Grants awarded (almost!)

This is a slightly premature announcement, because we are still finalising contracts and so on, but news is slowly leaking out about the projects that we have funded under this year's grants call, so it seems sensible to at least announce the bare details here.

So... we are very pleased to be able to announce that we are in the process of funding the following projects under this year's call:

SLEUTH – Second Life Educational Undertakings in Theatre History

This 24 month project, led by Richard Beacham (Centre for Computing in the Humanities, KCL), will construct 20 historic theatres in Second Life, creating an extensive, content-rich range of research-based virtual environments, and generating highly innovative, interactive teaching and learning resources. The project will combine the pedagogical, research, technical and methodological expertise of a group of national and international leaders in their fields, including: Hugh Denard (Centre for Computing in the Humanities, KCL); the King's Visualisation Lab; The Higher Education Subject Centres for English, and for Dance, Drama and Music, as well as members of the communities that they serve; David Kaskel (LanguageLab); Mark Childs, consultant in Educational Technology, and King's Digital Consultancy Service.

Learning from Online Worlds; Teaching in Second Life

This 12 month project, led by Diane Carr and involving Martin Oliver and Andrew Burn (all at the London Knowledge Lab) will research and theorise learning in two online social worlds (World of Warcraft and Second Life). The project will use this theory to develop practical recommendations for learning and teaching, and test these by teaching courses in Second Life.

Online Learning with Immersive Virtual Environments using Sloodle

This 12 month project, led by Dan Livingstone (University of Paisley) and involving Jeremy Kemp (San Jose State University), will research and develop pedagogical theories relevant to multi-user 3D virtual worlds and use these to inform and lead the development of Sloodle and to support the growing community of educators using 3D virtual worlds.

Modelling4All – Web services to enable non-programmers to collaboratively build and analyse computer models

Computer modelling is playing an increasingly important role in fields as varied as sociology, epidemiology, zoology, economics, archaeology, ecology, climate, and engineering. This project, led by Ken Kahn and involving Howard Noble (both at the OUCS, University of Oxford), will attempt to make such modelling more widely accessible by developing easy to use Web 2.0 services for building, exploring and analysing models, encouraging the development of an on-line community where models and model components are shared, tagged, discussed, organised, and linked to other resources.  Furthermore, the project will explore the possibilities of providing an immersive first-hand experience of the execution of models within Second Life.

[Image: several grant recipients at the symposium.  L to R: Ed Barker (Eduserv Foundation), Howard Noble (OUCS), Ken Kahn (OUCS), Hugh Denard (KCL), Diane Carr (London Knowledge Lab), Dan Livingstone (University of Paisley)]

Comments

[megormi]

Great news on your grants! This is an exciting announcement! Please keep the sloodle community informed about how things are going. If you need any help in-world or out, let me know. I am really looking forward to learning and growing with the sloodle community!
Meg Ormiston
www.techteachers.com
[email protected]

(SL) Meg Writer
http://slurl.com/secondlife/megwriter/80/27/22/