From email:

MOOTUK11 ticket prices announced

We finally managed to tie down the costs and work out the ticket prices for this year’s UK Moot. Full details about the updated price list and ticket options can be found in our latest blog post entitled ‘MOOTUK11: Ticket options and prices’.

Early Bird Tickets will be available from our online store from 11am on Monday, 17 January 2010. Please be advised that payment by credit or debit card is required to complete the booking and secure your place. If you have question about the booking process or experience problems on the day please email us at booking@ulcc.ac.uk to ensure your query is received and acted upon

Call for papers
Last but by no means least, we wanted to inform you that the call for papers for MOOTUK11 is now open and submissions are accepted. Full details on ‘how to submit your proposal’ can be found on our conference website. We encourage proposals from all backgrounds to showcase Moodle’s strength and diversity.

Best wishes
The MoodleMoot UK Team

Another major change is that now MP is in Open Beta (anyone can sign up), you can now embed MP worlds in other webpages. First thing I did was embed the world I built for UWS onto my Moodle site:

UWS Metaplace campus in a Moodle Frontpage

If you previously visited MP and considered it too limited or lightweight, do take time to return and see some of the recent creations – users like Dalian (whose name I also recognise from Second Life) are now starting to push the level of what can be done in MP.

Its quite different from Second Life – the core idea being to provide a 3D space ‘attached’ to any and every web-page out there on the interweb. However, from what I can see the LMS integration seems to be little more than using the LMS as a ‘launch pad’ and authentication tool for access to the 3D space – and once there few of the rich customization features available in Second Life are present for users. The owners of a space can modify it to their hearts content, but the visitors power over even their own avatars is relatively limited.

Time for some translations.

From the ExitReality web site:
Unlike other 3D technology, ExitReality does not require going to a closed virtual world destination such as Second Life or Google Lively with separate logins. All these virtual worlds can now be accessed by anyone on the web, once the ExitReality Internet browser plugin has been downloaded and installed.
Like a few other virtual world platforms, soon to include Second Life, ExitReality can be accessed once the appropriate Internet browser plugin has been downloaded and installed

From the Press Release (link above):
ExitReality is a free Internet plug-in that allows anyone to view every web page in 3D or convert their 2D website into a customisable virtual world.
ExitReality is a free Internet plug-in that allows anyone running an ActiveX capable browser on Microsoft Windows (only) to view every web page in 3D or convert their 2D website into a customisable virtual world.

In saying all of this, bear in mind that ExitReality may well be a better solution for many users than Second Life – but you need to know who your users are going to be and what you hope to do with your virtual world once you have it. There is some fairly balanced discussion from the Second Life educators mailing list late last year picking out some of the pros and cons here:
https://lists.secondlife.com/pipermail/educators/2008-September/026147.html

I’m going to quote Bruce Sommerville on this, a Second Life educator who’s spent a lot more time with ExitReality than I have:

In short, there is the *potential* to create interactive and immersive educational activities in easily accessible web pages, especially if a community of educators gathers around the technology, as it has in SL.

I’ve yet to see evidence that the potential is really being met, but look forward to seeing more compelling examples of immersive teaching spaces in ExitReality over time.

Earlier in the month SLOODLE 0.4 was released – and update which introduces quite a few new features. More over at http://www.sloodle.org/ .

On the ‘launch’ day I was at MoodleMoot UK, where I gave a presentation which covered a little of the history of SLOODLE as well as an overview of what it does/can do. The presentation and the first few minutes of the audio are online here:
http://moodlemoot.org/course/view.php?id=8

Give me an extra magical hour some day, and I’ll make a SlideCast of this…

Last week we released the Sloodle quizHUD for use in Second Life. This is a Second Life user interface ‘HUD’ extension which allows students to explore a 3D environment and participate in assessment (formative or summative) in that environment. There are some obvious similarities with the some of the tools created for the PREVIEW project (see previous post), and some significant differences. More details below…

The HUD has two modes of operation: Explore and Quiz.

In explore mode, clicking on objects in the environment results in pages of information being displayed on the student’s interface. Descriptive text can be combined with images in these pages.

In quiz mode, questions appear in the interface window. These can be multiple choice (either requiring knowledge gained from prior exploration or which may be answered by looking at visible clues in the environment). Other questions might require students click on objects in the 3D environment to answer.

Pages and questions are authored using a web-based authoring system, and quiz responses are kept online. Tutors can opt whether to allow multiple attempts at the quiz, or single attempt only.

The quizHUD is currently a stand-alone tool and authoring system, but our intention is to integrate this into the main body of the Sloodle project, and integrate the quiz system with Moodle.

Pablo Moreno-Ger and co-authors consider “Game-Based Learning in e-Learning Environments”, and present <e-Adventure>, an authoring system for educational graphic adventure games. The games created using <e-Adventure> can ten be integrated into standard web-based Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) using the IMS Learning Design standard.

Another paper considers a different approach to integrating VLEs and game-based technologies… its a paper on Sloodle, by Jeremy Kemp and myself. (And there is another paper discussing an implementation of Moodle to support 30,000 plus users, of interest to Moodler’s out there…)

All papers are also available in Spanish in the print edition of Novatica – and will hopefully be available online soon.

Alternatively, you can subscribe to use DimDim on their servers with support for larger numbers of users and some additional features. Voice and video worked well – albeit only a small number of users can have their voice active at a time. Nice clean ‘gmail’-like interface as well.

This was my first proper experience of presenting via desktop conferencing – and it went fairly well, though I was left wishing I’d put in less information and more opportunities for interaction…

INTUITION, SRI Virtual Worlds survey, The Myth of the Media Myth, and VLE vs PLE again again. More below.

INTUITION

INTUITION is a Network Of Excellence focused on virtual reality and virtual environments applications for future workspaces. It is funded by the European Union, and operates under the 6th Framework of the European Commission (IST). The Network includes 58 partners and it is being coordinated by the Institute Of Communication And Computer Systems of the National Technical University of Athens in Greece.

 SRI Business Intelligence Virtual Worlds Consortium

The SRI-BI VWC (enough acronym for you?) has published the data from a recent online survey. Their reports are collected on this page. The one of interest is “Virtual Worlds and Collaborative Work: Survey Results“, March 2008.

Other types of collaborative activities that respondents expect to see gaining most popularity in the next few years in industry and government include the following:

• Blending of audio, 2-D, and 3-D conferencing technologies; data visualization; presenting and experiencing local culture and facilities through VW; and augmented reality applications
• Single-point solutions (that is, sales training, onboarding, compliance, management training, and so on)
• Training in procedures that are established and require supervised practice
• Open innovation
• Participatory space exploration and world-peace efforts
• Professional networking.

The Myth of the Media Myth

At The Escapist, Brenda Brathwaite wonders where the strongly negative, and very common, beliefs about video games come from:

Inevitably, after I finish speaking, the strong opinions come. It happens the same way every time: People listen and then they say what they’ve been feeling. Videogames are not good for you. Videogames are a waste of time. They isolate children. Kids never go outside to play. They just sit there and stare at the TV all day.

The conversation this evening is particularly ironic, given that I’ve just finished my design for GDC’s Game Design Challenge, OneHundredDogs.com. It’s a Facebook ARG designed to be played in 50 cities across the country. It’s all outdoors and designed to build a nationwide community of happy people and their happy dogs working together toward a common goal. I sit and listen, and they continue.

Videogames are addictive, violent and blood-soaked. People just shouldn’t let their kids play games.

VLE vs PLE again again

From Campus Technology,

As director of Washington State University‘s Center for Teaching, Learning, and Technology, Gary Brown has stewarded the acceptance and growth of online learning, forged faculty development programs for early adopters and laggards alike, and struggled with the issues of assessment and accountability. But Brown sees more comprehensive changes ahead, especially as Web 2.0 technologies become widespread.

I can see some of Gary’s points, but I still think the VLE vs PLE debate is fundamentally misguided. I think institutional web-based environments provide a ‘home’ and a base of technology. I can develop a course which encourages students to use a wide wide range of Web 2.0 technology, but still has a single port of call for students looking for core information or needing to contact students outside their regular friends lists. I think of the VLE as the safe harbour – students can use it for planning, preparation or even carry out work there. Those that want to head out exploring the less predictable seas of Web 2.0 are very welcome to do so – and in some cases I’m doing my best to push them out there.

Forcing all staff and all students to abandon the safe harbour never to return seems a bit unnecessary to me, and one that doesn’t appear supportive of the full range of digital literacy found amongst faculty and students.

Later today (after I get some sleep!) I’ll be attending the Massively Multi Learner workshop at Anglia-Ruskin University.

I’ll be uploading my presentation in as many formats as possible to this post – and you may also be able to catch the live presentation online if you follow the instructions here.

You can also click through the URLs of most of the projects/technologies mentioned using this Feedshow link: Before, Beyond and Beside SL (Feedshow).

Google Docs version of presentation.

Slideshare version (I had to make some edits, some elements appeared to get lost in upload/conversion):

Martin Dougiamas’ keynote, Steven Githens on Open Source mashups and Pieter van der Hijden on Moodle and Gaming/Simulation, all below.

Martin Dougiamas gave a very relaxed but informative keynote – he focussed primarily on the growth of Moodle and some of the improvements and enhancements coming in the next couple of versions. But he did have some time to re-iterate the importance of social-constructivism as a guiding philosophy for Moodle. Interesting developments include work towards making Moodle content more easily shareable, and making all content taggable. Also major changes to the Moodle Wiki on the cards.

Then I discussed Sloodle and demo’d Sloodle to a packed room. Had quite a bit of time left over for Q&A, which was good.

Steven Githens presented work on creating mashups between different Open Source applications – sharing resources and data between Sakai, Moodle and Plone. And even accessing Sakai repositories from Facebook. His work is looking towards creating a Resource Oriented Architecture – a lightweight and simple API to make easy the task of getting data in and out of the likes of Moodle. This looks like a great project with huge potential.

Pieter van der Hijden’s talk “Moodle and Gaming/Simulation” was next. A board member of ISAGA (International Simulation and Gaming Association), Pieter has a good overview of the role of gaming in education – aware of both the advantages that games have to offer and of the costs and challenges that creating effective serious games presents to educators. Interesting ideas for integrating serious games into Moodle:

• Moodle as gaming management system. Having students access games via Moodle allows contol over access, and integration of briefieng and debriefing and evaluation (e.g. assessment) before and after a game. Output scores or data from serious games could also be automatically sent to a Moodle gradebook, and Moodle could support the task of distributing final reports and results.
• Moodle as a game engine.
  • The Lesson module allows the construction of branched narratives – making ‘create your own adventure’ type games quite easily authored. The optional role-play module allows the construction of role-play scenarios where students take on different roles from their normal ones – but remains text based and mainly delivered through forums.
  • Sloodle… I’ll say no more
  • IMS LD. Pieter argued that this could have been an effective standard for integrating games into Moodle, but that the IMS Learning Design standard was too perhaps too complex and difficult to communicate to lecturers to be useful currently.

What I liked most about Pieter’s presentation was the clear view that there are many different types of games – not just graphically driven action games, and that different types of games and simulations have their place in education. The message that serious games can and should integrate and work with Learning Management Systems was quite appropriate. During the Q&A a couple of other good examples came to light… in particular Martin Dougiamas mentioned a maths game where success in class quizzes on Moodle award students with more currency in game for completing their tasks. This is quite a neat idea, and one that should be very possible in Sloodle.