The Development of a User-Friendly Authoring Tool (OPAL) used by Teachers and Students in Schools to Create User-Generated

Contexts for Learning in a Virtual World Setting

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Kevin Burden (The University of Hull)

David Burden (Daden Ltd)

Christopher Bonfield (KTP Associate, Academy360, Sunderland)

31/10/11

Academy360, Sunderland‘Re-thinking the art of learning’

Problems associated with Immersive World Environments in School Contexts

• Access issues in school – LA filters

• Suitability of some environments for young people

• Difficulty in constructing environments which are bespoke

• Unstructured nature of activity and learning

31/10/11

Solutions

• Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) with the University of Hull

• Partnership between Daden Ltd and Academy360 to develop an authoring tool

31/10/11

Research questions:

Why Immersive 3-D learning in schools?

What has restricted Immersive learning in schools

What learning gains can we anticipate in schools?

OPAL Principles:

Based on Daden's PIVOTE system

The Goal: Make exercise development simple!

For use by teachers and school children

Drag-Drop-Configure from a library of props and actors

The Technical Bit:

The End Result

Process of creating prototype scenarios

Beach scenario

Value of OPAL in a school setting

Summary & conclusions

CONTACT DETAILSKEVIN BURDENTHE UNIVERSITY OF HULLk.j.burden@hull.ac.uk

CHRISTOPHER BONFIELD,KTP ASSOCIATE, ACADEMEY360 SUNDERLANDTHE UNIVERSITY OF HULLc.bonfield@hull.ac.uk

DAVID BURDENMANAGING DIRECTORDADEN LTDdavid.burden@daden.co.uk