Oct 29

Second Life “behind the firewall” product

Events, Worlds No Comments »

(n.b. Virtual World Watch takes a neutral ‘reporting what is happening’ approach, and does not endorse any particular product)

One of the criticisms levelled at Second Life by respondents to most of the snapshot surveys is that security is compromised at the firewall level; in addition, it would be nice to create and control an environment ‘locally’. These issues have helped persuade several groups in UK universities to experiment with OpenSim.

The following announcement, lifted from the Second Life blog, is therefore intriguing. Hopefully, someone in UK Higher or Further Education will evaluate this particular variance of Second Life and come up with some findings; VWW will be happy to help disseminate any results:

In April, we announced that “Second Life Lives Behind a Firewall,” and that our new product was in Alpha. Since that time, the Enterprise Team has been hard at work evolving and deploying our software into many organizations–both as an Alpha and closed Beta. Now, I’m proud and excited to share that we’re ready to announce general availability of the Beta product next week.

On Wednesday, November 4th at 11:15 am – 12:00 pm PST, Doug Thompson (SL: Dusan Writer) will moderate a mixed-reality panel at Enterprise 2.0 in San Francisco and Metanomics inworld with Mark Kingdon, Linden Lab’s CEO, Neil Katz, IBM Distinguished Engineer and Director IBM Virtual Spaces, CIO Office Innovation Initiatives, Steve Aguiar, Program Manager at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center’s (NUWC’s) Metaverse Strategic Initiative, and Douglas Maxwell, Program Technology Lead also at NUWC’s Metaverse Strategic Initiative.

As shared on the Metanomics site,

“Mark Kingdon, CEO of Linden Lab, will unveil “Nebraska”, a stand-alone solution based on the technology that runs the popular Second Life virtual world. “Nebraska” is the much-anticipated behind-the-firewall solution which will allow enterprise to host their own virtual world environments within their organizations. Mark will talk about the benefits of the platform, the intended audience, and how it fits into the broader challenges and opportunities of “enterprise 2.0”. Mark will be joined by a number of customers who have used Nebraska during the closed beta phase of development. The panel will explore the benefits, lessons learned, barriers and opportunities which arise from integrating virtual world solutions into the enterprise.The event will include panelists appearing live in San Francisco and others who will join from the Metanomics Main Stage in Second Life.”

So, mark your calendars and come join us–physically in San Francisco at Enterprise 2.0 or virtually on Metanomics that will also include a webstream, courtesy of Treet.tv, starting a bit earlier at 11:00 am.

For additional details, check out the Metanomics site.

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Oct 27

Snapshot survey #7 of virtual world use in UK Higher and Further Education

Social media, Surveys, VWW 2 Comments »

This is a “Request For Information” for the seventh Virtual World Watch snapshot survey.

This time, there’s just one main question, and a few side points. The main question can be interpreted as broadly, or as narrowly, as you wish. As before, the scope is limited to UK Higher and Further Education.

Blue Mars by Flickr user Connie Sec

The question

How are you using virtual worlds (e.g. Second Life, OpenSim, Metaplace, OLIVE, Active Worlds, Playstation Home, Blue Mars, Twinity, Wonderland) in teaching, learning or research?

Things you may want to include:

  • Why you are using a virtual world.
  • If teaching using a virtual world, how it fits into your curriculum.
  • Any evaluation of the experience of using the virtual world.
  • Will you do it again next year? Why (or why not)?

A few side points

  • Do you know of any other individual, group or project at your institution using virtual worlds for teaching, learning or research? If so, a contact detail would be appreciated.
  • Do you have any interesting screenshots of what you’ve been doing in virtual worlds? If so, then please consider submitting them to the Virtual World use in UK Education Flickr group – thanks.

Group of Second Life avatars by Flickr user James Schwarz

Deadline

Please send your contributions, in whatever format (e.g. email, Word, text) to john (@) virtualworldwatch.net by the end of Friday 20th November. Relevant content submitted by then is guaranteed to go into the report; content received afterwards is unlikely to make it in.

Thank you for your contribution,
Virtual World Watch

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Oct 21

National Workshop on Teaching in Immersive Worlds, University of Ulster, November 20, 2009

Events No Comments »

IMMERS[ED] 2009; National Workshop on Teaching in Immersive Worlds will be hosted by the School of Computing & Intelligent Systems and will take place in the Great Hall of the University of Ulster, Magee Campus, Derry, Northern Ireland on the 20th November 2009 (registration from 8.30, start at 9.30).

  • Considering using virtual worlds for teaching and want to know where to start?
  • Curious about how others are using virtual spaces for teaching?
  • Interested in learning how the future of undergraduate education will be shaped by immersive technologies?

The workshop has an International line-up of speakers from the UK and Ireland and will offer a series of insightful talks examining the theoretical and practical aspects of teaching using virtual worlds such as Second Life, Opensim and Metaplace.

Speakers include John Kirriemuir of Virtual Worlds Watch, Daniel Livingstone (SLOODLE); University of West Scotland, David Burden (PIVOTE); Daden Limited, Michael Callaghan and Kerri McCusker of the University of Ulster, Tim Savage and Carina Girvan of Trinity College Dublin and Barry McAdam and Anna O’Donovan of INTEL.

The objective of the event is to raise awareness of the benefits and possible pitfalls of using virtual and immersive worlds in an educational context and will provide practical advice and demonstrations from leading educators and industrial experts in this area.

It will highlight funding opportunities available in this field and offer tips on how to focus your research to maximise your chances of succeeding with applications.

The workshop is organised by the Serious Games and Virtual Worlds Research Team and the School of Computing & Intelligent Systems, Faculty of Computing and Engineering and co-sponsored by the University of Ulster, Office of Innovation Knowledge Club Program.

To register and for further information please go to the workshop website.

http://www.learninginvirtualworlds.com/

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Oct 20

JISC Innovating e-Learning Online Conference, November 24-27 2009

Events No Comments »

If you are a researcher, institutional manager or practitioner involved in technology-enhanced learning and teaching, Innovating e-Learning 2009 will be of interest to you. Delegates from further and higher education and from overseas are welcome.

Proceedings take place in an asynchronous virtual environment which can be accessed wherever and whenever is convenient to you. The 2009 conference also includes opportunities to participate in real-time sessions in Elluminate® (a tool for interactive online collaboration, provided by Netskills), see presenters on video, meet other delegates in the Virtual Coffee Shop and try your hand at new tools and techniques. There will also be sessions using Second Life, with the support of the Regional Support Centres.

The online conference website contains further details of the event and how to participate.

There are two sessions focusing on virtual worlds. These are in theme 2, which runs for 48 hours from 8.30am on Thursday 26 November 2009:

Exploring the potential of virtual worlds for teaching & learning
Kathryn Trinder (Glasgow Caledonian University). Facilitated by David White.

What is it about 3D Virtual Worlds that have captured our interest so much? The educational community is all a-buzz with these things, possibly more so than any technology we’ve encountered before, even the humble iPod… but perhaps this provides us with a clue?

VWs, such as Second Life, are not just one technology – they are infinite yet initially empty spaces, provided with tool kits that are full of developing & evolving technologies that can make up an entire world, bulging with possibilities as yet unexplored. Or at least they can be if, we are told, we have the imagination.

Over the last couple of years Glasgow Caledonian University has been exploring, developing, and teaching in Second Life. This session will present the background of the work plus demonstrations of some of the projects. With the help of the teachers, and maybe one or two learners (if we can catch them for a moment in their busy lives), we will show a range of subject disciplines and consider some of the findings from these projects.

As you will see GCU has been, like many others in H.E., piloting ideas and building on those, but the rhetoric in our educational communities suggests that we should already have moved on from these early stages of development. But how, and what?

Have we, perhaps, been conned by the speed of ‘change’ on the Internet into rushing to judgment about the role of new platforms? How much do we really understand at this point, and how much more will evolve over the next few years?

Perhaps we should consider how we can avoid repeating what we already do in the physical world, and, instead of building 500 seat virtual lecture theatres, embrace pedagogies beyond our traditional models? Or what about the broader issues around social cultural boundaries and internationalisation? And can we make use of all of this to extend the use of VWs to better support our students who increasingly reside online?

Choosing the best virtual world for your teaching needs
John Kirriemuir (Consultant). Facilitated by David White.

There are many virtual worlds, of which an indeterminate subset have potential use in education. Wikipedia lists [1] 66 pages for “Virtual reality community”, most (but not all) of which are arguably stand-alone virtual worlds. Yesha Sivan [2] quotes “more than 100 other worlds”. And these virtual worlds are being developed, and eliminated, at a rapid rate …

An increasing number of these, such as Second Life, OpenSim and OLIVE, have been used in a wide range of teaching and learning situations, in universities and colleges across several countries. A sample of UK university academics who responded to an October 2009 Virtual World Watch [3] report on choosing virtual worlds had considered, or used, 15 different such environments between them.

Even when an academic has a stable list of virtual world options, the criteria for comparisons is a complex area in itself. Websites are littered with comparative charts of different complexity and criteria. Sarah Robbins, as part of her PhD research, undertook a facet study [4] of around 60 virtual worlds. From this, she has made a useful Google spreadsheet of her data available online. But many teachers and lecturers in academia do not have the time, or knowledge base, to develop and use their own complex framework.

So how did they, or should they, choose which virtual world is the most appropriate for their particular teaching needs? Are their selection criteria driven by pedagogic needs, or by resource, time or political pressures? And when should an academic consider using a virtual world at all?

And what of your experiences with virtual worlds? Having used one in a formal teaching initiative, would you choose a different one if repeating the exercise? What were the most important advantages, or disadvantages, of using the virtual world that you did?

We do not necessarily have the answers either, but we hope that you may…

References

1 Wikipedia index page for Virtual reality communities: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Virtual_reality_communities
2 Sivan, Y. (2009). Overview: State of Virtual Worlds Standards in 2009, 2(3). https://journals.tdl.org/jvwr/article/view/671/539
3 Virtual World Watch: http://www.virtualworldwatch.net
4 Virtual Worlds Facet Study, by Sarah Robbins: http://is.gd/3PtmL

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Oct 19

Choosing virtual worlds for use in teaching and learning in UK higher education

Reports 8 Comments »

This report is available in PDF format.

Summary

Virtual World Watch asked previous respondents to snapshot reports – UK university and college academics who develop and use virtual worlds – what worlds they used and why they chose them. Second Life and OpenSim were mentioned or used by most respondents.

Second Life is attractive due to its constant development over six years, there is no need to acquire a server or significant local technical support, the large community of experienced practitioners, and the variety of already-created objects and structures that can be quickly re-used cheaply or for free.

OpenSim is attractive because, compared to Second Life, ‘land’ does not carry the same expense, there are fewer security issues, there is no dependence on a single commercial vendor, and it is easier to configure how private your environment is; content can also be ported from Second Life.

Apart from Second Life and OpenSim, over a dozen other virtual worlds or environments were mentioned; of these Metaplace and Forterra’s OLIVE appeared to pique more interest and use, from an educational perspective, than the others. Some respondents had examined a range of virtual worlds. Sensibly, organisations such as St Andrews University are examining these from the perspective of the educational or project requirements, rather than the attributes of the particular virtual worlds.

Several respondents contributed their criteria lists (given in this report) for evaluating virtual worlds. A few are creating or using more complex frameworks: the Open University, for example, is developing a matrix of virtual world needs containing around 70 weighted criteria.

However, examining just one virtual world from the perspectives of teaching, learning, build, functionality, security, stability and many other criteria of importance to academics is not a trivial operation. Consequently:

  1. Some academics, though they would like to examine more virtual worlds, tend to default to examining just one or two options due to a lack of time/resource. Usually, Second Life or OpenSim is one or both of these.
  2. Many UK universities are, independently of each other, examining a range of virtual worlds. This time- and resource-consuming operation results in a significant amount of duplicated activity across the sector.

Recommendations

  1. It would assist other academics in making a more informed choice, and reduce the significant amount of duplicated activity across UK higher and further education, if institutions would rapidly disseminate their virtual world comparative findings. As virtual worlds are being developed at an extremely fast pace, the traditional academic timeline for dissemination is of no use; a matter of weeks, rather than months or later, and such information becomes outdated.
  2. A number of similar responses indicate a common need for an OpenSim – or similar – platform for current and prospective virtual world users and developers in UK higher education who do not have server and technical resources. As well as providing a low-cost environment with relatively high (and configurable) security and privacy, such an option provides a ‘back-up solution’ for previous and ongoing work created in worlds such as Second Life. Whether this could, or should, be provided by an academic institution or consortium, or by a technology services company, is a debatable point; ReactionGrid appears to go someway towards this requirement.
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Oct 18

Call for papers: Leicester, January 7-14, 2010

Events No Comments »

Call for Papers
Beyond Distance Research Alliance, University of Leicester
Learning Futures Festival Online 2010
“Positively Disruptive”
7th – 14th January 2010

Beyond Distance Research Alliance is a research and development centre with an international reputation based at the University of Leicester, headed by Professor Gilly Salmon. Beyond Distance will hold its 5th annual Learning Futures Festival Online 7th-14th January 2010. The festival title, “Positively Disruptive,” reflects the promise and challenge of innovative and future learning, moving from sharing good to outstanding practice and presenting risks and difficulties as well as new horizons.

The Festival will include synchronous and asynchronous e-tivities led by top practitioners in e-learning research – a great opportunity to us to work together to create, explore, and present for discussion a variety of plausible alternative futures for learning and teaching approaches in Higher Education.

The Festival will also feature a number of short-paper presentation sessions for which we invite submissions related to the following themes:

1. Economics: why waste a good crisis? Economic challenge can be an opportunity to create solutions and methods that are less expensive, cleverer, and better than before! The economic crisis may be just the opportunity e-learning has been waiting for to show that it has come of age.

2. Opening the e-doors to learner generated and open content: contributing or shrieking? The open education movement can be polarising, but whether you love it or hate it, it looks as if it’s here to say. Let’s have some healthy debate here.

3. Learning from the learners: do they know? Today’s learners can exercise greater choice over what to learn – and how to learn it — than earlier generations, and are more demanding customers. The role of learner experience in shaping the content and the delivery of the curriculum has been debated for decades. Do we have innovative answers for the 21st century?

4. Personalising the info-cloud: rain or sun? Today’s learners have amazing opportunities to personalise their learning and work informally with each other. But worries for HE include security risks and loss of privacy. How can we make the benefits outweigh the risks?

5. Silos in universities: can you make the connections? Is your quest too complex? Innovation in universities can be hindered by lack of communication between and even within departments. Success stories happen when individuals employ creative strategies to bridge the gaps. Tell us yours!

6. Learning from failure: if you had your time again…? Often the most valuable data is gathered when things don’t go according to plan. Time to share, time to expose, time to learn from each other…

7. Geo-everything: we know where you are – where are you going? GPS, mobile learning, Google Earth – what is the future for learning in this virtual global village we inhabit today? Tell us how you’re deploying it.

8. Second Life for the Second Decade: are we human or are we avatars? Second Life sometimes reflects First Life and sometimes contradicts it. Image and Build! Establishing an online identity is key to collaboration – can your avatar tell us how?

If you’d like to submit a practitioners paper and present during the conference please read carefully.

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION OF ABSTRACTS: 23rd October 2009
NOTIFICATION: 13th November 2009.

All selected presenters will be required to register for the conference at a special rate of GBP 25. Maximum 2 presenters per paper.

Criteria for selection
• Quality of submission
• Relevance to and balance of festival themes
• Value to the learning technology and academic practitioner community
• Demonstrated level of innovation and future orientation

Please submit your abstract (400 MAX words) outlining
1. Theme to which it relates
2. Title
3. Presenter(s), name(s) , institution(s), role(s)
4. E mails, telephone numbers.
5. 3 lines maximum summary
6. The context
7. Outcomes, advantages,
8. Challenges, and
9. Implications for the future of learning

Reviewers panel consisting of researchers and practitioners will select the final submissions. Abstracts should be submitted by visiting http://www.le.ac.uk/beyonddistance/festival/ and following the instructions to submit an abstract. Abstracts must be received by 23 October, 2009. Notification of selection will take place 13 November, 2009.
Final submissions of up to 1500 words must be received by the festival organisers by 11 December, 2009. Full papers will be posted online.

Presentations for the Learning Futures Festival Online will take place through a live online environment, which will enable participants to see the presenter via the presenter’s webcam, hear the presenter and see the presentation online. Presentation materials may take the form of PowerPoint or any other application. After the live presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session.
Selected presenters will be requested to enable their papers and presentation to be created as an Open Education Resource.

Keynote speakers will include:

Dr Stephen Bax – Reader, University of Bedfordshire; formerly Principal Lecturer in Language Studies at Canterbury Christ Church University where he directed CRADLE – the Centre for Research, Assessment and Development in Language Education, and directed the Department’s In-House MA programme in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). He has published widely in Teacher Education and in Computer Assisted Language Learning, is an elected Member of the Chartered Institute of Linguists and speaks Arabic, Spanish and French. He is also interested in Akkadian and other ancient and modern Semitic languages and has authored numerous websites, including language-learning sites for the BBC World Service.

Dr Chris Davies lectures at the Oxford University Department of Education, where he is course director for the MSc in eLearning and Research Associate of the Oxford Internet Institute. Among Chris’s current projects are the Becta-funded “Learners and their Context” project, looking into learners’ uses of technology in the home for learning, as part of the UK Government’s Harnesssing Technology Strategy. He organises the ESRC-funded seminar series The Educational and Social Impact of New Technologies on Young People in Britain, and is a member of a cross-disciplinary team working on the first stage of a project to develop a computer-based digital tool for supporting adult learners.

Contact Terese Bird (Beyond Distance Learning Technologist) with specific enquiries at t.bird@le.ac.uk

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Oct 17

Virtual Worlds in Education Forum: Staffordshire University, December 2, 2009

Events No Comments »

The next Virtual Worlds in Education Forum is taking place at Staffordshire University on Wednesday 2nd December 2009. This free forum provides a chance to share experience, information and good practice of using a virtual world in a teaching context.

To book your place visit the JISC RSC West Midlands website.

Agenda

9.30am Coffee and Registration

10.00am Welcome and introductions – Jane Edwards, RSC West Midands

10.10am Host: Christa Appleton, e-Learning Development Specalist

10:15am Karl Royle, Curriculum Innovation and Knowledge Transfer, Centre for Applied Research and Development in Education, University of Wolverhampton

11.00am Coffee break

11.15am Presentations from the floor

12.30pm Lunch and networking

1.30pm Luke Bracegirdle, IT Development Director, School of Pharmacy, Keele University

2.15pm Christa Appleton

3.00pm Round up and next forum

3.30pm Close

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Oct 16

Application of PREVIEW Second Life project wins award

Events No Comments »

The deliverables of the JISC PREVIEW (Problem-based Learning in Virtual Interactive Educational Worlds) project won an award at the Times Higher Awards last night. The full press release from the JISC follows.


Press Release
Virtual paramedic training honoured by JISC Times Higher Education Award

A project which trains paramedic students online through real-life scenarios has won JISC’s outstanding ICT initiative award at the Times Higher Awards, owing to its potential implications for other universities.

Dr Malcolm Read OBE, JISC’s executive secretary, said: “We are very proud to sponsor these awards for the third year running to help showcase the innovative use of digital technology that is keeping the UK at the forefront of the world’s knowledge economy.”

Emily Conradi, project manager at St George’s University London and award winner said: “The online environment evolved from issues that St George’s tutors were having with recreating paramedic work situations, which are impossible to simulate realistically in the classroom, and also with managing face-to-face meetings between students and tutors when the learners are spending time in work placements.

“The tutors developed an island in the virtual environment Second Life to allow students to work together as a paramedic team on different emergency scenes. They interact with patients by questioning, examining and treating them and the scenario unfolds in response to the students’ actions. Handover notes are emailed to their tutor for feedback.”

Sarah Porter, head of innovation at JISC said: “In judging the award, we were looking for an initiative that really stood out for its spirit of
creativity. The St George’s project is using technology in a way that is very practical and highly relevant to supporting learners in new paradigms, which is close to JISC’s own mission for finding innovative solutions to the issues facing UK colleges and universities.”

The web-based application running these decision-making scenarios is open source, enabling others to build their own training scenarios. Coventry and Greenwich universities have trialled the scenarios with their paramedic students, while there have already been over 100 requests for demonstrations from interested parties.

David Baker, JISC deputy chair said: “The project at St George’s is impressive for what you might call its ‘horizontal scalability’ – the
possibility for this use of technology to have an impact on teaching and learning in other universities in the future. Testing out practical work in virtual research environments is an innovative way of approaching medical scenarios that could be replicated across the academic spectrum.”

The initiative, which received international media coverage when it launched last year, has been highly praised by students who typically commented, “Communicating with others helped me to assess the situation and gave me a better understanding,” and “It’s much better to be able to actually perform treatments rather than just talk about it.”

The judges for the award were Professor David Baker, deputy chair of JISC and former principal of University College Plymouth St Mark & St John; Sarah Porter, head of innovation at JISC, and Dr Sarah Thomas, Bodley’s librarian and director of Oxford University Library Services.

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