by Zac Woolfitt, Inholland University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands.
On Friday 29th November, I joined the Inholland Ed Tech day at our new building in Amsterdam. Several new technology approaches to education were demonstrated. I could only visit a few of the demonstrations and cover three of them below. We showcased our brand new, state of the art building in Amsterdam.
An avatar partner – practicing difficult conversations
Every day we face challenging discussions in a variety of contexts. A distracted student, an angry customer, a teenager who appears not to be paying attention. Our only chance to practice conversations is in role play, or in trainings.
Inholland Ed Tech and Education Innovator Renske de Beijer introduced Wybren Bosma from Meta Skills. Inholland students are currently using the Meta-Skill avatar on three courses: parent teacher conversations (PABO students), coaching pedagogical staff at child daycare centers for conversations with parents (Associate degree Pedagogisch Educatief Professional) and teachers conducting conversations with students who struggle with motivation, learning and anxiety (Basiskwalificatie Didactische Bekwaamheid).
Meta Skills offer ‘highly realistic simulations through AI-driven roleplays with life-like avatars. It’s like practicing with an actor, but available on-demand and in your own safe space.’ They develop AI avatars so you can practice realistic, real-time conversations on a variety of subjects. You then receive instant feedback on how you did. There are many possible uses in higher education.
What it does
The platform creates avatars based on specific cases and scenarios. E.g., You are a teacher who has to inform a parent that their child is not performing well at school. The avatar you interact with is the parent who is upset about their child’s progress.
The Inholland students using it were practicing with different scenarios. Trying this a few times can improve your answers. The programmed avatars stay in the role they have been given. Speed seems more realistic. So, latency and lag time reduced. More fluid.
The software helps you practice conversations with customers. These can include handling complaints to turn dissatisfaction into improvements, saying no gracefully to manage expectations while you maintain a positive relationship, and clarifying customer needs to provide accurate and sustainable solutions.
How it works
During the live demonstration, Wybren talked via a microphone to the avatar on the screen. After his discussion, a list of feedback, including improvement points was provided instantly. E.g., during the session you did this which is good. Next time consider these points. You get a very specific idea of what you could or should have said. To be discussed.
Creating an avatar
Each avatar is developed initially based on a case. Then it is iterated multiple times with feedback sessions. After around a month of development and testing, the avatar can go live in specific context. They are available in multiple languages including Dutch and Arabic.
Before setting up an avatar, you need to think very carefully about what exactly you are trying to achieve? And what are scenarios where students find it very difficult to be in? The success of the avatar is based on the input from the clients: does this avatar match reality? Using assessment criteria provided by the client, multiple iterations and testing, helps improve the finished result and the feedback rubric.
Advantages
The student can practice the conversations in their own time, in the comfort and safety of their home. They get direct feedback listing specific improvement points which helps them prepare for a live situation. Currently the process is anonymous, so the system does not link to specific student number and the teacher, or the system won’t know which student did what. However, an overall summary of how one class performed during the practice session can help the instructor give additional points to the class.
Wybren mentioned that sometimes a project group will watch one of the group members interacting with the avatar, and then all give support and comments in a form of group coaching.
You can try it out for yourself here: Try meta-skills
Further ideas
Other ideas that came to mind during the session include the following. At a later stage, link the skills tests to a ‘skills passport’ to collect evidence that the individual learner has actually developed these specific skills. Turn your camera on so your reactions to the avatar can pick up non-verbal communication. Or add biometric sensors so sweat on your hands, heart rate, could also be monitored. Of course, that data is very sensitive so would have to follow all the privacy guidelines. VR glasses add to the intensity of the 3d interaction.
Six years ago I saw a VR demonstration from Saxion Hogeschool where you could practice a ‘bad news’ conversation. In the app, an actor had pre-recorded segments of a conversation. The conversation could become angrier or calmer based on which choices you made in the conversation. I tried it out, wearing VR glasses, and felt like I was ‘in the room’ with the person. The next iteration of this idea, via Meta Skills, is more easily scalable, can be translated into multiple languages, and provides instant feedback. As the avatars become more realistic, they will increase the intensity of the experience.
What type of character would you create so you could practice your conversation and listening skills in a difficult situation?
The immersive room
The multimedia Immersive Room allows fully immersive learning experiences. This studio in the Inholland Amsterdam Building has two spaces. 1) The control room where a technician operates the media stream of images and sound. 2) The video room, which has three walls onto which streaming video can be projected, several cameras on the ceiling and wrap around audio. The studio has a window so the action in the video room can be watched.
Mirjam van Leeuwen teaches nursing at Inholland. They use the Immersive Room to give students experience practicing difficult real-world nursing situations. This could be a psychiatric patient in a room who needs to be talked to or someone with a specific medical condition.
The practice sessions are part of a 20-week elective course on practical nursing with 30 students. Students practice their skills in the immersive room. The group is divided into three groups of ten. Firstly, the students read a ‘case’ which explains the situation they need to prepare before they go into the room. For the scenario shown, a 360degree image of a hospital room is projected onto the three walls. As part of the training, an actor has been briefed in advance on their role as patient. They know the case and are fully briefed on how this type of patient might act based on different responses. The student enters the room and starts the discussion with the ‘patient’ who is sitting on an actual bed. It looks and feels very real. Particularly when there is a real person interacting. The student then has 10 minutes to talk to the patient.
In a nearby classroom, the other students watch the role play live, as it unfolds. They view this through a live MS Teams Link. The instructor sometimes enters the immersive room if a difficult moment is reached, or to coach and give tips. After the session, the student returns to the classroom, (usually to a round of applause from classmates!), to be debriefed and to receive feedback from both the instructor and from peers. The student also receives a copy of the video recording of their session.
This is a great use of the affordances of the immersive room and the technology, linked to clearly outlined and structured pedagogical goals. It gives each student in the course the chance to practice complex situations that are realistic. It requires quite some preparation and costs: creating the scenario, briefing and training the actors, and operating the space. However, based on the positive response from those who follow this module, it seems to be a great step in taking education to the next level. Mirjam’s advice was just to go for it and start experimenting with your ideas. There is plenty of learning on the job and it is an iterative process. In previous versions of the module, they also used actors, but in a classroom. The Immersive Room now makes the learning experience deeper, and even more realistic for those in the room and watching online.
This was only one use of the room and there are many other uses possible. Seeing the space in action is a great way to understand how the pedagogy overlaps with the technical possibilities. We watched videos of The Titanic, a train rushing by, a climbing wall, a rave party and other dynamic backgrounds with wrap around sound. I will be experimenting with this space in my own teaching soon.
Bomb Disposal and Air Crew training – VR instruction
Wendy Giesberts of the ROC college in Amsterdam showed how she uses VR scenarios to train students in various emergency situations in the tourism course. The first scenario was training airline crew to deal with a fire on an airplane. One student wore the VR glasses, and we could see the action on the screen (see first picture on left above). The instructor talked the student through various procedures and the student opened and closed various cupboards to find a fire extinguisher (middle picture). Background noises included a baby crying throughout and various other realistic airline sounds. The instructor knew the scenario extremely well, and gave clear explanations, tips and guidelines. They stepped in once in a while to help the student with the use of the controls.
The second scenario involved a team working together. They had five minutes to defuse a bomb. One student wore the VR glasses and described exactly to the other group members what they saw. ‘ I see a box, Its open, there is a bomb in there, I see five coloured wires, from top to bottom.. green, blue, black, green, yellow…’ The team of five had a detailed instruction manual that they had to search to find relevant information, make choices as a group, and to inform the student what they should do. ‘Cut the yellow wire!’. Watching the session impressed me as to how involved everyone was. There was no looking around on phones, or half-hearted interest. There was full-on participation, stress, excitement, laughter and collabopractice.
‘I’ve got 37 seconds… oh s**t, I’m dead!’
The first round was not successful, but the group all asked to do it again, and second time round did better.
There was real discussion in the group, they were trying to figure it out.
As with most VR, it takes time to put on the VR set, get used to the controls, adjust your glasses, and get into the VR world. However, this was a very engaged activity and the level of interaction was high.
Help – get me out of here – Escape Room
We also looked at the escape room. This is used for different ‘escape scnearios’, where students practice their knowledge of specific disciplines to solve the murder and to escape from the lab. Currently used by the life sciences and chemistry department. One scenario involves someone being kidnapped, a drugs boss and having to use your knowledge of your course to help free them. This scenario is more of a fixed set but the pedagogical approach is to do with linking the staged context to the educational learning goals.
It was a well organised event, with lots to see and do, and not enough time. There were some great other demos, and my apologies to those I did not mention here.
Renske reminded us at the beginning of the day that we should ‘Start less projects, and finish more’. So, which one of the projects above would you focus on?
Author
Zac Woolfitt is a lecturer and researcher at Inholland University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published on Zac’s blog.
