MUVEs and second lives KILT conference King’s College London 5th March 2008 Dr Steven Warburton, King’s College London and Prism(lab) http://www.prism-lab.org MUVEs and second lives: exploring education in virtual worlds

KILT conference King’s College London

5th March 2008

Dr Steven Warburton, King’s College London and Prism(lab) http://www.prism-lab.org

introduction what are multi-user virtual environments and how can we describe them: as a technology, as a lived experience?

what makes virtual worlds so compelling to our contemporary imagination? corporeality and transcendance the real and the virtual where and nowhere single and multiple selves blurring boundaries of : (Hillis 1999, Jones 2005)

corporeality and transcendance

the real and the virtual

where and nowhere

single and multiple selves

the uniqueness of SL Second Life : a unique configuration of creativity , interactivity , construction of the self and tangible economy?

SL sold on a dream? Second Life sells us a dream of possibility that is limited only by our collective imagination. We are gods and by implication bear responsibility for our creations, the good, bad, beautiful and ugly

"While Second Life captures the imagination of individuals who wish to create new lives free from societal and physical limitations of ethnicity, gender, geography, sexual orientation or status; it still manifests aspects of society (American, capitalist, gendered) from which it sprung and therefore is more reflective than transcendent” (Jones, 2005) but the reality?

"While Second Life captures the imagination of individuals who wish to create new lives free from societal and physical limitations of ethnicity, gender, geography, sexual orientation or status; it still manifests aspects of society (American, capitalist, gendered) from which it sprung and therefore is more reflective than transcendent”

(Jones, 2005)

Virtual universes landscape

Growth in Virtual Worlds

SL demographics from Linden Labs for July 2007

MUVEs in educational contexts

Q. how many institutions have created a virtual presence in Second Life? … the Eduserve July report 2007 on UK activity in SL lists over 40 UK universities and colleges that have a building, land or island on the grid. See http://www.eduserv.org.uk/foundation/studies/slsnapshots

MUVE affordances Facilitating social interaction (death of distance) and cooperation Visualisation Contextualisation Relation to doing in the physical world (e.g. designing, building and scripting) Informal learning opportunities e.g. language based communities Affective nature of immersion, empathy and motivational aspects Simulation and experiential learning (some physical constraints can be overcome) Roleplay or taking on new roles as a lived experience Strong communities (coherence around groups, sub-cultures and geography) Opportunities for content production that are both individual and owned (though with transferability is limited within proprietary environments such as Second Life)

Facilitating social interaction (death of distance) and cooperation

Visualisation

Contextualisation

Relation to doing in the physical world (e.g. designing, building and scripting)

Informal learning opportunities e.g. language based communities

Affective nature of immersion, empathy and motivational aspects

Simulation and experiential learning (some physical constraints can be overcome)

Roleplay or taking on new roles as a lived experience

Strong communities (coherence around groups, sub-cultures and geography)

Opportunities for content production that are both individual and owned (though with transferability is limited within proprietary environments such as Second Life)

Conference and presentation spaces presentation style spaces: MetaverseU conference streamed live into SL from Stanford University (utilizing multiple media - text, audio, video)

VRR virtual reality room: a 360˚ photo-realistic space created with captured images converted into a QuickTime VR panorama and uploaded to SL (see http://sl.nmc.org/2008/01/15/vrr-demo/ )

roleplay opportunities for roleplay, games-based learning and community participation: learning by role taking as opposed to learning by doing role-play and innovations that stem from games based learning

Scilands SciLands: a mini-continent and user community devoted exclusively to science and technology with over 20 science and technology related organizations (see http://www.scilands.org )

Second Health Second Health: Imperial College London commissioned virtual hospital campus illustrating healthcare of the future ( http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu-QNFLD1mg )

Visualisation visualisation I: a view from the outside, a large scale biological model of the human testes

Large builds visualisation II: traveling through the large scale biological model of the human testes

Self paced tuition self guided, paced learning: following a tutorial on building objects at the ‘Ivory Tower Library of Primitives’ on Natoma

Sloodle linking teaching between 2D and 3D worlds: the ‘Sloodle’ project creating linkages between Moodle and Second Life (see http://www.sloodle.org )

where is current research focussed?

MUVEnation ( http://www. muvenation .org ) - EU funded, 2 years LLL3D ( http://www.lll3d.org ) - EU funded, 2 years (Open)Habitat ( www. openhabitat .org ) – JISC funded, 15 months these projects aim to: examine: good practices; what works and what does not; contexts; development and testing of specific scenarios target: different educational sectors; disciplines; specific educational issues e.g. motivation; specific target groups e.g. socially disadvantaged learners project areas

MUVEnation ( http://www. muvenation .org ) - EU funded, 2 years

LLL3D ( http://www.lll3d.org ) - EU funded, 2 years

(Open)Habitat ( www. openhabitat .org ) – JISC funded, 15 months

these projects aim to:

examine: good practices; what works and what does not; contexts; development and testing of specific scenarios

target: different educational sectors; disciplines; specific educational issues e.g. motivation; specific target groups e.g. socially disadvantaged learners

analysing in-world hands on workshops workshop aims: development of specific competencies in building and/or scripting in-world objects average length: one hour organised by non-formal learning providers and offered to the Second Life ‘public’ methodology: participatory observation (n=20) followed by: tutor and instructor semi-structured interviews (n=10) assessment: of quality of student learning experience towards: developing a taxonomy of good practices validation: by deploying the taxonomy against a new panel of teachers

workshop aims: development of specific competencies in building and/or scripting in-world objects

average length: one hour

organised by non-formal learning providers and offered to the Second Life ‘public’

methodology: participatory observation (n=20)

followed by: tutor and instructor semi-structured interviews (n=10)

assessment: of quality of student learning experience

towards: developing a taxonomy of good practices

validation: by deploying the taxonomy against a new panel of teachers

Hatmaking workshop example I: avatars free to roam during the session

Jewellery making workshop example II: controlled learning space with avatars forced to be seated for the duration of the session

Flexi-prim workshop example III: use of scripts to help deliver instruction and synchronize with tools such as a slide presentation object

taxonomy of Second Life practices

Mapping control of the environment against pedagogy disorientating stressful, mechanical area of good practice cognitive overload

conclusions

the first of phase of teaching activity in MUVEs has raised awareness and opened up the educational possibilities the second phase of research activity is uncovering the need to match pedagogy, context and good practice in line with the unique nature of virtual worlds as a learning and teaching setting virtual worlds represent new spaces that require new ways of thinking about education, where the design of the learning space needs to be in harmony with the pedagogical approach a range of ethical issues are now emerging that include digital reputation management, the relationship between immersion and addiction, identity and authenticity, the moral dimensions of virtual sub-cultures directions

the first of phase of teaching activity in MUVEs has raised awareness and opened up the educational possibilities

the second phase of research activity is uncovering the need to match pedagogy, context and good practice in line with the unique nature of virtual worlds as a learning and teaching setting

virtual worlds represent new spaces that require new ways of thinking about education, where the design of the learning space needs to be in harmony with the pedagogical approach

a range of ethical issues are now emerging that include digital reputation management, the relationship between immersion and addiction, identity and authenticity, the moral dimensions of virtual sub-cultures

Digital literacy finally: the digital literacy and competency levels required for participation should not be underestimated. Second Life presents dificult challenges to users that are not simply technical.

Final slide Dr Steven Warburton School of Law King's College London Email: steven.warburton@kcl.ac.uk Prism(lab) at http://www.prismlab.org Liquid Learning at http://www.liquidlearning.org Second Life: StevenW Bohm