Virtual Worlds And VLEs For Schools
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Transcript of Virtual Worlds And VLEs For Schools
Virtual Worlds and Virtual Learning EnvironmentsGlow, Teen Second Life and More
Daniel LivingstoneSICT-DG Presentation, 25th Jan 2008
Welcome to Adventure!! Would you likeinstructions?>no
You are standing at the end of a roadbefore a small brick building.Around you is a forest. A smallstream flows out of the building anddown a gully. In the distance there isa tall gleaming white tower.>
Groups
Noticeboard
Discussions
Documents
Synchronous Activities in Glow
Chat
IM
Whiteboard
VideoConferencing
Runescape
World of Warcraft
Etc…• City of Heroes (and Villains!)• Star Wars Galaxies• Eve Online• Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates• Pirates of the Burning Sea• APB• Lord of the Rings Online
– Etc., etc., …
• World of Warcraft– Over 10 million subscribers alone
Learning in Games• Team building & management
– Corporations and guilds
• Numeracy and Literacy– Despite visual emphasis, a lot of
information is communicated in text– A lot of number crunching
• Are these skills transferable?– Informal learning in games
MUVEs• A range of 3D virtual worlds are
more ‘general purpose’– Not games per se, more social– Active Worlds, There, Second Life /
Teen Second Life, Kaneva, Croquet / Kwaq, Project Wonderland (MPK20), HiPiHi, …
• Media Grid/Immersive Education
Second Life• Any - and every - user is able to create
content– Buildings, Furniture, Scenery– With scripts – pets, vehicles, guns– Avatar clothing, skins, custom avatars
• A user-created world• With IP rights and freely convertible in-
world currency (L$)• Social platform: Engaging with other
‘residents’ is the core experience
Seriously Engaging
Web Interoperability
• Scripts running inside SL can communicate with the internet– Email– XML-RPC (must be initiated
externally)– HTTP Request (incl. GET/POST)
• Streaming audio/video
Real Life Businesses
• Increasing number of real-life businesses creating presences in SL– IBM, Dell, ABN AMRO, Sun, Amazon,
O’Reilly, Wired, C|Net, BBH, Vodaphone, BBC, Adidas, Nissan, Sony Ericsson, Fox Movies, …
• Is this significant for education?
Resident Run Education Programmes• Academy of Second Life• New Citizens Inc.
– Resident run enterprises which teach a wide range of SL skills
– From navigation and ‘user’ skills to advanced content creations
– Initially encouraged by payments from Linden Lab
– Now some classes supported by commercial sponsors
The International Spaceflight Museum
Real Life Educational Programmes• Mainly tertiary level
– Some RL-Education activity on TSL– Come to that in a moment!
• Digital cultures, ethics, law in the internet age, rhetoric, game-development, programming, AI, business, collaborative virtual environments…
What Happened When I taught with SL…• Virtual world too open-ended, lacks
obvious goals, rich social & technical environment
• Students need support and direction• Tutors need to be familiar with the
environment too to provide this support• Not universally enjoyed – but students
enjoyed it more than blogging or using wikis!
Education Applications• Simulation• Collaboration• Business projects with ‘real’ customers• Role-play
– Facilitating discussion
• Machinima– Using game technology for movie making
• Constructionist projects– Let the students make the project!
Education Projects in TSL• Schome www.schome.ac.uk• Suffern Middle School rampoislands.blogspot.com• Global Kids www.holymeatballs.org/second_life/• Eye4You Alliance• British Council• …
Sloodle
• Project to bridge SL & the Open Source Moodle VLE to provide additional support for learning (and for learning management) to SL
• Funded and supported by Eduserv
Chat: Web-Intercom
UI Integration
Where next?• Virtual worlds growing in
popularity across all age groups• Growth in educational use• Avatars everywhere
– Why not 2D avatars in Glow?• To reach educational potential,
and for teacher/learner support, MUVEs can be integrated with VLEs
• What MUVE is best fit for purpose?– What do you want to do with it?
• Daniel Livingstone,School of ComputingUniversity of the West of Scotland, Paisley Campus
[email protected] Buddy Sprocket in SL
Getting Started in SL• Create a free account
– www.secondlife.com– Or via http://sl.nmc.org/join/
• Download client– Windows, Mac, Linux
• Explore Orientation Island– Basic skills
• Explore Help Island– More skills practice, some free items to get
you started
Then what?• The next bit is the hard part…
– You get dumped onto the ‘mainland’ where you’ll meet a random collection of mostly equally new (and confused) residents
• What do you do now?– Some people randomly explore a bit,
fail to find anything interesting then log off never to return
I hate Second Life!• There is no inherent goal…• Take time to explore and see a variety
of places• Talk to a variety of people
– Ask what they find interesting in SL; ask if they can help you find stuff that interests you
• If at first you hate SL – you aren’t alone!– But exploration and time might reveal depths
you can’t see at first