Third-space architecture for learning in 3D

Learning can be increasingly untethered to home, work or school spaces by means of integrative cloud services coupled with 3D worlds, and mobile, collaboratively driven use of digital “third space.” A 3-space, portable and modular design is described and demonstrated for use in administering and supporting learning in 3D. 3-space environments can be designed for enabling multi-purpose, multifunctional devices and tools for learner-centered design and collaborative social learning. The framework offered in this paper supports multiple delivery options involving offline and online access to an OpenSim platform for learning in 3D and the use of Drupal modules for administering and supporting collaborative peer-based social learning. The architecture is demonstrated in two learning in 3D prototypes: a 4-H regional youth leadership robotics project involving a collaborative model-based reasoning simulation game on geothermal energy and a lesson on the early history of the U.S. Constitution involving the Thomas Jefferson Dinner Bargain of 1790. 1.0 INTRODUCTION Visual simulation capabilities offered by 3D virtual worlds provides opportunities for interaction with models in coordinated conjoined action above text toward shareable visual mediums providing a sense of place, space, and physiological embodiment (Thomas and Brown, 2009). While 2D and 3D learning environments can provide for high levels of interactivity, 2D synchronous learning suffers not because of a lack of interactive tools but because of a lack of a sense of immersion in the activity itself (Kapp & O’Driscoll, 2010). Coordinated group action and problem solving in the use of 3D virtual simulations and models can extend across boundaries of physical and virtual worlds. Participants in virtual world spaces can be supported in the extension to physical world meetings and activities. Likewise, the flow of social groups in collaborative activities can be supported in both directions across virtual and physical spaces to better situate learning with the depth of experience that results from connections to everyday life. In this way, learning can be increasingly untethered to home, work, or school spaces by using a combination of mobile, virtual, and social networking technologies. Learning in hybrid, blended-environments of this kind have been labeled 3-space for how primary and secondary content and learning settings can be bridged across culture, schools, peer groups, homes, and communities (Gutierrez, et al., 1999; Godwin-Jones, 2005). Learning in 3D offers the means for observing and manipulating normally inaccessible objects and variables in the form of visual simulations and models operating in immersive space. Learners can make use of immersive interactive 3D simulations and models to make what is abstract and intangible concrete and manipulable to better grasp abstract concepts. Learning inquiries can take the form of “what-ifs” for studying how variable changes result in differing process dynamics and outcomes depicted by a visual simulation or model. Report Documentation Page Form Approved