The Education Innovation Centre at The University Of The West Of England are teaching a MA Education in Virtual Worlds with the course taking place in Second Life. Learners will have the opportunity to :
- Explore the application of teaching, learning and research theories in a virtual environment,
- Develop potential learning activities of their own and test them out
- Explore the use of non-player characters and bots powered by forms of “artificial intelligence”
- Design and develop curricula specifically for delivery in virtual worlds
- Research education in virtual worlds
…and more
The MAEVW is a flexible programme of study, which is taught entirely in the virtual world Second Life. It is supported by online technologies that include virtual learning environments, collaborative tools and video conferencing. This flexibility enables the course to be studied anywhere in the world (with some requirements regarding time zones).
The whole course is a two year programme, although you can choose to take the modules individually if you want. The full programme structure can be read here. There are a number of modules, some are compulsory and some are optional. The compulsory modules are :
- Orientation in Virtual Worlds
- Designing Curricula in Virtual Worlds
- Simulations and Role Play
- Scripting and Building Learning Environments
- Research Methods in Virtual Worlds
- Sociology of the Metaverse
- Artificial Intelligence, Bots and Non-Player Characters
- The Philosophy of Education in Virtual Worlds
The programme structure page goes into a lot more detail about the course and all the details.
There are some interesting learning outcomes from these modules, for example the learning outcomes for Artificial Intelligence, Bots and Non-Player Characters are :
Students will be introduced to the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and will explore current implementations of AI applications. Students will analyse the use of conversational agents (chatbots), companion agents (bots) and non-player characters (NPCs) in computer games and online services.
The module is particularly concerned with developing students’ critical and creative understanding of the role that AI can play in sophisticated online/virtual learning experiences, its strengths and limitations.
By the end of the module students will be able to demonstrate:
- their critical and deep understanding of the main issues with which the field of AI deals; its characteristics, applications and limitations;
- their ability to critically appraise conversational agents using methods such as the Turing Test and the Chinese Room hypothesis;
- their systematic understanding of natural language processing and Artificial Intelligence Mark-up Language (AIML);
- their ability to explore and synthesise current AI solutions, vendors and products and their ability to evaluate the potential application to learning activities;
- their ability to design effective and contextual distributed learning experiences where AI is a component contributing to learner interaction and flexibility.
Whereas the syllabus outline for Sociology of the Metaverse includes :
- Communities and other forms of association in the metaverse with special reference to learning communities.
- Processes of inclusion and exclusion in the metaverse.
- The political economy of the metaverse – the permeability of the ‘real’ and the ‘virtual’.
The UWE are running open days in Second Life, the next two are scheduled for Tuesday 29th July and Thursday 4th September. However if you want to take a look at the facilities in Second Life and get information about what they are doing you can visit their centre in Second Life :
SLURL : http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Innovation%20at%20UWE/129/224/27
The course seems to be aimed at educators rather than those just interested in virtual worlds and it’s not free, far from it, there’s a pretty hefty fee for partaking in this course but that’s not unusual in adult education circles these days.
This is an interesting development as Linden Lab and Second Life have been trying to woo back the educators, some of them never went away and others are definitely still trying to use Second Life to deliver courses and content, which should be a good step in the long run as I feel education within virtual worlds will be on the rise in the future.
Did you know that UWE’s prime self-description [http://www.uwe.ac.uk] is “The University for the real world”?
Pep (This would be ironic if what most people thought “ironic” meant was not what “ironic” actually meant.)
PS UWE is not really a University; it specialises in sports, animal and land courses, ie it’s for jocks with no brains and farmers.
22 years ago Polytechnics changed, I mean come on Pep, 22 years is a long time even for those of us who have been on the planet for a lot longer than that.
The real world angle is interesting as I have recently read an email from a professor bemoaning virtual reality being based too closely on real reality.
Pep, please be careful about flippant comments that are incorrect and insulting. UWE really is a University with its own charter since 1992, and it covers a wide range of subjects, including being home to the world renowned Bristol Robotics Lab. It certainly does not specialise in land courses or sports courses. We have no agricultural courses, other than the equine specialities at Hartpury College which is affiliated to UWE. I take deep offence at your characterisation of UWE and is students, and would demand that you retract your statement.
There is nothing ironic about the real world description. We use virtual environments to ready our students for practice in the real world, from law to forensics. Hardly “jocks with no brains”.
Liz Falconer, Professor of Technology Enhanced Learning, UWE.
Pep’s comments are part of his style, I would advise you to take them with a large pinch of salt and to possibly not feed him after midnight.
This might not end well.
I’m more than happy to publish testimonials regarding the course from yourself or your students.
Thanks Ciaran,
He’s really rubbed some of the jocks with no brains and farmers up the wrong way, as you can see. I would suggest he amends his “style”. This is a publicly open blog and I’m sure you can understand that I can’t leave that kind of factually incorrect comment unchallenged. What might not end well?
Thank you for the offer to publish testimonials – they seem to be coming in on this comment stream in any case 🙂 Also, thank you for taking the time to put together this blog post – in all the caffuffle I didn’t thank you, and that is remiss of me.
Let’s move on from Pep’s comment and talk about the really interesting stuff in Virtual Worlds 🙂
Best wishes
Liz.
The course and finding further information about it is most definitely interesting, I’m going to post more about how the Innovation centre are making use of Second Life.
These sort of use cases do not get enough attention in my view.
Pep, I am a student on this MA, having just completed the first years study. I am neither a farmer or a jock with no brains,I am an IT professional. I take your comments as an insult to myself and my fellow students. I second the request from Liz, for a retraction possibly with an apology thrown in for good measure!
More importantly, have you been enjoying the course?
Yes, indeed I have enjoyed it so far. Especially the “scripting and building ” module last semester. Unlike the other commentators so far, I don’t work in education. I’m coming to the MA from an IT background and to SL from the purely social side of it. Which means I have a very different viewpoint on some aspects of virtual worlds, which leads to interesting discussions.
So as you suggest and Aaron confirms, the MA may well be targeted at educators, but is by no means limited exclusively to them.
Oh excellent, it’s refreshing to see that I wasn’t alone in seeing the appeal of this course and the modules to people who aren’t educators.
Very pleased to hear that you’ve enjoyed it so far.
The quality of the students in the MA Education in Virtual Worlds, run by the University of the West of England, is unquestionable. I am impressed by the creativity of their work, their analytical skills and their insight and intuition. This shows in their work and assessments results which are outstanding. They also form a real community of practice and have lots of amazing skills to share with the real and the virtual world population. I consider myself privileged and fortunate to work with these talented people and observe their progress as they move through the programme.
I would imagine that the students on the course are very pleased to hear such positive feedback from a senior lecturer on the course. I will have to blog more about you later.
Blog about me?!! (blushing). I’m always happy to discuss the MA Education in Virtual Worlds with you or anybody interested in it. It’s a wonderful postgraduate programme which breaks the boundaries of traditional education and makes them much more flexible, opening the creativity of the students which think of new ways for teaching and learning using these environments that are more valuable in many cases than in physical learning environments.
Pep, I am a PhD student having just completed 4 modules in this MA Programme as part of my degree requirements. My research is based on using the virtual world to enhance the learning of Computer Science at the HE level. This is certainly NOT “jocks with no brains” or “farmers”.
I was privileged to have the opportunity to benefit from the wide range of skills, support and dedication of the academic staff on this programme, who built and advanced my expertise in employing this emerging technology in Higher Education, and well-prepared me to successfully achieve my PhD.
I did find your comments strictly insulting, not only to the students on this programme, but also to the academic staff and the University, whom I truly respect. I fully support Prof. Liz Flaconer in demanding that you retract your statement with an apology.
I’m glad to hear that you found such great benefit from the course. This certainly looks like an interesting development.
Ciaran
To make reference to the MA as an adult education course is not really doing it justice in my view. It is a Master’s degree in Education, specialising in the use of virtual worlds in the field of education, and as such has the academic rigour associated with it that any Masters should have. Its relevancy for educational practice goes far beyond virtual environments but obviously, given its focus, it does apply much of its theoretical knowledge towards the development of best practice in virtual worlds. To suggest that it “seems to be aimed at educators” is rather an understatement; it is specifically aimed at educators.
I do have first-hand knowledge of this degree having just completed the eight compulsory modules and now being into the final extended project. I am rather pleased, contrary to your extremely uninformed commenter, that I brought a modicum of brains along for the ride as the level of study necessary was extremely high, requiring in-depth theoretical investigations of multiple disciplines alongside the development of practical skills applicable to the field.
Of course, as I would have expected when partaking in any degree, fees were applicable and this particular Masters is no exception. Its fees however, when researched, can be seen to not be as hefty as many others; rather they are quite reasonable at this level of academic study.
As for the references to the real world/virtual world dichotomy I would suggest that the dramatic irony intended by the word’s Greek roots apply, whereby “the full significance of a character’s words or actions is clear to the audience or reader although unknown to the character”. I have lived many a year with the throw-away phrase from detractors of “get a real life” but am always a little bemused by the fact that to be in a virtual world implies a real person, in their real life, sitting at that computer or wearing that VR headset. And there are more than 2 billion of us doing it, really, with real world affect. To not study this genre in some manner would be to deny the real world ubiquity of virtual worlds and to not investigate its possibility for education, in denial of the researched evidence that strongly suggests its efficacy.
Director: F/Xual Education Services
Lecturer: Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology – Multiuser Virtual Environments
The course content and learning outcomes most definitely piqued my interest, which is one of the main reasons I decided to highlight the course in this post.
I should have pointed out that this was a postgraduate degree course.
Virtual worlds often get a bad press and comments along the lines of “Get a real life” are certainly not unusual. I once bemoaned that the mainstream media ignore use cases such as this and a journalist pointed out to me that developers of virtual worlds and their user base do not talk about use cases such as this enough,hence the wider media don’t pick these use cases up.
I do believe there’s some merit in that point. However on a wider point, I don’t see anything different on a broad (very broad) level between spending time in virtual worlds, playing the likes of World Warcraft, getting lost in a good book, watching television or getting lost in a box set. There are different outcomes from these activities but they all require a real person behind them, as such the virtual world is very much part of the real world and real life.
Some of the feedback regarding the course in terms of delivery and content has been very encouraging to read. I’m glad that people are finding the course very stimulating and as I said in my post, I certainly feel that education within virtual worlds will grow in the future.
I am also a student on the MA and have just finished my second year. I am also an associate professor of law at the university as well and so definitely consider it to be a leading university in research learning and teaching. Just because of our origins does not mean that top class research learning and teaching does not goes on. Far from it. Look at our research. I personally research virtual world economics, finance and crime. This medium I beg to differ is different from traditional methods but that is because we take an interest in our students different learning techniques. Take a look at some of the videos stemming from TED on experiential learning and see for yourself the benefits of active learning. University is about leading students through the fog of information to allow them to forge their own set of knowledge so they can participate in the world after university. Here on this course as student and fellow colleague we take learning and teaching seriously because we believe passionately in what we are doing.
Thank you very much for providing feedback for another perspective, as both a student and associate professor.
The impression I’m getting is that this course is part of a very forward thinking vision from UWE.
I’m also very impressed by your areas of research, they are subject matters I’d like to see shared with a wider audience.
TED is an excellent resource.