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.

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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?

Today’s featured submission is from Liz Falconer, the director of the Education Innovation Centre at the University of the West of England. Tomorrow it’s Michael Callaghan from the University of Ulster.

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1. What are you doing with virtual worlds? (And how long have you been doing it?)

We’ve been active in virtual worlds since 2007 and our main focus at the University of the West of England is on using virtual worlds for simulations of experiences it would otherwise be difficult, impractical, unethical or just dangerous for our students to experience pre-qualification. Subjects now being covered include environmental health, nursing, emergency response training, sociology, counseling in psychology and business ethics. We’re planning to develop midwifery, animal training and automotive engineering scenarios in the coming year.

Next year our biggest development will be the MA Education in Virtual Worlds, which will run entirely in virtual worlds. It will be based in Second Life, but will also explore a range of other types of virtual world. It goes to validation in March 2012 with a planned Sept 2012 start (see http://www.uwe.ac.uk/elearning/virtualWorldsMA/index.shtml).

2. Which virtual worlds are you using? Why those in particular?

We’ve used Second Life exclusively for our developments so far, as it is easy to access, one of the better and more intuitive virtual worlds for development, and is where most HEIs are active, so the opportunity for collaboration is greatest there.

3. What support do you get in your institution in your use of virtual worlds?

A lot now. We have three islands in Second Life and a great deal of interest and support, both practical (fees, innovation funding etc) and ideological (e.g. support for the curriculum development of the MA in Education in Virtual Worlds). We seem to be moving into a phase where virtual worlds are taken very seriously as potential environments for learning which means, as an institution, we don’t waste time trying to repeatedly convince ourselves any more.

4. What do you like/dislike about the virtual worlds you are using?

We like the accessibility and collaboration aspects of Second Life, but it could be more robust. It still has a tendency to shut down regions with little warning, which is an issue for scheduled teaching.

5. If teaching using virtual worlds, what’s the experience been like, for you and/or the students?

We now have lots of data on teaching and learning experiences from the evaluations we have done of various projects. Overall, it is like any form of teaching and learning experience. If the experience has been well thought-out and enthusiastically driven by the teaching staff, it is successful. If not, it isn’t.

The overwhelming outcome of evaluations so far has been positive, both from the point of view of the students learning in a way that gives them the chance to have new experiences, and from the tutors being able to see their students learn in a physical sense.

6. Any thoughts on the integration of virtual worlds with other learning technologies?

I guess it depends on what you mean by integration? With the web-on-a-prim facilities in Second Life now, we can give the impression of integration fairly well. To be honest, I can’t see a reason for a virtual world to be “part” of a virtual learning environment for example, and in any case that’s not what virtual worlds are for. They are open, collaborative spaces, rather than controlled spaces for private student-tutor transactions.

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Poster presentation Friday 19th November.
04:00 SLT (12:00 GMT) – 05:30 SLT (13:30 GMT).

A number of staff from across Schools and Departments in Glasgow Caledonian University engaged in our accredited learning and teaching programmes, Transformational Change Projects, RealWorld employability projects, Caledonian Scholars and Associates and Caledonian Academy PhD students will be presenting a range of posters in the real world.

A number of these posters (and their presenters) will also be available in Second Life. Posters will highlight findings from action research projects, developmental projects and research projects that have been undertaken in a variety of topics impacting on learning, teaching and assessment here at GCU.

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Glasgow%20Caledonian/120/141/23

The posters will become a permanent fixture so you don’t necessarily need to come at this time. However, the authors will not be there.

There is some additional information on the Games and Virtual Worlds Special Interest Group.

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

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.

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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.

The Big Issues in Immersive Virtual Worlds workshop is being held on November 4 2010 at the Techno Centre, Coventry University Technology Park. The themes of the day are as follows:

Research and issues with -

• Space
• Identity and embodiment
• Learning design(s)
• Evaluations
• Impact of innovation on student learning

This event will provide opportunities for discussion, collaboration and interaction on the topic of issues in learning in immersive virtual worlds. It is a free one day event with refreshments and lunch provided, presentations from virtual world practitioners and live streaming into Second Life.

You can register and submit abstracts at:

http://cuba.coventry.ac.uk/lievents/big-issues-workshop-2010/.

Due to such a high volume of interest previously, we have had to limit spaces available this year and will run on a first come, first served basis.

We hope to see you there!

Best wishes,
Learning Innovation Group