Rockcliffe Reference Library

Journal of Virtual Studies (JoVS) Vol. 4 no. 1 (July 2013); ISSN 2155-0107

Acknowledgements

The Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education conference is held in trust for the Educational Community by Rockcliffe University Consortium who are respon sible for the financial, copyright, and infrastructure concerns of the conference. The VWBPE Executive is made up of members from Rockcliffe’s Board of Directors and Advisory Board.

The VWBPE Executive would like to thank each and every community member that has volunteered their efforts towards this year's conference. It is the dedication of these volunteers to the promotion of best practices in the education industry that makes this conference possible.

2013 Conference Summary

Raw Numbers

The 2013 Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education Conference has been another very successful event for Educators interested in using virtual world technologies in the classroom. Some of the raw number for 2013 include:

Over 2200 unique attendees (taking into account participants that had more than one alternate account);

Average participation time was approximately 3 hrs per person;

On balance all numbers seem to suggest a flattening out of participation compared to other years. This appears to be a positive in terms of community development. While the general trend has appeared to be a scattering of the educational community to OpenSim and other venues as a result of recent changes introduced by Linden Lab in 2009, Second Life appears to still be where the community roots are firmly established.

Conference Highlights

We were fortunate enough this year that the purpose built 200-seat master work of Firery Broome and Paramparamm Papp continued to be available to the community, giving participants another opportunity to view this awe inspiring build. In order to go beyond the stage, the auditorium was dressed in a red carpet this year.

This year, the number of presentations was about the same as last year. Keynote speakers represented across section of several disciplines, and highlighted the work of educators who think big, even in small stages. Additionally, this was the second year that a massively open online course (MOOC) ran for two weeks after the conference, using a Moodle learning management system graciously donated by Jürgen Kappus at Ka:media.

Summary

Overall the conference once again proved the power of open collaboration and the ability of a community to come together to showcase the best of what is available. The conference itself would not be possible without the support of several dozens of volunteers who have been engaged in all aspects of the conference from planning, building, training, and communication within and among their peers. It has been our privilege to be at the forefront of where new technologies are leading education and collaboration. We are looking forward to many more years to come.

Kevin Feenan

SL: Phelan Corrimal

President, Rockcliffe University Consortium

VWBPE Executive Committee

2013 Online Content

As part of every VWBPE Conference, the conference organizers attempt to make as much of the conference materials available to the educational and research community as possible. As the conference is based, as much as possible, on an open source model, educators and researchers often find creative ways in which to use social media and other content aggregators to make their materials available. Below are just a few of the many sources that you may use to find information on VWBPE.

VWBPE.ORG

This is the primary portal into most things related to VWBPE. Most of the information on past conferences can be found under the FAQ section of the website

Twitter

http://twitter.com/vwbpe

This is one of our main sources for news on the conference and best practices.

Facebook Fan Page: http://www.facebook.com/vwbpe?fref=ts

Group: http://www.facebook.com/groups/67701516968/

The VWBPE Group has over 1000 members dedicated to the advancement of best practices within virtual environments. There are a number of relevant link and articles published by members which can help keep you up to date on happenings around the metaverse.

Treet.tv

http://business.treet.tv/shows/bpeducation

Treet TV has been a partner helping to provide video based content to the educational community since the early inception of the conference back in 2007.

Metaverse TV

http://metaversetv.com/

Metaverse TV provides a number of educational programs include a few lectures from past conferences. Look-up VWBPE in the search box.

YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=VWBPE

Lots of people have recorded various snippets and other components of the VWBPE conferences over the years. You can find many of these by doing a search for VWBPE.

SlideShare

http://www.slideshare.net/search/slideshow?searchfrom=header&q=VWBPE

SlideShare is the most common source for slide decks (powerpoint) of past lectures.

Flickr

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=VWBPE&f=hp

Snapshots and information on past conferences.

pInterest

http://pinterest.com/search/?q=VWBPE

pinterest is a new social networking platform that is just starting to take off this year. You can find snapshots and information by searching VWBPE.

EventBrite

http://vwbpe13.eventbrite.com Each year we use eventbrite in order to communicate information about next year’s conference to those people who registered in previous years. This is an excellent source of information for those wanting to stay in the know ahead of everyone else (registration perk).

2013 Poster, Machinima, and Presentation Awards

2013 marks the second year that the VWBPE Conference intr oduces award categories to encourage friendly competition showcasing best practices. We are pleased to announce the winners.

Posters

For a complete online listing of all entries please go to: http://vwbpe.org/vwbpe-archives/vwbpe-2013-posters

Place  |  Title                                                                             | Presenter

1st    | Sweetening Climate Information for sugar Cane Farmers with Second Life Machinima   | Dr. Helen Farley/Helen Frak [SL]

2nd    | Encke Virtual University Collaboration: Bringing Educators Together in Second Life | Dr. Helen Farley/Helen Frak [SL]

3rd    | A Real-Time Interactive 3D Virtual Retail World                                    | Dragan Lakic/Bert Matchman [SL]

Film and Machinima

Place |   Title                                                                             | Presenters

1st   | Machinima as a Discussion Support System for Sugar Cane Farmers                     | Dr. Helen Farley [RL]/Helen Frak [SL]

2nd   | Father and Son Explore 3D Virtual Worlds Beyond the Stage                           | Dragan Lakic [RL]/Bert Matchman [SL]

3rd   | Cross Borders of Ages and Subjects: Possibilities of Using Virtual World Education  | Hsiao-Cheng Han [RL]/Kristy Handrick [SL]

People’s Choice for Best Presentations

Place  |  Title                                                                                         | Presenters 

1st    | The Advantages of Live Performance and Life Lecturing in the 3D Environment                    | Juliane Gabriel [RL]/Jaynine Scarborough[SL]

2nd    | Virtual Worlds, from Unknown to Known: What We Have Done and What We Can Do More on Education  | Dr. Hsiao-Cheng Han

3rd    | Share the Black Crayon – Collaborative Superhero Teams                                         | Renne Brock-Richmond [RL]/Zinnia Zauber[SL]

2013 Conference Proceedings

Track 1 : Keynotes

Opening Keynote: The Role of the Educator, Then and Now, There and Here

Author(s): Alice Krueger /Gentle Heron [SL]

I began teaching science over 40 years ago in a small rural high school. The students performed as many observations and experiments as were possible in that setting. I was striving to show them the enjoyment of finding out about the world around them, while also teaching them common understandings and useful ways of thinking. Were I teaching today, I would include in the curriculum experiences in virtual worlds as well as in our classroom and outdoors. The venue for science education has expanded and the tools students use have become more varied. Has anything else changed?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dm1uJsV6Cpg

Virtual World Simulations to Support Robot-Mediated Interaction

Author(s): Michael Vallance/Dafydd Beresford [SL]

International collaboration by students (aged 16-19 years old) in Japan and UK has highlighted the benefits and challenges when engaged in robot-mediated interactions (RMI) within 3D virtual simulations. The context for collaboration is set within an OpenSim 3D virtual space and a Unity 3D Fukushima nuclear power plant simulation where students across the globe teach each other LEGO Mindstorms programming for specific robot tasks. Students’ immersion, Circuit Task Complexity and Robot Task Complexity have been collated to create a new metric for tasks involving robots in virtual worlds, which we have termed Task Fidelity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlvYc3HK0t0

Teaching Physics in a 3-D Immersive Environment

Author(s): Vicki Robinson/Oddprofessor Snoodle [SL]

Teaching Deaf and Hard of Hearing students brings challenges to the science classroom that complicate a teacher's task. Differing modes of communication, variable skills in reading and writing, and significant gaps in the preparation of our students all combine to demand innovation. Teaching in an immersive 3-D environment is a natural outgrowth of the advances in accessible educational technology, from the overhead projector 35 years ago to inexpensive modeli ng programs in the 90s. Oddprofessor's Science Center began as a single activity on a University island. It comprises 20 activities spread over 23,000 square meters on the mainland. How does it all work?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUtbk3Gxcbc

Camelot and the Mists of Avalon

Author(s): Heike Philps /Gwen Swasi [SL]

Moving pictures, sound and stories are the most powerful way of communicating learning content, and CAMELOT (an EU funded project proposal) takes up the challenge of ‘video as a new language of learning’ and purposes to train and equip language teachers to produce visually appealing authentic conversations. In this presentation, Heike Philp, co-initiator of EU-funded LANCELOT and AVALON projects illustrates how language teaching and learning meets new challenges in virtual environments and how language educators mastering those challenges are empowered to create machinima.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiLOChVJBU0

Making History by Reimagining How it's Taught

Author(s): Andrew Wheelock/Spiff Whitfield [SL]

Social studies education has traditionally fallen under the realm of the textbooks and rote memorization. This presentation will focus on changing that paradigm by highlighting my work using virtual environments for both students and teachers. Opensim and MOOC frameworks will be discussed which offer ideas applicable for all subject areas.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XutJqb5F9QQ

Closing Keynote: MOOCs as a sense of place: Community as curriculum

Author(s): Dave Cormier

MOOCs in all their forms are about leveraging the scale and abundance of the internet for learning. One of the ways I like to think of the MOOC is as a call for help. I am here, sitting in a pile of abundance, looking for people to work with. A network to help me find. A community to help me learn. A way of using the internet to make better sense of the world. A place in which to grow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZ9cxrVJFSA

Track 2: Best Practices Showcase

Ethical Issues and Best Practices for Conducting Qualitative Research in Virtual Worlds

Author(s): Amber Judge

Designing methodologies for conducting research online is tricky when one considers all the ethical issues that arise when dealing with human subjects in an online environment. This is especially true in virtual worlds where people interact solely through 3D graphical selves called avatars. Issues include self-representation as a researcher in the environment; informed consent and competence; age verification; deception; alts; rewarding participants; ensuring veracity of the data; and privacy and confidentiality. Based on personal experiences in conducting qualitative research in Second Life involving interviewing with participants with physical disabilities, this presentation addresses the aforementioned key ethical concerns and suggests best practices to follow for minimizing potential harm brought on by these issues.

UNCP Hospital for Nursing: Professional Education and Clinicals in the Virtual World

Author(s): Anthony Curtis and Judith Curtis

With competition for clinical space rising, a Hospital for Nursing where students work with faculty in the Bachelor of Science in Nursing program was constructed on the Second Life campus of the University of North Carolina Pembroke. The facility provides experiential learning allowing students to immerse themselves in real clinical scenarios in the safety of the virtual world. Scripted practice scenarios mirror those found in a real hospital. After a scenario, faculty debrief the clinical group and collect data. This constructivist approach fosters critical thinking and clinical decision making, enhances self-efficacy, and allows students to make connections to previous learning.

Meet Your Counselor: An Avatar

Author(s): Brenda Bryan

With a focus on the Portal I Program, online counseling, through Preferred Family Healthcare (PFH), I will share valuable outcomes of this 3 year cutting edge, innovative treatment program. PFH is the largest substance abuse and mental health services provider in the state of Missouri and support in Kansas. Learn the challenges and successes from Portal I that paved the road of support future programs have received from local counties to state organizations and the federal government. Barriers and benefits will be addressed including: treatment overall, practitioners, clients, and technology.

Virtual New Media Exhibition as a Hands-On Approach for Art Learning

Author(s): Christine Liao

This project aims to help students apprehend the aesthetics of new media through hands-on and immersive experience with creating an interactive art exhibition in Second Life. Students learned to create their own interactive art pieces with 3D building tools in SL and exhibiting their works as a means of communicating their ideas through new media. In this process, students are both the creators of the artworks and curators of the exhibition. The experi ence of creating a virtual exhibition was meaningful, because doing so in the physical world would have been difficult given space, time, and financial constraints. The presentation will share the benefit and challenge of this project with audiences who plan to explore the potential of creating simulating experience in virtual worlds. Although the complete exhibition has ended, audiences can still visit a few of these new media works.

Education in Virtual Worlds

Author(s): Dr. Mari Carmen Gil Ortega

In this presentation I will describe my experiences as one of the tutors of the MA Education in Virtual Worlds run by the University of the West of England, Bristol for the first time the academic year 2012-13. Second Life was used as the main environment for synchronous interaction. One of the most salient aspects of this MA was that, despite it being a distance learning programme, comprised of people from very different geographical and educational backgrounds, the bond among them has been extraordinary and in my experience stronger than in most face to face educational settings where I have taught in the past. I will discuss in detail the reasons for this solid bond, and how each member of the group adopted a role that would be maintained when carrying out the group tasks, but that would sometimes be altered to match the environment (theatrical scenery) where interactions where taking place. I will explore in detail issues of identity which have been important in the modules studied this year.

Method Teaching as Method Acting in the Virtual World: What Would Angelina Jolie Do?

Author(s): Dr. Phylis Johnson, Lowe Runo, Belinda Barnes

You have your curriculum set. You have worked out your learning outcomes. All your notecards are set. The students arrive, and you give your first le cture - and something is missing. You even did that cute Gagne teaser that you typically do. But something falls flat. The students look you over as they look at themselves - odd beings in a strange world. They muse, "How is this better than real life?" You get this sinking feeling; "What am I doing here?" What's the point of being in a virtual world, unless you use it to its full advantage!? So drop all notions of a traditional classroom and lecture - and imagine how you can set the virtual stage. Learn five strategies for becoming an effective and engaging virtual teacher 1. Live your lesson, 2. Be your avatar, 3. Dress the part, 4. Set the environment, 5. Be confident. Free yourself to be your avatar, enjoy the virtual world, and you will be an immersive educator/mentor/facilitator every day in the world of your choice. Machinima book author Lowe Runo and virtual filmmaker Belinda Barnes help the audience visualize their teaching roles, along with Sonicity Fitzroy (RL, Phylis Johnson) who draws upon her six years of virtual teaching, RL/SL professional media experience, and real life on-air media coaching. It's role play, imagination, and stepping out of yourself onto the stage.

Adapted from the book, http://issuu.com/soniceproductions/docs/the_teaching_adventures_of_belinda_

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2496BlDGRY

Sonic Immersion Part I: Hearing is Believing, Case Study: Sound Studies in Second Life, Southern Illinois

Author(s): Dr. Phylis Johnson, Belinda Barnes

The light shines on a medieval village. Another spotlight falls on a tropical coastline. A cobblestone city street comes into view. The stage is set for a classroom experience that takes students through time, place - and sound. The Sonic Lab project connects students to the sounds of the past, present and future. They enter the virtual world in a medieval realm soaked with layered sounds ignited by one's presence and touch. Visitors acoustically engage into a soundscape rich with nature's lush greens and harbor sounds, and perhaps stop into the local tavern for a chat and music. Their travels take them to modern times, from Ragtime's Scott Joplin, to experimental masters Edgard Varese and John Cage, to those they have influenced, Reich, Zappa, The Beatles, Hendrix, Ramones, Riot Grrrls, and New York's alternative scene. This multi-layer sound lab is designed for online instruction, particularly intended for an immersive learning experience. Learn about our sim-wide stage, spanning four levels and 6 regions, as we unearth the sonic mysteries of sound, as noise, music and art. We will explain why we did this, and what we hope students will gain from this experience, be they interested in sound studies or not. This course is housed within our media program and part of the core curriculum at our university. It was funded in large part by a course development grant awarded by SIUC's Distance Education program for Summer 2013. I will be presenting with my SIU team. I will be the lead moderator for this event. The land is a full sim, Virlantis, led by Southern Illinois University Carbondale in partnership with University of Western Australia as part of a three year agreement. The sound project is the first component of a larger plan of virtual media studies, primarily in machinima. Thanks to Bel's World Productions and Lowe Runo Productions for their support.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJZmVEcOR1Q

Using Virtual World Simulators (Second Life) in Human Services Course Assignments

Author(s): Dr. Scott P. Anstadt, Belinda Bruster

Demonstration of the LM hub of Spiritgate using a bridge assignment between Human Behavior in the Social Environment and Practice I (clinical applications). Such best practices integrate assignments between courses across the human services curriculum in higher education, expanding student knowledge of diverse study of religious and cultural frameworks. The experience brings the assignment to life, increasing student engagement and sensitivity. Learning Outcomes 1. Introduced and demonstrate Spiritgate Hub of Spiritual Landmarks in SL incorporating exploratory assignments. 2. Learn teaching obstacles to face. Overcome them through training and assignment design bridging RL classroom with SL. 3. Become knowledgeable in instructing students to locate a vast range of worldwide resources authentically portrayed in SL.

Immersive Language Pilot Project on Second Life

Author(s): Edith Paillat, Betsy Quero

The immersive language pilot project on Second Life was initiated in 2012 and involved the use of Second Life for 3 language programmes taught at Victoria University of Wellington's School of Language and Cultures. The intend of this project is - to provide opportunities to interact naturally with native speakers, - to enhance students' cultural awareness by exploring various sims (RL and fantasy), - to (informally)measure students oral and written input and output compared to what they get in class - to gauge their level of engagement and motivation when immersed in a 3D virtual environment. Following the success of the project, lecturers have expressed their interest in continuing the project in the second trimester of 2013 and is currently in the planning phase. This presentation is a report of findings collated in the first stage of the project: this includes students and tutors impressions on their experience throughout the trimester and recommendations for implementation of such project in a university environment.

http://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/25586688

Designing and Depicting Detacean Interactions and Ecosystems

Author(s): Hajime Nishimura, Kenneth Y. T. Lim, Draceina Pinion, Dugong Janus

This session will use the example of the Abyss Observatory at Farwell as a case study of the thinking and decision-making behind the conceptualisation, design and development of a learning installation within Second Life which specifically depicts interactions within ecosystems in true-scale. Since 2007, the Abyss has sought to provide vicarious experiences for visitors, regarding various aspects of oceanographic and atmospheric study. Now in its fourth iteration, the Abyss Observatory at Farwell is designed by a team of architects primarily from Japan and Singapore. This session will be suitable for anyone thinking deeply about designing for similar immersive museum experiences for learning.

The Advantages of Live Performance and Life Lecturing in the 3D Environment

Author(s): Juliane Gabriel

Organizing events and performing in Secondlife since 2006 as well as being an experienced teacher and performer in RL gave me a lot of insight into the stru cture of performance in the Virtual World. Performing in the digital world is one of the most successful ways to hook people and connect them in a group. Performing is live moderation and the way to do that and the insights you gain from it can be used in many ways - also for lectures. (I am thinking of something like a virtual TED Talk here)

Accessibility in Virtual Environments

Author(s): Kevin Feenan

Going behind the stage means more than simply smoke and mirrors for those of us who are able bodied and capable of taking on a wide variety of tasks without the slightest second thought. Not everyone is so lucky however to have full access to the gifts that most of us take for granted. Accessibility concerns can be as minor as age-related maladies such as deterioration of eye-sight to much more extreme conditions that can take away a person's ability to use hands, feet, fingers, and toes. Educators have a unique opportunity to influence the manner and form by which virtual worlds development. This discussion will focus on the issues identified by Krueger and Stinement (2011). Specifically, this discussion panel will be looking at the following four components of virtual world accessibility to include a) where might accessibility be problematic, b) what are some of the proposed solutions, c) what, if anything, has changed since the paper was published in 2011, and d) what can we do about it now. This discussion will use both voice and text. Transcription will be provided Reference Krueger, A., and Stineman, M. G. (2011) Assistive Technology Interoperability between Virtual and Real Worlds. Journal of Virtual Worlds Research 4(3). Retrieved on June 6, 2013 from http://journals.tdl.org/jvwr/index.php/jvwr/article/view/6125

Beyond the Stage

Author(s): Kevin Feenan

What do we mean when we say "Beyond the Stage"? To some it means the extension of education into new virtual worlds. To others it echoes William Shakespeare's poem from which "all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts". This lecture provides one view point which suggests that it is both of these and yet neither. Education is not simply the presentation of ideas but rather the establishment of context and emotional connection with the potential such knowledge conveys. The stage on which these ideas are presented plays as much a role as the substance of those ideas themselves. That includes the management of supporting players and technology which frame the environment in which learning takes place.

This lecture looks at the interweaving between how social constructions of reality, language, frames of reference, power and psychology form a tapestry that is bound by a time, a place, and a certain amount of random change to influence those charges to whom the stage is not just a platform for dissemination of knowledge, but a way of being.

By the end of this lecture participants should gain a greater appreciation for some of the complexities in knowledge sharing going beyond the stage for both virtual and real-world environments.

Think Different

Author(s): Kevin Feenan

10 years of Second Life later and people are still asking the questions: why second life? why virtual worlds for education? The answer is simple. Because these types of virtual environments force us to 'think different'.

Kuhn (1970) identified the connection between language and paradigm by showing the way we describe problem sets limits our ability to identify new solutions to problems when we lack the language to describe the problem in the first place. This is not a matter of thinking differently by looking at the problem through different lenses but rather a matter of how to think different by forcing us to re-evaluate the way in which problems are described in the first place.

Virtual worlds help to make this possible. This presentation will highlight some of the methods and techniques, for example the integration of critical discourse analysis and cooperative learning strategies, that can be used to help educators and students think different by peeling away the box and getting to those aspects of critical thinking necessary for innovation and creativity.

Reference Kuhn, T. (1970). The structure of scientific revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Language Quests and Learning Analytics in Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Education

Author(s): Klaus Hammermuller

To make it more adaptable to the interest I would like to offer a more interactive form, like a workshop. We have a lot of courses delivered together with various learning institutions (universities and public schools) in Central Europe, Scandinavia and Italy. For illustration we will provide:

Example learning analytics (graphs and conclusions)
Images from students at work and screenshots
our own video material if appropriate

Links would be http://next-tell.eu and http://euroversity.eu for general information.

Bringing Best Brain Health Practices into Second Life

Author(s): Lynne Berrett

Brain Health is an active research topic in psychology, neuroscience, gerontology, and the arts. We are learning that people can do a great deal to protect their brains from harm and promote new brain growth at all stages of life, right to the end. This requires an acquaintance with research, especially concerning lifestyles that support brain fitness and those that do not.

There is great value in doing this kind of education in virtual worlds. It can be highly experiential as well as didactic. That is, people can practice relevant outworld activities virtually and get real benefit from them. They can meet with others to discuss and reflect on their responses to brain-healthy activities, which solidifies their learning. People who cannot attend in-person programs outworld for various reasons can also have access to crucial new learning inworld. Learning can be both enlightening and fun and can carry over into outworld lifestyle improvements. These are the goals of the experiential/didactic education I do in Second Life, as I will illustrate in my presentation.

Learning Objectives:

Participants will be able to cite the results of at least 3 major kinds of research currently being done to identify healthy- brain lifestyles.
Participants will be able to explain what a holistic approach to brain health is and why it is so valuable.
Participants will clearly understand the 5 specific areas of daily life that are key to pay attention to for long-term brain fitness.
Participants will be able to identify at least 5 activities that can contribute to a brain-healthy lifestyle in virtual worlds.
Participants will take away ideas on how to transfer this learning from virtual worlds to life outworld.

Virtual Reality in Teacher Education

Author(s): Marlo Steed

During the spring of 2013 a university course was taught entitled, "Virtual Reality in Education" to a group of preservice teachers. The course took place inside an OpenSim environment. This presentation will share instructional design decisions, student/instructor experiences, and lessons learned. It will identify a rationale for VR worlds in education and identify limitations and potential problems. The affordances of Virtual Reality environments will be discussed in terms of how those can be leveraged for learning. This includes a sense of place, kinesthetic movement, object identity, self-presence, collaborative presence, and creation. The presentation will conclude with a brainstorming session for integrating this in teacher education and K-12 environments.

The Lost Generation Meets Second Life: Teaching Literature in a Virtual World

Author(s): Michael Dadez, Diane Clarity (SL), Faculty2 Lionheart (SL)

Discover how applying “immersion learning” combined with technology can provide an authentic learning experience for adult learners within Second Life. I mmersion Learning activities are designed to place learners in a context that allows them to take control of their learning experience similar to learning a language while living in a foreign country.

An activity within the Survey of Major Writers of the 20th Century course offered by Saint Leo University’s Center for Online Learning allows learners to digitally experience the world in which Ernest Hemingway lived and worked. A scenario designed and developed within Second Life submerges learners into the Paris Café, Closerie des Lilas, where Hemingway wrote A Moveable Feast. While in the café, learners have an opportunity to communicate via conversation prompts with Hemingway’s avatar as well as avatars for Gertrude Stein and Pablo Picasso. Hemingway, Stein, and Picasso frequented this café on the Place St. Michel in the 1920s.

Prior to their Second Life experience, learners receive preparation so that they will have a successful immersion experience.

Students are exposed to major influences of the time in the arts, like Pablo Picasso and Gertrude Stein, who will later become part of the students’ Second Life experience. Students receive training in accessing and navigating within the virtual world by the technical expert who designed and developed the scenario rather than their professor who is a subject matter expert involved with the content.

This ongoing assignment has been effectively included within this course for the past 18 8-week terms, since Fall 2010. A testimony from one of the students attests “After navigating through the program, I’m compelled to read the novel again to immerse myself further into the experience. This was an ingenious concept of incorporating modern technology into the digestion of a timeless literary classic.”

This presentation will include details on implementation, lessons learned, and feedback from students who engaged with this scenario during the past three years.

Using Creative Tools for Learning in Second Life

Author(s): Niela Miller

For the past five years, we have been developing unique ways to use the tools of SL to explore creative process in many forms. These include arts processes such as creating self-portraits with photos and digital drawing, building and texturing symbolic objects, having improvisational sessions with artists and musicians, storytelling and role playing, and applying psychological models, particularly Gestalt and Jungian. These methods are aimed at producing personal insight, tracking our ways of learning, investigating our creative processes, building community, or applying tools to subject matter explorations. Since the emphasis is on the creative process, the goal can be anything relevant to those using the tools. In this session we will

Introduce the kinds of programs and tools offered at Octagon: Creative Exploration in Second Life
Engage participants in a discussion about their own creative process especially as it relates to teaching/learning.
Do a demonstration in SL, with one person, of a process using a prim structure and textures to represent a problem or learning goal (or show a video on my website) and or/a drawing board.

This session is for educators who want to learn an approach to using Second Life technology themselves or as a student tool for exploring ideas, values, opinions, and subject matter symbolically or metaphorically.

The Stage - The Mathematics

Author(s): Rebecca Reiniger, D. Cooper Patterson, Anna-Marie Roberston

Using Virtual Worlds To Do The Impossible: Control Students, the Environment AND Manipulate More Objects Than Physically Possible. Mathematical content, not feasible to illustrate in physical reality but foundational to our understanding of number and algebra, can only be achieved in a 3D immersive classroom. This interactive workshop will showcase our class management tools but focus on the shape and pattern of numbers. Our visualization ceme nts student’s understanding of number meaning and algebraic operations. Come test your ability to see!

http://www.slideshare.net/RebeccaLynne68/data-tables-for-differences-seg-square-cube

Share the Black Crayon – Collaborative Superhero Teams

Author(s): Renne Brock-Richmond

Lead by example. Share the spotlight instead of fighting over control or the black crayon, so that people reveal and utilize their superpowers. Immersive environments, like Second Life, open opportunities for educators to expand beyond the classroom by including worldwide professional guests, virtual and physical field trips, and community building inquiry and impact on screen and off. Learn to establish educational experiences that build teams and encour age students to discover their superpowers through developing authentic avatars, fostering clear, confident communication, assigning responsibility, and cultivating respect.

http://www.slideshare.net/renneemiko/share-the-black-crayon-collaborative-superhero-teams

Exit Big Grids Stage Left: Independent Grids for Virtual Biology and Archaeology Education

Author(s): Stephen Gasior

The Virtual Islands for Better Education is a collaborative of college and K-12 educators and virtual world builders looking to leverage OpenSim for learning activities. The OpenSim affordances of inexpensive land, transportable archives, and self-hosting capabilities means virtual activities can be duplicated, customized, and monitored in ways commercial grids can not. What our panel will cover is our experience moving lessons from Second Life to Opensim, usage by college students for genetics and global health, usage by 4th graders for biodiversity, and construction of massive Creative Commons literature libraries.

Above the Clouds - Browser-based 3D Learning with Moodle, Cloud Party and Voice Services!

Author(s): Tanja Vejvoda

Kamedia’s language Village outlines the efficient combination of a LMS and virtual worlds. The Language Village can be used either as a kind of 3D Tool in your LMS, or your LMS can inworld be used to provide content. Additionally, our Language Village includes a solution, which enables the integration of voice in Cloud Party. The Language Village consists of a realistic reproduction of a German city and includes little learning units in the virtual world. Our learning objectives for the participants will contain a guided tour through a part of our language village to take a look behind the scenes. The main possibilities for language acquisition in-world will be presented and the participants can of course try the features out for themselves.

Global Connectivity through Implementing Virtual Worlds across Time, Space, and Age

Author(s): Valerie Hill, Renne Brock-Richmond,

Stylianos Mystakidis, Adriana Sanchez, Elizabeth Dorland, Terry Howells Graduates of the University of Washington Certificate in Virtual Worlds (Classes from 2009-2013) share examples of educational uses of virtual worlds on a global scale at all age levels from kindergarten through college and beyond. Participatory culture has overtaken traditional educational settings and virtual worlds are one medium that provides critical thinking on deeper levels than most online formats.

http://www.slideshare.net/valibrarian/vwbpe2013to-slideshare

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Epzzu6WskaQ&feature=share&list=UUrxwLEmZILcl74lwKx2wJSQ

Andragons, the Shape of Learning

Author(s): William Krebs, John "Pathfinder" Lester

Traditional face to face classrooms feature tables, chairs, and presentation boards. Online analogs may include webcam and shared documents. Emerging 3d platforms allow learners to collaborate with a sense of shared venue. But what constitutes good design? Is a web cam conference and slide deck good enough? How can we design spatial rooms to aide the learning without distraction? Read a catalog of known patterns and a proposed taxonomy to expose the theory behind them, and tour an example environment.

Track 3: Exploration of Virtual Worlds (Post‐Conference MOOC)

Loire Games and Design Thinking

Author(s): Dr. Cynthia Calongne

Loire is an immersive virtual environment that blends a virtual world with a Moodle LMS, a conferencing tool, Sloodle and a variety of games including multiplayer educational roleplaying games (MPERGs). We are researchers and educators who blend content between design SL, MOSES, Opensim custom builds and host workshops and classes in Loire. Join us as we explore learning game design and integrated learning opportunities in Loire.

Sonic Immersion Part II: Hearing is Believing, Case Study: Sound Studies in Second Life, Southern Illinois

Author(s): Dr. Phylis Johnson

The light shines on a medieval village. Another spotlight falls on a tropical coastline. A cobblestone city street comes into view. The stage is set for a classroom experience that takes students through time, place - and sound. The Sonic Lab project connects students to the sounds of the past, present and future. They enter the virtual world in a medieval realm soaked with layered sounds ignited by one's presence and touch. Visitors acoustically engage into a soundscape rich with nature's lush greens and harbor sounds, and perhaps stop into the local tavern for a chat and music. Their travels take them to modern times, from Ragtime's Scott Joplin, to experimental masters Edgard Varese and John Cage, to those they have influenced, Reich, Zappa, The Beatles, Hendrix, Ramones, Riot Grrls, and New York's alternative scene. This multi-layer sound lab is designed for online instruction, particularly intended for an immersive learning experience. Come to our sim-wide stage, spanning four levels and 6 regions and listen for yourself, as we unearth the sonic mysteries of sound, as noise, music and art. We will explain why we did this, and what we hope students will gain from this experience, be they interested in sound studies or not. This course is housed within our media program and part of the core curriculum at our university. It was funded in large part by a course development grant awarded by SIUC's Distance Education program for Summer 2013. I will be presenting with my SIU team. I will be the lead moderator for this event. The land is a full sim, Virlantis, led by Southern Illinois University Carbondale in partnership with University of Western Australia as part of a three year agreement. The sound project is the first component of a larger plan of virtual media studies, primarily in machinima. Thanks to Bel's World Productions and Lowe Runo Productions for their support.

Tour to Innovation UWE Island, Home of the MA Education in Virtual Worlds

Author(s): Dr. Maricarmen Gil

We will explore the main environments in SL where students and tutors of the MA in Education Virtual Worlds have their weekly meetings. We will visit the library, where we will be able to ask bots to help us find interesting resources, to do team work such as sorting out a jigsaw puzzle and then find together the different places in the island represented in the puzzle. We will go to the sandbox to see students work and the building and simulations they carried out for their assignments. We will go to the harbour and its fun fair and the pub. We will go into a balloon ride. We will drum and dance at the beach. Above all we will have fun. No specific requirements for this tour.

Touring Through Independent Grids for Virtual Biology and Archaeology Education

Author(s): Stephen Gasior

The Virtual Islands for Better Education is a collaborative of college and K-12 educators and virtual world builders looking to leverage OpenSim for learning activities. The OpenSim affordances of inexpensive land, transportable archives, and self-hosting capabilities means virtual activities can be duplicated, customized, and monitored in ways commercial grids can not. This tour will showcase the OpenSim grids: Genome Island, BIOME, Nova Archaeology, South Africa Traveler, and Project Alexandria. More information is available at our http://wiki.bio-se.info

Wander Weird Worlds

Author(s): William Krebs

Challenge! How many worlds can you visit? Many tools for distributed collaboration exist. Some are similar, such as instances of OpenSim, and Second Life. But some are very different in concept and abilities. Are some even worlds? Get your virtual running shoes on, take your quest card, and prepare to visit as many diverse worlds as you can. We will visit Sococo, VenueGen, Jibe, avayalive engage, Google Hangouts, SpotOn3d, and more! Your quest card will help us gather research data on these emerging platforms. Your tour guide, AgileBill, is certified in virtual worlds from the University of Washington, on the Board of Rockcliffe, a Masters of EdTech student, and has run both a 3dGameLab quest chain exploring virtual worlds as well as an Agile Project Management MOOC. Get ready to explore!

Virtual Museums in Avayalive Engage

Author(s): Joe Rigby

AVAYALIVE ENGAGE is based on a web embedded version of the UNREAL game engine from EPIC. It allows for the development of complex high poygon m odel content and concurrency of up tp 100 avatars. VOIP is configured automatically with 3D surround audio.We would like to present a small sample of the platform using a virtual dinosaur museum and ancient egyptian temple if time permits.

Sim-on-a-Stick in Primary Schools

Author(s): Lisa Jackson

Since January 2012 Kate Booth and Lisa Jacka have implemented the use of the open sim virtual world sim-on-a-stick with primary school students and teachers in Northern NSW, Australia. The success they have had is described in their award winning paper “What about the firewall? Creating virtual worlds in a public primary school using sim-on-a-stick”. A major barrier to using virtual worlds in schools is the security filters that restrict student s access to certain Internet content. Sim-on-a-stick has provided access to an opensim environment in which students have created content and responded to learning outcomes in a visually stimulating and engaging manner. Kate and Lisa will present a range of student work (K-6) displayed on JoykadiaGRID and discuss the links to syllabus outcomes. Students who have created the work will also be in world to comment on their experiences.

Track 4: Featured Panel

Resident Run Help Centers: Teaching New Users about Second Life

Author(s): Carl Henderson

A round table discussion (moderated by Carl Metropolitan) with the leaders of some of Second Life's most highly-regarded new user help areas. Panelists include (tentative commitments): Gentle Heron (Virtual Ability), Martini Discovolante (Caledon Oxbridge), Wellington Beam (NCI), and Sensuous Maximus (Builder's Brewery).

Track 5: Games and Simulations

Just Add Content; Adventures on the Path to Immersive Game Facilitation

Author(s): Dr. Allen Partridge

Creating pedagogicaly and androgogically sound educational objectives for your learning can be a daunting challenge when you add a third dimension, physic s and the potential for kinetic manipulation into the mix. The average educator is unlikely to consider custom object scripting or interactions in order to facilitate learning in a virtual world. This session examines an approach to these problems which simplifies the creation of interactive virtual objects that are configured to meet common educational objectives, and which can be easily modified to suit the immediate needs of the learning. Just Add Content, summarizes a fundamental philosophy toward facilitating virtual world training and education - the teacher shouldn't have to be a programmer, to create great educational games and interactions in the virtual world. This session will explain how these components have been developed, how they have been used, and reveal the latest innovations in educational game creation tools that make the virtual world more friendly than ever for creating great learning materials.

Learning in Minecraft - Massively @jokaydia and Project Mist

Author(s): Jokay Wollongong

Join the kids from the Massively @ jokaydia and Project Mist Communities to hear about the amazing learning they are undertaking in Minecraft! The session will include presentations by both players (kids aged 10 - 16 years) and facilitators and will focus on the learning outcomes they are achieving - including digital literacy and collaboration skills, communication and literacy skills, technical skills including server administration and programming, and creative content creation skills. After our presentation, participants will be invited to visit our Minecraft servers to see and explore the amazing creations kids are making in our worlds. About Massively @ jokaydia Massively @jokaydia is a Minecraft-based community for kids aged 4 - 16 years, and has a community of more than 600 players from around the world. It is facilitated by Jo Kay - virtual Worlds and Games Consultant, jokaydia.com. The Massively community has a focus on informal, playful learning and is designed to empower kids and parents to choose their own learning pathways and adventures together. It is not a school-based project, but rather a safe environment where kids can choose to engage in projects and activities which allow them to develop digital literacy and collaboration skills and most importantly be free to explore their creativity in a multiplayer environment which is fun, engaging and safe. Our project also supports a 'gamified' awards system which allows kids to complete missions and challenges and 'level up' to gain access to additional features and environments in our mines, and most importantly to take on leadership roles in the community including facilitation positions as jnr moderators and as server administrators who help with technical support and planning. About Project Mist Project Mist is a Minecraft-based learning project created for students from grades 8, 9 and 10 at Riverside High School in Tasmania, Australia and is facilitated by Donelle Batty. The main goals of the project have not been to teach about the game specifically, but rather to develop and showcase a large group of skills and benefits that sit alongside and behind the game including collaboration, creativity, problem-solving and communication skills. The Project Mist students run the server, manage the community and devise ways of increasing engagement as a result of the leadership roles that they take on. The students engage in rich conversations to problem solve issues that arise as a result of community interaction and community needs. A key focus for the Project Mist community has been the development of the charter that underpins the way we work with each other. Students have an understanding of the power of community and the need for boundaries when working with large groups of people in one space that is focused on educational outcomes.

Spicy Vanilla - Building on the Shoulders of Others

Author(s): John Wallace, Scott Grant, Mychael Lederer-Morihisa

A group of educators and builders with decades of combined experience in virtual worlds, Spicy Vanilla aims to promote collaboration in the design of top- shelf educational content. Its first project—the Basic Skills Gauntlet—will be presented as both a work in progress and a working, complete activity. The activity is designed as a game, to assess a new user’s proficiency with a few of the basic skills needed to interact in the virtual world (such as using pose-balls, camera control, etc.). New users are often asked to explore educational content soon after registering an avatar in SecondLife™ or OpenSimulator. With no practice beyond orientation, lacking experience with interacting and using the many features of the client viewer, how can we expect them to succeed on their own? The collaborative process itself, along with design principles and techniques revealed in the process, will also be a part of the presentation. "When someone experiments and innovates in a transparent manner, we are able to learn more than simply the content. Observers learn the process and method of innovation in design and delivery of learning materials." — George Siemens The plan for this inaugural Spicy Vanilla project is to produce an open source, bare-bones kit, one that can be customized for use in any region, modified to fit any theme.

Going Beyond the Stage: Virtual Preparation for Global Health Experiences

Author(s): Rachel Umoren, Eva Comaroski, Natalia Rybas, Jill Helphinstine

Currently, opportunities for global health experiences are available to nearly all health profession students. Even though beneficial, the university-based programs in global health are limited in providing on-site training because of cost, safety, and ethics reasons. The use of virtual sites for synchronous or asynchronous global health training provides an opportunity to enhance learning in the aspects of medical knowledge, language learning, inter-professional and international collaboration, and cultural understanding. Such incorporation of technology in the medical training curriculum promotes innovative engagement in developing practical skills and applicable knowledge required for experiential learning by health professionals.

Confessions of a Quest Designer

Author(s): William Krebs

Gamification in education is a popular topic. Dr. Chris Haskell has done dissertation research showing how the structure of a series of connected volunt ary quests can increase student engagement and provide course feedback. But want to does it feel like from a new designer's perspective?

After this talk people will learn:

a) how gamifcation structres can be added to enhance learning

b) How to consider and balance the choices in these structures

c) What data to look for during and after the couse

Learners will understand if they would like to try their hand a quest design, and if they do, they will have a head start on knowing the key factors in doing so.

Track 6: K‐12

Kids Learning Science and More in a Virtual World

Author(s): Dr. Carolyn Lowe, Amy Pihlainen

A group of students, grades 5-7, using Biome for exploring and learning biology have demonstrated that learning goes far beyond just the content. Assess ments demonstrated the students’ mastery of the content; and their excitement with the experience increased their motivation to learn and demonstrate higher level understanding of the concepts. This presentation will showcase the learning experience; explain logistics of working with a K-12 school, and ho w this experience has affected our perceptions of using a virtual world for K-12. Participants will also see examples of the student work, and hear how the experience influenced the students in unexpected ways.

Early College Second Life Program and North Carolina New Schools

Author(s): Dr. Sharon Kibbe, Paul LaMere

This lecture would showcase the effectiveness of the Early College Second Life Program which has been in operation since 2009, serving area school districts with coursework taught by ECU faculty through the virtual world of Second Life. Over 170 students have completed 18-24 hours of college credit through the ECSLP. The counties providing their students with this opportunity are: Greene, Lenoir, and Pitt County School Districts in NC. Because of the success of the program, in January 2013, East Carolina University was approached by North Carolina New Schools to offer additional high school students a state-wide dual-credit program. This partnership will enable the ECSLP to be expanded to 18 high schools in 10 counties participating in the iRIS grant with North Carolina New Schools. Currently the districts in the ECSLP/NC iRIS program for the 2013-2014 year are: Beaufort Surry Rutherford Hertford Madison. Through the iRIS project, the ECSLP will prepare students for college by providing a college-ready academic program, exposing them to college culture, assisting the students and parents with understanding financial aid information and college costs, and aligning a sequence of college courses with their high school program in order to achieve 12-24 hours of college credit. The lecture will demonstrate some of the simulations used, what courses were taught, discuss the type of student, and how to implement such a program. This approach to early college credits changes the relationship between the students and their college experience by providing them access to university resources such as Admissions, the Registrar, Career Services, Special Programs, and Student Life. When students enter the university environment, they have already gone through university requirements and expectations. They also understand the rigor of a college class and are better prepared to meet university curriculum standards. All students receive special permission for the Superintendent of the school system to attend university classes regardless of age. Anyone from the age of 16+ is able to enter Second Life and is then brought to the ECSLP educational space where the classes are conducted.

Exploring the Possibilities and Challenges in Using 3-D Virtual Learning Environment for Teaching

Author(s): Kwesi Yaro

The use of technology in lesson delivery is increasing dramatically. Teachers who underestimate this exponential growth risk becoming irrelevant in the education circles. In recent times the passion for the use of technology by learners, especially K-12 cannot be underestimated. The use of Web 2.0 technologies like Facebook, twitter, Myspace have gained much prominence not only as social networks but also for educational purposes. In recent times the attention is gradually shifting from the use of this Web 2.0 by educators to the use of Multi-User Virtual Environment (MUVE) such as “Open Sim” which allows educators to lead learners through experiential and game base learning using simulated environment or learning resources for content delivery. This educational learning environment gives learners the opportunity to try out several tasks as many times as possible in a very safe environment using interactive virtual equipment and resources that otherwise could be scarce or dangerous to work with in real world. The use of this virtual environment promotes community building and collaborative learning through interaction or sharing of ideas.

This article introduces readers to Open Sim - a platform for creating a virtual environment. In doing so, it describes some features and applications of the Open sim. Drawn from my own research, the article explores the possibilities in the use ‘Open sim’ for educational purpose and its associate challenges.

Bringing Great Literature to the Digital Generation

Author(s): Theresa Kinney-Johnson, David Fliesen

Today’s kids are surrounded by highly interactive media that speed dials their learning processes. They gain new skills in a much different way than their parents did, creating a mandate for today's educators to consider new approaches and technologies. Explore how the HyperMedia Generation learns and connect these methods to traditional education studies and standards. With the “Mind of Edgar Allan Poe” exhibit in Cloud Party, we hope to encourage EXPLORATION - Discover the path to experiential learning with immersive storytelling of several of Edgar Allan Poe's works. SOCIALIZATION - Encourage students to share their experiences through collaborative discussions about the stories of greatest interest to each of them. INTERPRETATION - Compare and contrast the horror of Poe’s work to today’s contemporary telling story, such as TV series (The Following and Hannibal), Movies (World War Z), and Games (Mad Max and The Walking Dead-Survival). The idea is not to exclude the out of world experience, but rather include the inworld experience in the student's studies as part of a over all learning experience. As expressed before, students learn differently than past generations and expect and even need a more interactive approach. By providing Experiential EduScenes like Mind of Poe, the students can catch sound bite images of Poe's work - just enough to get them interested and open to the idea of reading more as part of a lesson plan.

The suggested case usage is as follows:

Teachers to introduce them to the theme, American Literature and Edgar Allan Poe in particular

Tying Poe's works to relevant media of today, such as the TV series, The Following

Introducing them to The Mind of Poe exhibit, letting them tour around the many stories available and letting them chose which of Poe's works they would like to research.

Have the students work in group collaboratively, researching Poe's life, discovering his standing amoungst his writing peers in his time and how that has changed over time.

Finding the connections between his work and today's horror stories.

Following Poe's style, create their own horror short story and illustrating it in on of the Web World version, using the assets available in The Mind of Poe exhibit.

In this way, The Mind of Poe helps students to learn the following skills:

Understanding Literature and its value in education

Comprehension

Comparison Theory

Allusional Techniques in Writing

Analytical & Cognitive Thinking

Building of Collaborative Skills

Building of Technical & Written Skills via Google Docs for Collaborative Writing

Track 7: Machinima

The Vowels of Machinima Production

Author(s): Barbara McQueen, Jens Kaer Olsen

Whether you are making machinimas by yourself or with others, it helps to approach the task in a systematic way. After teaching several MachinEVO ma chinima creation seminars, Jens Kjaer Olsen (aka Jens Nerido) and I have come up with a way to accomplish everything that needs to be done while using the vowels of the English language as a memory aid. During our presentation, we will have you do a series of quick exercises to illustrate how students or peers might work together to create outstanding machinimas that showcase student progress or yield language-teaching materials for your future use.

http://www.slideshare.net/bmcqueen2/vwbpe-2013-the-vowels-of-machinima-production

Creating Machinima for Language Learning

Author (s): Christel Schneider, Carol Rainbow

The machinima provided in this presentation demonstrate how the use of 3D worlds and/or the creation of machinima can enhance language learning. Machinima is a technique for making videos or films from 3D virtual spaces using screen-capture programs. In machinima the virtual world, its inhabitants and all their actions in it are captured ‘on film’. Machinima allow people to document their activities and experiences in virtual worlds. Machinima are very powerful in giving students the opportunity to keep evidence of their *creations or activities in a role play and provide fo od for thought and discussion afterwards. Creating their own scenarios encourages students to practice reporting back from places of virtual worlds visited and analyzing their presentation skills when recording their performance. Machinima are also a powerful tool for creative narratives or interv iews which could also include real life footage such as Skype and recordings on mobile devices. This presentation provides examples of different genres of machinima such as Narratives, Jokes and Riddles, Interviews, Informative Videos, Language Teaching Scenarios(shopping, selling and buying), Idioms, Phrasal Verbs etc.

Keywords: Machinima, Virtual Worlds, SecondLife, Language Teaching.

PREREQUISITES: Prerequisites for the workshop are that attendees download a free trial version of Camtasia

http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.html in order to be able to actively participate and produce their own little machinima.

Part 1 – the presentation: http://youtu.be/8zoPtH_t2Xs

Part 2- the workshop: http://youtu.be/0PDMnQTAlq0

Outcome of the workshop: ‘At the Airport’ http://youtu.be/SwAWfiNMZNc

Virtual Field Trips for Homeschoolers to Explore and Archive U.S. and World History Knowledge Using Screenflow

Author(s): Dr. Chris Deason

My lecture will describe the processes of getting homeschoolers involved with virtual field trips within Second Life to explore and archive U.S. and World History knowledge. Machinima-based assessments will be discussed. Various United States history-based locations in Second Life will be discussed. In addition, this lecture will discuss the technical aspects of using Screenflow like files sizes, cloud-based storage options, and sharing learner's projects within the Internet Archive (http://archive.org/) and learner's parents. This lecture will encourage rich discussions with the attendees to gather advice and feedback for using Second Life and Machinima to supplement United States and World History textbooks and United States History curriculum.

Turning Film Noir into Fun Noir– Creating a Narrative-Driven Interactive Online Environment

Author(s): Pauline Woolley

The Blackened Mirror is, on one level, a film noir drama in the form of an online video series that expands into other genres as it progresses. But it’s also a series of online games where the prizes can be items to keep, information to learn – or an opportunity to become a character within the game. It is a study in how the power of narrative can be used to drive social media and game interactions, and how we can utilise social media to further pedagogical needs.

A key part in the creation of The Blackened Mirror, Pauline Wooley will be talking about the techniques used to create the series, the use of various forms of social media in publicising the show and driving the narrative forward (with characters having their own Twitter or Live Journal streams). She’ll also be talking about the evolving nature of the games and how they moved from practical rewards to rewarding with information with the ultimate prizes being the opportunity to enter the environment. And she’ll also be talking about how Peter Jurasik (the actor who played Londo in Babylon 5) became part of the project! You can see the website that supported the show at: http://www.theblackenedmirror.com/ Episodes are available here: http://www.theblackenedmirror.com/category/episodes/ This is a presentation for people wanting to explore how narratives and games can be used to create and drive interactive media with strong applications for learning environments.

Track 8: Panels and Roundtables

Virtual worlds, from Unknown to Known: What We Have Done and What We Can Do More on Education

Author(s): Dr. Hsiao-Cheng Han, Kwesi Yaro, Takako (Yoriko) Gillard, Denise Haugh, Diana Ihnatovych, Chen Liu

When education happens in a virtual world, the possibilities and restrictions are different from a real world educational environment. In one virtual world, The University of British Columbia’s Open Sim: VIEW (Virtual Immersive Education World), the students of this class created their own educational environments in which they demonstrated a 20-30 minute lesson on one of the following subject areas - math, music, language, and civic education. In th is panel discussion, the students will share their experiences on the positive and negative aspects involved in creating their virtual worlds, as well as the knowledge and experiences gained from such a process. We will also raise the opportunities and challenges for discussion.

The World has Talent - Champions of Education in VWs

Author(s): Evelyn McElhinney

3D virtual worlds offer affordances for education like no other platform. However they can be daunting for new teachers. Organisations like the Virtual World Education Roundtable offer a supportive environment to meet and engage with a variety of educators from around the world. VWBPE allows for these educators to participate in a professional conference and showcase their work. However, certain individual educational technologists, educators, builders, scriptors and volunteers have made the transition from the physical to virtual world easier by their support, inspiring builds and by volunteering their time. This has led to a strong educational community which has led to international collaborations and friendships which continue and go beyond the VWs. The aim of this Roundtable (possible panel) will be to celebrate the work of these individuals and organisations once again giving the community a chance to tell us all why and who is their champions of VW education.

Total Language Training

Author(s): Heike Philps

This symposium on how virtual worlds will define the future of language will be attended to by a group of practitioners in language education. During the 1.5 hour symposium the panel will discuss and present the latest on tele-collaboration and EU funded projects (AVALON, EUROVERSITY, CAMELOT, NEXTELL), informal and formal language learning, immersive games and teaching tools, role-play and emoting, machinima and digital story telling, holodecks, tours and events.

Slides:

http://www.slideshare.net/letstalkonline/camelot-and-the-mists-of-avalon

Blog with presentation and chat transcript:

http://avalon-project.ning.com/profiles/blogs/keynote-vwbpe-heike-philp-camelot

One Big World

Author(s): Kevin Feenan

Virtual worlds had a big promise back in 2007. The world was going to be virtual. Everyone would have an avatar. 3D wouldn't just be a freakshow but would become part of our everyday lives and the way in which we interact socially and economically with Second Life leading the charge into this new era. Then in 2009 came the bomb. A series of failed policy decisions by Linden Lab resulting in a fracturing of the social community leading to some extremely innovative new product launchings including OpenSim, Open Wonderland, Blue Mars, and CloudParty among others. Despite this fracturing there is still an incredible thirst for the development of economic systems which are capable of managing the micro-economic concerns of virtual transactions that are capable of supporting social networks built on open source models. Recent decisions by the U.S. Treasury Department, which are specifically aimed at the Linden Dollar (Kadochnikov, 2013), have huge ramifications for all virtual worlds which need to find a reasonable compromise between the Linden Lab model and the monetary policies of state nations that limit the ability of these virtual networks to be truly global in size and scope. This discussion forum will tackle some of these issues and what it could mean for all virtual world technologies. This discussion forum will use mixed voice and text. Reference Kadochnikov, A. (2013) Linden Dollar. Another virtual currency affected by FinCEN. Retrieved on June 14, 2013 from http://www.epaylaw.com/2013/04/04/linden-dollar-another-virtual-currency-affected-by-fincen/

Challenges of Creating an Immersive Learning Environment in Second Life

Author(s): Lori Wahl, C. Brian Cleveley, LuAnn Phillips, SeAnne Safaii, K.D. Hatheway-Dial

The panel has developed simulations in Second Life at the University of Idaho islands (Financial Capability, Intrepid Healthy Lifestyle Hunter, Uidah o Diabetes Living) and Cooperative Extension’s Morrill islands (LiveAbility Home, Food Safety, Avian Influenza Prevention). Challenges encountered have been delivering large content in small spaces and the balance of signage and environment for wayfinding. Participants will understand the need to consider learning goals, user interaction, target audience, user communication and assessment at the planning stage before designing begins. The panel discussion will allow attendees to hear multiple viewpoints on solutions to some basic challenges that could apply to other platforms.

Track 9: Posters

ISTE/VISTE: EdTech Communities

Author(s): Vasili Giannoutsos

The poster session will be a joint collaboration between International Society for Technology in Education- Special Interest Group Virtual Environments (ISTE SIGVE) and Virginia Society for Technology in Education (VSTE). Both Organizations have been long time proponents for virtual worlds and have presences in Second Life. ISTE SIGVE holds meetings every Tuesday and Thursday from SIM tours, round table discussions and synchronous Speakers. VSTE has meetings every Monday with building tutorials, professional development activities and inworld social gatherings. Both groups like to assist new Users and are a hub to other online educational resources.

Virtual Pioneers Explore History

Author(s): Andrew Wheelock, Serena Offcourse (SL)

Our poster session will give Second Life avatars information about our group that explores history and culture in Second Life primarily. We meet every other Sunday to take tours or have presentations to learn about history and culture.

The Australian and New Zealand Virtual Worlds Working Group: A Collaborative Community of Practice

Author(s): Sue Gregory

The Australian and New Zealand Virtual Worlds Working Group has an informal membership of around 200 members with an interest in education and virtual worlds within the Australian and New Zealand context. Members come from a variety of academic disciplines and may be teaching or research academics, Research Higher Degree candidates, project managers, virtual world builders and developers. The group acts as an informal Community of Practice, facilitating learning and the transfer of skills through social contact, opportunities to collaborate on projects and publications, and through the sharing of knowledge and experience. This poster provides a snapshot of the activity of this highly active group.

RejuveNation Island: Attentional Restoration for Pre-Service Teachers in Second Life

Author(s): Dr. Helen Farley

RejuveNation Island was created in Second Life to provide a place where students could relax in an Australian bush landscape and foster their moveme nt and communication skills. The effects of the environment on students’ attention was tested through a series of computer-based tests to discover to what extent students’ attention was restored in the environment after an hour-long lecture. These results were compared and contrasted to those of students who relaxed in a park-like setting after the lecture. This paper explores the differences between the results of these two cohorts.

Encke Virtual University Collaboration: Bringing Educators Together in Second Life

Author(s): Dr. Helen Farley

The Encke Virtual University Collaboration brought educators from around the world to an island in Second Life to listen to some presen tations from experts in the field, embark on a series of field trips but most importantly to collaborate in teams around a number of topics including bots, communities of practice and gamification. Like the comet Encke, the Encke Virtual University Collaboration had a long tail, with a number of workshops and events, and collaborations developing over the following months.

Keeping a Virtual Campus Alive in Second Life

Author(s): Jessica Sanchez

The Center for Online Learning, Teaching & Technology began supporting the use of Second Life in an educational context in 2007. Six years later we cont inue to support our faculty and students that use SL and currently own four islands. This poster presentation will demonstrate the services provided our faculty and students at the University of Texas-Pan American. These include web-based and in-world tutorials, workshops, and video that support learning of basic navigation, building and scripting. The town layout of the islands also encourages creating and hosting university courses that promote immersive, real life learning, simulation, and problem solving. Courses that have used SL at the university include Business Management, Child Development, Criminal Justice, Drug Addictions, English Literature, Latin American Art Studies and more. We hope to grow in the number of faculty using Second Life as well as promoting it's awareness and educational application.

BEHIND THE SCENES - Number Patterns in Immersive Space

Author(s): Rebecca Reiniger

Using Virtual Worlds To Do The Impossible: Control Students, the Environment AND Manipulate More Objects Than Physically Possible. A virtual classroom demonstration of controlling student focus when desired, performing whole class interactivities, group interactivities, and individual activities, tracking student arrival/departure times, auto-generating seating arrangements all to facilitate the understanding of mathematical content that is not feasible to do in physical reality but so foundational to our understanding. Visual number patterns in ordered organized subitizing (otherwise known as subQuan) revives our natural instinct and bolsters our understanding of Algebra. Visit our interactive poster site with hands-on artifacts. See numbers and shapes come alive!

Usalpharma (Second Life): A Virtual Campus for the Development of Pharmaceutical Skills

Author(s): Hinojal Zazo Gómez, Jonás Samuel Perez (RL)/chetosam(SL), Cristina Maderuelo(RL)/mademar(SL), and Ana Martín(RL)/galenix solano(SL)

Aim: The design and implementation of practical activities in simulated professional contexts, directed towards developing competencies in Pharmaceutical Care, Pharmaceutical Quality Control and the diffusion of scientific results. Results: Second Life has allowed us to offer practical work in professional settings not available at the facilities of the Faculty of Pharmacy with low-cost and not limited by classroom availability and time-tables. The specific t eaching objectives were achieved with a high level of satisfaction by the students, who increased their participation and improved their teacher-student relations. Conclusions: USALPHARMA campus allows better training in the professional skills of pharmacy students.

Sweetening Climate Information for Sugar Cane Farmers with Second Life Machinima

Author(s): Dr. Helen Farley

This paper describes a project that involves the production of machinima created in Second Life for use as a discussion support tool for sugarcane farmers in Queensland, Australia. Discussion support systems in agriculture are processes which foster discussion between stakeholders about shared issues of concern and may lead to awareness raising, learning, skill development and improved decision making. This paper describes the production and preliminary evaluation of the first of these decision support machinima.

Go Virtual with Pixellada

Author(s): Pixellada

The aim of the poster is to show the real places or events that are reflected in virtual space. There are going to be presented 2 examples: - Jamestown Meet ing House (Second Life) - Expo MiPyme Digital 2013 (Cloud Party) The virtual and real world create spaces that are inhabited by people. The aim of the poster presentation is to influence visitors to think how real space can become virtual and virtual space real.

ERDESTS

Author(s): Kevin Feenan

Rockcliffe University Consortium is launching a new service offering called ERDESTS - Environmental Research and Development for Economic, Social, and Technological Sustainability. The program is designed to bring R&D projects from around the world together to showcase opportunities to think differently. Our official launch of this new product will be Saturday July 27th. Using the lessons learned from the last 7 years of working in virtual environments, Rockcliffe will show through this exhibit how real world ideas and virtual prototyping can be used to spawn new and innovative solutions to environmental sustainability.

Authentic Avatar

Author(s): Renne Brock-Richmond

Your avatar is a visual and visceral representation of your best self that engages beyond the classroom and into other virtual and physical communities. As a form of personal branding, your avatar must communicate your enthusiasm, openness, and mission to tap those productive, emotional interactions and encourage participation that online communities utilize. Discover how to create an expressive, consistent, and genuine appearance that articulates your authentic motivation and to differentiate you, your cause, and your business from other avatars. Being yourself in the main thing because no matter where you go, there you are.

Father and Son Explore 3D Virtual Worlds Beyond the Stage

Author(s): Dragan Lakic

VIBE – Virtual Islands for Better Education. VIBE is a collaboration creating learning activities and tools in virtual worlds for K-12 and college educators. VIBE hypergrid is a collection of independently-themed grids such as BIOME, Nova Archaeology, Project Alexandria, Genome and Global Health. These grids have regions such as Hydrosphere, Lemon House and Traveller. Discover molecular biology and genetics labs, Roman and Maya sites, East Africa villages, a coral reef and digital library, at the poster exhibit in the Second Life main venue, the most suitable venue to promote the production and use of machinima in education.

Above the Clouds - Browser-based 3D Learning with Moodle, Cloud Party and Voice Services!

Author(s): Tanja Vejvoda, Juergen Kappus, and Sarah Jacoby

Kamedia’s language Village outlines the efficient combination of a LMS and virtual worlds. The Language Village can be used either as a kind of 3D Tool in your LMS, or your LMS can inworld be used to provide content. Additionally, our Language Village includes a solution, which enables the integration of voice in Cloud Party. The Language Village consists of a realistic reproduction of a German city and includes little learning units in the virtual world. Our learning objectives will contain a video-presentation of an exemplary learning situation in-world (a game called “Burglars Hunting”). The posters will illustrate beside the presentation of our “Language Village” the theoretical and scholarly background of how to improve learning languages in virtual worlds.

====Transdisciplinarity: Transcending Disciplines through Collaborative Inquiry for Innovation

Author(s): Barbara Truman, Delightful Doowangle

Addressing wicked problems requires collaboration among diverse experts. Grant agencies in the United States such as the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes for Health and National Science Foundation seek team-based proposals involving partners often across institutions. Networks of scientists and researchers to address the broader impacts for dissemination are sought to accelerate findings. This poster illustrates doctoral research from Colorado Technical University’s Computer Science, Emerging Media Program on the potential for collaborative virtual environments (CVE) to support transdisciplinarity, a holist, and embodied approach to inquiry. Dialogue through embodied avatars combined with the potential of big, open data, citizen science, and collective wisdom can span across, between, and beyond disciplines within 3D CVEs. How will this combination of capabilities advance scientific breakthroughs? What is our role in the emerging story of transdisciplinarity in collaborative virtual environments?

Integrating Virtual Worlds into Mainstream Journalism

Author(s): Archivist Llewellyn

Most articles about virtual worlds are published in special academic journals for virtual worlds. Sometimes articles do appear in mainstream magazines, journals, and newspapers that solely feature a virtual world company, organization, or event. Rarely, however, are virtual world events integrated into larger issue pieces about the real world. Integrating real world and virtual world activities together is called "mixed reality" but "mixed reality" journalistic pieces where virtual news integrates with regular news as a blended writing piece could occur more frequently. "Librarians and the Era of the MOOC," published in the blog “Scientific and Medical Libraries” in association with Nature.com and Spektrum der Wissenschaft (the German version of Scientific American) under the umbrella of the Nature Publishing Group does just that. The article, which is about MOOCs (Massively Open Online Courses), integrates Second Life events in a story about the larger issue of MOOCs generally. In particular, the poster displays snapshots from the article of a MOOC study group held Second Life as well as a symposium on MOOCs featuring live in-world lectures by four avatars. In that sense, the submitted poster provides an example where the author of the article and this poster envisages and argues for a future of journalistic balance where virtual world news is better integrated into mainstream news stories and their social media sites.

Related URLs: Twitter: https://twitter.com/SciMedLibraries

Blog: http://www.scilogs.com/scientific_and_medical_libraries/librarians-and-the-era-of-the-mooc/

Caledon Oxbridge Community Gateway

Author(s): Carl Henderson

Caledon Oxbridge is a community-sponsored and operated gateway to Caledon and the Steamlands of Second Life. One of the most highly-regarded help areas in Second Life, Oxbridge is built around a complete walk-through orientation tutorial for new residents. Oxbridge also provides on-site volunteer helpers, twenty free classes in Second Life skills each week, avatars and other freebies, a sandbox, self-paced building, texturing, & scripting tutorials, a branch of the Library of Caledon, an introduction to Caledon, and an active live help group. Caledon Oxbridge is an ideal place for educational institutions without their own orientation areas to bring both faculty and students into Second Life. We offer a comprehensive and monitored Orientation Tutorial, as well as a slate of classes in basic Second Life skills. If you contact us ahead of time, and we can arrange to have staff there to help guide your new users. Oxbridge and its classes are free and open to all. For a fee, we can design an Orientation Tutorial for your institution, as well as conduct classes in Second Life skills at your location. For more information contact Carl Metropolitan at: j.carl.henderson@gmail.com

A Real-Time Interactive 3D Virtual Retail World

Author(s): Dragan Lakic

A Real-Time Interactive 3D Virtual Retail World is a range of learning activities and tools in a virtual world, created to assist learners to achieve nationally recognised qualification "Certificate II in Retail Services". The Environment is a collection of independently-themed Retail Shops such as Jewellery, Craft, Shoes, Art; Furniture Store and Garden Centre. These Shops have self-testing activities such as operate point-of-sale equipment, deliver service to customers and complete sales. Discover the Real-Time Interactive 3D Virtual Retail World at the poster exhibit in the Second Life main venue, the most suitable venue to promote the production and use of machinima in education.

Virtual Journeys: Create a Character that Respects Human Rights

Author(s): Dr. Kara Bennett

Elder Voices, a nonprofit organization, helps bring human rights to health care with education, prevention, and intervention. We want to offer an invitation to visit our virtual office/theater space at the NonProfit Commons in SL, for an adventure to discover how to create characters who act in ways that respect the individual and community. A featured learning experience is the use of virtual “Magic Drums” played with your imagination to learn problem-solving strategies for guiding your best characters beyond the stage.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/NonProfitCommons/243/93/22

Our work is described in a new book; Women in Second Life: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0786470216/ref=rdr_ext_tmb#reader_0786470216

Spicy Vanilla - Building on the Shoulders of Others

Author(s): John Wallace, Scott Grant/Xilin Yifu (SL), Mychael Lederer-Morihisa/maimoamimo Resident(SL)

A group of educators and builders with decades of combined experience in virtual worlds, Spicy Vanilla aims to promote collaboration in the design of top- shelf educational content. Its first project—the Basic Skills Gauntlet—will be presented as both a work in progress and a working, complete activity. The activity is designed as a game, to assess a new user’s proficiency with a few of the basic skills needed to interact in the virtual world (such as using pose-balls, camera control, etc.). New users are often asked to explore educational content soon after registering an avatar in SecondLife™ or OpenSimulator. With no practice beyond orientation, lacking experience with interacting and using the many features of the client viewer, how can we expect them to succeed on their own? The collaborative process itself, along with design principles and techniques revealed in the process, will also be a part of the presentation. "When someone experiments and innovates in a transparent manner, we are able to learn more than simply the content. Observers learn the process and method of innovation in design and delivery of learning materials." —George Siemens The plan for this inaugural Spicy Vanilla project is to produce an open source, bare-bones kit, one that can be customized for use in any region, modified to fit any theme.

Massively @ jokaydia - A MInecraft Community for Kids and Parents

Author(s): Jokay Wollongong

The Massively @ jokaydia Minecraft kids will present a display of their builds (images), machinima and writing - demonstrating the learning that is happeni ng in our games-based learning community. About Massively @ jokaydia Massively @ jokaydia is a Guild based learning community for kids aged 4-16 who are interested in developing digital media skills, exploring their creativity and developing online social skills by playing games! Our guild is a social-enterprise, founded in mid 2011 for kids and parents, using game-theory and our experience of developing communities of practice in virtual worlds. The game-world and Guild is personally funded by Jo Kay – Director, jokaydia.com, with a little help from kind donations. We have over 600 registered players from around the world.

Clinical Presence: The construct and its importance in virtual environments for rehabilitation

Author(s): Amber Judge, Amrosia108 Azalee

The purpose of this poster exhibit is to define the construct and explain its importance. This poster presentation will first present and define the construct of clinical presence as relevant to virtual environments and simulations used for physical and cognitive rehabilitation. Secondly, the poster will provide an explanation of its importance in relation to rehabilitation at a distance through immersive 3D virtual environments, games and simulations. Thirdly, a diagram of the essential elements that create clinical presence as currently defined, will be presented. All information provided in this exhibit is based on an analysis of needs and review of the current literature.

Using Social Media & Second Life to Enhance Online Learning

Author(s): Sarah Stewart

Social media has changed the education landscape. Increased collaboration and sharing of content between students and their peers is a result of social media. Combined with a virtual world such as Second Life, social media can enhance online learning and allow instructors to increase a variety of learning assessments and foster even greater communication. This presentation will demonstrate how social media and second life combined can transform the learning experiences of both students and instructors.

Track 10: Theoretical Practices and Research

Reflections on E-learning

Author(s): Diana Ihnatovych

In my autoethnographic narrative, I wrote about my pedagogical journey to understanding the implications of what it means to learn online and potential educational effectiveness. As a part of my discovery and learning about online education, I interviewed several key global thought leaders in virtual learning and online media from IBM Centre for Advanced Learning, included their answers and shared their experiences based on the following questions: “What do you think about e-learning? Does it have the potential to replace face-to-face learning? Do you agree that learning online can be superior to the traditional classroom instruction? If not, then what is, in your opinion, the missing ingredient?” Their depth of knowledge and experience, coupled with the academic background I gained from Han’s UBC class, culminated in a narrative story of my journey that I would like to share with others.

Virtual World Research for Education: Methodology, Benefits, and Challenges

Author(s): Dr. Hsiao-Cheng Han

Virtual worlds are networked environments connected with multiple computers, multiple users, and multiple sets of data. In virtual worlds, social inte raction and communication are of primary importance but, in these worlds, residents can also create 3D animated objects and find a creative outlet. Moreover, virtual worlds are now being adopted for use as educational environments. The data for this study were collected entirely in a virtual world, Second Life (SL). The population of this research included SL instructors, students, and land designers. The researcher used observations, a survey, and interviews as her research methods. This article presents the process and methodologies that were used in this virtual world research on education and includes the IRB process and research design. It concludes with the benefits and challenges that should be considered when conducting research in virtual environments.

Measuring Functionality of Second Life

Author(s): Dr. Pawel Topol

This presentation will be a report from a research project which measured educational functionality of Second Life. It involved 70 students of humanities from Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland. The project lasted the whole semester and engaged the students in various activities: in teams and individual. This complex experiment covered different aspects of functionality: cognitional and instructional, emotional and motivational, operational and interactive. Both methodology, results and conclusions will be presented.

Using Second Life Avatars and Machinima to Introduce Sustainability into the University Curriculum

Author(s): Dr. Simon Bignell

Innovative cost-effective methods such as online problem-based learning (PBL) and filmed avatar scenarios can be used to educate about motivational and behavioural factors that impact on real-world environmental sustainability issues (e.g. energy efficiency, resource use, recycling). This talk will illustrate results and best practice developed from two funded research projects that used PBL and machinima from within Second Life to educate university students about Sustainability. You can expect to hear and ask questions about the techniques developed for University educators and to see video of materials developed for the projects. Similar virtual research is planned that will explore Disability Awareness.

http://www.slideshare.net/Milton.Broome/simon-bignell-vwbpe-conference-2013-sustainability-and-second-life

Understanding Virtual World Adoption in Institutions of Higher Education: A Research in Progress

Author(s): Mark Choman, Dr. Uldarico Rex Dumdum

Computer-based Internet-accessible multi-user 3-D virtual world environments offer tremendous potential towards transforming and enhancing teaching and learning in individual and collaborative settings. This study, a research in progress, uses grounded theory to discover emergent themes to better understand the adoption of Second Life, a virtual world environment, in institutions of higher learning. 34 chief technology officers, instructional technologists, and faculty were interviewed. It utilizes Atlas.ti to help identify emergent data keywords, categories, and themes for further analysis. Letting data be our guide, the results of multiple iterations of data analyses are discussed. The study aims to capture a thick description and a more robust understanding of the contextual factors and practices that support, facilitate or hinder adoption of a virtual world environment. Such understanding is vital towards developing integrated guidelines and processes to better evaluate, adopt, and harness the power of learning technologies in institutions of higher learning.

Model for Effective Collaborative Learning in Virtual Worlds with Intelligent Agents

Author(s): Max Ugaz

Virtual worlds are part of the shared spaces technologies and are applied to strengthen the weaknesses of teamwork, identifying a direct relationship with the intellectual capital. Theoretical models on virtual worlds have different attributes from other digital media and allow getting effective team collaboration; this is possible because unlike 3D games, virtual world’s user actions lie in their interest. Based on the information about virtual worlds, intellectual capital, collaborative knowledge management, intelligent agents and MPLM3D platform, we propose a model to demonstrate how the interaction with intelligent agents allows getting an effective collaborative learning using the platform Second Life to non-native in social issues as democracy and social development.

http://www.slideshare.net/maxugaz/max-ugaz-presentation-for-vwbpe-2013-25559385

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q80eDQRVNEo

In English: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTMb7rJZRCU

En español: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZDsCJPkhtw

A 3D Virtual Geology Field Trip in Unity

Author(s): Shailey Minocha, Tom Argles, Brian Richardson, and David Burden

As a part of The OpenScience Laboratory, (http://www.open.ac.uk/openscience/), an initiative of The Open University (OU), UK and The Wolfson Foundation, we (OU and Daden http://www.daden.co.uk) are developing a 3D simulation of a Geology field trip based around Skiddaw in the Lake District, using the Unity 3D software. We are using digital data and imagery to reconstruct the landscape faithfully enough to provide a real sense of presence for the user. The primary objective of developing an authentic 3D interactive simulation has been to provide an immersive experience to the users through sense of space. The virtual embodiment in the form of avatars and the multi-user environment will help give a sense of co-presence and provide opportunities for collaborative learning. The interactions and the learning activities within the 3D environment are designed to mirror the experience of a real field trip. During the presentation at the conference, we plan to address: comparison of the 3D experience with 2D virtual field trips; the role that a 3D virtual geology field trip can play in terms of preparation and reflection before and after a real field trip; and whether and how a 3D simulation helps in gaining geological fieldwork skills and the limitations of 3D virtual geology field trips.

Track 11: Tools and Products

Virtually Human Game Kit v3.0

Author(s): Allen Partridge

Come learn about the Game Kit for SL, Open Sim and beyond that makes creating educational content a snap. The Virtually Human Game kit has been adopted by thousands of avatars and is available to you in Second Life and beyond. The kit allows the modification of most objects, simply by dropping a couple of items inside them. Once modified the objects become interactive, track and report engagements and even facilitate quizzing. Modeled after common adventure games, the kit includes all you need to bring a sim to life as an exciting and educational adventure game. At this session Dr. Partridge, creator of the kit will introduce the latest innovations and demonstrate how to use the kit in world, as well as give instructions for obtaining the kit in various OpenSim grids. He will also discuss how the kit has been used by educational institutions and professional training organizations to educate and train students throughout the virtual world.

ERDESTS Workshop

Author(s): Kevin Feenan

Rockcliffe University Consortium is launching a new service offering called ERDESTS - Environmental Research and Development for Economic, Social, and Technological Sustainability. Rockcliffe ERDESTS Projects will bring together researchers from around the world to discuss issues of global sustainability and their impacts. This demonstration, to be held at Rockcliffe's new virtual campus location in JokaydiaGrid will showcase an example of how dive rse research projects can be combined to address real world problems. We will explore the nature of carbon dioxide loading of our atmosphere and how by using virtual technologies we can prototype solutions in real time that can lead to new and innovative solutions.

Attendees of this event will be active participants in the critical thinking process used to conceptualize how diverse research could be brought together to form new ideas for future research. The only tools provided will be the ones attendees bring with them plus the out-of-the-box capabilities of OpenSim. Participants should have some basic knowledge of how to build and/or rez objects in an OpenSim/SL setting. Participants will also be expected to have a access to google docs if possible.

Independently Learning Moth Evolution: Teaching Evolution Away from the Lectern

Author(s): Stephen Gasior, Eva Comaroski

Because evolution is a challenging topic to teach, we have created a learning activity recreating how moth populations undergo changes in different environments. It is called Population Genetics and Selection simulator (PGS). Students set the parameters and then watch and count the differences in the colored moths in different environments. A prototype of this tool was used in a college non-science majors biology class. Some of the challenges regarding technical difficulties and student handling will be discussed. Come do the exercise yourself and learn how you might integrate it into your class.

Track 12: Featured Film and Machinima

A Formerly Cool Kid

Author(s): Barbara McQueen [RL]/Barbara Novelli [SL]

Video link: http://youtu.be/VQW3sdO9Xqs

Poetry with a message to students who care more about being cool than being educated.

A Real-Time Interactive 3D Retail World

Author(s): Dragan Lakic [RL]/Bert Matchman [SL]

Video link: http://youtu.be/sLvpZuW7558

A Real-Time Interactive 3D Virtual Retail World is a range of learning activities and tools in a virtual world, created to assist learners to achieve nationally recognised qualification “Certificate II in Retail Services”. The Environment is a collection of independently-themed Retail Shops such as Jewellery, Craft, Shoes, Art; Furniture Store and Garden Centre. These Shops have self-testing activities such as operate point-of-sale equipment, deliver service to customers and complete sales.

Cross Borders of Ages and Subjects: Possibilities of Using Virtual World Education

Author(s): Hsiao-Cheng Han [RL]/Kristy Handrick [SL]

Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNkLsY2wNhU

This is a machinima made by 2012 UBC EDCP 585D Winter term 2 students. In this video students gave teaching demonstrations to show how they utilized a vi rtual world for education in different age levels and different subjects. Credit to: Yoriko Gillard, Denise Haugh, Diana Ihnatovych, Chen Liu, Min Liu, Jiyao Sun, Xinyi Wang, Kwesi Yaro, Ning Zhang.

Father and Son Explore 3D Virtual Worlds Beyond the Stage

Author(s): Dragan Lakic [RL]/Bert Matchman [SL]

Video link: http://youtu.be/n2NAOujGrVc

VIBE – Virtual Islands for Better Education. VIBE is a collaboration creating learning activities and tools in virtual worlds for K-12 and college educators. VIBE hypergrid is a collection of independently-themed grids such as BIOME, Nova Archaeology, Project Alexandria, Genome and Global Health. These grids have regions such as Hydrosphere, Lemon House and Traveller. Discover molecular biology and genetics labs, Roman and Maya sites, East Africa villages, a coral reef and digital library, at the poster exhibit in the Second Life main venue, the most suitable venue to promote the production and use of machinima in education.

Machinima as a Discussion Support System for Sugar Cane Farmers

Author(s): Dr. Helen Farley [RL]/Helen Frak [SL]

Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pej7DhtKafE&feature=youtu.be

This machinima was produced to function as a discussion support system, modelling the sorts of conversations sugar cane farmers need to have in order to make good farming decisions in light of climate information. The script was written by Neil Cliffe, a PhD candidate working on the discussion support system project, and recorded by professional sound engineers at the University of Southern Queensland. Top Dingo created the environment and avatars and shot the visuals, bringing it all together in this high quality machinima. This machinima challenges conventional views relating to the use of video in agricultural extension.

Practical Applications in Virtual Archeology

Author(s): Marion Smeltzer [RL]/Nora Saunders [SL]

Video Link: http://youtu.be/4_9QDrHc7f8

For the past few years we have been involved in an effort to expand archaeological experiences and knowledge to a wider audience through virtual world environments. As online learning becomes an important part of instruction in K-12 schools and university settings, our challenge is to develop curricula that incorporates archaeology into these courses. Our goal as educators and developers is to create virtual learning environments that can be customized to accommodate each teachers needs as well as promote Archaeology to the general public.

Author Index

Anstadt, Scott P.

Argles, Tom

Azalee, Amrosia108

Barnes, Belinda

Bennett, Kara

Berrett, Lynne

Bignell, Simon

Brock-Richmond, Renne

Bruster, Belinda

Bryan, Brenda

Burden, David

Calongne, Cynthia

Choman, Mark

Clarity, Diane

Cleveley, C. Brian

Comaroski, Eva

Cormier, Dave

Curtis, Anthony

Curtis, Judith

Dadez, Michael

Deason, Chris

Doowangle, Delightful

Dorland, Elizabeth

Dumdum, Uldarico Rex

Farley, Helen

Feenan, Kevin

Fliesen, David

Gabriel, Juliane

Gasior, Stephen

Giannoutsos, Vasili

Gil, Maricarmen

Gil Ortega, Mari Carmen

Gillard, Takako (Yoriko)

Gómez, Hinojal Zazo

Grant, Scott

Gregory, Sue

Hammermuller, Klaus

Han, Hsiao-Cheng

Hatheway-Dial, K.D.

Haugh, Denise

Helphinstine, Jill

Henderson, Carl

Hill, Valerie

Howells, Terry

Ihnatovych, Diana

Jackson, Lisa

Jacoby, Sarah

Janus, Dugong

Johnson, Phylis

Judge, Amber

Kappus, Juergen

Kibbe, Sharon

Kinney-Johnson, Theresa

Krebs, William

Krueger, Alice

Lakic, Dragan

LaMere, Paul

Lederer-Morihisa, Mychael

Lester, John "Pathfinder"

Liao, Christine

Lim, Kenneth Y T

Lionheart, Faculty2

Liu, Chen

Llewellyn, Archivist

Lowe, Carolyn

Maderuelo, Cristina

Martín, Ana

McElhinney, Evelyn

McQueen, Barbara

Miller, Niela

Minocha, Shailey

Mystakidis, Stylianos

Nishimura, Hajime

Offcourse, Serena

Olsen, Jens Kaer

Paillat, Edith

Partridge, Allen

Patterson, D. Cooper

Perez, Jonás Samuel

Phillips, LuAnn

Philps, Heike

Pihlainen, Amy

Pinion, Draceina

Pixellada

Quero, Betsy

Rainbow, Carol

Reiniger, Rebecca

Richardson, Brian

Rigby, Joe

Roberston, Anna-Marie

Robinson, Vicki

Runo, Lowe

Rybas, Natalia

Safaii, SeAnne

Sanchez, Adriana

Sanchez, Jessica

Schneider, Christel

Smeltzer, Marion

Steed, Marlo

Stewart, Sarah

Topol, Pawel

Truman, Barbara

Ugaz, Max

Umoren, Rachel

Vallance, Michael

Vejvoda, Tanja

Wahl, Lori

Wallace, John

Wheelock, Andrew

Wollongong, Jokay

Woolley, Pauline

Yaro, Kwesi

JOVS 4

Acknowledgements

2013 Conference Summary

Raw Numbers

Conference Highlights

Summary

2013 Online Content

2013 Poster, Machinima, and Presentation Awards

Posters

Film and Machinima

People’s Choice for Best Presentations

2013 Conference Proceedings

Track 1 : Keynotes

Opening Keynote: The Role of the Educator, Then and Now, There and Here

Virtual World Simulations to Support Robot-Mediated Interaction

Teaching Physics in a 3-D Immersive Environment

Camelot and the Mists of Avalon

Making History by Reimagining How it's Taught

Closing Keynote: MOOCs as a sense of place: Community as curriculum

Track 2: Best Practices Showcase

Ethical Issues and Best Practices for Conducting Qualitative Research in Virtual Worlds

UNCP Hospital for Nursing: Professional Education and Clinicals in the Virtual World

Meet Your Counselor: An Avatar

Virtual New Media Exhibition as a Hands-On Approach for Art Learning

Education in Virtual Worlds

Method Teaching as Method Acting in the Virtual World: What Would Angelina Jolie Do?

Sonic Immersion Part I: Hearing is Believing, Case Study: Sound Studies in Second Life, Southern Illinois

Using Virtual World Simulators (Second Life) in Human Services Course Assignments

Immersive Language Pilot Project on Second Life

Designing and Depicting Detacean Interactions and Ecosystems

The Advantages of Live Performance and Life Lecturing in the 3D Environment

Accessibility in Virtual Environments

Beyond the Stage

Think Different

Language Quests and Learning Analytics in Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Education

Bringing Best Brain Health Practices into Second Life

Virtual Reality in Teacher Education

The Lost Generation Meets Second Life: Teaching Literature in a Virtual World

Using Creative Tools for Learning in Second Life

The Stage - The Mathematics

Share the Black Crayon – Collaborative Superhero Teams

Exit Big Grids Stage Left: Independent Grids for Virtual Biology and Archaeology Education

Above the Clouds - Browser-based 3D Learning with Moodle, Cloud Party and Voice Services!

Global Connectivity through Implementing Virtual Worlds across Time, Space, and Age

Andragons, the Shape of Learning

Track 3: Exploration of Virtual Worlds (Post‐Conference MOOC)

Loire Games and Design Thinking

Sonic Immersion Part II: Hearing is Believing, Case Study: Sound Studies in Second Life, Southern Illinois

Tour to Innovation UWE Island, Home of the MA Education in Virtual Worlds

Touring Through Independent Grids for Virtual Biology and Archaeology Education

Wander Weird Worlds

Virtual Museums in Avayalive Engage

Sim-on-a-Stick in Primary Schools

Track 4: Featured Panel

Resident Run Help Centers: Teaching New Users about Second Life

Track 5: Games and Simulations

Just Add Content; Adventures on the Path to Immersive Game Facilitation

Learning in Minecraft - Massively @jokaydia and Project Mist

Spicy Vanilla - Building on the Shoulders of Others

Going Beyond the Stage: Virtual Preparation for Global Health Experiences

Confessions of a Quest Designer

Track 6: K‐12

Kids Learning Science and More in a Virtual World

Early College Second Life Program and North Carolina New Schools

Exploring the Possibilities and Challenges in Using 3-D Virtual Learning Environment for Teaching

Bringing Great Literature to the Digital Generation

Track 7: Machinima

The Vowels of Machinima Production

Creating Machinima for Language Learning

Virtual Field Trips for Homeschoolers to Explore and Archive U.S. and World History Knowledge Using Screenflow

Turning Film Noir into Fun Noir– Creating a Narrative-Driven Interactive Online Environment

Track 8: Panels and Roundtables

Virtual worlds, from Unknown to Known: What We Have Done and What We Can Do More on Education

The World has Talent - Champions of Education in VWs

Total Language Training

One Big World

Challenges of Creating an Immersive Learning Environment in Second Life

Track 9: Posters

ISTE/VISTE: EdTech Communities

Virtual Pioneers Explore History