flittleton eduserv 160109

Virtually, My Life

Fiona Littletonfiona.littleton@ed.ac.uk

15th January 2009

Bezzerwizzer

A trivia board game combining trivia and tactics from Mattel.

Contains 5.000 questions in 20 categories. From 15 years.

What country was the first to have an official embassy in Second Life?

SwedenGermanyUSA

@130 on-programme

Austria, Germany, Greece, Japan, The Philippines, Cyprus, Uganda, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Switzerland, UK, University of Edinburgh ….

Part time, fully online learning

Aimed at professionals in HE, FE and training

The Vue group is a virtual educational and research institute bringing together all those interested in the use of virtual worlds for teaching, research and outreach related to the University of Edinburgh.

Virtual Campus for the University of Edinburgh

Vue, Map View, 11th April 2007

Vue, 15th May 2007

Vue, Map View, 14th January 2009

A Marketing Space

Vue South, 16th July 2007

An Open Space

Holyrood Park, 19th September 2007

A Learning Space

Redefining Learning Spaces

"Some of the [educational ] ideas, like recreating places and experiences that are impossible for students to visit made a lot of sense. The idea of role play seems like a natural fit. Other ideas seemed to contradict the whole idea of Second Life. Isn't the idea that you are not constrained by the concepts and rules of the real world? The suggestions to build a virtual classroom with chairs and show the students a Powerpoint slideshow seemed particularly disappointing. I can't see what the benefit of doing that in Second Life would be at all. If you wanted to do something non-interactive, why use a platform that is designed to be interactive"

IDEL student on WebCT discussion board, November 2007

“My initial impression of in-world 'talk' is that there is a significant shift in dynamics when three dimensions are involved. A 'person' can move around, approach people, fly, and visit things much like we do with our physical bodies. This is a quantum leap from a simple text discussion, like we experienced in the early weeks of this course, and adds a far more intuitive dimension to communication - like taking the 'smileys' a great leap forward. ”

student weblog, October 2006

Use virtual to manifest the theoretical Manipulate your manifestation and directly

experience whether or not it has an impact

"I find particularly interesting the potential of role-play, of consciously experimenting with your avatar in ways that could prove invaluable for fields such as social sciences or just to explore issues of racism and inequality within the classroom. Changing age, sex, race can be thought provoking, revealing and can provide useful lessons”

student weblog, October 2006

A Tourist Space

“The appearance of an avatar may sadly be a 'put-off' for those with which it interacts. … Choice of animal heads for avatar faces may send a terribly wrong message in my culture. Such an avatar may be considered a sorcerer or witch / wizard. Who would want to interact with such a 'person'?”

student weblog, October 2006

Highlighting issues of identity

A Social Space

Highlighting learning as socially grounded

“One of the advantages of avatars is the increased sense of presence I think. It's different imagining the presence of your other classmates in a chat room compared to seeing their virtual representation in Second Life environment. … .The possibility of gestures and facial expressions as opposed to emoticons also contributes to more direct communication and to the feeling of stronger physical presence and also deeper sense of team spirit and collaboration.”

student weblog, October 2006

Digital co-presence

"And even though I'm not hugely drawn to Second Life, the visual  memory of our SL fireside tutorials for IDEL [Introduction to Digital Environments for Learning] is very strong.”

student email conversation, May 2008

Arts, Culture & Environment: Social Augmented Duality

A Play Space

An Assessment Space

“[The Student Learning Game] is an example of the kind of creative pedagogical engagement that is possible, and of the kinds of challenges such spaces pose to existing understandings of text, assessment, learning and learning spaces; issues we engage with in a rigorous and critical way over the course of the MSc“

Siân Bayne, MSc Programme Director, July 2007

Highlighting Active LearningStudent production as well as consumptionLearning by Design

Highlighting Active LearningLearning by experience "I think as a demo of possible means for assessment, I've

achieved what I set out to do; there is academic content, there are hyperlinks, there is access to external web resources, and best of all it is immersive ..... you are not just sat at a computer reading a script. In terms of hypertext writing, the ability to create ones own pathway through the text (by wandering around the exhibits) follows hypertext theory but is a novel approach. The environment the text is presented in is also important. I am using Second Life to manifest the theoretical.“

student SL conversation, MSc IDEL, January 2009

“I think it's no more or less [a place for learner's to learn] than any other digital space – [it is still] dependent on curriculum design, assessment flexibility, support for students”

Clara O’Shea, MSc IDEL Tutor, January 2009

A Building Space

Investigating the potential of role-play within Second Life to substitute for and possibly improve face-to-face role-play in performance appraisal training.

Upcoming Chapter “Challenging our People Perceptions: The Potential for Performance Appraisal Training in Second Life” in the book “Higher Education in Second Life” (2009).

A Research Space

A Research Space

EPSRC/AHRC Branded Meeting Space http://ace.caad.ed.ac.uk/NonPlace/

Virtual Hallucinations, Sedig Island

Someone Else’s Space

Scilands Map View, 14th January 2009

A Guided Space

Open Vue represents the use of open source virtual worlds technologies.

Holyrood Park

Open Vue, 31th October 2007

Open Vue, 6th January 2009

An OpenSim Space

Second Life

ActiveWorlds

NewHorizone

Dreamscape

Sony Home

The Sims Online

Moove

There blaxxun Contact

Dreamville

Traveler

Adobe Atmosphere

Entropia Universe

Red Light CenterEverQuest

Ultima Online

Lineage

World of Warcraft

Guild Wars

Cybertown

Peace City

Google Lively

Vivaty

Open SimKaneva

Forterra OLIVE

MetaPlaceLively

Twinity

TruSim TriageOpen Sim

JISC report – “serious” use of Virtual Worldshttp://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/publications/seriousvirtualworldsreport.aspx

TruSim Triage Trainer

TruSim Triage Website, 14th January 2009

AcknowledgementsJeff Haywood, Brian Martin and Ray LandSiân Bayne (Sian Pankhurst)Hamish Macleod (Kimberley Pascal)Jen Ross (Blake Canadeo)Marshall Dozier (Pancha Enzyme)Austin Tate (AI Austin)Rory Ewins (Algernon Twang)James Stewart (JK Jakobus)Ian Graham (Radetzsky March)Naomi Nunn (Anwen Munro)Clara O’Shea (Klara Otsuka)

(Answer = Sweden)

fiona.littleton@ed.ac.uk

www.wiki.ed.ac.uk/display/HolyroodPark/

Vue: www.vue.ed.ac.uk

Special Issue of ALT-J on virtual worlds (2008)http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=g906960349~db=all~tab=toc~order=page

Questions?