User Needs and Legally Ruled Collaboration in Peer-to-Peer Virtual World VirtualLife

Intelligent educational systems and technoloy-enhanced learning (INTEL-EDU)September 7th, 2009, Riga, Latvia

Vytautas Čyras, Kristina LapinVilnius University, Lithuania

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Overview

About ICT FP7 project VirtualLifeobjectivenovelty

Learning needs of digital nativesfeatures of contemporary studentslearning motivation

Learning support in virtual worldssynchronous communication in virtual worldasynchronous communication in Web 2.0 tools

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ICT FP7 VirtualLife

Objective to create a safe, democratitic and legally rules 3D collaborative environment

NoveltyIssues of security and trustIn-world legal framework

Supreme Constitution, a Constitution of Virtual Nation, a set of contracts

Dispute resolution and voting mechanismshybrid peer-to-peer infrastructure

Legal framework

A “Supreme Constitution”Code of Conduct

values that the user has to respect, e.g.avatars integrity, sanctity of property, reputation, etc.

A part of EULA (End User License Agreement)

A “Virtual Nation Constitution”authentication procedure to become a member of Nationcopyright law (of the Nation)

A set of different sample contractssales contractteacher employement contractstudent contract

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Virtual Worlds for education

Sara de Freitas. Serious Virtual Worlds: scoping study. JISC, 2008.

a review of the learning and training supportglossary of termslist of virtual worlds

more than 80most popular: Second Life, Active world

educational universe, etc.

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/documents/seriousvirtualworldsreport.aspx

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Digital natives

Students of todayactive Web 2.0 participantseasy create relationships in social networkslike impressing peers with curious facts enjoy participating in on-line group activitiesfunction in “multitasking mode”new phenomenon:

they share the knowledge with unknown people

do not like memorizing information for later usebut they are effective in searching

Virtual platform analysis

Existing open source platformsMultiverse, OpenSim, Metaplace

installed on service provider tutor do not has full controll on content

on user’s Pcdifficult to install and maintain

creation of learning contenttime-consumingadvanced scripting skills requred

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Lessons for learning motivation

Learning materialstatic materialsearchable for learner’s queries in 2D environment

interactive objects in 3D environment

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Lessons for learning motivation

Learning environment constantly gratifying

encouraging social interaction

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Sample scenarios

Web 2.0information as a contentasynchronous communication

Virtual Universitysynchronous communicationinteraction as a content

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Conclusions

Legally ruled collaboration in a hybrid peer-to-peer virtual world is a realistic purpose

Digital natives need a new learning environment with similar experiences to on-line games

3D virtual worlds add the value of interaction experience comparing with 2D applications

Provides interaction and feedback

Thank you!Vytautas Čyras, Kristina LapinVilnius Universityvytautas.cyras@mif.vu.lt, kristina.lapin@mif.vu.ltwww.ict-virtuallife.eu