The special edition of Educational Research in 2010 will focus on learning in and from virtual worlds (where a virtual world is defined as an environment within which users are represented by and operate through an avatar and can interact with others over the internet or local area network). This call for papers invites reports of original research, reviews of recent research and discussion articles from colleagues working in the area.
Articles must be accessible to the generalist reader and relevant to the journal’s international readership. Contributions from outside the UK are welcome.
We are particularly interested in articles that:
Papers should have a clear focus on ways in which virtual worlds might impact on pedagogy and educational practice.
Articles should begin with a structured abstract, include up to six keywords, and should not normally exceed 5,000 words.
For further guidance on submission, including instructions for structured abstracts, see the journal website at http://www.informaworld.com/EdResearch – select the Instructions for Authors tab.
Articles must be submitted by email to the Guest Editor, Peter Twining at P.Twining@open.ac.uk by 14th July 2009 at the latest. Emails must be clearly labelled ‘ER Virtual Worlds Special Issue 2010 submission’. Late submissions cannot be considered.
This week’s Start The Week with Virtual World Watch podcast interviewee is Andy Powell.
For historical context, Virtual World Watch was a work colleague of Andy’s from the mid-1990’s at UKOLN (VWW: back row 3rd; Andy: back row 6th).
Andy is now the Head of Development of the Eduserv Research Programme, formerly the Eduserv Foundation. The Foundation funded a number of Second Life and Virtual World research and development projects, as well as Virtual World Watch, an island and several events.
Research Programme / Foundation activities with virtual worlds are described and archived on their website.
Two of Andy’s presentations of note are a recent one, presented at the JISC RSC Eastern event in April hosted by Shri:
… and his well-known “Second Life in 3600 seconds” presentation, the slideshare version of which has received over 17,000 views in the last three years:
In Second Life, and also blogging, Andy is Art Fossett where he has an occasional sideline in making footwear. On twitter, Andy is andypowe11.
This week we go to the East Midlands, as Andy Beggan, manager of the IS Learning Team at the University of Nottingham, describes what they are doing in virtual worlds there.
Andy’s team have put together a nifty little presentation which brings together much of what they are doing, and plan to do, in Second Life. The University of Nottingham campus in Second Life is publicly accessible.
