Virtual Training Gets Real!
Immersive simulated environments for experiential learning are growing in popularity and will play a key role in tomorrow’s technologies for adult training. The major challenge is to effectively align the learning experience in the virtual environment with the ‘real-world’ context and ‘day-to-day’ job practice.
ImREAL provides a new class of cost effective adaptive systems adjusted to adult learners' needs:
- pioneering a new psychologically and instructionally sound technological approach to seamlessly link the simulated learning experience and ‘real-world’ job-related experiences ;
- developing a novel conceptual framework - augmented simulated experiential learning - where innovative adaptive services extend virtual environments by making a connection with the ‘real-world’; and,
- delivering a new open framework of intelligent services which can be plugged into virtual environments to enhance self-regulated learning.
The ImREAL framework exploits and significantly extends advances in distributed architectures, context modelling, dialogic systems, semantic web, and ontological reasoning, and follows pedagogical models of adult self-regulated learning to deliver:
- an evolving model of ‘real-world’ job activities, linked to storytelling and semantic content augmentation;
- an extended model of the learner and context, aligning experiences in the simulated environment and the ‘real-world’; and,
- affective meta-cognitive scaffolding to motivate and engage learners and promote self-reflection, self-evaluation and self-awareness.
In order to validate the conceptual framework, and examine the instructional value of the new technological solutions, ImREAL will implement an adaptive services demonstrator which will be trialled in a representative domain with high societal and economical importance:
Interpersonal Communication focusing on Multi-cultural Awareness.
User trials will examine how ImREAL improves the learners’ and trainers’ experiences. Specifically, learners can improve their interpersonal skills and abilities in order to set learning strategies and goals, while trainers can become aware of ‘real-world’ job practice and training needs.
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Current practice. The trainers provide content to create sequences of simulated situations. The learners practice job activities in the simulated situations. Simulated context represents some activity aspects but does not capture the range of aspects the same activity can have in real life. For instance, conducting a job interview - the simulated context may represent the actors involved, the information about the other person gathered, and key interviewing skills mastered. However, in the real world, the same activity has an abundance of other factors lacking in the simulated context, e.g. a whole spectrum of interviewee emotions or cultural backgrounds or the interviewer’s previous experience. |
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The ImREAL vision. The ImREAL services will provide ‘middleware’ to connect reality and simulated environments. Learners can tell stories about real world job experiences or add semantic tags to existing stories to connect to a gradually evolving real world activity model. In addition to practice with simulated situations, learners can make connection to real job experience in an interactive open learner model which helps them become aware what they are good at, or need to improve. An affective ‘coach/mentor’ will offer positive encouragement and feedback, help learners identify alternative techniques, and encourage them to reflect on their experiences in the simulated environment and relate this experience to real world job experience. Trainers can also contribute content or add semantic tags, or can provide feedback to tune the environment. |
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| Current practice. The trainers provide content to create sequences of simulated situations. The learners practice job activities in the simulated situations. Simulated context represents some activity aspects but does not capture the range of aspects the same activity can have in real life. For instance, conducting a job interview - the simulated context may represent the actors involved, the information about the other person gathered, and key interviewing skills mastered. However, in the real world, the same activity has an abundance of other factors lacking in the simulated context, e.g. a whole spectrum of interviewee emotions or cultural backgrounds or the interviewer’s previous experience. |
