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.

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

Dear colleague (apologies for any cross-postings),
 
The RSC-WM invite you to take part in the next Virtual Worlds Forum taking place in Worcester on Thursday 16th July 2009, 10:00 -15:30.
 
This free forum provides a good opportunity to share experience, information and good practice of using a virtual world in a teaching context and to share projects in which you may be involved in using a virtual world (eg Second Life®), your thoughts and ideas on using virtual worlds for education.
 
The forum is open to people from across all post-16 sectors in the West Midlands including HE, FE, ACL, Specialist Colleges, WBL and Offender Learning.
 
Bookings are now being taken via the RSC-WM website : http://info.rsc-wm.ac.uk/events/event_details.asp?eid=451
 
We hope you can join us!!

For historical context, Virtual World Watch was a work colleague of Andy’s from the mid-1990′s at UKOLN (VWW: back row 3rd; Andy: back row 6th).

Andy is now the Head of Development of the Eduserv Research Programme, formerly the Eduserv Foundation. The Foundation funded a number of Second Life and Virtual World research and development projects, as well as Virtual World Watch, an island and several events.

Research Programme / Foundation activities with virtual worlds are described and archived on their website.

In Second Life, and also blogging, Andy is Art Fossett where he has an occasional sideline in making footwear. On twitter, Andy is andypowe11.

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.

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.

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.

And here’s his interview. Happy listening!

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.