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July 23, 2012

I will give a presentation on my MSc dissertation work to the MSc in e-Learning Dissertation Festival on 1st August 2012 at 4pm BST. This will take place on the Vue South region in Second Life.

The thesis is titled "Activity in Context – Planning to Keep Learners ‘in the Zone’ for Scenario-based Mixed-Initiative Training".

A number of threads have been brought together in this work:

  • to study the cognitive psychological foundations for situated social learning;
  • to identify effective learning methods relevant to mixed-initiative interaction between agents;
  • to describe the relationship between cognitive psychological activity models and an AI research-informed conceptual model of activity;
  • to provide a methodology for how the concepts identified could be utilised in a training-orientated “I-Zone” – a virtual space for intelligent scenario-based interaction; and
  • to create, document and demonstrate a resource base for experimentation and potential re-use on projects in this area.

 The core message can be summarised as:

Mixed-Initiative:
Constrain the environment,
Inject and Induce

Haiku

The dissertation is due to be completed by the end of August 2012. More details of the project, access to the dissertation once complete, and various resources related to the work are at http://atate.org/mscel/i-zone/.

Keywords: AI, Dissertation, I-Zone, MSc, Second Life

Posted by Austin Tate | 0 comment(s)

July 10, 2012

1. Can our choice of avatar influence a change in real world behaviour through a virtual world experience?

original title used for essay 

2. Can avatars be used to change behaviours in real life?

Snappy but I am not doing the research - i am just reflecting on others work 

3. Does choice of avatar influence offline behaviour?

Like this actually, but not sure of use of offline behaviour, but i suppose it contrasts to online behaviour - but that is also an interesting topic 

4. A reflection on the role of avatars in supporting real life behavioural changes?

Like the reflection bit as it tells people im not actualy doing the research. Not sure if the word behavioural is too encompassing and out of the small remit of the study 

Posted by anabel drought | 1 comment(s)

Task: Write on a specific topic
21.27 start:
The essay i would like to transform into an article for a journal is one i wrote for IDEL in December 2011. It is about the role of avatars and how they can effect real life behaviours.
It came form an idea that i had whilst using second life, when i began to worry about the innapropriate clothing my avatr had on for the tutorial we attended. I worried that my skirt was too short and my blouse too low cut. I didn't know how to change my clothing at the time and panicked that i wouldn't be giving off the correct image of myself as a proffesional student studying at the prestigious Edinburgh University. When i arrived at the meeting place i soon found that my panick over clothing was not an issue as people turned up as robots, dogs, vampires etc and my human woman was nothing out of the ordinary. I began to reflect on the way i had assigned a character to my avatar and felt it somehow portrayed me and the type of person i must be because of my avatar. I decided to look into research on AVatars and found that the Stanford University had doen a lot of research into using lifelike avatars to change real life behaviours. I was totally amazed by this idea and wrote on this topic for mY IDEL assignment. My essay will therfore not be a new idea but a reflection on others research, i have no idea what journal would be interested in it but perhaps i could practice with re genre ing it and writing it for trashy magazines as a guide to loose weight in the first instance. I am rambling now as i have run out if ideas and i have 1 minute to go. I love the 
21.37 finish

Identify key themes and start to cluster them and look for connections.  
The key themes are 
Choice of avatar
How an avatar represent oneself
The link between avatar and self
The role of an avatar in changes to real life

Posted by anabel drought | 0 comment(s)

July 02, 2012

Ahhhh feels good to be back 

 

 

I feel I should have  a new section or folder or something to divide up my different courses blog postings, Calvin will do!

 Trial at free writing

I dont usually have a problem with the blank page - i tend to be a profuse writer and then a big deleter. I also tend to keep within the word limit and have thousands of appendicies which dont neccessarily add to the body of text but i include because i have worked on it and feel it is somehow good and slightly relevenat and that it may give me some points ( you never know) However the comments i recieve on essays tend to be

 

  • I have gone over the word limit
  • I need to be more critical
  • The appendicies are not relevent
  • Things in the appendicies should have been in the main text
  • I should have expanded on specific points 

 

I say in my head - but i had no more space to include it in main text / expand on it / be critical of it 

So from this i already see that it is my focus that is the problem - if i focused more at the early stages and i could come up with a structure / essay plan as i was shown at University and write to the focus rather than writing about everything in the area and hope to pull together a direction.

Ahhhhh - reflection

I enjoyed the experience of free writing,  it gets thoughts flowing, i need to improve my typing accuracy as the interuption of words the wrong way round and i's not capitalised interrupts the flow and pauses thoughts and creativity

Keywords: Academic writing, Free writing

Posted by anabel drought | 0 comment(s)

I am blogging from the marvellous city of Barcelona, as I am attending the international conference Edulearn12.

The atmosphere is really fantastic here: delegates from all over the world, nice food and nice weather after a big storm yesterday.

 

Just a word of advice: take a taxi to travel from the airport to your hotel. I had a very nasty experience yesterday night, when two big guys tried to steal my wallet.

Keywords: Barcelona, Edulearn12, Learning and Teaching

Posted by Mari Cruz García | 0 comment(s)

June 22, 2012

Cloud Party is now becoming available with little "cloud" islands that can accommodate up to 25 avatars - see https://its.cloudpartytime.com/

FaceBook login is the norm unfortunately, but you can login anonymously for tests if you do not want to use FaceBook.

Keywords: Cloud Party, Virtual World

Posted by Austin Tate | 0 comment(s)

June 19, 2012

In continuing experimentation with OpenSim Non-Player Character (NPC) technology (http://opensimulator.org/wiki/OSSLNPC) as part of work on my MSc in e-Learning dissertation, I have collected together the NPC creation, persistence, movement and removal scripts as resources for potential future projects. See http://atate.org/mscel/i-zone/npc/

 

An NPC can be created in OpenSim based on the current appearance of a specific avatar, including any attachments it has.  This allows a range of reactive capabiities and web service connections to be established through scripts running in attachments on the NPC itself. OpenSim NPCs are being epxlored as potential tutors in the "I-Zone" - a space to support mixed-initiative scenario-based training. See http://atate.org/mscel/i-zone/ for more resources.

Keywords: NPC, OpenSim

Posted by Austin Tate | 0 comment(s)

Ai Austin participated on 19th June 2012 in an interview for a research study looking at the OpenSimulator community.

The interview was conducted in Second Life by:

  • Robin Teigland (www.knowledgenetworking.org) is an Associate Professor at the Center for Strategy and Competitiveness at the Stockholm School of Economics in Sweden. Her research interests focus on the relationship between knowledge flows in networks and performance at the individual, organizational, and national levels.
  • Paul M. Di Gangi (http://paulmdigangi.com/) is an Assistant Professor at the Loyola University Maryland, USA. His research focuses on the intersection of social and digital networks and organizations for value creation purposes.
  • Zeynep Yetis is a PhD student at the Center for Strategy and Competitiveness at the Stockholm School of Economics in Sweden. Her research interests focus on the dynamics of open-source communities and user-driven innovation.

Image without Second Life Viewer GUI.

Keywords: OpenSim

Posted by Austin Tate | 0 comment(s)

April 24, 2012

Having been an enthusiastic user of Flight Simulator for the PC  since the mid 1990s, its been nearly 10 years since I last used Flight Simulator 2002... I skipped FS2004 (a.k.a "A Century of Flight" or FS9), and did not get FSX when it came out in 2006. But I returned recently as the Microsoft ESP (Environment Simulator Platform) is now being licensed and extended for serious simulations from underwater, to land, to air and near space by Lockheed Martin as Prepar3D. I had also previously created a number of science fiction vehicles based on the TV shows of Gerry Anderson, and especially Supercar for Flight Simulator, so I wanted to test if they were still operational and performing well. As the MSc in e-Learning Game-Based Learning course come to an end, and a new PC with much improved Nvidia GTX580 graphics card was acquired, it was timely to look back at Flight Simulator and see how it has progressed.

With a new copy of Flight Simulator X, now relatively cheap compared to its original release pricing, and the two service packs installed (SP1 and SP2) which were necessary to correct black parts on some add-on craft (including Supercar), I was ready to fire things up. And things look good with high frame rates at ultra settings for the displays. Its nice to see 3D models that improve over time in new releases of Flight Simulator without change to the basic visual model.

I have always liked the Lockheed Martin SR-71 "Blackbird" and North American X-15 rocket plane and am amazed that these craft designed and built in the 1950s could achieve such performance.  I take every opportunity to see the real craft at museums in the USA. An X-15 is in the Smithsonian in the Mall, and an SR-71 can be found in the Smithsonian at Dulles Airport and at the Intrepid Museum in New York for example.

Reasonably good free add-on craft are available for the SR-71 and X-15... but the improved visuals prompted me to try a paid for add on X-15 which is reported to be one of the best Flight Simulator add-ons.. and it really does look very good indeed...

   

Keywords: Flight Simulator, FSX, IDGBL

Posted by Austin Tate | 0 comment(s)

April 17, 2012

J.K. Rowling has created an on-line experience for fans of the Harry Potter series of books... to accompany a site which is the only on-line source of Harry Potter e-Books... a potentially vast market.  The pottermore.com site has been in beta test for some months with over a million beta registrations, but has just now become available with open registrations.

The experience itself runs through in a chapter by chapter format for each of the books.  Myst style graphical elements are overlaid and respond to mouse clicks and interactions as the various features and artifacts are gradually exposed. Items can be collected into a "trunk".  After you discover Diagon Alley, and open an account at Gringotts Bank with an initial 500 "galleons", further gold galleons can be found in various places and saved in your account to purchase necessary supplies. Then you must explore Diagon Alley to get all the required items for your first year at Hogwarts.

Your wand will choose you at Ollivanders - makers of fine wands since 382 B.C. - via a set of questions and choices.

   

The its off via Platform 9 and three-quarters to Howarts.  And term starts.  Points can be earned for you and your "house" as you go along. The Great Hall shows the progress of all four school houses, your Common Room shows the progress for your own house, and your own profile area maintains all the information about your progress, skills acquired and artifacts collected.  You can also make friends and pass around gifts.

The currency used in the experience is all provided and does not require real money to play.  The e-books do cost real money. 

Keywords: IDGBL, Potter, Pottermore, Rowling

Posted by Austin Tate | 0 comment(s)

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