One of the questions in the ongoing survey for snapshot #9 concerns the advantages and disadvantages of ‘real world’ travel against using online methods of hooking up with people, be it for a conference, workshop, presentation, meeting, or some other event.

Flight delays

With a summer of strikes threatened on British Airways, the reasons against flying off somewhere are stacking up. Volcanic eruptions can cause massive hassle, leaving people stranded for days or weeks with little or no warning; are these pictures what you have in mind regarding the luxury of travel? A myriad of other possibilities and regular events, from air traffic controller strikes to technical problems can add time, extra expense and stress to your journey. Even if all goes well, can the costs always be justified, as they include:

• Plane, train, taxi, ferry and car costs.
• Insurance and medical costs.
• Increased costs of subsistence e.g. food, extra clothing for a different climate.
• Hotel bills.
• Event organisation costs.
• Academic wages; each day the academic is away at an event, or travelling to/from it, but still being paid.

These costs are often, individually, significant (as anyone who has to take a train at short notice will know). In total, even for a small event in the same country that all the participants reside in, the costs can run into thousands of pounds. And this against a backdrop of massive cuts being increasingly inevitable.

Train delays

Can technologies such as virtual worlds, Elluminate or Skype, significantly replace real world travel, in terms of finance and time? Possibly, maybe, though there are issues:

• Facing a screen is not the same as facing people. Even with video, body language and other nuances are missed. The opportunity to ask questions, start debates, is restricted by the technology between you and the other person, or people.
• Social interaction and opportunities are limited. Sit next to someone at an event and you can strike up a conversation, go down the pub with them, swap notes. Serendipitous contacts take place which are less likely when at a virtual event. Though a counter-argument to this is ‘Why wait for the event?’, with academics who make good use of social media such as Twitter regularly coming across new and relevant contacts and information.
• Meeting people is, for some academics, easy. Whereas e.g. handling an avatar in a virtual world is, for them, difficult; it requires training, screen time, and a lot of frustration. But, on the other hand, not everyone who goes to academic events is outgoing and social. You can usually spot people sitting quietly on their own, writing their own notes, then going home without speaking to anyone. Is this always an efficient use of time and money? Would they have made more contacts, obtained more information, through using more comfortable methods of attendee communication?
• If academics never ‘escaped’ from their offices, then their ‘quality of working life’ is arguably lessened. Though, perhaps, it should be noted that many other sectors, and jobs, involve being in front of a screen every day, with little or no opportunity to ‘escape’.

Telephone conference call

Which brings us on to another reason why travelling to events continues to be popular, possibly the largest reason. Some academics simply don’t want to give up the travel. And can you blame them? Given the choice, if someone else is going to pay for your trip to e.g. San Francisco, where you can combine work and pleasure, then many people aren’t going to say “Erm, no, I’ll just sit in my cubicle office and do it online instead.”

Video conferencing is not new; the JISC Ariadne project consisted of two teams, one in Bath and the other in Dundee. In 1996 – 14 years ago – we used video conferencing to hold a meeting. It worked – surprisingly well. A few hours out of the office, then back to work. Total cost; a few hundred pounds, as opposed to many times more if people had been flown, or sent on a train, then put up in a hotel, between south west England and central Scotland. So it worked – 14 years ago (worth stressing), so the technology should be considerably better by now, surely? Even the new iPhone has video conferencing (though, of course, not everyone will get – or wants to get – such a device). So why is video conferencing still so infrequently used in academia, compared to events – of all kind – that require travel and significant cost?

This issue could be posed as a set of questions:

• Are the extra benefits (and what are these?) of travelling and meeting up in person worth the extra cost, as opposed to holding the event online?
• What actually are those benefits?
• Some people handle digital communications ‘better’ than others, but some people handle social interaction at events ‘better’ than others. But what is ‘better’ and can it actually be costed?
• Even with digital communications there is no consensus. Some people get a lot out of using a virtual world at events; others become frustrated and prefer video conferencing or various chat systems. Personal and practical preferences run strong.
• If, in an extreme circumstance, all non-essential travel was banned in UK Education and all communications were undertaken digitally, how would this affect the quality of research, and what would be the true costs and savings?

Oh, and as a side-point: aren’t we supposed to be saving the planet, reducing emissions et al? Another argument, perhaps, for making video conferencing and other technologies more mandatory in academia?

Comments and thoughts are welcome – without this turning into a “Technology X is wonderful, but technology Y is crap” slangfest.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

References

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Keynote speakers will include:

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

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

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

Twittering will, inevitably take place. In fact it’s already started. There are three conference tags currently being used:

#rscn09 (official)
#rscnvw09 (RSC VW event format)
#ItsGrimUpNorth (most used)

There’s also an aggregator of social media content for this event, set up by Kathryn Trinder.

Several Most of the speakers twitter. Here are ones known about; if you are speaking but not on the list get in touch and you’ll be added:

Shaun Allan
Simon Ball
Kate Boardman [Presentation]
David Burden
Anne Cunningham
Gareth Davies
Jane Edwards
Shri Footring
Ferdinand Francino
Harold Fricker
John Kirriemuir [Presentation]
Daniel Livingstone
Annabeth Robinson
Garfield Southall
Steve Thompson
Kathryn Trinder [Presentation]
Lisa Whistlecroft

And a few of the conference organisers are also using twitter:

Paul Miller
Cam Swift

Hope to see you in Sunderland next week!

If you want to see her in the flesh and hear her speak, then Kate is doing the 3pm keynote presentation at the Virtual Worlds event in Sunderland on the 21st April. Her slides can be viewed online:

Kate can also be followed on Twitter.

The podcast interview is rather fun.

March 17th: Wolverhampton. Virtual Worlds in Education Forum. Organised by JISC RSc West Midlands.

March 31st: Cambridge. The Reality of Virtual Worlds. Organised by JISC RSc Eastern.

April 21st: Sunderland. Virtual Worlds Conference 2009. Organised by JISC RSc Northern.

If you are interested in VWW speaking at your event, about some aspect of the use of virtual worlds in UK teaching and learning, then please get in touch.

Maximising the effectiveness of virtual worlds in teaching and learning

Target audience: Learning Technologists, Policy Makers, HE and FE Lecturers

This joint event organised by JISC CETIS and Eduserv will provide a range of perspectives on the use of virtual worlds in HE from experienced practitioners.

Specifically, this event aims to explore the following issues:

• What are the teaching situations for which Virtual Worlds are best suited?
• What are the policy issues which arise from using Virtual Worlds for Learning and Teaching?
• What are the technical characteristics/constraints of Virtual Worlds which have an impact on their use in Learning and Teaching?

In addition, attendees will gain an understanding of why some experts believe that Virtual Worlds will have a large impact on Education.

Virtual World Watch is speaking at this event, between 10:45 and 11:25: Who’s teaching? Who’s learnng? The state of Second Life in UK HE and FE.

The whole programme is interesting, with experienced SL practitioners speaking, so consider signing up.

More…

• Conference tag: #relive08. Follow it on Twitter.
• Conference blog.
• Website with links to the webcasts
• In-world conference cafe.

• Internet Librarian, Monterey, California. October 20th to 22nd. Note that there is a dine-around at this conference dedicated to Second Life; I’ll be there.
• ALA TechSource Gaming, Learning, and Libraries Symposium, Chicago, Illinois. November 2nd to 4th (election day!).
• (Provisional) University of Austin, Texas. November 10th.