surveying virtual world use in uk higher and further education

Digital Games inEuropean Libraries

Surveying Virtual World use in UK Higher and Further Education

Saturday, 13 September 2014

Personal position

• Three things getting better; the perfect storm:– PC and Mac technology is getting better e.g.

processor power, graphics.– Broadband nearly ubiquitous.– Virtual worlds are constantly improving.

• Lifelong learning: fit learning around your life.• Distance learning: more choice of courses.• Always-on learning: whenever you want.


* To provide “ammunition” for academics to use to make their case inside their institution.

* To try and bring together like-minded academic practitioners.

* To see where this goes.

* To - professionally - challenge the (closed minded) sceptics.

Unofficial aims (mine) of Virtual World Watch


Where VWW is at (Mid March 2009)

• Now on snapshot survey number 6 - release date of mid to late April 2009.

• Also to be released then is first report looking at alternative virtual world uses in academia.

• Weekly podcasts with academic developers proving unexpected success. Want to be interviewed? Get in touch…

• Building up the resource directory to provide some evidence and useful “stuff”.


Typical respondent to a snapshot survey

• Isn’t afraid to give an opinion

• Usually either concise or extremely verbose

• Open minded• Practises what

they preach re: virtual worlds

• Can go nose to nose with sceptics

• Core of contacts in ~30 universities who respond to most surveys

Just “does it”


Activity in UK universities (generally HE)


Activity in UK colleges (generally FE)


“Staffordshire University is carrying out a project to see how useful a virtual world like Second Life might be when it comes to undergraduate teaching.”

“We are active but not yet public.” - many responses.

“A one year JISC funded research project at the University of Bristol.

We are creating a collection of paintings that will be displayed within a virtual Pompeiian house in a similar way to the actual Sydenham Crystal Palace that was build in London in 1854.”

Much activity outside responses


Data extraction from January survey responses


Summary of Snapshot 5+

• 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


Student Developments …


Virtual worlds as simulations of dangerous environments


“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.”

More safety …


Learning aboutresearch …


Touring developments …


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


Learning about quantitative research …


Additional angle to conference …


Student information (Student health)


“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


“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


INCORE project(Norther Island conflict)


Just to complicate things: Other worlds …

Playstation HomeSaturday, 13 September 2014

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


“We plan to set up our own OpenSim server for our 600 art & design students to enjoy, free from some of the obstacles that we have encountered whilst trying to use Second Life.” - Leeds Metropolitan

“We have an OpenSim grid running with a few regions set up. We are applying for funding to support an OpenSim grid for the UK academic community.” – St. Andrews

OpenSim (more)


Educators in World of Warcraft …


Dealing with sceptics

“Academics? Getting funding to play silly games like Second Life and World of Warcraft and pretend it is learning?

Disgusting.

In my day we didn’t have email, made do with slate and chalk and it did us no harm … yadda yadda yadda …”


See no innovation …


Made in 9 months from 1 egg and 1 sperm…


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


Better … JIME Open peer review process


Adventures of Yoshikawa


Funding


Virtual World Watch: future

CDC (Continuous Data Collection) starts this week.

Future reports:• Quarterly (3) throughout 2009.• SL and alternative virtual worlds (2).• Ongoing virtual world research (1).

Other interests:• Search in virtual worlds.• Funding for virtual world development in UK HE/FE.


Virtual World Watch is funded by Eduserv.

Web: www.virtualworldwatch.net

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @V_World_Watch

I’m here for the rest of the day…

Okay, that’s all
