Presentation1

"Produsage within virtual worlds: Can  current toolsets help shape the future of education?"

What are MMOs and MMORPGs

What is produsage and who does it apply to?

Second Life Unity 3D

The Second Life Toolset

Second Life’s Applicability to Education

The Unity 3D Toolset

Unity 3D’s Applicability to Education

A Comparison Between the Toolsets

FormatHow easy to get startedGeneral difficultyAudience

What Researchers Have Found

Childs, M. de Freitas, S. & Neumann, T. Warburton, S.

Entry 1:In Second Life, I created an electronic resource for my subject of Drama in order to help other students understand what a particular module involved. I created a book in which was the module outline plus what each lecture was going to include. I felt that I achieved a very helpful resource for students perhaps apprehensive about beginning the postmodern drama module. It was helpful because it was clear, concise and in my opinion interesting to read. There was no superfluous language that a student would struggle with and it was straight to the point. The more important aspect of the resource is that it was online. It wasn’t simply a module handbook that they had to skim through with no interest, ‘a virtual world provides an experience set within a technological environment that gives the user a strong sense of being there’ (Warburton, 2009, p. 415). I think it was helpful with the character ‘being there’ was available; this is because a student can perhaps feel alone when it comes to their work. Second life in it being so sociable allows a comfort to a student in that someone has created something in the world that they are virtually standing in to help them with their studies. De Freitas and Neumann (2009) write how virtual worlds create ‘greater empowerment of the learner to…explore environments freely and have control over the tools and content development’. I think this is particularly true with my book because any student could take a copy of the book and make it their own or put it in their own place for them to look at whenever they wanted. They could also have taken the images from the book so that they can choose to learn in the more traditional sense if they so wished. This choice that the student has with Second Life and indeed all virtual worlds makes it a lot better in many ways than real life. The teacher in a normal setting chooses how the student learns but Second Life takes away that barrier in to allow the student to feel comfortable in their learning.It’s also important to look at other people’s educational resources because I am a beginner at it and I wanted to see what I could make if I had been a more seasoned Second Life user. The island ANGEL Learning isle was particularly interesting because of how well-set out it was. A user can stand in front of a sign then move onto the next much more physically than they can scrolling through slides. Feeling involved with one’s work is essential if you want a student to do well because they want to learn because they are feeling a part of what they are learning. Warburton goes on to say that ‘The ability to create complex objects and environments…and the rich immersive experience establish SL as the most attractive proposition for educators’. This is because of the point made earlier how a user can feel involved in their learning and learn much more in depth because of the infinite choices of objects you can create.Another learning island that is available to travel to is Western Front – 1917 – Training Camp 2, Frideswide. This island makes you feel as though you are at a training came during the First World War. It is very innovative and shows the extent of educational resources you can create. There are war journals, poems, videos; everything is incorporated into a small space, as though you are walking around a museum. What makes this so important is that there is no need to book a trip, or pay a fare to get in, it is just there to roam around whenever you please.In her research into virtual worlds, de Freitas (2008) looks outside of younger-age education and focuses on higher education. For example she mentions accident training (p.27) where medical students can rehearse for real-life accidents. This would be helpful because the rehearsal of certain situations could save lives and allow less room for mistakes. She also says ‘virtual worlds will continue to emerge supporting different and more specialised learning scenarios’ (p.30). This is true because of applicability of virtual worlds to infinite places of learning. Normal teaching in a classroom has been the same way for so long and having the virtual worlds move with the times and be getting better all the time may eventually see the classroom as the mundane approach to teaching. 745 Words Entry 2:I have created a character (or at least dressed mine) in the virtual world, not necessarily one I can relate to because it is a dragon but it is my avatar. Although I do not relate to the dragon, I do feel like there’s a protection in that because it doesn’t represent me, I can somehow feel distanced from avatar. If the avatar was to look exactly like me, I would hacve to treat the avatar and other avatars as if they are real but because of being new to Second Life I do not feel comfortable doing so. With the identity cube, I was unsure what exactly to put on it, a picture of something I enjoy or like or a picture of me in the real world, or even a picture of me inside the virtual world. It’s interesting because each one of these examples would mean showing off a particular aspect of me which isn’t really done very often. A similarity I can see is between the identity cube and the old MySpace profiles people created. I think if I was to spend more time in Second Life I would get bored with my avatar and want to change it, searching around for free costumes to wear, looking for th strangest thing out there. Mark Childs said in his example how he ‘got a bit of a reputation for a range of strange, and often repulsive, avatars’ (Childs, 2011, p.1). I think in terms of my avatar I would go the same way, looking for something to perhaps represent a quirkiness I feel I have in my personality. Perhaps being a dragon is something childish in me that has escaped by way of looking for a dragon avatar and representing myself as one in order to fulfil a desire. The identity cube is interesting because of it having the obvious six different images allowed on it. This meant that the options I had to choose from didn’t need to be one or the other but all of them. Allowing me to represent any part of me that I so desired. I didn’t create an identity cube but I did decide on the images I would have: An xbox, a picture of my girlfriend, a poster of my favourite film, my avatar in second life, a picture of me in the real world and my favourite band. All these would give a pretty decent insight into what I enjoy doing plus a representation of what I choose to look like in Second Life. The only conclusion I can draw from all of this is that I am perhaps not ready to take on a personality in a virtual world but perhaps use Second Life as a gateway into showing what I am actually like, not pretending to be like. Entry 3:For this journal entry I interviewed someone in my family that has been playing Second Life and other virtual worlds for a few years. In terms of his embodiment in Second Life, he said yes because you create the person's look, you change what your person wears to give it some feeling that it belongs to you, and that it represents yourself in the virtual world, and the fact that you know there are other people behind each avatar, you can relate to others in terms of feeling a part of it all. ‘Limiting the choice denies them the opportunity to inform the community about who they are, and also to fulfil an act of reification of their own conception of self.’ (Childs, p.6-7)  It's all how you make the person look, especially with a group of friends, so people know who is who by what you wear so you’re associated in the game just by your avatar. He said if you take the game seriously you do feel like you're there, just because you control everything that you do, there's no storyline: it’s about how you want your person to come across to everyone who sees you.When I explained what each of the two terms meant to the interviewee he said he was an augmentationist, because he doesn’t need to be anything else to show anyone, its mainly based on his personal involvement with the game but people vary. He said if you play with your real life friends you tend to become someone not yourself just because you find it fun seeing the complete contrast between your real self and your in-game self. However he said, when with people who he doesn’t know he tends to be more himself, so he can get to know someone. Childs says ‘the social environment then becomes a stage in which these various performances interact, and other people are an audience for these personae’ (2011, p.5). It’s interesting how my family member drew on the point that the world is like a stage where you perform and so conform. He said he has emotional detachment you have from games and feels like he can act however he wants because he is anonymous and can present himself however he wishes. This relates to Mark Childs (2011, p.4) in that our own view of ourselves is only part of the picture’ and ‘there is the aspect of ourselves which we present to others’. The person I interviewed said how he didn’t have to represent himself any other way if he didn’t want to, he could just be himself so virtual worlds allows him to never put up a barrier.He admitted to more than once scamming other players in virtual worlds.  He said scamming is a big part of his detachment in the game, because he doesn’t know the person, he can’t feel guilty. He mentioned some virtual worlds companies encouraging exploitation in their games as a means to an end, namely EVE, an MMORPG. He went on to explain how he scams people, saying how you act as a person who is completely different to yourself, just so the other person in the game thinks you have the same likes to get a friendship going. He said he grabs their trust over a few interactions, tells them that he has something that’s not allowed and if they wish to see it, he charges them, takes their money and then disappears. He mentioned not looking back because it will allow you to not feel the guilt that you would in real life.I asked if playing in virtual worlds has changed him in real life he said its taught him that people can do whatever they like and it has absolutely no impact on their real life, people have relationships on the internet and can impact them if they take the game too seriously. He said if you're quite young you tend to not care as much about your actions because of older people looking for something quite specific. He also said overall it’s influenced his understanding of how people think, how saying things in different orders can help you to manipulate situations.Since the interview, I can understand what is so attractive to the people that play in virtual worlds but I don’t feel like I belong more to a society now. However I do feel like my avatar should be changed to be like me so that other people in the game will feel I am more approachable than a dragon since people think you are embodied by your avatar. I don’t think I know myself better or worse in terms of my embodiment since playing the game or the interview because I feel like I already knew myself. 798 Words Entry: 4Part A After both creating an educational resource in Second Life and attempting to build an island in Unity 3D, I can make an informed decision of which toolset is better, easier and more useful. The big differences between the toolsets are that Second Life has a more complicated interface. Unity 3D, you have to search and search before you find the right tool you want to use. Second Life has a much better interface in that in it’s easier to understand what the words mean. Unity 3D assumes too much for example there are buttons you are unsure what they do until you press them. Second Life, because it is more of a community based game, is much more approachable. Unity 3D has a lot more images that it assumes you will understand whereas Second life there is an explanation for everything. Second Life has a lot less things you can create. Unity 3D there is more or less everything you can create if you want to.In terms of educational resources, Second Life would seem a much better option because of educational resources being so easy to create. There are presentations, books, information blocks etc that are really simple to make. Unity 3D would require hours and hours before anything of educational use can be made, this is because an island itself isn’t educational, its what you put on it, and in Second Life the island is already created.Part BIn terms of producing something independently, the two toolsets are about even because they require money to further the amount you can do in the game. This is particularly important with Second Life because you can’t do anything really without Lindens, there are a lot of free things but you have to pay 10L just to upload a photo. With Unity 3D, there is a lot more freedom with being able to create huge amounts of things without the purchase of extra content. So perhaps this is a big thing that makes Unity 3D better than Second Life. Educational resources would be completely impossible without buying Lindens in Second Life. Unity 3D is very different as discussed where more or less anything can be created without needing to buy anything. Reference List:Childs, M. (2011) Example Second Journal Entry [Online]. Available at: http://moodle2.newman.ac.uk/11-12/course/view.php?id=1066 (Accessed 1 January 2012) Childs, M. (2011) ‘Identity: A Primer’ in Reinventing Ourselves: Contemporary concepts of identity in virtual worlds [Online]. Available at: http://moodle2.newman.ac.uk/11-12/course/view.php?id=1066 (Accessed: 1 January 2012)de Freitas, S. (2008) Serious Virtual Worlds: A Scoping Study [Online]. Available at: http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=b8c00ee2-f577-48a8-9c1b-35497665adf4%40sessionmgr115&vid=4&hid=122 (Accessed January 2 2012)de Freitas, S. & Neumann, T. (2009) 'The use of exploratory learning for supporting immersive learning in virtual environments', Computers and Education, 52 (2): 343-35 Curve Coventry [Online]. Available at http://curve.coventry.ac.uk/cu/items/5c6ecf6d-1a61-c7ff-d7f3-53404f5e42cd/1/deFreitas-Neumann.pdf (Accessed: 1 January 2012)Warburton, S. (2009) ‘Second Life in Higher Education’ British journal of Educational Technology, 40 (3), pp. 414-426 EBSCO Host [Online]. Available at: http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?sid=312f2c6e-0c0a-43c4-8add-00348e4df3cf%40sessionmgr113&vid=1&hid=122&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=ehh&jid=58I (Accessed: 1 January 2012)

My conclusions...

Reference List