{"id":4133,"date":"2014-07-24T20:44:48","date_gmt":"2014-07-24T19:44:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/?p=4133"},"modified":"2014-07-24T21:46:13","modified_gmt":"2014-07-24T20:46:13","slug":"uwe-teaching-ma-in-virtual-worlds-within-second-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/?p=4133","title":{"rendered":"UWE Teaching MA In Virtual Worlds Within Second Life"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a title=\"UWE Education In Virtual Worlds MA by Ciaran Laval, on Flickr\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/ciaran_laval\/14755555473\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm4.staticflickr.com\/3910\/14755555473_99ca114855.jpg?resize=500%2C298&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"UWE Education In Virtual Worlds MA\" width=\"500\" height=\"298\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The <a title=\"Education Innovation Centre\" href=\"http:\/\/www.uwe.ac.uk\/eic\/\" target=\"_blank\">Education Innovation Centre<\/a> at The University Of The West Of England are teaching a <a title=\"MA Education In Virtual Worlds\" href=\"http:\/\/www.uwe.ac.uk\/eic\/virtualWorldsMA\/courseDetails.shtml\" target=\"_blank\">MA Education in Virtual Worlds<\/a> with the course taking place in Second Life. Learners will have the opportunity to :<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Explore the application of teaching, learning and research theories in a virtual environment,<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Develop potential learning activities of their own and test them out<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Explore the use of non-player characters and bots powered by forms of \u201cartificial intelligence\u201d<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Design and develop curricula specifically for delivery in virtual worlds<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Research education in virtual worlds<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote><p><em>&#8230;and more<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>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).<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>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 <a title=\"Programme\" href=\"http:\/\/www.uwe.ac.uk\/eic\/virtualWorldsMA\/programme.shtml\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>. There are a number of modules, some are compulsory and some are optional. The compulsory modules are :<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Orientation in Virtual Worlds<\/li>\n<li>Designing Curricula in Virtual Worlds<\/li>\n<li>Simulations and Role Play<\/li>\n<li>Scripting and Building Learning Environments<\/li>\n<li>Research Methods in Virtual Worlds<\/li>\n<li>Sociology of the Metaverse<\/li>\n<li>Artificial Intelligence, Bots and Non-Player Characters<\/li>\n<li>The Philosophy of Education in Virtual Worlds<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The programme structure page goes into a lot more detail about the course and all the details.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"UWE AI &amp; Bots Centre by Ciaran Laval, on Flickr\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/ciaran_laval\/14733331214\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm6.staticflickr.com\/5576\/14733331214_4b263be67a.jpg?resize=500%2C298&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"UWE AI &amp; Bots Centre\" width=\"500\" height=\"298\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>There are some interesting learning outcomes from these modules, for example the learning outcomes for\u00a0Artificial Intelligence, Bots and Non-Player Characters are :<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>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.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The module is particularly concerned with developing students\u2019 critical and creative understanding of the role that AI can play in sophisticated online\/virtual learning experiences, its strengths and limitations.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>By the end of the module students will be able to demonstrate:<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>their critical and deep understanding of the main issues with which the field of AI deals; its characteristics, applications and limitations;<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>their ability to critically appraise conversational agents using methods such as the Turing Test and the Chinese Room hypothesis;<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>their systematic understanding of natural language processing and Artificial Intelligence Mark-up Language (AIML);<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>their ability to explore and synthesise current AI solutions, vendors and products and their ability to evaluate the potential application to learning activities;<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>their ability to design effective and contextual distributed learning experiences where AI is a component contributing to learner interaction and flexibility.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Whereas the syllabus outline for\u00a0Sociology of the Metaverse includes :<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Communities and other forms of association in the metaverse with special reference to learning communities.<\/li>\n<li>Processes of inclusion and exclusion in the metaverse.<\/li>\n<li>The political economy of the metaverse \u2013 the permeability of the \u2018real\u2019 and the \u2018virtual\u2019.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>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 :<\/p>\n<p>SLURL :\u00a0<a title=\"SLURL To UWE\" href=\"http:\/\/maps.secondlife.com\/secondlife\/Innovation%20at%20UWE\/129\/224\/27\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/maps.secondlife.com\/secondlife\/Innovation%20at%20UWE\/129\/224\/27<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"University Of West England In Second Life by Ciaran Laval, on Flickr\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/ciaran_laval\/14549253737\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm3.staticflickr.com\/2920\/14549253737_982ef51499.jpg?resize=500%2C298&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"University Of West England In Second Life\" width=\"500\" height=\"298\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The course seems to be aimed at educators rather than those just interested in virtual worlds and it&#8217;s not free, far from it, there&#8217;s a pretty hefty fee for partaking in this course but that&#8217;s not unusual in adult education circles these days.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"twitter-share-button\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/share\" data-url=\"http:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/?p=4133\" data-via=\"Ciaran_Laval\">Tweet<\/a><br \/>\n<script>\/\/ <![CDATA[\n!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=\/^http:\/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+':\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');\n\/\/ ]]><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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 &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/?p=4133\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;UWE Teaching MA In Virtual Worlds Within Second Life&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,14],"tags":[260,19,1022,738],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6rJUK-14F","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4133"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4133"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4138,"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4133\/revisions\/4138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}