August, S. E., & Neyer, A., & Murphy, D. B., & Thames, R. Q. (2011, June), Engaging Students in STEM Education through a Virtual Learning Lab   Paper presented at 2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Vancouver, BC. 10.18260/1-2--17854

\bibitem{asee_peer_17854}
  August, S. E., \& Neyer, A., \& Murphy, D. B., \& Thames, R. Q. (2011, June), \emph{Engaging Students in STEM Education through a Virtual Learning Lab }
  Paper presented at 2011 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, Vancouver, BC.
  10.18260/1-2--17854

Stephanie Elizabeth August, Allison Neyer, Don Brian Murphy, and Robert Quinlan Thames.  "Engaging Students in STEM Education through a Virtual Learning Lab ".  2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Vancouver, BC, 2011, June.  ASEE Conferences, 2011.  https://peer.asee.org/17854 Internet.  08 May, 2024

\bibitem{asee_peer_17854}
  Stephanie Elizabeth August, Allison Neyer, Don Brian Murphy, and Robert Quinlan Thames.
  "Engaging Students in STEM Education through a Virtual Learning Lab ".
  \emph{2011 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, Vancouver, BC, 2011, June}.
  ASEE Conferences, 2011.
  https://peer.asee.org/17854 Internet.  08 May, 2024

@INPROCEEDINGS{asee_peer_17854
author = "Stephanie Elizabeth August, Allison Neyer, Don Brian Murphy, and Robert Quinlan Thames"
title = "Engaging Students in STEM Education through a Virtual Learning Lab "
booktitle = "2011 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition"
year = "2011"
month = "June"
address = "Vancouver, BC"
publisher = "ASEE Conferences"
note = {https://peer.asee.org/17854}
number = {10.18260/1-2--17854}
}

TY  - CPAPER
AB  -                          Engaging Students in STEM Education                            through a Virtual Learning LabRather than waiting for students to pursue STEM education, virtual worlds and games can beused to bring science, technology, engineering, and mathematics to the students throughengaging and socially oriented activities. We are developing a virtual science museum andeducation center that provides practice with basic engineering concepts and transforms anentertainment-based platform into a delivery vehicle for electrical engineering and computerscience content. As part of an initiative to move engineering education into the 21st Century, theVirtual Engineering Sciences Learning Lab (VESLL) project represents an exploration of themany benefits of virtual learning environments, including enhanced opportunities forvisualization, immediate feedback, student autonomy, increased access to resources without thedemands of co-presence, multiple communication channels for student interaction with peers andinstructors, and innovative ways to evaluate student learning.To explore VESLL, a student creates an avatar in Second Life® and via the avatar visits VESLLas s/he might visit a brick-and-mortar science museum. S/he begins by entering an orientationcenter, then proceeds to the various work areas to learn about and experiment with fundamentalengineering concepts or visits virtual meeting areas within VESLL to discuss ideas or collaboratewith other students, faculty, and visitors.Each work area or “lab” includes a tutorial on a particular concept. We have implemented apositional numbering systems lab and a logic circuit lab. In the former, students use a set ofinteractive number panels like an odometer to increment and decrement numbers represented invarious bases, or to compare and convert numbers in different bases. Once students understandthe basic concepts, they test their knowledge on a hexadecimal crossword puzzle and a wordjumble activity (using the hex alphabetic symbols), or try their hand at opening a lock bycorrectly converting a number from one base to another. In the logic circuit lab, students learnabout basic logical operations and truth tables, and interact with logic gates, and circuits.Eventually students build their own circuits using gates and connectors. We are currentlydesigning a collaborative game in which teams of students use the skills they acquire in VESLLto solve complex puzzles. These puzzles will be set in a story line that adds a gaming flavor tomaximize entertainment value. Future plans include developing more complex objects andactivities that encourage socially aware community-based solving of social problems, such asproviding clean water to a rural community.Assessments are built directly into the virtual environment. They include pre- and post-knowledge tests, demographic survey, technological tools and activities inventory, and post-activity satisfaction survey.This approach offers students autonomy and immediate feedback, and is designed to attractdiverse audiences to engineering and computer science. Preliminary feedback from studentsenrolled in project workshops indicate that activities help students understand course content,make course material more interesting, and encourage interaction with other students.This paper describes the nature of this project, presents preliminary results, discusses theopportunities it presents for interdisciplinary collaboration, looks at how this approachesfacilitates interdisciplinary studies, and presents future plans.              Engaging Students in STEM Education                 through a Virtual Learning Lab    The VESLL Building                             The islandThe HexWindow for learning                The Conversion Lock exercisepositional numbering systems    The Crossword Puzzle.             The Logic Circuit Lab with gates,                                circuit creation panel and predefined circuits
AU  - Stephanie Elizabeth August
AU  - Allison Neyer
AU  - Don Brian Murphy
AU  - Robert Quinlan Thames
CY  - Vancouver, BC
DA  - 2011/06/26
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Engaging Students in STEM Education through a Virtual Learning Lab 
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/17854
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--17854
ER  -