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Andy Powell, EduservSL: Art Fossett
Virtual worlds in education
The A story so far…
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My first positive experience
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My inspiration…
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• arts place
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• the grants call
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• bb shoes
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The snapshots so far
• funded by the Eduserv Foundation
• four so far:– June 2007
– September 2007
– May 2008
– October 2008
• strictly covering UK university and college activities only
• started off being solely about Second Life use
• lately moving into Second Life and other worlds
• getting unwieldy; format may need to change
thanks to John Kirriemuir for the content of the next few slides
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Some things are changing
• steady growth in usage (both in terms of individuals and institutions) – activity at well over 75% of institutions
• more sources of funding
• more teaching and learning
• increasing acceptance by staff and students
• growing interest in MUVEs other than Second Life
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And some things aren’t
• people still build virtual representations of campuses and lecture theatres
• sceptics
• little up-take in FE
• few attempts to measure impact (or agreement about how to measure it)
• people still want more time and more money to undertake their SL activities
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Mentions in October 2008
• three or less mentions each:– Olive
– The Palace
– Croquet
– Metaplace
– There
– Neverwinter
– Small Worlds
– Active Worlds
– Twinity
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Mentions in October 2008
• eight or more mentions each:– OpenSim
– Wonderland
– Metaplace
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Virtual World Watch
• Web: www.virtualworldwatch.net
• Twitter: V_World_Watch
• are you a UK academic doing “stuff” in virtual worlds?
– submit your blog to the blogroll
– fill in the next snapshot survey questionnaire
– contribute a few screendumps to the Flickr picture pool
• thanks – that also helps you publicise your work
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I think there is a real danger that as we ‘sanitise’ virtual
worlds for use in education, we destroy the magic that makes
them what they are
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thank you