About

Lake Devo was designed by the Digital Education Strategies unit of The G. Raymond Chang School of Continuing Education in 2009 to support online role-play activity in an educational context.

This unique, online role-play environment was developed in keeping with constructivist principles and allows learners to work synchronously, using visual, audio, and text elements to create avatars and interact in online role-play scenarios. Role-play activity is captured, and published as a 2-D "movie" that a group of learners may review, discuss, debate and analyze in Lake Devo's self-contained debrief area.

The site was designed to support ease-of-use, so that learners can focus on the role-play activity itself, rather than spending time learning the technology. It was also conceptualized to be as flexible as possible so that learners and facilitators from a wide range of disciplines and subject areas might make use of the role-play environment.

The environment is used by students and instructors in a variety of academic disciplines at Toronto Metropolitan University.

For more information about the history, design, and use of Lake Devo, please refer to the following resources:

• Diving into Lake Devo: Modes of Representation and Means of Interaction and Reflection in Online Role-Play
• Lake Devo – Creation, Collaboration and Reflection through a Customizable Online Role-Play Environment