Virtual worlds and virtual learning environments like Second Life offer opportunities for synchronous collaboration and learning activities. Second Life allows users to create content and interact with other residents in a user-created virtual world. While open-ended nature can be challenging, Second Life has been used for simulations, collaboration, role-playing and constructionist projects. Integration with learning management systems may help provide more support for guided learning activities in these environments.

1. Virtual Worlds and Virtual Learning Environments Glow, Teen Second Life and More Daniel Livingstone SICT-DG Presentation, 25 th Jan 2008

2. Welcome to Adventure!! Would you like instructions? >no You are standing at the end of a road before a small brick building. Around you is a forest. A small stream flows out of the building and down a gully. In the distance there is a tall gleaming white tower. >

3. Groups Noticeboard Discussions Documents

4. Synchronous Activities in Glow Chat IM Whiteboard Video Conferencing

7. Runescape

8. World of Warcraft

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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

13. Seriously Engaging

14. 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

15. 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?

19. 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

20. The International Spaceflight Museum

21. 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…

23. 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!

24. 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!

26. 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 …

28. 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

29. Chat: Web-Intercom

30. UI Integration

32. 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?

33. Daniel Livingstone, School of Computing University of the West of Scotland, Paisley Campus [email_address] aka Buddy Sprocket in SL

34. 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

35. 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

36. 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