Social Influence in Second Life: Social Network and Social Psychological Processes in the Diffusion of Belief and Behaviour on the Web
The PhD thesis, under a Creative Commons licence, of Dr Aleks Krotoski is available through her website; there’s some interesting wordles on there as well. Go here:
(It was thanks to Aleks showing me around Second Life several years ago that I had the ‘Aha!’ moment, so without her there may not have been a Virtual World Watch and accompanying snapshots.)
Aleks is a media and Internet journalist for The Guardian, and a presenter on what many regard as the best TV programme on video games to date (BITS). She twitters, and is also the presenter of The Virtual Revolution, the forthcoming BBC series about the Web:
Information from UK universities and colleges on their virtual world activities is still welcome for the latest snapshot survey.
One of the responses in so far is from Bex Ferriday, the lead teacher at the School of Education and Training at Cornwall College. Here’s what she says:
What we are doing
Cornwall College is using Second Life to collaborate with other in world educational establishments and to deliver teaching and student support to Higher Education students studying a range of subjects. We have also designed our sim (Cornwall College Island) to function as an interactive representation of the architecture, geology, geography, sociology and politics of Cornwall. As a result, visitors to the island are as welcome to surf, sunbathe on the beach, hang-glide, share a pasty or walk around a virtual tin mine as they are to enrol on a course of study, have a tutorial or join a class.
A number of projects are currently at various stages of development. Cornwall College’s School of Education and Training (SET) has been delivering a successful introductory teacher training programme using blended learning methods for a little over three years now. Course members study using a mix of asynchronous online sessions uploaded to the college’s Virtual Learning Environment (moodle) and attendance at traditional classroom based sessions. In February 2010 the college will pilot a version of this course whereby all classroom based sessions will be delivered in Second Life. This opens the course to students from all over the globe, and also asks the question – can traditional teaching skills learnt in a virtual world transfer to practice in the real world?
Partnership
The college is also involved in setting up a partnership with Université de Bretagne Occidentale at Quimper using Second Life. It is hoped that students from both sides of the Channel can meet each other and staff can share lessons and resources. This should enhance the college’s current involvement in the Erasmus (European Community Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students) partnership and hopefully lead to students visiting one another in the real world.
Arts and construction
Arts and media students are looking to hold an exhibition of 3D art and sculpture in the gallery that floats above the island as part of their assessed coursework, making work that defies the laws of physics in the real world yet still adheres to assignment briefs and course requirements in the real world.
Meanwhile, construction lecturers are setting up a project which involves a group of students building a house in Second Life while peers studying for accreditation in other construction-based trades such as plumbing and carpentry work closely together in order to make the house function. This will have the duel benefit of honing students’ skills in a safe environment and giving them the opportunity to learn how to work as a team.
Spreading the word
“Spreading the word” is still proving to be difficult. Despite a flurry of interest at the college’s annual ILT Fair held in July (with four Second Life introductory workshops being full to capacity) teaching staff with packed schedules and low confidence in their personal ICT abilities feel that they don’t have the time or ability to engage with Second Life – and many fear they don’t have the imagination to use it effectively or dynamically.
Reasons cited commonly include the lack of time because of workload pressures, the perceived (or real) steep learning curve that is attached to learning to navigate in a virtual world, age (it being seen as something for “young people” despite the suggested average age of a typical Second Life user as being 36) and it just being “weird”. Typically, this “weirdness” boils down to a group assumption that Second Life is a glorified orgy of virtual sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, though in recent months this world view hasn’t been as vehemently stated as, say, this time last year. A sign that attitudes are changing, perhaps?
The future
With momentum starting to build, it would seem rather churlish to stop now. With the new Nebraska “Behind the Firewall” project in alpha stage the college can consider running a standalone instance of Second Life and in doing so could make access easier for students under the age of 18, as well as those students who are considered more vulnerable. It may even help to allay the fears that many still seem to have regarding adult content. As more and more educational establishments seem to be joining Second Life in order to collaborate and educate, this can only be the start of something good!
There is a description of the project, plus a video on YouTube showing some of the Second Life areas, features and a small sample of the substantial collection of audio material:
However, it’s more fulfilling to explore the environment in Second Life itself. Go in, wander, listen to some of the audio of the poems being read and descriptions (by soldiers) of conditions there. Try on a uniform, and click on various items around the simulation. In Second Life it can be found here:
Visitors to the virtual trenches are given a unique immersive experience where they can explore a training camp, dressing station, a trench network and No Man’s Land. The terrain is waterlogged and difficult to navigate, rife with rats and littered with poppies. Moving nearer to the front line the clamour of shell blasts and artillery fire becomes louder and louder.
… and …
At the end the visitor is teleported out of the trenches to a teaching area. Here they are asked to consider the memory of the war, and to confront their own prejudices and stereotypes – was the war really all about trenches, mud, and rats, or are their other aspects to it that we now need to consider? Should it only be remembered as mass slaughter, a gross act of futility, or more a collective act of unparalleled heroism that ended ultimately in a victory for Britain and its allies?
Two videos recently produced by UK universities concerning their Second Life activities are on YouTube.
First up is the University of Nottingham, and their “Getting started in Second Life” production, showing some of their developments:
Over at the University of Derby, a collaboration with the Institute of Quarrying has led to the Virtual Quarry, where the quarrypeople (is there a word for this?) of the future can be initially trained in a safe virtual environment before being let loose with rocks and diggers:
Imperial College London have been working on, and using, a substantial development in Second Life for some time. In response to the latest snapshot call, Maria sent in some details.
We have been developing game-based learning for the delivery of virtual patients in Second Life.
The Faculty of Medicine at Imperial College London has developed a Virtual Hospital in Second Life that aims to design game-based learning activities for the delivery of virtual patients that can drive experiential, diagnostic, and role-play learning activities supporting patients’ diagnosis, investigation and treatment.
Phase I of this project focused on the delivery of a virtual patient in the area of Respiratory Medicine following a game-based learning model in Second Life. A pilot was carried out in March 2008 with 43 students. The feedback received has informed the development of Phase II which incorporates a multi-patient approach.
