Ian Truelove spills ideas

Learning outcomes v1.1

2011-04-05T09:10:00.000-07:00

The periodic review went very well, with commendations for the quality of our documentation and the enthusiasm of the course team, which was nice. We had a couple of minor technical conditions, which have been swiftly fixed, and only one significant recommendation – to clarify the learning outcomes in relation to the learning agreement. This ties in nicely with the upcoming changes to the academic framework, which will see all courses reduce the number of learning outcomes per module to a maximum of 4, and reduce the number of course learning outcomes to a maximum of 6. It has also provided a window of opportunity to squeeze something into the module learning outcomes to address the issue of tutorial engagement (or the lack of it for some students). In the previous module outcomes, we referred to ‘appropriate academic contexts’. We’ve now narrowed this down to ‘tutorials’ to remove any wriggle room, and to link tutorial engagement directly to assessment. We’ve kept the more generic term in the course outcomes, but inside the actual modules, there’s no confusion about what we mean.

Here are the final learning outcomes for the BA Hons Graphic Arts & Design course at Leeds Metropolitan University:

Course Learning Outcomes
On successful completion the BA Hons Graphic Arts & Design course, a graduate is able to:

1. Integrate practical and theoretical skills in the production and presentation of a consolidated body of work.
2. Negotiate, create and present a coherent, sustainable, individually appropriate and critically informed body of work.
3. Articulate their ideas, intentions and outcomes within appropriate academic and professional contexts.
4. Locate their practice within appropriate social, cultural, historical, professional and technical contexts.

Learning Outcomes – Level Six
On successful completion of Level Six, the student is able to:

1. Integrate practical and theoretical skills in the production and presentation of a consolidated body of practical work and an Extended Learning Agreement.
2. Negotiate, create and present a coherent, sustainable, individually appropriate and critically informed body of practical work and an Extended Learning Agreement.
3. Reflect upon their learning, and articulate their ideas, intentions and outcomes in tutorials and through an Extended Learning Agreement.
4. Locate their practice within appropriate social, cultural, historical, professional and technical contexts, and articulate their understanding of these contexts in tutorials and through an Extended Learning Agreement.

Learning Outcomes – Level Five
On successful completion of Level Five, the student is able to:

1. Integrate practical and theoretical skills in the production and presentation of a consolidated body of practical work and a Learning Agreement.
2. Negotiate, create and present an individually appropriate and critically informed body of practical work and a Learning Agreement.
3. Reflect upon their learning, and articulate their ideas, intentions and outcomes in tutorials and through a Learning Agreement.
4. Locate their practice within appropriate social, cultural, historical, professional and technical contexts, and articulate their understanding of these contexts in tutorials and through a Learning Agreement.
5. Understand the broad range of processes that constitute graphic arts and design.
6. Embrace ambiguity, uncertainty and unfamiliarity in relation to their individual creative practice.

Learning Outcomes – Level Four
On successful completion of Level Four, the student is able to:

1. Integrate practical and theoretical skills in the production of a negotiated practical project and a first Learning Agreement.
2. Develop and apply practical skills in the creation and presentation of a body of self-directed practical work.
3. Work independently and assume responsibility for their own learning.
4. Reflect upon their learning, and articulate their ideas, intentions and outcomes in tutorials and through a first Learning Agreement.
5. Locate their practice within appropriate social, cultural, historical, professional and technical contexts, and articulate an understanding of these contexts in tutorials and through a first Learning Agreement.
6. Undertake a theoretical approach to study.
7. Research and analyse the work of others within a critical account.
8. Produce of a reasoned argument that interrogates and interprets selected examples of visual culture.
9. Resolve collaborative and developmental studio briefs using a range of techniques, processes and materials.
10. Demonstrate awareness of the broad range of approaches that constitute graphic arts and design.
11. Understand the course philosophy.
12. Understand which support services, facilities and learning technologies are available, and be competent in their use.

Learning outcomes v1.0

2011-03-16T15:56:00.000-07:00

OK. On the off-chance that someone is still reading this infrequently updated blog, here is the end point of the quest to re-write the BA Hons Graphic Arts & Design course at Leeds Met. This is the juicy bit from the 200 pages of documentation that we have written over the last few months:

_______________________________________

Background and philosophy

In accordance with the aims of the course, the curriculum strategy provides, through an integrated approach to theory and practice, opportunities for multidisciplinary and specialist activity. Through the study and practice of graphic arts and design, students develop a comprehensive understanding of the wider social, cultural, historical, professional, critical and technical contexts of their work.

The curriculum strategy emphasises the opportunity for students to identify, negotiate and undertake their own particular approach to study within the range of activities, practices and associated techniques and processes which define graphic arts and design.

Central to the curriculum strategy is the Learning Agreement. The Learning Agreement provides a mechanism for students to negotiate and implement their own particular approach to study, and enables them to demonstrate the process and outcomes of critical reflection and theoretical contextualisation, as appropriate to their own work.

The overarching course aims are:

• To provide the opportunity for study to students who wish to acquire and develop the necessary technical and practical skills; knowledge and understanding; attributes, attitudes and approaches; and intellectual and creative abilities to perform successfully as creative professionals in the field of graphic arts and design.

• To provide a pertinent and current curriculum that is appropriate and responsive to the needs and aspirations of all students.

• To enable students to work with visual imagery which is integrated with critical theoretical study and to locate their study and practice within the wider social, cultural, historical, professional, critical and technical contexts of graphic arts and design.

• To encourage and develop a reflective and self-critical approach which enables the student to make and use critical and contextual judgements of their work and that of others.

• To provide a curricular approach and learning strategy which is appropriate and relevant to the needs of a diverse and multidisciplinary constituency.

Learning Outcomes

Learning Outcomes – Level Four

On successful completion of Level Four, the student is able to demonstrate:

1. An initial understanding of the course and its operation.
2. An initial understanding of the technical support facilities and learning technologies available and an initial competence in their use.
3. An understanding of health and safety regulations.
4. An awareness of student support services and how to access them.
5. An initial ability in working to briefs and the meeting of deadlines.
6. An initial capability for personal and collaborative organisation within the studio context.
7. An initial ability in the use of techniques, processes and materials.
8. A developing awareness of the resources available for the research and analysis of other artists and designers, as well as the student’s own work.
9. A developing awareness and understanding of the approaches within the graphic arts and design as they are appropriate to their particular needs and interests.
10. A developing ability for researching and developing solutions.
11. An initial ability to begin to locate aspects of their own work within social, cultural, historical, professional, critical and technical contexts.
12. An initial ability to initiate, negotiate and develop a body of work according to their particular needs and interests within the field of graphic arts and design
13. An initial capacity for self-critical reflection.

Learning Outcomes – Level Five

On successful completion of Level Five, the student is able to demonstrate:

1. A developing ability to contextualise studio practice through an integration of theoretical and practical study.
2. A developing awareness of the resources available for the research and analysis of theoretical concepts as they are related to studio practice within graphic arts and design.
3. A developed understanding of the range of processes that constitute graphic arts and design.
4. A developed capability in the use of individually appropriate processes, techniques and materials.
5. A developing capacity to embrace ambiguity, uncertainty and unfamiliarity in relation to their individual creative practice.
6. A developed ability to identify, initiate, develop, negotiate and present an individually appropriate body of work.
7. A developed ability to articulate their ideas, intentions and outcomes within appropriate academic and professional contexts.
8. A developed ability to locate and situate their practice within appropriate social, cultural, historical, professional, critical and technical contexts through the Learning Agreement.
9. A developed ability to research, analyse and contextualise their practice through the Learning Agreement.
10. A developed capacity for self-critical reflection.

Learning Outcomes – Level Six

On successful completion of Level Six, the student is able to demonstrate:

1. A comprehensive ability to negotiate, develop, consolidate and present a coherent, individually appropriate and critically informed body of work.
2. A comprehensive ability to articulate their ideas, intentions and outcomes within appropriate academic and professional contexts.
3. A comprehensive ability to integrate practical, theoretical and critical skills in the production and presentation of a consolidated body of work, that is representative of an established, sustainable and individually appropriate creative practice.
4. A comprehensive ability to locate and situate their practice within appropriate social, cultural, historical, professional, critical and technical contexts through the Extended Learning Agreement.
5. A comprehensive ability to research, analyse and contextualise their practice through the Extended Learning Agreement.
6. A comprehensive capacity for self-critical reflection.

_______________________________________

So, the learning outcomes have evolved somewhat from my last post. They are essentially a refined version of the ones we had, with the QAA benchmarks used as a reference point, rather than the obvious basis. If it ain't broke, don't try to fix it. We have a very successful course, and our new document now reflects what we actually do. Let's hope the reviewers agree on Friday.

Once all of this is sorted, I'm getting back into the techno-experiments.

Learning outcomes v0.1

2009-11-07T07:29:00.000-08:00

This is my first stab at imagining some new course learning outcomes. They are currently very similar to the source outcomes I have stolen from the QAA Art & Design subject benchmark statement document that I mentioned in my last post. I hope to simplify them in due course so that they are a bit more student friendly. I also hope to incorporate the views of the course team and students in the development of them, probably by getting everyone to read these blog posts and comment. I've split them into 4 broad categories, Risk, Production, Reflection and Theory, but this is up for debate along with everything else.

BA(Hons) Graphic Arts & Design
Course learning outcomes, Version 0.1

On completion of the course, you will be able to present a body of work which demonstrates your ability to:

[Risk]

employ both convergent and divergent thinking in the processes of observation, investigation, speculative enquiry, visualisation and making

select, test and make appropriate use of materials, processes and environments

[Production]

generate ideas, concepts, proposals, solutions or arguments

develop ideas through to outcomes

work independently and/or collaboratively in response to set briefs and/or as self-initiated activity

[Reflection]

identify personal strengths and needs, and reflect on personal development.

formulate reasoned responses to the critical judgements of others

[Theory]

source and research relevant material, assimilating and articulating relevant findings

locate your practice within the wider social, cultural, professional and ethical contexts both within and beyond the field of graphic arts and design.

analyse information and experiences, formulate independent judgements, and articulate reasoned arguments through reflection, review and evaluation

Your course is about to expire. Please take action now.

2009-11-06T10:48:00.000-08:00

Why have I not blogged recently?

I've been busy busy with the reality of teaching and learning in the 21st century; managing the move into our fantastic new art school building, Broadcasting Place, and dealing with the day-to-day hubbub on a massive undergraduate course. I've had things to say about learning and technology, but I've been too busy doing the business to find the time to write about it all.

Also, I don't write things in this blog for you to read, I write mainly to try and pin the things down that I'm intrigued by, but not totally sure about. Today I opened up a massive can of worms when I decided to start planning for the imminent periodic review of the BA(Hons) Graphic Arts & Design course that I'm currently in charge of at Leeds Met.

If you're not familiar with periodic review, it's basically the process by which a course renews its licence. It happens at least once every five years, and as well as giving the institution the chance to do a proper check on the health of the course, it also opens up the possibility to make major changes. It's a chance to refresh and update everything for the better. I've been a bit-part player in previous reviews, but with the departure of nearly all of my senior colleagues in the School, the task seems to have landed on my lap. That's not a bad thing. I like a challenge.

And a challenge it is. A quick peep at the relevant documentation reveals a mountain of paperwork that will need to be produced for the review, and it's not easy stuff. However, as a trained designer, I have a methodology to tackle this mammoth task.

The first stage is to define the brief, which I have made a start on today. These are the things that Leeds Met says I will need to produce:

• Briefing Statement
• Critical Appraisal
• Course Document
• Programme Specification
• Mapping of Subject benchmark statements
• Module Specifications
• Admissions profile
• Staff CVs
• Statement of Resources

Having half-guessed my way through most of these things, I got stuck on the Mapping of Subject benchmark statements. I had a rough idea of what the benchmarks were from the last review, but sensed that this might be the really important bit. Ultimately, the benchmarks define what degree level means in relation to art & design subjects, so it effectively forms the root of the brief. I quickly found the QAA benchmark statement for Art & Design and, surprisingly, found myself enthralled by what I read. This document was obviously written by people that understand the essence of art and design education, and beautifully articulate all of the things that us purists hold dear. For example:

2.2 Learning in art and design develops:
• the capacity to be creative
• an aesthetic sensibility
• intellectual enquiry
• skills in team working
• an appreciation of diversity
• the ability to conduct research in a variety of modes
• the quality of reflecting on one's own learning and development
• the capacity to work independently, determining one's own future learning needs.

And things like this:
"divergent forms of thinking, which involve generating alternatives, and in which the notion of being 'correct' gives way to broader issues of value, are characteristic of the creative process."

Brilliant. The QAA put 'correct' in quotes. Who are we to doubt the QAA in their questioning of the dogma of the measurable.

This is my favourite: 'Students [in art & design] will have the ability to anticipate and accommodate change, and work within contexts of ambiguity, uncertainty and unfamiliarity.' Call me a saddo, but the celebration of ambiguity and uncertainty in the educational process by the ultimate official authority on the subject in the UK fills me with joy. It also gives me a big, big stick with which to beat off institutional doubters when the reviewers try to pick the thing to pieces.

I've just made a start on adapting some of the learning outcomes from this benchmark statement to use in our new course document, but I'm finding it hard to change it to the point where it's not so obviously stolen from QAA. Much more work will be needed over the next few months, but it feels good to get started. I'll keep you posted.

Post-technical drawing

2009-09-09T10:34:00.000-07:00

I thought I better do a quick post, seeing as I handed out my blog URL at the EduBloggers F-ALT bash last night, and there is a slim chance that I have new eyeballs to annoy.

Anyhow, back to the old postdigital thing again. I've had a couple of quick chats with Dave-o-White about the slight unease that we both share about the term 'post-digital'. I can't quite put my finger on it (possibly because the concept isn't yet anywhere near fully formed), but postdigital just seems a bit of a distraction, especially when you start discussing it with people for the first time, as Dave and Rich Hall did the other night at an F-ALT debate.

During Dave's excellent presentation at ALT-C this morning about the much more tangible 'Visitors and Residents' concept, he inadvertently tried to explain postdigital by saying "actually, it's more post-technical". This instantly stuck me as a more useful term, as it removes some of the perceived anti-digital vibes. It also draws attention to one of the clearer points in the debate: the desire to focus not on the technical aspect, but on the human aspects. We can reject the technical fetishisation of both the digital and the analogue using the term post-technical, and we use the term to remind us that it is the human triumphs, albeit enabled by technology, that should be promoted.

What do I mean? I'm not entirely sure. Perhaps an example might be useful to tease this out a bit.

'The Manual' that we devised and used in the Open Habitat Second Life pilots is an example of a post-technical approach to learning. 'The Manual' does not attempt to teach any technical skills. Pursuing the tasks in it will inevitably lead to the acquisition of technical skill, but it is the broader and deeper learning that is emphasised, as we think it is more important.

Technical skills are not a bad thing. Technical skills are a very good thing. But over emphasising the technical, especially at the start of a project, sets the wrong tone for learning. By dwelling on the technical, we are saying to the students "You cannot learn the deep stuff, the fun stuff, the creative stuff, the uncertain but important stuff, until you have the technical skills!". Not only does this take all the fun out of learning (well, for me and most of my students anyway), its logic is fundamentally flawed. How much technical stuff is necessary before you can start? Do you need to know, and do you need to have been tested on every feature in Final Cut Pro before you can edit a film? When I used to do software instruction, I used to teach my students one technical skill in FCP - a cut edit - and then I asked them to edit a film for the next hour. And then I didn't do any more FCP classes. Seriously. 99.9 percent of edits in any film are cuts. What is important in editing is timing and sequencing and trial and error. Learning every feature in Final Cut Pro won't help you to become a good editor. As an educator, I shouldn't be promoting the illusion that a comprehensive technical knowledge of software alone will enable them to succeed at HE level. Technical skills are important, but they can be gained as and when needed, at a pace appropriate to the individual learner.

I don't instruct my students in the sharpening of pencils, and I don't prevent them from drawing until they have passed a pencil proficiency test. I ask them to bring me their drawing so that we can talk about their ideas.

Oh, I'm rambling again. If you are new to my blog, I should point out that I use it mainly to tame my badly formed thoughts. Don't take it too seriously. Reading my post back, I think I may have some gaping holes in my arguments. I'll have to plug them later. I'm off the the F-ALT09 party now.

Never believe what artists say, only what they do.

2009-07-01T01:58:00.000-07:00

It all started for me with David Hockney. I 'got' art because of him. The reason my alter-ego is called Cubist is because of Hockney. Most importantly, he lives in Bridlington, which is just up the road from where I live in Filey.

Last night's Hockney documentary on BBC1 reminded me why I'm in this game. More than anything, it is Hockney's attitude and approach that I aspire to. The ceaseless dedication to exploration. The blunt, non-nonsense Yorkshireness. The love of drawing. The fact that he does not let anyone or anything get in the way, not even his own previous declarations about what is right and wrong.

Enough of the fan-mail. The reason I'm writing this post is because I viewed last night's programme through the lens of postdigitalism. At one point, Hockney said something like, "This is art for the new post-photographic age", which obviously struck a chord with me. In my postdigital musings, I've referred to the predicted death of painting when photography was invented, and the conflict between these two media forms has been the focus of Hockney's most interesting work. The supposed supremacy of photography as the ultimate form of 'realism' is challenged when Hockney points out photography's limitations. Unlike futurism and, Hockney has argued, cubism and traditional painting, photography removes the time from an artwork. The time it takes to craft the work, the period of time the work represents - all but a hundredth of a second are eradicated from the photograph. Space and time are the same dimension, so traditional photography also removes the space, fixing the viewer to the spot. In real life, we never stop moving - "If your eyes stop moving, you're dead" as Hockney stated in the documentary - but the photograph freezes the world, whereas painting is about the continuum of space-time, with a living human being at its centre.

This recognition of the limitations of photography sometimes sees Hockney reject the photographic process altogether, but at other times it liberates him to use the camera more like a paint brush. The most obvious example of this is a Hockney's photo-collage 'joiner', with multiple perspectives via multiple photographs all collaged into one composition. Time and space return to the artwork, and the photographic medium is commandeered to serve the eye, heart and hand once more.

Might this tension between photography and painting in Hockney's work inform for the postdigital debate? The photograph and the digital have a lot in common. I'm not referring directly to digital photography here, but rather to the way that a snapshot captures and reduces the world to a small abstracted piece. It denies the continuum of life. It is one tiny part of the whole. Similarly, the digital captures and reduces the world into lots of tiny pieces. What is gained from this process of digitisation - the ability to make accurate copies, for example - drowns out the fundamental things that are lost. Identifying something fundamental that education loses in the digital, as Hockney identifies something fundamental that art loses in the photographic, may help us to form a coherent postdigital view. Just as the camera is liberated from the dogma of photography to serve art, so the computer may be liberated from the dogma of the digital to serve education.

Enough of this aspirational theorising. I have a degree course to re-write this year. How exactly will all of this postdigital stuff help me to write a better course? This will be real test. It's time for some convergent thinking.

Imagine (2009) David Hockney - A Bigger Picture. London, BBC1, 30 June.

Google Waves 'hello!' to the postdigital learner

2009-06-28T13:25:00.000-07:00

"Where the digital proposes the perfect finite conditions for a perfect existence regardless of matter, (as for example in the human genome project), in the postdigital analogue (as for example in the ironies of genetic and wet biological art) human consciousness is regarded as almost infinitely malleable, able to shape its identity in response to local (and technological) conditions aware all the time of the range of possibilities (digital and analogue) that are not developed." (Punt, 2001)

Excuse me whilst I go off on some uncertain tangents. There is a high probability that I am about to talk poppycock, but as Theodore Roosevelt said, “The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything.”

A few years ago, I spent a lot of time downloading chunks of DNA from the National Center for Biotechnology Information's Genebank, and wrote some code to visualise them. My basic idea was to read the As, Gs, Ts and Cs, and move a pixel either up, down, left or right, tracing a line. Different DNA chunks drew different squiggles. They looked like they made some sort of sense, which of course they did, and I got particularly obsessed with comparing mitochondria sequences from different organisms. You can see some of this stuff on my old site:

cubistscarborough.com/iantruelove

Along with every other living organism that has ever existed, we are digital to our very core. We are code. Our existence is encoded in a very long sequence of As, Ts, Cs and Gs. We are Data, Not Animals. But, of course, we are animals, not data. We are fuzzy and vague and interesting. We are wet and unimaginably complex. We are a whole, conscious being that exists over time. We are not digital. We are postdigital.

Not really sure where that one is going, but it might give me an excuse to do some more DNA art. Lets move onto some different poppycock.

The original article that the opening quote is taken from also mentions Gene Youngblood, who reminded us 25 years ago that, "the computer translates the continuous phenomena of the world into discrete units." The inescapable reduction of the homogenous whole into separate pieces, through the process of digitisation, might provide a useful metaphor for education. One of the things that struck a chord with me when I watched Liz Coleman's talk last week was her criticism of the fragmentation of education. I have rallied against the tyranny of the module as the dominant unit of learning ever since it was imposed on us. This quantising of education, splitting learning into smaller and smaller units, serves the inspectors, the financiers and the timetable police very well. It does not serve the whole learner – a complex human being – very well at all. The reason I dislike (and refuse to use) VLEs is primarily because they reinforce and often impose this modular approach. Perhaps it is this sort of 'digitisation' of education that postdigitalism might react against. To re-appropriate the words of Peter Weibel as detailed in Punt's article, education should follow the analogical principles of 'similarity, congruency and continuity', and reject the 'discontinuous, non homogenous elements' as characterised by the digital, and played out in the modular system. The 3 year long, holistic view of learning as promoted by Professor Graham Gibbs and others aligns with this newly invented version of postdigitalism. Taking this line of reasoning to its logical conclusion, the postdigital learner is the lifelong learner, the informal and formal learner, the whole human learner. Not a learner who has been captured, cut, and pasted into easily measurable and inspectable chunks, but an integrated learner, inseparable from the world that they are connected to. In this parallel postdigital universe, I'm allowed to get excited about Google Wave, as it may potentially provide an excellent way to support the postdigital learner.

I think I'm rambling a bit now. I'll stop.

Punt, M. (2001) Human Consciousness and the Postdigital Analogue. Leonardo 35 (2), 2002. pp119-120

3 videos I've watched this week that have made me think about postdigitalism

2009-06-27T14:09:00.000-07:00

The blinded leading the blind

2009-06-24T10:04:00.000-07:00

I've been pondering over the 'non-digital' to 'digital' to 'postdigital' cycle, and wondering where the creative potential is. I can see how this cycle can provide us with a useful way of analysing and making sense of things, and I'm sure that it will prove to be a very useful tool in the hands of capable researchers. But I want to make things. I want to do things. I want to create something useful. I want to make new art and design. I want to craft something that helps my students to learn.

I can see quite clearly the possibilities in the 'non-digital' to 'digital' bit of the cycle. It's very exciting being able to do things that you couldn't previously do because of a new digital invention. The transition between the 'non-digital' and the 'digital' is loaded with creative potential. I can see new opportunities for art and design, and for learning, when the technolust kicks in. I am guided by the guts of art and education to keep me from being completely blinded by the technolust, but new technology amplifies my ambitions and accelerates my output. But where is the potential when we come out the other side? When digital loses meaning and becomes restrictive, what can be tapped in the transition to the postdigital?

Recognising that something has gone, is going, or needs to go 'postdigital' might act as an alarm. Perhaps the creative potential disappears at this stage of the cycle, and we need to look for some newly digitalised thing to manipulate. Perhaps the postdigital alarm bell rings when we are flogging a dead horse. Time to move on. What's the next Twitter?

Maybe I'm being defeatist. One of the first things that I pondered over when the term was proposed was 'What might postdigital art be?". The term comes from the arts, but the original 'postdigital' only partly aligns with the spirit of the 52group document. In relation to music, and in particular, Kim Cascone's work, it seems to refer mainly to glitch - the deliberate embracing of digital 'mistakes' (I may well be wrong on this – I need to re-read that stuff). But if 52group postdigitalism is about the natural or forced transparency of the digital, where is the potential in that? Is it in the transition? It it in the forcing? Could an artist identify something that is stupidly digital and force it, kicking and screaming, into the postdigital? The artist as provocateur, winding things up. Smashing things down. Sounds very anti-digital to me, and I don't enjoy upsetting people, so I think this way of thinking is a dead end.

If it's not about art, could it be about design? In an earlier blog post, I quoted an essay by Beatrice Ward that explored the importance of transparency in typography. If you're busy noticing the letter-forms instead of being enthralled by the author's wit, then the typesetting is probably bad. You don't notice good typography, it is transparent. Likewise, if you notice an edit when you are watching a film, it's probably a bad edit. Transparent editing – editing you don't notice – is almost always desirable. Design might have a role to play in helping to make the digital disappear when a need for it to do so has been identified. Designers have no fear of their efforts not getting noticed. They might help tease the digital away from the thing that has been enabled by it, and bring some clarity. Perhaps we are talking about re-design – the equivalent taking a page set in 18 point Comic Sans and resetting it so that it no longer makes your eyes bleed. We could look at something that is overtly digital, and 'redesign' it to emphasise the essence of that thing. By deliberately neutralising the overbearing influence of the digital, we might see more clearly what is important, and unlock hidden opportunities.

Russell Davies describes a project by Schulze & Webb & Jones Crew (Point three in the post) as postdigital. Here, he is talking about a project that has moved beyond 'digital infatuation and analogue nostalgia'. I must admit that I'm attracted to this flavour of postdigitalism. This might be where the potential is, and it seems to align with 52group thinking to some extent. So, the postdigital in relation to design, advertising and art could be about making appropriate use of a combination of digital and non-digital processes. Oh, hang on, that sounds very much like normal practice round my neck of the woods. As I detailed in an earlier post, I feel like we have already moved to the postdigital on the course that I teach on. However, we do still spend a lot of time gently steering students away from digital infatuation and analogue nostalgia in their own best interests. We are effectively steering them towards this version of the postdigital. Maybe I will start saying to techno-blinded and techo-blind students, "Let's consider your work in a postdigital context."

Much more thinking required. I'll pin it down eventually.

After digital?

2009-06-23T01:29:00.001-07:00

Does the term 'postdigital' best represent the spirit of the 52group's draft paper? In its 'ism' form, it most likely means everything that came after digitalism. Alternatively, it could mean a reaction against digitalism. As there isn't really a thing called digitalism to react against, or follow on from, postdigitalism could be seen as a reaction against nothing. However, the term 'digital' is well established, and its use is widespread. 'Digital', 'electronic' and 'e', are used as a prefixes to distinguish something from the preceding, non digital item (digital watch, digital calculator, digital radio, e-commerce, email). When the distinction no longer needs to be made, because the digital version of the item is the norm, then we have moved beyond digital as a useful description. In this way, a calculator is postdigital - the time to call it a digital or electronic calculator has passed - the calculator is 'after-digital'.

What about an interpretation of the term as reactionary? If we feel that the use of the term 'digital' or 'e' is no longer appropriate or limiting, then we can react against its use. When the use of electronic devices is so widespread in learning that it goes without saying, we might react against the term e-learning. The 'e' will have served a useful purpose in promoting the differences from previous modes of learning, but it may have become restrictive in its scope, excluding or devaluing non-digital aspects of learning.

The use of the 'e' or 'digital' prefix is not wrong. It is a necessary and useful way of redefining a previously non-digital item. I should imagine that there are a whole load of things that have not yet 'gone digital', but will need to be labelled as such when they do. When the time comes for e-glasses, digital pants and electronic flat-caps, then it would be handy to emphasise that these items are now different from their analogue counterparts. But when most pants are digital, the term will become quite unnecessary.

It may (technically) be a mistake to add the 'ist' and the 'ism' onto the end of postdigital, but I quite like the fact that isms provoke strong feelings and extreme cynicism, so I think I will keep using these terms. It might draw a few more people into this debate, which will make it more fun.

A postdigital peacetime era

2009-06-21T03:13:00.000-07:00

"Modern art exists because of our technology. Whether built from existing inventions, or from brand new technologies such as computers, many modern works of art rely upon technology as a medium. Technology's role in artistic media ranges from disciplines such as architecture to areas where technology is the complete basis for the medium, in fields such as photography and holography. Generally, whenever a new technological medium is introduced, many members of the art community embrace the technology as the best and brightest form possible. Others automatically reject the use of technology, assuming that it will be detrimental to their particular art form. While to a limited extent these statements are both true, most new technologies simply create other viable mediums. Photography did not replace painting, just as holograms and stereoscopic computer images have not replaced sculpture. While not all artwork may contain direct elements of recent technology, almost all has benefited from increases in technology"

(Benthall, 1972).

One of the reasons that I am harping on about postdigitalism is that it embodies something that I have felt for a long time, but could never quite articulate.

When I started my design education in 1986, our college had just taken delivery of a roomful of tiny, cute Apple Macs. At that time, the graphic design industry was still entrenched in a whole range of traditional printing technologies, and over the course of my subsequent studies and early career, I lived through a digital revolution. This often felt like a war between anti and pro digital camps. I was often enlisted to fight for the pro digital cause, but as I learned more about design, I felt increasingly uneasy with this role. Whilst it seemed bleeding obvious to me that it was a waste of time learning copy-fitting when we would never use this dying aspect of typesetting in our future professional lives, I objected equally strongly to the rejection by the digital camp of all that had gone before. I began to fight for both sides, and when I got my first job setting up and looking after a Mac suite on a Graphic Design course, I fought not just for the new technology, but for the old. The authority that my techno-geek status gave me, allowed me to argue for the importance of screen-printing and metal-type. Around this time, many design colleges were chucking their old fashioned kit in the skip, but I knew that this was a grave mistake. Most often, I would talk about how photography did not replace painting, as many had claimed at the time, but that it did change painting. I would argue that the digital should not replace the traditional, but we could free the old processes from the 'proper' ways of using them now that they no longer served the same purpose. As well as extending the canvas by providing new ways of doing and being, the postdigital also extends the canvas by lifting the restrictions on previous practice. In the context of graphic design, digital typesetting means that I don't have to follow the 'rules' of metal typesetting any more, and freed from the fun-killing tedium of 'casting-off' and such like, I can exploit the rich potential of the old. So, postdigitalism both extends and changes the canvas of creative potential.

On the graphic design course that I now lead, at least, the war is over. We no longer fight about the digital in relation to graphic design technology. We live in a postdigital peacetime era. However, the war between the digital fetishists and the digital refuseniks is still raging on the battleground of education. I oppose the war. Please don't shoot me.

Benthall, Jonathan. Science and Technology in Art Today. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1972.

Techno-lust

2009-06-20T14:15:00.000-07:00

"There are a lot of people around now who have thoroughly integrated 'digitalness' into their lives. To the extent that it makes as much sense to define them as digital as it does to define them as air-breathing. ie it's true but not useful or interesting."
Russell Davies, Meet the new schtick

The 52group are not the pioneers of postdigitalism. The current Wikipedia entry points to an early adoption of the term in the field of digital art. There are others that have co-opted the term with good effect. Russell Davies is a really interesting man who, amongst other things, writes for Wired and Campaign. He wrote a post outlining his take on postdigitalism back in January 2009.

There are three key elements that make up his version of the postdigital. The first questions the supremacy of screens - or 'visual display units' as they used to be called in the digital age - and argues for physical displays units (like paper). The second point, which is quoted at the start of this post, pretty much sums up the 52group's position. The third point is interesting because, by the 52group definition, it is a form of digitalism. It talks about embracing the shiny new ways of the digital, and using the essence of these new ways of being, to build physical things. Davies points to an ink printed on paper thing called 'Things our friends have written on the Internet 2008'. In the context of 52group postdigitalism, dwelling on the digital - even to de-digitalise it, or liberated it from the constraints of binary - is a form of techno-lust. It is digital fetishism, even if it is played out in meat-space.

52group postdigitalism it may not be, but the irony of non-digital techno-worship sounds like fun. Remind me to come back to this when I talk about how I've already lived through one transition to postdigitalism in my next post.

Postdigitalism

2009-06-19T16:00:00.000-07:00

"Imagine that you have before you a flagon of wine. You may choose your own favourite vintage for this imaginary demonstration, so that it be a deep shimmering crimson in colour. You have two goblets before you. One is of solid gold, wrought in the most exquisite patterns. The other is of crystal-clear glass, thin as a bubble, and as transparent. Pour and drink; and according to your choice of goblet, I shall know whether or not you are a connoisseur of wine. For if you have no feelings about wine one way or the other, you will want the sensation of drinking the stuff out of a vessel that may have cost thousands of pounds; but if you are a member of that vanishing tribe, the amateurs of fine vintages, you will choose the crystal, because everything about it is calculated to reveal rather than hide the beautiful thing which it was meant to contain."
The Crystal Goblet, or Printing Should Be Invisible by Beatrice Warde (1900 -- 1969)

The 'postdigital' is not a new term or concept, but it is a term and a concept that has been forcibly re-appropriated by the 52group, in a draft paper that seeks to refocus our attention, particularly in relation to education. The basic premise is that 'digital' is becoming increasingly meaningless, as technology becomes crystal-clear, thin as a bubble, and transparent. Being fooled into mistaking the 'digital' for a thing in itself, rather than seeing it purely as an enabler (and just one alongside many other non-digital enablers), is a mistake that I make all the time. I have been more guilty than most of gaining more pleasure from the exquisitely patterned golden goblet than from the wine.

However, absorbing and accepting postdigitalism has brought clarity to my thinking, and I have already found myself responding to everyday work related issues from a postdigitalist viewpoint. I have spontaneously and effortlessly argued that 'it's not really about the technology', whereas in the past I might have happily argued that is was. That's not to say that I have suddenly become anti-digital. Far from it. It's just that anti or pro digital is not the issue. 'The canvas of the digital' provides me with an ever changing medium from which I can tap creative potential, but the canvas itself is not the art. More importantly, this digital canvas is not the only one in my studio. From a postdigitalist perspective, to dwell on the canvas misses the point. It is about the idea, the intention, the expression, the interpretation. It is about the conversations and the arguments. It is about the spirit of the artist and the success of the artwork. The skill with which the artist manipulates the paint on the canvas is crucial and should not be undervalued or rejected, just as we should not undervalue or reject the digital, but the art is not created by the canvas or the paint. It is created by the artist.

The Urge

2009-06-10T14:08:00.000-07:00

There's something in the air. I can feel the urge returning. The creative hunger is making my belly rumble. I know there is a really big thing that, at the moment, I can only call a micro-reflection-conversation-engagement engine. I'm sure there's something even bigger hidden somewhere here in the murk. Where's my torch?

Curvy knowledge. Curved like a saddle. Like the shape of the Universe. And it smells of pie.

2009-06-02T08:40:00.000-07:00

Forgive me blogosphere, for I have been a-tweeting at my blog's expense. That, and the fact the Open Habitat has finished, I've have 300 students bothering me, I've been planning the move to our new art school building and I've got a bit bored of virtual worlds.

However, my shackles have been shaken by a blog post that I have just read by Dave Cormier about open educational resources, which introduces the term 'curvy knowledge'. Dave's had quite a bit of flack about this term, but I like it, mainly because it sounds friendly and fun. Not like serious old flat knowledge, all precise and logical. Curvy knowledge (I'm largely imagining) is less certain, and has the convenience of not being right or wrong. It's the sort of knowledge that my colleagues and students generate and mediate on our arts courses. Maybe the flat of objectivity is curved by subjectivity. Curved like a saddle, I think. Like the shape of the Universe. Traversing curvy knowledge sometimes means sliding down a slippery slope, sometime climbing up a slippery incline. Sometimes it's grabbing flat knowledge and curving up to make someone else slide down to somewhere they weren't indenting to go, or making them climb up a previously straightforward route. I like curvy knowledge. It smells like a nice pie.

Emerged

2009-04-01T08:51:00.000-07:00

Emerge, the Open Habitat project and the JISC Users & Innovation strand officially ended yesterday. For evidence of how great these projects have been, look at: http://elgg.jiscemerge.org.uk/ and http://magazine.openhabitat.org/

But this is not the last blog post of the project. I stopped blogging for Open Habitat when I reached my 100th post last month.

This is the first post the new project.

Not sure exactly what the new project is yet. Here are a list of possible ingredients:

OpenSim for all my students.
OpenSim for the ex-Emergers
OpenSim for Leeds Met.
The 2D Virtual Studio Environment
The 3D Virtual Studio Environment
The 2D+3D Virtual Studio Environment
Fractal tree based course management
Digital identity
Art & technology
Non-linear, associational portfolios.
Mobile computing
iPhone & Android
QR Codes
Augmented reality.

Binary course management:
Connectivism & Control.
Formative feedback & stimulation
Subject specialists & coaches
White weeks & Yellow weeks.
Public & private.
Accredited & free.
Staff responsibility & student responsibility
Blended & distance.
Here & there.

Horizontal Meme transfer.

2009-02-12T14:33:00.001-08:00

Bit of a thought in progress, this post. Also a tribute to Darwin, who was born 200 years ago today.

I read this article about horizontal gene transfer, and it got me thinking about how this might apply to creative thinking and ideas generation. The article reveals that the tree of life isn't really a tree, but a bit of tangled old mess, as genes keep getting transplanted from one species to another by viruses and hybridisation and the like. Apparently, there's a bit of snake DNA in the cow genome. The other really fascinating thing in this article is the section about species with larval stages, like caterpillars/butterflies. Some researchers think that this is the result of the amalgamation of the genomes of two different species into one functioning genome. The idea is that the genomes are expressed sequentially, with one organism's original life-code doing the business first, with a metamorphosis leading to the second species DNA taking over to finish the job off. This seems quite reasonable. If an alien landed on earth and looked at a caterpillar and a butterfly, they would assume they were different species. If you find all of this hard to swallow, read the bit about the starfish.

Anyway, if memes are idea genes, then what if we embrace horizontal transfer, hybridisation and dual genomes to enrich the evolution of strong ideas? If the right two jokes got stuck together, would they become one dominant joke? Would we eventually forget that it ever existed as two separate jokes? If we took other persistent memes and swapped chunks of them, would new, more successful memes emerge? How might this process work in a shorter time frame, like the course of an ideas generation workshop or student project? How might it apply to social software? Can I think of a way of using Twitter to test this hypothesis?

The Butterfly Effect.

2009-02-03T03:54:00.000-08:00

I've blogged about 'abductive reasoning' a couple of times before. This is a sort of action focussed speculative analysis, reasoning what might be, and is a common trait in designers.

After group heckling the atrocious film 'The Butterfly Effect' during the Emerge event in York last week, my mind has been full of time travel ideas, and I started wondering how abductive reasoning might be applied at the end of a research project, in a giant 'What if?' exercise. At the start of Open Habitat, I spent a lot of time applying abductive reasoning to the construction of project scenarios. Now that we have the benefit of experience behind us, what might we have done differently, and how catastrophically good or bad might that have been for the project? If we travel back in time to key points in the Open Habitat project, and imagine that we had made a different choice, where might we be now?

False Dichotomy

2009-02-01T12:54:00.000-08:00

I love the potential for serendipitous moment when in public. As an avid fan of public transport I enjoy the excitement, and the dangers, and the opportunities for mental stimulation that mixing with all sort of strangers brings. Some of the best conversations I have ever had have been with nutters who happened to sit next to me on the train. I also recognise the value of closed communities, like a University degree course. When I'm at Uni, I have conversations with people that I automatically have something in common with. I know who they are, and they know who I am.

I love the potential for serendipitous moment when in Second Life. As an avid fan of random double clicking on the mainland map, I enjoy the excitement, and the dangers, and the opportunities for mental stimulation that mixing with all sort of strangers brings. Some of the best conversations I have ever had have been with nutters who happened to stand next to me on a sim. I also recognise the value of closed communities, like a University degree course's private OpenSim grid. If I had a Uni MUVE, I could have conversations with people that I automatically have something in common with. I would also know who they were, and they would know who I am.

It would be pretty sad if my students and I stayed inside Uni all the time, but it would be pretty pointless having a degree course if we spent all our time outside. Private is good. Public is good. Similarly, the public space of Second Life provides amazing opportunities for deep learning through role-play and engagement with worldwide communities, but a private OpenSim grid would give all of our students a safe space to inhabit. Authentic identities would enable a blending of the virtual and the real, and once hooked, the students would possess the necessary skills and confidence to stride out into Second Life as whoever they choose to be.

Primary education

2009-01-15T15:15:00.000-08:00

I had an interesting conversation with a colleague about the optimum group size for seminars and tutorials yesterday. My colleague is a long standing and very experienced tutor, and he has often talked to me about his theories about the perfect number of students in a group, based on his observations of past successful and unsuccessful learning situations. His magic number is 7, and the absolute no-no is 8. So close, but in his view, so very different.

An article in last week's New Scientist magazine about the ideal size for a committee caught my eye, as it reported that computer simulations had identified committees with 8 members as the absolutely, definitely worse group size ever. I pointed my colleague to this article, and we started speculating about why this might apply to tutorial groups. One of the characteristics of 8 is that it can be divided up in many ways. If you are a member of a group of 8, we mused, then you may subconsciously think of yourself as in either in one group, in one half of two sub-groups, as one partner in one of 4 pairs, or as an individual. In a group of 7, you are either a member of one group, or an individual. The more times you can evenly divide a group up, we decided, the more difficult it is for the members to cope with the mental multiple membership issue. So, the ultimate group size should always be a prime number. I suggested that we should test this theory out, but my colleague said that we would need to set up deliberately bad group sizes in order to know for sure, and that would be unethical. "Fortunately, we're artists and not scientists, so we can just do what we feel is right." I half-joked.

2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31

The future of education. If it can pay the mortgage.

2009-01-12T15:37:00.000-08:00

Graham Attwell predicts that "2009 will be the year of Open Education. Seminars, workshops, lectures, courses - all available on line and for free."
http://www.pontydysgu.org/2009/01/open-education-spring-programme/

I really like the idea of free, open education. I've had several conversations about this over the last few years, but the time feels right now. As ever, to say that I've even half-thought this through would be a massive exaggeration, but that's never stopped me blogging in the past...

So, free education. No fees. How could that be possible?

Well, if it was online distance education, then the overheads would be low. No buildings to pay for. No heating bills. No security guards or cleaners to pay.

The software could all be web based services, so no costs to the provider there. We could take advantage of free services like Flickr and Twitter and Second Life.

If the educational experience was primarily based on the mediation of knowledge by expert tutors, then the only cost would be for their wages. I'll come back to this.

What about accreditation? I often hear that students only study to get marks so that they can get a degree. Students that care more about learning for its own sake, and don't give a damn about marks and qualifications, might be attracted to the idea of open education. Personally, I want to help students that love learning more than validation. It would also remove the inefficiencies that summative assessment and its subsequent iterations of inspection and quality assurance result in.

What about assessment? Hang on, didn't I just blow that one out of the water in that last paragraph? Well, I have a problem with summative assessment, but I think formative assessment is fantastic. The regular and precise assessment of where someone is, where they want or need to be, and what can or should be done to get there is the key to efficient learning, in my humble opinion. In an open education system, there need be no limit to just how far this process could take a student. No top limit imposed by the level of a qualification.

Would open education need technical support? Savvy students can solve technical problems, but point of need support can oil learning very effectively. Maybe e-technicians would be as useful as academic guides. Maybe peer support could fulfill this role.

Without accreditation, inspections and physical overheads, then what management structure would be needed to support this open educational structure? Well, ideally, very little. Maybe education could be primarily about tutors and students.

So the only significant costs are the wages of the tutor. It would be nice to think that quality academic staff would work for free, but I get very well paid by the old fashioned education system, thank you very much. Why would I work for free? I'd consider a wage cut that equalled the money I would save by not traveling on a train to Leeds twice a week and paying hotel bills. So who pays my wages? This is where my thinking gets even fuzzier, and possibly more controversial.

Maybe HEFCE pays wages directly to me, bypassing all of the layers of top-slicing middlemen. They're going to want to know that their money isn't wasted though, which would probably fire up the whole inspection/quality beast again and spoil all the fun.

Perhaps the students could pay fees, but they might want a qualification for their money, powering up the crushing machinery of accreditation.

Maybe a philanthropic institution or individual might grant no-strings-attached funding, as long as their name is plastered all over everything.

Similarly, maybe a commercial sponsor might provide the dosh, insisting on the strategic placing of their logos and applying corporate branding to everything. The PR opportunites might make it worth their while. Open education - sponsored by Coca Cola - refreshing learning worldwide!

Maybe the whole thing is funded by advertising. It seems to work for Google, although the current economic climate demonstrates how volatile this might be as a funding stream. I want to know how much I'm going to earn next year.

Maybe there's another way.

Oh, I don't know. I'm just blabbering as usual. It's how I entertain myself.

Bigger. Better. More.

2009-01-10T15:20:00.000-08:00

I thought I better spill some of the ideas I had whilst in London this week before they dissolve.

I took part in a one day Eduserv workshop on digital identities on Thurday, which used the design patterns format currently being explored by the PLANET project and others. This involved taking stories previously submitted by participants and working in small groups to distil patterns that might be of use to others. I've listened to various presentations about patterns before, but I could never get the image of knitting and wallpaper out of my head. It was only by going through the process of using this design patterns approach that I started to appreciate what it was all about. I still don't quite fully get it. The ultimate aim seems to be to produce a clear output - a solution to a problem within a particular context - so that others can take that and make use of it. This sets off a few warning bells for me, as it seems to suggest that it's about making written rules that others should follow, and I instinctively rebel against rules. The important thing about the process for me was the process, not the output. This process involved working with Andrew Eglinton's story about gauging his followers on Twitter, comparing it to Shirley William's Facebook story, discussing lots of aspects of identity in relation to these stories with Andrew, Shirley, Graham Hibbert, Mark Childes and Ed Barker, and pinning down our thoughts in the pattern template. The result was the identification of 'Digital Identity Panic' when previously disconnected personal social networks collide.

The value for me was the shared learning experience, with all the complex elements of socialisation, face to face communication, confidence building, bonding and fun. The thing we wrote down at the end of the session was of little value or interest in comparison to the experience of creating it, and I doubt it will be of much value to anyone else who wasn't there at the time. Does this matter? I sometimes find the obligation to measure and justify everything with cold, hard words in this strange new research world that I increasingly live in, a teensy bit depressing and possibly deeply wrong.

This leads me onto day 2 of my London jaunt, which was a major day of Open Habitat mopping up, ready for final report writing. Dave White's excellent new research assistant, Alison, interviewed me and Graham about the whole thing, from before Emerge to now. It was really good to have the opportunity to rabbit on for several hours about all of the things that I feel passionate about in relation to learning. It's all so crystal clear in the context of an interview. During the interview, I really felt it all - why we are spending all this time and effort doing this research. All of the subtleties and complexities and connection between the bigger picture and the minute details spilt out all over the place. It became evident during the interview that we moved beyond piloting half way through the project, and the thing we have been calling the second pilot is actually the embedding and implementation of the research - stage four of the UIDM. The second phase saw mass Open Sim inductions with 125 first year students, and the running of an assessed project within an existing module.

The original aim of the Open Habitat project, collaborative learning, was thoroughly tested through the use of the excellent 10 principles that Steve and Marga derived from our last London workshop. This was the bit that still remained the 'research' bit in the second pilot. This was the thing that was structured, purposeful, on-message but uncertain. As I argued with Steve Warburton when he joined us in the afternoon, collaboration is not the most important part of what we have done with Open Habitat, and it is certainly not the most successful element, but it is what we set out to test, and it is what we are best able to demonstrate our testing of. The really important but less measurable stuff like students getting better at learning more rapidly, being happier, gaining confident, enjoying a higher level of personal support and becoming more creative, are the bits that we needed no evidence of in order to proceed to implementation.

Our discussion about collaboration in London has provoked more thoughts. I think that there are two main reasons that collaborative learning didn't work out as I'd hoped in Open Habitat. The first is the nature of the students. Artist generally don't like to collaborate directly with other artists. They might put on a group exhibition, but the wouldn't share a canvas. Designers like to collaborate with everyone except other designers. They'll work with a printer and a client, but they get would find it hard to agree on the best typeface with a peer. (yes, i know this is an easily disputed generalisation, but for the sake of argument..). There is a saying that we often hear in our department - "You can't design by committee". Open source challenges that, and despite the frustrations that I have experienced trying to make collaboration work during Open Habitat, I still believe that there is potential to crack this nut. One of the reason that open source works is that it has a potentially huge worldwide community of collaborators, a fertile environment (sourceforge or whatever) to support collaboration, self-motivated participants, and lots of decentralised time to spend on the job. How well would a 3 week open source pilot work with 10 new programmers? What I'm trying to say is that the restrictions imposed by the need to measure the research - two 3 week pilots with 10 students at a time - destroyed any chance of it succeeding at the level that I would want it to. It forced us to impose a level of control through induction and briefs that denied the rhizomic swellings that I still dream of witnessing.

What we need to do now if we want to help this dream become a reality is open the doors and enable hundreds of students to access their own virtual world with no control whatsoever imposed on them. One massive blank canvas with enough room and time for hundreds of students to learn what they want with whoever they want, gently teased along by skilled tutors inquiring about each individual's learning. I probably won't get funding for this, but I don't care. BRING ON THE OPENSIM!

Wandering Aimlessly

2008-12-28T07:36:00.000-08:00

It's good to have a sense of purpose, but it's also good to wander aimlessly. I tend to wander aimlessly when I first start using a new bit of technology that I sense has huge creative potential.

I did it when I first started using the web all those years ago. In the days before Google, Yahoo had a random website button on their search page, and I spent hours, days, months clicking on it and discovering all that the early web had to offer. The early web mostly offered purple and green striped backgrounds covered with red body text and "My Home Page!!!!!!!" in 72 point yellow Times New Roman. There was no real sense of purpose to my expeditions, but my brain was in a kind of 'neutral-receptive' mode, feeding on the dross and allowing my subconscious to speculate on what might be.

Webcams were my next meaningless time waster. You were lucky to get 1 frame per minute in those days, but I found these nearly live windows on the world fascinating. No immediately obvious creative potential, but feeding the brain all the same.

I did it again when I first signed up to Second Life. This time, I got into double clicking on random location on the map, seeing where I ended up and flying around for a bit. I got a bit obsessed with this, spending hours soaking up the nonsense and storing it, encrypted in my subconscious, for a later date.

During this Chrismas break, I've allowed myself the luxury of more meaningless meandering through technology. This time, it's Google's Streetview. I've spent far too long over the last few days wandering the streets of Lille, Paris, lots of random locations in the U.S. and some bits of Sydney. Not the interesting obvious places, but the normal streets and suburbs and backstreets and remote woodland tracks. Nothing of any great significance. I don't know why. It's like there is a secret hidden somewhere in the banal. Maybe the secret will be unlocked when Google start to make use of the 3D laser scanner data that they have started to capture from their cars. Wandering through Streetview is lonely, but if Google give us a detailed and accurate 3D world to explore, wouldn't it be fun if it was full of avatars to share the experience?

Rhizome of proximal development

2008-12-16T04:51:00.000-08:00

I couldn't work out which berries were poisonous in the woods, and the wild learners just ignored me, so I've decided to go back into farming. Rather than going back to egg farming, I've decided to grow rhizomes.

Rhizomes usually spontaneously swell up in the wild when the conditions are right, but I reckon that if we dig some fertiliser into our field, and plant enough baby rhizomes, then keep a close eye on them and feed them with just the right amount of miracle grow when they need it, then we'll get ourselves a bumper harvest at the end of the academic year.

Field = Learning environment = Virtual studio space

Fertiliser = Graham's ePortfolio/VSE tool + OpenSim for all 600 students in the School.

Baby rhizomes = all 600 students in the School.

Keep a close eye on them = regular ongoing formative assessment.

Feed them with miracle grow = feedback, feed-forward and goal setting.

Bumper harvest = summative assessment = accreditation.

Eggucation

2008-12-15T13:35:00.000-08:00

I discovered the term 'Free range learning' the other day. This is an intriguing phrase.

We might suppose that at one extreme we have intensively farmed battery learners in module sized cages constructed from VLE wire.

At the other extreme we have wild learners, surviving on instinct, but unprotected from predators and sudden changes to their environment.

Free range learners have the protection of a fence, too far away for them to notice, and a farmer whose best interests are served if the learner is well-fed and happy.

So:

Battery learners - force fed with mobility severely restricted. Lay lots of eggs. Industry thinks it wants them because they're cheap, but they leave a bad taste. Safe but miserable learners.

Wild learners - free but unsupported and vulnerable. Hard to find their eggs. Industry hasn't got time to go hunting for them. Likely to get devoured by wild animals, die of old age or perish in a harsh winter storm.

Free range learners - free to roam, but supported and protected. Blissfully unaware of their ultimate fate. Less attractive to industry due to their expensive eggs, but omelettes are tasty and satisfying.

As I let this thought exercise pan out, I can feel myself being drawn to the wild learner. However, in this bizarre parallel universe, I think I'm probably an egg farmer, and if I don't sell eggs, my family will starve.

Maybe I'll jack this egg farming malarky in, become a vegan, live in the woods and eat berries with the wild learners.

Nicht in Berlin

2008-12-05T13:21:00.000-08:00

It's been painful not being in Berlin at the Educa conference this week. I was all geared up for the usual live video link, but was shocked to find that there was no stream. The only link I had was a healthy Twitter channel, but this just teased me and made me wish I was there even more. Judging from the tweets, Graham Hibbert was doing a sterling job, but I felt 'disempowered', as they used to say in the 80s. I was stuck in snowy Leeds wasting my efforts on local problems that haven't changed for 20 years and could be tackled by any number of people, when I should have been in Germany helping to shape the future of education. Well, in the absence of detailed information, that's what I imagined was happening. Even two intense blog posting sessions (Inventing the VSE concept and making sense of the entire Open Habitat project) didn't really make me feel any better.

However, this morning a tweet came through flagging up the live 'Sounds of the Bazaar' radio broadcast with Graham Attwell and Josie Fraser, and a link to a parallel chat room. Ah, this was just what I needed to cheer me up. I challenge anyone to feel negative when Graham A and Josie F are on the mic. The chatroom gave me an opportunity to talk some rubbish and tell a few bad jokes which, at the end of the day, was all I was really missing.

The parallel text chat room seemed to be some sort of instant freeby widget/gadget/mini-application type thing. Essentially, a load of random people clicked a link and signed in and suddenly we were all together in a spontaneously generated virtual text-space.

Now, there is no reason why that couldn't have been a multi-user virtual environment. Maybe Wonderland could be put to use to provide a simple on demand Java webstart 3D chat space, with open log-ins just like today. No sign-up hassles. Noobs welcome. An open 3D world just when you need it.

Augment with OpenSim. Immerse with Second Life.

2008-12-04T14:02:00.000-08:00

As we start rounding up the Open Habitat project, I've been thinking about how things might be in the future. I think the relationship between OpenSim and Second Life is an important one to focus on, especially when we are considering the use of virtual worlds in a fee paying, assessment driven, accreditation dependent blended learning context. Let me try to explain:

A student applies to a course and pays fees. They want marks, because marks equal credit points, and credit points add up to a degree. Fair enough. If we want to give them marks, we need to know who they are and what they have done. If they produce work in Second Life, then we invariably need to betray the identity of the avatar, so the puppeteer can get credit for the learning. This limits the potential for the really deep learning that a full-on immersionist/role play/fantasy apporoach enables. Can the immersionist ideal ever fully function in a traditional accreditation dependent framework? How might an immersionist programme of learning function? Is there really a need for any sort of formal framework for this immersonist extreme? Perhaps the role play involves an avatar going to University. The person behind the avatar may lack the usual credentials required to gain entry into a proper University, but in Second Life, the admissions criteria might be different, and the evidence could be fabricated. Maybe the avatar could pay fees (in Linden Dollars, obviously), and this could pay for the tutorial support and course design. Maybe this already happens, I don't know. What if the teacher-avatars were playing this role? Maybe pretend teachers could learn how to teach pretend students who are pretending to learn? What about quality? Perhaps a pretend Ofsted or QAA inspector could pay an unannounced visit, and suck all of the energy and enthusiasm out of everyone with an overly simplistic snap judgement about how everyone is doing it all wrong.

I'm rambling a bit, but one of the most significant aspects of the Open Habitat project for me has been the way that I've been able to role play pedagogy. By adapting my beliefs about education to suit a virtual environment, I've had to work out what my beliefs really are. In the process, I've realised just how powerful the art education model is, and that we aren't actually implementing it as well as we should in 'real life'. Recently, I've been reeled back in by the institution to run such a real-life course, but because of Open Habitat I know exactly how to do it. And I'm doing it. And it's better. Real benefits from virtual world research.

Still rambling. Stay with me...

Back to the OpenSim thing. Lets go to the augmentationist side now. On my real life course, I have 317 students. They all use the (dare I call it) virtual studio environment that Graham built to share their joy with fellow students and staff. They don't need to sign up. If they've enrolled on the course, they just log in and start uploading. They don't need to agree to the terms and conditions of some mystery company in America. They are all called what they are called in real life. Some of them sync their Flickr accounts, but many have never heard of Flickr, and might not want to share themselves and their work with the world anyway. So, might OpenSim provide every student with an instant virtual world to create, communicate and collaborate? No sign up. No name choosing. Just download a customised client, and log in using your usual user-name and password.

In the same way that all students can upload images to the VSE, but some also choose to have public Flickr accounts, could some students then choose to sign up to Second Life and do the whole public/role play thing? If they are familiar with OpenSim, I think that they will be more likely to engage meaningfully with Second Life. This also tackles that problem of the taught delivery part of the pilots, which were great in many ways, especially in our use of the standalone version of OpenSim, but I like the rhizome thing. It's what's happened with our VSE. Graham designed a tool that everyone could log into and work out how to use, all by themselves, in minutes. We were supposed to train everybody up in the 'teacher in front' way, but we got distracted, and the students and staff just got on with it. If you make a well designed tool available to everyone, then they will work it out. Especially if it is fun and useful. If we put a button on our VSE to an OpenSim world, they would click it and log in. They would phone their friends who would also log in, their avatars would meet, and the whole thing would explode.

Right. I've convinced myself. How can we make this happen? We need OpenSim running on a server somewhere. I could do this through LeedsMet's computing services department, but I'm a bit scared of them (my problem, not theirs), so I probably won't. Is there an OpenSim community dude who might host an island for us? We would need to create 317 accounts (or 600 if we do the whole School) using the database of usernames and passwords we have for the VSE. Graham could work with a friendly OpenSim dude to do this quite quickly. We will need a tweaked version of the Second Life client. This is just a standard client with a different login URI in the arguments.txt file. Can we do this under the T&C of the opensource client? Surely we can.

I want to do it! I want to do it! Lets do it!

For me, the logical conclusion to the Open Habitat project is to create an open-source open habitat for our students. We must recognise that the Second Life focussed art & design mini pilots, despite our best efforts, have produced visitors. Only by giving the whole school their own virtual playground and plenty of playtime, will our students ever become residents in a virtual world.

Virtual Studio Environment

2008-12-04T06:30:00.000-08:00

More thoughts about the virtual studio environment idea:

What is a studio environment?

Art & Design education is predominantly studio based. Large, open spaces provide students with opportunities to learn through doing, supported by peers, tutors and technicians. The space and the overall learning experience is shaped by the students and the work that they produce. The walls and floors are filled with the ongoing products of learning, and provide a focus for dialogue. Informal, conversation based formative assessment is the predominant form of academic support. Formal delivery of content is minimal, and sometimes completely absent. Knowledge is transmitted from tutors to students through individualised feedback, and by students working alongside staff who are also active creative practitioners.

What is the virtual studio environment?

The VSE provides a range of networked software tools to augment or replicate the studio environment.

The primary tool for supporting the studio environment approach is an asynchronous web-based ePortfolio-like tool with a range of familiar features.

Uploads - Let's stick our work on the walls
Students and staff are able to upload work in progress in the form of images, video and text to their personal space within this tool.

Comments - Lets chat about your work
Work can be viewed by any member of the community, and comments can be added, enabling dialogue around particular piece of work.

Groups - This is our corner of the studio
The community provides the provision for multiple membership of groups within the tool to support a range of focussed learning activities. If the VSE is used in a formal educational context, community members are automatically assigned to their relevant course and level groups. Any member of the community can set up their own group, which provides them with similar functionality to the course groups. The membership of these sub-groups is invitation, but group owners can allow open membership, permitting anyone from the wider community to join. All groups provide a list of all members of that group (all students and staff, in the case of a course group), with links to their work.

Notices - I read it on the notice board.
The tool also provides a facility for posting notices that are relevant to that group, which appear as soon as a member logs in.

Sending images to a group - Lets pin all this stuff on our wall
Any member of a group can send a piece of their work to the group which appears in the 'recent items' stream. In the case of the course groups, work is automatically shown in the course stream when it is uploaded, providing a constantly refreshing view of recent activity.

Resources - I picked up a handout with all that stuff on it
There is a section within each group for the administrator to upload core resources such as PDFs of assessment criteria, but the emphasis is on the contributions of the members.

Discussion boards - Let's have a debate about this.
A discussion board tool is provided in each group to facilitate focussed dialogue.

Messages - Can I have a quiet word?
A messaging system allows private communication between members of the community, and a facility exists for the administrators of groups to send bulk messages to members of their group. For tutors, this provides an efficient and focussed method for communicating course and level specific information, such as upcoming events or meetings. For the administrators of other groups, such as a project group, it allows focussed communication to the members of that sub-group.

Feedback - Don't tell my mates, but...
Each student is provided with a feedback section which is only visible to that particular student and their tutors, allowing a level of privacy but allowing several tutors to support individual students. Both the individual students and staff can add text to this ongoing tutorial record, and students are encouraged to record and reflect on feedback received in synchronous tutorials in this section. Students record all relevant conversations with staff, and personal tutors check this section to ensure that the conversations were understood. This also allows tutors to gain an insight into conversations that their personal students are having with other tutors.

External services - I also stuck this on the wall outside.
As well as providing a core set of tools that all students and staff can use, the VSE allows members to integrate external services such as Flickr, Delicious and Blogger. The tool can be configured by the user to either automatically publish to these tools, or to fetch new content from them. This allows members to continue using familiar third party tools, and gives them the opportunity to show their work to a wider audience whilst sharing this activity with the local community via the VSE.

Identity management - Who are you?
Like the VLE and the ePortfolio, the gatekeeper of the VSE is an identity management system. Students log-in using either a central institutional database linked to their enrolment status (if the provision is paid for and students require accreditation), or via an open identity management system.

Synchronous tools
If the VSE is used to augment a physical learning context, then the primary synchronous learning environment is a traditional studio, and the primary form of support is in the form of face-to-face dialogue and formative assessment. In this context, the tool is used to reduce the amount of time staff traditionally spend on tracking, recording and controlling students, freeing up time to maximise face-to-face learning conversations.

In a distance context, other synchronous tools are required to replicate the studio environment.

Multi-user virtual environments.
User generated content focussed MUVEs such as Second Life provide learners with an environment that is highly conducive to studio based learning. Students and staff are able to function as creative practitioners in these environments in a manner that is very similar to how they would operate in a physical studio. The production of artwork in these virtual spaces can be witnessed by peers and tutors, and the synchronous communication tools allow learning conversations to take place around the work. When identity authenticity and a closed environment are important, open source solution such as OpenSim provide the opportunity for a close integration of the 2D and 3D aspects of the VSE. Commercial services such as Second Life provide the potential for richer learning through role play and exploration, and may have a looser link with the VSE. In the case of an open community, the Second Life identity may be the authentic identity in the VSE.

Conferencing tools.
Live conferencing tools such as Elluminate can facilitate group and individual tutorials, as they provide the facility not only for voice and video chat, but also for sharing and annotating 2D artwork. The whiteboard facility acts at the 'table' of the tutorial. Any artwork placed on it can be drawn and written on, as would happen in traditional tutorial. Conferencing tools are also suitable for the traditional 'crit' or presentation of outcomes in a group situation, as well as supporting ideation and brainstorming activities. They also provide an ideal platform for collaborative working. When 3D conferencing platforms such as Sun's Wonderland platform mature, they may also provide the VSE with an enhanced environment for dialogue.

Sounds good in theory, but will it work?
The description of a VSE above is based on a system that is currently operational within the Leeds School of Contemporary Art & Graphic Design at Leeds Metropolitan University. The asynchronous toolset is a php/mySQL system that has been developed in-house over the last three years, and is currently used by over 600 students and staff. The system has proved to be huge success with both students and staff alike, and over 59 000 items have been uploaded to the tool. As this VSE has been implemented on a physically located set of courses, the synchronous toolset described above has proved less necessary. However, through the JISC funded Open Habitat project, we have developed good practice guidelines for the use of multi user virtual environments in a studio context, making use of both OpenSim and Second Life with students in the School. Through our membership of the JISC Emerge community of practice, we have made extensive use of Elluminate, which has just been adopted by LeedsMet as its conferencing platform.

What next?
We need to work with others to evaluate and develop the virtual studio environment concept. We currently lack the capacity to evaluate the wealth of existing data in our current system, and we do not have the resources to turn our prototype into a robust and scalable solution. Graham Hibbert has developed the current prototype, and Ian Truelove has implemented it across the School. In addition to Ian and Graham, we need an experienced evaluator, a software developer with expertise in php/SQL, .net and service orientated architecture, networking support from LeedsMet computing services, a project manager and some funding to pay for it all.

The future of the VLE - The VSE?

2008-11-28T05:53:00.000-08:00

I've been dipping in and out of the JISC Emerge online conference as best I can over the last two days. It's great to be involved in these debates with a bunch of people that really know what they are on about.

Today's session was about the future of the Virtual Learning Environment. As the leader of a course that has 'opted out' of the institutional VLE, and built something that serves the needs of our students a lot better, I was heartened to hear other voices questioning the supremacy of the VLE. There were a couple of things that set me thinking. The big one was the connectivist thing about future educational institutions primarily serving the purpose of accreditation. This was echoed by talk of the importance of identity management and interoperability, when a range of technical services are combined by students to enhance learning. Other thoughts I had, but didn't necessarily voice, were around the importance of different sized groupings of learners. My biggest problem with our VLE is the wall that is put around each module. This denies other, in my opinion, more powerful groupings of learners. The one day project with 20 students that are, on that day, interested in learning about solving an advertising brief. The 3 year long grouping of a cohort. The 3 years worth of students on a programme. The trans-institutional and non-institutionalised groups of learners. There are many ways in which we can encourage and permit different sized learning communities, with different membership, but the VLE seems only to permit and encourage one that is based on the module.

Other thoughts: Do we have an ePortfolio tool? I keep calling our Flickr-like VLE alternative an ePortfolio tool, but it's clear that we have something that is quite different to other eportfolios. One term that was mentioned was the VRE - the Virtual Research Environment. Maybe it's that. I always think of it as being like the traditional art school studio learning environment - a space that students and staff occupy, where work is produced and stuck onto the walls, and it is discussed and reflected on. So I might invent a new thing to call our tool - the Virtual Studio Environment, or VSE. It sounds a bit more like an evolution of a VLE, and less confrontational. It also links perfectly with our Open Habitat research, as we are essentially applying the same principal there, but in 3D.

Lessons ignored

2008-11-19T09:58:00.001-08:00

I've just run a Second Life induction session for Library staff. I originally intended to do the established 'OpenSim standalone first' plan of action, but as I only had an hour with them, I decided to jump straight into the Second Life sign up, so that I could show off LeedsMet's islands.

All was going well, until the second person in the room got through the registration process. And it all came flooding back to me.

'Registration Denied!'

The old 'multiple sign-up from the same IP address' thing reared its ugly head, and I remembered why we worked out a different way of tackling Second Life induction. Anyway, it was too late to start fiddling about with Terminal to get OpenSim up and running, so I did a big screen fly through of the islands, and went onto Lecture auto-pilot.

Note to self: Follow the recommendations of your own research project in future, idiot.

World for sale

2008-11-15T15:04:00.000-08:00

I come from a family of entrepreneurs. Despite rebelling against this in my teens and going to University (I like to think of myself as the white sheep of the family), I occasionally feel an uncontrollable entrepreneurial urge welling up inside me. However, having witnessed the hard work involved in turning a good idea into a profit, I usually see sense and divert my creative energies towards my day job.

There is one idea I had a while ago that just won't go away, so I thought I'd spill it out here.
Here's the pitch:

--------

Imagine that the whole world is for sale.

Every square metre of land on earth is up for grabs, and anyone can buy it.

A 16 metre square plot cost only 1 cent.

You can put anything you like on your land. Each 4 metre x 4 metre plot supports a 64 pixel x 64 pixel image. 10 cents should buy you a decent sized picture.

You'll probably want to buy up the land your house is on first. You could put a picture of yourself on it, or maybe your email address.

It might be a good idea to buy up the land that your company's headquarters occupy before someone else does. Maybe buy up your competitors headquarters and put your logo there, just to wind them up a bit.

Strapped for cash? No problem. We'll give you an interest free loan to buy your land. You can pay us back if you sell it on to someone else.

You could buy up some famous places. Like Piccadilly Circus, or The White-house, or Old Trafford. Someone will want them for sure. They'd definitely pay more than a few cents to put their stuff on those popular spots. Well, it's up to you to set a price. It's your land. All of the profit is yours to keep.

-----

Anyway, you get the idea. It's basically 'the million dollar web-page' meets 'Google maps' meets 'buying and selling land in Second Life'.

It's a sure fire winner, I'm sure of it. All I need to do is rework Google maps via the API, install a decent e-commerce system, get some scalable image-server capacity and do a bit of viral marketing.

Fuelled by easy credit, the global virtual real estate free market economy will explode like an electronic antidote to real world recession.

Right, back to the day job.

The future of online HE

2008-11-07T14:58:00.000-08:00

I should be posting about the pilot, but that bit of my brain has blown a fuse after today's 4 hour solid crit with the students. Instead, I've found a link from the JISC online conference discussions to a speech by John Denham, Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills, at the UUK Annual Conference  in September. This quote caught my eye:

So a key question for universities in Britain is this: How can we be one of the leading - if not the leading - centres of online higher education learning in the world. I am convinced if we want to achieve this aim, it cannot be achieved by a rush to dump more course material onto the internet than other higher education systems.

Our aim should be to be the best by showing that online learning can offer those features of higher education which make our university world class today: Our challenge is to support students in developing their skills of evaluation, critical analysis and reflection, synthesis, problem-solving, creativity and thinking across discipline boundaries, as well as giving them any extra skills they needed to make their use of IT fully effective.

Denham, J. (2008) UUK Annual Conference Cambridge. Keynote. [Internet] September 11. Available from http://www.dius.gov.uk/speeches/denham_uuk_110908.html [Accessed 7th Nov 2008]

So, don't dump course material onto the internet. Develop skills of evaluation, critical analysis and reflection, synthesis, problem-solving, creativity and thinking. Cross discipline boundaries. Give extra skills needed to make best use of technology.

How well has Open Habitat fulfilled these aims?
Are virtual worlds a key component in the future of online HE?
What is the role of the art and design approach in all of this?

Week 3

2008-11-03T14:14:00.000-08:00

Ah, it's been a long time since day 2. The reality of learning in virtual world is that tutors keep getting dragged kicking and screaming back to the real world. Lots has happened in-world though. Check out my Flickr stream for some pics of activities. More to follow soon.

2nd A&D pilot - Day 2

2008-10-21T14:35:00.000-07:00

First day totally in world.

We all met on LeedsMet island and the students considered the Manual tasks. I suggested doing the 'Red' task to start off with, and the teams split to make a decision. Both teams decided to do the word association-seating area creation task instead, which was much better. I hung around with team A, and helped them to get the word association going. Kisa went off with team B and did the same.

This particular task turned out to be a great way of getting all of the students involved in an initial, not too taxing chat based task. Everyone, whatever level of skill, can type the first thing that comes into their head, so it proved to be good way of structuring a simple, reassuring socialisation activity. When we got bored (actually, a couple of them wanted to carry on playing word association all morning), each student picked their 2 favourite words from the ones spoken in the game, and the task was to make or find two chairs that relate to those words and create a group seating area on the team plot.
Anyway, after some freebie plundering and pretty impressive building activities for ones so young, a collection of 'chairs' were assembled and everyone seemed pretty pleased with themselves. I particularly liked the toothpaste sofa.

Tomorrow: 2 hour real world session in the Mac room to help improve building skills.

Second Pilot main project - Day 1

2008-10-20T12:56:00.000-07:00

Today was the first official day of the main part of the second art & design pilot.

Just a quick update on what's happened leading up to today's project launch: I started off by taking about 100 first year Graphic Arts & Design undergraduates through a half-hour OpenSim workshop as one of their inductions in the first 15 credit point introductory module a couple of weeks ago. The Manual, which is a collection of mini-projects, was issued as part of this module to get students working, and I created a post induction hand-out in a similar vein to take interested students through the first few hours in Second Life. About 7 students completed the tasks on this handout in their own time. The second module started today, with the theme of community (which is handy, considering the collaborative ambitions we have for the second pilot). 5 projects, including mine, are being run in parallel over the next 3 weeks, and students have signed up to the one they liked the look of. The other available projects are: workshop based photography, illustration activities, fanzine production, and setting up a stall in Leeds Market to sell art. I limited the places on the Second Life project to 10 participants, which I subsequently split into two teams.

The project kicked off today with all 9 (one didn't show, which was a bit annoying) participants in the real life computer room. Although one of the principals that emerged from the first pilot was that 'collaboration benefits from distance', I needed to make sure that all the students were up to speed, and this is much easier in a blended learning setting. We experienced the same confusion over real verses virtual, but I see this as a necessary evil to get things running smoothly before committing totally to the distance mode. It turns out that 3 of the participants hadn't yet signed up to Second Life, so I let the others play for a bit whilst these three latecomers zipped through Help island before joined the rest of the group on the steps of H-Building. It will be interesting to see how jumping from the OpenSim induction straight to today's project launch without completing the tasks on the handout affects the experience of these students.

I've set up two groups on the course ePortfolio tool to provide each team with a web-based tool to bring together their snapshots, have asynchronous discussions and send group messages. This fits with the idea of using third party tools to support collaboration. Each team has been allocated a generous plot of land on LeedsMet island to build all of their stuff on over the next three weeks. In the first pilot, we gave each student individual plots, which probably discouraged collaboration, so it will be interesting to see how each team gets on sharing land. The activities over the next three weeks, as mentioned in previous posts, will come from the 75 mini-tasks in 'The Manual - Second Life edition', which is displayed in the centre of LeedsMet island. Most of these mini-projects have a collaborative slant, but there are plenty of opportunities for individual effort within the set tasks.

One of the other key points that came out of the first pilot was 'Socialisation before collaboration', so the focus of today's activities was very much on the students getting to know each other. After the customary friend making ritual (which I limited to making friends within teams), Kisa was on hand to drop everyone a notecard with a bunch of landmarks to interesting locations on the mainland. We decided to all visit Svarga first, as this is a good example of what it is possible to build in Second Life. Everyone flew about on the new 'giant wasp' guided tours, and then we all teleported back to LeedsMet. After separating the two groups back into their respective teams, I asked each team to discuss where they were going to visit next out of the collection of landmarks on the notecard. They all seemed to tackle this task without too much anxiety, and without feeling the need to talk about it in real life. A couple of quick tours later, and clutching team snapshots, the students returned to their homes on LeedsMet. The last thing I did was check that everyone could build on LeedsMet, and we arranged to meet up tomorrow in-world at 10am for 'The Manual' inspired building fun.

This second pilot feels quite different to the first one. The fact that I am running this as an official project within a bigger module, running alongside other projects, and with assessable outcomes, makes it all feel a lot more real. The first pilot was a lot more experimental, with more time devoted to the induction phases, and a lot more staff around to get things going. This pilot is running within the resourcing constraints of a typical undergraduate provision, with less staff time and technical support, with the added complication of having to fit into a busy first year schedule. It is real learning in virtual environments happening on a real course at a real University. As a new course leader, virtual worlds need to prove themselves worthy of the limited resources I have available to indulge new-fangled technologies. I find myself in the unusual position of both championing virtual worlds, and simultaneously demanding evidence that they are worth the money. If this project proves to be clearly beneficial to first year graphics students, then I will run it every year. If I think that these students would have been better off spending their time selling pictures in the market, then I will axe it. Oh, my own harshest critic. What fun.

Second A&D Pilot starts next week.

2008-10-14T04:40:00.000-07:00

Right. I better give you all a quick update before I get dragged back into the day job.
I did 6 x half-hour OpenSim inductions last Wednesday, introducing about 100 of our first year Graphics Students to a virtual world. They all seemed pretty happy about the experience, and some of them manage to build some pretty cool stuff. One of them even managed to terraform the island into a face (above). Not bad for a complete Noob.

I left them with a quick start guide to Second Life, and several have manage to log in since and send me an instant message.
The second pilot proper starts next Monday, and I've ended up deciding to run it as one of five projects that occupy the first three weeks of the second module. Students have an option of continue with the project after this three week block, running alongside the next lot of projects. About 10 people have signed up so far, so we should have enough to create two teams. The project is based on 'The Manual', which is a book of mini-projects, quotes and ideas relating to Graphic Arts & Design, written by all 17 staff that teach on the graphics course. Along with Graham and other project team members, I've adapted the tasks to suit Second Life and collaboration, and I plan to display these mini-projects in the middle of LeedsMet island. Each team gets a big plot to build on, and Kisa & Cubist will be providing support for the development of the work over the 3 week slot. We also have a Big Draw event going on in the middle week, so we plan to link in with this as well. Here is the timetable of initial events:
Monday 20th October - Module GAD1.2 and project launch - Second Life session in H701 or remotely.
Tuesday 21st October - In-world session on Leeds Met island. Activities.
Wednesday 22nd October - Second Life session in H701 at 10am.
Friday 24th October - Activities on LeedsMet island
Monday 27th October - Live Second Life Big Draw session in Library and on Leeds Met island.
Tuesday 28th October - Live Second Life Big Draw session in Library and on Leeds Met island.
Wednesday 29th October - Live Second Life Big Draw session in Library and on Leeds Met island.
Thursday 30th October - Live Second Life Big Draw session in Library and on Leeds Met island.
Friday 31st October - Live Second Life Big Draw session in Library and on Leeds Met island.
Tuesday 4th November - Exhibition and feedback on LeedsMet island.
Friday 7th November - Exhibition and feedback on LeedsMet island. Party.

Oil spill

2008-09-25T14:20:00.000-07:00

Twitter is the oil that has lubricated my ideas today.
A JISC-Emerge tweet alerted me to a blog post by Josie Frazer about Dave White's work on Residents and Visitors for the JISC funded Isthmus project. Dave is, of course, Open Habitat's project manager, which is quite handy.

My fuzzy thinking about all of this at the moment needn't prevent me from spilling a few ideas here.

It strikes me that the idea of 'Residents' might be the key to unlocking the problem of collaboration in the Art & Design pilot. We have just decided to split participants in the second pilot into teams, and to give each team a home. We are trying to make them into residents in a virtual world, rather than just visitors. The difference, I think, is that Isthmus is looking at web based communities and is dealing with a more abstract sense of residents and visitors. We are thinking much more literally about our students building a home (albeit a fairly abstracted one) and becoming residents in it. The collaboration aspect will come from the fact that we are forcing our students to share a house (which is, after all, what being a student is all about).

I've not quite got this one clear yet. I may well be missing some points. I'll try and pin things down a bit better tomorrow.

From Habitat to G-Plan

2008-09-25T06:29:00.000-07:00

Intrigued by a PhD student that I am advising, inspired by a conversation with Graham yesterday, and supported by this article I've just stumbled upon, I think we have the plan sorted.

Reality Check.
The reality of meeting all 127 first year students on Monday, and discussing the schedule of projects, activities and assessments with the Level One staff has really focussed my thinking. The original strap line for Open Habitat was "Real learning in virtual worlds." Some real learning happened in the phase one pilot, but if we want to integrate the second pilot into our student's programme of study, much more real learning needs to take place. The harsh reality is that unless the work produced in a virtual world counts towards assessment, and is seen to be directly relevant to the other activities that are going on in the first year, we won't get any real learning, as nobody will turn up. With this in mind, I have abandoned my immersionist dream of totally disconnecting the avatars from their students, and instead have decided to take a more integrated approach. I am in the process of writing a virtual worlds element into both the induction and main module that will be running at the same time as the pilot in level 1. Students will be given an option to work in the virtual world, either bringing in the real world project activities to explore, or to work on specific tasks and negotiated activities. All of the work will be assessable.

Collaboration.
The other slightly vague area in all of our previous pilot plans was collaboration. I think Graham has cracked this one. One of the things that many noobs want to do is create a place to call home. I suggested that we enable collaboration through peer support by splitting the participants up into teams, and Graham suggested that each team should first be directed to build a home for the team. This home would force collaboration, as team members would need to discuss the implementation of their home building. I see each home becoming the focus for subsequent activities, acting as a shared studio, meeting place, exhibition space and crit area. The idea of collaboration through a team can also be the basis of other activities, such as more competitive quests (the Spartosophy idea that I still have under wraps).

Anyway, the initial plan of the 1 day OpenSim induction on the 8th October, with a period of exploration guided by 'Kisa's 50 micro-quests for Noobs', will now be followed by team and plot allocation at the first in-world meeting on the 17th Oct, and an initial home building quest. Further details to follow.

Back to plan, er, E, F?

2008-09-23T10:51:00.000-07:00

For a variety of reasons, the Faculty wide idea is no longer on the cards, so I'm reverting back to the A&D students for the second pilot.
The ruthless culling of seemingly fully-formed plans is an essential part of the creative process, but my apologies to those readers not used to this turbulent approach to project planning.

Pruning my previous ideas, and planting a big new one.

2008-09-21T02:35:00.000-07:00

I recently helped the Police get their Freshers' safety message across by installing a poster on one of our islands:
The V.C. mentions it here in his daily reflection,
and here's a report in the Yorkshire Evening Post

On Tuesday, the Faculty is hosting a special Freshers' welcome day, where the Police will be promoting their Safety message and, hopefully, pointing Second Life savvy first years to our island. It has suddenly stuck me that this might provide an ideal opportunity to recruit the sort of experienced avatars to our study that we need. One of the findings from the evaluation of the first pilot was the limitations associated with getting noobs up to speed before we could tackle some of the more focussed activities around collaboration. I'm estimating that there will be around a thousand freshers at the event on Tuesday, so there is a good chance that there will be several SL experts in the audience. The faculty runs a broad range of programmes, including art & design, building & construction, cultural studies, social sciences, film and television, architecture and tourism. If we could bring together students from across these disciplines, we would stand a much better chance of getting some meaningful collaboration going.
One issue might be the potential conflict between the students' involvement with a weird virtual worlds project, and their chosen programme of study. I can imagine some of my colleagues in other parts of the Faculty perhaps taking exception to me interfering with their students learning. One solution to this that I've thought of is to support the University's strong commitment to volunteering. If the focus of collaboration between Faculty students in Second Life had a worthy aim, then not only would we sit comfortably outside the constraints of curriculum, but we could do something good for the world. There are several charity events exist already in Second Life. Relay for Life is in July, so this doesn't fit into out timeframe for the project. We're cutting it a bit fine for Burning Life, which starts on 27th September, but this event could provide a timely focus for socialisation activities, and to get the idea across about what we might do.

The other idea I had was to gather together the SL expert freshers next week and make them Leeds Met mentors, and than draft them in to assist with the previous plan that I blogged about recently. This would be a good way to test out the mentoring opportunity identified in the evaluation of the first pilot.

I think that if we could bring together a much bigger group of students on the fertile ground of Leeds Met's islands, then the sort of rhizomatic swellings of collaboration that Dave C talks about might just happen. If Kisa and I can act as gardeners, then we might just get something special growing out of this project.

Working the detail into the phase 2 pilot plan.

2008-09-19T04:41:00.000-07:00

I've just come out of a very positive and productive Elluminate meeting with fellow Open Habitat project members, and I just want to capture a few thoughts that are in my head in relation to my proposed phase 2 pilot plan.

The main issues that need addressing at the moment are around socialisation and collaboration, and the purpose and opportunities of 'The Book'.

Socialisation is a complex and subtle problem to address. The fact that I am working with brand new first year students pretty much as soon as they walk through the door is significant. As well as the idea of using Second Life as a tool to help these students make sense of everything, with the ultimate aim of increasing the long term effectiveness of their engagement with the real life course, the focus on in-world socialisation in the early stages of the pilot will help the process of collaboration later on. However, more detail need to be worked into this process of socialisation. In particular, the 9 day gap between the hand-holding in OpenSim, and the first formal in-world event needs addressing. This is an interesting problem, as the deliberate separation of the real students from their avatars to maintain their anonymity makes support difficult in this transition stage. Part of me wants to see if an OpenSim pre-induction is enough to give them them enough to survive when dumped into Second Life, but I also acknowledge that a little extra help might vastly improve their sense of purpose and direction. One way I've thought of addressing this is to produce a printed mini-guide, possibly containing a series of 'quests' for students to complete in over the 9 days in the wilderness. Kisa is an experienced official Second Life mentor, and I'm sure she would know what to put into this rough guide. It would also provide a nice output for others to use in conjunction with the OpenSim pre-induction approach.

The book of ideas, quotes and micro-projects that our students make use of in their first year might also provide the template for guiding students in both their acclimatisation, and their subsequent engagement. If we could hand each student a printed book of many Second Life relevant tips, quotes, micro-quests, places to go and things to do, then they can pick the ones that feel most relevant and do them during the first few days in world. I see them primarily working on these alone initially, so that when they appear nine days later in LeedsMet island, we have a diverse range of things to discuss.

This leads onto the whole issue of collaboration. I know from my often bitter experiences of group-working that collaboration can be a very difficult process to manage. I am convinced that the collaboration works best when an experienced manager works to identify the strengths and weaknesses of individuals, and constructs project work that engineers the complimentary qualities of individuals into a team. This makes the pre-construction of specific projects and activities difficult, as the manager of the team must construct a project which is best suited to the abilities and needs of the team. This links in with both the directive mentoring approach identified in the first pilot evaluation, and the non-directive coaching approach that I am keen to explore. The pedagogical design of this pilot is primarily a reflexive approach. The collaboration will be managed through a non-directive process of identifying abilities and needs through the formative assessment of the initial activities, and a directive process of specific project creation and management by a mentor. The precise nature of collaboration is impossible to predict at this stage, as it will depend on the students, what they have done, and what they need.

So, this is what I think I'm proposing:
A guide book needs to be produced, with a series of tips and mini-quests.
This book will be given to students at the end of the OpenSim pre-induction,and will provide individualised focus for independent learning and discovery for their nine days in the wilderness.
The first formal meeting on Leeds Met will connect together the avatars through dialogue and the e-portfolio tool.
This meeting will kick start the process of identifying the needs of the avatars through structured discussions, the publishing of images on the e-portfolio tool, the reflections of the avatars on their experiences so far, and the use of forums to manage asynchronous discussions.
Subsequent sessions in-world will focus on the construction of teams and collaborative projects that respond to the identified needs of each individual team member. For example, a student with who has recognised the importance of their avatar's appearance when in social situations would be put together with a student who wants to explore fashion design. A student with an interest in photography would work with a set designer to create a fashion photo shoot. Another student may put together an in-world exhibition of the photos and another may organise the opening of this event.

The parallel BA(Hons) Graphic Arts & Design course.

2008-09-17T10:53:00.000-07:00

126 students will join level one of the BA(Hons) Graphic Arts & Design course at Leeds Met in September 08. Moving to a big, strange city and joining a large course with an unfamiliar approach to learning is an intimidating experience for many students. Students often struggle to establish their status in the complex social structure of the course, and many feel compelled to re-define their identity to enable them to fit in. The enormity of starting a new course often prevents new students from seeking the guidance they desperately need, both in relation to their course work and their personal developmental needs. The obsession that many students have with summative assessment dominates their thoughts, and the fear of being seen to be failing in any way prevents them from engaging in the dialogue that may quickly solve their problems. Second Life can provide students with a safe haven to voice their concerns, define a new identity and test out different ways of being a creative practitioner.

The following plan for the phase 2 pilot of the Open Habitat project seeks to provide level one Graphics students with a safe, responsive and open habitat to explore new ways of being. The approach suggested here seeks to establish a direct line of communication between the students and the course leader, with the protection of students' anonymity through their avatars. It also seeks to provides a parallel studio/workshop learning environment for students' avatars to simulate the real world activities that they are engaging with as part of their course work. It is, in short, a parallel course, populated by the alter-egos of the level one students that choose to participate.

Central to this plan is the need to separate the initial skills acquisition required to engage with Second Life from the creation of an personal and private identity. During phase one, OpenSim standalone was successfully used to prepare students for their subsequent use of Second Life. This pre-induction worked well in a blended learning setting, as the default avatar and pre-configured account permitted the delaying of identity construction. The pre-induction focussed on core technical skills, particularly building skills, and enabled students to gain confidence in the technology with real world support at the point of need. The subsequent attempt to engage with Second Life in a blended environment was less successful. Students felt confused by the awkward collision of their real life and in-world identities. It emerged that Second Life was best done at a distance.
The following outline project plan has been designed to address the points detailed above.

Plan:

Wednesday 8th October.
Leading Horses to Water.
OpenSim pre-Second Life induction for all 126 students. 6 x 1 hour blended sessions to run over the course of one day.
Session covers basic navigation, building and camera controls, adopting the 'quest' based approach tested in the first pilot.
A simplified version of the 'name game' from the first pilot will also be used to prepare students for the important task of choosing a name.
At the end of the hour, students will sign-up to Second Life, but keep their new identity secret, and complete Linden Lab's standard induction in their own time, either in the department's open access I.T. labs, or on their own computers. As an incentive to engage, students will be offered the chance to claim 150 linden dollars each and the promise of walking round a virtual version of the new art school that they will be moving into next year, if they turn up on LeedsMet island on Friday 17th at 12 noon.

Students may also choose not to sign up to Second Life and will take no further part in the pilot.

Participants will have 9 days to fend for themselves in Second Life before the first formal meeting. This will enable us to evaluate the effectiveness of the OpenSim pre-induction, and will enable students to bring a range of experiences to the first formal meeting as a basis for initial discussions.

Friday 17th October
Deadline Party.
The deadline for the students' first real life module is 12 noon on this day. In the morning, in-world support will be provided for students panicking about their submission for assessment.

At 12 noon, any avatar who attends will be awarded 150 linden dollars and shown how to sign up to the e-portfolio tool.

A tour round a mock up of the new building that the students will move into next year will be provided, and a discussion will take place about the course so far, providing students with an opportunity to anonymously feed back about their experiences.

'The Book' will be introduced as the primary device for guiding the students' subsequent engagement with Second Life.
The Book is a collection of mini-projects, quotes and suggestions that all level one students receive at the start of the course. It provides the basis for both tutor directed and self directed real life study throughout the first year of study. The Book is full of creative stimulation. The Book will form the basis of the virtual Graphics course, echoing the real course. Collaboration will be drawn out of the tasks engaged with from the book through a process of feedback and coaching by tutors. A notecard/in-world version of the book will be distributed at this session.

At 9pm on the 17th, a party will take place on LeedsMet for any students that haven't, for any reason, found other students in real life to celebrate the end of the first module with.

Friday 24th October
The Book - feedback and support for activities from the book. (Kisa and Cubist). Coordination of collaborative opportunities.
Identity coaching (Kisa)
Discussion and feedback about the real course. (Cubist)

Friday 31st October
The Book - feedback and support for activities from the book. (Kisa and Cubist). Coordination of collaborative opportunities.
Identity coaching (Kisa)
Discussion and feedback about the real course. (Cubist)

Friday 7th November
Exhibition of Book outputs, with feedback and discussion.

Friday 14th November
The Book - feedback and support for activities from the book. (Kisa and Cubist). Coordination of collaborative opportunities.
Identity coaching (Kisa)
Discussion and feedback about the real course. (Cubist)

Friday 21st November
Students gate-crash ReLIVE08.

Friday 28th November
Students gatecrash Emerge online conference.
Private view of exhibition.
Students conduct a tour round their exhibition for Emerge online social event.

Friday 5th December
Discussion and feedback about the real course. (Cubist)
All day session focussing on issues arising for the students 10 week into the course.

Enabling lucidity in a complex, fragmented world of knowledge.

2008-09-11T07:57:00.000-07:00

I'm still absorbing George Siemens' keynote at the ALT-C conference. I found it very inspiring, and it made me realise that I need to revisit connectivism.

I just want to capture a couple of things before they get too mixed up with everything else in my head.
The first is the importance of acknowledging and embracing complexity in learning, and the need to seek lucidity through the connection of fragmented nuggets of potential learning. I just want to make a note that a coaching approach may be a way of addressing this. This links in with Professor Graham Gibbs' talk on the importance of feedback in student achievement.

The second thing I want to pick up on is the deliberately provocative statement that George made about the future role of the University. He suggested that the only purpose of the institution in the future will be validation. I'd like to add 3 more things that I think we will be able to provide students with for their fees:

1 Universities will provide exclusive communities of high quality learners. Other worldwide, local, free, commercial, open and closed learning communities will be still used by students, and will be central to their learning, but the University will provide quality course-mates through effective marketing, incentives and a rigorous selection process.

2 Universities will provide the best learning environments to support a learning community with a physical, face to face element.

3 Universities will provide quality feedback. Tutors will be expert mentors and coaches, helping students to navigate through the turbulent ocean of potential. Validation will be extracted from this process through an ongoing process of formative assessment. The diversity of individual learning plans will require criteria for assessment to be agreed between the tutor and the learner. Marking will increasingly be seen as too crude a tool for bringing lucidity to complex learning patterns, and conversations will form the basis of assessment.

Maybe. Maybe not. It's always dangerous to predict the future. However, trying to shape it is good fun.

Developing Assessment to support Student Learning

2008-09-04T16:46:00.000-07:00

I've just watched Professor Graham Gibbs deliver a very powerful keynote speech at the Assessment, Learning and Teaching day of our annual staff development festival at Leeds Met. He presented empirical evidence that revealed the approaches to assessment that support student learning, and the approaches that don't.

The key points, as I interpreted them, were:

Lots of feedback is the route to quality learning. The majority of resources should be devoted to this.

The more summative assessment you have, the worse off everybody is.

The programme, award, course - whatever you want to call it - that thing that has a discipline specific title and lasts for 3 years - is the most effective container for learning. Splitting a course into 24 mini courses makes things worse.

Students need to be welcomed into their course's community of practice, which is populated by 3 full years of co-learners, plus staff.

The more explicit you are about criteria, the more students will work for a mark and miss the point of learning.

Students often see marks as a judgement about them as a person, rather than a judgement of their learning. There is great value in learning that doesn't result in a mark.

Feedback needs to be received as soon as possible to have any real value. Quick and dirty feedback is better than accurate but delayed feedback.

Peer support and peer pressure help quality learning to take place.

All of these points reinforce the strong beliefs that I hold about effective assessment and learning, gained through my experience as an art & design educator. They also confirm my suspicions about other popular approaches.

I have a very clear idea of how this evidence relates to the 3 year undergraduate programme that I lead, but how might it relate to learning in virtual worlds?

Face Book

2008-08-29T12:59:00.000-07:00

I picked up an interesting book at Oxfam. 'The Human Face Reconsidered', by John Brophy isn't particularly scientific, (any science that is present has probably been discredited, since the book was written in 1962), but it is very poetic.
I've just been reading the section about eyes.

"It is through the eyes that we attain the most intimate communion with other human beings and step nearest to the ultimate mystery which locks us, each separately, while life endures, inside the prison-house of one body, whence we may shout and listen to other prisoners, and out of which the only peep-hole is the eyes."

If we could look each other in the eye when we talk at a distance, rather being forced to stare at each other's navels by our screen-top webcams, we might enjoy a more intimate communion, and step nearer to the ultimate mystery. Or at the very least, have a better meeting.

A world within a world

2008-08-27T13:28:00.000-07:00

Just had a thought that I need to capture before it escapes:
Could you run OpenSim as a shared application inside Wonderland? This may seem like an insane idea, I realise. Why would you want a 3D environment inside a 3D environment?

Well, I'm thinking about the draft evaluation of the first pilot by Steve and Marga, and one of the important issues that has been identified is the need to know when to do 'distance', and when to do 'blended'. I think that OpenSim standalone is just right for teaching building skills in a real life blended learning situation (Ian & Graham tutors), and Second Life is best done at a distance (Cubist and Kisa mentors).

Wonderland is closer to a blended learning environment, in that you are your real life self, speaking with your real voice, and you can interact properly with an application (interface elements and all) like you do in an I.T. lab. That's why I think it might be interesting to have OpenSim standalone as a shared virtual application. I can teach some building skills at a distance without it getting muddied by the whole role play and social complexity thing.

Well, it's just an idea.

Browser Tutorial

2008-08-25T14:25:00.001-07:00

Quick note to Open Habitat project:
The new Browser Tutorial that Linden Lab are introducing as an alternative the to current Orientation island/HUD solution will need to be considered in relation to our first pilot. I sense new opportunities for smoother, better designed noobs inductions. Need to test.

PC News 2012: Thousands sue for repetitive neck strain injury

2008-08-20T14:56:00.001-07:00

Now then. A 3D head tracking controlled operating system. That would be interesting. Webcams are pretty widespread, so it would be easy for Apple or the Linux mob to create a head tracking powered 3D desktop. It would seem that many of the benefits of stereoscopic displays can be provided by a realtime head tracking, but at a fraction of the cost and/or inconvenience (nobody really likes wearing those glasses for very long, however spectacular the stereo vision is.).

Now imagine that a friend's 3D head-avatar (see previous posts) pops up on your 3D desktop (well, he'd have to knock first). He can see what's on your desktop, and his 3D head rotates around so you can see which bits he's looking at. You can show him how to do something cool in photoshop, or show him something on the web, accompanied by a VoIP-conversation. Click a switch and you're looking at his screen, and he can see your 3D head-avatar on his 3D desktop.

Head tracking enabled MMORPG

2008-08-20T14:48:00.000-07:00

This is the sort of thing I'm on about:

I'll have a search and see if anyone has done it with Second Life yet.

Augmental reality

2008-08-20T09:14:00.000-07:00

I've been messing about with the open source, cross platform ARToolKit. This uses your webcam to detect the relative position of a special pattern that you print out. I've also just stumbled on this face detection API that does a similar thing, but without the need for a special pattern (other than your face). The second video on this page suggests an interesting creative possibility. The API is a low level C library, so it would probably be fairly easy to integrate it into a hack of the Second Life client. The idea is that you would be able to tilt your head to see round objects slightly. This would be a massive help when building things in world, as you would get a much better sense of the relative position of objects in the 3D space.

Imagining a future augmentationist virtual world

2008-08-20T06:33:00.000-07:00

OK. Time for a bit of abductive reasoning. I'm imagining a future shared virtual environment for the augmentationists.

I'm assuming that Second Life has become the best immersionist solution - great for role-play (fantasy identities, not spoilt by voice), content creation etc. So no need to bother trying to compete in these areas. The thing that I'm imagining is a 3D conferencing tool, with voice as the central communication device, and shared applications such as browsers and whiteboards to facilitate discussion, ideas generation and collaborative working.

So, let's pretend I'm a student. My tutor has given me a web-link to a Java Web-start application. The first time I run it, it checks my PC spec and installs all the necessary bits on my computer. My user ID (taken from BANNER or whatever standard is in place for student IDs) is already on the database, so I just need to log in using this and my usual password. As this is the first time I have logged in, I need to first create my avatar. The application checks to see if I have a functioning webcam, and if so, allows me to take a snapshot of myself. If I have no webcam, I have the option of uploading a mug-shot instead. I click a few points on the snapshot to calibrate my face, and click 'Generate'. A 3D face is created and uploaded to the server. Now I log into the virtual world, and my avatar is my 3D face (do we need bodies in virtual worlds? I went to a virtual reality conference about 15 years ago, and one of the speakers was dead against avatars having legs).
As I wander around this 3D world, I see other faces that I recognise. I wander up to them and say 'Hello!', with my voice. They say 'Hello!' back, with their familiar voices. I click on a 'Smiley' button and my 3D face smiles at them. I can see what they are looking at by the orientation of their 3D faces. We walk up to a giant web browser and I key in a URL. My friend admires my new artwork that I have navigated to via the browser. He clicks on an 'impressed' button and his 3D face's expression morphs into an impressed looking version of himself. He has an idea, and draws it on the whiteboard next to the browser. We agree to meet up for a drink later to discuss our new ideas.

Looking a little further into the future, instead of a fixed 3D face, my 3D webcam places a live hologram of me into the virtual environment, massively enhancing communication via non-verbal cues. I interact with the environment by waving my arms about, maybe.

3D faces from mug-shots

2008-08-20T05:42:00.000-07:00

I've found a great tool for generating 3D heads from a single mug-shot. (Click on the 3D face and then move the slider). The one above was created from a standard Photo Booth snap from the built in webcam on my MacBook. The processing is all done via a web interface, probably server side. It's a bit useless at the moment, as all you get is the thing above, but there are plans to allow export of the meshes and textures. I think some of the other augmentationist commercial virtual worlds might already be using something like this (Twinity?). It would make a lot of sense to see something that actually looks like the student you are dealing with in an augmentationist environment, rather than the spooky doll avatars that exist currently. It might be a good intermediate stage until the technology speeds up enough to allow the sort of live 3D video that I mentioned in my last post.

Realtime 3D face scanning

2008-08-14T15:31:00.000-07:00

You can imagine that a low cost, low quality version of something like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiY45jALWjE
might create some interesting creative possibilities in a shared virtual environment.
I've found a few 3D scanning systems like this that use projected bands of light. The physical components of these systems tend to be off-the-shelf digital cameras and data projectors, with most of the clever stuff happening in the software. This suggests that the future price of similar systems will plummet as the home-brew crowd reverse engineer the software (Patents de-pending). If a low-cost device could be manufactured to project the correct pattern of light onto your face, your webcam could capture your face, and the virtual world client could perform the necessary processing required to beam you into a shared space.
This systems would allow users in multi-user virtual environment to present themselves in the form of a realtime 'hologram'.
It would be interesting to see how the eye-contact problem present in video conferencing systems, translates in such a holo-conferencing system.

Future-avatar dance party

2008-08-10T14:40:00.000-07:00

In the future, the Augmentationist's avatars will look like this:
http://www.spiral-scratch.com/index.php?page=gamecam3d

Why does an avatar have to look like a Pre–Raphaelite painting? Cubist tries hard to look cubist, but Ian would prefer to look like an impressionist painting. Vibrancy and life at the expense of detail.

Imagine a shared space occupied by the live 'holograms' of real people like the one in the link. How would a virtual meeting be different if you could virtually shake hands at the start? Maybe people could learn dance moves together. (Dance distance learning?). The lack of authentic body language cues in conventional conferencing systems is a major problem. Slightly glitchy, but undeniably alive avatars might give off all the right signals to improve our chances of accurately judging mood.

The scary thing is, this could be actually quite straightforward, technically. We should play.

Wonderball

2008-07-29T15:37:00.000-07:00

I've been messing about with full 360 x 180 degree panoramics. When you map one of these photographs onto a sphere and walk inside it, it gives a good sense of being in a real space. The image distorts a little as you move around in the sphere, but your brain seems to be able to make adjustments quite easily, so I can imagine that you could map other objects within this space and you would get a reasonable sense of their position in relation to the projected panoramic. If you had a bunch of avatars inside this space, and each avatar had a rectangular cone object which projected out in the direction they were facing (the cone would correspond to the field of view of their camera), then everyone would be able to see what they were looking at. This would be very useful in group discussion about the location of the panoramic image that everyone was inside. It would also indicate when someone was looking you in the face, providing another valuable visual cue in the 3D virtual space. Browsers and whiteboards could also be placed within the sphere to facilitate the discussion.
I reckon all of this is do-able with Wonderland.

Walking in an Inter-Wonderland

2008-07-15T15:39:00.000-07:00

Some more quick thoughts on Wonderland.
Wonderland is basically a 3D conferencing tool, a bit like a 3D version of Elluminate. Rather than avatars, it would be more useful to see a live video stream of the people you are communicating with. Bandwidth restrictions would probably limit this to low-rez versions of each participant's webcam, but even this in the 3D space would be useful. As a participant watches you move around, they would get a sense of what you are looking at, as your video image would be orientated to face that thing. In group meetings, the direction that you are looking would make sense in the 3D space. If you look to someone on your left, your video image would seem to be looking at the same person in the 3D space. This would provide valuable cues to enhance social cohesion. If someone decided to wander off, you could follow them, see what they are drawing or browsing, and engage in a meaningful conversation with them about it.

Wonderland spillage

2008-07-14T16:04:00.000-07:00

Some initial ideas about Wonderland after spending half an hour messing about with Open Habitat's MPK20-based test area:

It ain't Second Life. This is both bad and good.

The shared applications are great. Walk up to a whiteboard and shift-click on it and you can just draw straight onto it. No external applications needed like in SL.

The avatars just look disturbing, and editing them is clunky and pretty pointless really. What would be better would be to allow users to upload a mugshot of themselves and apply it to a box.

The bots are even more disturbing. They create a sense of confusion (your not sure if they have real people connected to them at the other end or not). Hearing a voice coming from them makes you want to find out how to walk away faster (Press shift to double walk speed).

The performance is terrible, until you adjust the clipping settings to something sensible.

As MPK20 is geared up for 'you being you', using your own voice and using 2D applications in a 3D world, the first person (mouselook) camera view makes more sense. Being able to see your avatar forces you to see them as an external character, and you can't help going down the road of wanting to dress them and love them etc. Second Life is a million times better for this role play, and it's looking like it will take a long time before wonderland's avatar rendering will catch up with SL's sophistication. I'd quite confidently say that it never will, so why not ditch the 3D avatar side of things now? A good photo of someone's face when you're on the phone to them helps. Seeing a creepy generic doll does not.

The range of possibilities for what you can do using Wonderland/MPK20 are far more limited than SL, for sure, but the few things that you can do - if tweaked and focussed - will have much wider appeal for business and education. This is something that I could imagine would benefit a large number of my Graphics students. Second Life is one type of media out of many. Wonderland could be a tool that could help students whatever type of media they work with.

I'm imagining something quite abstract. Minimise the lag inducing things. Trim the clipping right down. Fill the place with loads of browsers and whiteboards and make it into an ideas studio. Write some specifically adapted web based application, and link to Graham's e-portfolio tool. e-Studio?

With the services of a decent Java developer, we could make something really good out of Wonderland.

United! United!

2008-07-09T07:46:00.000-07:00

According to Christine Kenneally (New Scientist 21 May 2008) the only things that are uniquely human are art, cooking, religion, humour, sport and world wide domination. I can't help wanting to combine these things together somehow. The art bit is already there. The world wide domination thing is relevant to the sorts of global technologies we are messing about with. Graham and I spend quite a lot of time laughing about our preposterous plans. Someone once suggested that I start a virtual cult, with my hologram of Clive Egginton as the God of Second Life (I think Philip Linden has already claimed that one.) Not sure about cooking, although mixing up prims to a recipe for a tasty dish of art might be an interesting line of inquiry.
The one that I am really intrigued by is sport.
I must point out at this point that I always got picked last for the team at school, and I can barely throw a ball let alone catch one. I also have little interest in sport as a spectator, except the odd football game on the tele. However, my interest in sport as a potential model for learning in virtual worlds has been stoked up by two things. The first is the need to find a more effective way of getting productive collaboration going in phase 2 of the project. The other is the announcement that Leeds Met is to become the UK Centre for Coaching Excellence.
I have been interested in coaching ever since I attended three coaching sessions as part payment for a website I made for a life coach (This was no cowboy coach. She had qualifications and everything, and usually charged £200 quid an hour). These sessions had a profound effect on me. It helped to reveal to me what I really valued, and gave me permission to be brilliant as me, not what other people thought was me. I certainly wouldn't have got involved in JISC if I hadn't had those three one hour sessions. I realised when I was getting coached that there were many similarities with life coaching and the negotiated learning/tutorial based approach that is central to the way we do things. I also stole some her techniques and tried them out on colleagues and students, with some success. So, I'm a fan of coaching based approaches to personal development and the subsequent learning that is unlocked as a result.
Back to sport. As I was spilling 50 ideas for Phase 2 onto the floor of my last blog post, I found my mind wandering towards sport as something that might provide a possible framework for creative collaboration in virtual worlds. I like the idea of teams with different skills working together. I'm interested in two or more teams competing. I'm wondering what the rules of art/design sports might be. I like the fact that teams can compete globally. I can see how the tutor could be like a coach, picking the team, structuring the training exercises, motivating and encouraging, but ultimately standing on the side line whilst the students put in the effort and perform.
Another issue that is limiting the potential of the Open Habitat project is working with Noobs. I wonder how we might recruit good players for a team? Can we look outside of the University, in the same way that clubs sign players from abroad? Oh, the brain's working now. More on this soon.

50 ideas for phase 2

2008-07-08T15:02:00.000-07:00

Time to start the brain up again. Phase two starts tomorrow.

1. Explore/test SL/OpenSim hybrid via Open Grid Public Beta
2. Make OpenSim standalone package (Mac)
3. Make VMware standalone package (PC & *nix)
4. Run sessions on Graphics course from October to February (5 month run)
5. Just do OpenSim standalone induction and name game, then set free in SL.
6. Make them collaborate.
7. Redefine collaboration,
8. Ditch SL/OpenSim and use Wonderland instead.
9. Use Wonderland for Philosophy/project meeting (Mac issue - project buys us Bootcamp/Windows)
10. Run cross institution competiton.
11. Run cross discipline/Leeds Met based competition.
12. Explore immersionist angle - no RL bits - no blended bits (Apart from seperate OpenSim induction.)
13. Only use experienced avatars.
14. Open up beyond institutions.
15. Run a grid wide competition.
16. Set up an OpenSim grid with free entry and see what happens.
17. Create fertile ground for rhizomatic collaboration.
18. Make a tool that glues avatars together into collaborative thing.
19. Engineer collaborations through human management.
20. Think global.
21. Be a magnet for diverse talent.
22. Apply all we know about learning in our art & design world to global virtual collaboration.
23. Create a standardised, free, assessable 15 credit point, 150 learning hours elective module that anyone in LeedsMet/UK/the world can study.
24. Harness and validate informal learning.
25. Create a structure for assessing informal learning through regular formative feedback and dialogue.
26. Do everything in-world. No web 2.0 crutches.
27. Structure learning through broad learning outcomes.
28. Motivate not through prize money, but through assessment, marks and credit points.
29. Develop a model for sub-letting learning.
30. Link SL with a course length programme of personal development.
31. Link SL with coaching. Leeds Met has just become a center for coaching excellence. There is massive potential to obtain resources and support for a coaching focussed approach.
32. Create a structure for placing coaching at the center of learning, using SL and web 2.0 tools to support a mentoring approach.
33. SL is not a game, but could the underlying principals of sport be used to provide scaffolding for learning activities?
34. Look at the sports team (i.e. a football team) as a model for collaboration.
35. The tutor as coach - he/she picks the team, based on strengths identified in training, decides on the game strategy, but the players play the game.
36. Explore competitive games. Team playing against team following set rules.
37. Organise cross institutional tournaments. E.G. LeedsMet, coached by Kisa Naumova, take on Leeds College of Art, coached by AngryBeth Shortbread in a game of art. Half a sim each. May the best team win.
38. Explore the role of branding in team building - i.e. the brand of Manchester United, the pride of the player working for the club. The loyalty of the fans.
39. Evaluators are pundits. Steven W is Alan Hansen. Margarita is Alan Shearer.
40. Organise weekly training sessions at the training ground. Structured activities to develop the skills.
41. Devise individual fitness programmes fro each student. They have to but in the effort though.
42. Make sure the training ground and pitch are suitable and well maintained. makes sure relevant equipment is available.
43. The project manager is the Chairman of the board.
44. Look at the theories of life coaching. (stripping away the voices of others to reveal your personal values etc.)
45. Invent design sport.
46. Design sport could be a way of structuring collaborative learning with a focus on problem solving? Link with Maggi's PBL work.
47. The job of the coach-educator is to make up new games, explain the rules, and train the player-students. The job of the player-student is to understand and play by the rules, exercise and compete in the games.
48. Invent some design team games.
49. Test out the games with experienced avatars.
50. Publicise the games and rules amongst art educators worldwide, and coordinate a tournament.

Trans-institutional education.

2008-06-25T04:44:00.000-07:00

Yesterday's Emerge conference social event was more than just jolly tower building fun for me. A number of vague ideas that have been bouncing around my head since we finished the first art & design pilot were suddenly brought into focus. Earlier yesterday, whilst giving StevenW a hand preparing for the event, I got the chance to chat very briefly to Margarita about the initial evaluation of the pilot. One issue that has emerged is the restrictive nature of dealing with noobs. Another is the limitations of restricting learning to a three week block. The pilot made great use of OpenSim standalone to show how induction of new students could be made more effective, and we are already planning to base SL inductions in other parts of LeedsMet on our findings, but the Open Habitat project is primarily about collaboration. This proved elusive in the 3 week noob-fest that was our first pilot. Last night, Cubist and Paz tried to collaborate to build a tower. We were time-bound, and had little 'scaffolding' to support our constructionist learning excercise. Our tower kept falling over and wasn't very tall, but the struggle to work directly together helped to confirm what we suspected from the pilot, that collaboration is a broad and complex thing. It is much more than having permission to edit each other's objects.

Communities and collaborative relationships develop over time, but the hierarchical, time-bound structure of a conventional course seem to get in the way of this. The rhizomes keep getting dug up by over zealous educational traditionalists with the spade of summative assessment.

My thoughts are also being stirred up by reading 'Wikinomics' by Don Tapscott and Antony D. Williams. The focus of this book (so far. I'm only on page 30) is the way that commerce is being transformed by the application of the values of openness, peering, sharing and acting globally. I'm imagining how these principals apply to 'taught' education (they kind of already apply to academic research, I think). I know that I am guilty of trying to fit the educational potential of virtual worlds into a traditional framework, albeit a very open and appropriate art school model. But I am still hung up on:

Enclosing the learning within the course walls.
The hierarchy of levels of study and staff authority.
The difficulties inherent in assessing collaborative work.
Acting too locally - (Just art and design students. Just my art & design students.)

The real challenge for me and for others is how to embrace openness, sharing, peering and acting globally in a meaningful and useful way.

The other significant thing that happened yesterday was a chat I had with the mighty guru, her royal highness, AngryBeth Shortbread (she of the Whiteboard). She has just taken over the management of 'The Port' sim, which is my all time favourite art island. It's been around since 2005, and the work there still impresses me two years since I first saw it. AngryBeth is planning to do a bit of a revamp of The Port, and has created a Ning site to revive and support the community.

Anyway, whilst Cubist was dancing on the catwalk on Emerge island, I had an idea. What if The Port were to create an academy? The following raw thoughts then spilled out of my head:

Phase 2 ideas

The Port Academy

Trans-institutional education

Dedicated sim for the development of artwork by invited 'students', with the theme of The Port as the guide.

Real artists that exhibit on the Port are the 'Masters'. (link with master apprentice/atelier model).

Some of the masters are real tutors with real students, but maybe they forget whose students are whose when in world.

The Port is used as a study aid, with the Masters contributing understanding through their work and, if appropriate, through interactions with the students.

Each apprentice has to be invited by a Master. They must be competent and willing to learn. They may be studying in real life, or may just consider themselves to be a student.

Collaboration will not be forced, but encouraged and enabled by the environment of The Port Academy sim. Rhizomes are the order of the day.

The avatars are the students.

Use a Ning based tool, Flickr/blogger or a bespoke tool to support global collaboration via the web.

It is the responsibility of the students to integrate their work into their real life studies if they want to.

We follow the Wikinomics principals:
Openness, peering, sharing, acting globally.

Open Habitat operates within this academy as masters, coordinators, facilitators. We evaluate the learning that is taking place in this alternative educational set-up through virtual means.

Should the Open Habitat sim become the collaborative art studio for The Port academy, with individual studio spaces provided by participating institutions/individual students? (e.g. Practice on your own on LeedsMet, work together with others in The Port Academy on Open Habitat?)

This is about immersion, not augmentation. It is about embracing the new possibilities by suspending the need to directly integrate this form of learning into traditional institutional structures.

In the same way that commerce is wary of losing its control and obvious revenue streams by opening up and sharing, so traditional education is wary of losing its module based, assignment led, fees financed model. Can the model of wikinomics be applied to learning, yielding something between formal and informal education? Something more powerful? What about revenue? Costs are low, so can fees be replaced by something else?

Can Universities provide validation and awards for this 'new' approach to learning? What would that mechanism be? Like a PhD by submitted papers? Can students choose which institution they want to be validated by when the time is right?

Philosophy students and masters are invited to participate in the same way. The Port is used as a basis for discussion and analysis, bringing the benefits of heavy duty read/write/discuss theoretical rigour into the mix.

What about other disciplines? How can they get involved in this collective learning endeavour?

How do we avoid anarchy? What scaffolding do we provide?

Can a system for formative feedback and assessment glue everything together?

Mmmmm. /me thinks.

The ultimate OpenSim standalone installer

2008-05-30T10:31:00.000-07:00

I have an idea. I wonder if it's possible?

We have a stack of dusty old PCs cluttering up the place at Uni. Their old network sockets have been stolen by the shiny new computers, and without a network connection, they're pretty useless. So useless, in fact, that their hard-drives could be wiped without anyone getting upset.

So, this is the idea:

Somebody clever creates an magic installer CD that I can boot up an old PC with.

The installer CD wipes the hard-drive and installs the Debian OS+OpenSim standalone+Second Life client.

I reboot the PC and it automatically loads OpenSim and connects to it via the Second Life client (preferably running full screen for maximum tidiness).

Eduserv's 2008 Second Life Snapshot

2008-05-22T15:55:00.000-07:00

Eduserv has just published John Kirriemuir's latest snapshot of Second Life use in UK HE/FE:

http://www.eduserv.org.uk/foundation/sl/uksnapshot052008

Apart from the fact that my contributions seem to have had words inexplicably added or removed (almost certainly by me), making me sound a bit daft, it's a great report.

Eureka!

2008-05-22T03:00:00.000-07:00

Susan Greenfield worries about the impact of technology on our future identities in her article in this week's New Scientist magazine.

She defines three types of identity:
'Nobody' is the hedonistic, impulsive self.
'Anybody' is the collaborative spirit, working to serve the identity of the group.
'Somebody' is about personal achievement.

Greenfield's concern is that the 2D, screen based lives that we are all increasingly living will lead to the overdevelopment of the 'Nobody', as our imaginations are spoon-fed literal representations. I'm sure there are plenty of people queuing up to dispute many of Greenfield's arguments, but the expertise of a brain scientist should never be dismissed without some careful consideration.

She concludes the article with a message of hope for our future identities. She adds a fourth type of identity, the 'Eureka', which is defined by those 'Aha!' moments achieved during a creative process. She imagines a future in which a balanced individual flips between all four types of identity, with creativity central to our well-being.

The only real issue I have with this article is that it proposes a strategy for the future that has already happened. Design education consciously and deliberately strives to achieve a balance between the unrestricted and impulsive (Nobody), the collaborative teamworking, subject specific or audience satisfying (Anybody) and the personal achievement of the author/producer (Somebody). We glued all this together with many, many 'Aha!' moments (Eureka).

Our first Open Habitat pilot study ends tomorrow, and we are just beginning to digest the data, but it is clear that individual and collective identity is bound together with the creative process. Greenfield's identity work provides a useful framework for helping us to understanding the significance of creativity in relation to identity in virtual worlds.

Exploring incorrect behaviour

2008-05-16T13:51:00.000-07:00

I can't let today's meeting go without a blog post.

We had scheduled a project meeting in Second Life to discuss a few things, and the plan was for us all to meet and do voice. However, as is to be expected with these emergent technologies, all did not go to plan. Three of us could speak and hear, one of us could hear but not speak, and one of us could not hear, but could see what was being typed. Oh, what fun.

What I found fascinating was the range of complex, hybrid modes of communication that we all devised to manage this situation. On the face of it, the meeting was a technical disaster, but it was such an interesting - dare I say it - elegant and beautiful exploration of incorrect behaviour that I just find myself feeling really good about the whole experience.

The 'exploration of incorrect behaviour' is a phrase that caught my eye when I was re-reading Terry Mayes & Sara de Freitas e-Learning Models Desk Study* recently. It is something that is very familiar to us in art and design education. We actively encourage our students to take risks, make mistakes, and generally feel OK about messing it all up. Through reflection and analysis of the mess they create, we help them to recognise the unexpected opportunities that emerge. A positive re-evaluation of a seemingly disastrous experiment often leads to moments of pure clarity, as a solution to a completely different problem or a brand new line of inquiry becomes apparent.

So, my moment of clarity is this:
Voice is bad because of the 'satellite delay', which ruins the critical timing required for an effective conversation.
Text chat is bad because it is easy to misinterpret the tone of voice of the author, leading to paranoia.
Voice is good because it allows you to gauge the mood of the speaker.
Text chat is good because it gives you time to make a considered response, and can support multiple simultaneous threads.

Today, I enjoyed the bit when we were all typing, but we could hear the laughter over voice that reassured us that our words were being received in the spirit that they were intended. So, maybe voice in Second Life is best used as an augmentation of text chat. No one is allowed to speak proper sentences like in real life, but you can laugh, groan, tut, huff, maybe even the odd exclamation would be OK. No issues with timing. All the benefits of text. No need to switch from your fantasy character to the 'real you' if you don't want to. Less unfortunate misunderstandings.

Well, it's worth trying at some point.

It might be a disaster, but that fine. A positive re-evaluation of a seemingly disastrous experiment often leads to moments of pure clarity...

*http://www.essex.ac.uk/chimera/projects/JISC/Stage%202%20Implications%20for%20Evaluators%20(Version%201).pdf

The Atelier Method

2008-05-15T02:25:00.000-07:00

I was pleased to hear our Dean mention the master apprentice model yesterday in a meeting (I'd like to thing that he's been reading my blog posts, but I think he's probably too busy). He also mentioned something called the Atelier method, which I'd not heard of. A quick bit of Googling, and I discover that this is an educational model with many similarities to the sorts of things that we have been discussing in relation to the Open Habitat project.

The Atelier is a studio where an artist works with a small number of students to progressively train them to become professional realist painters. They were big in France in the 19th century, apparently, but continue to this day. This system places great emphasis on an instructivist approach, and has much in common with approaches such as intelligent tutoring systems. It is a bottom up approach, with students completing progressively complex tasks in order to master their technique. However, where it rings true with me is in the way that the master painter/tutor individually tailors the programme of study to each individual student. This seems to link with the constructivist goal of maintaining the zone of proximal development. I also like the fact that the independence of the painter/tutor from any institution or central governing body, means that he or she has complete autonomy in their teaching methods, unrestricted by the requirements of external validators.

I think that the framework of the Atelier model is attractive (particularly the emphasis placed on the studio), but the rigidity of the instructivist approach and the over-dominance of the master, perhaps limits the potential for peer learning and discovery based learning.

A&D Pilot - Day 5

2008-05-13T01:47:00.000-07:00

The day started with an unforeseen problem. Second Life was down, and remained down until 11.45.
Instead of the planned in-world activities, I handed out the project briefs, and asked the group to express a preference for one or more of the briefs. Interestingly, the 'Shrine to your avatar' brief was by far the most popular.
We then had a general discussion about Second Life and the projects. I went round the group and asked them to talk about what sort of work they had been producing this year, and I made suggestions about how this might translate into SL, and how it might link in with one or more of the briefs.

I then got everyone to search for Second Life on Flickr and YouTube, which was quite useful for helping them to get a sense of what is possible. I also pointed them towards the Second Life News Network to check out the latest news. By complete coincidence - honestly, I had no idea - SLNN had a story about the Brooklyn Watches art gallery project, illustrated with a snapshot of my hologram of Clive Egginton. Everyone thought I had set this up to blatantly show off.

When we finally got into Second Life, I organised a quest to test out collaborative building. I got the avatars to pair up and set it so that their partner could edit their objects. I then asked them to build a bridge together over a small river that I had terraformed. This proved problematic. The whole permissions thing complicates shared building, and the students found that they couldn't edit each other's objects as easily as they would have liked to. I then got them to revoke their partner's ability to edit their objects, and asked them to repeat the exercise, this time dividing the labour more coherently. This proved to be less confusing and more effective. When all the bridges had been built, I got them stand in the middle of their bridge, select their objects, and turn physics on. We all laughed heartily as the bridges and the avatars crashed into the river. I pointed out that if they had taken a copy, they could have rebuilt the bridge, but now it was too late.

The rest of the day was spent working on initial ideas for the projects. I did some one-to-one stuff, addressing some of the particular issues that were emerging for individuals.

Final project briefs

2008-05-11T14:02:00.000-07:00

I've adjusted the project briefs that we are launching tomorrow, based on some observations of the things that the students have been up to so far. One of the students is doing some work based on his graphic novel work, so I've added the 'Building on success' brief to give him a framework to develop this. This brief should also make it easier for those struggling to see the point by linking the virtual world to something familiar and personal. The second brief that I have added is designed to give permission to the fantasists in the group. The 'Abductive reasoning' brief is about jumping in at the deep end and doing something totally weird and different. I think this will appeal to a couple of the more adventurous builders in the room. I've also emphasised the collaborative possibilities a little more clearly. Here are the 4 briefs that I will hand out tomorrow:

______________________________________________________________________
BA(Hons) Graphic Arts & Design
School of Contemporary Art & Graphic Design
Leeds Metropolitan University

Open Habitat project briefs

Please choose one or more of the four briefs detailed below.
Start date for all briefs: Monday 12th May 2008
Deadline for all briefs: Friday 23rd May 2008
There will be a prize of 25000 Linden Dollars for the best overall solution to one of these briefs.
(Please note: All content that you generate in Second Life is subject to copyright laws. You must only upload your own images, or images that you have the right to copy.)

Project brief 1 - Individual
Shrine
Your task for this project is to build a shrine to your avatar.
This shrine may represent your ongoing experiences in Second Life. Your shrine might be a way of exploring and developing your avatar’s ambitions. Your shrine may be a place of refuge for your avatar. It may be a place where your avatar shows off. It may be your avatar’s inventing shed. It may be a gallery of portraits of your avie. It can be pretty much anything you can imagine, as long as it expresses the essence of your avatar.
You should use your allocated plot on LeedsMet island to develop this work.

Project brief 2 - Collaborative
Reality Jam
Reality Jam is a project that Cubist and Kisa are working on for the International Symposium on Electronic Art 2008. We are using the following quote from the isea2008 website to guide us:
“While the reality effects of photography had forced a re-evaluation of the conventions and concerns of painting as well as of perception in the mid 19th century, the realistic aspirations of recent visualization and experiential technologies (e.g., in animation, gaming, immersive environments, mixed/augmented reality) are forcing us to reconsider our registers of the ‘real’ in our media and our everyday lives.
The confusing of the real and the virtual through seamless transitions and the perpetual obfuscation of the edges that demarcate them are increasingly the focus of scientific research as well as of creative works. The improvisational nature and interference potential of such ‘reality jamming’ - i.e., this pressing together of the real and virtual in a context where their distinctions are deliberately obscured - open further possibilities for research, scholarship and creative production.
In this theme, we also seek to encourage artists and researchers to explore the ways in which the ‘virtual’ presences and experiences of folklore, religious beliefs, magical rituals and science and media-fiction interact with and counteract the lived experiences of the ‘real’. Scholarly presentations, art works and research in the areas of virtual, mixed and augmented reality, not restricted to the technological platforms and equipment that enable such experiences, are especially encouraged.” - http://isea2008.org/page/30/
Your task is to work together with one or more collaborators to produce artwork that follows the theme of the Reality Jam exhibition.
You should use the dedicated collaboration area on LeedsMet island to develop this work.

Project brief 3 - Individual or Collaborative
Building on Success
Reflect on the work that you have produced this year. Consider the things that have gone well, and the things that you have enjoyed. Think about the nature of your practice and the underlying themes and theories that you have been exploring. How might your practice translate into 3D?
Your task is to produce a 3D exploration of your practice (or combined practices).
You should use either your allocated plot or the dedicated collaboration area on LeedsMet island to develop this work.

Project brief 4 - Individual or Collaborative
Abductive reasoning
“Abductive reasoning, as described by Darden professor Jeanne Liedtka, embraces the logic of what might be. Designers may not be able to prove that something ‘is’ or ‘must be,’ but they nevertheless reason that it ’may be.’ This style of thinking is critical to the creative process.”
[Creativity that goes deep. BusinessWeek online. http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/aug2005/di20050803_823317.htm]
Forget the work that you have produced this year. Forget that you are supposed to be a graphic designer. Imagine what might be possible in a virtual world when the restrictions of your personal history and your chosen discipline are removed.
Your task is to work alone, or together with one or more collaborators, to create all that you choose to imagine.
You should use either your allocated plot or the dedicated collaboration area on LeedsMet island to develop this work.
______________________________________________________________________

A&D pilot day 2.2

2008-05-08T14:14:00.000-07:00

A couple of the students that I'd excused to go to Whitby turned up today to catch up on what they had missed. We didn't have much time available, so Graham and I condensed the whole of day 2 into an hour and a half.

One really significant thing happened today. When the students logged into Second Life for the first time, for some reason they didn't end up in Orientation Island. They got plonked down in some seemingly random location on the mainland. I can only assume that all the Orientation Islands were full. Either that, or Linden Lab heard us moaning about Orientation Island and decided to take it away from us.

In many ways, the students were less equipped because they missed out on the OI tutorials, but the transition was just so much smoother. It felt like the process of discovery proceeded at an appropriate pace, with a calm, steady series of poignant questions asked and answered. Yesterday, it felt like the Orientation Island had grabbed our students by the ankles and dragged them backwards through every hedge of 'essential skill'.

Art & Design Pilot - Days 1 & 2

2008-05-07T10:26:00.001-07:00

I'm knackered.
Day 1 - Morning.
The network in the whole building was down. A switch had blown over the bank holiday weekend and no-one had noticed. We didn't care because we were using OpenSim standalone.

Day 1 - Afternoon.
The OpenSim standalone stuff was great. Each student had their own lag-free, empty, private island to take their first steps on. The students found it easy, and I felt like I had some useful influence over the class. They took a photo of themselves like it was the first day of school, all in their Ruth uniforms. They built a tower. Graham did a great building demo, impressing everyone without saying a word. They built a gallery and put their own work on the walls. They doubled up on one computer and built a den and hid in it. I kept emphasising the core stuff like the camera move and snap to grid and all that, but really, I hardly said anything much. I didn't need to. They were all clever enough to discover it all for themselves. After a couple of stress free hours, they were all pretty confident builders. Faced by the overwhelming heat on a very sunny day, two students built a giant ice cream cone and we all left the room to try and buy a real one. Dave W saved the receipts for our lollies.

Day 2 - All day.
The network got fixed. I lost 3 students to the Whitby trip, but they're coming in tomorrow to catch up.

After a quick recap in OpenSim, we played a name game with marker pens and a whiteboard table that I accidentally invented (details to follow) and the students read a handout about the importance of choosing the right name:
http://www.secondlifeinsider.com/2006/11/21/whats-in-a-name/
Then they signed up to Second Life.
They signed into OpenSim using their newly acquired Second Life names (you can log into OpenSim standalone with any name you want).
We linked up the OpenSims over the local network so that two avies at a time could share an island and learn how to chat and IM. That created a real buzz as the multi-user thing kicked in.
The avies played hide and seek, and cheated using the minimap.
Finally, it felt like the right time to log into Second Life proper, and the Orientation Island experience wrenched the students away from me. Although I increasingly felt like I was loosing them to another educational approach that I objected to, I was heartened by the confidence of our no longer Noobs. Within seconds of appearing on Orientation Island, one of our students was giving advice to another avatar. Our lot knew that they were ahead of the game on that island, and they showed none of the signs of anxiety that I have always witnessed in previous SL only inductions. They enjoyed themselves for a good hour and a half before gradually TPing onto some random mainland location.

After the fiddly task of giving money, making friends, joining group and teleporting everyone to the LeedsMet sim, we tested out Grahams auto e-portfolio tool sign-up prim. Each new avie clicked on the magic prim and an account was created for their avatar on our bespoke web 2.0 thing. Then they all grabbed a plot on LeedsMet and marked their territory by exercising their building skills. Then it was a quick trip the LeedsMet FAS to see Graham's recreation of our RL art school building, and then Graham chucked a bunch of landmarks at everyone and they ventured out onto the mainland. Then we had all had enough, and we went outside to enjoy the last of the glorious sunshine on the hottest day of the year.

When my brain comes back online, I might be able to work out what the significance of all this is. But for now, I'm happy with the vague but overwhelming feeling that something very significant happened yesterday and today.

Risk Assessment

2008-05-05T03:55:00.000-07:00

I know JISC are keen on risk assessments, and rightly so. However, there are only so many things that you can anticipate going wrong when you're writing a bid several month before the actual events start.

We have the first major event of the project starting tomorrow, and two new risks have emerged.

It seems that the LeedsMet based server that hosts our e-portfolio tool has stopped working. If we are lucky, this could mean that the server has just crashed and needs rebooting. If we are unlucky, it means that the whole of the network in our building has gone down, and we won't be able to do any Second Life stuff until it's fixed. We won't find out until tomorrow.

The second risk that I could not have anticipated is the annual student trip to Whitby, which my colleagues decided to organise to coincide with the second day of the pilot. I only found out about this after all the students had signed up for their place on the coach. Whilst I think I can persuade our pilot students not to go to Whitby, I feel a bit mean depriving them of their annual social jaunt.

So, after analysing these unforseen risks, I have quickly come up with some plan Bs:

If the network is down, then we will stick with OpenSim standalone (which needs no network) until it's back up again. We'll need to concentrate on developing more advanced building skills earlier if we have more time in OpenSim.

If the students are tempted by the Whitby trip, we can counter this by offering an alternative social event at some point during the pilot. We may need to offer bribes in the form of free alcohol to achieve this. I'm guessing this may be tricky to claim back on expenses. If the worst happens, and a substantial chunk of our students decide to jump on the coach and eat whelks by the sea on Wednesday, then I'll just have to repeat myself on Thursday.

Obi-Wan has taught you well, but you are not a Jedi yet.

2008-04-21T10:20:00.000-07:00

AngryBeth Shortbread pointed out the Jedi nature of my master apprentice rants. The fact that my youngest lad has had all 6 episodes of Star Wars on a continuous loop for the last year may well have influenced me slightly.

The other thing that I have realised about the master apprentice model is that it does not work on its own. In fact, ironically enough, it's something that I have been sort of fighting against on the course that I teach on. Let me explain.

On our course, each student is assigned a personal tutor. The vast majority of input that a student gets is from this tutor. Invariably, this master influences their apprentice, inducting them into the ways of the force as they see it. What often happens is that the apprentice turns into a mini-me, a watered down version of the original. The master is invariably disappointed in this sub-standard clone. This is the first danger of the master apprentice model. The second danger is that a student may end up with a tutor that isn't really that interested in that student's practice, and the tutor that is into that student's practice is in a different year, and not accessible. The pressure to adapt the practice to pleases your tutor is tremendous, and damaging. In short, when the 'master apprentice' model gets mixed up with the 'manager of learning' role of a tutor, things ain't good.

The solution? To separate out these two distinct roles, and make sure that each tutor knows when they have the media neutral, manager of learning hat on, and when they are a master, expanding their practice and inspiring all who witness their greatness, unrestricted by the practical day-to-day needs of students.

The way that I have tried to do this on our course is to introduce a week-on, week-off system. In the first week, I see all of my 28 graphics students face-to-face, and I go to wherever they are, teasing them forward into the zone of proximal development. Any sense of my own practice is not allowed. It's about them in week one. In the second week, I am the master, and any student from across the whole of the School that happens to have an interest in mad virtual art and bad/good creative programming can seek me out and share my joy. So the 'master apprentice' model, and the 'zone of proximal development' model are two sides of the same coin. Students need both equally, and staff need to do both equally.

The two projects that we will be running during the pilot reflect both the zone and the master apprentice models. The first project (zone) asks the students to build a shrine to their avatar. This is all about going to the student and drawing out of them what they are really about, and what they potentially might become. The second project (master apprentice) is to make some art for an exhibition that Kisa and Cubist are preparing work for. This is about students working along-side us, learning by example, witnessing good practice and being able to imagine themselves playing the part of the artist. If they play that part well enough, they become the artist, and their work will hopefully sit along-side ours in the actual exhibition.

Revised A&D Pilot Plan

2008-04-18T03:11:00.000-07:00

I've been engaged in some delicate negotiations to make sure that I get the real life environment right for the A&D pilot, and this has forced a few changes to the original pilot plan.

I had the usual Mac teaching room booked for the pilot, but the final year deadlines fall smack bang in the middle of the pilot, so I have been trying to find a room to use that wont have stressed out 3rd years banging on the door in tears, desperate for a computer.

Fortunately, I've managed to secure the use of a nice, quiet room for the Tuesday and Wednesday of the first week, and the Monday of the second week. We can get back in the teaching room on the Monday of the last week of the pilot, when the third years are all in the pub.

So the plan at the moment involves structured, blended face-to-face classes on 6th, 7th, 12th and 19th May, with in-world and informal one-to-one support in the open access labs on the other days. I have also cut the group size down to 10 students, mainly because I can only nab 11 computers, but also because I realised that I don't believe in class sizes above 10. Well, I can work with class sizes of either more than 60 or less than 10, but I've worked out over the years that in-between - 20 or 30 students - is the least effective class size to deal with. In addition, if we get too many avatars on one sim, the avie induced lag would become problematic. So, 10 students it is.

Other changes from the last pilot plan - Following enquiries with Linden Lab, it is too expensive to buy names for the students, and we can't buy the actual accounts, so i've dropped that part altogether. I've also dropped the OpenSim networked part for now, as I felt it was too similar to the Second Life bit, and time will be short. We also have lots of great data coming in from Dave C about networked OpenSim to feed into the project outcomes.

I've tested OpenSim standalone and Second Life on the Macs that we will be using for the Pilot, and that all seems fine.

I'm meeting with the 10 student that we will be working with on 28th April, so that might be a good time to hand out the questionnaires.

The revised pilot plan is here:

http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=ddnqhb8f_1f2dpxjft&hl=en_GB

Talk to strangers

2008-04-09T01:36:00.000-07:00

What does a 21st century parent say to his 21st century 9 year old son when he leaves for work in the morning? Well, this morning, I found my self saying to my lad (who has just discovered Club Penguin), "Have a good day at school. Be good for your Mum. Don't reveal your identity online."

We used to tell our kids not to talk to strangers. Now we encourage them to talk to strangers, as long it's through their avatars. Kids are learning how to role play alternative identities online from an early age. Will the sort of identity scaffolding that we consider to be an important part of the MUVE induction presently, be as relevant in the future?

Intellectual property rights & copyright issues workshop

2008-04-08T14:47:00.000-07:00

Here's a quick summary of the web2rights workshop that I attended at Leeds Met on Monday 7th April:

The web2rights website already contains most of the information we need to deal with IPR and copyright issues associated with the pilots. The site is being expanded in response to user needs, and we can request specific support for our own particular needs.
All of the JISC MUVE projects have similar IPR and copyright issues, so we should be able to share good practice between projects. There is already one Second Life specific FAQ, and we should perhaps request that more detailed SL IPR solutions are created for the benefit of all of the MUVErs. It might be worth requesting a cross-project IPR workshop from web2rights for the project managers of the various JISC MUVE projects.

The Open Habitat name change was seen as a good idea from a trademark perspective, although Naomi felt that there may still be issues with this name if the project was to build into something sustainable.

IRP issues are not particularly relevant to the standalone OpenSim, but a networked version, public or closed, would need its own terms and conditions of use drawing up. Naomi suggested drawing inspiration from the Linden Lab terms and conditions if necessary. It look like networked OpenSim won't be part of the first pilot, so no great urgency with this one.

The Immersionist vrs the Augmentists (or is it Augmentationists?)

2008-04-06T13:55:00.000-07:00

Steven alerted us to the debate about immersionists and augmentists when we met at KCL recently. For a good overview of the debate, look here:

http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/1988/

Also, the Habitat plug on Lawrie's blog also mentions the fact that people will have a chance to engage with this debate at the Next Generation Environments conference:

http://lawrie.jiscinvolve.org/2008/03/20/immersion-or-augmentation-a-culture-or-just-another-tool/

The thing that brought this issue into focus for me was the impromptu meeting on Open Habitat island the other day. When I talk to Dave, I feel like an immersionist. When Cubist talks to Kisa, he feels like an augmentist. When I'm in SL with both immersionists and augmentists, both Ian and Cubist feel a little confused and anxious.

The post on Lawrie's blog identifies the Philosophy pilot as an immersionist thing, as it is about distance learning. The A&D pilot is seen as an augmentist thing, as it is about blended learning. However, I feel most like an immersionist when I am building (which is probably why Cubist started building a 3D diagram when he was supposed to be engaging in the debate at the meeting). I feel most like an augmentist when engaging in chat, but I don't feel confident in conversation in-world, as I rely heavily on visual cues and body language when I talk to people in real life. Voice is even worse for me, as the visual cues are even more divorced from the communication than with avie chat.

If we embrace the immersionist ethic when we meet in world, then we have twice as many project team members, with each constructed persona adding something extra but different to the project. If we want in-world meetings to be an augmentation of the real life aspects of the project, then perhaps we should use Wonderland/Darkstar, and be ourselves.

Avie tracking radar

2008-04-03T15:25:00.000-07:00

I've been messing with an LSL/PHP radar sensor thingy to show where avatars have been walking on the LeedsMet and Open Habitat sims:

http://cubistscarborough.com/radarrefreshcluster.html

The green pixels are traces of visiting avatars. I've arranged the sims as they will be soon, hopefully. I'll add Emerge as well at some point. It needs a bit of work on it, but it might provide some useful data to analyse at some point.

Between OpenSim and Second Life - IBM take the lead

2008-04-03T13:08:00.000-07:00

Graham passed this link onto me:

http://www.massively.com/2008/04/03/ibm-hosts-second-life-attached-intranet/

It looks like IBM will be hosting their own ring-fenced sims on their own servers, but with access to Linden Lab's central services. This will be a good test of the promised open-sourcing of the SL server software. Our embryonic ambitions for JISC to create a UK educational grid in the future will be informed by this project. In the meantime, by investigating both OpenSim and Second Life, we can explore the issues that will become increasingly important as the technology matures.

The master/apprentice model

2008-04-02T14:55:00.000-07:00

This model formed the basis of the first modern design school, the Bauhaus. As well as providing quite rigid scaffold in the form of an initial 'foundation' course in the basic underlying design principles, the Bauhaus facilitated learning by promoting staff as active practitioners. By witnessing and working alongside the masters as they practiced their art and design, students of the Bauhaus gained knowledge and understanding through social learning. This approach has dominated art and design pedagogy ever since, but some embrace is more forcefully than others. This quote from Bennington College, Vermont, sums it up pretty well:
"Two things intersect in the master-apprentice model of teaching: the Bennington principle of learning by doing, and the passion and mastery of the faculty, all teacher-practitioners doing ongoing work in their fields. Bennington’s curriculum is driven by the faculty, who teach courses that reflect their current curiosities as well as their deep knowledge of their particular disciplines. The way in which they create new work and pose new questions becomes a model for students, who in turn and over time create work and pose questions of their own with the faculty as mentors."

http://www.bennington.edu/about_phil_masterapprent.asp

Many design educators have, in my opinion, slipped into the trap of over-emphasising the industrial focus, dwelling on real world practice as a basis for study, at the expense of a deeper understanding.
Graduate study should never imitate professional practice; rather, it should challenge students to look deeply into the discipline and into themselves to connect design to its culture, its history, its users, its society, and its technology

http://contactsheet.org/articles/cat_graphic_design.html

The kind of master that I value is not the master designer, but the master learner. The master I have in mind is an uber-learner who shares the power of discovery with his apprentices.

At Leeds Met, we are trying to re-invigourate this particular flavour of the master/apprentice model through the manipulation of our learning environment. Graham has his own public studio space with a number of Macs that staff and students drop in to use. Graham has his beast of a Mac, and is usually to be found there working on his various research projects. I have duplicated this sort of space within my course's space. I have a handful of Macs, some comfy chairs and a spot to plug in my laptop. It's not my office, but it is the place that I work on my research and practice. Students work alongside me, and I discuss my learning as well as theirs.

The virtual master/apprentice model
The master/apprentice model has manifested itself in a profound way through our involvement with Second Life. AngryBeth ShortBread acted as a mentor to Kisa Naumova in the early days of her Second Life exploits, and still plays that role when time permits. Kisa in turn acted as Cubist's mentor when I first started out, and she is still there for me when I need to tap into her vastly superior expertise. Our keenest Second Life student often comes and chats to me whilst I am building a hologram or new tool, and the more advanced development of my practice helps her to develop her own practice.

The LeedsMet sim that we will use for the pilot has been designed to provide the virtual equivalents of our real life 'hubs'. Kisa has the northwest corner of the sim, Cubist has the southeast. Our bigger plots are bordered by the smaller personal plots of the participating students. Students will be able to watch us work, see work in progress, and see the work that we have already produced. By setting examples of good practice, we will provide students with a framework for engaging in similar activities, with the opportunity to engage in meaningful dialogue.

The ideal art-school studio-workshop.

2008-04-02T14:47:00.000-07:00

The studio-workshop is central to Art & Design education. This is a space where new ideas are nurtured through experimentation and dialogue. This is a shared space, but students are allocated, claim, and occupy their own personal space to develop and show their work. The studio-workshop acts as a venue for group activities and tutorials, inductions and performances. It is re-configured to suit a variety of occasions. It is a safe space to learn from mistakes, and to share successes. It is inhabited by helpers and mentors. Some are paid wages, some pay fees. Staff and students practice their art in these spaces. Students and staff help each other to learn. It is a social space with an appropriate tone for learning. At the end of a programme of study, the studio-workshop becomes a public exhibition, celebrating the achievements of its finalists.

The virtual studio-workshop.
The virtual studio-workshop sim that we have created for the pilot is guided by the above ideals. It is divided into 20 small personal plots, one for each participating apprentice. It has 2 larger areas for masters Cubist and Kisa to practice their art and design. It has 2 medium sized areas for collaborative endeavours, workshop activities and special events. It has a central, neutral social area for informal chat and information exchange.

A MUVE is not a tree.

2008-04-02T01:44:00.000-07:00

I want to point everyone to The city is not a tree by Christopher Alexander. I'll let you make of it what you will, but the following quote seems particularly relevant:

"Another·favourite concept of the CIAM theorists and others is the separation of recreation from everything else. This has crystallized in our real cities in the form of playgrounds. The playground, asphalted and fenced in, is nothing but a pictorial acknowledgment of the fact that 'play' exists as an isolated concept in our minds. It has nothing to do with the life of play itself. Few self-respecting children will even play in a playground.

Play itself, the play that children practise, goes on somewhere different every day. One day it may be indoors, another day in a friendly gas station, another day down by the river, another day in a derelict building, another day on a construction site which has been abandoned for the weekend. Each of these play activities, and the objects it requires, forms a system. It is not true that these systems exist in isolation, cut off from the other systems of the city. The different systems overlap one another, and they overlap many other systems besides. The units, the physical places recognized as play places, must do the same.

In a natural city this is what happens. Play takes place in a thousand places it fills the interstices of adult life. As they play, children become full of their surroundings. How can children become filled with their surroundings in a fenced enclosure! They cannot.

A similar kind of mistake occurs in trees like that of Goodman's Communitas or Soleri's Mesa City, which separate the university from the rest of the city. Again, this has actually been realized in the common American form of the isolated campus.

What is the reason for drawing a line in the city so that everything within the boundary is university, and everything outside is nonuniversity? It is conceptually clear. But does it correspond to the realities of university life? Certainly it is not the structure which occurs in nonartificial university cities."

Alexander C, 1965, "The city is not a tree" Architectural Forum April/May issue, pp 58 – 61
Available from: http://www.patternlanguage.com/leveltwo/archivesframe.htm?/leveltwo/../archives/alexander1.htm [Accessed 2 April 2008].

Long live OpenSim. Down with Second Life!

2008-04-01T08:54:00.000-07:00

Aaaghhhh!
I have tried and failed to order Leeds Met's third Second Life island today. Everything was going fine, until Linden Lab's e-commerce system, Netsuite, refused to authorise payment because the credit card details were out of date. After much effort, it became apparent that it was impossible to update the card details without also making a payment, but this was not possible because I had not received an invoice, which I cannot get until I place an order, which I cannot do because our card is out of date. Aaaaghhh.

Whilst desperately searching for a solution, I happened to notice an outstanding demand for - wait for it - $60000!. Sixty thousand dollars for 2 islands! I quickly calculated that one island had been charged 3 times instead of once, and the other had been charged 6 times instead of once. Until Linden Lab sort out the mess, there will be no third island.

This highlights a major issue for educators dealing with a commercial virtual world provider. The commercial nature of Linden Lab jars uneasily with the ways of the educational institution. I found myself sitting in our finance department, 2 valuable hours wasted, vowing that we would create our own alternative virtual world, running on our own servers, with support that I can walk up to and talk to face to face.

When OpenSim matures, or LindenLab release the server software, we must create the JISC grid.

Abductive reasoning part 2

2008-03-25T15:44:00.000-07:00

I've just re-read my previous post about abductive reasoning, and something has just clicked. Here is a chunk of the original quote:

"Abductive reasoning, as described by Darden professor Jeanne Liedtka, embraces the logic of what might be. Designers may not be able to prove that something ‘is’ or ‘must be,’ but they nevertheless reason that it ’may be.’ This style of thinking is critical to the creative process."

I think this is why we love formative feedback and assessment in the arts, and why we hate summative assessment. We find it very difficult to accept that any outcome is fixed and binding. My colleagues and I struggled and failed recently to give summative verbal feedback to our students. We were supposed to be explaining how we had arrived at our mark with regard to the assessment criteria, but within seconds we just had to talk about what might come next, suggesting the many ways in which the learning might progress. We just can't help it, and should we really be fighting our natural creative tendencies when they feel so right?

We may not be able to prove what a learning outcome 'is' or 'must be', but nevertheless we can reason what it 'may be'.

Maybe 'may be' is a far more powerful factor in effective learning than 'is' or 'must be'.

SLego

2008-03-21T16:46:00.000-07:00

We've been discussing different educational models and frameworks that relate to the sorts of things we are wanting to explore with the Habitat project. The Mayes & Fowler model "Conceptualization - Construction - Application/Dialogue" is one keeps cropping up. Maggi's liquid learning stuff is something I want to think about a lot more. However, as my creative soul is made of Lego bricks, I think we should also consider this Lego model:
Connect, Construct, Contemplate, and Continue.
I also like this Lego version of Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development.

Multiple personalities are a good thing.

2008-03-18T05:19:00.000-07:00

Following on from my previous post about the dangers of MUVE induced multiple personality disorder, this article in this week’s New Scientist magazine, has put my mind at rest. It seems that ‘normal’ dissociation is actually a good thing. The more multiple you are, the less likely you are to suffer from stress related conditions. This is particularly reassuring for me to hear, as I juggle several, quite distinct, versions of my self as a way of coping with modern life. One of my friends calls me Ian Two-lives, as I spend half my week in Leeds as Tutor Ian, and the other half in Filey as Family Ian. But two is not enough. I also have Cubist, who himself is divided into 3 distinct personalities. There is Cubist Tools Developer, who is currently working on new version of his markerboard, there is Cubist Artist, famous for his ‘holograms’ and then there is Tutor Cubist, who blogs here.
One of my personalities is experiencing some stress at the moment due to externally imposed changes, and I have become aware that I am consciously choosing to be one of the other characters that has no interest in these changes. This does indeed reduce my overall stress levels, and keeps me motivated and optimistic. Anne Peachy’s talk at this morning’s Massive Multi Learner conference covered how Second Life had helped some of the Schome kids to deal with the stress of bullying by allowing them to assume an alternative persona.
With regard to the ethics of role play and character creation, the evidence would suggest that it is unethical to deprive our students of the chance to create a hyper-self.

Massively Multiuser Learner Conference

2008-03-18T04:54:00.000-07:00

I have just been watching the stream from the Massively Multiuser Learner conference at Anglia Ruskin. Maggi Savin-Baden’s talk was very interesting. A lot of what she is saying rings true with my experience of managing learning on a design course. Design is inherently problem based, with a focus on brief led work which involves experimentation, reasoning, reflection and evaluation. The concept of liquid learning is one that intrigues me. Everything changes all the time, and a learning model that embraces change, and permits students to be active agents of change is something that I have witnessed and strongly believe in. I wonder if we might draw on some of the Preview project’s research when we are thinking about quest based orientation experiences.
I also sort of took part in Daniel Livingstone’s presentation. He used google docs to provide the virtual delegates (which was just me in this case) with access to his slides and a live chat channel. Unfortunately, the 10 second lag in the video stream made interaction a little tricky – I just about managed hi and bye - but it was nice to have my name up on the screen. I felt a little bit more like I was in the room with the real life delegates. Daniel gave a very good overview of the various MUVEs available for educators, including Wonderland/MPK20.
Anyway, the coffee break has just finished, so back to the stream…

Some Ideas for Habitat island

2008-03-14T06:36:00.000-07:00

The island has been ordered, so what are we going to do with it? Some initial ideas:

1
Make it into our own orientation island experience for our pilot noobs.

2
Use is to disseminate the project outputs. Just plonk stuff there when we've done it.

3
Turn it into a virtual art studio, like LeedsMet island for the building bits of the pilots.

4
Create a 3D version of the openHabitat website, using the nodes approach to locate site content in 3D space. HTML on a prim and llHTTPRequest stuff.

5
Create the ultimate discussion space for the Philosophy pilot.

6
Make it into a gallery for the A&D pilot outputs.

7
Build a quest based environment to test out some of Dave's WoW ideas.

8
Use it for live dissemination events for the wider community.

9
Build a cheesy disco.

10
Build a giant habitat logo

I'll think of some more later.

Stand alone in an open habitat.

2008-03-12T02:45:00.000-07:00

Why don't we build a friendly standalone bundle of OpenSim + the SL client? If we could provide the academic community with an ultra basic, but ultra easy, single user virtual world that is very similar to Second Life, then this would give many an initial access route into MUVEs.

The ideal package would consist of two installers, one for Mac, one for Windows. (+Unix?).
The Mac installer would check for, and install Mono & X11 if necessary.
The Windows version would check for, and install .net if necessary.

Both would install the OpenSim server, a customised version of the Second Life client and a launcher application.

Once everything has been installed, the launcher application would run this standalone VW.

The launcher application would start the server. Whilst the island is being prepared, some nice progress bar would display on the screen. When the server has loaded and the island is ready, our tweaked SL client would be automatically launched and the user could log in using any name. As far as the end user is concerned, this is just a regular application that gives them a virtual world to play in.

For the educator, we would be providing an easy to install virtual world.
For their students, we would be providing a regular application that gives them their first taste of a virtual world.

More pilot plan ideas.

2008-03-05T11:17:00.000-08:00

I've transfered this to the shared google doc as well on jiscmuve, if any Habitat people want to jump in and edit.

Primary aim of pilot (from project plan/evaluation framework)

Developing competency in 3D design and collaboration in co-building within MUVEs

Longer term aims (Probably beyond the scope of this pilot. Phase 2 stuff)

Personal development through the exploration of identity and role play.

The development of new knowledge and the consolidation of existing knowledge through the construction of 3D artifacts.

Pilot outcomes:

By the end of this pilot, we will be able to demonstrate:

Evidence of students successfully using an open source MUVE (OpenSim standalone and networked).

Successful collaboration in-world (SL and OpenSim) between art and design students.

Workshops:
WEEK 1
DAY 1 Tuesday 6th May H701 11am start
AM

OpenSim standalone induction - Ruth TestUser
- Configure standalone OpenSim on all units, ready for workshop.
Basic navigation - walking, flying
Camera controls - Alt drag.
Basic building - Create, editing (move, scale, rotate, attributes), textures, texture upload, linking, snap to grid, Shift drag duplicate.

Plenty of free time to mess about.
Simple task 1: Build a tower as tall as you can? Stand on it and take a photo.

Recording the workshop - File>Snapshot to Disk. (first one brings up dialogue box - save to desktop. Subsequent calls save pics with sequential filenames. i.e. Snapshot_002.bmp, Snapshot_003.bmp) Create folder on desktop with name of student on it.

After workshop AM session finishes - gather snapshots together.

PM
OpenSim public grid
Configure Macs to run OpenGrid or other public Grid, or possibly local grid if we can get it together.

Log into OpenSim multi-user using pre-set usernames and passwords. (Student's real first names? Ruth Reallastname?)

Meet each other's avatars.
Chat. IM.
Collaborative building.
Working in virtual pairs using in-world chat, build a ?
Shrine?
House?
Machine?
Toy?
Fairground ride? (Slide etc)
Art Exhibition - using pictures off the site/web?

DAY 2 Wednesday 7th May H701 11am start
AM
Second Life sign in - Using pre-purchased identities.
Pre-purchased identities have been pre-configured by the project team. (If we buy 20 identities from Linden Lab, we can log in as them before the pilot starts and give them money, sign them up to the LeedsMet and Habitat groups, configure their avatars to sync with the e-portfolio tool and walk them to our preferred induction location).
Second Life induction/Orientation
Appearance - de-noobing
Allocate building plots for practicing building. Upload some of your own work and use that.

PM
Recording the experience
Posting images to the e-portofolio tool.
Tours around SL - in pairs like the Emerge online event.
Task: Visit public locations. Interact with strangers. Record via Postcards to e-portfolio tool.

DAYS 3&4 Thursday 8th May & Friday 9th May
Independent study - let the students do what they want - explore, work on the brief etc. Encourage them to keep recording to the e-portfolio tool.
Be around in-world to keep an eye on things and record events. Conduct interviews?

WEEK 2
DAY 5 - Monday 12th May H701 11am start
Catch up on what has been happening.
Look at what has been built.

Intermediate building class.
Take suggestions from the class as to what to build.
Graham and Ian show off what they can build together.
Students watch and then have a go.
Task?
Introduce brief/competition/tasks
Build a Shrine to your first year experiences.
Where experiences have been shared, (e.g. you worked on the same project, you went to the same party) this should be reflected in an construction that you build together.

DAY 6 Tuesday 13th May H701 11am start.
Shrine building
Intermediate building support - Responsive to individual needs of learners.
Basic Scripting - llSay script - Making objects say something descriptive.

Setting objects for sale - Copy/Modify permissions. Original/Copy sales.

DAYS 7,8 & 9 , Wed 14th, Thurs 15th, Friday 16th May.
Independent study

DAYS 10 & 11 Monday 19th & Tuesday 20th May H701 11am start.
Project work - supported by Ian and Graham
DAY 12 Wednesday 21st May
Independent study
DAY 13 Thursday 22nd May
Independent study
DAY 14 Friday 23rd May
In world judging of work? Awarding of prize money (Linden Dollars) to winners?

Post pilot - June-ish
Awards ceremony on Habitat/Emerge island.

How to help absolute beginners who feel under pressure.

2008-03-04T14:51:00.000-08:00

Following on from my previous post, I have devised

The David Bowie MUVE Induction.

Stage 1.
(OpenSim standalone)
I am Ruth TestUser,
but that's not important right now, because nobody can see me. Oops. I can't walk properly.

Stage 2.
(OpenSim networked)
I am David Bowie,
but I look like Ruth. But look, so do my friends, Noddy Holder and Gary Glitter. Hahaha. Let's build a giant stage!

Stage 3.
(Second Life pre-paid names)
I am David Student,
Blue jean. A nice white t-shirt and blue jean.
Noddy Student, lets find a shop that sells spangly shoes! No Gary Student, you can't go to that sim, they'll be able to trace you.

Stage 4.
(Second Life full sign-up)
I am Ziggy Stardust,
and I'm going to find out what it feels like to be a GLAM ROCK GOD!
What's that you say Gary? Your own computer's graphics card is a bit slow when running Second Life? Why don't you take it into PC world?

Identity and Ethics

2008-03-04T14:44:00.000-08:00

I've just had an interesting meeting about ethical clearance for the art & design pilot. It all seems pretty straight forward, with the pilot considered low-risk. However, when I was asked what the potential risks were with a project like this, I found myself voicing concerns about role play and identity. Creating a character and acting out otherwise impossible roles in a virtual world is a powerful tool for learning at a deep and fundamental level, and as a partly trained life coach (I got some free session when I did a website for a life coach a few years ago), I am a strong believer in the power of imagining and acting out the hyper-real version of yourself in-world. My own role play in Second Life has allowed me to explore my previously under-fulfilled desire to be a proper artist.

However, is hitting new students with the enormity of creating a 'whole new you' too soon counterproductive, and potentially dangerous? What if a student is mentally unstable (as many art students are), and the creation of a virtual version of themselves triggers off a bout of multiple personality disorder? What if looking deep within yourself and piecing bits of your suppressed personality together into a walking, talking avatar is just too difficult. Many of the Second Life inductions that I have conducted in the past have scared my students. Not because of the technical barriers, but because it is just too much, too soon. Whilst they acknowledge the obvious amazingness of Second Life, they feel personally overwhelmed.

One way to tackle this problem is to ease students into their virtual identity gradually.

The first step is to make everybody Ruth TestUser, and give them their own private island to mess up. The issue of identity is delayed until they can at least walk and fly.

The second step (maybe) is to allow them to use their own identities by registering their real names in an OpenSim networked grid. Their avatars can meet and chat, and everyone knows what's what and who's who.

Up to now, I've been working on the assumption that step 3 would be the point when students could handle the whole 'Choose a second name, make up a first name' SL sign up. Now I'm not so sure.

There are a whole load of thing still to take on board when you enter Second Life. Visiting the mainland, talking to strangers, visiting strange and scary places, buying something from a shop. Do we still need to provide identity scaffold for our students at this stage?

One way we could provide this would be to buy a bunch of identities from Linden Lab. I understand that we can purchase whatever last name we want, and register the real first names of our students. So one of our students in the pilot would be called something like Brian Leedsmet. Would this identity half-way house help new users to adjust and acclimatise to Second Life?

I would be disappointed if the participants didn't sign up to Second Life properly and get a proper fantasy self going after the pilot, but by then they would be making an informed decision to sign up and engage. They would be choosing to create their own Ziggy Stardust, with a better sense of the possibilities and the consequences.

Wonderland/Darkstar vrs Second Life

2008-03-01T15:49:00.000-08:00

I found a useful blog post about Sun's Darkstar platform and how it fits with Second Life and education:
http://pacificrimx.wordpress.com/2008/02/27/day-two-sun-werc/

Possible Workshop stages using OpenSim and Second Life.

2008-02-29T05:21:00.000-08:00

Here are some ideas about possible workshop stages using the various configurations of OpenSim and Second Life. I'm not sure if the timescale of the first pilot will permit all of these stages to be tested. Some of the stages might be more relevant to an extended pilot in phase 2.

OpenSim standalone - induction and individual building. Privacy. Simplicity. Reduced anxiety. Personal virtual studio space/work space.

OpenSim local network - collaborative building. Blended collaboration. Group privacy. Locally shared virtual studio/workshop.

OpenSim public grid - individual and collaborative building in limited public view. Tasks and structured activities. Open virtual studio/workshop.

Second Life - sign up - Identity, barriers, commercial service issues, technical issues - frequent problems with sign-up not working from within institutions due to reuse of same IP addresses confusing LL security safeguards.

Second Life - Induction - Orientation island. Habitat orientation for creators. Distributing funds to noobs (for texture uploading and avatar dressing).

Second Life - Identity - appearance - Creative personal expression. Don't look like a Noob.

Second Life - Familiarisation, socialisation, tours. Recording the experience. SL2Flickr. BlogHUD. Deli.cio.us HUD. Sleeds/e-portfolio tool.

Second Life - Individual and collaborative building in full public view. Public virtual studio/workshop. Subject specific - creation of art and design artifacts. Aesthetic judgement a factor in evaluating success of outputs. Building skills required. Good art/Bad art? Good design/bad design?

Second Life - Exhibiting work. Duplication and distribution. Selling work. Virtual worlds as an additional platform for creative outputs.

Second Life - Visualising knowledge in 3D. Cementing knowledge through building. Developing new understanding through building. Non-subject specific. Building skills required. Learning contained in the process of building/attempt to build. Artifacts provide evidence of learning. Aesthetics not criteria for evaluation of success. Art & design competence not important. Link with personal and professional development planning/documents. Link with constructivist learning theories and constructionist pedagogy.

Second Life - Sustaining engagement - why carry on? Wider benefits of learning through virtual environments and tools. Benefits for Real Life learning and creative development. Accelerated learning? Accelerated creative development? Simulation production processes. More efficient active learning and creative development through less restricted production. (lower costs and less support needed than conventional workshops and studios = more active learning possible is a shorter time scale). MUVEs as tools for simulating and accelerating creative practice.

OpenSim sketchbook

2008-02-23T15:07:00.001-08:00

I love OpenSim. It's provided me with a Second Life sketchbook that I can use on the train. No network hassles or costs. Just my own, personal island to try things out without anyone bothering me.

Island arrangement

2008-02-22T03:52:00.001-08:00

This is what I meant in terms of how we might move our LeedsMet Islands about (and add a new one on)

Dedicated Standalone OpenSim terminals

2008-02-19T06:13:00.000-08:00

It's all clicking into place. We have a stack of old eMacs that have been replaced by posh new iMacs. We had planned to move them into the studios for internet access, but we can't afford to install new networks sockets or airport cards. However, the standalone version of OpenSim doesn't need network access, so I can configure each of these machines as dedicated OpenSim units. They might struggle a bit with their crappy graphics cards, but it's worth a go. I'll do a test soon.

Standalone vrs Grid

2008-02-19T04:58:00.001-08:00

I've just been reading Dave Cormier's blog:
http://davecormier.com/edblog/2008/02/17/our-first-run-at-getting-the-students-in-opensim/
And I'm wondering whether even the mini-local grid that I had planned is a good idea. It would be nice if the students could interact with each other for the initial induction but, then again, maybe stripping things right back to single stand-alone users might help calm things down. I really want to emphasise the building aspect of MUVEs in the first bit of the induction, and other avies wandering past and making rude comments might just be too much of a distraction.
This will mean installing 20 standalone versions of OpenSim on my Macs, which will mean 20 mono + X11 + OpenSim installations, but our Mac support staff are great, and so I can't see any major problems.
I might crack on with this next week.

OpenSim on a Mac

2008-02-19T04:38:00.000-08:00

I finally got OpenSim running properly on my Mac. I'd been plagued by a gdiplus startup problem crashing the sim when I tried to create an object. It turns out that mono alone is not enough to replicate .Net. X11 also needs to be installed to make the gdiplus library work properly.
All I have to do now is to work out how to plug my laptop into a network socket in my teaching room and serve my sim to the class, and the job's a good 'un.

The World of Robots 2

2008-02-16T14:28:00.000-08:00

I couldn't resist googling this, and found another blog entry referring to the same book:
paleofuture.com/2007/11/maid-without-tears-1978.html

Plus this scan of the relevant pages:

and a comment that leads to the true identity of 'Maid-without-tears':
davidszondy.com/future/robot/honeywell.htm

Now there's an avatar appearance waiting to be created.

The World of Robots

2008-02-16T14:12:00.000-08:00

I found a book I bought 30 years ago from the Squirrel (?) book club at Junior School. It's a Piccolo Explorer Book called 'Exploring the World of Robots'. It's full of great visions of the future, such as the un-PC 'Maid without tears' robot servant, and other fantastic metal mickies.
After spending the last 2 days working from home, the following quote from this book caught my eye:

"One day people may not go out to work at all. They will work from home, using television and robots."

I'm starting to feel an urge to build and script a robot in Second Life. 'Tutor without tears?'.

Art & Design Pilot

2008-02-14T09:16:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking about the Art & Design pilot. We need a pretty firm plan before the meeting in March, so I'll start to try and pin things down here.
I think that my plan to offer the pilot to all 120 first year students is a little over ambitious. We would want to use the data from all of our activities, which would mean getting all 120 to sign something saying this is O.K. That in itself would be a nightmare. Instead, I think that I will hand pick 20 suitable students from the first year and work more intensively with them over the 3 week time-slot.
I'd like to start the inductions with OpenSim still, as I think it will be the easiest intro for the students. I will need to get going on the installation of this to see if there are any potential problems. This will mean approaching our computing services team, which always fills me with dread, not because they are particularly unreasonable, but their vast knowledge of networks and security concerns are a bit intimidating. Some info from Dave C would be helpful before I approach them. I'm guessing that I would need to install .Net and the OpenSim server on a spare PC and plug it in somewhere.
In terms of what I would like to do with the students, I'm still attracted to the 3D learning agreement/contextual overview idea. The students would be able to take their 2D artwork in-world and add some text and join it all up in some way. I might have a go at doing something along these lines with the educational theories that I am trying to get my head around at the moment.
Current rough plan:
Week 1
Paperwork
OpenSim inductions
Learning tasks/activities in OpenSim.
Get students to think about identity.
Record activities.

Week 2
Second Life sign-up and Habitat island orientation.
Identity/Appearance.
Sending postcards to our e-portfolio tool
Building on LeedsMet/Habitat.
Main-land tours.
Introduce brief - the 3D learning agreement.

Week 3
Second Life building the 3D learning agreement.
Deadline on the Friday.
Capture data and record work.

Week 4
Analysis starts.

June 5th - Arts Festival and degree shows at Leeds Met. Display and Award prizes to winner of best 3D learning agreement.