Virtual Worlds in Education Forum, 24th July 2008

From RSCWMWiki

Stuart started the afternoon off with a presentation about Keele’s developments in Second Life (SL). One use of SL is as a marketing tool – which is done through www.virtualkeele.com One example of work done by a student was that of a Rubik’s cube. He finds SL a good way to teach maths and programming 'by stealth'. Future developments will involve having 200 students using virtual Keele as part of the Complimentary Studies Programme: http://www.keele.ac.uk/undergraduate/csp/modulepages/CSC-10022.htm

Virtual Keele is accessible to anyone who wishes to visit: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Keele/128/128/22

GUEST SPEAKER: Joel Cockrill, Director, Movix Ltd

Joel Cockrill

Some of the issues and problems were illustrated by Joel. His company has a great deal of experience of SL having spent several years in there, creating virtual spaces. He noted how some businesses are doing a good trade by using this kind of environment but that many use a bad business model and so fail. SL is good for creativity and collaboration. Movix background is one of movie makers and they used SL as a meeting place and for studio management. They created a retirement community with 30 homes – replicating a real life place in Lancaster. Apart from the obvious benefits for the like-minded residents using it as a socialising space, it seemed to be a pointless exercise. He suggests using computer games designers rather than 3D modellers when creating VW spaces. Movix was involved in global event – Comic Book Gallery launch with 83 attendees.

Movix has developed a 3D platform – MUVLE which can run on mobile devices, haptic 3D devices, it can be hosted locally or by Movix, it runs in a browser etc. Bangor and Glamorgan universities are using MUVLE. It will be in Beta version in 6-9 months and they are looking for volunteers: http://www.muvle.co.uk/

Mark Childs, Coventry University

Mark Childs

The Theatron Project, funded by Eduserv, and led by King's College London, is now being managed by Mark Childs from Coventry University. The project has created 9 theatres – some of these are recreations from the ancient world which no longer exist: http://www.theatron.co.uk/ and 11 more are in development. A booking system has been developed which allows SL users to use one of the theatres which can be set up on Theatron Island for a set period of time. Mark also touched on his research project “Learner experience of mediated environments” http://go.warwick.ac.uk/ep-edrfap/

Joff Chafer, Coventry University

Joff Chafer

On Performance Island, there is a theatre and Joff showed a machinima he has been working on called Summer Dancing, using bluescreen technology. This has both real people and avatars in the same video clip: http://jofffassnacht.blip.tv/#1038886 This is based on work by James Yarker with Stan’s Café Theatre Company. The people involved in Summer Dancing were from all curriculum areas.

The SL Shakespeare Company has been very busy with many performances too and Joff is currently involved in a production of Twelfth Night. One of the problems they have encountered is the effect that lag has on speech. The SL Globe Theatre can be found here: http://slurl.com/secondlife/sLiterary/21/10/24

GUEST SPEAKER: Peter Bloomfield, University of the West of Scotland
The SLoodle Project

‘Pedro McMillan’

This presentation by ‘Pedro McMillan’ was in Second Life and projected onto the screen for all to see. Peter explained that SLoodle is an integration of Second Life and Moodle. He described how it works and gave us a run through of the main tools that SLoodle offers, demonstrating them in-world. For more information: http://www.sloodle.org/

Jerry Foss, Birmingham City University and David Burden, Daden Ltd

Jerry Foss

As part of the Digital Birmingham project that has been funded by AWM and includes partners such as Birmingham City Council, Virtual Birmingham has been developed: http://www.digitalbirmingham.co.uk/projects/virtual-birmingham

A replica of Millennium Point has been built in Second Life and it has been used by media production students from BCU as an exercise in film location studies where they can do anything from work out where cameras should go, where power sockets are to public access issues. Even though external influences were missing (ie weather, acoustics), Jerry felt it was a good representation of the real thing. Birmingham PCT are also interested in using the virtual environment. David Burden from Daden, who constructed the building also demonstrated a clever mash up of SL and Google whereby you could hone in on an area on a large map in SL which would give you a 2D map and 3D walk through of the area.

Hands On Session

At the end of the day there was an opportunity for delegates to log into Second Life themselves and to visit some of the places demonstrated during the day.

Associated links

Kevin Brace blogged about this event here : http://kev-brace.blogspot.com/2008/07/muvle.html

MOVIX Media who built an entire SL village ,and created the MUVLE http://www.movix.co.uk/

Daden Ltd (who built virtual MP & the interactive map) http://www.daden.co.uk/

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