Subject: [IFETS-DISCUSSION:1091] Current Discussion
From: Albert Ip (a.ip@meu.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Mon 12 Feb 2001 - 22:47:59 MET
From: "Albert Ip" <a.ip@meu.unimelb.edu.au> Subject: [IFETS-DISCUSSION:1091] Current Discussion Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001 08:47:59 +1100
Hi,
I hear silence in relation to the current discussion. Guess everybody is
very busy. :-)
Let me just press on and look forward to some brave soul's response.
One of the driving force of creating the generator is recognising the
limitation of using email or conference system in creating a simulated
social structure. For example, again using political science as an example,
the cabinet meeting of a country should not be open to other roles not
belonging to the cabinet. Hence I needed a system which integrate several
conferences each with different access rights in order to simulation this
situation. At the end, I finished with a conference system more complicated
than usual. :-)
The questions I may invite comment here are:
Have anyone faced a similar limitation? What was your solution?
In a structured role play, simulated social structure is artificial in the
sense that the power in the real world is built by some "real process" (e.g.
personality) whereas in the simulated world, this is by design. Has anyone
have experience in this area and can give us a hint of what happened and how
you have approached the problem?
cheers
Albert
P.S. Lurking is silver, but participating is golden.....
----- Original Message -----
From: "Albert Ip" <a.ip@meu.unimelb.edu.au>
To: <ifets-discussion@catfish.valdosta.edu>
Sent: Friday, 9 February 2001 22:06
Subject: [IFETS-DISCUSSION:1059] Re: IFETS-DISCUSSION digest 154
> Hi IFETSers,
>
> Following from last November's interesting debate on the use of free form
> role play, I believe the current discussion can be as interesting too.
>
> As we attempt to make learning available to the web, we are faced with the
> technical issues in transforming "our way of doing thing" onto the web. I
> believe that this transformation hass two sides. From the teaching side,
> the opportunity of change can be seen as a change agent to improve our own
> teaching and understanding of the learning. Equally important, we like
the
> technical people to understand the real issues we face and give us systems
> which do things our ways. The current discussion is partly motivated by
> this thinking.
>
> The role play simulation generator refered to in the pre-discussion paper
is
> a *technical* system designed to deliver role play simulation, originally
> for political science simulations. I believe it is important to separate
> the content expertise from the technical expertise and hence the system
was
> designed as a generator so that content expert can design, create and
> deliver role play simulation. More on that in later part of the
discussion.
> At this point, I would suggest we start from a more general angle and
later
> we shall move to the more specific.
>
> Let me just re-iterate the proposed discussion questions:
>
> Is Role Playing a pedagogy that can be applied to disciplines beyond
> politics and soft skill training?
>
> My reason for prosing this question is that the role play simulation
> generator I have was originally built to deliver political science
> simulations. I was later convinced by people that it can be used in other
> discipline as well. Last November's discussion certainly reconfirmed this
> view. However, I would also like to see other people's feeling and
> experience in this aspect.
>
> Are there other important fundamentals in an ideal simulation to support
> effective learning?
>
> In the pre-discussion paper, I have listed 4 elements which I believe
> support role play simulation, i.e.
> - Scaffolding (tasks that lead the players to achieve particular learning
> outcomes);
> - Resources (information that is subject matter and content specific
provide
> either
> as reading material for the learners or to set up the scenario for the
> simulation);
> - Interaction facilities (sim-mail, sim-conferences and private chat rooms
> for
> communication); and
> - Social structure
> Implicit in this is the notion of scenario, or "game plan" in which the
> designer of the role play simulation may have in mind certain stages of
> development in order to guide the learners towards a positive outcome in
> line with the learning objectives. Again in the November discussion,
people
> has suggested "emotion" factors and so on. I am happy to continue the
> discussion along the line. However, I would be more interested in looking
> at "implementable" features. :-)
>
> The use of the role play simulation generator in the Political Science
> course at the University of Melbourne demonstrated the volume of
activities
> that students can produce in an engaging role play simulation. Faced with
> ths problem of handling the huge communication load, we were asking
> ourselves how can we reduce the tedious work of the moderator so that the
> moderator can concentrate in guiding the role play development. Hence,
what
> are the ideal features that a simulation engine should have to support
this
> level of teaching and learning?
>
> These are the questions I have when I wrote the pre-discussion paper and
you
> may have other burning issues as well. I welcome more ideas and we may
run
> the discussion in several related, yet separate threads.
>
> looking forward to an interesting discussion,
> Albert
>
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