Once shunned by academics, Wikipedia is now a teaching tool used at the University of British Columbia.
In a step further into the future, Jeremy Bailenson, an assistant professor of communication at Stanford University, presents an argument for using digital avatars ( a virtual representation of yourself) as teachers.
The prevailing wisdom in teaching, as in just about every form of social interaction, is that face-to-face contact is the gold standard, trumping all forms of mediated interactions. But as virtual reality moves from games into rigorous scientific applications, it is inevitable that society will rethink the importance of physical location
Writing in the April 4, 2008. issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education. Jeremy Bailenson concludes:
"My virtual representation of me, commonly known as an avatar, can outperform me as a teacher any day. It can pay unwavering attention to every student in a class of 100 or more; show my most spectacular actions while concealing any lapse, like losing my cool; and detect the slightest movement, hint of confusion, and improvement in performance of each student simultaneously.
Most people may think of avatars as too primitive to show such details. But at Stanford University's Virtual Human Interaction Lab my colleagues and I use cutting-edge technology. We could build an avatar that looked just like you (the heads we produce look real enough that they are used in police lineups), gestured like you, even touched like you, thanks to haptic devices that relay the speed and force of hand movements. And the technology can be transmitted over a network."
Research by Benjamin S. Bloom in the 1980s and subsequent studies have demonstrated that students who receive one-on-one instruction learn at least an order of magnitude better than do students in traditional classrooms. Virtual reality makes it possible for one teacher to give one-on-one instruction to many students at the same time...[...]..A teacher's avatar has powers that just don't exist in physical space.
"Virtual reality functions in cycles -- the computer figures out what someone is doing, then redraws his or her avatar to show changes based on that behavior.
For example, as a student in Chicago moves his head, looks toward the teacher, and raises his hand, sensing technology measures those actions. As the student moves, the computer of the teacher in New York, which already has an avatar with the student's facial features and body shape, receives that information over the Internet and modifies the avatar to make it move, too. Tracking the actions of teacher and students, transmitting them online, and applying them to the respective avatars all occur seamlessly, and all the participants feel as if they are in the same virtual room, in a movie together."
See more here about Jeremy Bailenson research into how people interact psychologically with their virtual-reality representations. ie Vicarious reinforecement ....see how you and your avitar can loose weight together.
Comments