Introduction to ViewPoint

Role-based simulations offer a powerful pedagogy for instructors in diverse educational settings to teach learners a wide range of hard and soft skills. However, simulations are also multifaceted and ripe for technology support as their effective use requires managing a range of participants, roles, resources, information streams, and communication. Role-based simulations may require 50% more time to prepare than a lecture (Lean et al., 2016). There are also significant demands on instructors during enactment, such as informing students of their roles and responsibilities, organizing and sharing relevant materials, and keeping time. Instructors may need to coordinate roles and resources using various tools such as spreadsheets, timers, and notes to ensure that the simulation runs smoothly. Demands are also placed on participating students, such as being required to step into a role or identity that may be different from their own, and communicating with other participants to make progress towards common goals. These authoring, implementation, and participation challenges have the potential to be mediated by technology (Grisoni, 2012), although few solutions currently exist.

Through this workshop, we seek to introduce the participants to ViewPoint, a web-based tool designed to support instructors in the delivery and facilitation of role-based simulations. ViewPoint is content agnostic and supports large-scale simulations that occur synchronously, asynchronously, or in a hybrid mode. Within ViewPoint, instructors can assign participants to roles and groups, create a timeline of events, queue content and messages, and include supplemental resources and materials. Instructors can also create branching timelines that are dependent on the outcome of simulation events (e.g., results of a poll or vote). In ViewPoint, participants can edit their role’s public-facing profile description, browse other participants’ role profiles, send and receive private messages, view external links, check and post updates in a public newsfeed, and view a timeline of past, current, and planned events in the simulation (see Figure 1). For instructors and researchers, ViewPoint also acts as an index to relevant information, such as role descriptions, group descriptions, timeline progression, and simulation outcomes.

Prior to the workshop, participants in the workshop will receive access to a ViewPoint account, including facilitator and participant views.