P2PU: A Virtual Worlds, Games and Education Tour

When you sign up to participate in a P2PU course you're asked a number of standard questions about why you're interested in a course, what you hope to get out of it, and whether you'd like to get involved in organising. You can also be asked some more specific questions relating to the selected course. The following are my answers to the questions asked when I joined the Virtual Worlds, Games and Education Tour course. You fill them in on a web form, and I wasn't expecting it, so they're off the top of my head stuff (except for the wikipedia link). I'm posting here so that I can see whether my thoughts have changed after participating.

Do you think there is a difference between a virtual world and a MMORPG?

Yes, I think so, though I'm a bit hesitant in my answer, not having really ever experienced MMORPGs. I know of WoW, and I might be able to come up with a name of another, but that's not too promising. On the other hand I can name a fair few virtual worlds and synthetic environments.

My first reason for differentiating is based on the role playing aspect. I am assuming that the RPG of the MMORPG title indicates that you would always be role playing. Conversely I'd suggest that while you might role play in a virtual world, it's not a given - you might just as well be 'playing' yourself. If there are MMORPGs where you play yourself my argument would get fuzzy... I look forward to learning more!

I'd also look at the use of the term 'game' in the MMORPG title. Do games by necessity have aims and rules? If so, I'd say that virtual worlds differ in that (while users in them in a particular context might have or impose aims or rules) they generally promote more free exploration, without any particular set of objectives. Users might enter and user a virtual world for a whole range of reasons, and these may or may not include gaming.

Do you think most people would agree with you?

Most people? Most people I speak to don't know what a virtual world is! There are plenty who haven't heard of even the big names like Second Life. I would have thought the same applies to MMORPGs. Despite a fairly geeky background and job I still don't actually know anyone who uses both virtual worlds and MMORPGs (if indeed they are different). 

What virtual worlds or MMORPGs do you use regularly or have you experienced?

I'm not currently in any worlds or MMORPGs regularly. I'm just now beginning to explore Second Life some more, having previously used OLIVE, Teleplace (before the open source developments) and VBS2 through my work. I've never knowingly (!) used any MMORPGs. I might be missing out on something!

The Virtual Worlds Best Practice in Education unconference brought together some excellent resources on
practices for education in virtual environments, and assessment in virtual worlds, reproduced below:

Best Practice Resources

Readings:

Journal of Virtual World Research, Vol 2. No. 1
Pedagogy, Education and Innovation in Education
http://jvwresearch.org/index.php/past-issues/21-pedagogy-education-and-innovation
VEJ Virtual Education Journal – September Issue http://www.virtualeducationjournal.com/

Organizations:
AERA Applied Research in Virtual Environments for Learning http://arvelsig.ning.com/
ISTE SIGVE http://sigve.iste.wikispaces.net/

Second Life sites:
ISTE Island
CAVE (Community of Applied Virtual Educators)
Virtual Pioneers
EdTech Island

Educator Research Groups and Social Media:
ARVEL – Second Life group
ISTE – Second Life group
Virtual Pioneers – Second Life Group
AERA ARVELSIG twitter @arvel

Assessment in Virtual Worlds

Resources and Readings:
Dede, C. Planning for Neomillennial Learning Styles, Educause Quarterly http://www.educause.edu/EDUCAUSE+Quarterly/EDUCAUSEQuarterlyMagazineVolum/PlanningforNeomillennialLearni/157325
Clarke, J. Studying the Potential of Virtual Performance assessments for Measuring Student Achievement in Science. http://virtualassessment.org/publications/aera_2009_clarke.pdf
Virtual Assessments Project http://virtualassessment.org/participants/participants.html

Elluminate Session - watch the following keynote from Global Education Conference 2011
Chris Dede “How Immersion in Virtual Environments Aids Students in the Real World”
https://sas.elluminate.com/m.jnlp?sid=2008350&password=M.1B3D99DCC4FF0D2C6B978CCFF6991D

P2PU - the Peer 2 Peer University

I happened across a Tweet the other day from someone who's not in the technology or elearning fields himself, but is interested in community engagement and knowledge sharing. He'd heard about P2PU and was flagging it as an interesting idea. I followed the link, and came to the same conclusion.

The Peer 2 Peer University describes itself as "a grassroots open education project that organizes learning outside of institutional walls and gives learners recognition for their achievements. P2PU creates a model for lifelong learning alongside traditional formal higher education. Leveraging the internet and educational materials openly available online, P2PU enables high-quality low-cost education opportunities. P2PU - learning for everyone, by everyone about almost anything."

That sounded interesting. Worthy aims which I happily buy into. But what interested me more was what I found when I dug a little deeper. Courses, free to register and participate, in interesting fields encompassing webcraft, social innovation, mathematical future and education; attractive of course. But as it happens, despite an awareness of MOOCs, I've not had the opportunity to participate before, and that in itself is a further exciting personal and professional elearning experiment for me. So, now is the time!

I've signed up to A Virtual Worlds, Games and Education Tour. It's a four week course exploring virtual worlds, games and emerging technology for use in education. It includes tours on topics covered at VWBPE 2012 or the Virtual Worlds Unsymposium which I really wish I'd been involved in, field trips to educational sims in Second Life, an introduction to Machinima, an adventure in the MMORPG World of Warcraft with an educators' guild and finally some tours on the Bleeding Edge with emerging technology and education that includes virtual, blended and augmented realities. The virtual world field trips are scheduled for evenings in Pacific Standard Time, which puts them in the middle of my night, but some might be manageable - and the helpful organisers have left introduction cards in world to allow you to explore yourself. I'm really looking forward to sharing this with other participants through the P2PU facilities and the portal put together by the course facilitators. I'll be tagging any blog posts related to the course with the vwmooc label.