Title slide ESRC seminar: social learning in virtual worlds City University, London 14th March 2008 Dr Steven Warburton, King’s College London and Prism(lab) http://www.prism-lab.org virtual worlds and radical pedagogy: exploring educational possibilities

ESRC seminar: social learning in virtual worlds City University, London

14th March 2008

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

MUVEnation ( www. muvenation .org ) - EU funded, 2 years LLL3D ( 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 learning scenarios target: different educational sectors; disciplines; specific educational issues e.g. motivation; specific target groups e.g. socially disadvantaged learners project areas

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

LLL3D ( 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 learning scenarios

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

MUVE affordances Facilitating social interaction (death of distance) , social presence 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 related motivational aspects Simulation and experiential learning Roleplay or taking on ‘new’ roles Strong virtual communities and identity formation (coherence around groups, sub-cultures and geography) Identity play Ownership of learning - opportunities for content production that are both individual and owned

Facilitating social interaction (death of distance) , social presence 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 related motivational aspects

Simulation and experiential learning

Roleplay or taking on ‘new’ roles

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

Identity play

Ownership of learning - opportunities for content production that are both individual and owned

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

taxonomy of Second Life practices

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

is this the vision we have for education in virtual worlds? why do we strive for poor replications of RL/RW teaching settings?

forces us to question context social capital ethics dialogue identity assessment Informal learning collaboration creativity decentreing new digital literacies

rethinking teaching approaches for virtual worlds

augmentation (life 2.0) or immersion (alternative worlds)

where do our bodies go when we are immersed? the disappearing computer

Teaching approaches teaching approach immersion augmentation tactical, narrative, strategic culture, context, anonymity, play platform - culture? constraint, control, authenticity platform - tools? extension, flow*, bridges *Csíkszentmihályi (1990)

how do we break the monotony of augmentationlist approaches?

radical pedagogy as a critical pedagogy for socio-political action, critical consciousness (Freire, Giroux) radical pedagogy as a transformative process, participation in practice (Ascott) radical pedagogy as a discursive space for addressing education and change

Open architecture project http://www.flickr.com/photos/studiowikitecture/sets/72157604038184909/

art and design approaches dialogical transformative participation in practice perspectivalism revisability intuition creativity, inventiveness and innovation indeterminacy and improvisation instability and uncertainty interrogative disposition self-construction, self-realisation (Danvers, 2003)

towards a radical pedagogy when designing our teaching approaches addressing the dichotomy of augmentation versus immersion provides a valuable filter for reappraising understandings of the possible augmentation approaches question different issues such as platform choice and the affordance of in-world tool sets immersionsist approaches question the richness of the culture and the seamlessness of activity, be it movement or narrative based discursive acts virtual worlds challenge traditional notions of pedagogy and offer new challenges and opportunities and that might be addressed by appropriating the notions of radical pedagogy to provide a discursive space for tackling education and change

when designing our teaching approaches addressing the dichotomy of augmentation versus immersion provides a valuable filter for reappraising understandings of the possible

augmentation approaches question different issues such as platform choice and the affordance of in-world tool sets

immersionsist approaches question the richness of the culture and the seamlessness of activity, be it movement or narrative based discursive acts

virtual worlds challenge traditional notions of pedagogy and offer new challenges and opportunities and that might be addressed by appropriating the notions of radical pedagogy to provide a discursive space for tackling education and change

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