n00bs and G33kZ Learn Together

New research shows how an online learning community at Deakin University in Victoria, Australia, can improve creativity and boost learning using virtual tools with both newbies and experts working together.

“Within such a community the participants are exposed to a number of requisite elements designed to support the exploration of their own learning process and the development of creativity,” say the paper’s authors Chair of New Media Technologies at Deakin Katherine Blashki and her graduate student Sophie Nichol.

Previous research has suggested that person, process, product and environment are the four interacting factors that lead to creativity. Although creativity itself is difficult to measure, it seems that only the first three of these factors have been focused on in cultivating a person’s creativity in most learning environments. The fourth factor, the environment, whether that’s lecture hall, tutor room, library, or private study area has been pretty much ignored.

Blashki and Nichol, however, believe that creativity can be enhanced significantly by consideration of the environment in which students, and everyone else for that matter, learns to express themselves. The advent of online learning communities, such as the one pioneered by Deakin University, suggests that such approaches allow novices (noobs) and experts (geeks) to interact more fruitfully than they otherwise would.

The researchers created a unique learning environment based around an experimental approach to teaching noobs how to use various computer games. It sounds like a much better option for school than what was on offer when I was a youngster, but the researchers reasoned that because those they labeled geeks already had great expertise it would be much easier to instigate peer mentoring within the community than choosing a subject with which only the teaching staff would fully be up to speed. Moreover, Deakin offers computer games design and development units as part of its curriculum, so it useful practically. “In addition to the more traditional forms of learning via lectures and practical classes, the students also use the online discussion forums and the games lounge as a supplement to their studies,” explain the researchers.

Having tested the approach for an extended period, the researchers conclude that such a community can augment the learning process and allow the creative juices to flow, by allowing risks to be taken that would otherwise not be in a lecture-type environment, to allow shy students to engage more fully, students to become more tolerant and helpful to fellow students who are less able, and to allow humor to emerge as a productive tool. However, they caution that such a community is “not a substitute for teaching and activities designed and conducted by staff members, but an important addition to the repertoire of teaching and learning activities that can enhance the quality of education.”

Their findings could have much wider implications for the use of virtual worlds such as Second Life and online social networking systems like Facebook in education. I asked Nichol about the potential. “The proliferation of online social networking is shown in the use of websites such as Myspace and Facebook, and these media should not be discredited for their potential benefit to create a continuously networked community,” she told me, “In regards to education, the use of online social networking sites is an intriguing and worthwhile research area, with huge potential for the next generation of learners coming through the university system.”

By the way, a full L33t converter at http://www.brenz.net/l337Maker.asp renders the word “geeks” as “933|<5", but I figured that would make the title of this post just a little too opaque.

The original reserch paper appeared in the January issue of the International Journal of Web Based Communities