I had a rewarding moment last Thursday, as I watched students from Stoke Damerel Community College getting a pleasant surprise as they walked into their English lesson. It was the first lesson to introduce to the concepts of Teen Second Life and the literacy project. The lesson got underway with few problems and the excitement around the room was unforgettable. I found the students were keen to explore, socialize and experiment with this new environment. Their feedback was extremely encouraging…! I was surprised at how quickly some of them discovered the different elements on the island.

One really interesting thing that happened was to see one student gathering all of the ‘dragon’ avatars up and telling them to meet at a certain point - which they all did. I think he then said they were going to have a ‘dragon club’ and go around the island together. It’s marvellous to see students investing immediately in their new environment, developing social structure, and discerning and engaging with the inherent concepts of both their island and Teen Second Life itself.

The atmosphere in the room was amazing. They were focused for the whole lesson and were very disappointed when the lesson had ended.

It’s hard to deny the sheer learning potential of Computer Game technologies when you see first hand such high levels of engagement. The key to using Teen Second Life in education is how the technology is used, delivered and understood. The Stoke Damerel students benefitted from all three.

Twofour Learning are really looking forward to the next ten weeks and seeing how this project develops. And so, I think, are the students.

Click here to view the news coverage of the lesson.

I’m on the delayed train home from the Serious Virtual Worlds conference at the Serious Games Institute at Coventry University. It’s times like this that I can’t help but contemplate how convenient teleportation would be. Oh to be an avatar…!

The fantastic two-day event was put on by the SGI, many recognisable faces attended (real not virtual) including; Aleks Krotoski (Guardian), Dr Jim Purbick (Linden Labs), Bernard Horan (Sun Microsystems), Norbert Richard Meinike (Metaversum CMO) and it also included many of the of the SGI residents, Daden Limited, Ambient Performances and Concepts Design & Virtualisation.

Twofour have actually just become part of the SGI family, taking up virtual tenancy at the institute. We are very excited to be part of this internationally renowned institute of applied research and the opportunity to work with such influential organisations within the UK Metaverse sphere.

It was a great event with some really passionate and intriguing keynotes by international speakers. However, the highlight of the conference was the dinner put on by David Wortley and Sara de Freitas at the Coombe Abbey. The entertainment to follow will forever be etched into my memory, David Wortley and Jim Purbrick (LL) jamming on Rock Band was truly inspirational.

In his blog my colleague Adam Montandon (HMC Interactive) draws attention to a truly life changing project currently being undergone at the Keio University in Japan. The project headed by Professor Junichi Ushiba, allows severe paralysis patients to take to the virtual world of Second Life, controlling their avatar via electrodes. They are able to… experience many new opportunities: business, shopping, making new friends, and ‘chance encounters’. The latter is particularly interesting. According to Prof. Ushiba:

“In ordinary life you go shopping and you might just happen to see a jacket you like and buy it, or the cover of a book might catch your eye. Sometimes you chat with people you just happen to run into, this kind of chance encounter could enrich people’s lives.”

So for patients that are immobilized by illness or injury, virtual life provides this random element. This impressive research into the benefits of virtual worlds to enhance the lives of these patients is very impressive.

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.

Last night I went to a fashion show in Second Life. The ‘What not to Rez’ night was the in-world social event on the Emerge Island, and an extension of some of the work going on related to digital identities by the JISC-Emerge community.

It was an opportunity for everyone to show off their lovely avatars - a fun event to explore and showcase virtual creation. StevenW Bohm (aka Steve Warburton of King’s College London) invited me, and I have to say…, left me feeling distinctly under-dressed! (see picture below left)

After a delayed start, the fashion show got underway with some very extravagant outfits, as one by one, the models took to the stage showing off their customized avatars. There was one awkward moment that went like this:

Josie Oh: Jiz! You are looking good - going on the catwalk tonight?
You: haha no not me
Josie Oh: aw, ok

The drink of the evening was MaiTai Tropical Drink, a rather fruity cocktail served with an umbrella! After working the room, so to speak, I recognised a few avatars I’ve met before – some doing some interesting work in SL, in particular, Kisa Naumova (Leeds Metropolitan University) and Wess Wexler (Loughborough University).

Overall a fantastic evening and a chance to let your digital hair down and network with others involved in immersive environments and Second Life.

I came back from Brighton BarCamp2 inspired to do something similar in Plymouth. Any takers? If you’re scratching your head wondering what a BarCamp is, check-out the Wiki description http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BarCamp.

On arrival at this, my first ‘unconference’, I was confronted with a massive schedule board. Each attendee bags their own preferred time slot and presents for 30 minutes on any subject (that’s usually about 20 mins of talk and 10 mins of Q & A). In other words, the entire event is entirely ‘user-generated’. After the first day, everyone retires to the bar, armed with sleeping bags, to continue the discussions over a cold beer… After a good night’s kip (or not) on the floor or wherever else, the second day of mini conferences begins.

The event was attended by representatives from Linden Labs, NCSoft, Microsoft Silver Light and Amazon Web Services.

My subject was “Twofour Learning and Virtual Worlds: where next?” I mentioned some of our recent work (such as the Second Life work we’ve recently undertaken with the University of Leicester, Click Here); our Teen SL Project currently in development (a collaborative project with Stoke Damerel Community College and Plymouth City Council Children Services), and outlined our thoughts and plans for the forthcoming year. The session was attended by Jeff Barr (Amazon, web services) and Aleks Krotoski (Guardian), and generated a lot of interest. It’s a great way of networking and sharing ideas. So BarCampPlymouth1 here we come?! If you’re interested, drop me an email.