Virtual Worlds:

Their use in UK learning and teaching

Virtual World Watch

Funded by Eduserv (thanks @andypowe11 et al) for a year from mid-October 2008.

Started tracking Virtual World activities (originally just Second Life) in UK academia in the summer of 2007.

Five such reports done, which contain a swirl of informal and formal information on these activities.

Latest report released in mid February 2009.

Starting to build up the resource base with other “stuff”.

Huge fun, seeing a niche technology expand within education.

www.virtualworldwatch.net

Summary of Snapshot 5 (and since then)

All bar one UK university has some evidence of Second Life “activity” i.e. research, design, study, teaching or learning.

Building a replica of your campus in SL just for the sake of it is rare now (hurrah!).

Activities diverse, but newer universities tend to be more into it than older ones.

Huge amount of duplicated work going on across universities in investigating use of Second Life in teaching and learning :-(

Major obstacles are the (linked) issues of attitude and evidence.

Large areas of darkness No activity or unreported activity?

Reported activity in UK universities (generally HE)

Reported activity in UK colleges (generally FE)

Data extraction from survey responses (January 2009)

Inquiry skills

“A pilot study looking at Interprofessional education in Second Life.” - Coventry

“Determining whether SL is a suitable environment within which to develop students' business enterprise skills.” - Leeds

“Through the Open Habitat project, we are piloting various approaches to teaching and learning in Second Life and OpenSim.” - Leeds Metropolitan

“This project investigated pedagogical issues related to teaching within 3D virtual worlds using Second Life as the delivery platform.” - Ulster

Studying SL as a learning environment

Virtual worlds as simulations of dangerous environments

“A virtual quarry in conjunction with the Institute of Quarrying.

This work is intended to replicate real quarrying situations: dangerous overhangs; explosions; hazardous working vehicles.

Students move around the quarry identifying those hazards.”

Derby

“The witnesses go down to the simulation set and the investigators stay at the gathering point.

The tutor runs the simulation through – in this case a fork lift truck accident in a small warehouse which the witness students can view through their avatars.”

West of England

Health and medicine

“A simulation of a full working model of an X-ray machine.

This allows for safe practice; is flexible either to be used in a class or for self study.

It is scaleable - only one exists on campus but we can copy the simulation as many times as we wish.”

Medical equipment created by Glasgow Caledonian

Machinima

“A section of the island is designated for film making (machinima), with an adaptable diorama and terraformable landscape for creating sets.” - JISC RSC (Northern)

“A group of media students are undertaking a project on creating machinima and guidance on the use of the event simulator described above as part of their interactive media course.” - West of England

LIVE project

“We held a number of induction events to allow interested members of staff to familiarise themselves with the environment.” - Leeds

“Teaching our staff about virtual worlds and the possibilities of these as a learning and teaching environment.” - Glasgow Caledonian

“Currently exploring SL with a small group for staff to look at the feasibility of using SL to exchange and work with other educational establishments or projects.” – Strode College

Staff introduction

INCORE project(Norther Island conflict)

Just to complicate things: Other worlds …

Playstation Home

Metaplace

University of the West of Scotland

- Web-based- Flash- extensible- avatars- scripting

Isometric viewEasy to work in

(Sims meets Second Life?)

“We expect to see more interest in OpenSim, and possibly Wonderland - emphasising the need to keep the ‘intelligence’ of any solution out of any one particular virtual world. We also still see no ‘Second Life killer’ out there.” - Daden Limited

“The latest OpenSim server builds offer outstanding performance, and are rapidly maturing and becoming reliable for everyday use. Porting objects and scripts (but not all of them) from Second Life to OpenSim is now possible.” - Plymouth

OpenSim

Educators in World of Warcraft …

Attitude

“IT services say no.”

Student developments in Second Life

"On top of this my computer in my office is completely locked down by UICS and I can do nothing, I am not allowed to have Skype...I cannot use Elluminate, I cannot use virtual classrooms, and so on.

My research into virtual worlds (Second Life) is done at home and I had to buy a new computer for there because my work one has no access, is far too slow...and it is not allowed anyway."

But in the same university...

VIEWS of the futurehttp://blogs.cetis.ac.uk/rowin/2009/03/27/111/

"Lack of support from institutional IT departments for VW-related activities, even to the point of refusing to unblock the ports necessary to actually run them.

Some institutions apparently blame JISC/Janet policies for this, but the inconsistent application of these supposed policies suggests that there might be other reasons for this…"

Scepticism for the sake of it

For lots of other people ...

Proof or evidence

...that using Virtual Worlds for specific teaching and learning applications is better than using some other technique or technology.

* Funding applications * Students, bossy parents

* Internal authority to use * Peers

Evidence

For IT Services ...

MANY UK Universities have used Second Life for a very wide range of teaching and learning activities without ANY incident or apocalyptic event.

So why can't you? Be honest ...

Laziness? Control freakery?

Mis-allocation of IT funding? Neo-ludditism?

Made in just 9 months from 1 egg and 1 sperm …

… so why does a bunch of words take so much longer to get published?

Adventures of Yoshikawa

Survey and report release dates

Mid May 2009 Snapshot #6 Second Life and alternative virtual worlds in education #1

Start August 2009 Snapshot #7

Mid October 2009 Snapshot #8 Second Life and alternative virtual worlds in education #2 Virtual worlds ongoing research

In it for the long haul ...

VWW until at least the end of 2010. Focus stays on UK activities. Mixed funding model.

Adding lobbying to research and dissemination activities.

Still doing: Weekly podcasts. Snapshot reports. Adding UK content to resource directory.

VWW needs your help ...

Say what you are doing. Free publicity! Make your funders happy! Advance your career!

Oh, and the chance to win a book token.

In fact, if you have any other media e.g. blogs, YouTube videos, can promote those through the VWW website.

Evidence of teaching and learning activities especially welcome.

Weekly podcasts, gaining a cult following. Can do over Skype, phone ... or later today. Takes 15 minutes.