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Opening Up Access In Games, Simulations and Virtual Worlds

by Daniel Livingstone

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Computer games, simulations and virtual worlds are making increasing inroads into academic education and corporate training. This is often fuelled by a desire to improve engagement, or to immerse ...

Computer games, simulations and virtual worlds are making increasing inroads into academic education and corporate training. This is often fuelled by a desire to improve engagement, or to immerse learning in realistic simulated settings, but often limited by economics and resources. Open Education initiatives hint at solutions, but there are some particular challenges in opening access to virtual world, game and simulation educational resources.

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Opening Up Access In Games, Simulations and Virtual Worlds Presentation Transcript

Opening up Education in Games, Simulations and Virtual Worlds Daniel Livingstone University of the West of Scotland

Open Education OpenCourseWare Open Education Resources Content Syllabi, Notes, Lectures, Podcasts, Video, Quiz Banks, Games, RLOs Designs LAMS Technologies

Open? Free... to use to edit/re-mix? to share with others? to use in commercial courseware? Additional Restrictions attribution

Why bother with Open Education? Why use OER? Why create OER?

How To: A Famous Example Tutor buy in Tradition of sharing, openness Senior Management Support Market Research Technical Support $11 Million Dollars

No funding? Use OER – save your time and money If there is no prospect of large institutional program then why produce your own? Funding and research opportunities?

American Graduation Initiative US$500 Million for the creation of OER “ an open-source, easily accessible system of robust courses will produce the most profound equalization of access to cutting-edge knowledge and information since the creation of the public library.” Arne Duncan (Secretary of Education), Politico, 1 st October

Games and Simulations Engage students Learn by doing Structured learning experiences Incremental challenges - “ Frustration and Resolution” - “Pleasantly Frustrating” What Video Games Have to Tell us About Learning, Gee, 2003 Learning By Doing, Aldrich, 2005 Epistemic Games, Schaeffer

Simulations

Recreate real world systems or situations

Single user (usually)

STEM simulations

e.g. Mechanics (gravity, springs, …)

Social Sims

Management, Business

Education specific and game oriented sims (Lemonade Stand, SimCity Online)

Games Put educational content in a game framework Challenges Rewards Missions / Quests Raise the challenge over time Informal learning in non-educational games

Virtual Worlds Multi-user online places Often massively multi-user Looks like a computer game Some are! Some allow users to create their own content Including educators!

Second Life

Economics How much does it cost to create an educational game or simulation? Can we afford to produce educational OER games and virtual worlds as a sustainable activity?

Economics of Games Commercial console game: US$10 Million+ Education game: America's Army: $7.5M, $12M, ? More typical?: $100,000+ Alternatives? 'Modding' - Can still be expensive

GameSpace SQA Basic skills National roll-out (Scotland) Expected life: 3+ years Development costs: 3-6 months, 4 staff

Are games open? Free... to use to edit/re-mix? to share with others? to use in commercial courseware? Additional Restrictions Do I need to buy something else first? Will it run on my machine?

Bespoke Virtual Worlds Platforms: Forterra OLIVE, VastPark, Thinking Worlds, … Generate your own bespoke VW Costs in-line with game development

Second Life Free client Cheap to use during evaluation (Can be) cheap to develop new content Can build on existing content easily Community

OpenSim Open source server software Compatible (largely) with SL client Host yourself ...or 3 rd party host Similar surface experience

Economics of Second Life Bespoke content created by consultants Reduced rates for educators Content created by faculty and students Quality? Time? 3 rd Party bought in content Costs: $1000 - $10,000+ True costs?

Second Life Permissions Hard coded: Copy Modify Transfer Additional: Copy out of Second Life

Second Life Backups Tools to copy items out of Second Life Second Inventory CopyBot BuilderBot Meerkat Viewer Compliance with Linden Lab policy?

OpenSim Backups OAR Files OpenSim Archive XML file format Can backup/restore complete sims

Is a SL resource open? Free... to use to edit/re-mix? to share with others? to use in commercial courseware? Additional Restrictions Can I copy this to OpenSim? Are scripts published online?

From OER to RLO Reusable Learning Objects Content Metadata Standards SCORM, IMS LD, AICC, LAMS Packaging Interoperability with LMS Repositories

Virtual World RLOs Content In-world, OAR, XML Metadata Merlot Repositories Merlot, JORUM Interoperability SLOODLE Packaging ?

Opening Up Education in Virtual Worlds Growing OER movement Growth in interest in VW OER Missing Standards What is a VW OER? Technical Standards Missing Tools