Learners' experiences in virtual worlds

An overview of the Theatron 3 project and findings from PhD research

Learners' experiences in virtual worlds
PhD Research
THEATRON Project
Barriers
University of West
 of Scotland
Daniel Livingstone's course on Virtual Worlds
Activity
Findings
Taking students round theatres
Asking them theatre design questions about those theatres
Reflecting on ability to answer questions
Looked at amount of chat on different questions
Found that students struggled with the same topics as theatre design students
 University of 
Warwick
Iryna Kuksa's course on Theatre
 Design and New Media
Activity
Findings
Introduction
Playing about
Exploring Theatres
Plenary discussion
What would be the experience of working in the real theatres these models represesent?
What would be the challenges of working as a designer / director in thse spaces?

What are the difference between these theatres and real-life theatres?
What can you tell about the cultures that created these theatres?
Middlesbrough
College
Gordon Duffy-McGhie 
York St John 
University
Builds
Coventry 
University
University of 
Wolverhampton
University of
Northumbria
Funded by Eduserv
Led by King’s Visualisation Lab, Centre for Computing
 in the Humanities, King’s College London (Dr Hugh Denard, Prof Richard Beacham)
HEA Subject Centres - PALATINE (Lisa Whistlecroft)
English Literature (Brett Lucas)
"Managed" by me

•       The Odeion of Agrippa, Athens, Greece
•       Bayreuth Festspielhaus, Bayreuth, Germany
•       The Theatre at Epidaurus, Epidaurus, Greece
•       The Globe Theatre, London, England
•       Medieval Fair Booth (Temporary Stages), Europe wide
•       Hellerau Festspielhaus, Hellerau, Germany
•       The Odeion of Pericles, Athens, Greece
•       Medieval Pageant Wagons (Temporary Stages), The Greek World
•       Phylakes Stage (Temporary Stages), The Greek World
•       Plen-an-Gwary (Temporary Stages), Cornwall, England
•       Theatre of Pompey, Rome, Italy
•       Teatro di Sabbioneta, Sabbioneta, Italy
•       Saint Piran's Round, Goonhavern, Cornwall, England
•       Skenographic Stages (Temporary Stages), The Roman World
•       The Theatre of Dionysus, Athens, Greece
        Drury Lane Theatre, London, England
•       Drottningholm Court, Stockholm, Sweden
•       Noh Theatre, Kyoto, Japan

 
HUDs
Director
Drew Baker
Beta Technologies
Seeing space: Exploring scenographic
 principles in Second Life
Paul Brownbill
Virtual Poiesis: The New Creative Pedagogy
Chris Wigginton
Mark Little
 'Insubstantial Pageants': learning 
about Renaissance drama
Staging Hamlet in SL
Professor Gweno Williams, 
with Toby Gordon,
Integrating film technologies 
into Second Life
Joff Chafer
The fools' zanni': 
Identifying prominent  characteristics of the Commedia dell'arte
Understanding potential and constraints of SL
Exploring how to express Commedia in SL

University of 
Southern Maine
Lori Schnieders
Human Behavior

Second Life Log-ins being occasionally disabled
•Upgrades to the Second Life client software required frequently
•High degrees of lag at periods of high usage
•Limits on numbers of participants in any region
•Registrations from any one IP address being capped

Technical barriers caused by SL
inadvertent barriers 
•Having poor IT resources within the institution, causing Second Life to either run slowly or crash frequently
•Not having a level of service provision that enabled the downloading and installation of updates when required

Deliberate technical barriers 
•Blocking Second Life completely
•Allowing Second Life but blocking voice

Bureaucratic barriers
•Not permitting, or not prioritising, timetabling of IT suites, particularly for discipline perceived as non-IT based
•Not permitting support from IT services for a platform perceived as non-mainstream


Technical barriers caused by institution
  
Cultural barriers
 
  
•An antipathy towards experimentation in educational provision,
•The perception, of some students and staff that virtual worlds are disreputable environments.
•The superficial resemblance of virtual worlds to online games, which leads some to perceive that they are not legitimate forms for education.
•Concerns over the ethics of exposing students to an untested and problematic technological platform.

Usability of Second Life
•Familiarising oneself with the environment typically took one session to acquire. 
The environment also has many distractions which also adds to the time before the learner will begin to focus on subject content.
There were limitations in the ability to move one’s avatar with sufficient dexterity, particularly for performance work. 
Nuanced movements, individualisation of movement and simple operations such as placing a cup, or exchanging swords, is not easily accomplished in Second Life. This made its functionality as a performance medium limited.

Steve Warburton's 
6 barriers typology
Activity
Sessions on development, identity in SL, role of SL in counselling
Premise is that xperience of awkwardness, alienation, 
cultural inexperience  is similar to adolescence in RL
Used SL experiences as source for 
reflection on RL adolescence
University of Warwick
Institute of education
2005 - 2010
Learners' experiences of mediated 
Environments
Linking perceptions of educational value to the learners' experience of presence
Looking for factors that support or inhibit presence
 "As with other forms of presence ...increases in self-presence are correlated with higher levels of cognitive performance, and, possibly, emotional development.” (Biocca)
Findings
Conceptual 
framework
Mark Childs
University of Warwick, 
Institute of Education, 
m.childs.1@warwick.ac.uk
Coventry University
Faculty of Engineering and Computing
mark.childs@coventry.ac.uk
Gann McGann 
in SL
(in RL)
Methods
Interviews, observations, transcripts, surveys
About you

I use instant messaging (MSN, Yahoo Chat etc.) regularly
I play computer / console games regularly
I’ve used Second Life before
I regularly use  social networking sites (e.g. Facebook, MySpace)

I only like to use a technology if I can be sure that it’s going to work
Imaginary worlds can't help me learn about the real world.
I don’t like to communicate with people online unless I know who they really are
There’s no point learning something unless it’s going to be useful 
2007 - 2009
Final dissemination Jan 2010
London Knowledge Lab, with Diane Carr, Daniel Livingstone and John Kirriemuir
Conclusions
Research
"Scholars have almost universally been significantly impressed by what they saw. The first reaction of many scholars is to nitpick small elements of the design, and not look at the overall model. Once they get over that (and it helps if they are of a theatre-historical or theatrical orientation - so that they understand the questions and issues) there has been a lot of positive feedback from talking it through. Showing it to significant scholars, the view is that Theatron 3 will completely revolutionise the way these materials are taught." Richard Beacham 
Paradata discussions
Help interpret other sources
Insight into lived experience
Content deve opment
Performance
Learning and teaching
Found there was a value in using SL
Remote delivery of learning and teaching sessions
Provided an environment for students to research and explore
"A visually exciting and accurate medium to represent theatrical spaces"
Worked both for translating real world experiences into the virtual and
creating new experiences based in the virtual.


Read the report
"The main obstacle students encountered was a conceptual one. It became increasingly difficult for them to express performance intentions within SL in the same language as that used in the real world. Early frustrations were inevitable as students tried to ‘replicate’ real world processes within the SL context. " Gordon Duffy-McGhie
"the highly detailed environment of the Second Life Globe Theatre was unfailingly appealing to project participants, staff and students. They enjoyed the aesthetic elements and proportions of the theatre and actively wanted to inhabit and work in the environment." Professor Gweno Williams
Worked well for working out staging and positioning of actors, props
Limitations of animations meant difficulties in replicating RL performance
Is effective for enabling people to feel more embodied within the space
Challenging and novel platfrom to create new types of performance in concert with technology
 
Students' resistance to SL
Unable to experience 
embodiment
"Feely"
"Mundane"
"Killjoy"
"Thinskin"
About one fourth of the population is so strongly situated in the real world and their real body that they have a difficult time becoming involved in a virtual world.” (Heeter, 1995)
I thought it was good the 3d and stuff and virtual, I liked it. It was cool but, I don't know how to explain it because ... it just wasn't my thing. I just like acting and performing and doing that sort of stuff and being that character it just didn't interest me at all. 
"I just don't get it"
“I don’t think you should have a 
second life on your laptop.”
Mitcham's Ancient Sceptics
Technological is inauthentic
“Please excuse me from the IT session tomorrow. I have thought hard about this idea of virtual travel and experience, and it's not something I am drawn to at all!  In fact, I rather think all the opportunities which are available to participants sound rather unhealthy. Personal interaction and real experiences are much more positive." (quote provided by G. Williams)
a time wasting game not an academic tool
How does walking around a fake room or flying around a computer game help us learn about real world issues?
"I pay my university fees to learn and acquire
 relevant skills, not to play a game" 
Unwilling to tolerate the transgressive 
nature of some of the inworld cultures
quote provided by G Williams
and blame 
technology
Prep
Technique
Becoming inured
Body 
image
Body schema (appro-prioception)
Accult-
uration
I think communicating using technology is too impersonal
I prefer writing things to saying them
I prefer to learn by talking to others rather than reading it in a book
Some of my friends are people I only know online

I sometimes pretend to be someone else when I’m communicating online
I’m never really myself in front of other people
Playing games is just for children and teenagers.
I like to have fun when I'm learning
About Second Life

It was far too difficult to find my way around
It was too difficult to move the way I wanted to
I just felt too detached from the space
I didn’t feel like I could relate to my avatar
I felt like I was there
I felt like I was sharing a space with other people in the virtual world
I felt I learnt something about the theatrical spaces
It was a fun experience
I’d like to try it again
I couldn’t see the point of it
Basic access, landmarks, recovering from crash
Address ideological concerns
a) Interacting with the world
• Motion
• Manoeuvring
• Wayfinding
• Changing camera positions
• Using mouselook

c) Interacting with their avatar
• changing the appearance of their avatar
• animating their avatar
b) Interacting with others
•Using local chat
•Using private chat
•Using manoeuvring skills to apply proxemics
Getting used to the distractions 
of Second Life
Student D: Are you? Are you in Dundee? What’s this? Is it magical toadstools?
Me: Who’s got the magical toadstools?
Student D; We have! I think they are magical toadstools.
Student E: Yes they are.
Student A: What the hell’s a magical toadstool?
Student D: I think we are actually getting high on ‘shrooms. Yes we are, we are.
Student E laughs.
Student D; Look we’ve just eaten toadstools and we’re going crazy. Oh amazing. Awesome. 
Student E: Do it again. Do it again.
Student D: OK let’s have another one. See what happens. Weeeee. Getting high while flying. That’s dose. Weeeeeee.
Me: Can we start move back to Theatron? If you’ve got a Theatron landmark can you join me back on the stage in Theatron?
SHOPPING
PERFORMING
Dreyfus (2000) “What gives us our sense of being in direct touch with reality is that we bring about changes in the world and get perceptual feedback concerning what we have done.” 
Personalising
Identity formation
Self-presence
Self-attestation
Immersion
Use of interface
is appropriated
Sense of virtual body
movement, interaction
Embodiment
Awareness of cultures
Read semiotics 
of spaces
A place within the virtual world
Students had no problems answering questions on design and on difficulties with technology
Struggled with questions on the real spaces these virtual spaces represented 
Completely lost on question asking them to read the 
cultural aspects (understandably)
Approximately one third of survey responses 
were negative about the experience
Approximately two-thirds of plenary discussion 
was negative about the experience
Both those who were positive and those who were negative attributed their sense of immersion (or lack  of it) to the environment, not their own perceptions of it
“There are 3D environments anyway which you can move through. You could both go through and talk about over the phone. I can’t see that it enhances it any more.”
“you could physically, well not physically, walk them up to the bit you were talking about.”
Values about virtual 
experience
Experience of
 immersion
http://cms.cch.kcl.ac.uk/theatron/
Identity
Creativity
Choreography
 
EXPLORING
TREASURE HUNT