Last week Sim and I popped along to the Children in Virtual Worlds conference held at University of Westminster. The event was primarily to investigate how under-thirteens are using Virtual Worlds (VW) and to showcase the BBC’s well anticipated Adventure Rock. The conference also included several extremely interesting presentations by Aleks Krotoski, Dianne Carr, Marc Goodchild, Seth Giddings and Adrian Woolard….

Our interest in children’s VWs stems from both the work we’re currently developing with schools, as well as Twofour’s recent launch of MyCBBC, a safe social network site aimed at 6-12year olds. The focus of the event was the research undertaken by David Gauntlett and Lizzie Jackson into Adventure Rock that was presented at the conference. The research identified the different “types” of players that they found in the trial of Adventure Rock (Click Here), 90 participants took part in five schools across Scotland and Wales.

Understanding your target audience from a development perspective is pivotal. As we begin to expand into the realms of VWs for younger audiences, this type of research is essential to the design of affective applications to engage with as many different player types as possible. Click here to view research.

Worth noting, Adventure Rock differs from the traditional definition of a VW or MMORPG, as players don’t interact, play or socialise with other players inside the environment, instead they communicate via a moderated website. For the purposes of the Adventure Rock research, a virtual world was defined as an online space where:

• You can move around
• You can have an impact on the world
• There are benefits from network effects (other online users add to the experience – it couldn’t just run off a CD)

This area of research certainly bears out my own research into Player Motivations. Gauntlett and Jackson’s work has some significant similarities to the player motivations of adult users of MMORPG’s identified by Bartle and Yee. The area that is now ripe for research is the extent to which a child’s motivations transform over time, and how dependent this change is on the particular virtual environment.

It also raises questions around these player traits: how do they translate to the real world environment? For example, Is a fighter player a fighter in real life? And can we use this technology to encourage a different player type in the classroom? For example, can we change a fighter into a nurturer? Fascinating questions!

With news that the Government is to put more money into tackling dyslexia, and early literacy intervention, it seems like a good moment to talk about the ‘Literacy Island’ in Teen Second Life. The project, designed to support struggling readers at KS3… is being piloted by Stoke Damerel Community College in Plymouth, and is a joint initiative between Twofour and the Plymouth Local Authority.

The build we created has a Treasure Island theme to it, spacious enough to accommodate several in-world events, and to allow the roll out of the weekly lesson structured tasks.

Teen Second Life is a secure environment for 13-17 year olds. The benefit of creating, as we have, a closed island in this grid is that access can be regulated and students can be brought in with access only to the island. This obviously helps manage content in a safe environment and allows teachers/authorised adults to guide students through the content contained within.

The benefits of using an immersive environment such as Second Life goes much deeper than mere novelty. With the rapid increase of ‘casual’ gaming opening up the computer games market to a greater range of ages, online gaming and Virtual Worlds is becoming increasingly targeted towards younger audiences. There are currently 158 online games or Virtual Worlds launched and in development specifically designed for children. Coupled with the fact that in families with school-aged children 76% have access to a PC and around 80% have access to a games console, this shows that children are becoming more adept in the use of virtual environments and web 2.0, and so more open to eLearning.

Obviously the worry is that merging the act of learning and ‘games’ might detract from the educational content, but this is a very limited view of the potential of this technology. Some would say that ‘serious games’ is a contradiction in terms, however with the narrative driven structure of computer games balanced with the increasing level of procedurally (and user) generated content, creativity, logical progression, literacy, and any number of specific specialisms can benefit greatly.

Welcome to the brave, new, virtual world of learning.

On the subject of child safety (Richard’s blog 26/3/08), the government commissioned review into the effects of new technology on young people by Dr Tanya Byron, has finally been published. After reading the report (Safer Children in a Digital World) it was refreshing to see that most of her proposed solutions are centred around the education of learners, teachers and parents. Her view seems to be well-balanced and based on evidence rather than the emotional responses this subject too often generates. Contrast this with the Fox News report that some of the early Sesame Street episodes have been released on DVD with a parental warning about harmful content. It seems that Cookie monster is a smoker and makes poor diet choices and Oscar the grouch lives rough and needs help from social services.

http://www.dfes.gov.uk/byronreview/

Today we’ve been discussing a great idea for a Seven Up! style web-tv series following a group of kids through the current curriculum reforms. There’s just one problem: how do you capture the authentic experiences that provide the essential insight and interest you need, while at the same time protecting the identities of the schools, the teachers, and above all, the kids themselves? Many school uniforms alone are emblazoned with the name of the school, before anyone even opens their mouth.

Overcoming issues of security is one of the constant challenges faced by those of us in the business of developing innovative online learning. The greatest ideas can only see the light of day where there’s no possibility of compromising the online safety of children and young people. So big congratulations are in order to colleagues in Twofour Digital for the new MyCBBC site (MyCBBC), which went live this month. It’s one of the first completely safe social networking sites for under-12s, avoiding the need for free texting, or the exchange of personal data, by providing a wide range of menu-based choices. And anyone’s welcome to register – so long as you’re 12 or under!

Also, I recommend reading Richard Deverell’s post on MyCBBC here.