http://www.eventbrite.com/event/672927745

Event date: 11th May 2010
Event time: 15:30 GMT(BST) – 17:30 GMT(BST) / 07:30 PST – 09:30 PST
Event location: In Second Life: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Daden%20Cays/98/146/22

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Editorial Notes

Developed by Daden for a JISC funded project to train and assess St George’s University Hospital paramedics. PIVOTE allows you to create the structure and information content of a training exercise on the web – independent of a virtual world. You can then link 3D assets in your chosen virtual world to the exercise, and potentially play the same exercise in multiple virtual worlds, on the web, and even on mobile phones.

PIVOTE lets you:

• Create learning exercises on the web using a simple forms based interface.
• Create objects in a virtual world such as Second Life which users can use to interact with the exercise.
• Play the exercise in Second Life, Open Sim, or on the web or even an iPhone.
• Port exercises between virtual worlds.
• Share PIVOTE compatible objects between exercises and institutions.
• Rapidly edit exercises to create variations, or custom versions for different skill levels.
• Export student performance data for us in VLEs.

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Andrew Jinman
PIVOTE Product Manager
Daden Limited

Some other presentations from Virtual World Watch are also on Slideshare.

Shelley Hales and Nic Earle from the University of Bristol report on this JISC-funded project for snapshot #8. The project also has a blog, and can be visited in Second Life.

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At the university of Bristol we are currently running a project, ‘Resurrecting the Past: Virtual Antiquities in the Nineteenth Century’ the first phase of which was funded by JISC as part of their ‘Enriching Digital Resources’ theme, a strand of their ‘Digitisation’ programme. The team is Shelley Hales, a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Classics & Ancient History and Nic Earle, University E-learning Co-ordinator from the Education Support Unit. We have built a virtual 3D model in Second Life of the Pompeian Court from the 1854 Sydenham Crystal Palace. The Pompeian Court was a complete life-size model of an ancient house from Pompeii, housing a collection of copies of Roman paintings. Our Model is designed to bring together a digitised collection of the material contained in the Court alongside an archive of material pertaining to it, and we are designing interface techniques to enable researchers, community groups, school and undergraduate students to engage with and use the Model for their own needs.

We have chosen a virtual environment, and Second Life in particular, to rebuild the Sydenham Pompeian Court because it allows us both to recreate and to study a point of comparison with the social and reproductive techniques of the Crystal Palace. Just as the Crystal Palace was considered in 1854, Second Life is both a massive social experiment, bringing together diverse users, and a testing ground for new approaches to education, entertainment and enterprise. The Model takes advantage of the use of avatars both to populate the space and to allow users touring the Court to interact with us, other visitors and the objects on display. It also seems to us that the questions of authenticity and of the responsibility of reconstructors raised by virtual models echo questions faced by the creators of the Pompeian Court in the Crystal Palace. The project allows us to think about the links between content and the mode of its delivery.

Within the university we’ll be mainly using the Model in a third year Classics module on the reception of Pompeii since its rediscovery in 1748. As well as being used in the classroom at Bristol, the Model will allow Bristol students to collaborate with undergraduates studying a similar module in Liverpool. As a teaching tool, the Model offers an opportunity for students to experience the spatial effects of a Roman house and provides an introduction to the ways in which Pompeii has been displayed in museum settings. Most importantly, the Model provides an opportunity for students to assess the ethics of reconstruction and, through physical engagement with the act of reconstruction, to reflect on it both as a conceptual and manufactured process and as a finished product specifically of Victorian England or of 21st Century digital technology.

Summary

From input to this and previous snapshots, plus background research, institutional website searches and anecdotes, it is evident that every UK university except one (the University of the Highlands and Islands) has members of staff who have developed, or are developing, something in a virtual world – though that ‘something’, and the use and educational relevance of it, varies extremely widely.

This snapshot includes input from new respondents. In addition, several academics who are at the early stages of using virtual worlds chose not to report for this snapshot (and will hopefully do so for the next one).

Overall, the picture is one of more virtual world activity in UK academia than in previous years. Several universities, such as Edinburgh and the Open University, are into their third or fourth year of using Second Life and an academic development community continues to grow, though steadily rather than quickly.

As the snapshots reflect only what is reported to us, rather than giving a comprehensive overview, caution has to be taken in comparing activity by subject area. However, some subject domains do appear to be making more use of virtual world technology than others. The biological, health and medical sectors, in particular, make up a large proportion of virtual world activity in UK academia.

Language learning, patient treatment, computer science, health and safety, and art, performance and design stand out as subjects where several institutions are actively using virtual worlds in teaching. Academics in a range of more specific subject areas, such as criminal detection, electrical engineering and midwifery, have used virtual worlds in their teaching.

All 13 of the JISC Regional Support Centres responded to the snapshot survey request for information. The picture they present is of virtual world use being much more isolated and infrequent in further education (FE) than in higher education (HE). Institutional technical barriers and support are still major issues for further education staff. Where institutions have overcome these, substantive virtual world developments have occurred.

The RSCs themselves are providing support in different ways, e.g. events, forming a national coordination grouping, and levering the experience of HE institutions to support FE colleges. Across the 13 regions, staff hold widely differing views on the effectiveness of virtual worlds in education.

As with all previous snapshots, Second Life is the predominant virtual world of choice. Having said that, OpenSim is being mentioned by more respondents than in previous snapshot surveys, though actual implementations in UK academia remain few and far between.

This is the fourth academic year covered by an Eduserv virtual world snapshot, as the first one covered the tail-end of the 2006–07 session. While cases of virtual world use in academia have steadily risen, evaluations and evidence of their effectiveness has been fragmented and low-key. Though the same observation could be leveled at many other technologies – take a bow, Virtual Learning Environments – used in education.

Many academics – possibly a significant majority – are still wary, sceptical or openly hostile to virtual world use in education. More visible proof of where it works may swing the more open-minded of them. With the mass of teaching and research activity currently under way in higher education, it’s only reasonable to hope for more (and better) evaluations, and clarity concerning where virtual worlds can be put to good use and where not. For proof, evidence, data and convincing arguments, 2009 to 2010 feels like the year of virtual world expectation.

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:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Frideswide/219/199/646/

To quote from the news item:

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?

There is a splendid pool of high quality screenshots from this simulator on Second Life.

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

Press Release
Virtual paramedic training honoured by JISC Times Higher Education Award

A project which trains paramedic students online through real-life scenarios has won JISC’s outstanding ICT initiative award at the Times Higher Awards, owing to its potential implications for other universities.

Dr Malcolm Read OBE, JISC’s executive secretary, said: “We are very proud to sponsor these awards for the third year running to help showcase the innovative use of digital technology that is keeping the UK at the forefront of the world’s knowledge economy.”

Emily Conradi, project manager at St George’s University London and award winner said: “The online environment evolved from issues that St George’s tutors were having with recreating paramedic work situations, which are impossible to simulate realistically in the classroom, and also with managing face-to-face meetings between students and tutors when the learners are spending time in work placements.

“The tutors developed an island in the virtual environment Second Life to allow students to work together as a paramedic team on different emergency scenes. They interact with patients by questioning, examining and treating them and the scenario unfolds in response to the students’ actions. Handover notes are emailed to their tutor for feedback.”

Sarah Porter, head of innovation at JISC said: “In judging the award, we were looking for an initiative that really stood out for its spirit of
creativity. The St George’s project is using technology in a way that is very practical and highly relevant to supporting learners in new paradigms, which is close to JISC’s own mission for finding innovative solutions to the issues facing UK colleges and universities.”

The web-based application running these decision-making scenarios is open source, enabling others to build their own training scenarios. Coventry and Greenwich universities have trialled the scenarios with their paramedic students, while there have already been over 100 requests for demonstrations from interested parties.

David Baker, JISC deputy chair said: “The project at St George’s is impressive for what you might call its ‘horizontal scalability’ – the
possibility for this use of technology to have an impact on teaching and learning in other universities in the future. Testing out practical work in virtual research environments is an innovative way of approaching medical scenarios that could be replicated across the academic spectrum.”

The initiative, which received international media coverage when it launched last year, has been highly praised by students who typically commented, “Communicating with others helped me to assess the situation and gave me a better understanding,” and “It’s much better to be able to actually perform treatments rather than just talk about it.”

The judges for the award were Professor David Baker, deputy chair of JISC and former principal of University College Plymouth St Mark & St John; Sarah Porter, head of innovation at JISC, and Dr Sarah Thomas, Bodley’s librarian and director of Oxford University Library Services.

Getting Started in Second Life’ answers some common questions like how to set up in Second Life, what the rules of the world are, how to plan lessons and how best to help students use it effectively for learning. The aim of the guide is to present the basics in order to help lecturers experiment, rather than them getting lost in mastering the detail of the virtual environment.

Information includes ‘Common mistakes and assumptions’, and ‘Practical concerns for your institution’. As well as being useful for academics new to Second Life or virtual worlds, the document is also useful for those making a case for virtual world use within their institution.

You can download it, or order a print copy, from the JISC website.

Jane works in the JISC-funded Regional Support Centre (RSC) for the West Midlands. As she describes in the podcast, some of her time is taken up with activities to support, and progress, the use and development of Second Life within post-16 education in this region.

Jane is also in the process of purchasing an island, then developing it, within Second Life to support these activities. Jane is also the co-maintainer of the JISCmail Virtual Worlds mailing list.

You can find Jane on LinkedIn, Twitter and Flickr. She is also, of course, in Second Life as Ladyjane Plympton.

Why are we interviewing someone from a commercial company rather than an academic? Well, as you will hear, David and co. have been active in many UK academic Second Life developments. They have also developed PIVOTE, a virtual learning authoring system for virtual worlds which came out of the JISC-funded PREVIEW project; David describes PIVOTE in some detail.

David is a good speaker and you can hear him speak, along with many other UK academic developers, at the Virtual Worlds event in Sunderland on the 21st April. He also tweets.

As per usual, the podcast interview with David can be found on the ‘Start the Week’ podcast page. Happy listening!