Virtual Worlds in Education Forum, 25 September 2008
From RSCWMWiki
Coventry University, 25 September 2008
Around 30 people from a mixture of HE, FE and ACL attended the forum.
Professor Maggi Savin-Baden, Professor of Higher Education Research, Coventry University began the day with a welcoming introduction.
Andrew Rothery, (Director of E-Learning and Online Information, University of Worcester) gave a talk and tour of the Plagiarism Funfair in Second Life™. This is a joint project with Bedford College and Bradford College which teaches students about plagiarism and is being lead by librarians. The intention is that by using the virtual world, the students will gain a more meaningful understanding of plagiarism as well as have an interesting and immersive experience. Anecdotal evidence suggests participants remember content of meetings far better when in virtual world environments. By teaching it in this way, the plagiarism resources can be out on display all the time - a luxury that cannot be afforded in the real world of education. Andrew expressed the wish to extend its use to other universities and colleges too. Up to six groups of students can be accommodated at the same time.
Joff Chafer, Associate Lecturer in Theatre, Coventry University gave an impromptu lesson for beginners in Second Life™ as there were a number of delegates who were unfamiliar with the virtual world. He showed a DVD of some work using blue screen technology and Second Life™ avatars and described the performance work he has been doing in the virtual world.
David Burden, Daden Ltd talked to the group about the different projects he has been involved in with Second Life™. Daden Limited is based at the Serious Games Institute in Coventry. David has been working with 6 universities as well as local councils.
Daden offers 4 main services to inform, involve, integrate and interact. Please see the website for further information: http://www.daden.co.uk/
One example of their Second Life ™ developments is a visualisation - an Aircraft Tracking system based on live data from Los Angeles International Airport. The live data showing planes flying into the airport is displayed as small aircraft models (in Second Life™) over a map of southern California. Your avatar can stand on the map and see the aeroplanes approaching the airport.
One of problems with Second Life ™ was that you could see a webpage but not activate any links within it. The Daden Navigator was developed to overcome this so now when you type a url in the chat box you are taken straight to the website.
The Birmingham City Council project involved bringing Google maps into Second Life™. The Virtual Briefing Hub enables users to sit on chairs and look at and discuss the map of Birmingham. (See picture above.)
Jerry Foss, Birmingham City University 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.bcu.ac.uk/news/releases08/virtual_learning.html 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.
GUEST SPEAKER: Emmanuel P Gruijs, CEO Active Worlds Europe
Mark Childs met up with Emmanuel Gruijs in Active Worlds Europe (AWE)which was established in 1995. Emmanuel joined us from Holland and he and Mark used Skype to communicate which enabled the delegates to listen to information and to ask questions. Emmanuel said that in the Netherlands, AWE is used much more than Second Life™ and that one of the advantages of AWE was that it didn't need high specification technology to run it. SURFNet, the Dutch equivalent to the JISC, is supporting projects in AWE and offers virtual worlds to universities. Organisations can set up their own private universe. Sixty five thousand people are in world at any one time; there is no restriction on how many can log in; any content can be imported into AWE from other applications. It is being used in business and education eg Siemens Medical have a virtual hospital. Visitor tracking and analysis is possible as well as the facility to replay characters and their actions. There are large scale traffic simulation projects that can be used for real life traffic infrastructure developments. The costs compete with those of Second Life™ but please see the website for full licensing information. AWE has a built-in web browser. Questionmark assessments can be incorporated into the environment. Videos can be shared and watched at the same time as other characters. PowerPoint presentations have to be uploaded to external websites. Users can create their own content in public worlds although this proves to be heavy on resources. http://www.andras.net/ gives you everything you need to operate in AWE. There is a separate Educational Universe in Active Worlds "dedicated to exploring the educational applications of the Active Worlds Technology." Five to six hundred universities are carrying out one year projects.
A very comprehensive overview of the PREVIEW project was then given by Professor Maggi Savin-Baden Maggi's expertise in Problem Based Learning has taken her into virtual worlds.
Links
Input into the latest UK Snapshot Report deadline has passed. http://virtualworldwatch.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/snapshot-survey.rtf [1]
Events
Introduction to Second Life workshop at the Science Park, Wolverhampton, 12 November 2008 http://info.rsc-wm.ac.uk/events/event_details.asp?eid=396 [2]
National Workshop in Learning in Immersive Worlds, Coventry Techno Centre, 23 October 2008 http://www.elu.sgul.ac.uk/preview/blog/?page_id=63 [3]
Creating Second Lives, Bangor University, 24 - 25 October 2008 http://nieci.bangor.ac.uk/conf/?q=en/content/creating_second_lives_reading_and_writing_virtual_communities [4]
Virtual Worlds 2008, Stirling University, 29 October 2008 http://www.rsc-ne-scotland.ac.uk/events.php#vw08 [5]
ReLIVE 08, Open University, 20 - 21 November 2008 http://www.open.ac.uk/relive08/ [6]
Using Second Life, Birmingham Central Library, 26 November 2008 http://www.cilip.org.uk/NR/exeres/B85D408F-7A66-4709-B887-CC78B7D1C261 [7]
Beyond Distance Research Alliance Conference, Leicester University, 8 January 2008 http://www.le.ac.uk/beyonddistance/events/events.html [8]
IEEE International Conference in Games and Virtual Worlds, Coventry University, 23 - 24 March 2009 http://www.vs-games.org.uk/ [9]
