Second Life at UWE

Well, the accident simulator is now finished and through beta testing. We’ll be piloting it with volunteer student groups this semester with a view to getting feedback and tweaking any issues that appear, so that we can use it for real in the 09/10 academic year. We’re experimenting with using sound too, as the dummy avatars ”talk” to each other during the simulation using text chat at the moment, and it can be a bit hard to follow what is happening and read the text.  It works really well, and I’m so pleased with the outcome We have another simulator about to be built next to this one – a residential home this time to help social workers to experience scenarios in care of the elderly. Watch this space!

The event simulator is nearing completion and should be ready for testing around the middle of January. To give an idea of the look and feel, here’s a picture that shows the mannequin/mannekin dummies in positions around the event, together with the fork lift truck and pallet trucks that take part in the accident scenario. Not going to say any more than that, as I don’t want to give the game away for students who will be using the simulator to practice accident investigation!

We’re working with Citrus Virtual on a really exciting new project – the event simulator. The simulator consists of 3 elements

• the set
• the simulator “engine” and
• the scenario

The idea is to enable students to witness different kinds of events and to interact with them thru their avatars. The first scenario will take place in a warehouse in the light industrial set CV have built for us on the island. Here is a pic of the set and a close-up pic of the warehouse.

So, the first scenario is to help me teach accident causation theory and investigation techniques. It is a fork lift truck accident in the warehouse. As an example of how this will work, a group of students can witness the accident thru their avatars, then a second group of “investigators” can see the aftermath of the accident and interview the “witnesses”, as well as gathering information from the set e.g. documents from filing cabinets. They then take the info away and construct fault or event trees and reconstruct the accident. They then take their reconstructions back to the SL set and we can re-run the accident so that they can check out the accuracy of their findings. Loads of scope for discussion on accident causation theory, investigation techniques etc etc. We’re hoping to have the first version up and ready to test by Christmas – I can’t wait!

Watch this space for updates.

Sorry about the long gap between posts – had some technical trouble with the blog that wouldn’t let me in! Anyhow, all fixed now. We had our island launch party on the 5th November – fireworks, disco, the lot! It went really well and several of us have now become hooked on disco dancing in SL! We’re continuing to develop the activities, including an office for our colleagues in Maths to support their “Espresso Maths” initiative. This provides support for students across the university with mathematics problems. At the moment the Espresso Maths desk in real life is manned at lunchtimes in the main refectory at UWE, but soon there will be an office in SL that enables students to pick up advice and help, meet with tutors and leave notecards or emails to make contact. This will widen the access to students off campus and those who can’t make it to the desk at lunchtime.
We also have plans for maths activities in SL to help students visualise mathematics and statistics techniques. The picture below is of an idea to help students to visualise the difference between boolean logic and fuzzy logic in set theory. The shapes can be put into the corresponding spheres and then the sets maniplulated using the two different logic approaches. This is a mock up of an idea at the moment, but we’ve bid for some funding to build a real version of this, or something like it

The new island is pretty much built now – a lovely job by Citrus Virtual, with lots of education goodies like virtual whiteboards, discussion group controls, URL and slide show displays, email stations etc etc. Here’s a couple of views of the presentation amphitheatre, breakout pods and exhibition hall, and a view of the central landing hub. The island will be open for public viewing in early September, and we intend to have a full launch event a few weeks later. Details will be posted here and it will be an open event, so anyone is welcome to come along. We’re considering having a DJ on the leisure amphitheatre and a range of activities and demonstrations. It will probably take place in the real world at the same time, so it’ll be an interesting event for us to organise and facilitate – gulp!

More pics coming soon.

Our island has been delivered and Citrus Virtual have made great progress so far with the design and build. Loads of picutres to come shortly!

Here’s the plan for our new island, which should be delivered any day. Citrus Virtual have constructed a complete mock-up of the proposed build, with a teleport hub and welcome area in the middle, leisure and presentation amphitheatres, breakout rooms, sandbox, exhibition space and much more. The RO will be at the top right of the island, as viewed in the picture here.

Well, we’ve taken the plunge and started the purchasing process for our own island in SL – to be called “Elearning at UWE”. We will move the RO from Education UK island, as we lose the land there this July as our grant comes to an end. Our intention with the island is to give colleagues the opportunity to try out SL if they have an interest in virtual worlds for curriculum design and teaching. We will construct an open access auditorium with the ability to stream video and present PowerPoint presentations, which any colleagues can use to hold symposia with their students. We’ll also have a number of smaller breakout rooms and a sandbox where you can practice creating shapes and structures in SL. We will also parcel up part of the land into individual plots so that colleagues with specific ideas can have their own area to try out teaching and learning approaches. We already have one request for space for a sociology project, so if you have a particular idea, than get in contact with myself or Manuel to discuss it and we can reserve a plot for you. But, I must stress that we can’t just hold plots in case someone gets an idea later! Real, up front ideas only, please I’m afraid we don’t have the funds to help anyone to build structures on the island, but we will manage it, so that you can concentrate on the creative stuff.

As soon as we have confirmation of our island I’ll post pictures on this blog that show the progress with terraforming and building. We’ll be working with Citrus Virtual again on this aspect of the project, and they will also help us manage the island on an ongoing basis.

The first class we have held in SL was a couple of weeks ago, after we had done the treasure hunt, described below. Basically it seemed to go well, but it was rather an artificial setting as we were all in the same room! But, it’s probably best to begin thst way, just in case anyone has difficulties and they need help to get around, chat etc. We did find that the elevator is a really good place to hold a meeting, oddly enough. But, of course, our elevator is rather different from the usual real life variety where you are shut in a small box.  We have several seats and it flies out of the building between floors; more like Willie Wonka’s chocolate factory. We’ll be holding many more classes in the next academic year, with more research methods Master’s students, and students undertaking sociology first year studies in methods of enquiry.

We’re now well on with our planned interactions and activities in the RO in SL, including an animated “decision route” that is intended to help users focus down on their research topics. The picture here shows part of the Focus Room with the panels that ask users about their proposed research. The user sits on a seat by the large diagram panel and then is carried around the room to interact with other panels.  For example, one of the panels that doesn’t show in this picture is a bot that asks users to think about issues that might affect the feasibility of their research. The activity proceeds by users considering the questions they are asked and then deciding if their proposed topic fulfils the requirements for each panel. Then they can click on yes or no, and are whisked off to another panel, depending upon their reply! Manuel has done a fantastic job scripting all this – now I’m lagging behind a bit with designing the panels and the questions, but we hope to have it largely completed by the end of this week.

 We’re just beginning to get our first small group of students (MSc Software Engineering) to use Second Life. 4 have created avatars and we held a treasure hunt last Wednesday as an orientation exercise.  You can download this exercise to see what we were doing (SL treasure hunt).  We’ll be holding our first research seminar for real this Wednesday – I must admit to being a bit nervous about it!