The Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education conference was AMAZING.  As exploration stream lead, I used the conference to fulfill my internship hours for the IDD program here at South.  In preparing for the tours and exploration, I signed up for, played around in, and created orientation materials for MUVEs (Multi-User Virtual Environments) and MMORPGs (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Play Games) that I’d never been in.  I really did feel like I was scouting out a new frontier.  Plus, it gave me a taste of what being a newbie was like, all over again–a nice “attitude adjustment” for anyone who is getting a wee bit “stale” in their chosen comfort zone (mine’s Second Life).

VWBPE is a bit different from most professional conferences–it happens totally online in virtual environments.  This year, our base area was in Second Life, but exploration and tours led us out to Inworldz, JokaydiaGrid, New World Grid, NIA Universe, Club Penguin, EveOnline, Minecraft and World of Warcraft.  Dr. Chris Dede offered a log-in to his educational MUVE being used to teach middle schoolers about the environment, EcoMUVE, during his keynote address.  Participants also became co-authors along with Dr. David Gibson of SimSchool for the Handbook of Games: A Guide for Administrators for the Inclusion of MUVEs and MMORPGs in the Classroom.

For those interested in the conference, the website can be found at   http://www.vwbpe.org/ .  Archives will be going up shortly.

There is a MOOC (Massively Open Online Course) going on now, to allow those involved in the conference (and those just catching up) a place to continue the conversation and reflect on lessons learned (as well as continue the learning and share resources).  The MOOC  startup site can be found at http://vwmooc.wordpress.com/ .  Want to get involved?  You still can!  The MOOC is still accessible at http://p2pu.org/en/groups/a-virtual-worlds-games-and-education-tour/ .  We’re mid-way through the Machinima Week–next week, we’re in World of Warcraft–come learn and play with the experts using this stuff in their classrooms!

There’s also plenty of photos going around, of the conference, the tours, and what’s been happening in the MOOC since.  http://www.flickr.com/groups/vwbpe/ , http://www.flickr.com/groups/vwmooc/ , and http://www.flickr.com/groups/mooc/

Next up?  GameTech is going on now and being simulcast into the MOSES grid, for those who are interested but couldn’t make the trip.  The Federal Consortium of Virtual Worlds conference is coming up in May and will be simulcast into Second Life on the T2 PTSD Experience campus.

In other news, Aether Education (my pet project on the side) will have a new sim on the JokaydiaGrid, probably some time this weekend.  I’ll post the updates as I get it build and up and running.  JokaydiaGrid is PG, so anyone with little ones who would like to come in and use the space for teaching is welcomed to–just give me a poke (I’m Aevalle Galicia on that grid too!)

Well, that’s all I can think of for now–see you inworld!

Filed under: Conferences/Meetings, Cool Places/Tours, Other Virtual Worlds, Personal Experiences, Projects Tagged: Aether, Aevalle, conference, FCVW, Inworldz, JokaydiaGrid, Moses, networking, Second Life, tours, visiting, worlds

I’ve already written about the first keynote address, so I won’t go over that again here. 

The first panel discussion of Chris Moore of the City of Edmonton, Claus Nehmzow of the 3D Avatar School in Hong Kong, and Mandy Salomon of Swinburne University.  I didn’t get to hear as much of their presentation as I’d have liked because Cable One chose to keep glitching.  That said, Mr. Moore’s idea that fear drives lack of innovation in government rings true to me–that if it fails, they’ll waste money.  However, turning that idea on it’s head, he said that cutting budgets actually will force innovation to happen as committees and teams have to figure out ways to get things done with fewer finances.

After lunch, Mk Haley of Carnegie Mellon University presented “Innovation in Virtual Worlds. And Then Back Out into Our Own” showcasing some of the virtual worlds her students had developed given certain parameters (for example, no first-person shooters or porn “because they’ve been done to death”).  It’s hard to fathom students creating 100+ virtual environments in a given semester and I’d love to know what platforms were being used, so I could play around and see what their potentials might be.  Major points–innovation sometimes feels like it’s breaking the rules and innovation may not be about coming up with new things but combining previously unrelated things.  Haley also played the Marshmallow Challenge TED talk video–http://marshmallowchallenge.com/TED_Talk.html .  One of the oddest bits of this conference so far, however, occurred during Haley’s presentation when another presenter chose to heckle her from the audience, using Twitter.  I have to admit, I’ve seen swipes taken at people on the stage of conferences via the question and answer session, but a fellow presenter doing it was a first for me and I found it pretty unprofessional (but maybe I’m simply too new at this).

The next panel covered the topic “You Can’t Get There From Here: An Ecosystem Approach to Designing in Virtual Worlds” and included:

• Ian Hughes, CEO, Feeding Edge
• Jay Iorio, IEEE Standards,Virtual Worlds
• Claudia L’Amoreaux, Learning Technologies Strategist, Community Developer
• Ren Reynolds, Founder: the Virtual Policy Network, HMG Digital Policy
• Michael Steele, Duke University, Project Manager, Healthcare Simulation
• Michelle Roper Fox, Chief Strategist, Education and Training at U.S. Department of Energy

The main discussions of this panel seemed to come down to security issues and connectivity across grids.  As gathered from the audience discussion (in SL and Twitter), both of these issues have been discussed and debated for ages and there still doesn’t seem to be any clear cut ideas on how to resolve them.  I was actually taken aback by something one of the real world audience members said to the panel.  A Marine (didn’t get his name) stated that he thought that collaborative learning in the virtual environment posed a security risk because people get in and start training and learning and they may learn things they’re not meant to learn which, to him, was a dangerous prospect.  While I guess I can understand the concern, I think it still goes to show just how powerful a collaborative tool virtual worlds might be–if the scaffolding for learning can grow to actually push the participants ahead of what they’re supposed to know for their particular assigned role, that’s really powerful stuff.

I think, personally, my favorite panel of the day was the final one–specifically because I’d gotten a bit of prior experience with most of the projects mentioned so the descriptions and stories built upon prior knowledge.  The Kansas to Cairo Project, Edge, Moses, and the T2 PTSD Experience were all discussed (and I hope I’m not leaving anything out, but I may be). 

Tomorrow’s presentations start off bright and early at 8 am est (that’s 7 am central and 5 am slt).  Chris Dede’s doing tomorrow morning’s keynote and I can’t wait!

See you inworld! 

Filed under: Conferences/Meetings Tagged: conference, education, FCVW, Moses, research, Second Life, virtual, worlds

This past week, I encountered two self-proclaimed researchers in Second Life that really made me take a step back and wonder who is training these people?  I realize that it’s the time of the spring semester that all of the Sociology and Educational Research classes are starting to really get into gear for their final projects and I think newbie researchers coming into the field of virtual worlds are great!  However, the two I ran into this week were not newbie researchers but NOOB researchers, meaning they had not done their homework as far as what Second Life is nor the people who use it, nor the various cultures therein.  They didn’t know the first thing about how to go about conducting inworld interviews and surveys.  They both wanted things handed to them.  As such, they showed a lack of respect for other researchers and educators who are immersed in virtual worlds as a platform for learning environments and research.

The first encounter happened last Tuesday in the middle of a class taking place at Oxbridge University (one I was sitting in on).  He walked right up into the front of the classroom while the instructor was on the stage showing slides and announced that he was from [insert well-known school here] and would anyone like to be interviewed for his research?  I told him that there may be plenty of interviewees around after the class was finished.  To his credit, he sat down at the back of the class for the remainder of the session.  When the instructor was done, she opened the floor for him to discuss his research but instead of complying, he got up and walked out.  We all shrugged it off.  In a few moments though, he caught up with me.  I was presented with an immediate friend request (which for those of you in SL know isn’t exactly polite–you should always ask if its okay first–but that’s part of my point, this person was clueless about the culture he was claiming to study).  Rather than argue, I accepted.  Then he opened with his first question–”What made you decide to come into this game of Second Life.”  At that, I went off.  I’m usually very willing to help new individuals in SL.  I wouldn’t volunteer my time at Oxbridge if I wasn’t.  However, as I looked at this guy’s profile and saw that he was nearly two months into SL and he was absolutely clueless about the culture, I’d had it.  I told him he better do his homework if he expected to be a researcher.  To this, he replied that he didn’t want to “bias” his research (Oh, and his replies were almost completely riddled with textspeak–so he does know that part of the tech culture, just not much about SL).  But how would actually learning about a subject before going in so that you don’t come off looking like a total goofball creating bias?  But I digress.  Again, to his credit, he took the criticism, told me he’d look into it and basically told me that I wasn’t really the type of player he was looking to interview (again, use of the word “player” instead of “resident” which is the official LL term for its users–depicts someone who hasn’t done even the basic reading about Second Life and virtual worlds).

Then, on Thursday, we had only one person show up for the Jaguarland tour.  He had issues with understanding local text from private IM and seemed unfamiliar with using notecards.  That’s nothing new with people on tours, though we usually ask that they’ve gone through some kind of training or tutorial before trying to tour.  It wasn’t until the tour arrived at Open University’s campus that we discovered our tourist’s real reason for joining Bama and myself–he was [insert dramatic music here], a researcher!  And he didn’t need the rest of the tour but wanted us to help him with his research.  After a few questions, it became clear that he didn’t know the first thing about scripting the most simple devices, nor did he know that any kiosks that he might build to take people to his survey would have to be placed on land that he owned or had permission from the landowners to place objects on–yet, he’s a researcher in Second Life.  It didn’t take long for the two of us to understand that he’d come along simply to try to talk us into doing his legwork for him.

Yes, I’ve been involved with only these two cases recently.  The instructor who was interrupted told me it happens to her surprisingly often–that these “researchers” announce themselves in her class on an all-too-regular basis.  This is rather appalling to me.  Whether or not you think the virtual world is “real” or not, as a researcher, what makes it even remotely seem okay to interrupt an instructor’s class–even if you don’t even faintly understand the content?  How is understanding what a virtual world is or knowing a bit about the etiquette and the culture (including the slang and terminology) going to “bias” your research?  And really, is taking a few beginners classes inworld to learn and understand even the most basic scripting, building, and land rules beyond the grasp of people–or do these researchers consider it beneath them?

I’ve been thinking on it and we may have a new addition to Jaguarland coming up.  I’d like to gather some information from others who are fully immersed as educators in SL and see what they think about research etiquette–what they would tell students doing projects in SL or even more experienced researchers who are new to SL.  Using this information, I could use the Pathways LMS to construct a “learning path” that would guide and inform new researchers in SL about the do’s and don’ts.  I think such a project would be useful–the landmark could be handed out to anyone to pass along.  Small classes could even come through the learning path together.  It’s just one more potential project for Jaguarland.  And considering what I’ve just experienced, we can’t get it finished soon enough.

/end rant

We may see an uptake in visitors to our Swampbox as Oxbridge makes it’s transition from full sim to homestead.  (Quite a few people who use the Oxbridge sandbox are educators and creators, so I’ve volunteered Jaguarland’s sandbox area for them to use.)

Today, I’ll be working on de-winterizing the sim.  Yes, the Christmas look was lovely because snow is so very rare down here.  However, our own weather locally seems to have taken a turn (it’s 55 degrees outside as I’m writing this), so spring will be coming to Jaguarland today.  After that, I’ll set about starting on the “wish list” from an earlier post.

We have three new people in the Online Learning Lab who will be training in SL, one of whom will probably be taking my place as caretaker for Jaguarland.  I’m not quite hanging up the virtual rake and hoe yet, but as I start on my dissertation, I realize that there must be a changing of the guard at some point.  (I won’t be in the doctoral program forever!  Or, I hope not, anyway!)

We have a schedule put together for this semester’s educational tours.  The dates/topics are:

1/27  Tutorials Tour

2/3 Medical Education

2/10     Vocational Education

2/17 International Schools in SL

2/24 Environmental Education

3/3 Lifelong Learning

3/10 Non-profits in SL

3/24 Art and Performance

3/31  Educational Outreach in SL

4/7  Art and Design

4/14  Space Science Education

4/21  Libraries in SL

4/28  Distance Education

5/5  Educational Associations in SL

Locations will be announced as we get closer to each tour’s date (the ever-changing nature of SL makes it difficult to plan too far in advance).

More info to come as this semester’s projects get underway!

Inworldz has been gaining a lot of attention lately–granted, not all of it good.  It seems a lot of the former SL users who have tired of what they see as Linden Labs’ bad decisions have begun looking for other virtual homes.  Inworldz is just one of the grids that is catching these evacuees. 

Victoriana is one of the larger areas that used to be hosted in Second Life.  However, after a series of mis-handling by Linden Lab employees, the owner decided to take his business elsewhere.  What has happened since is a blooming of SL designers who work in Victorian era styles have now crossed grids, working on new designs in Inworldz, many of which are not available in Second Life.

So, my curiosity in high gear, I decided to check things out.  My former visits to Inworldz had not gone so well.  The lag defeated any thoughts of travelling far from the orientation area.  Also, search doesn’t work correctly yet.  I was trying to use the search feature in the Hippo multi-grid viewer and continually picked up SL search, rather than Inworldz.  On this visit, I downloaded the Inworldz viewer, so I could (for example) pull up a webpage of groups using the search, but couldn’t join them as the feature’s not been fully developed.

There’s a way to get around this, however.  If you happen to visit Inworldz and want to get around, if you know the name of the area you want to visit, you can use the map and type the area name into the search there.  That’s how I managed to find Victoriana.

The owners have certainly done a grand job with the design of the place. 

Aev in Inworldz

In Victoriana Station

Victoriana Forest

The path into the woods in Victoriana

The Ferris Wheel at Victoriana

Educators might ask why places like Victoriana are so important.  On a personal level, I’ve been wanting to put together a virtual “educational museum” like what we had in the U.S. just prior to and around the turn of the 20th century.  Something like that would fit right in to a Victorian-themed virtual area.  (I’m fascinated by such museums as they really started the field I’m now in–educational technology.)  On a more global level, people like the founders of Victoriana are really the pioneers on these new grids–taking the tribulations and quirks of a system that doesn’t always work and still managing to make something very pleasing and special.  They’re the very people who work through the bugs in the system so later “virtual settlers” don’t have to.

If you’d like to visit Victoriana in Inworldz, first go to the Inworldz website (http://inworldz.com/) and register for an account.  Then download the Inworldz viewer (use the dropdown ”downloads” tab at the top of the site’s front page to find the correct one for your system).  Once you log in, you’ll land at the orientation area (you may want to spend some time here, picking up various freebies and changing your look).  You can access the map by clicking on the map button at the bottom of the screen, then type in “Victoriana” into the search bar, click enter, and double click on the map anywhere it says Victoriana.  Ta-da, you’re there!

Happy touring!

If you have some time, swing through Jaguarland (http://slurl.com/secondlife/Jaguarland%20USA%20Education/63/20/27) and skate on the frozen over channel in the LoDa District (free skates!) or enjoy a virtual cup of hot cocoa supplied by a snowman.  Bama (Rebecca) and I will be adding more as we can dig it out of our inventories!

Christmas Palms

The tree in the 27 Mile Bluff Library

Winterized Jag Guardian Village...with Frankie, the singing reindeer!

LoDa Classrooms against a Winter Sky

There's even skating in the canal!

For those of you who visited or used our location at EduNation in Second Life, you saw the work of Gavin Dudeney (Dudeney Gee in SL).  Gavin works with Consultants-e and travels around the world doing seminars on how corporations and organizations can integrate technology into their training programs.  He’s an impressive ed-techie.  I had the benefit of interacting with Gavin on a few occasions to update media settings and such at the EduNation parcel.  Naturally, because I recognize the name, I notice when  he’s published a new article or book chapter and I also follow him on Twitter. 

This week, Gavin wrote a disturbing blog post in which he admits that he’s been being harrassed online for quite some time.  As I read through the post, it was chilling.  Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew that this thing goes on.  But for it to be this blatant and ongoing and happening to one of “our own” in our field, it hits close to home.  I’m amazed at his bravery for being open about what’s been going on and also that he’s continuing on–such an experience could certainly make one wary of any social media whatsoever, which is a very important tool in our field.  As of this morning (12.5.10), Gavin reported via Twitter that the post has netted “82 comments, 99 tweets, 234 DMs, 79 emails, 2237 unique views in four days.”  This shows that I’m not the only one who thinks it’s hit close to home.  To read the initial post and comments, go to Gavin’s That’sLife blog–http://slife.dudeney.com/?p=665 . 

As he mentions in the post, December 17 is Anti-Bullying Day.  Maybe Gavin’s honesty has opened a few eyes.  Maybe by sharing his experience, he’ll encourage people to be a bit nicer.  It’s possible to disagree with someone online without turning it into bullying.  Maybe we can turn December 17th into a day without hurting others, whether it be online or otherwise.  But then again, maybe sometimes I’m too much of a dreamer.

If you’re interested in using virtual worlds in education (not just Second Life, but the gambit), this one may be a good group to get involved with and network with others involved in all kinds of virtual world activities (collaborative research opportunities, ahoy!).

RezEd.org is another Ning style group for ed-techers and educators.  With Rez-Ed, it’s a much more education focused crowd plus the site has fairly regular spotlights, podcasts and other materials that may be of interest to those of us trying to figure out how best to implement and use this emerging tool.

The Association of Virtual Worlds site can be found here.

RezEd.org can be found here.

Time to get networked, SAESLers!

The main website can be found here.

They’re also still looking for volunteers in-world to help show newcomers where the event locales are, answer questions, etc.  The application to volunteer can be found here.

I went ahead and volunteered, myself.  I think it’ll be an excellent way to meet other educators and innovators in-world as well as one more thing to put on a resume.

Blue Mars operates differently than SL.  First, it’s still miles behind SL in content–so don’t go expecting to see minimalls and such.  There’s not a lot one can do with an avatar yet–no tinies, furries and very few adaptations you can make.  To get up and running, you have to go to the Blue Mars website and register, then download the viewer.  In addition to the original download, you then have to download each of the areas you might want to visit.  The downside of this is that it takes more time on the front end.  The upside is that I’ve noticed that BM has hardly any of the lag that SL is infamous for.

Another difference is that “normal” visitors cannot build in BM.  To do that, you have to create a developer’s account.  It doesn’t take long at all and it’s free.  The upside of this is that the landscape is not full of prim litter like some areas of SL but again, it’s an extra set of hoops to jump through in order to add content anywhere in the world.  Unlike SL, BM does not use prims.  It relies on meshes.  Without getting too technical (like I could!), us non-techie folks can create things out of meshes using free programs like Google’s Sketch-up.

So why would educators want to keep track of a virtual world that’s not “as good as” what we’re already using?  Well, for one, BM’s graphics (in my humble opinion) far surpass SL.  I think once it hits its stride and becomes more accessible for more people, making content with meshes will be much easier for students to understand than doing so with prims.  And finally, with Linden Labs laying off of the main Lindens who were in the educational fields, it’s always good for educators to have other options.

Just one virtual teacher-tourist’s two cents.

Happy worlding!