Learning using Virtual Worlds

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebecca_ashbourne/2880794104/
Learning using
Virtual Worlds
Saturday, 13 September 2014

The big question?

Virtual World Watch
#wnaef
(What Next After Eduserv Funding)

Brief history
• First snapshot: end of
2006-07 academic year...
• ...unexpected interest.
• Seven snapshots to date.
• Presentations; Flickr group;
a few articles and papers.
• Difficult without data from
the community.
• Jolly good fun.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rooreynolds/493792832/

Though not smooth sailing
• Ongoing experiment, dithering,
in “best dissemination”:
- Andy: A Wiki!
- Pete: XHTML!
- John: Podcasts!
• Data collection tricky; “Find”
(forthcoming presentation).
• Trying to stay neutral and
objective about a fiercely
polarising, hyped and dismissed
technology.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rooreynolds/493812509/

Virtual World Watch through 2010
• More “stuff” on website.
• Presentations.
• VWW book.
(Core work) snapshots:
• #8: March 15th
• #9: June 20th
• #10: December 12th
http://www.flickr.com/photos/andypowe11/1142157793/

Trends
• Core group of UK practitioners (you the audience!) has
grown steadily, though not rapidly.
• Several universities e.g. Edinburgh, Open, Leicester using
virtual worlds for several years.
• Much development is still voluntary, some internally
funded, some externally.
• A gradual movement from ‘building things’ to ‘using things’.
• US take-up of virtual worlds in education is happening much
quicker than in the UK.

University of Texas
https://blogs.secondlife.com/community/learninginworld

UK subject areas where VWs are used
• Nursing and medical training.
• Biosciences.
• Midwifery and maternity.
• Languages (especially
Spanish).
• Criminology and forensics.
• Art and design.
• Computer science.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kattanhurnung/4115602444/

Virtual worlds
The Good, the Bad and the Ferdinand

“You start with a box...”

Tutorial, Learning Team, University of Nottingham

Do your own thing
• Huge control over the
environment you and the
students are in.
• You are the admin.
• Participate and share.
• (Though not that much control
over the students - but good
thing?)
• You have total choice over how
you represent yourself.

Choose your mode of communication
• Text
• IM
• Voice
• Video
• Audio
• Gestures
• ... and record

Looking for the comms silver bullet
“For me, and I say this with a certain amount of hindsight,
the most valuable and fun experiences in Second Life
were those associated with meetings and events
(particularly hybrid RL/SL events).
Yet, as a platform for collaboration and communication,
SL sucks in many respects. This is partly a personal view,
but I know from having stood up in meetings and said this
that others agree with me, voice destroys the immersive
aspects of SL yet chat is hopeless for most kinds of serious
conversation.”
http://artfossett.blogspot.com/2009_06_01_archive.html

It’s not just Second Life, you know...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/garyhayes/sets/72157607567112139/

“It’s just sex sex sex...”
Yes, there’s “sex” in virtual
worlds.
•We know this. Boring.
•It’s in all aspects of life.
•Obsession with some people
about sex in all media
(jealous?).
•It can be avoided - if you
want to avoid it.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/avastar/380075372/

Obsession with accesses, users
• Does it really matter how many
people ‘use’ a virtual world, or
are logged in at the same time?
• This room (RL) is empty for
most of any 24 hours. Is it
therefore useless?
• What really matters:
- is it viable for learning?
- what resources are needed
- re-use
- assessing learning usability
- curriculum ‘fit’
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrfrans/2298355950/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/raftwetjewell/2598601770/

“Just do it” (as Nike say)
“If it works, then use it. If it doesn’t work,
then use something else. Easy! You Brits
like to drink tea and whine and argue
about everything, don’t you?”
Discussion of Second Life amongst Michigan academics, December 2009.

...and the Ferdinand?
Typical UK academic Second
Life practitioner:
•Outspoken.
•Keen to share stuff created
in virtual worlds.
•Not averse to trying other,
non-SL virtual worlds.
•Provides opinionated,
readable content for
snapshots (thanks). http://twitter.com/FrancinoF

Search

Universities and colleges
(Depends how you count
them)
•“122” universities. Sort of.
•Many more colleges.
•Other institutions
somewhere in between.
•Degrees, vocational ...
•Overseas universities with
colleges here.
http://www.scit.wlv.ac.uk/ukinfo/

Needle in a (virtual) haystack

University search (educational)

More search unhappiness
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2010/01/17/whatever-happened-to-second-life-your-reaction/

Comparing (badly) with web search
“Can you imagine if our web browsers
sent us around the Internet with the
same dysfunctional mob randomness
as the current method of finding stuff
in Second Life?”
Jeremy Kemp, SLED mailing list, Saturday December 19th, 2009

Finding “stuff” is (sometimes) easier

Research

Who needs research results?
• Researchers, for their careers.
• Mass media, for mangling into news stories.
• Funding bodies, to see the results of what they have funded.
• Universities, to get more money.
• Virtual World companies, to get evidence that their product
is useful in education.
• Practitioners, needing:
- validity that VWs are a useful technology in learning
- comparisons with other technologies for learning
- information on how best to use VWs

Types of research ‘output’ include:
• Peer-reviewed papers - now
a substantial amount, but of
extremely variable quality.
• Blogs.
• Media articles.
• YouTube and Flickr.
• Workshops and
Conferences.
• ‘Stuff’ built in-world(s).
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ravenelle/461959468/

But how to test?
• Near impossible to test
quantitatively (unless you know
different?)
• Subject areas using VWs
difficult to test. Who wants to
be the midwife in the ‘control
group’ for birth trials?
• Many of the skills acquired in
using VWs are not curriculum
based e.g. collaborative work,
visualisation.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/adamraoof/3512627144/

Example of data capture
“Students’ and tutors’ personal experience of using
SL for teaching and learning and their engagement
with SL-tivities were captured by semi-structured
interviews, chat logs and researchers’ notes of
observations at each SL session.”
Final report, JISC-funded MOOSE project: http://www.le.ac.uk/beyonddistance/moose/

Open Habitat conclusions regular...
Overall the project was a successful exploration of the use of
MUVEs for teaching and learning. Some aspects worked
smoothly:
•The use of OpenSim.
•Using Second Life as a place for Art and Design students to
be creative.
•Using Second Life to give a strong sense of social presence for
the Philosophy students. One commented:
“Second Life is particularly useful in creating shared spaces
where people feel more a part of the tutorial/discussion
environment.”

...and the downsides
Other aspects were more problematic:
•The need for students to learn relatively quickly how to
operate at a basic level within Second Life.
•The practical working-out of close collaboration in Second
Life.
•The use of Second Life to discuss complex aspects of
philosophy using a seminar format.
•The lack of non-verbal cues in Second Life and generic
problems with using text chat.

Trite, over-simplified, VWW thoughts
1. Yes, Virtual Worlds can be useful in some, specific, subject
areas and applications. The academic community is slowly
working out what those are, and also where it’s not useful.
2.There’s a bunch of non-curriculum applications in academia
e.g. communicating with remote PhD students, attending
events without leaving home.
3.But there’s a cost (tho’ isn’t there for all technologies?) - a
large one - in terms of time, effort, dedication required.
4.For a number of reasons, VWs are not widely accepted.
Don’t expect universal love for doing this. Keep calm and
modify avatars. Producing good evidence helps.

“What next” predictions

In the short term (1)
• Second Life, Open Sim and related will be around for a while
yet. 6.5 years and counting; that’s a *long* time ...
• More virtual worlds will appear. Some will stay. Some will
fail. Much as has happened over the last few years.
• Other virtual worlds will struggle to stay head-to-head with
SL (and compatible worlds) when it comes to education; due
to the amount of momentum.
• (Inevitably) rising travel costs will mean SL and similar
platforms used more for academic distance events and
collaboration.

In the short term (2)
• Some people will try it and not be comfortable, or find a use
for it. Some will hear negative stuff about it and not try it.
(Shrug) so ... it’s like other technologies?
• More academics, often volunteers, will find more niche/
narrow subject areas that virtual worlds are suited towards.
However, much less use for broader subject applications.
• Virtual World developments in UK academia less affected by
funding cuts as so much of it is voluntary anyway (that’s
both a good and a bad thing).
• Information and research will continue to dribble out in a
fragmented manner.

In the long term...
How the hell should I know?
(Look, did any of you honestly
predict that Twitter would
have academics mass-sending
140 character tweets? Hmm?)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/benleto/3378813255/

Your experience ... and how it relates to
virtual world use in the future
• Geoff Barker-Read, University of Leeds
• Andy Beggan, University of Nottingham
• Simon Bignell, University of Derby
• Manuel Frutos-Perez, University of the West of England
• Annabeth Robinson, Leeds College of Art
• Kathryn Trinder, Glasgow Caledonian University

Learning using Virtual Worlds

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