EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative Spring 2007 Focus Session

Preregistration (online, phone, fax, e-mail, etc.) for the ELI March Focus Session is closed. Please contact Member Services at (303) 449-4430 or conf@educause.edu if you need to cancel your registration.

If you are interested in how online games, virtual worlds, and simulations can engage, motivate, and captivate today’s learners, join us for ELI’s Spring Focus Session, March 27–28, 2007, in Raleigh, North Carolina. The session will bring together IT professionals, faculty, administrators, and learning technologists to explore immersive learning environments (ILEs) and how they fit in the teaching and learning landscape. We will focus on:

• The effective pedagogical uses of ILEs and their impact on learner engagement  
• The interactive capabilities of ILEs that encourage the development of creative thinking and problem-solving skills through direct engagement
• Implementation issues, such as design challenges, technical constraints, curriculum integration, and faculty development

Is This Event for You?

If you are interested in adopting or expanding the use of immersive learning environments at your institution but have little expertise with them, you will find the focus session a valuable experience. The event has been designed for:

• Information technology professionals
• Faculty
• Administrators
• Learning technologists
• Others functioning in related roles, depending on institutional context

We encourage you to attend as a team. Some institutions send a team to focus on an upcoming project; others use meeting attendance to reward innovators or to build cross-disciplinary collaboration. By sharing a common experience and being able to reflect on the implications for their own campuses, team members find that the travel to and from the meeting, on-site discussions, and on-campus follow-up builds rapport, solidifies plans, and enriches collaboration. ELI member institutions may wish to use their multiple complimentary registrations for this purpose.

Outcomes

As a result of the focus session, you should expect to:           

• Acquire a deeper understanding of ILEs, their effective pedagogical uses, and their potential impact on student learning.
• Explore different types of ILEs and their applicability to their institutional contexts.
• Identify implementation issues and methodologies associated with integrating ILEs into the curriculum.
• Engage in dialogue with a community of professionals focused on the topic.

Context

Online games, virtual worlds, and simulations can engage, motivate, and captivate. Educators are applying learning principles to these genres, creating immersive learning environments that have the potential to transform learning while appealing to a generation that moves effortlessly between the physical and the virtual, the real and the imaginary. Yet, as appealing as immersive learning environments might seem, questions abound. How are they created? Do they work? How do they change the nature of a course? What does it take to support them? Who will adopt them?

ILEs are technology-enabled, providing rich, sensory experiences, authentic contexts, activities, and opportunities for reflection that encourage skill development and knowledge integration. These environments include, but are not limited to, games, simulations, virtual reality, and data visualization.

This session will focus on the ways immersive learning environments support learning, with specific emphasis on pedagogy, learner engagement, and integration into the curriculum. Principles that underlie the session include:

• Development and use of ILEs encourages student engagement and the development of the complex, integrative skills needed in the 21st century.
• ILEs require new ways of thinking about courses, pedagogy, assessment, and what it means to “teach” and “learn.”
• Adoption of ILEs hinges on strategic investments in the design of physical and virtual learning spaces, technical infrastructures, and faculty development.

Meeting Preparation

Participants will be asked to complete readings and a premeeting survey in preparation for the focus session.