Virtual world and Game Based Learning studentships

March 18, 2010 — Daniel

PhD Studentships for starting next academic year at UWS are now online. The School of Computing has a number of studentships in the area of game based learning and virtual worlds for education, here.

From first glance, the relevant projects are (apologies for the ALL CAPS – thats how they are listed!):

Posted in Assessment, Games Based Learning, Second Life, Technology, Virtual Worlds. Tags: . No Comments »

Browsing OpenJorum

March 18, 2010 — Daniel

Browsing OpenJorum… and its not a fun experience. A shame as OpenJorum is a fantastic resource and needs to be supported by the UK education sector – not just the funders but the tutors and students who stand to benefit by using the resources that exist on OpenJorum. The HEA-ICS recently published a number of complete courses on OpenJorum, so there are some fantastic resources there – I think. I’m sure I’ll find them eventually – though the search features seem a bit underpowered and the browsing experience is simply awful. Worth comparing with the advanced search features on OER Commons to see how it could be done…

Start browsing OpenJorum, and it isn’t long before the problem becomes apparent… browsing for content relating to computer science in HE, the following is an excerpt from the first page of results (click here to see how it looks on OpenJorum itself with formatting intact):

Tom Boyle (2010-01-13)
Staffordshire University (2010-03-02)
UKOER; Open Educational Repository in Support of Computer Science; Rong Yang (2010-02-02)
UKOER; Open Educational Repository in Support of Computer Science; Rong Yang (2010-02-01)
Computer Science Concepts
UKOER; Open Educational Repository in Support of Computer Science; Rong Yang (2010-02-01)
Computer Science Concepts
UKOER; Open Educational Repository in Support of Computer Science; Rong Yang (2010-02-01)
Computer Science Concepts
UKOER; Open Educational Repository in Support of Computer Science; Rong Yang (2010-02-01)
Computer Science Concepts – Introduction
UKOER; Open Educational Repository in Support of Computer Science; Rong Yang (2010-01-21)
Computer Science Concepts – Induction and recursion
UKOER; Open Educational Repository in Support of Computer Science; Rong Yang (2010-01-21)
Computer Science Concepts – Complexity
UKOER; Open Educational Repository in Support of Computer Science; Rong Yang (2010-01-21)
Computer Science Concepts – Complexity
UKOER; Open Educational Repository in Support of Computer Science; Rong Yang (2010-01-21)

This set of results seems pretty typical – a page can have anywhere from 3 to 9 identically titled resources with no information to explain what the difference between them is – without clicking through each one individually. Compare with browsing on OER Commons. As soon as I start browsing, a rich set of options on the left allows me to specify more exactly the type of resource I’m looking for, and an ‘expand all’ button at the top of the results allows me to see a summary of each resource without having to click through each one individually.

If it takes too long to find useful resources in a repository, I won’t use that repository much. Luckily OER Commons is an index to materials on other respositories – with any luck they’ll provide the interface that OpenJorum needs.

Posted in Education. Tags: , . No Comments »

Blogging down – social networking up

March 16, 2010 — Daniel

The latest Pew report on Social Media and Young Adults looks at teens and young adults (18-29). Pew report that blogging is now undertaken by about 14% of teens – about half the figure of just a few years ago. Social networking is up nearly three quarters. A small rise is also reported in blogging amongst the 30+.

Overall, not many surprises really, but should give pause for thought regarding the half-life of internet technologies. Today Facebook is king, but for how long? Three years ago would you have predicted that blogging would be in decline? I don’t think I would have – and I don’t think many Web 2.0 mavens did. Social networking in *some form* is almost certainly here to stay. I personally hope the walled gardens are replaced with more truly open approaches.

Posted in Net Generation, Technology. Tags: , , . No Comments »

Wonderland becomes… Open Wonderland

March 11, 2010 — Daniel

Email today… reproduced almost in full below. Wonderland is Dead! Long Live Open Wonderland!

Or something like that…

St. Paul, Minnesota, March 10, 2010 – Today Ken Miller, the CEO of Virtual Learning Labs, announced the formation of the Open Wonderland Foundation and the creation of the Open Wonderland virtual world platform. The Open Wonderland platform is a “fork” of the Project Wonderland toolkit originally developed by Sun Microsystems Laboratories. Miller, who will serve as the Foundation’s first President and Chairman of the Board, explains that the non-profit Open Wonderland Foundation will provide direction and governance for Open Wonderland (http://OpenWonderland.org), a free and open source platform for creating 3D virtual worlds for education, business, and government applications. (Read the Official Press Release in full).

The Sun Immersion Special Interest Group will cease to exist as a research community at Sun and encourages all members to join the new OpenWonderland Foundation’s community spaces on the OWF Homepage and on Facebook. Thanks to everyone for your interest in being a part of this transformative new open technology for 3D education and we look forward to seeing you in the new home for Wonderland’s exciting future ahead !
Posted in Technology, Virtual Worlds. Tags: . 2 Comments »

Opening up access in virtual worlds

March 5, 2010 — Daniel

Here’s one I did earlier…
Back in October I gave a talk on OER in games and virtual worlds at SJSU.

This talk was recorded at the time and the video has been online for an age – so about time I gave a link to it. It’s available through the SJSU SLIS homepage, but also on blip.tv here.

Many thanks to Dale David for recording the talk – and for a little post-production editing to cover up some of my slips!

Posted in Education, Games Based Learning, Second Life, Technology, Virtual Worlds. Tags: , . No Comments »

10th HEA ICS programming workshop

March 5, 2010 — Daniel

(After a number of slow months with few posts, March looks a lot busier as I try to get back into the habit of keeping notes!)

The Higher Education Academy’s subject centre in Information and Computer Science is holding it’s 10th workshop on teaching programming at the end of March in Brighton. Details on the workshop here.

The afternoon of the workshop is heavily loaded with presentations related to the use of game based learning, and learning through game development – the final three presentations being:

Michaela Black – Successful Game Based Learning for Programming

Colin Price – Learning and Teaching Programming using the Unreal Tournament Game Engine

Kent McClymond – Teaching and Learning Programming Through Computer Games

Places are still available if you want to attend. I won’t be there, sadly, but I’ll be checking back after the 30th – the HEA ICS usually put presentation materials online.

Posted in Education, Game Development Based Learning, Games Based Learning, Teaching, Technology, conferences. Tags: . No Comments »

Where are the women in Computing?

March 5, 2010 — Daniel

For a long time the computing academy has been worried about the low rate of female participation in computing degrees, and trying to encourage more girls to consider computing at university. But it seems that the popular media message that computing is only for geeks has been far more successful…  a report on MSNBC states that “in 2008, women earned only 18 percent of computer science degrees, compared to 37 percent in 1985.”

It argues (and I’d agree) that the main reasons for low level of participation are to do with perception of what computing is and who does it – rather than issues with aptitude or actual computer use:

Sandra Guo, 22, always loved video games when she was in high school, but she never thought of pursuing a career in computer science because she felt it wasn’t for girls. Even her mother discouraged her. “When I first enrolled in college she was opposed for me taking computer science as a major,” she recalled. “She said I’d never find a boyfriend.”

( Previously on Learning Games… “Gender in Comp Sci & Computer Games“)

Posted in Education, Technology. No Comments »

Researching Learning in Virtual Environments – ReLIVE book now out

March 4, 2010 — Daniel

Caught a little off guard with this, but the ReLIVE book (which I had a hand in helping edit) is now available online at SpringerLink here. The promo blurb:

Researching Learning in Virtual Worlds covers a range of research undertaken in 3D virtual environments, looking at both the methods and results of the studies.

This groundbreaking book is the first to specifically address research methods and related issues for education in virtual worlds. It opens with an accessible introduction to the book and to the subject, providing an ideal springboard for those who are new to research in this area. The subsequent ten chapters present work covering a range of research methodologies across a broad discipline base, making it essential reading for advanced undergraduate or postgraduate researchers working in education in virtual worlds, and engaging background material for researchers in similar and related disciplines.

Many of the chapters in this book are extended papers from Researching Learning in Virtual Environments (ReLIVE08), an international conference hosted by the Open University UK. Authors of the best papers and presentations from the conference were invited to contribute to Researching Learning in Virtual Worlds.

The book is actually a little cheaper at Amazon.co.uk – but no information yet on when the hardcopy will be available. But due before the end of the month. I enjoyed working on parts of this book – many thanksare  due to Anna Peachey who had the lions share of the work and did a sterling job, and to co-editors Julia Gillen and Sarah ‘Intellagirl’ Smith-Robbins.

Posted in Education, Learning, Second Life, Sloodle, Teaching, Technology, Virtual Worlds. Tags: . No Comments »

After frustrations with journalism, colleges defend Second Life

March 4, 2010 — Daniel

A few weeks ago the Chronicle of Higher Education published a piece titled “After Frustrations with Second Life, College Look to New Virtual Worlds“. While the article is correct that there are many academics looking at alternative virtual worlds, the reaction has been that problems were grossly overstated – and a host of comments rushed to defend Second Life.

Indeed, while some are leaving Second Life it seems that the majority are staying – and most leavers keep a presence in Second Life even if they are now using other virtual worlds.

Jeff Young (who wrote the piece) was brave enough to attend a meeting of the Virtual Worlds Education Roundtable recently – the inworld chatlog can be found here. Its a very long log – and clear that emotions were high. Too high I would suggest – there is I think a degree to which peoples’ love for the platform does blind them to some of the problems and issues with it, and at times the fervour reaches almost religous levels.

Near the end of the log Ellie Brewster puts it succinctly:

We ought to reflect on our own reaction — we’ve read so many ill-informed articles about SL, could be that Jeff is bearing the brunt of our feelings about those articles, too.

But after a slew of articles in a range of media declaring the death of Second Life, it is about time for a few more balanced pieces to appear.

Posted in Education, Second Life, Technology, Virtual Worlds. 1 Comment »

Innovation in Application Development – Teaching Programming in FE

March 4, 2010 — Daniel

The Scottish Further Education Unit are organising the Innovation in Application Development event on the 1st of April in Stirling:

Scotland’s Colleges, in association with representatives from Apple and colleges in Scotland are hosting this awareness raising event.  The morning sessions will look at the use of Apple application development tools within current programmes and the potential for integrating development of iPhone apps into curriculum delivery.

In the afternoon, there will be sessions on Alice programming, Xbox / XNA Games studio programming and Second Life programming.  As well as an opportunity to consider innovation in the delivery of programming within the curriculum, it is also an opportunity to network with colleagues from across the sector regarding the use of these applications.

Presentations will cover iPhone development, using Alice (the Java 3D storytelling and game making engine) and more. I’ll be there also, talking about using Second Life and/or OpenSim as a platform for teaching programming. The whole event is free – register online and get yourself to Stirling!

Posted in Education, Game Development, Game Development Based Learning, Second Life, Teaching, Technology, Virtual Worlds. Tags: . No Comments »
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