1. WCETR-2012
Near East University
An Implementation of Virtual Worlds
Platform for Educators in Second Life
Rıdvan Ata
School of Education,
University of Sheffield, UK
Sevil Orhan
Computer Education and
Instructional Technologies,
University of Usak, Turkey
Slides copyright Ridvan Ata and Sevil Orhan

2. OUTLINE
Who we are
Virtual Worlds and Education
Second Life (SL)
Teaching and Learning Theories for Virtual Worlds
Educational Possibilities of SL
Infolit Ischool
Virtual Worlds Platform For Educators (VWPfE)
Reflections and Future Works

3. WHO WE ARE
(Our journey to the topic)
Rıdvan Ata, PhD Candidate, School of Education, Sheffield University
MA Digital Technologies Communication and Education (DTCE) at the University of Manchester
,investigated the current status of Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) in HE, Moodle in 2008/9
• Findings; students prefer f2f ,use VLEs as repository, VLEs are isolated environment rather than
social
Something is missing!
PhD Research Area: Implementations of teaching in Virtual Worlds, SL / f2f
situations
Sevil Orhan, Research Assistant, Computer Education and Instructional
Technologies, University of Usak
Graduate thesis phase at the University of Ege, Department of Computer and Instructional
Technologies, Learning a new perspective: Ubiqutious Learning Environment (ULE) Development
Study.
• Except my masters‟ thesis, I‟m interested in educational possibilities in virtual worlds.

4. Virtual Worlds,
Multi-User Virtual Environments
(MUVEs)
VWs: Virtual worlds are online places in which users can interact with others as „being
there‟ for socialising (Steinkuehler & Williams, 2006)
Key characteristic features of a virtual world: synchronous, persistent, multiuser,
avatars, networked
Kzero estimates that approx. 900 virtual worlds existing in 2012 and 1,8 billion users in
total (www.kzero.co.uk)

5. Second Life
SL was publicly released by Linden Lab in San Francisco in 2003
SL is described in its website as it is “a place to connect people, a place to shop, a
place to work, a place to love, a place to explore, a place to be different, to be
yourself” (http://secondlife.com)
Users, called “Residents”, Total Residents: approx. 30 million | Residents
online:46,041 at a time (http://gridsurvey.com, June 2012)
The prominent characteristic features of SL are:
a user-generated environment, residents can develop shared content collaboratively
upon common interest
has economic transaction possibilities built in, for marketing based on Linden
Dollars that leads to real world income ( 1$=approx. 300 L$)
hosts many educational events including in-world classes, academic
conferences, seminars, demonstrations, exhibitions and a great number of
educational institutions from around the world have islands in SL

6. Education in Second Life
Linden Lab (2010) has announced that about 800 educational institutions
including Harvard, Oxford, Imperial College, which 60 of those are in top
100 universities, and best companies such as IBM, US Air Force are
actively using SL.
Main Subject Areas
o Art and Fashion.
o Health and Medicine. o Legal Training.
o Theatre and Drama.
o Nursing Training.
o Computer Science
o Midwifery. Programming.
o Crime Scene Training.
o Health and Safety Training.
o Languages, esp. Spanish
Slide from presentation by John Kirriemuir, April 2010
o Physics Simulations e.g. wind turbines. Virtual Worlds in Education: Why?
http://www.slideshare.net/VirtualWorldWatch/sheffield-april-2010
o Information Science Theory.

7. Teaching and Learning Theories
A review of current literature indicates that Community of Practice (CoP)
(Lave and Wenger 1998), connectivism (Siemens, 2004), social
constructivism (Bronack et al. 2006, Dede 1995, Garrison et al. 2000, Salt
et al. 2008) situated cognition, Heidegger (1962), Brown et al. (1989) are
the emerging theories for MUVEs.
CoPs
CoP is explained by Wenger as groups of people
who are willing to engage in a process of collective
and interactive learning
• learning by doing
• Learning by experiencing
• Learning by becoming and belonging to a
community

8. Connectivism
Siemens offers the idea of connectivism that characterizes learning as a process of
connecting information sources and specialized nodes, i.e., the right people in the
right context.
• Learning is no longer about content transfer, teaching takes place in an
authentic environment, learning consists of engagement, experimentation and
communication
• Users of SL are interconnected
Social Constructivism
Social constructivism refers to social interaction, collaboration and thinking. It
means that knowledge is built through joint interactions and learning processes
could be more productive through social settings by negotiation and sharing as

9. Situated Cognition
Collins et al. (1989) suggests that learning is inseparable from
activity, context, culture and language. In this approach, knowledge is
developed as a social activity but also through interactions with others, tools
and materials.
• Learning through experiences.
• Practicing which may be impossible or tremendously costly to simulate in
real life.

10. Example Learning Methods
Simulation
The Imperial College of London hospital training simulation
John-norris used under Creative Commons License
http://www.flickr.com/photos/john-norris/3405607895/in/photostream/

11. Training
Sari Choche used under Creative Commons License
ttp://www.flickr.com/photos/sari-coche/5792716287/in/photostream/

12. Role Playing
Shakepeare's
Twelth Night in
the Globe
Theatre
DanieVDM used under Creative Commons License
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dvdmerwe/5255198815/

13. Virtual Worlds Platform For
Educators (VWPfE)
• We aim to bring together educators who have similar interest from the
different universities in Turkey to share information, experiences and their
studies and to improve their skills and knowledge regarding pedagogy and
virtual worlds.
• For this purpose, we formed “Virtual Worlds Platform for Educators
(VWPfE)” in Second Life (SL).
• Educators who have similar interests from the different universities in
Turkey come together on a regular basis through weekly themes for the
academic meetings at Infolit iSchool island in SL, since March 2012.

14. Infolit Ischool Island
Infolit iSchool island was purchased by the University of Sheffield in 2007 for inquiry
based, reflective teaching and learning activities, networking and continuing professional
development (Webber, 2008)

15. Virtual Worlds Platform
For Educators (VWPfE)
We first created,
• Facebook group page in order to announce the weekly events and provide
interaction between educators, then,
• a logo to represent the platform with a symbol. Finally,
• a blog to publish the entries of the meetings.

16. Virtual Worlds Platform For
Educators (VWPfE)
• In determining the time of the events, due to technical and institutional
issues such as permits cannot be obtained, the most convenient date and
time zone for the participation were determined with a survey on the
Facebook group page. Eventually, educators come together on a regular
basis on Wednesdays between 22.00 and 23.00.
• The number of the participants was imperfect in the early beginning of the
weeks but gradually increased and reached around 12 participants from
different institutions such as Anatolian University, Middle East Technical
University (METU), Ege University, Usak University, Bahcesehir University
and Sheffield University.

17. Event Schedule and Content
We shaped a event schedule with brainstorming, presentation and open
forums.
Presentations: VWPfE holds monthly presentations that are given by the
specialized speaker in voice on the topic of the week. Once the speakers
have finished their presentation in voice, they respond the participants‟
questions in text-chat. In addition, the presentations is enriched by the
materials such as PowerPoint files, videos and pictures in SL.

18. Event Schedule and Content
Open Forums: VWPfE holds bimonthly open forms in order to enable
participants to discuss and share any ideas regarding education and virtual
worlds. Open forums are essential for the platform since participants share
their experiences in virtual worlds and have flexibility to discuss any
subjects, which were not talked in the previous weeks.
Brainstorming: Brainstorming is the main part of the events since participants
share and discusses their ideas on the announced topic with each other in
a text-chat to find solutions for their problems experienced in virtual worlds.
They also share any materials related to the topic.

19. Event Schedule
Virtual Worlds Education Roundtable (VWER), which is held in SL
every Thursday evenings at 21.30 (TSI), was an essential resource
for determination of the discussion topics in VWPfE. Also, topics
were shaped from general issues to specific issues regarding
education and virtual worlds.
Table 1: The weekly scheduleNewbies, and Second Life for 15 weeks.
07.03.2012 Introduction, which took place
14.03.2012 Education in Virtual Worlds, Advantages and Drawbacks, Perspectives for the Future
21.03.2012 Institutions in Virtual Worlds in Turkey
28.03.2012 Presentation: Ethics in Virtual Worlds by the lecturer from the Anatolian University
04.04.2012 Introducing Virtual Worlds to the Students
11.04.2012 Advices, Resources and Materials for the new SL Educators
18.04.2012 Open Forum
25.04.2012 SL Journal Club Meeting on Infolit iSchool Island
02.05.2012 Presentation: Language Education in SL by the lecturer from METU
09.05.2012 Orientations in Virtual Worlds and Educational Activities on the Infolit iSchool Island
16.05.2012 Constructing an identity in virtual worlds with social and cultural perspectives
23.05.2012 Teaching and Learning Theories in Virtual Worlds
30.05.2012 Reality and Existence in Virtual Worlds
06.06.2012 Presentation: METU in virtual worlds; in the past, today and tomorrow by the lecturer from METU
13.06.2012 Other Virtual Worlds and Education; what if SL disappears suddenly?

20. Some Photos of the
Events
An example of brainstorming. Early weeks of the event schedule…

21. Some Photos of Events
An example of Open Forums…

22. Some Photos of Events
An example of International Events…

23. Some Photos of Events
An example of Presentations in voice…

24. Benefits and Challenges of the
VWPfE
VWPfE has potential;
o to enable educators ,who are geographically remote, to aware of each
other regarding their studies and current issues in virtual worlds,
o to increase educational opportunities for learners of different institutions
by delivering joint courses via virtual worlds,
o to address issues for wider audiences at conferences through virtual
worlds,
o to increase awareness of the participants in the matter of virtual worlds
and education in Turkey.
VWPfE has faced some obstacles;
o limited access through institutional Internet network ( A great number of
universities in Turkey do not allow SL viewer to be accessed via their Internet
network due to security reasons)

25. Reflections and Future Works
o We aim to improve VWPfE to deliver some joint course in SL in the near
future.
o We also believe that VWPfE can be a place to hold conferences for wider
audiences to address issues.
• To sum up, VWPfE could be a common bridge between institutions in
Turkey in the near future to make a supportive community for educators to
network and work toward their goal.

26. Mail and addresses
o Place of the VWPfE:
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Infolit%20iSchool/152/234/22
o Date/Time: Every Wednesday of the week/22.00-23.00
o Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/290906427620313/
o VWPfE blog: sdepturkiye.wordpress.com
o e-mail: sdepturkiye@yandex.com
o Infolit School island: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Infolit
iSchool/116/192/22/

27. Thank you!
Questions!