Despite the suspicions of some virtual world sceptics – and fanatics – VWW takes a neutral view on the use of virtual worlds in education; we say what we see, and what others do – both positive and negative. Here’s Bex Ferriday, the lead teacher of the school of education and training at Cornwall College with a downbeat submission about their Second Life prospects, in this age of austerity.

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What are you doing in virtual worlds? Teaching, learning, research, publicity, and/or anything else?

Still managing Cornwall College Island in Second Life – and have just been given some land for Cornwall College to develop on the Education Grid. At the moment everything just seems to have ground to a halt and I am, quite honestly, at a loss as to what to do about it. Pockets of activity are evident: the Foundation Degree in Arts and Media group are displaying their work on the island and their tutor wants to write a new module for the course that involves mandatory use of Second life, and the RaPAL group meet there regularly. I have just delivered an introductory teacher training course using moodle, Second Life and web 2.0 elements such as wikis and blogs and hope to deliver a second course soon – but cannot see when I will find time. The college has suffered crippling funding cuts, and has had to make a percentage of staff redundant, so with so many people bearing the burden of others’ job losses (by taking on departed colleagues jobs on top of their own), there is no time to indulge in what are seen as ‘luxury’ items such as Second Life.

Going well? Not? Want to say why?

Honestly? Not going well at all. The island is seldom used – we were featured in the Second Life Destination Guide and were getting 50 visitors or more a day – and many keep returning to this very day – but not for the educational aspects of the island. They return because they want to hang out in virtual Cornwall, listen to the seagulls, drink Scrumpy, eat virtual pasties and hang out on the beach – which is still a marvellous thing! Cornwall College has had frighteningly big funding cuts to make in the next academic year(s), so many members of staff have been made redundant. Those who remain are working harder and have even less time than before to learn about new technologies.

The whole ‘18 and over’ thing still weighs heavy too; as an FE college, every classroom will have cohorts of students under the age of 18 (even on occasion, specialty designated HE classrooms), which means that IT Services will not allow Second Life to be installed ‘freely’ in any classroom. If it’s not available in any classroom, only available to staff if they request firewalls to be changed on their office machines, but staff have less time than before to dabble in anything new – let alone something STILL seen as a virtual ‘knocking shop’…then what hope do we have?!!!

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?

Our tenancy runs out in February 2011. We will have no choice but to abandon the island to Linden Labs. That’s going to be a very sad day indeed. And it’s not because of funding really – though we have had massive budget cuts, if the island was ‘earning its keep’ then money would and could be found to keep it going. The honest truth is that the island remains a glorious representation of the geography, geology, history and folklore of Cornwall – but as an educational establishment remains virtually unused.

Long distance travel is increasingly precarious. Ash, strikes and airlines going under ground flights. Travel is expensive (even in the UK with extortionate train fares) and takes up a lot of time. Virtual Worlds could, possibly, be used instead of many workshops, conferences, meetings et al. Your thoughts on this? And how do virtual worlds such as Second Life stack up against other event-replacing media such as Elluminate and Skype?

I see huge potential in using Second Life as a meeting place, and Cornwall College Island’s most successful usage has been based around just that. I am more than happy for educational groups from all over the world to use the island as a meeting place, and the RaPAL (Research and Practice in Adult Literacy) group recently held two pre-conference meetings there to talk about digital literacy. Skype seems to be the medium of choice for one to one meetings and tutorials, but for larger meet-ups or discussions (the RaPAL group now use the island on the first Monday of every month to hold informal discussion groups) Second Life seems to be a better option. The fact that people from around the globe can meet up without travelling, saving time, money and shoe leather seems to be a glaringly obvious reason why Second Life should be used as a meeting place – I just wish I could convince others to see it the same way!

Second Life. Using just that, or considering other virtual worlds? If so, why?

Currently just using Second Life – but have been given some free land on the education grid (set up by the Immersive Education Group). It seems clear that because of increasingly tight budgets and, more importantly, the lack of use that Cornwall College has had, the only way to move forward in to have free land and start again, on a smaller scale. I really don’t want to give up – I see real benefits to using virtual worlds in education – but in the economic climate I can see no other option.

Problems with universities blocking access to Second Life. Is anyone still having that, or are we over it now?

Anyone who wants Second Life installed on their machine has to ask my permission; then, I have to ring IT services to have the user’s firewall settings changed remotely, enabling them to install and use the Second Life client. This is not going to change. This has to be a big reason why Second Life has not taken off at Cornwall College: the expectation that the only way to access it is at home along with the the fact that staff can use Second Life on their office and staff room machines but not in the classrooms.

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)?

The same people who raved about how brilliant the new viewer was were exactly the same people who, within a week, had gone back to using ‘Emerald’, complaining that the new viewer was awful. I love the media on a prim element – this opens the door for a much more interactive and immersive experience for users / students. The new viewer isn’t as user-friendly as the previous version – or Emerald, which I do admit to having installed on one of my machines – but with every upgrade the experience gets a little better.

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What are you doing in virtual worlds? Teaching, learning, research, publicity, and/or anything else?

Continuing to use virtual worlds for teaching, learning and research.

Going well? Not? Want to say why?

Quite well. The biggest challenge personally is balancing teaching and research – something that is likely to be increasingly challenging for many folk as the cuts come in.

The best recent development is that our university island is now being used by people in other parts of the university (esp. Lifelong Learning) – this has taken far too long, but it’s happening now.

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?

I was fortunate to receive funding from JISC – it was very competitive, and only possible I think because we had a collaboration where all partners had significant prior experience with virtual worlds. The bar has been raised somewhat I think!

Our project has been funded by the JISC LTIG programme: Supporting Education in Virtual Worlds with Virtual Learning Environments (VW/VLE)

The consortium consists of the University of the West of Scotland (Daniel Livingstone), The Open University (Anna Peachey), University of Ulster (Michael Callaghan) and Imperial College London (Maria Toro-Troconis). The project will run from 1st July 2010 to 30th June 2011.

This project will analyse and catalogue emerging pedagogical opportunities offered by integrating virtual worlds and web-based virtual learning environments. It aims to show how the relative strengths of each platform, i.e. administrative capabilities of virtual learning environments and the presentation layer of virtual worlds, can be exploited and subsequently enhanced through such integration.

The project will develop, evaluate and disseminate effective models of good practice, where little guidance or structure currently exists and based on experiences from pilot groups use this integrated approach for teaching and learning at multiple institutions.

We will be looking into areas such as using VLEs to support greater personalisation of learning in shared 3D spaces, supporting accessibility, and improving reuse.

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With a squeeze on UK funding, charity and EU funding initiatives will be more attractive, as will work with companies and industries looking to save on their travel budgets relating to training programmes – and where online training will be increasingly desirable.

Long distance travel is increasingly precarious. Ash, strikes and airlines going under ground flights. Travel is expensive (even in the UK with extortionate train fares) and takes up a lot of time. Virtual Worlds could, possibly, be used instead of many workshops, conferences, meetings et al. Your thoughts on this? And how do virtual worlds such as Second Life stack up against other event-replacing media such as Elluminate and Skype?

Virtual worlds ‘must do better’ in this regard. Elluminate doesn’t require a 3 hour induction session – and neither should a virtual world.

Second Life. Using just that, or considering other virtual worlds? If so, why?

We have a little work with OpenSim, primarily still Second Life.

Problems with universities blocking access to Second Life. Is anyone still having that, or are we over it now?

Generally over it, but staff still need to fill in forms to open the required ports for connecting to services like Second Life.

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)?

New media capabilities are a great improvement. I generally like the new UI – but it does need some streamlining, and some things can be a bit hard to find. Some aspects are not obvious. It is certainly much more welcoming than the old UI. Sadly the new client does not work well with OpenSim.

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?

On the plus side, from my reading of the terms, I can take a screenshot of SL and not have to ask Linden Lab for permission to use that image in a paper or publication. That is different from the legal situation for just about every other software package you can think of!

What I would like is better support (legally and technically) for taking in-world content out of Second Life.

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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 artefacts and archiving of installations will become an issue in the future if off-line storage is prohibited.

Information collection for snapshot #10 starts in the latter half of November and runs through to the end of 2010.

However, in the meantime if you would like to have a bit of publicity as an entry on here about your virtual world developments, then get in touch. So long as it’s based in UK education, it’ll probably be okay.

Thank you to all those who contributed to snapshot #9.

VWW is now putting together snapshot #9, which will be out later this summer.

Staff of three UK education funding bodies have requested copies of this particular snapshot. It will also be the last snapshot until December.

A gentle request – if you haven’t already, would you like to have a go at answering a question or two from the list for this one?

If you email me anything by this Sunday, then it’ll go in. Please email to:

john@virtualworldwatch.net

+ + + + + The Questions + + + + +

1. What are you doing in virtual worlds? Teaching, learning, research, publicity, and/or anything else?

2. Going well? Not? Want to say why?

3. 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?

4. Long distance travel is increasingly precarious. Ash, strikes and airlines going under ground flights. Travel is expensive (even in the UK with extortionate train fares) and takes up a lot of time. Virtual Worlds could, possibly, be used instead of many workshops, conferences, meetings et al. Your thoughts on this? And how do virtual worlds such as Second Life stack up against other event-replacing media such as Elluminate and Skype?

5. Second Life. Using just that, or considering other virtual worlds? If so, why?

6. Problems with universities blocking access to Second Life. Is anyone still having that, or are we over it now?

7. Handling large numbers of students in virtual worlds simultaneously i.e. more than 30. Do you have experience of this? How did it go?

8. 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)?

9. 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?

Thanks for your input – this is much appreciated.

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1. What are you doing in virtual worlds? Teaching, learning, research, publicity, and/or anything else?

1. Teaching
For the 3rd year running I used SL with a 1st year undergraduate class and a Masters level option. This year I was able to schedule attendance at the Virtual world Best Practices in Education conference into the Masters class, which worked well (apart from me not checking out that the headphones worked in our lab, so some people had voice issues) and I will look for more ways of doing that. The main problem is finding events that are on during the scheduled class time.

The School of Education also used it again with a Masters level distance learning class.

Someone in our English Language Teaching centre has used SL and may be working with students in SL – colleagues in other departments have also shown interest.

2. Events and CPD.
Use of Infolit iSchool as a venue increased, in particular I bid for an ESRC Festival of Social Science (March 2010) event, and put on one of the few online events “Searching, shopping, sightseeing: literacies in virtual lives” in SL, and in June 2010 the island was venue for the final dissemination seminar in an ESRC Research Seminar series that was organised by Sheffield University, Sheffield Hallam University and Lancaster University (“Children’s and young people’s digital literacies in virtual online spaces”). There has also been the continued Infolit iSchool series of one hour discussions or presentations. There has been an international mix of presenters and participants (e.g. in an Information Literacy “mini festival” in May a colleague in Puerto Rico did a talk and tour of her information literacy installation in Spanish and then later in English, and at the ESRC Research seminar we had three well-known researchers from North America presenting to an international audience).

Personally I have also benefitted from attending a lot of events, from small get-togethers like the UK Educators meetings, to the big conferences in SL. As in life outside SL, I find that offering to do things and getting involved means that you get more out of things.

3. Awareness raising of Information Literacy (and, probably, me and my Department)
In terms of what happens in SL, I know that people visit the island to look round: not hordes, but I bump into people reasonably often, and they are usually there because they are interested in information literacy and learning. There are increasing numbers of things to look at and explore on Infolit iSchool, and I think that (as with a website) it is valuable to keep it fresh with new content and to have things going on there (the events) to bring people in periodically and make it a live place for them. Since I have a commitment to information literacy, and international dialogue on IL, I think this is a good thing )

I got asked to talk about SL and libraries/information literacy almost as soon as I got involved in SL, so it has an impact on my profile. Interestingly, invites tailed off rather last year, but last week I did one presentation in Bath and have been asked to deliver a session in Prague in September, so perhaps there is a second wave of interest.

4. Research
I have one Masters student using SL as the focus of her dissertation this summer and there will be at least one PhD student starting fairly soon looking at virtual worlds. I have co-authored a paper with a colleague in the US (met only in SL) and she has also agreed to be co-editor on a substantial research book, I put in one small research proposal with another colleague in the USA (failed, but made some use of the text of the bid for something else!), have one refereed paper published, have presented at several research conferences about my work, and am currently putting together a substantial research bid concerned with use of SL. Essentially it has become one of my research fields, but it has also provided me with new research contacts (particularly in the USA): people I had heard of and who might have heard of me, but we had never physically met up.

2. Going well? Not? Want to say why?

I think I probably answered this in the last question? Basically, the teaching side could be improved by having better kit and broadband connections, and more access for the students throughout the campus. This might also then lead to more use by colleagues elsewhere and then some critical mass which would mean it would be taken seriously centrally by our e-learning people.

I think the other aspects are not so dependent than this though (for example) if there was better on campus access then I would use it more with specific cohorts to promote its use as a venue for Continuing Professional Development.

3. 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?

Our island is still being funded jointly by the Information Studies Department and the School of Education: i.e. it is still a special item (rather than part of regular e-learning, funded centrally). Central funding is still concentrated elsewhere, with no investment in virtual worlds (to my knowledge).

4. Long distance travel is increasingly precarious. Ash, strikes and airlines going under ground flights. Travel is expensive (even in the UK with extortionate train fares) and takes up a lot of time. Virtual Worlds could, possibly, be used instead of many workshops, conferences, meetings et al. Your thoughts on this? And how do virtual worlds such as Second Life stack up against other event-replacing media such as Elluminate and Skype?

As noted above, this is already a major (possibly the major) use of the island. In terms of SL vs. Physical face to face, I think that face to face still has value for initiating and cementing connections. There is still more “hanging around and networking” time at a good physical world conference. For example, the COLIS conference (information science) I just went to, wandering round at lunch and coffee breaks to follow up with questions and discussion, and I ended up going to (and enjoying) some sessions because I was physically there, there I might have skipped out on in a SL conference. Voice is more reliable too )

In terms of SL vs. Elluminate or Skype – really no contest as far as I’m concerned, SL is the winner. I haven’t used Elluminate or Skype that much as conference tools – the one time I was presenting with Elluminate, the voice didn’t work (so it’s not just SL!) and obviously you can’t do things that you can in SL (e.g. the demonstrations, tours, displays), plus you REALLY don’t get any “networking”, the best you can hope for is the sound of the “real” conference delegates going off for their refreshments and some amusing uncensored remarks when speakers forget to take off their mics. You do get the backchannel and audience interaction, plus people hanging around just chatting after an event (I have the evidence in chatlogs!) Plus, the conference delegate goodie bags are so much more exciting – I’ve had helicopters, whiteboards, musical instruments, bluebells etc. And even with my limited building skills I managed to give delegates at the last event I organised a complete set of logo-ed virtual clothes. Skype has much more reliable voice (and for discussions between a few people it can have advantages), obviously, but I’m someone that does not find a small squinty view of someone’s nose that engaging (from a visual perspective).

5. Second Life. Using just that, or considering other virtual worlds? If so, why?

Basically I concentrate on SL, but I keep my ears open about other worlds. In particular, I’m putting together a research bid using SL and will have to say what I will do if SL disappears partway into the project. Opensim seems the most obvious, in that it is something you can have control over. I feel I can make a case for using SL as the venue for a multiyear research project, but I think it would be difficult to do that (in terms of stability) with any of the others. (I’m talking about VWs other than gaming VWs like WoW) in terms of research, I’ve had 2 or 3 students focus on World of Warcraft for their UG or Masters dissertations, but I’ve felt I could supervise them without actually using it myself. It’s sounds horribly gendered, but for leisure interest I prefer virtual clothes shopping to virtual orc-bashing.

6. Problems with universities blocking access to Second Life. Is anyone still having that, or are we over it now?

It’s not blocked, but it is still not on the managed desktop, therefore as far as most students/lecturers are concerned it IS effectively blocked. Bit depressing, frankly, as there is periodic interest from colleague sin other parts of the uni, but when the students can’t access it on campus except in those Depts which have labs under their control ….

7. Handling large numbers of students in virtual worlds simultaneously i.e. more than 30. Do you have experience of this? How did it go?

There were 35 in my 1st year class this year. I had to manage it in 2 or 3 groups, since our own lab (see problem above) does not have 35 computers in it. Actually I would probably have broken them down into smaller group anyway for induction, but it would have been nice to have them all inworld for some activities later on. I was able to have other people tutor with me – I do think that is helpful – and in my case some of them were librarians at other universities who were enjoying getting the experience as well as me and my students benefitting. In particular, in my first class with students I am in the lab with students (so I can see what they are seeing and troubleshoot, though obviously they help each other too, which is part of the process) and have a colleague (in their office) inworld. I don’t do lectures inworld, it will be different kinds of activities, usually involving pair or group world, so it is helpful there too to have a couple of you taking special responsibility for specific groups.

The largest number I’ve had inworld simultaneously have been for meetings/seminars, about 40 people, but that’s easier to manage (although it is still a good idea to have a couple of people organising e.g. one to chair and one to sort out any problems, guide latecomers in, IM people who seem troubled etc.)

8. 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)?

Must confess I have not yet swapped over.

9. 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?

Um, despite being in an iSchool, I’m not sure I have read them properly ;-( At the moment I’m not contemplating using another VW and I haven’t built a huge amount, so I haven’t seen it as a major worry.

Answer whichever of the 9 questions below you want to answer. Please send your submissions to john@virtualworldwatch.net by the end of this week; thank you.

Oh – and, as per the previous snapshot, 5 respondents who get their answers in by June 30th will be drawn out of a pickle jar and win £10 each.

+ + + + + The Questions + + + + +

Please do some or all of these – or ignore the lot and write something relevant instead.

1. What are you doing in virtual worlds? Teaching, learning, research, publicity, and/or anything else?

2. Going well? Not? Want to say why?

3. 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?

4. Long distance travel is increasingly precarious. Ash, strikes and airlines going under ground flights. Travel is expensive (even in the UK with extortionate train fares) and takes up a lot of time. Virtual Worlds could, possibly, be used instead of many workshops, conferences, meetings et al. Your thoughts on this? And how do virtual worlds such as Second Life stack up against other event-replacing media such as Elluminate and Skype?

5. Second Life. Using just that, or considering other virtual worlds? If so, why?

6. Problems with universities blocking access to Second Life. Is anyone still having that, or are we over it now?

7. Handling large numbers of students in virtual worlds simultaneously i.e. more than 30. Do you have experience of this? How did it go?

8. 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)?

9. 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?

Thanks for your input – much appreciated.

* * * * *

1. What are you doing in virtual worlds? Teaching, learning, research, publicity, and/or anything else?

Nothing new for me just now. Finishing off projects started a couple of years ago, collecting data, writing up, looking at how lecturers can move onto second & third stages of their exploratory projects. Other stuff is going on around the Uni, but lecturers are to a great extent now “doing it for themselves” (with the developers).

Still exploring intergrating Second Life with Blackboard. Still looking at if we wish to use any Virtual World element on the LTHE PGCert.

2. Going well? Not? Want to say why?

Going fine. It’s gained its own momentum and is rolling along nicely, and whilst not at the speed we initially envisaged, it IS rolling along. The concept of Sl/VWs has become commonly accepted in the Uni, and is now seen as a serious learning technology/learning environment, which is a huge change from 2 years ago! We are no longer looked at strangely… So, successful in many ways.

3. 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?

If it becomes an intergrated learning environment to use then it hopefully having the technology will still be funded at central level, as are our other accepted learning technologies (VLE, etc).

Lack of funding will impact more on opportunities for substantive research than for development. Lack of extra funding will slow down learning and teaching innovation as people will not be able to buy our time for design of learning activities/courses, etc.

4. Long distance travel is increasingly precarious. Ash, strikes and airlines going under ground flights. Travel is expensive (even in the UK with extortionate train fares) and takes up a lot of time. Virtual Worlds could, possibly, be used instead of many workshops, conferences, meetings et al. Your thoughts on this? And how do virtual worlds such as Second Life stack up against other event-replacing media such as Elluminate and Skype?

It has potential. But I’d like to see some more integration of tools such as Elluminate/Skype mixed into SL/VWs, and also the asynchronous nature of some online conferences should not be lost. I dont think it’s necessarily a one-or-other situation. They all have good and bad points. But I do think it will happen that we remotly conference more in the future, and a 3D environment has much to offer that experience.

5. Second Life. Using just that, or considering other virtual worlds? If so, why?

Too much buy-in to a commerical system that has so much control is not good for education, IMHO. Its holds us hostage to their whims, downtime, pricing… As long as we can export to other VWs then SL will continue for a while, but I eventually would prefer to see this as a technology that we host and control (us as individual institutions, or collaboratively, across the UK) and can steer its development more for our needs.

6. Problems with universities blocking access to Second Life. Is anyone still having that, or are we over it now?

Not blocked, and its now on the standard desktop image (yay!), but we still have issues of ‘training’ as part of general IT skills. Its still seen as something not yet standard.

8. 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)?

The UI confuses me , but media on a prim is fantastic news.

+ + + + +

1. What are you doing in virtual worlds? Teaching, learning, research, publicity, and/or anything else?

This past year I’ve used Second Life to teach microbial bioinformatics for the second time though the subject matter was significantly changed (from cell wall defences in Gram-negatives to an analysis of homologous genes in mycobacterial species). I also supervised an undergraduate project that involved the student constructing a build themed on the cell wall of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Finally, I gave a Masters group a brief introduction that was intended to give them some idea of what it would be like to attend a conference in a virtual world.

2. Going well? Not? Want to say why?

My general impression of the bioinformatics sessions is that there is a minority of students that really likes this kind of thing but that I still need to make the experience less bumpy for the majority. Fortunately there seem to be very few that absolutely hate it. Given that this year was radically different in content and approach from the previous one (e.g. different topic, greater emphasis on teamwork), I thought the end-result was sufficiently good to justify running a streamlined version of the same sessions next year.

The (much longer) project seemed to go reasonably well. I personally liked the way the student became largely independent and we had some good conversations, both online and offline, about subject content and design issues as well as the mechanics of building.

Sadly, the Masters group session suffered from some scheduling issues (the class ended up being run multiple times) and coincided with the introduction of the new viewer which also caused some problems. Most of the students were, however, reasonably proficient in basic navigation by the end of the single session. That said, I don’t think the implementation, however well-intentioned, hit the intended target. With the benefit of hindsight, it would have been much better just to have facilitated some kind of actual conference inworld. Obvious really.

3. 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?

As of the end of May, I am no longer supported by the University Library but I have managed to locate some residual teaching monies and this, together with the financial support normally afforded project students, should suffice for one more year. Sadly, I don’t do enough teaching inworld to warrant funding as “infrastructure”. I am, however, hoping to share the island with a US educator who will be contributing funds that will enable continuation for a further year, i.e. two in total. Her subject interest meshes well with my current teaching so there is potential for synergistic interaction, including running a meeting involving both student groups. I hope this comes off as I see this type of subject-level collaboration as the future in the absence of any direct support locally, at least in the short term.

4. Long distance travel is increasingly precarious. Ash, strikes and  airlines going under ground flights. Travel is expensive (even in the UK with extortionate train fares) and takes up a lot of time. Virtual Worlds could, possibly, be used instead of many workshops, conferences, meetings et al. Your thoughts on this? And how do virtual worlds such as Second Life stack up against other event-replacing media such as Elluminate and Skype?

I attend a lot of remote meetings and conferences via SL and find it very convenient and much less fraught than it used to be. A number of the Masters students, however, were less than enthused about the lack of facial feedback from avatars and, I suspect, also begrudged the loss of the opportunity to network in person as well as visit new and exciting real-life places.

I have relatively little experience of Elluminate — my recollection is that it didn’t seem to engender as good a backchannel and, of course, there was negligible sense of shared presence. If I’m speaking, I do like to rez things as well as show slides and that seemed to go down reasonably well at the Virtual Worlds Best Practice in Education talk I gave.

5. Second Life. Using just that, or considering other virtual worlds? If so, why?

I’m only anticipating using SL for the coming year though, if time permits, I will have a look at some of the alternatives. Some further ruminations under Q.9.

6. Problems with universities blocking access to Second Life. Is anyone still having that, or are we over it now?

Never had that problem.

7. Handling large numbers of students in virtual worlds simultaneously i.e. more than 30. Do you have experience of this? How did it go?

The Masters class was more than 30 but I was forced to schedule that into smaller groups anyway so the inworld supervision was not a major issue.

8. 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)?

I do agree with the Linden Lab notion of simplifying the initial experience and I think the web browser-like features are an improvement, albeit somewhat reminiscent of the earlier OnRez viewer. The sidebar and communications aspects are less well implemented but hopefully they will be improved in the next release. I am very enthusiastic about shared media and will be talking on that topic at our local Learning & Teaching conference. I am hoping that it will go some way to simplifying aspects of what I currently teach although I do see some issues, not least legibility as well as lack of synchrony between different users seeing the same media prim unless you are using special apps.

9. 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 don’t think it has changed my views and intentions significantly, given that I was never anticipating migrating my builds (or, more to the point, anyone else’s) to other worlds. I do create quite a lot of content from scratch so the option is there for some of it; anything computationally intensive is handled by an external server anyway. Ultimately I suspect I would be able to migrate to an OpenSim world reasonably easily provided it had decent scripting performance — that can’t be far off now.

That said, I have no idea whether I will ultimately end up in OpenSim or somewhere completely different. If the University was suddenly to endorse a.n.other non-OpenSim virtual world, I would do my best to support that, possibly for new developments in the first instance. That means that I most likely wouldn’t abandon SL; I see it as the metaverse hub for some years to come.

Hi folks,

Virtual World Watch is now collecting information for snapshot #9 of virtual world use in UK Higher and Further Education.

Do you work in the sector? Use virtual worlds? Have used them? Then it would be appreciated if you’d have a go at answering one or more of the following questions. It’s up to you what you answer, and how formally or informally you answer. Or just ignore the questions if they aren’t helpful and write your own thing. We’re flexible

This is an opportunity to tell the world, and the academic virtual world community, what you are doing, have done, will do, and/or how it went. As happens regularly, people with a similar interest may then discover what you’re doing, so you may pick up a few useful contacts through your contribution.

Some points:

• The answers are stuck into a report which will go live on Monday, July 12th.
• Data collection is for all of June i.e. June 1st to June 30th only.
• Sorry, but no extensions after June 30th as VWW is keen to get the report out much closer to data collection than previously. Contributions that miss the deadline can, if you wish, go up as blog entries on this website instead.
• Unless you request anonymity, your name and job title (please supply preferred) will be included as a reference.
• Submissions can come from academics and students in UK HE or FE, as well as developers who develop directly for UK academia.
• Yes, you can be negative (honesty and frankness much better than spin) – but nothing personal and no swearing.
• Examples are awesome.

Send your submissions to john@virtualworldwatch.net – thanks.

Oh – and, as per the previous snapshot, 5 respondents who get their answers in by June 30th will be drawn out of a pickle jar and win £10 each (n.b. there’s a few winners of £10 from snapshot #8 who still haven’t claimed their loot).

+ + + + + The Questions + + + + +

Please do some or all of these – or ignore the lot and write something relevant instead.

1. What are you doing in virtual worlds? Teaching, learning, research, publicity, and/or anything else?

2. Going well? Not? Want to say why?

3. 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?

4. Long distance travel is increasingly precarious. Ash, strikes and airlines going under ground flights. Travel is expensive (even in the UK with extortionate train fares) and takes up a lot of time. Virtual Worlds could, possibly, be used instead of many workshops, conferences, meetings et al. Your thoughts on this? And how do virtual worlds such as Second Life stack up against other event-replacing media such as Elluminate and Skype?

5. Second Life. Using just that, or considering other virtual worlds? If so, why?

6. Problems with universities blocking access to Second Life. Is anyone still having that, or are we over it now?

7. Handling large numbers of students in virtual worlds simultaneously i.e. more than 30. Do you have experience of this? How did it go?

8. 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)?

9. 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?

Thanks for your input – much appreciated.