Mar 11

University of the West of Scotland in Second Life: update

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Daniel Livingstone from the UWS gives an update of his and her activities for snapshot #8. Daniel has a blog about virtual worlds, learning and games that’s worth a read.

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At UWS we are continuing to use virtual worlds across teaching and learning and research with limited activity in commercialisation. The SLOODLE project was funded by Eduserv until October 2009 – and I’ve been working on grant proposals since then (waiting to hear back from one currently… fingers crossed.) Current students in my Introduction to Virtual Worlds class include some members of staff, so I’m hopeful that this will make it easier for us to expand our use of virtual worlds in subsequent years – while informal staff workshops have been held in the past, the irregular nature of those made it difficult to sustain interest and growth.

I was disappointed when Metaplace closed at the beginning of the year – as we had used it previously (although not heavily) and it was enjoyed by students. SmallWorlds fills a similar niche – but without the opportunities for content creation. It does seem to have a stronger business model though, so for people looking for isometric, flash based virtual worlds for online discussions and activities, it should do the job. Like Metaplace, it seems to lack some of immersive qualities of a 3D virtual world – but some students do take to it.

Classroom chat

Classroom chat

The new viewer for Second Life (Viewer 2) does look like it will make life easier for newcomers to Second Life. While it has its own issues, I am hopeful that it will help overcome some of the initial challenges. But when it comes to new user experience, Second Life could really learn a lot from SmallWorlds – which is full of ‘quests’ and challenges that introduce users to the worlds and features of the interface. But they have improved a huge amount – including improved lists of recommended locations to visit.

Finally, I am still making good use of Second Life’s ability to bring people together across large distances. I’ll be giving several talks this semester to student and professional audiences worldwide, and have scheduled virtual guest talks for my own students. Students at UWS will also be involved in an online virtual cultural exchange with students at San Jose State University in the US – a programme which is currently in the final stages of planning.

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Mar 09

Pompeii in the Sydenham Crystal Palace

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Comparing Modern and Victorian Immersive Environments: Pompeii in the Sydenham Crystal Palace.

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.

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Mar 08

University of East London in Second Life: update

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Rose Heaney, at the University of East London, sent in her submission for snapshot number 8. And here it is:

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UEL School of Health & Bioscience

I wrote the last report at the end of an intense period of development during which we had worked with an external developer (Gemixin Ltd) on the school’s newly acquired island UEL HABitat to produce more sophisticated versions of an existing laboratory and Crime Scene house and, in particular, to create a new polyclinic for use by a range of healthcare students. We are now in a period of consolidation where the focus is on essential maintenance, creation of learning activities, orientation of staff and students and, most importantly, on more in depth evaluation than has been possible hitherto. We are also looking seriously at the possibilities for sharing our resources with the wider education community as well as collaborating with other institutions on new ventures.

The Second Life laboratory learning activities have been compared to an equivalent Flash version and the conclusion, not surprisingly perhaps, is that students can benefit from either type of application but have a preference for Flash because of its immediacy and straightforward operation. However more work needs to be done in this respect in that a Second Life laboratory may well have learning benefits beyond procedural learning once students are familiar with the operation of Second Life.

Herbal medicine students have been using their area of the polyclinic for a few months as an aid to developing clinical reasoning skills. Feedback is generally positive though some struggle with the environment and quite a few do not have home PCs with the correct graphics spec for SL. The physiotherapy area will be offered to students studying a respiratory module in late April / May once we have completed some necessary revisions to the web based back end editor that enables staff to add cases. It will be subject to formal evaluation during this time – the study has yet to be fully specified but will be focussing on confidence building in students prior to going on clinical placements in intensive care and high dependency units.

We are in early talks with another HE institution to develop the podiatry area of our polyclinic, so watch this space. We are also interested in collaborative arrangements to increase the number of patent cases in all areas of the polyclinic, the creation of good cases being a very resource intensive process.

For further information on UEL HABitat, including slurl, see blog entry:

http://blog.uelconnect.org.uk/hab/2009/11/27/current-state-of-play-on-second-life/

School of Psychology

The school now has conference and tutorial facilities in dedicated buildings on UEL’s main island. Some staff have recently started offering tutorials on a range of topics – take up has been variable but one member of staff managed to attract 23. Plans are in place for a conference later in the year at which third year students will present their final year research projects, subject to successful acceptance of abstracts by a conference committee. In other words, Second Life is being used to give them experience of academic conference processes prior to exposure to the real thing.

A pilot study of Psychology staff perceptions of SL as a teaching medium is currently underway. Participating staff take part in two semi-structured interviews pre and post their SL tutorial session. In the first interview staff are asked broad questions regarding their views of the advantages and disadvantages of using Second Life as a teaching environment and in the second about their actual experiences of teaching in Second Life. The interviews will be transcribed and Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) employed to uncover themes within the data.

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Feb 17

University of Ulster in Second Life: update

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Here’s a submission to the latest snapshot survey, from the University of Ulster, sent in by Kerri McCusker (who goes into the draw to win ten pounds) – thanks:

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Due to the interest in the medical application of Second Life, Kerri McCusker, Research Associate in the Serious Games and Virtual Worlds team, University of Ulster undertook a short project to create a structured learning zone focused on patient education in Second Life focused on autologous stem cell transplantation. This project included a self paced walkthrough in virtual clinics with interactive demos of stems cells, showcase of a hospitals environment and information and links to stem cell transplant resources:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Ulster%20Magee%202/80/121/23

Additionally a 90 second animation was produced in Second Life which clearly highlights the steps taken during an autologous stem cell transplantation, with particular focus on the actual cells being extracted, stored and subsequently being transfused into the patient again:

http://sgvwtv.ulster.ac.uk/video/103/Second-Lives and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qe-J59WKkYg

Other developments in the Serious Games and Virtual Worlds team have been the recent national workshop on teaching in virtual worlds. The objective of the event was to raise awareness of the benefits and possible pitfalls of using virtual and immersive worlds in an educational context and provided practical advice and demonstrations from leading educators and industrial experts in this area. It highlighted funding opportunities available in this field and offered tips on how to focus research to maximise your chances of succeeding with applications:

http://learninginvirtualworlds.com/

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Nov 02

OU survey: Use of 2D and/or 3D technologies for remote student supervision

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Survey request from Dr Ahmad J Reeves, the Open University.

Are you an academic supervising research students (MPhil/PhD) at a distance, using either traditional 2D technologies (like Moodle, Skype,
Elluminate, email, etc.) and/or an immersive technology (like Second Life) as well? Or maybe you’re a student who is being remotely supervised by one or more of these technologies?

If so, we would like to hear about your experiences regarding topics such as the supervision process, enhancing research skills and building a research community.

We would be grateful if you would consider completing one of these short online questionnaires to provide information about your experiences in these areas. The questionnaires are completely anonymous and should take no longer than 15-20 minutes to complete, with the data being solely used for research and academic work. The questionnaires are part of an evaluation of a Virtual MPhil currently underway at the Open University, UK.

The academic survey can be found at: http://tiny.cc/R8anb

The student survey can be found at: http://tiny.cc/vCiSj

Many thanks in advance for your support,
Dr Ahmad J Reeves

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Oct 27

Snapshot survey #7 of virtual world use in UK Higher and Further Education

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This is a “Request For Information” for the seventh Virtual World Watch snapshot survey.

This time, there’s just one main question, and a few side points. The main question can be interpreted as broadly, or as narrowly, as you wish. As before, the scope is limited to UK Higher and Further Education.

Blue Mars by Flickr user Connie Sec

The question

How are you using virtual worlds (e.g. Second Life, OpenSim, Metaplace, OLIVE, Active Worlds, Playstation Home, Blue Mars, Twinity, Wonderland) in teaching, learning or research?

Things you may want to include:

  • Why you are using a virtual world.
  • If teaching using a virtual world, how it fits into your curriculum.
  • Any evaluation of the experience of using the virtual world.
  • Will you do it again next year? Why (or why not)?

A few side points

  • Do you know of any other individual, group or project at your institution using virtual worlds for teaching, learning or research? If so, a contact detail would be appreciated.
  • Do you have any interesting screenshots of what you’ve been doing in virtual worlds? If so, then please consider submitting them to the Virtual World use in UK Education Flickr group – thanks.

Group of Second Life avatars by Flickr user James Schwarz

Deadline

Please send your contributions, in whatever format (e.g. email, Word, text) to john (@) virtualworldwatch.net by the end of Friday 20th November. Relevant content submitted by then is guaranteed to go into the report; content received afterwards is unlikely to make it in.

Thank you for your contribution,
Virtual World Watch

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Oct 21

National Workshop on Teaching in Immersive Worlds, University of Ulster, November 20, 2009

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IMMERS[ED] 2009; National Workshop on Teaching in Immersive Worlds will be hosted by the School of Computing & Intelligent Systems and will take place in the Great Hall of the University of Ulster, Magee Campus, Derry, Northern Ireland on the 20th November 2009 (registration from 8.30, start at 9.30).

  • Considering using virtual worlds for teaching and want to know where to start?
  • Curious about how others are using virtual spaces for teaching?
  • Interested in learning how the future of undergraduate education will be shaped by immersive technologies?

The workshop has an International line-up of speakers from the UK and Ireland and will offer a series of insightful talks examining the theoretical and practical aspects of teaching using virtual worlds such as Second Life, Opensim and Metaplace.

Speakers include John Kirriemuir of Virtual Worlds Watch, Daniel Livingstone (SLOODLE); University of West Scotland, David Burden (PIVOTE); Daden Limited, Michael Callaghan and Kerri McCusker of the University of Ulster, Tim Savage and Carina Girvan of Trinity College Dublin and Barry McAdam and Anna O’Donovan of INTEL.

The objective of the event is to raise awareness of the benefits and possible pitfalls of using virtual and immersive worlds in an educational context and will provide practical advice and demonstrations from leading educators and industrial experts in this area.

It will highlight funding opportunities available in this field and offer tips on how to focus your research to maximise your chances of succeeding with applications.

The workshop is organised by the Serious Games and Virtual Worlds Research Team and the School of Computing & Intelligent Systems, Faculty of Computing and Engineering and co-sponsored by the University of Ulster, Office of Innovation Knowledge Club Program.

To register and for further information please go to the workshop website.

http://www.learninginvirtualworlds.com/

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Oct 20

JISC Innovating e-Learning Online Conference, November 24-27 2009

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If you are a researcher, institutional manager or practitioner involved in technology-enhanced learning and teaching, Innovating e-Learning 2009 will be of interest to you. Delegates from further and higher education and from overseas are welcome.

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

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Oct 18

Call for papers: Leicester, January 7-14, 2010

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Call for Papers
Beyond Distance Research Alliance, University of Leicester
Learning Futures Festival Online 2010
“Positively Disruptive”
7th – 14th January 2010

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

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Oct 17

Virtual Worlds in Education Forum: Staffordshire University, December 2, 2009

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The next Virtual Worlds in Education Forum is taking place at Staffordshire University on Wednesday 2nd December 2009. This free forum provides a chance to share experience, information and good practice of using a virtual world in a teaching context.

To book your place visit the JISC RSC West Midlands website.

Agenda

9.30am Coffee and Registration

10.00am Welcome and introductions – Jane Edwards, RSC West Midands

10.10am Host: Christa Appleton, e-Learning Development Specalist

10:15am Karl Royle, Curriculum Innovation and Knowledge Transfer, Centre for Applied Research and Development in Education, University of Wolverhampton

11.00am Coffee break

11.15am Presentations from the floor

12.30pm Lunch and networking

1.30pm Luke Bracegirdle, IT Development Director, School of Pharmacy, Keele University

2.15pm Christa Appleton

3.00pm Round up and next forum

3.30pm Close

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