Piloting a game-based virtual learning environment

In a new technological era, where virtual environments and social networks are redefining how students interact with each other and exchange information, alternative and complementary approaches to traditional handson laboratories are emerging. Educational interactive virtual learning environments with integrated access to online laboratory experiments have the potential for augmenting the traditional learning process and providing undergraduate engineering students with knowledge and skills suited for the technologically driven present and future. Such a virtual learning environment has been created for the laboratory component of a junior-level undergraduate mechanical engineering course on mechanisms and machine dynamics. An immersive interactive laboratory experiment developed based on a multi-player computer game engine, which allows the students to collaboratively assemble the experimental setup of an industrial plant emulator within the game environment and subsequently run remote and virtual experiments, was deployed in a pilot implementation. This paper reports on the learning assessment conducted in that pilot. In particular, the evaluation metrics for the virtual learning environment as well as the data on learning effectiveness and student feedback are discussed.