Reflecting on Our Summer Immersive Learning Event and Community of Practice Insights

Written by Punsisi Somaratne, Alyson Lewis, Mike Hackman, Bex Ferriday and Michael Willett from the Learning and Teaching Academy.

The Fun and Games Community of Practice (CoP), formed by members of the Learning and Teaching Academy (LTA), has been active for a year. The community is continually growing, with an increasing number of members disseminating a wealth of information and experiences. Currently, we are 82 members.

We’ve had three meetings, where the first session gathered staff expectations from the community, the second session delved deeper into key concepts (gamification, game-based learning, and playfulness), and concluded the year with a playdate in the University’s immersive lab at the Heath Park campus. We’ve been busy!

Virtual Reality (VR) Headset

This photograph above shows Bethan using one of the VR headsets to explore the Anne Frank (who was a diarist) scenario. We had a range of VR scenarios to choose from: e.g. visit historical landmarks or Cardiff University student residents.

Summary of our summer immersive playdate

With the support of the immersive learning team, we organised a playdate to explore the University Immersive Labs. It brought the community together to experience innovative and hands-on pedagogical practices in the immersive environment. This event featured the showcasing of Virtual Reality (VR) headsets, Gather Town (a 2D virtual world), and the Immersive Lab. One of our members said,

“I found the session really interesting, and it gave me the opportunity to try out some resources I wasn’t aware we had access to. I particularly liked the VR headset, but it was also just a good opportunity to discuss ideas with colleagues from other Schools.”

Immersive lab Experience

The scene was set in a mythical woodland with characters for and against playful learning and teaching. We tried out some of the features in the room which involved various touch screen options, for example multiple choice questions, and one of the photos below shows Alyson wiping away words after discussing some of the barriers in Higher Education (HE) around playful pedagogies.

The other photo showcases how both physical and virtual tools can be embedded into the immersive experience! For example, we used physical objects with clues to work out the code to the next step. We met three grumpy trolls with objections to fun and games in HE and then made use of the flat screen with a Xerte to try and shift their perspective to a more playful and active approach!

GatherTown (a 2D virtual world)

We explored GatherTown, a browser-based virtual world, where students can work synchronously and asynchronously on a number of tasks. GatherTown has been used in healthcare with over 500 students from a variety of healthcare disciplines including occupational therapy, nursing, midwifery, physiotherapy, and radiography. Students were tasked with working together in small groups to look at bringing about improvements to an imaginary failing health board. With no physical teaching spaces large enough to hold so many students, it was decided to use GatherTown.

YouTube videos, Padlet boards and Xerte-based activities were embedded into GatherTown, along with private group spaces (Fig 1), private study areas (Fig 3), a café with playable retro-style video games (Fig 4), an outdoor cinema (Fig 5). Additionally, a treasure hunt in GatherTown helped students find their way around the space and locate vital clues to help them with their first task – looking for evidence that the health board was in trouble.

Staff and student alike really enjoyed using GatherTown as an alternative to other online meeting spaces such as Teams as they were able to log in at times that suited them. Some even used the space as a social ‘hang out’ where they could talk about other course-related topics with their peers. Overall, even the more nervous students had fun, but importantly, they also improved their teamworking and communication skills while learning more about Quality Improvement and Interprofessional Education along the way.

 

Wishes for the future

After exploring the immersive space, we came together and thought about our future plans, hopes and desires for using the technology and then put our thoughts into a virtual wishing well (Fig 6) using Menti.

During the summer event and in the other two CoP meetings, members shared their experiences and continued conversations, as well as raised questions and shared perceptions on using playful learning in their practice. Some of the questions highlighted during our events were:

• How do we apply immersive learning to different contexts?
• What challenges do staff face when integrating playful learning, especially when students’ participation is low?
• How can we effectively utilise gamification and game-based learning in our teaching if we are new to these approaches?

To wrap up our work for this year, we would like to share the following recommendations:

• Start small and scale wisely: Always pilot on a smaller scale before moving into larger tasks. Use the fun and games CoP to pilot and try out ideas.
• Peer support and sharing: Share your practice and experiences, letting others learn from you.
• Equity and inclusion: Keep inclusive design at the heart. Consider your students’ backgrounds and ensure they feel supported enough to achieve the learning outcomes through these activities.

The above questions and recommendations have sparked conversations to help us plan for 25/26. If you’d like to contribute something big or small to our next meeting which is a Playathon taking place on 6^th November, 10-11am (online), contact Alyson (lewisa81@cardiff.ac.uk) or Punsisi (somaratner@cardiff.ac.uk) with your interests. Let’s be playful together!