I’ve had my hands full the past few weeks – so when the earthquake happened (Linden Lab laid of 30% of their staff!) I didn’t get round to blogging it at all. It did give me a chance to see a number of other reactions on the blogosphere though. I think the most interesting analysis came from ex-Linden Rob Knop:
If Linden Lab had focused on helping make virtual worlds take off– make them more useful by providing functionality people wanted and needed, working on interoperability so that people could take their Second Life accounts to and from software that was developed not only by Linden engineers, but by everybody– I predict they would have done a whole lot better. Their already existing audience would have given them a leg up, and would have kept them a leader or at least a major player. Yes, they would have been helping “competitors”, but by raising the profile, utility, and popularity of virtual worlds in general, they would have helped themselves.
And now the other big news… Mark Kingdon, Linden Lab CEO, will himself be leaving the company – with co-founder Philip Rosedale returning to the fold to take over in his stead. Philip announced his return on the SL blog, here. The general perception is that Mark’s strategies for the Lab generally failed (for example, the cancelled SL Enterprise solution), and also managed to alienate many members of the community. Can Philip turn the ship around and regain some love for the lab? Time will tell… but his initial post is heavy on the technology and relatively weak on the community side:
Our thinking as a team is that my returning to the CEO job now can bring a product and technology focus that will help rapidly improve Second Life. We need to simplify and focus our product priorities — concentrating all our capabilities on making Second Life easier to use and better for the core experiences that it is delivering today. I think that I can be a great help and a strong leader in that process.
I’ve finally uploaded the screencast of my keynote from Games:EDU, back in May. Actually, the majority of this relates to any undergraduate teaching in a typical university. Inappropriate strategic goals, growing mountains of paperwork, innovation prevention, the bare pass student and traditional lectures all pop up as challenges – encouraging students to form effective communities of practice and exploiting technology to extend the reach of the university pop up as part of the solution.
See it here, or on screencast.com:
Like me, you’ve probably got used to calls for educators to think more like game designers, to consider how good games help players learn how to play, from James Gee and many others over the past few years.
In this months Edge (UK gaming magazine, Issue 216, July 2010), video-game design consultant N’gai Croal resets a cosmic balance when he suggests that game designers think like teachers…
the primary goal of the developer should be not to punish the player … the developer should be invested not in the player’s failure but in the player’s success
and
developers could probably learn a lot from talking to teachers
Bringing Gee and N’Gai together then tells us that educators can learn from how the best games teach their players – and game designers can learn from how the best teachers teach their students. The circle is complete!
I attended a meeting of the BCS Roadshow, with Chief Executive David Clarke and President Elizabeth Sparrow, on Friday.
The background to this is the EGM to be held next month (see previous post) – and the current BCS transformation programme that has seen (amongst other things) the disappearance of the words “British”, “Computer” and “Society” from the BCS.
I’ve added my report from the roadshow to the long EGM discussion in the BCS group on LinkedIn. You’ll find my report on the sixth (!) page of comments.
Excerpt:
I was impressed during David Clarke’s presentation at his ability to avoid using the word ‘computer’, in favour of the term ‘IT’. I asked David about this, pointing out that my students probably don’t consider themselves to be studying ‘IT’. His answer seemed to reflect his narrow focus – he said he understood that “academics” don’t always see what they do as IT. This seems to me to continue a trend to disassociate the BCS from engineering and scientific areas of computing.
But elsewhere he did say that BCS would be putting more energy again into the Chartered Engineer and Chartered Scientist programs – so he should understand the problem. Indeed, the introduction of the CITP was troublesome, and I’ve seen many complaints from Chartered Engineer members over the introduction of CITP (no space to repeat here). This highlights an area where the BCS acted without first listening to members affected. The impression I got was that the BCS has been forced into changing plans here because of the sheer number of members who feel the IT qualification is not relevant to their career in computing. But perhaps an organisation that spent as much time listening to members as it did wondering about how to communicate its message out to members could have handled the development of CITP better.
From John Kirriemuir:
Hi folks,
Virtual World Watch is now collecting information for snapshot #9 of virtual world use in UK Higher and Further Education. Go to www.virtualworldwatch.net to see the previous 8 snapshots from the last three years.
Do you work in the sector? Use virtual worlds? Have used them? Then it would be appreciated if you’d have a go at answering one or more of the following questions. It’s up to you what you answer, and how formally or informally you answer. Or just ignore the questions if they aren’t helpful and write your own thing. We’re flexible 
This is an opportunity to tell the world, and the academic virtual world community, what you are doing, have done, will do, and/or how it went. As happens regularly, people with a similar interest may then discover what you’re doing, so you may pick up a few useful contacts through your contribution.
Some points:
- The answers are stuck into a report which will go live on Monday, July 12th.
- Data collection is for all of June i.e. June 1st to June 30th only.
- Sorry, but no extensions after June 30th as VWW is keen to get the report out much closer to data collection than previously. Contributions that miss the deadline can, if you wish, go up as blog entries on this website instead.
- Unless you request anonymity, your name and job title (please supply preferred) will be included as a reference.
- Submissions can come from academics and students in UK HE or FE, as well as developers who develop directly for UK academia.
- Yes, you can be negative (honesty and frankness much better than spin) – but nothing personal and no swearing.
- Examples are awesome.
Send your submissions to john@virtualworldwatch.net – thanks.
Oh – and, as per the previous snapshot, 5 respondents who get their answers in by June 30th will be drawn out of a pickle jar and win £10 each (n.b. there’s a few winners of £10 from snapshot #8 who still haven’t claimed their loot).
+ + + + + The Questions + + + + +
Please do some or all of these – or ignore the lot and write something relevant instead.
1. What are you doing in virtual worlds? Teaching, learning, research, publicity, and/or anything else?
2. Going well? Not? Want to say why?
3. Money is tight. The ‘golden age’ of education money may be ending. How are you getting funded? How do you think your virtual world activities will be funded in the future?
4. Long distance travel is increasingly precarious. Ash, strikes and airlines going under ground flights. Travel is expensive (even in the UK with extortionate train fares) and takes up a lot of time. Virtual Worlds could, possibly, be used instead of many workshops, conferences, meetings et al. Your thoughts on this? And how do virtual worlds such as Second Life stack up against other event-replacing media such as Elluminate and Skype?
5. Second Life. Using just that, or considering other virtual worlds? If so, why?
6. Problems with universities blocking access to Second Life. Is anyone still having that, or are we over it now?
7. Handling large numbers of students in virtual worlds simultaneously i.e. more than 30. Do you have experience of this? How did it go?
8. What do you think of the new Second Life viewer, both the UI/usability changes and the new functionality it enables (e.g. media on a prim)?
9. Do you have a view on the new Second Life Terms of Service conditions and ownership rights which are creating a bit of a hoo-hah in some quarters? Do you think it will affect you? Does it matter in the grand scheme of things?
Every so often something happens which makes me extra glad that I live in Scotland. Currently its the ConDem government rushing ahead with their plans to take schools out of local authority control (and into the control of anybody else who wants to run them, including for-profit companies).
First up, Becta was summarily dismissed. This has had a mixed reception amongst teachers – with reports of the agency wasting some of its money, or some of its services not being used by all schools. A good collation of responses here, courtesy of OLDaily. (The British Journal of Education Technology is owned by Becta currently – I presume and hope that arrangements will be made to transfer ownership before Becta closes for good)
Whereas in Scotland, LTS is not being closed. I doubt very much that every spending decision made by LTS is the best decision possible – but there is a lot of good work coming out of LTS, and some very dedicated people who work hard on making schools better, supporting teachers and supporting a forward looking curriculum.
Michael Gove outlined plans to encourage the best schools in England and Wales to leave local authority control (as a first step to taking all schools outside of local authority control), and to make it easier for parents and companies to start new schools. The BBC’s initial coverage of both didn’t delve too deep into the possible problems – with naysayers given relatively small soundbits on pieces about new academies and free schools. Schools (such as the new academies) which have been rated as ‘outstanding’ will also be free from future inspections. Even though there is now an example of an outstanding school turned academy failing a subsequent inspection.
Mike Baker finally provided some analysis on Saturday, which includes some worthwhile observations.
On local authority control over schools:
Perhaps the most misleading, and frequently repeated, claim is that becoming an academy allows schools to “escape local authority control”.
This is ridiculous because local councils no longer have “control” of schools.
… Town halls no longer determine how schools spend their money, what or how they teach, or how they are held accountable.
Schools are constrained in many ways. But these constraints come from national government or national bodies, be it the national curriculum, national tests, Ofsted, or government legislation on issues such as safeguarding or Every Child Matters.
What do local authorities do?
Their last remaining influence is in the provision of school places, organisation of the school admissions process, and as the stretcher-bearers when schools fail. …
They provide vital services such as educational psychologists and special educational need support and more humdrum, but essential, functions such as payroll management and legal advice.
And with local authorities having little actual control over schools, there is really one reason driving the academy agenda – money:
… academy status brings a cash uplift of 10% or more.
This is the money otherwise held back by town halls for central education services. For a large secondary school that could be £400,000 a year.
Many heads believe they can make better use of that money themselves, even though they may continue to purchase some services from the local authority.
This hints at one way in which academies will be able to save money. Limiting their use of central psychological services and special needs support. Cutting back on support for the most expensive pupils – i.e. those with the greatest need – will free up more money for prestige facilities (to attract better students) and better pay (to take the best teachers away from other schools). And even to allow companies running schools to profit from the public purse and parent contributions.
As Mike Baker’s analysis points out, there will be little in terms of academic freedom or control over allocated budget to distinguish a local authority school and a new academy or free school. All that is left is whether or not the school contributes to a local fund for specialist services to support the most needy (academies won’t), whether the people running the school can make a profit (yes for academies), and whether voters actually have any power to effect change in their local schools (academies “unlike local councils … cannot be turfed out by parents and local voters.”).
As I say, every so often something happens that makes me glad that I live in Scotland.
Related:
The Guardian asks head teachers if they will opt for academy status. Not all are in a hurry – those that are tempted are tempted by the extra money.
The Independent reviews the free schools policy:
“The Tories have misrepresented the case for free schools by only quoting the good part of some very mixed evidence from the US and Sweden,” says McNally. “There are serious issues here. It might raise standards but I’m concerned about social mobility. Will the pupil premium for disadvantaged children be big enough to attract people to run schools in poor areas? If not, non-free schools will have to pick up all the social problems and will struggle to get teachers because they won’t be able to pay as much as other schools.”