Ola Jachtorowicz

In Week 10 of T127: Teaching and Learning Lab Practicum, we focused on media development. Prof. Bill Wisser emphasized that as learning designers we are not expected to be animation or video or audio production specialists, although learning designer are often involved with scripting and directing edits to media in collaboration with SMEs and media production teams.

Instead, as learning designers we should always have pedagogical differences and development considerations front of mind as design choices. What are the affordances? What are the limitations? What are the trade-offs? What is the ROI in terms of time spent on development vs. gains in learning outcomes? What choice will center the learner?

We also discussed in class how these design choices are not just about video (although video has an outsized role in MOOCs and online learning). PDFs are a media choice. Word documents are a media choice. Slack is a media choice. Miro is a media choice. Canvas is a media choice.

I was a little disappointed that the majority of empirical research on media types focuses on engagement outcomes rather than learning outcomes, like the Guo (2014) study of the edX MOOC platform we read. I encountered the same issue when researching the efficacy of games and gamification in education for Chris Dede’s class, T511K: Transforming Education through Emerging Technologies. Engagement data is so much easier to track. When there is data on learning outcomes, it’s often inconclusive.

Viewpoint as a Design Decision

Whether to run a simulation as a learning experience is a design decision. But using Viewpoint to run a simulation is also a design decision.

Based on my personal experience developing a simulation in Viewpoint and a first pass through the participant data we collected, I can identify the following affordances and limitations of using Viewpoint:

Affordances:

• Scale (#Participants). If running a simulation for 100+ students, Viewpoint’s ability to upload a CSV of student names and emails, randomly assign roles, and then duplicate and run a limitless number of concurrent simulations is incredible. Accomplishing the same outcome with email or printed documents would be a logistical, time-consuming nightmare.
• Scale (Time). Centralizing all resources in one platform for simulations that last several days or weeks rather than being scattered across emails or print-outs is a huge advantage, not only logistically but for immersion.
• Segmenting (One of Mayer’s principles for multimedia learning). Viewpoint allows learners to pace their exploration of the roles and resources since they are organized across the platform, instead of in one continuous stream as in they would be a in a written document
• Queued content. While this can certainly be accomplished through other means (scheduling an email to be sent or passing out a hand-out with new information) the ability to precisely schedule information to be released at certain times across simulations can be very helpful.
• Private role-based experience. Queued content (such as messages) as well as role information (private beliefs) can be directed only to the intended participant. This is the mechanism we used for introducing points of tension.
• Asynchronous communication. The in-role messaging capacity allows for participants to continue the simulation during asynchronous learning time.

Limitations:

• Synchronous time. There is no real need to be in Viewpoint during synchronous time (such as our Kick-Off meeting) so announcements and notifications can be missed.
• Investment. Developing a simulation takes time and resources for development – developing one in Viewpoint takes even more. It can be overkill for small or one-time simulation.
• Extraneous cognitive load of a new platform. Everyone knows how to read a word document, there’s no learning curve to get right into the simulation content. While our evaluation instruments found that many participants found the platform intuitive and useful, some participants found it confusing to navigate. Several participants reported missing important content or not being aware it was available in the platform.
• Clunky back-end. I experienced an unresolved error where I was unable to delete certain content (although Prof. Bill Wisser’s account did not have this limitation).
• No NPCs. Communications must come from an actual person’s account in Viewpoint. In video game language, NPC = non-player character. In our scenarios, we wanted to send emails from characters that would not be an assigned role, but this is not possible in Viewpoint so the designer is either forced to make fake accounts, assign the character to a facilitator, have roles email themselves (which is confusing), or communicate the information in a different way. This limits the diversity of scenarios and queued content.
• Inflexibility. There is no way to hide features you are not using or rename elements that don’t quite suit your context.
• Reporting. There was no way to export survey data to a CSV or other downloadable format. I had to copy and paste participant responses manually.

Some of these limitations are not unique to Viewpoint but align with the challenges of using simulations in general, as outlined in the challenges section of this UNSW Sydney teaching guide for Assessing with Role Play and Simulation.

Suggestion for UMichigan Viewpoint Developers

To be fully immersive and better serve learners during synchronous time, Viewpoint should be available as a “frame” or have an an “always on top” button.

For our simulation pilot, we wanted learners to have an authentic experience by using the actual documents (Rolling Agenda – word document in OneDrive) that TLL team members use during a kick-off meeting.

From our own observations and participant responses to our evaluation instruments, once participants left Viewpoint to begin working in the Rolling Agenda (and especially when having Zoom open in the virtual simulations), they had no reason to return to Viewpoint. Many missed the “curveball” email about the faculty member’s vacation until they were prompted to re-open Viewpoint (verbally or over slack by facilitators).

If Viewpoint could have an “always on top overlay” or allow documents to be opened in a frame, learners would never miss a notification or an incoming email.