A message from Anna Peachey about some of the work they’ve been doing at the OU, comparing worlds. * * * * * The Virtual Worlds Project team at The Open University have put considerable legwork into establishing a comparison matrix of virtual worlds for educational purposes.
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OU virtual worlds comparison matrix
From Birmingham City University, Nigel Wynne describes the COMSLIVE project in answer to questions for snapshot #9 (out shortly). This is a collaborative project between two universities and an NHS Trust. It’s a good reminder that Second Life is not the only virtual world with practical applications, and that funding bodies such as the JISC are sensibly not putting all their eggs into one (virtual) basket
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The Open Wonderland COMSLIVE project
As you may know the British Science Festival is being held in Birmingham during 14-19 September. Since it’s taking place in our home city Daden has teamed up with the BSF organisers and Aston University to create a directory and map of UK science activity in virtual worlds
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Map of UK science activity in virtual worlds
A message from Anna Peachey: We are pleased to announce The Virtual World Conference 2010 , a unique event exploring the use of online virtual worlds for learning, collaborative work and business ventures, which will be hosted over a 24-hour period entirely in Second Life on 15 September 2010. The one-day conference, following the sun, will bring together 21 international speakers from around the world to share ideas, showcase innovations and applications, and hold debates with a world-wide audience. This is an excellent opportunity to get a snapshot of leading research and expertise in the field, as well as network with like-minded peers.
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Virtual World Conference 2010, September 15th.
While waiting for the proofreader to do whatever he’s doing (hopefully proofreading), VWW is putting up a few more of the submissions that came in for snapshot #9. Despite the suspicions of some virtual world sceptics – and fanatics – VWW takes a neutral view on the use of virtual worlds in education; we say what we see, and what others do – both positive and negative. Here’s Bex Ferriday, the lead teacher of the school of education and training at Cornwall College with a downbeat submission about their Second Life prospects, in this age of austerity.
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Bex Ferriday: Cornwall College in Second Life
Special Issue of the International Journal of Technology Enhanced Learning (IJTEL): Learning in 3D Journal Aims IJTEL fosters multidisciplinary discussion and research on technology enhanced learning (TEL) approaches at the individual, organisational, national and global levels. Its key objective is to be the leading scholarly scientific journal for all those interested in, researching and contributing to the technology enhanced learning episteme. For this reason, IJTEL delivers research articles, position papers, surveys and case studies aiming: To provide a holistic and multidisciplinary discussion on technology enhanced learning research issues
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International Journal of Technology Enhanced Learning (IJTEL): Learning in 3D
An event tonight (15th June) in Second Life, as described by Dr GR Barker-Read, Head of Academic Quality and Standards, University of Leeds * * * * * Friendly Greetings! You’re all invited to join me at 8pm UK time (12 noon SLT) today for a guided tour of the Edge of Life artificial life ecosystem on Education UK island.
Children’s and young people’s digital literacies in virtual online spaces Dissemination conference Speakers: Peggy Sheehy; Rebecca Black; Constance Steinkuehler When: Saturday 19 June; 2pm-4.30pm UK time (6am – 8.30 am SL time, for start times in other countries see http://tinyurl.com/39vvq6q ) Where: Infolit iSchool, Second Life: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Infolit%20iSchool/169/173/22 This is the final meeting in a seminar series funded by the Economic and Social Science Research Council (ESRC).
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Children’s and young people’s digital literacies in virtual online spaces
A question in from an academic this lunchtime. It’s a recurring question, so blogging the answer: Can you, from the top of your head, tell me how many universities in the UK were active in virtual worlds when you started the snapshots & how many do so now? 1.
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How many UK universities are active in virtual worlds?
From Cathy Tombs of Coventry University: * * * * * Registration and abstract submission is now open for our third National Workshop on Immersive Worlds event hosted by the Learning Innovation Group at Coventry University.
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Big Issues in Immersive Virtual Worlds: Coventry, November 2010
(From Sheila Webber, Department of Information Studies, University of Sheffield) When: Thursday June 3rd Where; Infolit iSchool (& tour to Tseshkovsky), Second Life. 7 am SL time (= 3pm UK time) presentation “Information Literacy for 21st Century Life” 8 am SL time (= 4pm UK time) reports and discussion on recent conferences Plus at 9am SLT (en Espanol) and 12 noon SLT: repeat event: Pi Illios (Universidad Puerto Rico) Literacia en Salud en Second Life (en Espanol, 9am) / Health Literacy in Second Life (in English, noon SL time = 8pm UK time).
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TODAY Information/health literacy events
The opening act of this report is a meditation on virtual worlds, and the perceptions and fears that some people hold them to. From this, the report moves on to outline the main trends which have emerged during the three years which virtual world watch has been monitoring the use of this technology in UK academia. Following on, Virtual World Watch takes a look at how it has operated in the last three years, including successes and failures, and what it intrinsically means to be a ’service’.
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Zen and the Art of Avatar Maintenance
Reinventing Ourselves: Contemporary Concepts of Identity in Virtual Worlds Provisionally to be published in 2011 in Springer’s Human-Computer Interaction Series Editors: Anna Peachey (Eygus Ltd / The Open University) and Mark Childs (Coventry University) Invitation to Submit We invite abstracts of between 500 and 650 words describing the proposed chapter. Abstracts should be supported further by up to 500 words explaining the theoretical underpinning to the chapter, and a brief summary describing how this chapter will contribute to the book. If the work has been previously published in any format, or is under consideration elsewhere, please indicate details of this with your submission
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Call for chapters: Identity in Virtual Worlds
Virtual world activity in UK universities and colleges (Spring 2010) Summary This snapshot report was put together against a backdrop of political and economic uncertainty. It comes, therefore, as a pleasant contrast to notice many cases of continuity, where academics are building on their uses of virtual worlds in previous academic years.
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Virtual world activity (Spring 2010)
Registration and abstract submission is now open for our third National Workshop on Immersive Worlds event hosted by the Learning Innovation Group at Coventry University. The Big Issues in Immersive Virtual Worlds workshop is being held on November 4 2010 at the Techno Centre, Coventry University Technology Park .
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Big Issues in Immersive Virtual Worlds, November 4th 2010, Coventry
We’re hosting a in-world PIVOTE community meet on Daden Cays in Second Life If you are interested or would like to find out more please visit the following eventbrite link and express your interest. http://www.eventbrite.com/event/672927745 Event date: 11th May 2010 Event time: 15:30 GMT(BST) – 17:30 GMT(BST) / 07:30 PST – 09:30 PST Event location: In Second Life: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Daden%20Cays/98/146/22 —– Editorial Notes Developed by Daden for a JISC funded project to train and assess St George’s University Hospital paramedics. PIVOTE allows you to create the structure and information content of a training exercise on the web – independent of a virtual world.
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PIVOTE meeting, Second Life, 11th May
Kate Boardman from Teesside University invites people to the monthly gathering of UK (and other) academics in Second Life: + + + + + I’d like to invite you to come hang out at our new arts venue, cunningly named ‘The Venue’ at: http://slurl.com/secondlife/TeesLife/79/110/24 (that’ll be Tuesday 11 th at 8pm UK time) and I’d like to propose a moment or two of serious frivolity. We’ve mentioned at previous meetings different tools that we use, and I’d like to show the plethora of pinboards/noticeboards I’ve collected over the years – none of which are quite perfect – for comparison and also I’m happy to show off some of the tentative uses we’ve made of the Virtually Human (formerly known as Presomatic) Game Kit for easy logged quizzing
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Second Tuesday event for May 2010
IMMERS[ED] 2010 SECOND NATIONAL WORKSHOP ON TEACHING IN IMMERSIVE WORLDS Friday October 22nd 2010 University of Ulster, Magee Campus, Derry, Northern Ireland. CALL FOR SPEAKERS/WORKSHOPS/DEMONSTRATIONS IMMERS[ED] 2010; the Second National Workshop on Teaching in Immersive Worlds will be hosted by the School of Computing & Intelligent Systems and will take place in the Great Hall of the University of Ulster, Magee Campus, Derry, Northern Ireland on Friday October 22nd 2010. The objective of the event is to raise awareness of the benefits and possible pitfalls of using virtual and immersive worlds in an educational context and will provide practical advice and demonstrations from leading educators and industrial experts in this area
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Teaching in Immersive Worlds: Derry, October 22nd, 2010
The Virtual Printing Press is a project begun by Gabriel Egan (Loughborough) and Ian Gadd (Bath Spa) in October 2008 that aims to create a virtual model of a ‘hand press’ or ‘common press’ for use in teaching and in research. Here’s their contribution about it to snapshot #8.
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Virtual Printing Press Project
This is a completely in-world conference on … virtual worlds, best practices and how they are used in education. It is not uniquely focused on Second Life however obviously there is a very strong Second Life bent to the conference owing to where it is being held
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Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education Conference 2010