Dr Geoff Barker-Read, University of Leeds
VWW is putting a few of the submissions for the latest snapshot online. Here’s one from Geoff, the head of academic quality and standards at the University of Leeds.
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What are you doing in virtual worlds? Teaching, learning, research, publicity, and/or anything else?
We haven’t used Education UK island for teaching purposes at all since the last snapshot although other activities have been going forward. For some time we have been developing a music venue in the shape of an intimate dance hall; this was given a thorough shakedown in June when it was utilised for a week-long charity fund-raising event. The resident DJ, guest DJs and two superb live performances helped raise in excess of £70 for the charity Avon Walk for Breast Cancer 2010.
Education UK island is home to the Edge of Life, an artificial life ecosystem comprising several species of digital organism which co-exist and interact with each other and with visiting avatars. The organisms are spawned, survive for a period of time defined by the availability of food and the magnitude of lag in the region (used to control the population by rendering some organisms sterile), and die. Each species has characteristics that demonstrate aspects of evolution: for example, one species changes colour with each new generation; whilst others are able to pass on acquired abilities to their offspring. Current work involves the modelling of swarming behaviour. Visitors are welcome and are encouraged to interact with the creatures and thus play an active role in their evolution.
Preparatory work is being undertaken to support future projects in the areas of TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) and pre-sessional English support for overseas students with the development of a ‘Welcome’ area. We continue to host an exhibition of contemporary art entitled ‘The Windhorse Project’ by Vanessa Cuthbert, and a new exhibition inspired by the Haunch of Venison’s much talked about show, ‘Shoebox Art’, is to be launched in August. Participants at a workshop run by the artist Hayley Goodsell at Leeds University’s Stanley and Audrey Burton Gallery will be invited to create within a shoe box a bedroom from their past, a dream or one from a photograph. The works will be photographed and re-created in Second Life enabling visitors to enter into the rooms.
Going well? Not? Want to say why?
Use of Second Life at Leeds University remains a very low key exercise – essentially the preserve of a handful of individuals working in their own time to explore the possibilities. The situation is unlikely to change in the near future since the University’s new Blended Learning Strategy is – quite rightly – primarily concerned with making more effective use of the institutional VLE, Blackboard, in learning and teaching activity.
Money is tight. The ‘golden age’ of education money may be ending. How are you getting funded? How do you think your virtual world activities will be funded in the future?
Current activity at Leeds is funded solely through my one-year Developmental University Teaching Fellowship supplemented by a small grant from the University’s Blended Learning Futures Group. Together this has provided sufficient funding to purchase and sustain the Education UK region for about four years (we’re now in year 2). A few bids for academic development funding within the University have been made, so far without success. We desperately need a successful project to demonstrate the potential; but with staff time limited and technical support rarer than elephant feathers it remains an uphill struggle.
Second Life. Using just that, or considering other virtual worlds? If so, why?
Just using Second Life. No time or money to do otherwise.
Problems with universities blocking access to Second Life. Is anyone still having that, or are we over it now?
At Leeds access to Second Life is still blocked for most users of desktop machines hard-wired into the campus network, although a port through the firewall will be opened if the need can be demonstrated and authorised. Access to Second Life via the campus wifi network is not constrained; but the penalty is reduced performance.
Handling large numbers of students in virtual worlds simultaneously i.e. more than 30. Do you have experience of this? How did it go?
We’ve had up to 40 avatars simultaneously present on Education UK and it’s like herding cats.
What do you think of the new Second Life viewer, both the UI/usability changes and the new functionality it enables (e.g. media on a prim)?
Only looked at it briefly and I wasn’t impressed, so I continue to use either Version 1.23 or Emerald. I guess it’s a familiarity thing.
Do you have a view on the new Second Life Terms of Service conditions and ownership rights which are creating a bit of a hoo-hah in some quarters? Do you think it will affect you? Does it matter in the grand scheme of things?
I do have some concerns over the lack of a facility to back up inventory offline – one can’t keep on asking for a region to be rolled back when things go wrong. It is the nature of educational use of Second Life that the majority of objects created or builds tend to be one-offs: for example, student work, which is essentially irreplaceable. Long-term ownership of artifacts and archiving of installations will become an issue in the future if off-line storage is prohibited.
