Community of Inquiry and Learning in Immersive Environments

Abstract

In higher education institutions around the world, educators and administrators are actively engaged in sometimes lively discussions about immersive environments and their application for learning. Innovative educators are excited about the possibilities of learning collaboratively in a virtual place without loss of visual cues and the enhanced sense of presence that this new media affords. Like every new technology, immersive environment's application to learning must be evaluated and tested before it earns a place in the often crowded technological tool chest of both distance, campus and blended educators. To aide in the evaluation of these tools, the paper describes the initial development of an immersive environment education evaluation tool based on the well regarded community of inquiry model of online learning. 
 After a brief overview of both immersive environments for learning and the community of inquiry model, the following research questions are addressed: Is the Community of Inquiry recognizable in a MUVE learning environment? Are new indicators required if the community of inquiry was used as an evaluation tool for MUVE learning environments? Could the Community of Inquiry model be used as a framework for evaluating educational events in immersive environments? Observations of five diverse educational events are described in the context of the community of inquiry model. The research questions are then revisited and the Multi User Virtual Environment Education Evaluation Tool (MUVEEET ™) is proposed.