The BreakThru project is sponsored by Georgia STEM Accessibility Alliance (GSAA) and is a collaboration between the College of Education Learning and Performance Support Lab at the at the University of Georgia and the Center for Assistive Technology and Environmental Access (CATEA) at Georgia Institute of Technology.
The GSAA is lead by Robert L. Todd of CATEA and Noel Gregg, Ph.D. of the College of Education Learning and Performance Support Lab and is funded by the National Science Foundation Research in Disabilities Education Program.
The project has some noble aims such as encouraging students with disabilities to embrace the learning world of Science, Technology, Engineering or Maths, or STEM for short. They do this via e-learning using different technologies with the aim of allowing the students to participate in an environment that they find more comfortable and with assistance from mentors who encourage the students to succeed. One technology that this project has embraced is Second Life.
There are a couple of articles related to this that go into more depth about the project and the advantages of a virtual environment. The first is from the University Of Georgia’s website : Virtual world helps students ‘break through’ :
For some, an island is a place of retreat or isolation-a place to be alone with your thoughts.
But the virtual island created in BreakThru, a project combining the talents of researchers from UGA and the Georgia Institute of Technology, is a place for students with disabilities who want to work in a discipline related to science, technology, engineering or mathematics, known as STEM fields. Here, students find small mentoring nooks, large classrooms, an amphitheater, floating cafés and lounges, and green space- all computer generated based on the online virtual world Second Life.
Using avatars, this is also a place for students to meet with their mentors, take part in STEM-related experiences such as scavenger hunts, and access more resources through the Internet. BreakThru’s avenues of communication create a relationship called e-mentoring, and it’s breaking new ground in the ways students engage with their mentors.
The article explains how Second Life isn’t the only technology in use, indeed they even say that Second Life is getting old but it does demonstrate the advantages that a virtual world can bring to learning, such as students being able to represent themselves in different ways via use of avatars. Another advantage of a virtual world environment is that it can bring different experiences to people with different disabilities. The article discusses this and includes a quote from Noel Gregg :
Students with Asperger’s syndrome, for example, enjoy meeting others through Second Life, while students who are visually impaired prefer a platform that is voice activated.
“With that virtual platform, we did learn a lot,” Gregg said. “In the development of this virtual environment, we learned different ways to accommodate virtual learning for students with different types of disabilities.”
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