediately the consequences of their actions and they can autonomously assess the correctness of their reasoning. They allow also the introduction of elements of play in learning.
Simulations bring students closer to the real experience than do simple unidirectional (teacher or courseware to student) instructional techniques. Technology is now available (and continuing to evolve) that enables designers to build simulations that are complex, visually stimulating, interactive and provide immediate feedback.
Simulations should be a central component of any e-learning strategy because they work, learning becomes faster and more effective. They can be used in virtual laboratories, where students learn by experimenting, in teaching (role-playing and if-then process simulations), and they can also be used in hands-on practice in testing or evaluating and certification
But what is a computer simulation?
Definition Of Simulation
General Definition
A simulation is a model that represents activities and interactions over time. A simulation may be fully automated (i.e., it executes without human intervention), or it may be interactive or interruptible (i.e., the user may intervene during execution). A simulation is an operating representation of selected features of real-world or hypothetical events and processes. It is conducted in accordance with known or assumed procedures and data, and with the aid of methods and equipment ranging from the simplest to the most sophisticated
The ethimology of the word simulation highilights four complementary aspects that might be present in a simulation activity:
1. If you simulate an action or feeling you pretend that you are doing it or feeling it (Role Play)
2. If you simulate an object, a substance or noise you produce something that looks or sounds like it (device simulation)
3. If you simulate a set of conditions you reproduce them in some form, for example in order to conduct an experiment (goal / task simulation)
4. In a simulation game you replicate real-life experience involving two or more players who are required to operate under clearly defined rules for the purpose of achieving a predetermined goal in a concentrated period of time. (game simulations)
Inspired by these examples, we can synthesize a better definition of a simulation: a simulation is a software package (sometimes bundled with special hardware input devices) that re-creates or simulates, albeit in a simplified manner, a complex phenomena, environment, or experience, providing the user with the opportunity for some new level of understanding. It is interactive, and usually grounded in some objective reality. A simulation is based on some underlying computational model of the phenomena, environment, or experience that it is simulating.
Simulation is sometimes confused with visualization and animation, even by authors of simulations. So by way of contrast, a data visualization application is a software package that portrays a fixed data set in graphically useful ways. A simulation is based on a computational model whose parameters can be modified (by the user, or by a random process that is built into the computational model) to generate many data sets. In the case of a data visualization application, the goal is to gain an understanding of the underlying data set; in a simulation, the goal is to gain an understanding of the model..
Also by way of contrast, an animation or a multimedia presentation, like a movie, is a software package that presents a graphical depiction that is the same every time it is viewed. A simulation generates a different depiction every time, since the parameters to the underlying model are (usually) different each time the simulation is run.
Games can be used in educational simulations. Educaitonal games involve more participation than most learning techniques. They stimulate discussion. They can be used for problem solving, evaluation, information, analysis, verbal and interpersonal skill development and conflict resolution. They allow players to see themselves and others under different conditions.
Benefits
Simulation-based learning provides benefits in five key areas:
1. Accelerated learning: Simulation can reduce the time to competency and increase the depth of competency. Studies have shown that simulation can make a student proficient at a skill four to six months earlier than those who took a training class but had no application of the knowledge.
2. Scalability: Simulations are highly scalable, which can lead to increased throughput in learning programs. Computer-based simulations allow more people to be trained in a shorter time frame than the traditional method of learning in hands-on labs.
3. "Anywhere" access: Simulations enable students to practice exercises repeatedly and from any location. This is particularly useful for skills that need to be practiced on or with equipment.
4. Lower costs: Simulation can provide significant cost savings. If test equipment is mission-critical or expensive, simulating it can be a real money saver.
5. Increased attention span: An increased attention span means an increased likelihood of the student completing the course work: Interactivity holds the learner's attention longer than unidirectional instruction. Increasing the intensity and time of the student's attention improves the quality and the retention of learning.
Applications of Simulations in the Learning Process
Simulations can be used throughout the learning process to improve teaching and learning practices.
1. Teaching: Key areas where simulations can improve teaching include supervisory skills (role-playing), customer service skills (what-if interactive models, role-playing), maintenance and repair (animation, spatial simulation, virtual reality) and certifications (hands-on practice).
2. Planning: Administrators may use the modeling forms of simulation for curriculum planning or analysis, and students may use what-if scenarios and models to evaluate the time required to complete a course of study.
3. Testing or progress evaluation: Key uses of simulations include testing, evaluation and certification. When you integrate the power of simulations into testing environments, the result is not just an alternative way of doing things; it is a fundamentally new and better way to be evaluated IT companies, such as Microsoft and Cisco, that are incorporating simulations into their computer-based exams. This robust format allows the test-taker to demonstrate the application of skills in as close to a real-world situation as one can get. The outcome is a truer measure of both skill and knowledge level.
4. Collaboration : Simulating classroom interactions (for example, using icons for each class member, employing group games) can improve the adoption of and attention to e-learning. These, in turn, improve learning as well as retention.
Classification of simulation activities
Simulations can be classified in different ways.
According to Alessi and Trollip (1985) computer simulations can be classified in
physical simulations (simulations of some physical object),
procedural simulations (here the learner must learn certain skills to operate a device),
situational simulations (in which learners play a certain role),
and process simulations (here the learner observes the development of the simulation state over time).
Hays and Singer (1989) make a further distinction between physical (the 'look and feel' of the simulation) and functional (what can be done in the simulation) fidelity.
Moving from the theoretical classifications to the real world simulations offered online, the following main categories account for the variety of functions and objectives.
Software simulations : IT/application training.
Business simulations : teaching business management skills, running mock companies, accounting practices, etc.
Situational simulations : interpersonal skills, soft skills, conversational skills, etc.
Technical simulations : simulating physical systems such as a piece of equipment, or simulating processes through diagrams, etc.
Procedural simulations : teaching step-by-step processes, etc.
Virtual worlds : teaching by re-creating environments, workplaces, etc.
These categories help us define and discuss the different products and services we found on the
market today. Most of the simulations fall into more than one category.
THEORY
The four essential ingredients of an active learning and teaching architecture are:
- Goal-based learning;
- Role Play-based learning;
- Web-based communication and collaboration, and
- Study Materials
First, goal-based learning, a form of learning by doing, is a very powerful learning strategy widely acknowledged as a strong motivator of learning. Learners learn the necessary skills as they accomplish their mission / task. WebQuests are an example of task oriented learning.
Another ingredient of this learning architecture is play - in the sense of
- playing a role
- playing with possibilities and alternative worlds
- playing and having fun for its own sake.
The strategy of learning through playing is significant, not the least is an extremely useful motivator.
The third factor of this learning architecture is the World Wide Web. It provides a virtual space for communication, information and collaboration among students, and between the students and educational facilitators in synchronous and asynchronous modes.
Finally, the fourth critical constituent is the corpus of study materials that should provide the learner with the preliminary knowledge before entering the simulation stage.
Study materials should also stimulate reflection about actions undertaken and strategies pursued by the learners during the simulation.
When is best to introduce simulation
Now, when should simulations be introduced?
Lavoie and Good (1988) suggest that a 'Piagetian' approach should be used, which implies that simulations are introduced in a first phase of learning where exploration is allowed, that concepts are formally introduced later, finally followed by concept application. This approach has been implemented in a project that has showed that the subjects receiving the simulation before the formal instruction outperformed the subjects that received the simulation after the formal instruction on a test which required to apply principles from the simulation.
On the other hand it has also been found that learners should already know something before their learning by discovery is to become fruitful. Insufficient prior knowledge might be the cause that learners do not know which hypothesis to state, can not make a good interpretation of data, and move to unsystematic experimentation behaviour.
Technology
Today, more than ever, an array of software tools, such as Macromedia Flash, are available to make the production of interactive simulation accessible to a wider audience of designers and programmers.
Traditional tools have long been able to produce simulations and have been used to do so for
many years. Authorware and Toolbook have always been robust simulation development tools.
The fact that vendors are bringing specialized niche tools to market reflects the distinct demand
for this specific type of e-Learning product.
Use of simulation environments in testing learning progress or assessing final competences.
The practice of creating problem solving simulations for assessing the level and the range of abilities reached by a student is becoming more and more the most effective method available to test and certify a range of operational skills otherwise difficult to assess.
Be it a course on Computer Technologies or on Languages for Specific Purposes, every time there is a need to test a response real-life situation simulation are the most used and efficient solution.
Traditional testing practices based on linguistic tests have several limitations:
do not consider all the possible aspects of a real-life situation;
might be passed by students that have a mere knowledge of words but not of concepts;
test linguistic competence and not other intelligences that might be essential in a real life problem setting.
Before discussing assessment through simulation any further a crucial point must be stressed:
If a learner is going to be assessed in a real-life setting, also the syllabus should have, somehow, been structured so as to include experiences of the same nature, hands-on activities similar to those that will be proposed in the final assessment session.
Even hypertext materials fail in providing a real-life learning experience. In most hypertexts the user can only choose what he/she wants to see, within the grid of links designed for him/her. And this is not very far from reading a book skipping pages /chapters and following a non-sequential order.
A more real-life simulation would allow users to modify data settings and to learn by the immediate feedback they receive as a reaction to their actions.
Now there are different kinds of simulation techniques and technologies that can be used in testing environments. The most elementary ones are sort of dumb simulations, which basically run the user through a series of images that recreate a real-life setting. They allow only a limited interaction and often only one predetermined path to the end result.
What I found more interesting are those open simulations that are dynamic in nature and are characterised by the complexity of rules and logic that make the simulation work. They very much act like the real thing.
In theory these kinds of simulation could allow testers not only to give a pass/fail report, but to judge a student's performance assessing the amount of real-world experience they have.
How to create open simulation activities? Well, one thing that we should consider is that increasing the realism of graphically rich virtual environments may not always translate to better learning. Flooding learners with too much information at one time has proved to distract the learners from the planned learning outcomes. So these simulation should filter out no relevant information and focus on the processes to be tested / acquired.
Linguistic Simulation
There can be different levels of simulations that can be achieved in a learning environment. Problem Based Learning approaches are just the first level in a continuum that goes from basically linguistic scenarios to real enactments of the target situation.
Linguistic simulations present learners with realistic decisions. Because of their linking to skills required in the real world, they are reported to produce learning improvements ranging from a low of 50% to a high of 190% or more.
What makes simulation-like questions different from other types of questions?
Each question of the set
presents a brief realistic scenario;
highlights one or more key learning points;
outlines cause-and-effect relationships;
asks the learner to respond in a way that he or she understands the key learning point.
Full-blown simulations, that mirror on-the-job decision-making situations, have the advantage in being able to use sound and visuals to convey the background context, can provide realistic feedback and multiple scenarios covering the same learning points.
Roberto Cuccu
End of Part I
In Part II we'll analise some online cases
To Article All Articles Print
20/03/2004
Nessuna fotografia trovata.
|
