The latest report from VirtualWorldWatch will be out soon. In the mean time, the brief response I sent in has been featured on the VWW website, here.
I’m just back from vacation, trying hard to catch up on emails, but hopefully manage before too long.
Download copy of call for special issue on 3D learning (pdf)
IJTEL fosters multidisciplinary discussion and research on technology enhanced learning (TEL) approaches at the individual, organisational, national and global levels. Its key objective is to be the leading scholarly scientific journal for all those interested in, researching and contributing to the technology enhanced learning episteme. For this reason, IJTEL delivers research articles, position papers, surveys and case studies aiming:
This special issue seeks to bring together research, from different perspectives, on a range of 3D technologies that may be used to enhance or support learning.
Suitable topics may relate to, but are not limited to, the use of a range of 3D technologies in enhancing learning:
Prospective authors are invited to notify the intention to submit a paper by
sending a one-page abstract to the editors by 6th August 2010 and submit the full
paper by 6th September 2010.
Abstracts may be sent to the editors at cdk@it.uc3m.es or
daniel.livingstone@uws.ac.uk
Final papers should be submitted electronically via the InderScience online
submissions system at: http://bit.ly/ijtel
6th August 2010: Title and Abstract deadline (optional)
6th September 2010: Full paper submission deadline
15th October 2010: Decision notification
12th November 2010: Camera-ready version
Early 2011: Publication (tentative)
Carlos Delgado Kloos, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, 28911 Leganés (Madrid, Spain), cdk@it.uc3m.es
Daniel J. Livingstone, University of the West of Scotland, Paisley PA1 2BE (Scotland, UK), Daniel.Livingstone@uws.ac.uk
Ignacio Aedo, UC3M, Spain
John Belcher, MIT, USA
Josep Blat, Universidad Pompeu Fabra, Spain
Darryl Charles, University of Ulster, UK
Thomas Connolly, University of the West of Scotland, UK
Abdulmotaleb El Saddik, University of Ottawa, Canada
Lesley Gourlay, Coventry University, UK
Miguel Lizondo, Deimos-Space, Spain
Judith Molka-Danielsen, Molde University College, Norway
Mariano Rico, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain
Pilar Sancho Thomas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain
Kath Trinder, Glasgow Caledonian University, UK
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.
From http://www.sloodle.org/blog/
SLOODLE Moot 2010 is approaching!
This weekend SLOODLE Moot – a free, online conference will be taking place in Second Life. A range of presentations, discussions and demonstrations will take place over the weekend including:
Get more details at the SLOODLE home page – http://www.sloodle.org/
( hashtag: #smoot )
Writing today at the Innovation in Application Development event in Stirling, put together by Scotland’s Colleges (formerly SFEU). Just now Nigel Kennington is demonstrating using Alice to teach programming, and discussing what aspects of computer programming can be taught with Alice. He’s had a very good experience in the lower levels – with much higher engagement from students.
Next up is a demonstration of using XNA, and this morning there were a pair of Apple talks on iPhone development. I’ll be closing the day talking about teaching programming with scripting in Second Life and OpenSim. As this talk is for colleges where many students will be under 18, I’ll be focussing on OpenSim. I was going to use Tony Hirst’s feedshow but it seems to be broken – but you can grab the ‘presentation’ part of my talk (I’ll try to spend more time actually *in* OpenSim, showing how it works, and what can be done) from delicious here:
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!):
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!
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.
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.
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!