Title: Creating and Using Web-Based Simulations in Educational and Organizational Environments

Presenters:

Albert Ip (albert@dls.au.com) & Roni Linser (roni@ausis.com.au)

Intended audience

Any academic interested in providing learners with an engaging, fun and rewarding learning experience using role play simulation.  Required skill is the ability to browse the web and enter information using Web-based forms.  Some knowledge of HTML tags is useful but not necessary.

Clear statement of the objectives of the workshop

At the end of the workshop, participants will

• Articulate the pedagogical underpinning of,
• Design, and
• Deliver a role play simulation using Fablusi™ system.

Workshop Activities

Simulations have been used as a tool for teaching in many areas and disciplines. The idea behind using simulations as pedagogical tools relies on the idea that experience is the best teacher. If access to such experience in real-time is impossible, an artificial environment may be, if not ideal, at least sufficient.

The simulations described in this workshop are not rule-based simulations of physical systems. Our simulations are role-play simulation for modeling human interactions, such as those encountered in political science studies or management studies. One of the early pedagogical applications of the generator was a dynamic goal-based scenario design in the study of world politics at the Political Science Dept. at the University of Melbourne. End of course evaluation showed positive experience of the students. (http://www.roleplaysim.org/papers/polsim.htm).

In the first part of this workshop, the pedagogical underpinning of role play simulation (based on our experience in running political science and other professional development courses) is explained to illustrate how role-play simulation can be used to create an engaging learning experience for the students. Techniques in using role-play simulation in educational and organizational environments will be discussed. The simulation is in fact generated using Fablusi™, a RPS generator, which is based on the abstraction that human interactions are communicative events requiring information exchange (http://www.roleplaysim.org/papers/rpsg.htm). Fablusi™ greatly reduces the routine task of creating simulation.

The second part of the workshop will engage the participants in an online role-play simulation based on a simulation generated by Fablusi™. This will help the participants to gain a first hand experience from a student's point of view in working through a simulation in the learning process.

A brain storming session then follows at which participants can attempt to design learning scenarios. Participants are asked to come to the workshop after reading the papers cited above to get an idea of what sort of ideas can be used. This part of the workshop will assist the participants to create their own online simulation using the generator and test run the collective creative work.

Finally, we shall discuss the issues and needs of skills in moderating a simulation, the joy and woe from a lecturer's point of view. Selected simulations will be available online for use in the participants' own classroom (worth over AUD500 depending on the number of seats in their simulations).

About the Presenters:

Mr. Ip has a long history of working in learning technology. In 1986, he designed MonNet, which was able to broadcast the image from a teacher's computer to the students' workstations using a low cost overriding mechanism. In 1986, Albert and his students designed, and built a Local Area Network for Apple II computers. He later shifted his focus towards software implementations. In 1994, he had designed TeleNex, an English language teacher support system for the University of Hong Kong incorporating hypertext database, automatic generation of test items, online asynchronous conferencing and English corpus database. Mr. Ip's latest work is on the Role-Play Simulation Generator, which is based on his research on scalable learning architecture for Internet. He is currently, the Managing Director of Digital Learning Systems P/L, a company that provides online learning solutions to educational and training institutions.

Mr. Linser was lecturer in the Political Science Department at the University of Melbourne where he has been running simulations on the Internet since 1992. He has published a number of papers on the use and pedagogical foundations of simulations on the Internet. In the last 3 years, he successfully ran several large-scale web-based simulations (some with over 40 roles each and generating over 5000 messages each) in International Relations, Russian Politics, Middle East Politics, Politics of the Asia-Pacific region and Australian Foreign Policy. More  recently he set up and is conducting web-based simulations for professional training of teachers from several South Australian TAFE institutes using Fablusi™. He is currently the Managing Director of Ausis P/L - a company that provides commercial online shopping to business clients and online professional training solutions to educational and training institutions.