25/10/2008 by lizit.

I was able to attend (and present) at the National Workshop in Learning in Immersive Virtual Worlds at Coventry University on 23rd October.  It was really good to be amongst people who understood what virtual worlds were about and were beginning to explore their potential in a whole range of different ways.  Met  a number of people I knew online (or by their SL names) and a number of people I had only heard of before.  Useful to share ideas and to discover some of the things we were thinking about were very similar - not going mad after all!

One of the mst interesting notions to me was the reference to the work Steve Warburton has begun to explore on Barriers to innovation in learning and teaching in MUVES - I want to look at this a bit further and relate it to the boundaries we found in ILE 08. Must check if Steve is down to attend ReLIVE - would be good to meet him.

It was also useful hearing others are finding that students can familiarise themselves very quickly with SL once they are thrown in at the deep end - though there is a learning curve it clearly varies for different individuals.

Looking at some of the very sophisticated simulations, I am still concerned about the overhead  of SL, but if the gift economy can work between educators, that may be less of a problem.  Definitely seemed to be some thinking that if development has been publically funded it should be shared as long as the products can be protected from others selling them.

Another impression was the growing maturity of work in virtual worlds - a move from ’suck it and see’ to understanding and planning.

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20/10/2008 by lizit.

MUVE (multi-user virtual environment), IVW (immersive virtual world), 3-d virtual environment - these and others are descriptors for environments like Second Life.  Just musing as to whether it actually makes any difference which label is used in terms of expectations of the environment.  Need to think some more about that.

One of the metaphors I’ve been playing with is a comparison with teaching letters to some people with dyslexia and other learning difficulties.  The letter on a sheet of paper or board may be pretty meaningless.  By making the letter - and experiencing it in different ways - the letter might be learned and understood. Perhaps tracing it in sand, or creating it  in clay or playdough, or building it with artifacts.  Experiencing the letter through other senses may help - singing, eating a cake or sweet in the form of the letter, using sponge shapes of the letter in the bath…

Does the 3-d, immersive nature of a virtual environment like Second Life provide an opportunity to experience learning in a multi-dimensional way making some forms of knowledge acquisition more meaningful than in a traditional classroom setting?

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18/10/2008 by lizit.

Thinking about what Judith said yesterday about research questions.  What is it that I am actually interested in about Second Life (in a learning context of course)? Woke up thinking about this and the word which was very much in my mind was ‘ownership’.  I guess that has been a key word for me for many years. In my social work days, it was about whether people owned their problems or externalised them in some way as somebody else’s fault or responsibility. As a community worker, and later managing staff involved in multiple projects, it was again about who owned the project - the people involved in it directly or the organisation working with those people.

Another discussion yesterday which started in the lab meeting but continued in Plurk was around learning, information and knowledge - when does one become another, for example it was suggested that learning is when information becomes knowledge. Another suggestion was that information becomes learning when it is used.  I don’t feel particularly satisfied with either of those.  For me there is more than one type of learning. Some of what is learned is static; it is information/knowledge which is learned for a purpose, eg passing an exam, but once the purpose is fulfilled, what has been learned is of no more relevance to the learner.  It may be remembered and dragged out of memory in a quiz or conversation, but the learner is not owning, using and developing what has been learned - it has not been internalised to become part of them and their way of thinking. Some of what is learned is utilitarian - tools which enable other learning or activities. For example once we can read, that process is learned and internalised providing a means of accessing other information.  This may link with threshold concepts - troublesome learning which once learned is obvious.

A further aspect of learning is a dynamic one, where there is something of interest to the learner to the extent they own their own learning and engage in an exploration which goes beyond what is taught - the initial learning experience is a springboard for further exploration and discovery.  Here ownership is paramount - the learning experience is owned and given meaning by the learning whether or not it has anything to do with necessary or assessed knowledge.

Thinking about this in a Second Life context - and also musing a little about that discussion about immersive virtual worlds - it is possible to be an observer is Second Life, to participate in something but do nothing with it.  Yesterday evening I had a look at 2 interesting models being developed on a medical sim.  My purpose was purely utilitarian - I wanted to see these models and with a view to including them on my list of places to share with students.  I was not concerned about the content, though I was very impressed with the build and the achievement in creating them.  They did not impinge on me in a way that led me to want to know more about the subject or to make me want to start building and creating myself.  I was a voyeur, an observer.

What, if anything, does an IVW offer to move the learning experience from observation and learning the facts to involvement in and ownership of the learning experience?

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16/10/2008 by lizit.

It’s strange how most of my working life I’ve been involved in project management of one sort or another and I am only just beginning to see the parallels with what I am embarking on here.  I guess most of the work I’ve done in the past has had fairly clear goals and timeframes (often determined by others), whereas I have a period of time ahead with several different mini-projects and tasks.  One of the things I need to do for myself is draw some kind of timeline to enable me to relax about things which don’t need doing now - or doing yet - and be clear about the things which do need to be done sooner.

One of the traps is feeling I should be keeping up with everything going on in SL at the moment - there is a lot of energy there - but in reality I need to target what I keep up with (and make sure I get stuff in the diary rather than getting side-tracked).

Yes, I do need at some point to familiarise myself with other virtual worlds, but that can wait and in the meantime I can collect stuff I come across in SLED and other sources for future reference.

Guess it’s into planning and reviewing and being clear about changing priorities and not letting the urgent displace the important unless it is appropriate!  Also beware of displacement activity!

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13/10/2008 by lizit.

Just a quick attempt to capture some of the stuff in my mind at the moment.

First, don’t accept invitations to do stuff unless they are really relevant - I wish I wasn’t committed to half a day in Eastbourne tomorrow!

I’ve had a discussion with Diane and others about possible projects for ILE 09 - I am now drafting a possible email to send to the different schools (I am still a bit confused about the organisation of this place and need to get clarified what is a school, a department, etc, etc - wonder if there is a diagram anywhere…)

In drafting email, I realise timing is going to be of the essence if the intention is to test the learning experiences of ILE09 students on students of ‘clients’ - if the comparison is year against year, it is almost too late already for Autumn courses… And if looking at a spring course, there will be a lot of work next Spring with both ILE students and current cohorts…

I need to ensure I find the time to prepare for Coventry - only a week away now…

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07/10/2008 by lizit.

Interesting email - taster of what will be in the latest snapshot report on use of virtual worlds in UK HE and FE.  A number of quotes from people who have taken a look at virtual worlds other than Second Life.  Minimal detail, but a reminder that SL is not the only option - and in the future may not be the best option.

I need to ensure that I do not over-focus on SL without ensuring what I say is either relevant to other IVWs or that I clarify why it isn’t.

I also need to think about whether to have a look at some of the other IVWs - but I am aware I need to be conscious of cost/benefit given the overhead involved in really getting into and understanding any of the virtual environments.

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06/10/2008 by lizit.

Background

Over the past 2-3 years there has been an increasing interest in the education community in the potential for using MUVEs (Multi-User Virtual Environments) in learning and teaching.  There has been a particular interest in the virtual environment known as Second Life and a strong community of education professionals is developing. That this is not just an interest of a few individuals on the margins is evidenced by the recent £200,000 JISC funding to PREVIEW, a joint project of Coventry University, St George’s University of London and Kingston University to “investigate and evaluate a user-focused approach, linking the emerging technologies of virtual worlds with interactive PBLonline, to create immersive collaborative tutorials”. [i]

During the past 12 months there have been a number of major education conferences focussing on MUVEs and Second Life and more are planned in the coming months. Some of these have been held entirely within the virtual environment - Second Life Best Practices in Education: Teaching, Learning, and Research 2007 International Conference, some have been held in the real world and streamed into the virtual world – Eduserv Foundation Symposium 2007: Virtual worlds, real learning? and others take place in the real world with workshops in the virtual world - Researching Learning in Virtual Environments - ReLIVE08.

I have been involved personally in Second Life for about 18 months.  During that time, I have explored the virtual world, visited many of the educational facilities, engaged in discussion on the SLED (Second Life Educators) list, and been involved in facilitating projects in Second Life through The Open University, the University of Sussex and the Sussex Learning Network.  In general, I have been disappointed by the tendency of much of the educational presence in Second Life to replicate real life educational facilities and environments rather than make use of the possibilities inherent in the virtual world.

Focus of research

Following on from the ILE 08 project undertaken with the University of Sussex, I intend to further explore the potential of Second Life as a learning environment.  It has been suggested that Second Life provides an opportunity to reinvent problem based learning in an environment free of many of the constraints of the real world. [ii] In the same paper, Savin-Baden begins to explore the relationship between Second Life as a transitional learning space and threshold concepts as discussed by Meyer and Land. [iii]  In reading this discussion I was strongly reminded of the language I encountered in therapy and personal growth circles in the 1980s, for example “Transitional spaces are places where shifts in learner experience occur, caused by a challenge to the person’s life-world in particular areas of their lives, at different times and in distinct ways. The notion of transition carries with it the idea of movement from one place to another and with it the necessity of taking up a new position in a different place. Leaving the position and entering the transition may also be fraught with difficulties that may result in further disjunction for the student….” If in the same passage, the words “learner” and “student” were replaced by “patient” or “client”, the passage would not be out of place in a psycho-therapy or counselling text.

ILE 08 presented students with the task of developing learning experiences in Second Life for real life clients. The clients were asked to identify learning themes which were difficult, dangerous or impossible to teach in real life.  In ILE 09 it is proposed to look for clients within the University of Sussex, but instead of presenting problems which are difficult to teach, identifying projects where learners experience problems, including disjunction. ILE 09 students will be asked to develop learning experiences in the virtual space relevant to these areas of troublesome knowledge, and may themselves undergo a learning transition in order to understand the concept they are working with.

Contribution to knowledge

The research project will explore:

• The potential of Second Life for developing learning environments in areas where students experience problematic learning experiences;
• Whether learning experiences in a virtual environment can affect the degree of disjunction experienced by students confronted with threshold concepts;
• Whether the experience of learning does in any way correlate with the experience of therapeutic change

Methodology

ILE 08 gave an opportunity to pilot the development of learning experiences in Second Life. This needs to be reflected on and lessons learned identified before proceeding to ILE 09. Areas to be considered are the preparation and infrastructure of the project as well as the actual content and how the products have been utilised.

ILE09 provides an opportunity for a more structured approach:

There are 3 distinct areas of activity which are of interest:

• The ILE students, their response to a problem based learning scenario and their use of Second Life
• The learning experience of students on other courses when experience in a virtual world is offered – including the need to distinguish the learning curve of getting into Second Life with the learning experience being presented in Second Life
• The nature of learning experiences themselves and the extent to which therapeutic language is appropriate in describing the movement from “stuckness” to ownership of knowledge

Relevant Work by others

There is a considerable amount of work being undertaken in Second Life by academic institutions in the UK, the USA and elsewhere. There is a need to clarify which of this is most relevant to this project and to engage in networking with others involved in the field.

Meyer and Land have provided the lead on thinking about threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge.  The Teaching and Learning Network at the University of Cambridge has been extending this work through projects undertaken by the Centre for Applied Research into Educational Technologies (CARET).[iv]

[i] http://www.coventry.ac.uk/researchnet/d/467/a/4432

[ii] Savin-Baden, M. (2007) Second Life PBL: Liminality, Liquidity and Lurking

[iii] Meyer, J.H.F. and Land, R. Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge: issues of liminality, in Meyer, J.H.F. and Land, R. (2006) (eds) Overcoming Barriers to Student Understanding: Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge. Abingdon: RoutledgeFalmer

[iv] http://www.caret.cam.ac.uk/tel/index.html

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05/10/2008 by lizit.

Just typing up some notes from speaking to Judith to help me remember what I’m meant (or maybe not meant to be doing).

Team stuff

Suggestion that I give Katy some support on building the Lab website (have since had a brief word with Katy and we have agreed to get together and talk about stuff some time in the coming week)

DPhil stuff

Judith is my main supervisor.  A second supervisor will be appointed (breakdown of how much I have to do with each to be determined, but 2nd supervisor is a back up and failsafe).  I will also need a thesis committee - JG plus 2 others.  They are responsible for an annual review of my progress, normally in May.  First stage will be to present thesis proposal including research question(s), literature review and project plan.  Because I already have a project, this may end up being a bit back-to-front.

Need to talk to Diane about possible clients - people who use the InQbate space and have a potential or actual interest in using Second Life and using it with their students. Then set up meetings with them (sort out in advance what I am asking them for).

ILE 09 likely to be on Wednesday mornings of Spring term.  Looking for 8-9 projects.  Student numbers to be capped at 43.  Ideally projects should be spread across the university. Need a project with an owner who is prepared to offer some input to students (eg commenting on specifications); the projects will present a problem and explain the problematic, but not offer specific solutions - may have a range of suggested approaches or comments on what is done in real life teaching.  The project owner will also be asked to be prepared to test the SL learning experience with their students in either Summer 09 or Autumn 09. Focus is on education/learning experience rather than on building an artefact.

Need to explore further what can be done on the Sussex SL site.  Potential for more land to act as a sandbox/development area - perhaps second island appended to existing site.  Possibility of exploring creating projects within Creativity Zone.  Talk to Tom Hamilton about his links with Linden Labs and any possible special deals on land.Maggie Clune is press office link.

Blog

Suggestion from Judith that I keep a blog with links to the various documents, resources, etc, that I collect and collate.

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