WalkAbout - the future of distributed learning at LTU

A pedagogical development project for future education at LTU.

WalkAbout enables the interactive and distributed learning of the future. In today's online teaching at LTU, few students are interested in sending video as they do not want to be seen via Zoom. At the same time, the opportunities to express oneself through other than sound and text are limiting for learning.

With the tool WalkAbout, which is developed in a computer game environment, teachers and students can meet in 3D worlds where they are represented by avatars that show participation and emotions through movements and animations. Here, participants can take part in presentations live and via position-based 3D sound hear different amounts depending on where they are and thus also show their interest in the learning situation.

The purpose of the WalkAbout project is to investigate the conditions for using interactive 3D environments for increased learning via a prototype called WalkAbout. The prototype today allows users to interact virtually via handheld devices and computers and is based on previous research on philosophical conversations and the tool Dialogica.

WalkAbout opens up new opportunities for teaching online where participants can express themselves in a richer way than through the tools used at LTU today and have the potential for a better teaching experience. The prototype is developed in the computer game engine Unity which makes it easy to use the application on several different platforms while enabling us to use computer game elements such as computer graphics, animations, position-based sound and more and also gives us an opportunity to take the tool to immersive virtual reality, VR and ARE. The digital platform also enables better inclusion where real-time translation can be used to bridge between different languages (already available for text in Dialogica on which WalkAbout is based).

Innovative education

The project connects to several different criteria for innovative education:

1. New and challenging forms of teaching and examination in the form of a completely new kind of learning environment.
2. Contribute to the attractiveness and long-term value of the university in the form of showing that we have worked innovatively with new forms of teaching.
3. Contribute to increased equality and equal treatment by allowing students to express themselves physically without having to show themselves via video. This both creates anonymity, which makes it easier to ask questions and participate in discussions and gives students an opportunity to show themselves as they wish.
4. Contribute to broadened recruitment through experimentation with innovative learning platforms and through the possibility of real-time translation.