Manuel Frutos-Perez | University of the West of England (original) (raw)

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Papers by Manuel Frutos-Perez

Higher Education and describes their applications and practical implementation, with particular e... more Higher Education and describes their applications and practical implementation, with particular emphasis on the use of the virtual world Second Life® to simulate professional practice activities. The paper also presents a number of practical challenges encountered by running those simulations and discusses the advantages of utilising automated avatars to counter those challenges and enhance the learning experience.

This paper is a report on current development work on automated virtual characters or bots that c... more This paper is a report on current development work on automated virtual characters or bots that can be utilized to create new types of user interfaces for the retrieval of online information and the interaction with web-based services. These automated characters are intended to serve a dual purpose of (i) general student support and (ii) automation of learning simulations. The iterative design process of the project has been informed by best practice in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) methods and literature.

The University of the West of England (UWE) has a large number of students who will pursue subseq... more The University of the West of England (UWE) has a large number of students who will pursue subsequent careers in a wide range of professional fields such as engineering, law, business, nursing, teaching, psychology, criminology and design. An important part of that education is the ability to relate theory to practice (Barrett 2011), and developments in technology over the past years have now created opportunities to enable students to experience simulations of events and situations that are difficult, unethical or impossible to organise in the real world, before they put their skills into practice in the real world (Newland 2008). Virtual worlds are proving to be popular and effective environments at UWE for simulations of a range of experiences, such as accident investigations, risk assessments, business ethics cases, psychotherapy practice and sociological experiments. However, as the numbers of students undertaking these simulations increases, so the call on tutor time will significantly increase. These simulations require to be scalable, to enable their potential for study by large cohorts of students. This year we have experimented with automated non-player characters, also known as "bots", to enable students to undertake some dialogue during the simulated scenarios without the need for a number of tutors to be available to take particular roles. The bots are currently unsophisticated keyword recognition systems, but even these have proved to have some value in two of the simulations; the accident investigation and the risk assessment, where students were able to gather information from characters they could "talk" to, making more realistic the experience of exploring the environment where the simulations were taking place. This paper discusses the results of student feedback, evaluations of these simulations and prototype development for the next generation bots that we want to implement in future learning simulations based on the findings of the evaluations.

This paper outlines the Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) strategy of the University of the West... more This paper outlines the Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) strategy of the University of the West of England (UWE), UK, and demonstrates examples of simulations that use a mixture of web technologies, social networking and virtual worlds. In particular we discuss in detail a simulation that enables groups of law students to work as partners in simulated law practices in a virtual town that supports a range of casework. We also describe an accident investigation simulation built in the virtual world Second Life where groups of students can experience an accident scenario, investigate it, design safe systems of work to deal with the case and work collaboratively on accident analysis and prevention.

This paper discusses and evaluates the technological and pedagogical implications of designing la... more This paper discusses and evaluates the technological and pedagogical implications of designing large-scale, online learning resources that can be offered to accommodate a variety of learning styles and abilities. The theory of online learning design and issues of cognitive ability are discussed, together with the concomitant issues of learning impairment and preferred learning styles. Multiple methods are used to evaluate the first version of the learning resource (The Research Observatory) and then to research and design version 2 . Version 2 is discussed, focussing on the flexibility and robustness of the design. Recommendations are then made for further research.

E-learning Development Co-ordinator, University of the West of England, Bristol Manuel Frutos-Per... more E-learning Development Co-ordinator, University of the West of England, Bristol Manuel Frutos-Perez, E-learning Development Officer, University of the West of England, Bristol Abstract This paper introduces and develops the argument that e-learning can play a pivotal role in encouraging and facilitating organisational learning. Theories of both organisational learning and e-learning are discussed and the major factors in both domains are distilled from this discussion. These factors are then cross-matched to demonstrate the potential for e-learning to address the needs of organisations that wish to improve their learning. We then discuss experiences from two case examples of how e-learning techniques have impacted on organisational learning, as a means of encouraging further debate and research in this area.

Higher Education and describes their applications and practical implementation, with particular e... more Higher Education and describes their applications and practical implementation, with particular emphasis on the use of the virtual world Second Life® to simulate professional practice activities. The paper also presents a number of practical challenges encountered by running those simulations and discusses the advantages of utilising automated avatars to counter those challenges and enhance the learning experience.

This paper is a report on current development work on automated virtual characters or bots that c... more This paper is a report on current development work on automated virtual characters or bots that can be utilized to create new types of user interfaces for the retrieval of online information and the interaction with web-based services. These automated characters are intended to serve a dual purpose of (i) general student support and (ii) automation of learning simulations. The iterative design process of the project has been informed by best practice in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) methods and literature.

The University of the West of England (UWE) has a large number of students who will pursue subseq... more The University of the West of England (UWE) has a large number of students who will pursue subsequent careers in a wide range of professional fields such as engineering, law, business, nursing, teaching, psychology, criminology and design. An important part of that education is the ability to relate theory to practice (Barrett 2011), and developments in technology over the past years have now created opportunities to enable students to experience simulations of events and situations that are difficult, unethical or impossible to organise in the real world, before they put their skills into practice in the real world (Newland 2008). Virtual worlds are proving to be popular and effective environments at UWE for simulations of a range of experiences, such as accident investigations, risk assessments, business ethics cases, psychotherapy practice and sociological experiments. However, as the numbers of students undertaking these simulations increases, so the call on tutor time will significantly increase. These simulations require to be scalable, to enable their potential for study by large cohorts of students. This year we have experimented with automated non-player characters, also known as "bots", to enable students to undertake some dialogue during the simulated scenarios without the need for a number of tutors to be available to take particular roles. The bots are currently unsophisticated keyword recognition systems, but even these have proved to have some value in two of the simulations; the accident investigation and the risk assessment, where students were able to gather information from characters they could "talk" to, making more realistic the experience of exploring the environment where the simulations were taking place. This paper discusses the results of student feedback, evaluations of these simulations and prototype development for the next generation bots that we want to implement in future learning simulations based on the findings of the evaluations.

This paper outlines the Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) strategy of the University of the West... more This paper outlines the Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) strategy of the University of the West of England (UWE), UK, and demonstrates examples of simulations that use a mixture of web technologies, social networking and virtual worlds. In particular we discuss in detail a simulation that enables groups of law students to work as partners in simulated law practices in a virtual town that supports a range of casework. We also describe an accident investigation simulation built in the virtual world Second Life where groups of students can experience an accident scenario, investigate it, design safe systems of work to deal with the case and work collaboratively on accident analysis and prevention.

This paper discusses and evaluates the technological and pedagogical implications of designing la... more This paper discusses and evaluates the technological and pedagogical implications of designing large-scale, online learning resources that can be offered to accommodate a variety of learning styles and abilities. The theory of online learning design and issues of cognitive ability are discussed, together with the concomitant issues of learning impairment and preferred learning styles. Multiple methods are used to evaluate the first version of the learning resource (The Research Observatory) and then to research and design version 2 . Version 2 is discussed, focussing on the flexibility and robustness of the design. Recommendations are then made for further research.

E-learning Development Co-ordinator, University of the West of England, Bristol Manuel Frutos-Per... more E-learning Development Co-ordinator, University of the West of England, Bristol Manuel Frutos-Perez, E-learning Development Officer, University of the West of England, Bristol Abstract This paper introduces and develops the argument that e-learning can play a pivotal role in encouraging and facilitating organisational learning. Theories of both organisational learning and e-learning are discussed and the major factors in both domains are distilled from this discussion. These factors are then cross-matched to demonstrate the potential for e-learning to address the needs of organisations that wish to improve their learning. We then discuss experiences from two case examples of how e-learning techniques have impacted on organisational learning, as a means of encouraging further debate and research in this area.