Euroversity is an EU Network Project 2011-2014 bringing together know-how and experiences of a great number of organisations and projects. A key result is the Framework of Good Practice, a guide on how to develop educational activities and courses in 3d virtual worlds environments

1. Getting started in virtual worlds with the
EUROVERSITY Network
SLANGUAGES
2014
The EUROVERSITY network is funded under the grant agreement
number 518944-LLP-1-2011-1-UK-KA3-KA3NW with the Education,
Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency, European Union.
This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission
cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the
information contained therein.

2. • Exploitation network of the AVALON project
• Builds on existing synergies (Avalon, AVATAR,
Niflar, etc.)
• 3 year multilateral and transversal network LLP
EACEA, KA3 (ICT)
• Start date: December 2011
• 19 partners
The EUROVERSITY network is funded under the grant agreement
number 518944-LLP-1-2011-1-UK-KA3-KA3NW with the Education,
Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency, European Union.
This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the
Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be
made of the information contained therein.
• Austria, France, Germany, Sweden, Norway,
Cyprus, Portugal, UK, Netherlands, Italy,

3. Different Classroom Settings
Christel Schneider
christel.schneider@icc-languages.eu
3

4. Aims of the Project
• Collect examples of good practice in teaching
and learning in virtual worlds from different
subjects and national and local contexts
• Facilitate the transfer of core knowledge to new
contexts
• Provide a framework for the creation of a panEuropean virtual-world university
The EUROVERSITY network is funded under the grant agreement
number 518944-LLP-1-2011-1-UK-KA3-KA3NW with the Education,
Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency, European Union.
This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the
Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be
made of the information contained therein.

5. Opportunities and advantages
• Reduce costs of education for all stakeholders
• Increase virtual mobility of learners and teachers
• Facilitate international collaboration and research
• Reduce barriers to education
• Transform our understanding of the delivery of
education
The EUROVERSITY network is funded under the grant agreement
number 518944-LLP-1-2011-1-UK-KA3-KA3NW with the Education,
Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency, European Union.
This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the
Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be
made of the information contained therein.

6. EUROVERSITY challenges
• General teacher/learner acceptance
•
Access and technical barriers
•
Institutional barriers
•
Community misconceptions (i.e. virtual worlds are
for gaming only, avatars are dangerous, it is not
real, etc.)
• Quality
The EUROVERSITY network is funded under the grant agreement
number 518944-LLP-1-2011-1-UK-KA3-KA3NW with the Education,
Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency, European Union.
This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the
Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be
made of the information contained therein.

7. Expected Outcomes
•Increase the number of experts in virtual world
education
•Create a policy of long-term sustainability of the
network and its outcomes
•Design a model for the transfer of knowledge
•Host and promote dissemination events
The EUROVERSITY network is funded under the grant agreement
number 518944-LLP-1-2011-1-UK-KA3-KA3NW with the Education,
Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency, European Union.
This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the
Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be
made of the information contained therein.

8. Gary Motteram (UK) :
Sharing Knowledge & Experiences: Methods applied.
Gerhilde Meissl-Egghart (AT):
Activities in SecondLife for teaching German culture
and history
David Richardson (SE)
Using the Framework to create new courses
The EUROVERSITY network is funded under the grant agreement
number 518944-LLP-1-2011-1-UK-KA3-KA3NW with the Education,
Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency, European Union.
This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the
Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be
made of the information contained therein.

9. Christel Schneider (DE):
Experiences in using Framework.
Producing machinima
Stella Hadjistassou (CY)
Evaluation methods / instruments. Challenges +
interim data
Ton Koenraad (NL)
What’s next? Sustainability, Exploitation
The EUROVERSITY network is funded under the grant agreement
number 518944-LLP-1-2011-1-UK-KA3-KA3NW with the Education,
Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency, European Union.
This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the
Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be
made of the information contained therein.

10. Case studies: http://euroversity.pbworks.com/
One of the central ideas of the Euroversity
network was that it built on other projects
Initial task was that people in the network who
had been involved in other projects created
case studies
These were used to build the Framework that
will be talked about later

11. Why case studies?
They provide a rich and detailed insight into people’s
practices. If we have enough of them, we can
begin to see useful patterns that help us to
understand more fundamental questions about a
particular practice, in this case in Virtual worlds
A small group brainstormed a series of
topics/questions that would be used to frame the
case studies: initial decision making process about
why you chose to create the course/ aims/ funding/
environment/ learners/ syllabus/ resources etc.
10 initial cases studies created

12. Examples
Team-building exercise
Teacher training course for teachers using virtual worlds
Exploring the value of ICT in education
Business talking
Electrical engineering
German culture and history
Language courses: Spanish and Sami
PBL for business English
Street artists in a virtual space

13. Continuation
The case studies were interrogated by the
Framework team
Post the construction of the framework
new case studies are now being created
showing how the framework has been
used

14. Activities in SecondLife for
teaching German culture and
history
Gerhilde Meissl-Egghart
talkademy.org
gerhilde@talkademy.org

15. the classroom

16. Minigame Sorting cubes

17. Fieldtrip Munich

18. 1, 2 or 3 - Quizzshow

19. Minigame:
Call my bluff

20. meeting
empress
Sisi

21. Berlin
1920

22. Biography
-Roleplay

23. Student projects:
rock musician meets Beethoven

24. Student projects:
Kafka meets Marlene Dietrich

25. Student projects:
Karaoke TV-show

26. Business English
Course in SL
David Richardson:
Framework + New Courses
26

27. Christel Schneider,
CSiTrain – www.csitrain.net
Christel Schneider international Training
Email: chris.schneider@csitrain.net
The EUROVERSITY network is funded under the grant agreement
number 518944-LLP-1-2011-1-UK-KA3-KA3NW with the Education,
Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency, European Union.
This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the
Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be
made of the information contained therein.

28. Euroversity: Evaluation
Methods, Instruments,
and Emerging
Contradictions
Saturday,
March 1,
2014

29. Evaluating the Impact of the Euroversity Project and Euroversity
Framework:
To evaluate the impact of Euroversity, we
relied on two main areas:
(1) The Euroversity Project &
(2) The Euroversity Framework
In both categories, we relied not only on
qualitative data analysis but also on a
series of metrics to capture the impact of
both the Euroversity project and
framework.

30. (1) To measure the impact of the Euroversity
Project, we have relied on the following
critical areas:
 Management Issues
 Milestone Plan
 Communications Plan
 Dissemination Activities Promoting the
Project
 Growth of the Community
 Networking Activities

31. To measure the impact of the Euroversity framework,
we relied on the following:
 Courses Linked to the Euroversity
Framework
 Languages Used to Deliver the Courses
within the Euroversity Network;
 2D/3D Learning Environments Used to
Deliver these Courses;
 Students Enrolled in these Courses;
 Instructors’ Perspective;
 Transfer of Knowledge from Previous
Context to the Network;
 New Contexts.

32. Measuring the Impact of the Euroversity
Framework:
Instructors’ & Students’ Perspectives
In an effort to invite instructors to evaluate
the good practice framework, we also
devised two sets of questionnaires, one for
the participating instructors and one for the
students;
Both set of questionnaires are directly to
the framework.

33. Instructors’ Perspective
The instructors’ questionnaire includes a set
of 21 questions where instructors can evaluate
the framework. For instance:
Question 11
“In what ways have the guidelines of the Good
Practice Framework on the use of the methods
of communication, e.g., text chat and voice chat
or other means of communication, facilitated
the smooth interaction between you and your
students or between students, and contributed
to creating an immersive learning experience?”

34.  All
instructors who devised and offered courses
or learning events in a virtually afforded
learning environment using the framework
were invited to participate in an interview via
Skype which was also recorded using the
screen recording software Camtasia;
 All
students, on the other hand, could complete
and submit a written response on a similar set
of questions.

35. Courses in VW environments
Game Design inworld (University of Hull)
MP3 Artifacts Learning, Media Virtual
Learning Worlds & Game-based Learning
(Kiel University)
Teaching in English & Business Talking
(Linnaeus University)
Oral Portuguese in Virtual World (University
of Coimbra)
Power System Analysis (University of
Cyprus)

36. Critical Issues that Emerged during the Interviews:
Most of our partners identified specific areas in which the
Good Practice Framework was helpful:
Preplanning Stage
 The good practice framework helped confirm the
decision they made in terms of selecting a virtual
world environment;
 One of our German partners also agreed that
the good practice framework proved to be an effective
tool in the preparation and planning process, as well
as on the suggestions for communication since as he
noted it “worked as a scaffold” for planning and
delivering the course;

37. Other partners have also noted that it was not
simply the good practice framework that guided
them in this process but also the network of
partners that were willing to assist with this
process; Partners stepping in to assist them
with technical and other difficulties that they’ve
encountered in the process of delivering their
instructional materials;
Project No: 504823-LLP-1-2009-1-FI-KA2-KA2M
This project has been funded with support from the European Commission.
This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission
cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information
contained therein.

38. Emerging Contradictions:
We do have a wonderful but big set of
data that need to be transcribed;
Even sharing these files is extremely
difficult due to their considerably
large size;
Taking into account our partners’
suggestions
for
revising
the
framework but also maintaining that
flexibility in the framework;

39. Get involved!
Register as
Associated
Partner
http://www.euroversity.eu/
The EUROVERSITY network is funded under the grant agreement
number 518944-LLP-1-2011-1-UK-KA3-KA3NW with the Education,
Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency, European Union.
This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the
Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be
made of the information contained therein.