The Circle describes how educators, game designers, and researchers should work together to design assessment based educational VR experiences. The Circle establishes purpose, and importance, to each individual role and illuminates the symbiotic relationship between the three.
Structure
The Circle’s structure relies on each role understanding what VR is, and recognizing the unique opportunity VR offers to it’s profession.
- Educators – VR offers unique assessment opportunities.
- Game Designers – VR offers unique engagement potential.
- Researchers – VR offers unique opportunities for data collection.
It’s also essential that all three roles recognize that at the center of The Circle is the user.
Process
The Circle is a contract that will remain in motion as long as each role recognizes it’s dependency on the others.
Educators + Game Designers
Educators are the content experts in The Circle. Educators will work with Game Designers to create new ways of engaging with their content. Both parties should agree that their efforts will be to augment traditional instructional methods, not to replicate or replace them. In the information age, there are many methods of acquiring knowledge but limited methods of testing knowledge.
The Educator and Game Designer partnership works best when both parties agree to peruse the development of assessment based experiences instead of instructional based experiences.
Game Designers + Researchers
Game Designers are the engagement experts in The Circle. VR, unlike any other medium, can immerse the user in the Educator’s content, free of distraction, and multitasking opportunities. Unlike Educators and Researchers, who often work with a captive audience and mandatory participation, Game Designers treat everything they design as an optional experience. This explains why the Game Designer’s main concern is engagement. Game Designers know if players are not engaged, then no one will play their game. Unfortunately, for right now, anything put in a VR headset might seem like an engaging experience because the technology is so new. This type of engagement however, will be short lived. Only well designed experiences will sustain engagement after the luster of the new technology has faded. Assessment based experiences will generate more data than instructional based experiences because the user will have free will, and the ability to make right and wrong choices.
The Game Designer and Researcher partnership works best when the assessment based VR experience captures as much relevant data as possible.
Researchers + Educators
Researchers are the data analysis experts in The Circle. Researchers will work with Educators to formulate questions about how well the VR experience assess the knowledge of its users.
The Researcher and Educator partnership works best when analysis is used to show where users struggle with content, influencing areas of focus for instruction and possible iteration on the design of VR experience.
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