Here’s Marc, from the University of Bedfordshire, with an update on what they are doing with virtual worlds and links to further materials.
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1. What are you doing with virtual worlds? (And how long have you been doing it?)
We use virtual worlds for teaching Project Management and performing research on identity and other aspects of virtual worlds.
These activities are well documented under http://sl.sanfoh.com/. I supervise currently one PhD and one Master by Research on virtual world aspects.
2. Which virtual worlds are you using? Why those in particular?
We have used OpenSim this year for the first time. We were using two providers: http://www.3dmetaverse.com/ and http://reactiongrid.com/. They are both fine and I can recommend them. Details about these can be found on a paper I published at ReLive’11; see http://sl.perisic.com/relive11/ for details and presentation.
The reason we moved from Second Life was because of their poor customer support. The person who maintained the avatar that owned our island decided to give up this avatar and Linden Lab was not able to transfer the island to another avatar. This is well documented in various communication I had with them. Therefore we have to decide at very short notice to switch to a different provider.
3. What support do you get in your institution in your use of virtual worlds?
Virtual worlds are now an integrated part of our teaching and are therefore funded as part of the usual expenses, similar as this is the case e.g. for software licences. In particular, OpenSim based solutions are much cheaper in setup and maintenance fee.
4. What do you like/dislike about the virtual worlds you are using?
OpenSim is OK, but it is not Second Life i.e. the context and immersion Second Life offers does not seem to happen in the OpenSim; see the Relive’11 paper for a lot of reflection about this.
5. If teaching using virtual worlds, what’s the experience been like, for you and/or the students?
The students are doing it, but I don’t think they are particularly excited about this.
6. Any thoughts on the integration of virtual worlds with other learning technologies?
Ask the Sloodle people; they know better than I do 
. It’s certainly bound to be happen somehow (providers of these Learning Environment are under pressure to ‘add value’ to their systems, and doing virtual worlds is an obvious extension). But I wouldn’t be able to predict how it will happen exactly.
7. The catch-all: anything else you’d like to say?
Yes, indeed.
First: John you are doing a tremendous job to put this all together. Excellent work.
Second: we are trying to explore the utilisation of Open Sim vs. Second Life a bit further as part of a research project. Anyone volunteering to be interviewed in that matter is very much welcome to contact me (marc.conrad@beds.ac.uk).
This event happens in Second Life, today (tuesday 13th December), at 8pm UK time.
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What: Using a “23 Things” approach as part of an information literacy class
When: Tuesday 13 December 2011, 12noon SL time (8pm UK time, see http://tinyurl.com/czarcan for times elsewhere)
Where: Infolit iSchool in Second Life:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Infolit%20iSchool/125/240/22/
Sheila Webber (Information School, University of Sheffield, UK: Sheila Yoshikawa in Second Life) will describe how she used a “23 Things” approach with her class of Masters student in the Information School, University of sheffields. The class size was 115 students and the majority are international students, particularly from China. “23 Things” is an approach that originated with public librarians developing staff knowledge of Web 2.0 through use of blogging. Presentation in voice, discussion in text chat.
A Centre for Information Literacy Research event.
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Sheila Webber, Senior Lecturer & Director of the Centre for Information Literacy Research, Information School, The University of Sheffield.
Second Life & Twitter: Sheila Yoshikawa
The Information Literacy Weblog: http://information-literacy.blogspot.com/
The submission from Cathy Tombs and Gemma Tombs, from Coventry University, for snapshot #10. Cathy and Gemma work in a hubub of virtual world research and teaching activity that stretches back several years. Tomorrow and thursday there’ll be contributions from Bromley College and Greenwich University.
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1. What are you doing with virtual worlds? (And how long have you been doing it?)
Maintaining a university-owned island since 2007, which has recently been completely redesigned to better fit our needs.
Developing and evaluating learning scenarios with various organisations for a multitude of disciplines such as project management, health and social care management, child nursing, adult nursing (Coventry University), medical simulations and medical training (North Western Medical Deanery).
Development and evaluation of a virtual medical simulation replicated from a paediatric scenario at the Smart Hospital based at University of Texas Arlington.
Teaching employability skills to students using the virtual world Second Life.
We are currently nearing completion of one four-year research project (CURLIEW), which looks at the socio-political impact of virtual world use in higher education. The three PhD students on the project will be finishing theses on pedagogical design in virtual worlds, student perspectives of virtual worlds and the impact of using virtual worlds on learner identity. A further output from the CURLIEW project will be a synthesis of data across all three projects.
2. Which virtual worlds are you using? Why those in particular?
We are using Second Life, due to ease of access and the flexibility it offers in terms of developing our own learning scenarios. As a learning and teaching environment, it provides greater flexibility in terms of learning space design and islands/areas for students to explore.
3. What support do you get in your institution in your use of virtual worlds?
Our IT department has installed Second Life onto the university server so that it can be accessed from any computer on campus, and we receive funding to keep the university island maintained monthly. The department is currently exploring the possibility of updating Second Life to the newer viewer.
4. What do you like/dislike about the virtual worlds you are using?
There is a steep learning curve in terms of development. The learning curve is not quite so steep with general use of Second Life (especially since the new viewer) but still requires at least several hours of orientation for new students and staff to feel comfortable in-world.
One of its main advantages from a research perspective is also its popularity, meaning that there are several research seminars and conferences available in-world. Unless there is a mass move to another virtual world, Second Life provides an opportunity to engage in a research community in a way that few other virtual worlds do.
5. If teaching using virtual worlds, what’s the experience been like, for you and/or the students?
Cathy: I haven’t done any teaching using virtual worlds, but several testing and orientation sessions. I’ve noticed there are some people that instantly connect with Second Life and find it fascinating, and are enthusiastic to explore and learn. Then there are others that find it very difficult to feel comfortable, and need heavy encouragement. It’s very difficult beforehand to establish who is going to adjust quickly to Second Life and who is going to struggle.
Gemma: The experience of teaching in Second Life, for me, has varied according to the technological capabilities of the campus-based computers. Since I teach on a voluntary module, most students are at least open to the potential of using Second Life as a learning environment. With a smaller class, it’s easier to manage differences in student Second Life abilities and encourage students to support one another. Students engage enthusiastically with the content of the module and clearly enjoy using Second Life as a learning environment, primarily because of the diversity of islands available, allowing them to explore areas related to their disciplines and personal interests, as well as engaging in multi-disciplinary work. However, students can very quickly become frustrated and discouraged by technological problems, such as computers crashing.
6. Any thoughts on the integration of virtual worlds with other learning technologies?
I think it is a very good idea to integrate virtual worlds with learning management systems such as MOODLE, both in terms of assessment for staff and as back-up if there are technical problems!
Anna Peachey’s contribution to snapshot #10. We like Anna. She runs great virtual world events for educators, and under the umbrella of Eygus, does interesting virtual world work for the Open University and other organisations.
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What are you doing with virtual worlds? (And how long have you been doing it?)
Been working in virtual worlds for The Open University since 2006, during which period we have seen institutional use expand and contract. Currently contracted, mainly due to finance and major changes within the university, but sleeping rather than dead – we expect to see activity pick up again at some point in the future. Personally just continuing to write up research and encourage new publications to the Springer Immersive Environments series, chaired the ReLIVE11 conference and keeping up with other conferences to see what others are doing.
Which virtual worlds are you using? Why those in particular?
Second Life because I always have, Open Sim because it’s flavour of the month with educators generally, Minecraft because it’s engaging the kids and that’s fascinating.
What support do you get in your institution in your use of virtual worlds?
Currently very low because previous (supported) exploratory activity wasn’t picked up by the university mainstream and there is no further budget for that sort of continued watching brief. However there remain pockets of interest that are including virtual world activity in funding proposals… we shall see.
If teaching using virtual worlds, what’s the experience been like, for you and/or the students?
I have had some very positive experiences teaching in virtual worlds and some very negative – like teaching anywhere really. The sense of presence that it brings to a group of students can be enormously enabling, but for some that is the thing that makes them feel uncomfortable. I think the digital literacy requirements for participation are intimidating and should not be underestimated, but eventually this will cease to be a problem as new generations roll through.
Any thoughts on the integration of virtual worlds with other learning technologies?
Browser-based virtual worlds would make them much more acceptable to the majority of our students.
Compilation of the tenth Virtual World Watch snapshot is taking place, and it’s proving to be one of the more enjoyable ones to do. A few brief words.
First – there is a final deadline extension, as a few people are still writing away. You can have until the end of tomorrow, Thursday 8th December 2011. But that’s it – no more extensions, as on Friday summarising has to begin. Anyway, the minimum that is required is a paragraph for most or all of seven questions, on what you, your department or university are doing with virtual worlds. This doesn’t therefore require a massive effort; the first response to the call for this snapshot – and one of the best ones – came within 15 minutes.
So, you have until the end of tomorrow to write six or seven paragraphs, for inclusion in the snapshot report. Details of the seven questions to answer, plus who will be getting copies of the snapshot report, are elsewhere.
And what’s going to be in the report? And what’s the situation with virtual worlds in UK education? A few teasers…
If you look at the previous 25 entries on the website, 22 of these are submissions for the snapshot. And there’s a stack not yet blogged on the website; some of them very good. In addition to these, some UK academics are active but haven’t submitted this time round for a variety of reasons (or said they would, and didn’t: the “survey data collection” section of the report is going to be entertaining ), and to keep sanity, “quality control” has been set a little higher this time, with a larger number of submissions rejected than before.
As opposed to previous snapshots, there’s also going to be mention of several UK academic virtual world activities, projects and research that were not submitted in response to the call for “What’s going on?”
The overall picture of virtual world use in UK education is the second most frequent question Virtual World Watch gets asked (the most frequent being “Where can I get funding?”). Before we get stuck into the summarising process for the report, it would appear that the overall picture is … pretty much the same as before. Fragmented. Some academics are ending their involvement with, or use of, virtual worlds. Some others are sticking with it (of which several have been using this technology for over half a decade). And some others are new users of such technology.
The other trends that seem to be emerging from an informal read of the submissions and other poking around the Interwebz are:
- A lot of UK academic users of Second Life are/were not happy at the prices going up, or Linden Labs removing the educational discount, whichever way you look at it.
- Having said that, many of those academics are sticking with Second Life.
- OpenSim could eventually be good, and preferable to Second Life, but at the moment the technical resources required are too great for most.
- Wonderland is getting more attention, as are a few of the other virtual worlds. Incidentally, check out the offer from Kitely to all educators, in the comments of this snapshot submission.
- Internal funding is being squeezed in every university, without exception; sometimes, really hard. This manifests itself most of all in staff cuts. In some places this has hit virtual world use and maintenance; in others, not.
- Increasingly, European Funding is becoming a main source of income for UK academic research in virtual worlds.
Anyway, it’s time to start summarising and collating the responses. The process of report production is a lot better than previous ones, so the report will be out in the next few weeks. Priority is given to getting the report out to the 219 specific people and organisations, before we dollop the report online for the great masses to read. Expect to see it here before the month (and therefore year) is out.
And in the meantime; there’ll be some more contributions to snapshot #10 put up on here. Remember, if you haven’t contributed yet; six or seven relevant paragraphs by the end of tomorrow, and you’re in…
Happy holidays.
Jane Chandler is the Associate Dean (Students), in the Faculty of Creative and Cultural Industries at the University of Portsmouth. Here is what she has pulled together from the university for the latest snapshot.
We’re on top of contributions, so we’ve extended the deadline for contributions – but this is really it. If you want to get something in, then you have by the end of this Wednesday, 8th December 2011. All that is required is one paragraph minimum for most or all of the seven questions. As a guide, the first (and one of the best) contributions to the snapshot came in within 15 minutes of the first call for contributions going out.
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1. What are you doing with virtual worlds? (And how long have you been doing it?)
The University of Portsmouth has been using Second Life since 2006. We currently have 3 Islands (UoP Island, Chmi Island and Enterprise Centre).
UoP Island is predominantly used for School of Computing student work; the majority contains a mix of materials to introduce students to Second Life and student coursework and dissertation work. Within the Island there is also a small area with the outputs from a project undertaken for the then HEA ICS Subject Centre on teaching tools for Second Life, and an area in which we are prototyping (with students) tools for teaching Forensic IT – this includes a Crown Court.
Chmi Island is used by the Centre for Healthcare Modelling and Informatics as a workplace telecare showcase, showing ways in which IT can be integrated into the workplace to provide healthcare support for employees and their families.
Enterprise Centre is awaiting development by the Portsmouth Business School to support their student placement activities.
Kevin Curtis in the School of Creative Technologies has been using Open Wonderland as part of a European Interreg project looking at developing problem-based learning to students.
2. Which virtual worlds are you using? Why those in particular?
We are using Second Life for both historical reasons (it was there when we started looking at Virtual Worlds) and for practical reasons (it is readily and freely available, it provides a rich environment for students to explore and learn from, there is a wealth of material available to support the work we do in Second Life, plus we have invested time and money in it).
We use Open Wonderland as part of a cross European research project. With Opensim – we are investigating this as an alternative, cheaper environment to Second Life.
3. What support do you get in your institution in your use of virtual worlds?
We are given provision of server space for Open Wonderland work. Also, payment of the costs of two Second Life islands (the cost of the 3rd is covered by external funding).
4. What do you like/dislike about the virtual worlds you are using?
Second Life provides an easy entry to using virtual worlds as there is a range of materials (books and on the web) to support new users, it is easy to find (direct students to) materials in world on how to build, texture etc, there is a wide range of freebies available which helps both students and staff starting out, and there are lots and lots of examples to look at and investigate. Anything is possible in terms.
The difficulties are that for newbies it takes time to get the hang of moving around and their inventories; the costs of owning an island have increased substantially; running it over a university network can be challenging (but on the other hand it can be run from a stick).
5. If teaching using virtual worlds, what’s the experience been like, for you and/or the students?
We don’t do formal teaching so our experiences have been around introducing students to Second Life and letting them explore and build. We have found with this type of usage that students split into 2 groups – love it or hate it. Those who hate it tend to have a strong gaming background and feel the graphics quality is too low and the interface not game-like enough. Those who love it tend to do so because they can see the potential.
6. Any thoughts on the integration of virtual worlds with other learning technologies?
Only that the more they can the better – but first we need better “integration” with academic networks e.g. multiple users of one computer for short periods of time with all the attendant problems of storage space and protection of the network from ‘odd’ software. Being able to easily run fully functional virtual worlds in browsers such as IE and firefox would help with this.
7. The catch-all: anything else you’d like to say?
It is regrettable that changes in educational costs for Second Life have increased substantially over the last year as this may mean we have to withdraw from Second Life.
Simon Bignell from the University of Derby returns with an update of what he’s doing with virtual worlds. There is still a *very brief* window of opportunity to get details of your work and projects into the soon-to-be-released snapshot #10.
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1. What are you doing with virtual worlds? (And how long have you been doing it?)
Currently I’m developing teaching and learning resources for postgraduate and undergraduate Psychology courses at University of Derby. I’ve been working with Second Life since 2006. Specifically we’re using virtual worlds to simulate real life experiment mock-ups. Simulations, such as a virtual neonatal ward, are assisting students to see how real world environments are related to Psychological theory and practice.
2. Which virtual worlds are you using? Why those in particular?
We are using Second Life on the main grid. We’re using this virtual world because we have an extensive virtual campus and most of our systems are designed around the existing virtual builds.
3. What support do you get in your institution in your use of virtual worlds?
The Department is funded to work within Second Life and we are interested in expanding our provision as use increases with our online/distance learning students. We also have received support from central University funding and research councils for specific development work.
4. What do you like/dislike about the virtual worlds you are using?
I dislike the steep learning curve for educationalists and students. I love the immediacy and innovation that they inspire. I believe they still represent a fantastic development and rapid prototyping environment for educationalists.
5. If teaching using virtual worlds, what’s the experience been like, for you and/or the students?
The experience of using virtual worlds is often varied. The inductions we provide to students are essential. They often are being utilised within much of education only as a ‘bolt-on’ to existing teaching and learning provision. The experience is mixed in terms of student success and educational outcomes. Further research is required to establish a good evidence base for their mainstream use. The perception that they are ‘high-end’ technology and elitist needs to be managed. Within HE e-learning provision there exists a very mixed profile of technology-enhanced learning provision across and within institutions.
6. Any thoughts on the integration of virtual worlds with other learning technologies?
From experience I believe that the variability of service provision and adaptation of a variety of e-learning and campus-based technology needs to be levelled within education. Until we have rolled out methods such as podcasting, audio and video enhanced tutorials and lectures, for example it will be hard to escape the ‘text-based’ monopoly of much of HEs teaching and learning provision. Virtual worlds still represent an effective way of presenting experiential learning activities but currently I believe that these should only be use in the context of a full pallet of technology-enhanced learning methods that are appropriate for learning outcomes. Virtual worlds are still a valid tool for educationalists.
7. The catch-all: anything else you’d like to say?
Educationalists’ move away from the Second Life main grid is unfortunate. I believe that communities of practice within virtual worlds teaching and learning have much work to do to integrate best practice across technologies and subject groups.
Lewis Carroll’s notion that, “It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place” may not apply to the advance of virtual worlds within teaching innovation. We may have to stop running so fast to see how far behind us everyone else is and let them catch-up.
Robert Gittins, from the School of Computer Science at Bangor University, is another first-time contributer to the snapshots. Here, he describes Project IVY (Interpreting in Virtual Reality). There is still a *brief* window of opportunity to get details of your work and projects into the soon-to-be-released snapshot #10.
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What are you doing with virtual worlds? And how long have you been doing it?
We are starting the second year in developing an adaptive 3D virtual environment called Project IVY (Interpreters in Virtual Reality). Project IVY is designed to address the needs of future interpreters and users of interpreters in higher education, vocational training and adult learning contexts. Our project uses 3D virtual environment technology to create an innovative virtual educational space that supports the acquisition and application of skills required in interpreter-mediated communication.
Our aim is that the project will provide a learning environment which uses the potential of 3D technology to enable learners from different contexts and different educational sectors and to meet and interact, learn with customized digital content and apply their knowledge; this fosters experiential and autonomous learning in a virtual setting, and supports collaborative learning through simulation and live interaction. Project IVY is adaptable to other educational contexts.
The project partners are the University of Surrey (UK, co-ordinator), University of Bangor (UK), University of Cyprus (Cyprus), University of Poznan (Poland), University of Tübingen (Germany), Steinbeis GmbH & Co. KG für Technologietransfer (Germany), and Bar Ilan University (Israel).
Full trials of the system will commence early 2012; results will be published during 2012. The project is funded by the EU Lifelong Learning Programme.
Which virtual worlds are you using? Why those in particular?
We are provisionally using Second Life, and exploring OpenSim for future projects. Second Life is public facing and reasonably accessible by students, lecturers and other participating institutions
What support do you get in your institution in your use of virtual worlds?
We have the use of two islands in Second Life – Bangor University and Surrey University, partly funded by the project.
What do you like/dislike about the virtual worlds you are using?
Second Life is very restrictive and difficult to adapt to the demands of our project. Developing good text display systems are particularly difficult.vManipulating audio and synchronized media would be much easier using other platforms. Only the public facing attributes of Second Life help to drive the project.
If teaching using virtual worlds, what’s the experience been like, for you and/or the students?
Some provisional interpreter student meetings have been conducted in Second Life (see the picture).
Any thoughts on the integration of virtual worlds with other learning technologies?
The project will explore integration with other technologies – particularly augmented reality and the use of robotics.
Some words by another first-time snapshot submitter: Georgy Holden, a senior lecturer at the Open University.
This is for snapshot #10, which is currently being compiled. There’s a window of opportunity for people who haven’t yet submitted to get something in, but it’s just a few days.
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1. What are you doing with virtual worlds? (And how long have you been doing it?)
I am one of a group of Design lecturers at the Open University who are partners in a European Lifelong Learning project, ARCHI21. ARCHI21 is looking at learning language in the context of design and architectural teaching. Work began a year ago, but my group has used virtual worlds previously for some experimental design teaching.
2. Which virtual worlds are you using? Why those in particular?
We have been using Second Life, though on reflection OpenSim might have been a better choice. However, using OpenSim would mean someone looking after a server, which could be a challenge too far.
3. What support do you get in your institution in your use of virtual worlds?
The Second Life islands we are using were set up by one of our partners, plus the OU has had its own island for some while. The reasons for this are lost in the midst of time, but probably because this was seen as the most popular virtual world. My institution supports virtual world development; it even hosts a conference on the subject of learning in virtual worlds (ReLive), though we are a long way from virtual worlds being a mainstream activity.
4. What do you like/dislike about the virtual worlds you are using?
The great thing about working in-world is engaging with students in a different way. Our project centres on design and building and the building tools in Second Life let everyone experiment collaboratively in a way that is not easily achieved in other media. The in-world experience also lets students portray themselves in a way that both anonymises and expresses at the same time. The avatar names tell everyone lots about how people want to be seen rather than assumptions being made on the basis of real-world physical characteristics; Cyrano de Begerac might be set in a virtual world if it were written today. Our students enjoyed the informality and playfulness of the virtual world, whilst at the same time seeing it as a place to which they could return to collaborate and build their ideas. The virtual world has also proved to be a good place for assisting the development of language; the informality of the setting seems to foster constructive interaction around this aspect of learning.
What I don’t like about working in-world are technical problems that are hard to figure out; microphones not working; viewers that don’t correspond to expectations or instructions and trying to sort those things out at a distance for a minority of students whilst keeping the majority engaged. I am also not very good at moving around. Fortunately if you are with a bunch of novices no-one minds if you bump into them. Working in-world on a dedicated island feels quite safe but I have been scared off random tours in the wider world by avatars who appear to have Tourettes syndrome. The experience of landing in the Second Life general induction area, into a circle of avatars perched on the fence like evil crows ready to pick the bones of new arrivals, was quickly decided against when we trialled it before our students came in.
5. If teaching using virtual worlds, what’s the experience been like, for you and/or the students?
Our students are very enthusiastic about the experience that they had in-world. Interestingly, none of them really knew about virtual worlds before we invited them to join our experiment. Our students are all mature, so maybe that ignorance is to be expected, but our European partners tell us that the young students that they work with need to be convinced about virtual worlds. Those who take most naturally to the environment are gamers, but gamers are a small minority and their coolness is, apparently, questionable. The challenge is how to break down the perceptual barriers to in-world participation.
6. The catch-all: anything else you’d like to say?
In my opinion, the virtual world should be used for the things that it offers that can’t be done elsewhere. I know from experience that it is possible to use other means to deliver lectures with some interactivity in other interfaces (I use Elluminate for that a lot). It is also possible to use VOIP interfaces for online meetings and to work on Google apps at the same time. What the virtual world offers is the chance for a playful experience, for building and role-playing and for interacting in a different way. It is these affordances that we should be developing and celebrating so that students come to the virtual world for learning and leave with enthusiasm as well as knowledge, understanding and skills.
Diane Carr is a Lecturer in Media and Cultural Studies in the London Knowledge Lab at the Institute of Education, who worked on the Eduserv-funded Learning from Online Worlds project. Here’s her contribution to Virtual World Watch snapshot #10.
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What are you doing with virtual worlds? (And how long have you been doing it?)
We have been using Second Life for discussions and meetings during some of our online and mixed mode courses since 2007, and we still do this. It means that the students can reflect on their own experiences of virtual worlds when we are discussing topics like learning practices in online communities. A surprising percentage of them have little of no experience of virtual worlds or online games. Plus the online and distance learners describe it as more sociable than the conventional VLE we use.
We have also used Second Life for a number of meetings connected with our work with the Higher Education Academy’s Special Interest Group on games and virtual worlds in higher education. The SIG has convened two SL meetings and two real world events over the past year, and there’s a further SIG event in Edinburgh that’s just happened.
We are still playing World of Warcraft, and we writing about methodology, learning practices and pedagogy in MMORPGs.
What do you like/dislike about the virtual worlds you are using?
Second Life is less appealing and less interesting since the apparent take-up of voice by so many within the Second Life and education community.
Any thoughts on the integration of virtual worlds with other learning technologies?
The first thing that comes to mind is that issues of accessibility need to be part of the discussion, and that accessibility is not just about tools – it is about our everyday choices and practices (and the assumptions that are revealed through these practices).
The catch-all: anything else you’d like to say?
Educators: please when you are publicising your Second Life and education events (conferences and seminars etc.) state if you are using text or voice or both, so that your potential audience can determine if it will be accessible or not.
Over the next 12 months or so it would be nice to see the emergence of more critical perspectives in the research, given the contexts in which we are now working. What of the relationship between digital technologies and the marketization of education, for instance?
