Never mind the technology, where’s the learning?

For those used to such things it might seem strange to organise a face-to-face event about Virtual Worlds, but Naace’s seminar held yesterday in London did just that. The point was to introduce those that has not necessarily plunged themselves into Second Life, or any of the other virtual worlds, with a traditional introduction in which the environment was within their comfort zone. It was led by Chris Smith (shamblesguru) who resides in Thailand, but was in the UK on holiday (there’s dedication for you). In many respects this also was an incentive to run the event face-to-face since it’s not often there’s an opportunity for Naace members to both meet or the Association to involve Chris in ‘real-life’. Chris’s started by introducing the delegates to Second Life, but rather than use a PowerPoint presentation he had put together video clips of places ‘in-world’, and spoke over this. This was an interesting technique. Not only could he not overdwell on a particular aspect, but the real-time commentary provided an excellent ‘trailer’ before he logged on and took us on a tour.

Thoughtfully Chris had also arranged an in-world panel session with particular educators who were involved with Teen Grid, the teenage version of Second Life, which is heavily locked down to prevent non-vetted adults from entering. The panel consisted of Peggy Sheehy and Marianne Malmstrom who logged in from the US, and Graham Stanley in Barcelona. Chris led the informal question and answer session from the ’sofas’ in his mountain retreat on the International Schools Island. Peggy explained about the sort of activities she was organising in Teen Grid. For example, a role-playing activity set on Ellis Island in the mid-20th century where the students played immigrants coming to America, or the immigration officials who controlled the process; Maggie, an expert in machinima (filming in virtual worlds) talked about a project where students produced political commercials for Greek gods, in which they created scenes in Teen Grid and ‘filmed’ them to form the basis of their commercials. Finally, Graham, who works for the British Council in Spain, explained how he has been working with ESL students in different countries using Second Life as an environment in which they can practice English.

Carol Rainbow works for Oxfordshire Local Authority and like many educators using Second Life began to think about how teaching techniques might differ in a virtual environment. Despite the initial concern from her authority, with Second Life being blocked in schools, she argued a case to prove that successful InSET for teachers could be run in that environment and started an e-safety course once a week in the evening. The success of this course has led her to try area meetings with teachers and she is planning other continuing professional development opportunities.

Leon Cych is a well known advocate of virtual worlds and educational pioneer in the UK. Leon introduced the delegates to alternatives to Second Life, in particular, those developed by the open source community. While Second Life is not open source, its client is, and there are adapted versions that allow you to enter different individual environments running of servers throughout the world. Indeed, a school could establish its own closed environment on an intranet if it wished. Leon showed examples of these alternatives, both for professional training, and teaching in the classroom.

In all it was a thoroughly immersive day. Information on the programme can be found in this document, and videos of the sessions can be found on Naace.tv.

Tags: naace, naace2009, virtual worlds, second life