Can's Results
Student: 24, Male, PhD in Forecasting with Neural Network
Qualitative Data
The student had not used Second Life before, but had used turtle graphics and logo, and had some experience programming in Basic, C, C++, C#, and MatLab. He completed nearly all of the exercises, though he did not meet the requirement of perpendicular square entirely, and did complete the octagon exercise. The student used most of the commands, found them useful, and they behaved as he expected. The roll commands were an exception, as he found them neither useful nor obvious. Neither the show command or rand values were used.
The student agreed the tasks provided a good introduction to programming, and specifically said that the drawing of 3D shapes helped the understanding. He found the system useful for 2D geometry too, commenting that drawing a pentagon in particular required some thought. While he saw the 2D drawing as fun, that did not really impact his motivation. He did not see any benefit in drawing 2D shapes within a 3D environment (providing an extensive argument to this effect). He was more positive about actually drawing 3D shapes, saying that drawing the pyramid and perpendicular square was good for his spatial reasoning, and that all the shape drawing was helpful for thinking about geometry.
Regarding the quantitative parts of the evaluation, the student offered the following interesting additional comments: “For me, the presence of the avatar is totally useless in this application. For teaching geometry/drawing objects, we don't need avatars. It is possible to help children since it looks more fun, but it might be a bit disturbing on the other hand”. And: “I don't care about the graphics, I just care about doing what you need to do”. On the possibility of having multiple avatars present for collaboration: “It makes things a bit messy, but sometimes teachers might be able to correct things”.
The student found the system/experience fun overall: “It was good, I felt we just used 10 minutes” (the participant roughly used one hour). As for using it again: “It depends. If it is for teaching (explaining geometry to somebody, or for me to get a better understanding in geometry), yes; but for drawing, no.”
The student made the following suggestions as to how the system could be improved:
- “It depends on different aspects, for instance, for me to have a clear view of a 3D object from different view angles, it is very helpful.”
- “For drawing, when you need to create a complex shape, you may just want to connect those points because if you have to remember all the angles and stuffs like that, it is a bit tricky. If you could have the exact position on a visualised grid, the exact rotation of your turtle, this will be helpful.” (He also argued that the proposed ability to query the system about the angle between any two lines would be a significant benefit.)
Quantitative Data
| Criteria | Mark (1-10) |
|---|---|
| The view rotation controls | 6 |
| The ability to create a second turtle to try out something else | 6 |
| The presence of an avatar | 1 |
| The use of animation when drawing lines with the turtle | 6 |
| The shiny graphics | 1 |
| You can have multiple user's avatars present and use the turtle together | 4 |
| The use of SL's chat system to control the turtle | 7 |