College of North West London: A Second Life project - technology-enhanced plumbing and heating curriculum

An Excellence Gateway case study

Published: 21 July 2008

This case study was produced by JISC RSC (Regional Support Centres) London on behalf of the Excellence Gateway.

Sector relevance: FE colleges, Sixth Form colleges, specialist colleges, adult and community learning, work-based learning, offender learning

Keywords: Improving teaching and learning, improving responsiveness to learners, multi-user virtual environment (MUVE), virtual learning environment (VLE), improving retention, raising achievement, simulated environments, collaborative learning, gas and plumbing NVQ

Summary

The College of North West London (CNWL) is taking a serious look at Second Life (SL) to see what this multi-user virtual environment can offer to its plumbing and heating students. The College is responding to a growing interest in online learning and together with partners has been working for over two and a half years at delivering part of its gas and plumbing NVQ training environment. CNWL has found that learners engage well with these simulated settings and is looking to enhance their experience in the more ‘social’ and potentially collaborative environment of Second Life.

About College of North West London

The College of North West London is a college of further education offering a wide range of full-time and part-time courses, from beginner to degree level. It has 14,000 students enrolled seeking to progress their career and life goals.

The College tries to make courses as flexible as possible by offering different modes of attendance. Some courses offer completely flexible enrolment and study at a time to suit the learner. Online learning is expected to make an increasing contribution to flexible delivery.

The challenge

CNWL is looking to support their learners, especially adult students balancing work and domestic commitments with study, by giving access to learning 24/7 and off-campus. There are also drivers to reduce the overall cost of delivery whilst improving retention and achievement.

The remit for exploring and overseeing the development of a multi-user virtual environment (MUVE) rests with a management group including IT specialists, the ILT Manager, learning resources staff and other cross-college representation.

Construction was identified as a curriculum area that could benefit from these visual and simulated environments to enhance teaching and learning. For example, providing practical experience for surveying students in an inner city college can be problematic; there is little open space to effectively use equipment such as theodolites, and light and weather conditions can be restrictive. Could a virtual world provide access to a ‘brownfield’ site to enable some virtual practice in surveying methods?

Plumbing and heating is another area where learning could be enhanced in a simulated virtual environment and CNWL has over two years’ experience using a commercially-produced bespoke package to enable students to view aspects of a plumbing system in a typical dwelling.

Can a multi-user virtual environment, such as Second Life, offer any advantages over these more traditional packages in terms of:

• learning experience;
• cost and ease of creating new or modified environments; and
• support issues?

The activity

CNWL purchased an island in Second Life in January 2008 and has trialled it for educational use with limited numbers of staff and students, whilst gradually developing its built environment and a number of interactive and collaborative tools. Buildings are created to look familiar and provide ease of access.

The island can accommodate two classes of 18 users at any one time and has an interactive whiteboard facility, and embedded voice and polling tools.

On their first arrival on the island, visitors/students are invited to complete a survey. For registered students this will trigger a notification to their tutor. Responses to content-based quizzes, for example a health and safety quiz related to construction, can also be emailed directly to tutors for example.

Working with Martin Biron (SL avatar: MJB Hax) the Project Leader and senior lecturer in plumbing and heating at CNWL, Mike Spencer (SL avatar: Nomasha Syaka) was commissioned to build a bespoke, domestic central heating system for the island, with interactive controls including thermostat, thermostatic radiator valves, immersion heater, hot water storage cylinder, programmer, etc. Hot and cold water flows are represented visually by colour and directional arrows. This installation is currently in place and undergoing testing.

Image 1: Central heating system on the Second Life virtual environment

Image 2: Hot and cold water flows on the Second Life virtual environment

Image 3: Thermostat on the Second Life virtual environment

Content is delivered in various text formats such as PowerPoint – with the potential for virtual groups to collaborate in real time. The island offers a social model of learning with a strong, virtual presence beyond that of a conventional college-based virtual learning environment (VLE). However, it is being implemented as one of a wider range of online tools, resources and environments, including the college VLE (Moodle) and links to the College and external websites.

The outcomes

The development of the central heating system (CHS) provides a specific context against which to evaluate the educational use of Second Life.

Potential benefits already identified include the ability for learners to repeat processes in a simulated and safe environment. For example, the virtual environment enables simulated faultfinding in gas installations without the health and safety implications.

Simulated environments are not new, but the ability for students to have an identity within the environment along with their peers is offering new collaborative opportunities.

Unlike the earlier learning package used in this curriculum – it is possible to continue to adapt the learning opportunities on the island, for example, the configuration of the central heating system.

Hosting on their own server is also giving the College more control over this dynamic environment.

Students have ,strong>access to embedded sound and video, chat and voice communications.

They can engage with interactive models, such as a working gas meter that tests students’ ability to calculate gas rates for different appliances, take surveys and quizzes, read text and follow hyperlinks to industry relevant websites – and they can do this within their learning group from off campus.

The impact

More conventional, but nevertheless state of the art, bespoke virtual training products have seen achievement rates soar in the Part L Certificate in Energy Efficiency for Domestic Heating increase from approximately 50% (conventional study mode) to over 90% (conventional study blended with immersive virtual learning). This dramatic increase in achievement is attributed to the quality of training resources and ‘time-shift’, the learner benefiting from immersive self-study at a time to suit their needs

Second Life is comparing favourably to earlier simulated environments or VLEs:

• easier and cheaper to procure buildings/the environment
• easier to adapt and modify environments in Second Life
• open source (Open Sim) can be hosted on college servers and maintained as a ‘private’ island with access via a college login – especially relevant for younger learners
• compatible with Mac, Windows and Unix
• extensive user-community support available.

But some issues to consider:

• accessibility
• compatibility of user machines off campus – requirement for broadband and suitable graphics cards
• project management and SMT support.

Supporting files

• Watch a clip of radiators being switched on, taken from CNWL’s island on Second Life.
• Watch a clip of radiators being switched off, taken from CNWL’s island on Second Life.

Useful links

• CNWL island in Second Life
• British Gas Training website
• Virtual Gas Training website
• For more information about this case study, email the JISC Regional Support Centre for London.

Disclaimer: The Regional Support Centres (RSC) and the Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS) support the development of educational e-learning. In the case study, we may refer to specific products, processes or services by trade name, trademark, manufacturer or otherwise, or link to websites or supporting material. Such references are not endorsements or recommendations and should not be used for product endorsement purposes.