On March 3, 2010, the Southern Illinoisian has a full page coverage on the DURIP grant and what I am doing… The write up is fairly extensive and accurate. They also interviewed Heidy Cuervo-Carruthers (one of my Ph.D. student) in the process and she talks about how Second Life could well be the next area of synthetic learning environment we look at…
CARBONDALE – A lab in Pulliam Hall contains a 72-inch television with HD and 3D capabilities, a beefed up PC and walls draped in video game posters.
Sebastian Loh, assistant professor and coordinator in the department of Curriculum and Instruction at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, received a $70,000 grant from the U.S. Army Research Office to set up a sweet gaming room on campus for research purposes. The goal of the research is to explore using a game-like virtual environment for instruction.
Loh said in the long run, this could lead to 3D instruction in fields such as medicine, where surgeons in training could practice in a 3D environment.
In the short term, the research could help teachers work with students in a virtual environment and track their progress. For example, Loh uses a modified version of the multi-player role playing games “Neverwinter Nights” and “Neverwinter Nights 2.” Loh said using the game, an in-game instructor can track a student’s progress, offer tips and see how the student adapts.
In the classroom, this could translate into a teacher seeing a student’s mistakes almost immediately and correcting them as they go along. He said another focus is “Second Life,” an online virtual world where people can interact through avatars. Heidy Cuervo-Carruthers, a doctoral student in instructional technology, is looking at using the virtual world for foreign language classes…
SIU Professor C. Sebastian Loh loads James Cameron's Avatar video game onto a 72-inch liquid plasma, high-definition, rear-projector 3-D television in the V-Lab Tuesday at Pulliam Hall. Loh was given a $70,000 grant to pay for this equipment that will allow him to develop and test real-time assessment tools, which will hopefully allow teachers to correct students.