Virtual Worlds and Virtual Learning EnvironmentsGlow, Teen Second Life and More

Daniel LivingstoneSICT-DG Presentation, 25th Jan 2008

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Groups

Noticeboard

Discussions

Documents

Synchronous Activities in Glow

Chat

IM

Whiteboard

VideoConferencing

Runescape

World of Warcraft

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

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

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

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

Seriously Engaging

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

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?

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

The International Spaceflight Museum

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…

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!

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!

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• …

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

Chat: Web-Intercom

UI Integration

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?

• Daniel Livingstone,School of ComputingUniversity of the West of Scotland, Paisley Campus

daniel.livingstone@uws.ac.ukaka Buddy Sprocket in SL

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

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

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