On Friday I attended the Second Life v. World of Warcraft workshop at the London Knowledge Lab, which turned out pretty well and gave me a chance to catch up on a range of work. The title for the day was slightly tongue in cheek, asking us to consider the relative merits of SL vs those of WoW for learners - though the debate did heat up after one well placed question!
Highlights below…
Second Call ReLIVE08
The Open University is pleased to announce a second call for abstract submissions for the international conference for Researching Learning in Virtual Environments to be held at its campus in Milton Keynes on the 20th and 21st of November 2008.
If you are currently researching learning in a virtual world, for example There, CyberTown, Second Life etc, then we invite you to submit an abstract to ReLIVE08. We are seeking presenters and participants who have experience of designing and delivering learning in virtual worlds, and the ability to reflect on and share that experience within an analytical framework. Please note that the closing date for the second call is the 20th of June.
With researchers and practitioners attending from around the globe, this excellent opportunity for networking promises an interesting, stimulating and exciting 2 days. The conference will begin with a reception on the evening of the 19th November, and the first full day will see the opening keynote from Edward Castranova and an invited panel debate chaired by Sara De Freitas, Director of Research at The Serious Games Institute, as well as a varied programme of paper presentations and workshops. The conference gala reception and dinner will be supported by a variety of entertainers, including a digital caricaturist, live music and an after dinner speaker (details to be announced shortly), and the second day of presentations and workshops will be wrapped up by Roo Reynolds. All delegates will receive a conference goodie bag and an electronic copy of the conference proceedings. Selected papers will be invited to submit chapters for an edited book with a major publisher in the field (tbc).
Please find more details at our website on http://www.open.ac.uk/relive08
We hope to see you in November.
From Game Daily. Analysts ‘Strategy Analytics’ forecast a staggering billion virtual world users ten years from now. If we are including NeoPets, BarbieGirls, Lego Universe alongside the likes of Second Life and Habbo Hotel and including the games like Runescape and World of Warcraft, then that that might not be too far off.
Errm, I think I can just about follow the title of this post - which is Spanish for ‘Education in 3D virtual worlds’.
Which is the special theme of the current issue of ‘Learning Review España‘.
Include interviews with Claudia L’Amoreaux of Linden Lab, yours truly talking Sloodle, and quite a few more other features and interviews. It looks like Ruth Martinez has done an impressive job on the special issue content, though my Spanish skills aren’t really up to following it…
John Kirriemuir has completed the lastest update to the series of Eduserv snapshot reports on UK educational activity in Second Life. It is now figured that 3/4 of the UK’s Universities are active (to some degree) in Second Life. You can get the whole report here, and read John’s summary below.
It’s not often that I get to say “I hope to see you in Milton Keynes in November”, but this is one of those rare times…
20th and 21st November 2008.
Keynote speakers: Edward Castranova and Roo Reynolds.
Earlier in the week there was a US Congressional hearing on virtual worlds. I’ll review this when I can, but it’s worth noting the links for later - TerraNova has the links, and some comments. The hearings appear to have had a focus on Second Life in particular, which also seems to be the case whenever I mention virtual worlds. Although I spend a lot of time working in Second Life, I find that I have to remind people that it isn’t the only virtual world out there…
One of those days… if I had another 6 hours, I still wouldn’t be done. So in brief, some links and very little comment:
INTUITION, SRI Virtual Worlds survey, The Myth of the Media Myth, and VLE vs PLE again again. More below.
Claire Condra gave a keynote at a recent ABSEL (The Association for Business Simulation and Experiential Learning) meeting, which includes a few mentions of Sloodle, and interview with Jeremy Kemp. You can catch the full presentation here (lots of audio, and lots of content - but spread across multiple pages for quick download times.)
Follow the ‘Learning Environments’ link if you want to skip to the Sloodle parts - or here if you just want to watch the intrepid reporter parachuting into a class!
Edit: You can also get more details on the event from The Seventh Sun, here.
UPDATE: If you log in on the 18th at 11am GMT you should be able to join my (hopefully) live Google presentation by clicking THIS LINK. (Should allow you to ask questions using the chat interface!)
Later today (after I get some sleep!) I’ll be attending the Massively Multi Learner workshop at Anglia-Ruskin University.
I’ll be uploading my presentation in as many formats as possible to this post - and you may also be able to catch the live presentation online if you follow the instructions here.
