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

We have been active in virtual worlds since mid 2006…

As curator, I have been running the Arts Council England funded 2ND LIVE programme in Second Life, to complement my real life role as performance curator at Exeter Phoenix.

As an artist, I have been exploring walking and site-based practices in Second Life and real life (e.g. commission for ANTI Festival, Kuopio, Finland). As an educator, I’ve been teaching in Second Life as part of ‘Interdisciplinary Spatial Practices’ (level 2 UG module). And as a Knowledge Transfer possibility, I’ve been running workshops for other artists (e.g. 3-day workshop for Live Art Development Agency as part of DIY programme).

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

Second Life – it was the easy (and intriguing) option when I started.

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

None to date. There has been one other active member of the University (in European Law). There has been a little more activity very recently, through an interdisciplinary ‘Bridging the Gaps’ initiative (the impact of this is not clear yet).

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

Plus:

• Creative possibilities (in terms of space and event) not available (for reasons of cost or practicality) in real life (‘not possible in real life’ attitude).
• Offers a side-step to examine real life methods afresh.

Minus:

• Cost – I jettisoned my island after 2.5 years and significant personal expense.
• Steep learning curve for new participants.

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

There’s a mixed reactions from students – some fly, some don’t. Students are also often surprised by the ‘ghost town’ nature of Second Life. Experiencing the virtual world really needs more time than really able to give it.

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UEL has had a presence on Second Life since 2008 in the form of UEL Island, and more recently UEL HABitat owned by the school of Health, Sport and Bioscience. Second Life has not been widely adopted across the university, but some staff and students in healthcare and psychology have been using it quite extensively.

Health simulations

The main focus of interest on UEL HABitat is the virtual polyclinic, which continues to be used by herbal medicine and physiotherapy students, and is soon to be used by podiatry students from UEL and Plymouth University under a collaborative arrangement. Each discipline has its own area where students interact via their avatars with virtual patients and surrounding objects to practice procedures and develop their clinical reasoning skills.


Staff and student evaluations of the simulations indicate a general level of satisfaction and highlight the advantage of Second Life over paper based or role-play exercises in the classroom. However, there are ongoing challenges, not least the fact that a significant minority of students still struggle to master Second Life and the skills required by staff to operate and configure the environment beyond the core development phase. Reliance on Second Life development expertise is a further consideration in the current climate.

Psychology conferencing and tutorials

Second year Psychology students on an elective module “Psychology of physical illness’ upload posters to a designated area in their school’s conference suite on UEL island and spend a morning discussing them with staff and students from their module and beyond. Using Second Life in this way extends the reach that a physical poster display would typically have. It also removes inhibitions that students might otherwise have in face to face conversations. A few psychology staff also use Second Life for tutorials and one recently reported that students repeatedly rate Second Life higher than most other aspects of his module delivery.

Integration

UEL is in the process of changing from Blackboard to Moodle VLE, so we will be taking a closer look at SLOODLE, the main interest from academics at this stage being in linking Moodle and Second Life for assessment purposes.

Future

To date it has been relatively straightforward to cover our Second Life costs but in anticipation of a much tighter funding regime, we continue to look at OpenSim as an alternative. However, due to network configuration conflicts, we are as yet unable to carry out a thorough investigation of OpenSim, and therefore hope to retain at least one island on SL until mid 2013.

In resolving the OpenSim issues we may be able to draw on the experience of the Europe-wide Pandora project ‘Advanced Training Environment for Crisis Scenarios’ which counts UEL amongst its partners and is using OpenSim.

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

I have been in Second Life since 2007 and for most of that time I have been working on our island. The island is run for staff and students at the University of Worcester but it is not an official site of the University.

The first activity we started on the island was the research meetings. These meetings eventually evolved into our current education research seminars approximately two years ago. The resulting machinima are then posted to the Digital Literacy blog for those who did not have time to attend. The Research Seminars are held on the last Thursday of every month during the academic year on the island. Seminars are held at 1200hrs (lunchtime) UK time (4am SLT), we found this the most popular time with people on the European side of the Atlantic. That makes it sound as if we are trying to exclude others from the meeting but far from it; it is really fantastic when we get people from all over the world joining us. We find that most of the non-British people who attend are from East Coast America but we have a few Antipodeans, others from West and East European countries and others from as far away as Japan. If anyone would like to present and discuss their work they are more than welcome to do so, all they need to do is contact Bluesky Larkham. We welcome everyone from seasoned conference presenters to new PhD students.

Hovering in the sky above the island we also have the Library of Babel, where students can experience a book in a very different way. This installation has been created under the direction of Liz Swift who is Subject Leader for Drama in our Institute of Humanities and Creative Arts. Liz says this is an “Exploration of Narrative Collaboration and Control [which creates] an immersive experiential narrative work based around ideas from Jorge Luis Borges’ short story, The Library of Babel (1941)” – at least that’s what she said in her article “Loosing the Plot” (Swift 2010).

Dr Barbara Mitra, Senior Lecturer in Media and Cultural Studies, and I are carrying out some research into identity. This research is based around a first year module (Introduction to New Media) to help students explore the relationship between identities in “real” or corporeal life and identities in virtual worlds. The research also addresses the issues lecturers experience in relation to students’ reactions and behaviours to being in Second Life.

There are also two institutes where lecturers are interested in writing Virtual Worlds into new modules they are currently creating. Maybe this is an indication that with the current pressures on costs and space, the use of Virtual Worlds is becoming an interesting option.

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

I am currently using Second Life; I suppose this is partly because this is where I started off and partly because of all the work we have put into the island. I had quite a few dismal discussions with friends when the Lindens stopped their support of education but at the moment I still feel this is the most mature virtual world and, as a result, it offers the best experience for students.

I do not want students to be shut off from the rest of the corporeal world or the virtual world. They need to experience what it is like to be online in a virtual world, they have to learn to manage both their avatar and their interactions with others. Worlds like this are one of the potential areas they will work in once they graduate and the university has a responsibility to produce employable people. Students need to develop skills in communication, behaviour and understanding of ethical stances required in this type of 3D social media. Even though these worlds are virtual, real communities exist within them and from my experience do offer genuine friendship and support.

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

I’m “the support” for our little community. I am hoping that our University will agree to keep our island as more and more lecturers are hoping to use it as mentioned above. The island was originally set up with monies provided through our then Director of Learning and Teaching, the Head of E-Learning and some money from a small research activity funded by JISC. Unfortunately we will come to the point in June 2012 when we will have to stand on our own two feet. Obviously, students and staff can enter and use a virtual world without any help or support from a university – after all many people do every day – but a great deal of tools and support are already provided on our island and students need a “home” they can feel comfortable in.

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

I like the friendly community spirit that can be found in Second Life; you feel as if you are in a “real” place. This feeling of being “real” is probably supported by being able to socialise in clubs and groups with people with similar interests, and the ability to create and buy goods that further define your identity. I cannot think of anything I particularly dislike but I do wish the Lindens would value the dependability of educationalists a little more. There are things that would be helpful too, such as being able to run Second Life on mobile devices or an interface that helps the average lecturer to build what they need. One of the things that prevents a technology from becoming mainstream is their “incompleteness” (Wiefels 2002). Which of the things I have mentioned might we consider prevent Virtual Worlds from being perceived as complete?

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

So far being with students in Second Life has been quite good fun. The students generally enjoy it but do not realise they are learning and therefore often see the virtual world as irrelevant to their studies. I think that as we develop what we do with the students in the module to help them explore identity, they will appreciate why Barbara decided to use it.

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

My thoughts on the integration of virtual worlds with other learning technologies are not technical ones. I think we need to stop making virtual worlds “special”. Once virtual worlds become just another social media that can be used as a learning and teaching tool, the sooner we will start to appreciate how we can integrate them with other learning technologies. One of the main things I would like to see is the integration of virtual worlds with student portfolios – not just being able to print off a chat log, but being able to grab a short video of an interaction that a student can add to their portfolio. I know this can be done now but the average student would not be able to do it.

There is too much I would like to say but I will just restrict myself to two more things that I consider to be important issues.

There is an idea that I would like to take issue with – I have heard it before and was reminded of it a few days ago by an IT colleague. There seems to be this belief that HEI cannot afford to provide support for “new” technologies unless 50% of lecturers are using them. For anyone who knows the Technology Adoption Life Cycle there is an obvious clash between the 50% idea and the way in which technologies are adopted. Virtual worlds are still trying to cross the Chasm (Moore 1991); to attract the Early Majority also known as Pragmatists (Wiefels 2002), we need more research in this area but it is quite obvious that many educational technologies take a comparatively long time to reach the 50% mark.

It is well known that disruptive technologies take something like 20 years to come into general use, that is to reach the 50% mark. Do we wait that long before we support a technology? Please do not quote VLE usage at me as evidence of a technology being accepted; everyone knows that currently the majority of lecturers do not use VLEs – they just dump information in them because there is a requirement that they do so. Things are changing (even with VLEs); we know what attracts the Pragmatists to adopt a technology (good return of investment, proof of concept, ease of implementation, experienced support, proof that ‘people like me’ use it and that it is no longer a discontinuous technology but is now the new paradigm) but we need research to tell us how we apply these successfully to virtual worlds in HEI. A plethora of pilot studies tends to indicate a stagnating technology (Wiefels 2002). We do not need more pilot studies on how to use virtual worlds in education, we need research that helps us to properly implement and embed it.

In one sense the second point I want to raise is linked to the first. Managers are pragmatists and they are attracted to a technology for the same reasons as all pragmatists. Some of these reasons are given weight by the instructions and direction the government of the day gives to HEI. The current government has not provided any direction to universities on the issue of using new technologies in education. All the push for modern educational technologies came from the previous government; and HEIs are not interested in the previous government. American educational establishments are being encouraged by their government to use a greater range of communication technologies in their teaching and to use them more frequently. Where is there a similar demand from our current government?

References

• Moore, G.A. (1991) Crossing the Chasm, Harper Collins Publishers, New York
• Stacey, P. (2011) Technology Adoption Life Cycle, Musing on the edtech frontier (blog), http://edtechfrontier.com/ 
Accessed 5th December 2010
• Swift, E. (2010) Losing the Plot – an Exploration of Narrative Collaboration and Control in Second Life in International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media, Issue 6, Volume 2
• Wiefels, P. (2002) The Chasm Companion: A fieldbook to Crossing the Chasm and inside the tornado, Capstone Publishing Limited, Oxford

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

The virtual world activities here at Bromley College started in 2006 using Second Life and then in 2009 OpenSim. The virtual world activities have been driven by the initiatives of two lecturers – Clive Gould and Barry Spencer.

At the present time we have a single virtual worlds activity (Comenious) running at the college, currently in the stages of full participation.

Comenious Overview and Rationale: Provide a collaborative face-to-face working environment. Explore the practical use and reliability of web 3 technology. This project will be used to enhance student communication and social skills both within the college and as part of the Comenius project which links us with two colleges in Holland and one in Belgium. Students will be able to communicate through the Internet and share ideas and resources.

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

Second Life and OpenSim. Second life with viewer 2 facilities represents a more fully immersive experience. OpenSim, while not at the same level of deployment, does have the advantage of cost and minimal port requirements.

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

Given the problems encountered with the demands of port access for Second life, we were able to make use of a proxy bypass option for one teaching room. With the arrival of OpenSim and its much reduced port requirements, we now have access to this facility in a number of teaching rooms.

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

Current projects (Comenius) make exclusive use of OpenSim. My principle issues are in the lack of full physics engine implementation and the availability of a viewer that supports Shared Media.

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

I have found that in using virtual worlds my teaching was able to take full advantage of problem Based learning scenarios in support of collaborative learning for my students, activities that are realistically not bound by the traditional demands of time and location.

Generally speaking the response of students in using both Second Life and OpenSim have been sufficiently encouraging and below I have included links to historic student surveys that you may find useful:

• http://cd.bromley.ac.uk/bteccourses/sl/pdf/OpenSimSolarCell2010.pdf
• http://cd.bromley.ac.uk/bteccourses/sl/pdf/WTreport09.pdf
• http://cd.bromley.ac.uk/bteccourses/sl/pdf/island_report_07-2010.pdf
• http://cd.bromley.ac.uk/bteccourses/sl/pdf/maze_report_07-2010.pdf

These reports can also be accessed in-world in my sim at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Star%20Beach%20Island/209/222/23.

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

Now that we have Shared Media in Second Life and I assume it will arrive in OpenSim in the near future, I see little need for actual integration from a technical perspective. Using recent trials at my Coders Central base in Second Life, students are now able to collaborate in real time coding exercises with full access to our VLE features such as forums, content and assessment.

7. The catch-all: anything else you’d like to say?

I feel that the use of virtual worlds continues to represent for me one of the most innovative and exciting prospects for student collaboration and learning beyond the classroom.

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

We are using a virtual world to enhance our teaching on taught postgraduate programmes (Certificate/Diploma/ Masters) in equine science at the University of Edinburgh’s Veterinary School, which is taught online at distance.

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

We are using the Virtual University of Edinburgh (VUE) on Second Life as our colleagues in the University are experienced with this and can provide support for us using it.

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

We have excellent support from our e-learning advisor in virtual worlds at the University.

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

What I like about using Second Life is the ability to link in real-time with students from across the globe and to see them in virtual person. What can be problematic is some students have technical issues with using Second Life due to the specification of their home computer.

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

I have enjoyed using Second Life – I feel it is a stimulating and engaging teaching tool. The student feedback has been mostly positive, though a small number have not engaged with it, mainly due to technical problems.

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

It would be good to integrate this into our VLE.

7. The catch-all: anything else you’d like to say?

Second Life acts as our virtual campus – it gives our online students a sense of “being” at the University of Edinburgh Veterinary School.

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

At the moment, we are running 2 modules for students in virtual worlds. The ‘Media Futures’ module for undergraduate media students is now entering its 4th year of delivery, and has not significantly deviated from how it has been described in previous snapshots.

This academic year, we have established a new module called ‘Identity in Virtual Worlds’, which is a combined honours programme elective open to students from any discipline. This module is a modified version of ‘Media Futures’, which is designed to fit with students from a variety of subject areas.

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

We are still using Second Life for delivery of these modules and students are also required to engage with gaming worlds. Second Life is primarily used as it has one of the largest active communities out of all of the social worlds available. Students need to be able to interact with a range of other users and environments within the virtual world that we use, and Second Life currently provides the best opportunity for this. Gaming environments are also used, as this provides a basis for students to analyse differences between the two environments.

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

Our institution has supported us in purchasing some island space and if anyone wants to use some of this, quite happy to arrange something if anyone wants to get in contact with me! Also, the fact that we have established the elective module shows a degree of support from our institution. We do still have a variety of ongoing technical issues each year with regards to providing access to Second Life on campus. These are usually related to ICT infrastructure changes, with Second Life always being low down on the list of priorities when rectifying problems that are related to these changes.

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

As mentioned, Second Life provides a large active user base that is essential for the success of the modules, and this is the primary reason why I like using this. I do usually have a natural leaning towards using fully open source systems that are free of constraints, and if the future of accessing online resources lies within the realms of a metaverse / 3D web, I would prefer it if this did not lie in the hands of Linden Labs!

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

For me its fantastic, really enjoy it and I really consider it as a massive upside to working as a Lecturer at Newman. It’s also provided some interesting opportunities in relation to collaborating with others. Dr. Mark Childs from Coventry University has really helped out by actively contributing to the modules that we provide, and research work is currently being undertaken to look at student experience on these interventions.

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

I’ve been playing around the SLOODLE integration via a moodle test server that i’ve set up. It’s satisfying my desires to mess around with something tekky and also provides an interesting point for student reflection in assessments. However, I think this type of thing still has a long way to go before it provides a meaningful and attractive proposition for student use.

7. The catch-all: anything else you’d like to say?

Yes, but not enough time unfortunately, have to go to bed so I can get up in time for teaching

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

We use virtual worlds for teaching Project Management and performing research on identity and other aspects of virtual worlds.

These activities are well documented under http://sl.sanfoh.com/. I supervise currently one PhD and one Master by Research on virtual world aspects.

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

We have used OpenSim this year for the first time. We were using two providers: http://www.3dmetaverse.com/ and http://reactiongrid.com/. They are both fine and I can recommend them. Details about these can be found on a paper I published at ReLive’11; see http://sl.perisic.com/relive11/ for details and presentation.

The reason we moved from Second Life was because of their poor customer support. The person who maintained the avatar that owned our island decided to give up this avatar and Linden Lab was not able to transfer the island to another avatar. This is well documented in various communication I had with them. Therefore we have to decide at very short notice to switch to a different provider.

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

Virtual worlds are now an integrated part of our teaching and are therefore funded as part of the usual expenses, similar as this is the case e.g. for software licences. In particular, OpenSim based solutions are much cheaper in setup and maintenance fee.

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

OpenSim is OK, but it is not Second Life i.e. the context and immersion Second Life offers does not seem to happen in the OpenSim; see the Relive’11 paper for a lot of reflection about this.

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

The students are doing it, but I don’t think they are particularly excited about this.

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

Ask the Sloodle people; they know better than I do . It’s certainly bound to be happen somehow (providers of these Learning Environment are under pressure to ‘add value’ to their systems, and doing virtual worlds is an obvious extension). But I wouldn’t be able to predict how it will happen exactly.

7. The catch-all: anything else you’d like to say?

Yes, indeed.
First: John you are doing a tremendous job to put this all together. Excellent work.
Second: we are trying to explore the utilisation of Open Sim vs. Second Life a bit further as part of a research project. Anyone volunteering to be interviewed in that matter is very much welcome to contact me (marc.conrad@beds.ac.uk).

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

Maintaining a university-owned island since 2007, which has recently been completely redesigned to better fit our needs.
Developing and evaluating learning scenarios with various organisations for a multitude of disciplines such as project management, health and social care management, child nursing, adult nursing (Coventry University), medical simulations and medical training (North Western Medical Deanery).

Development and evaluation of a virtual medical simulation replicated from a paediatric scenario at the Smart Hospital based at University of Texas Arlington.

Teaching employability skills to students using the virtual world Second Life.

We are currently nearing completion of one four-year research project (CURLIEW), which looks at the socio-political impact of virtual world use in higher education. The three PhD students on the project will be finishing theses on pedagogical design in virtual worlds, student perspectives of virtual worlds and the impact of using virtual worlds on learner identity. A further output from the CURLIEW project will be a synthesis of data across all three projects.

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

We are using Second Life, due to ease of access and the flexibility it offers in terms of developing our own learning scenarios. As a learning and teaching environment, it provides greater flexibility in terms of learning space design and islands/areas for students to explore.

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

Our IT department has installed Second Life onto the university server so that it can be accessed from any computer on campus, and we receive funding to keep the university island maintained monthly. The department is currently exploring the possibility of updating Second Life to the newer viewer.

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

There is a steep learning curve in terms of development. The learning curve is not quite so steep with general use of Second Life (especially since the new viewer) but still requires at least several hours of orientation for new students and staff to feel comfortable in-world.

One of its main advantages from a research perspective is also its popularity, meaning that there are several research seminars and conferences available in-world. Unless there is a mass move to another virtual world, Second Life provides an opportunity to engage in a research community in a way that few other virtual worlds do.

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

Cathy: I haven’t done any teaching using virtual worlds, but several testing and orientation sessions. I’ve noticed there are some people that instantly connect with Second Life and find it fascinating, and are enthusiastic to explore and learn. Then there are others that find it very difficult to feel comfortable, and need heavy encouragement. It’s very difficult beforehand to establish who is going to adjust quickly to Second Life and who is going to struggle.

Gemma: The experience of teaching in Second Life, for me, has varied according to the technological capabilities of the campus-based computers. Since I teach on a voluntary module, most students are at least open to the potential of using Second Life as a learning environment. With a smaller class, it’s easier to manage differences in student Second Life abilities and encourage students to support one another. Students engage enthusiastically with the content of the module and clearly enjoy using Second Life as a learning environment, primarily because of the diversity of islands available, allowing them to explore areas related to their disciplines and personal interests, as well as engaging in multi-disciplinary work. However, students can very quickly become frustrated and discouraged by technological problems, such as computers crashing.

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

I think it is a very good idea to integrate virtual worlds with learning management systems such as MOODLE, both in terms of assessment for staff and as back-up if there are technical problems!

We’re on top of contributions, so we’ve extended the deadline for contributions – but this is really it. If you want to get something in, then you have by the end of this Wednesday, 8th December 2011. All that is required is one paragraph minimum for most or all of the seven questions. As a guide, the first (and one of the best) contributions to the snapshot came in within 15 minutes of the first call for contributions going out.

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

The University of Portsmouth has been using Second Life since 2006. We currently have 3 Islands (UoP Island, Chmi Island and Enterprise Centre).

UoP Island is predominantly used for School of Computing student work; the majority contains a mix of materials to introduce students to Second Life and student coursework and dissertation work. Within the Island there is also a small area with the outputs from a project undertaken for the then HEA ICS Subject Centre on teaching tools for Second Life, and an area in which we are prototyping (with students) tools for teaching Forensic IT – this includes a Crown Court.

Chmi Island is used by the Centre for Healthcare Modelling and Informatics as a workplace telecare showcase, showing ways in which IT can be integrated into the workplace to provide healthcare support for employees and their families.

Enterprise Centre is awaiting development by the Portsmouth Business School to support their student placement activities.

Kevin Curtis in the School of Creative Technologies has been using Open Wonderland as part of a European Interreg project looking at developing problem-based learning to students.

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

We are using Second Life for both historical reasons (it was there when we started looking at Virtual Worlds) and for practical reasons (it is readily and freely available, it provides a rich environment for students to explore and learn from, there is a wealth of material available to support the work we do in Second Life, plus we have invested time and money in it).

We use Open Wonderland as part of a cross European research project. With Opensim – we are investigating this as an alternative, cheaper environment to Second Life.

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

We are given provision of server space for Open Wonderland work. Also, payment of the costs of two Second Life islands (the cost of the 3rd is covered by external funding).

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

Second Life provides an easy entry to using virtual worlds as there is a range of materials (books and on the web) to support new users, it is easy to find (direct students to) materials in world on how to build, texture etc, there is a wide range of freebies available which helps both students and staff starting out, and there are lots and lots of examples to look at and investigate. Anything is possible in terms.

The difficulties are that for newbies it takes time to get the hang of moving around and their inventories; the costs of owning an island have increased substantially; running it over a university network can be challenging (but on the other hand it can be run from a stick).

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

We don’t do formal teaching so our experiences have been around introducing students to Second Life and letting them explore and build. We have found with this type of usage that students split into 2 groups – love it or hate it. Those who hate it tend to have a strong gaming background and feel the graphics quality is too low and the interface not game-like enough. Those who love it tend to do so because they can see the potential.

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

Only that the more they can the better – but first we need better “integration” with academic networks e.g. multiple users of one computer for short periods of time with all the attendant problems of storage space and protection of the network from ‘odd’ software. Being able to easily run fully functional virtual worlds in browsers such as IE and firefox would help with this.

7. The catch-all: anything else you’d like to say?

It is regrettable that changes in educational costs for Second Life have increased substantially over the last year as this may mean we have to withdraw from Second Life.

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What are you doing with virtual worlds? And how long have you been doing it?

We are starting the second year in developing an adaptive 3D virtual environment called Project IVY (Interpreters in Virtual Reality). Project IVY is designed to address the needs of future interpreters and users of interpreters in higher education, vocational training and adult learning contexts. Our project uses 3D virtual environment technology to create an innovative virtual educational space that supports the acquisition and application of skills required in interpreter-mediated communication.

Our aim is that the project will provide a learning environment which uses the potential of 3D technology to enable learners from different contexts and different educational sectors and to meet and interact, learn with customized digital content and apply their knowledge; this fosters experiential and autonomous learning in a virtual setting, and supports collaborative learning through simulation and live interaction. Project IVY is adaptable to other educational contexts.

The project partners are the University of Surrey (UK, co-ordinator), University of Bangor (UK), University of Cyprus (Cyprus), University of Poznan (Poland), University of Tübingen (Germany), Steinbeis GmbH & Co. KG für Technologietransfer (Germany), and Bar Ilan University (Israel).

Full trials of the system will commence early 2012; results will be published during 2012. The project is funded by the EU Lifelong Learning Programme.

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

We are provisionally using Second Life, and exploring OpenSim for future projects. Second Life is public facing and reasonably accessible by students, lecturers and other participating institutions

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

We have the use of two islands in Second Life – Bangor University and Surrey University, partly funded by the project.

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

Second Life is very restrictive and difficult to adapt to the demands of our project. Developing good text display systems are particularly difficult.vManipulating audio and synchronized media would be much easier using other platforms. Only the public facing attributes of Second Life help to drive the project.

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

Some provisional interpreter student meetings have been conducted in Second Life (see the picture).

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

The project will explore integration with other technologies – particularly augmented reality and the use of robotics.