Facebook games required for some AMD classes to create ‘virtual stores’

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Some Apparel Merchandising and Design instructors are incorporating virtual reality games into the classroom.

Online games such as Cotton Island on Second Life and Fashion World on Facebook engage students to participate in life-like activities using avatars.

Assosciate Professor Human Environmental Studies Seung-Eun Lee gives students the opportunity to participate in Cotton Island for extra credit.

In Cotton Island, students use a scavenger hunt to gather information on materials related to the fashion world.

“The scavenger hunt activity is made of tasks involving finding facts about cotton, watching textile tests, viewing new and innovative cotton fabrics and other entertaining activities such as attending live concerts, dancing with classmates and riding a bike,” Lee said.

Lee said Cotton Island is an avatar-based 3D virtual learning environment that was built as a result of funding from the 2011 Cotton Student Sponsorship Program of the Cotton Board and Cotton Inc.

Cotton Island also includes a seminar space for attending class sessions and social networking, and open spaces for student exhibitions and fashion shows, Lee said.

Like Lee, graduate assistant Erica Palentyn integrates a similar virtual world into her visual merchandising class.

Palentyn assigns students to create their own stores on the Facebook application Fashion World.

“They are given a rubric in the beginning of the project which outlines the requirements, expanding the store and what needs to be included as part of their store,” Palentyn said.

Students write a paper at the end of the project explaining their concept, target market, price point, location and competitors in the virtual world, she said.

Palentyn said the project was developed because many students, especially in the college age group, use social networking sites.

“My advisor and I thought this project would be a way to engage the students in a more hands-on experience,” Palentyn said.

Palentyn said students enjoy incorporating the virtual world into the classroom.

“Many students have had positive comments about using the game as a tool for visual merchandising,” Palentyn said.

Human Environmental Studies Graduate Assistant Jamie Wyss is researching the incorporation of the virtual world into the classroom.

It is a requirement of sorts depending on the particular class and instructor, Wyss said.

As part of her research, Wyss is sitting in on Graduate Assistant Erica Palentyn’s AMD 356: Visual Merchandising class.

Birmingham sophomore Morgan Booth agrees that incorporating virtual reality games into the classroom is beneficial.

In Palentyn’s class, Booth had a month to build a clothing store and reach level 20 in Fashion World.

Overall, she said she enjoyed the project because it was a different way of learning.

“I got to run my own store and deal with all of the problems that go along with it — angry customers, lack of money and sewing machines breaking down,” she said.

Booth said she believes she benefited more by playing Fashion World than by doing other typical final class projects.

“I think it is a fun way to do a project,” Booth said. “I learned a lot more than I would writing a paper because I actually got to experience everything for myself.”

However, Booth feels that the amount of time she had to spend playing Fashion World was excessive.

Booth said she spent at least two hours a night playing the game.

“It was fun to decorate my own store and design clothing for the store, but getting to level 20 took a lot of time and I think I could have learned the same amount about the game in just 10 to 15 levels,” she said.