The schome­NAGTY  

Teen Second Life Pilot  
Final Report 
A SUMMARY OF KEY FINDINGS & LESSONS LEARNT 

The schome community 
May 2007 
 The schome‐NAGTY Teen Second Life Pilot 

Contents 

Executive summary  ................................  3 
Project overview  ................................  4 
Levels of engagement  .................................  6 
Second Life skills  ................................  8 
Knowledge age skills  ................................  10 
Lessons learnt  ................................  14 
The story so far ...  ................................  16 

Acknowledgements 
The core Open University team consisted of:
Peter Twining Director, Centre for Curriculum And Teaching
Studies
Jacquie Bennett Associate Lecturer
Olly Butters PhD student
Gill Clough PhD student
Rebecca Ferguson PhD student
Mark Gaved Researcher
Julia Gillen Lecturer
Anna Peachey Associate Lecturer
Jonty Rix Lecturer
Dan Seamans Immersive Learning Consultant
Kieron Sheehy Senior Lecturer
Vlad Tanasescu PhD student
The wider staff team included:
Archaeology strand Alan Greaves Liverpool University
Andrew Wilson Liverpool University
Ethics & Philosophy strand Jen Booth Warwick University
Physics strand Dave Taylor The National Physical Laboratory
Amanda Law The National Physical Laboratory
Alex Sofras The National Physical Laboratory
School liaison Khairoun Abji Changing Media

The schome community would like to acknowledge the support provided by NAGTY (The
National Association for Gifted and Talented Youth) and the Innovation Unit in funding this
project.

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 The schome‐NAGTY Teen Second Life Pilot 

Executive summary 
This report provides a brief overview of key ‘findings’ emerging from the schome-NAGTY Teen
Second Life Pilot. There is extensive additional information about the Pilot on the schome
community website (http://www.schome.ac.uk/).
The Pilot set out to explore the educational potential and pitfalls of Teen Second Life, a
secure 3D virtual world for 13 to 17 year olds. 149 students from NAGTY (The National
Association of Gifted and Talented Youth) were provided with access to Schome Park (an island
in Teen Second Life) which was intended to be used as an integral part of the the schome
community website (wiki and forum). These students were referred to as SParkers.
The level of engagement with Schome Park was comparable in many ways to that found with
other media such as text based forums. 68% of the SParkers visited Schome Park, though only
41% spent more than 1 hour on the island. 26% of the SParkers accounting for over 90% of the
student activity in Schome Park. Issues about access from school were apparent both in terms of
technological barriers (some LAs not allowing Second Life through their firewalls) and available
time during the school day. Access was, as anticipated, particularly problematic for those
SParkers from the GOAL cohort (members of NAGTY from socially disadvantaged or ethnic
minority backgrounds who are currently under-represented in higher education). Substantially
lower proportions of SParkers fully engaged with the wiki and forum. It seemed clear that those
SParkers who benefitted most from the Pilot were the ones who engaged with Schome Park and
the wiki and the forum. We have commissioned a separate study to explore the reasons for
variations in the levels of engagement with the Pilot.
There was strong evidence that those SParkers who engaged with Schome Park developed a
wide range of Second Life skills (from walking through to building, scripting and making videos
in-world). Many of these skills have real-world relevance (e.g. building involves manipulation of
measures, 3D coordinates and complex 3D shapes) and thus it would seem likely that they will
impact on real world competences. Further work is needed to investigate the extent to which the
development of Second Life skills has a significant impact on real world competences.
There was strong evidence that those SParkers who engaged fully with Schome Park and the rest
of the schome community website enhanced their knowledge age skills (e.g. communication,
teamwork, leadership, creativity). Those who engaged with Schome Park but not with the wiki or
forum tended to showed less evidence of performance at the higher levels of the knowledge age
skills framework. SParkers reported that their experiences within the Pilot were impacting on
their confidence when it came to real world performance. Indeed, one of the most important
aspects of the Pilot appeared to be the extent to which Schome Park (as an integral part of the
schome community website) was providing a safe environment for SParkers, many of whom
experienced the social aspects of school life as problematic. The Pilot appeared to enable
SParkers to enhance their social skills. Perhaps even more importantly, it seemed to enable them
to develop greater confidence in dealing with social situations.
During the Pilot a great deal was learnt about the pragmatics of using Second Life to enhance
learning. It seems clear that Second Life does offer affordances that other media lack and
that it has the potential to offer powerful new forms of support for learning, particularly in
relation to knowledge age skills. However, as is the case with any new technology, there is a
substantial initial learning curve that has to be overcome before its full educational potential can
be realised. These start-up costs should not be underestimated. At the time when the Pilot took
place it was the only project in Europe that was using Teen Second Life, and one of only five or
six projects internationally. A great deal more work is needed in order to fully understand the
optimum ways using Second Life (or other future 3D virtual reality worlds that may superceed
it) as a vehicle for enhancing learning.

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 The schome‐NAGTY Teen Second Life Pilot 

Project overview 
Pilot’s aims 
The schome-NAGTY Teen Second Life Pilot aimed to provide a cohort of students from
NAGTY with a valueable learning experience as an extension to their formal school activities.
The pilot specifically set out to examine four key questions:
1. To what extent do the SParkers engage with Teen Second Life?
2. To what extent do the SParkers develop Second Life skills?
3. To what extent do the SParkers develop knowledge age skills?
4. What lessons did we learn about using Teen Second Life?
There is one section of this report related to each of these key questions.

What is Second Life? 
Second Life is a 3D virtual reality world. You, or more accurately a representation of you called
an avatar, can move around this virtual world, interacting with people and objects. You can build
objects (prims) and program them to behave in specific ways (using a language called Linden
Script).

Second Life is divided into two sections as

illustrated in Figure 1. The Main Grid is Figure 1 Second Life organisation
for adults, whilst the Teen Grid is for 13 to
17 year olds.
The Main Grid and Teen Grids share the
same basic functionality but are run as two
totally different systems, on different sets
of servers.
Adults are not allowed into the Teen Grid
unless they have an appropriate police
clearance (e.g. an enhanced CRB
discolsure) and even then they are
restricted to a private island belonging to a
project that the adult is involved in.
Schome Park, the island used in this Pilot,
is a closed island within the Teen Grid:
• avatars from the rest of the Teen Grid
cannot enter Schome Park;
• once a student or member of staff is
registered on Schome Park then their
avatar cannot leave the island.

The Schome Community Website 
A critical feature of the design of the Pilot was the integration of Schome Park with the other
elements of the schome community website: the wiki and forum. These three components were
seen as being complementary and mutually supporting.

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 The schome‐NAGTY Teen Second Life Pilot 
Summary of activities 
2006 The schome community started exploring Second Life as a vehicle for
helping people develop creative yet grounded visions of schome (not school
– not home – schome – the education system for the information age). They
established two islands in Second Life: SchomeBase in the Main Grid and
Schome Park in the Teen Grid.

During this period the schome team at the OU invested over 1500 hours of
staff time in exploring Second Life, developing the resources for Schome
Park and preparing for the Pilot. Just under half of this time was spent in-
2007 world, with the remainder being used for team meetings, designing the
island infrastructure and individual builds ‘on paper’, planning activities,
writing scripts, etc..

Mar 12th Students were given access to Schome Park. There were some initial delays
to due to problems with the batch registration system, which Linden Labs
needed to resolve.
May 7th
Induction sessions were run for the new students (who chose to be referred
to as SParkers, Schome Parkers). However, these proved unnecessary – the
SParkers preferred to dive straight in, and very rapidly mastered the basic
Second Life skills, seeking help from staff when they were having
particular difficulties.
Initially students focussed on customising their avatar’s appearance and
obtaining items from the Scho-Op (our freebies store). They started
experimenting with building, rapidly filling the sky with a wide range of
objects (some from the Scho-Op and others that they had constructed for
themselves). This included developing social meeting spaces, a marina, an
AI Emporium, and ‘classrooms’ containing lessons showing other SParkers
about a range of Second Life skills.
A wide range of activities ensued around the three core strands (physics,
archaeology, and ethics & philosophy) as well as a range of others led by
staff (e.g. research methods, artificial intelligence and machinima (making
films within Second Life), etc) or by SParkers (e.g. a regatta, a wedding,
governance meetings, a murder mystery evening, low prim building, chess
matches, etc).
We experienced one serious ‘griefer attack’ in which a student built boxes
all over the island, which prevented other people from moving around.

 
A ‘lesson’ designed and built by  Clearing up after the griefer  SParkers discussing AI  
SParkers  attack  (on a magic carpet) 

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 The schome‐NAGTY Teen Second Life Pilot 

To what extent do the SParkers engage with Teen Second Life? 
As Schome Park was intended to be used alongside the other components of the schome
community website, and in particular the wiki and forum, this key question needed to be
reframed. This resulted in four questions:
• To what extent did the SParkers engage with Schome Park?
• To what extent did the SParkers engage with the schome community wiki?
• To what extent did the SParkers engage with the schome community forum?
• Was there a relationship between the level of engagement with Schome Park and with the
wiki and/or forum?

Student numbers 
NAGTY wrote to 250 of its members inviting them to take part in the Pilot. 149 (60%) returned
signed consent forms and were thus allocated an avatar/username. 65% of these 149 SParkers
chose their own avatar name before the deadline. The other 35% were issued with an avatar
name that they had not chosen themselves.
NAGTY were keen to include their GOAL students in the Pilot. These are students who come
from socially disadvantaged or ethnic minority backgrounds who are currently under-represented
in higher education. Table 1 provides an analysis of the 149 SParkers by group and gender.
Table 1 Proportions of SParkers by group and gender (n=149)
  GOAL  Non‐GOAL  Combined 
Male  13%  39%  52% 
Female  9%  38%  48% 
Totals  23%  77%  100% 

Engagement with Schome Park 
Of the 149 SParkers 102 (68%) logged into Table 2 Distribution of SParkers by time
Schome Park at some stage during the Pilot, with spent in Schome Park
61 (41%) spending more than 1 hour in Schome Hours per  Number of  % 
Park. Table 2 shows the distribution of SParkers SParker  SParkers  (n=149) 
in terms of how much time they spent in Schome 0 47  32% 
Park. 26% of the SParkers accounted for 93% of 0.5 to 1 41  28% 
the time spent in Schome Park.
2 to 5 22  15% 
The student who spent over 100 hours in Schome 6 to 10 11  7% 
Park was at home due to illness for several weeks. 11 to 25 12  8% 
She tended to leave Schome Park running as a
26 to 50 8  5% 
background activity in much the same way that
neo-millenials use the TV or MSN. When 51 to 100 7  5% 
something interesting happned in-world she >100 1  1% 
would then actively engage with Schome Park.

Whilst gender did not seem to be a factor in terms of the level of usage of Schome Park, it was
clear that use of Schome Park was less frequent by members of the GOAL cohort.
Table 3 Schome Park usage by Goal  Non‐Goal  Male  Female  Total 
group and gender (n=34)  (n=115)  (n=78)  (n=71)  (n=149) 
In‐world ever  41%  77%  72%  65%  68% 
In‐world for more than 1 hour  15%  49%  41%  41%  41% 

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Engagement with the wiki 
Of the 149 SParkers 63 (42%) logged into the wiki at Table 4 Distribution of SParkers by
some stage during the Pilot and 58 (39%) edited the number of wiki edits
Edits per  Number of  %  
wiki at least once. Table 4 shows the distribution of
SParker  SParkers  (n=149) 
SParkers in terms of how many times they edited the
wiki. Whilst data is not available on the number of 0 91  61% 
times that SParkers viewed pages in the wiki, these 1 to 5 35  23% 
data seem to indicate that the majority of the 6 to 25 11  7% 
SParkers did not use the wiki as an integral part of 26 to 100 9  6% 
the Pilot – for example, they did not sign up for in- 101 to 250 1  1% 
world events on the wiki.
251 to 500 2  1% 
Table 5 provides an analysis of the level of usage of the wiki by group and gender. This indicates
that whilst gender does not appear to be a factor impacting on wiki usage, membership of the
GOAL group corresponds with lower levels of wiki usage.
Table 5 Wiki usage by group Goal  Non‐Goal  Male  Female  Total 
and gender (n=34)  (n=115)  (n=78)  (n=71)  (n=149) 
Logged in to the wiki at least once  15%  50%  41%  44%  42% 
Edited the wiki at least once  15%  46%  40%  38%  39% 

Engagement with the forum 
Of the 149 SParkers 37 (25%) posted one or Table 6 Distribution of SParkers by
more messages in the forum. Table 6 shows the number of forum posts
Posts per  Number of 
distribution of SParkers in terms of how many % (n=149) 
SParker  SParkers 
times they posted in the forum. Whilst data is
not available on the number of times that 0 112  75% 
SParkers viewed messages in the forum, these 1 to 5 11  7% 
data seem to indicate that the majority of the 6 to 25 5  3% 
SParkers did not use the forum as an integral 26 to 100 6  4% 
part of the Pilot – for example, they did not 101 to 250 8  5% 
join in the discussions related to the in-world
251 to 500 4  3% 
events.
>500 3  2% 
Table 7 provides an analysis of the level of usage of the forum by group and gender. This
indicates that whilst gender does not appear to be a factor impacting on forum usage,
membership of the GOAL group corresponds with lower levels of forum usage.
Table 7 Forum usage by group and Goal  Non‐Goal Male  Female  Total 
gender (n=34)  (n=115)  (n=78)  (n=71)  (n=149) 
Logged into the forum at least once  6%  40%  31%  34%  34% 
Posted at least one message in the forum  3%  31%  24%  25%  25% 

Relationship between Schome Park, the wiki and the forum 
Table 8 Time in Hours spent in Schome Park 
There was a positive relationship
Schome Park vs 0  0.5 to 1  2 to 25  >25 
between the amount of time spent
wiki/forum use (n=47)  (n=41)  (n=45)  (n=16) 
in Schome Park and wiki/forum
Neither 87%  66%  40%  0% 
use. SParkers who used Schome
Used ... 

Park the most also made greater Wiki only 4%  24%  31%  0% 
use of the wiki and forum (see Forum only 6%  5%  0%  0% 
Table 8). Forum + wiki 2%  5%  29%  100% 

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 The schome‐NAGTY Teen Second Life Pilot 

To what extent do the SParkers develop Second Life skills? 
Evidence from the questionnaire 
The SParkers were asked to fill in a web- Figure 2 The mean reported level of comptence
questionnaire which asked them to rate their for the 44 identified Second Life skills
level of competence in relation to 44
specific Second Life skills, ranging from
‘walking’ to ‘Video Machnima’. 28
SParkers completed the questionnaire. Of
these, 79% reported that they had not used
Second Life prior to the Pilot, whilst the
remainder of the responses indicated low
levels of familiarity with Second Life. The
exception was one student who claimed to
be able to build and write scripts prior to the
Pilot starting. Overall the baseline level of
competence in using Second Life was very
low (close to 0 on our scale).

Scale 

  0  1  2  3  4  5 

Figure 2 shows the mean reported levels of

competence in relation to each of the 44
identified Second Life skills for those
respondents who had tried that skill. It
provides clear evidence that the respondents
viewed themselves as having developed a
reasonable level of competence in using a
wide range of Second Life skills.
The respondents also identified a range of
additional skills which had not been
included on the questionnaire, including:
setting landmarks; making items with light;
making flexible items; building complex
objects; adjusting and altering objects;
resetting to nearly the same spot all the
time; precision positioning; creating
complex designs; and making clothes.

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 The schome‐NAGTY Teen Second Life Pilot 
Other evidence 
There was a substantial amount of evidence to suggest that A suit texture created by a Sparker 
those SParkers who engaged with Schome Park did indeed
develop their Second Life skills.
The objects that they created in Schome Park were in
themselves a testament to the SParkers’ building and
scripting skills. Towards the end of the Pilot there were over
14,000 prims on Schome Park, which gives an indication of
the scale of activity within the island.
The SParkers themselves documented their activities within
the wiki, and nearly 300 images were uploaded by them
which demonstrate that they can: play chess, change head  
shapes, sit in different places, take self-portrait photographs, A teleport to SkyHigh@250 
make objects, change their appearance, debate through
instant messaging and chat, upload signs, create buildings
and spaces (on the ground, in the air and under the sea),
dance, build a chess set, make clothes, design and sail
around a regatta course, cope with random in-world objects,
engage in lessons, use teleports, and provide advice and
support to each other, including guidance about in-world
skills.
This extract from a userpage in the wiki gives more specific
evidence of the sorts of things the SParkers were doing (and
 
skills they were developing):
A SParker creating a chess board 

Equipment to test the physics of SP 

Real world relevance? 
Many of the Second Life skills that the students were
developing have relevance to ‘real life’. For example,
building involves complex manipulation of measures and
shapes in three dimensions, whilst scripting in Linden Script
is similar to programming in a language such as C.
However, we did not collect evidence about the students’
real world competences and so cannot make any claims  
about the impact of their developing Second Life skills on
their real world competences.

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 The schome‐NAGTY Teen Second Life Pilot 

To what extent do the SParkers develop knowledge age skills? 
I've learned stuff just from chatting to 
Staff at NAGTY started to develop a knowledge age skills
people, and hearing what they have to  framework for use within the Pilot, which was further
say. I've also learned that when people  developed by the project team (see Table 8). As can be seen
rely on you to do something, you have  from Table 8 the framework is concerned with the
to make sure you do it to the best of  development of metacognitive skills with an emphasis on
your ability, and more often than not it personal actions informed by reflection. The rationale
come out really well.  underpinning this is that whist hardware and software are
changing rapidly the metacognitive skills required to function
SParker (interview chatlog) 
in an information age environment will remain the same. An
important point within this work is that high order cognitive
skills are developed within specific environments and may only later become disembedded from
a specific environment, and applicable across different contexts. Therefore for the Schome-
NAGTY pilot we focussed only on the skills demonstrated within the schome community
website (Schome Park, wiki and forum).
Table 8 The knowledge age skills framework
Skill  Level 1   Level 2   Level 3   Level 4  
Communication   Selects and uses 
from QCA level  structures, styles and  Takes a leading role, 
Makes a range of 
descriptors  registers appropriately  Adapts communication  initiating and sustaining 
contributions, 
in a range of contexts.  for a range of settings  conversation, and 
demonstrating 
‘Listens’ with  and audiences  reflecting 
perceptive listening 
concentration and  understanding 
understanding. 
Teamwork   Receives messages 
Values others, 
Projects personal  from others, shares  Joint problem‐solves  
understands roles and 
characteristics  goals   Manages relationships 
  Develops processes 
changes in roles 

Leadership   Understands and sets  Applies own and 

Recognises skills of 
greater goals and  Sets examples, explains  others’ skills 
peers 
purposes  productively 
Creativity 
www.ncaction.org. Questions and  Makes connections,  Envisages what things  Reflects critically on 
uk/creativity/spot. challenges  sees relationships  might be  ideas and practice 
htm 

Communication 
The Pilot offered several media environments within which the SParkers might develop their
communications skills. There was clear evidence that those
you always get  a feeling that you can  SParkers who engaged in the Pilot all achieved at least Level
apply the skills and experience here to  1. Evidence for higher levels of communication skills were
RL.  just talking to new people too,  it  most apparent where SParkers were contributing to Schome
builds up confidence ... I learn about rl  Park and the wiki and/or the forum, not least because this in
things here too… you can chat in  itself required adapting communication for a range of
simulated environments which is much  settings and audiences. However, it was clear that even with
easier then forums i believe [or  Schome Park SParkers were adapting their communication to
example ] such as the classes ... The  suit the context, for example in moving between informal
avatars kind of give you a face… what i  ‘chat’ to more formal discussion in the Ethics and
mean is avatars kind of give you a sense  Philosophy discussions and/or the meetings about
of you actually speaking to a real 
governance of the island. The SParkers tended to be quite
person.. the avatars are just projections 
individualistic towards the start of the project and often
of a person. 
failed to ‘demonstrate perceptive listening’, for example in
SParker (Interview chatlog) 

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some of the early meetings students ignored other student’s comments. However, there was clear
evidence in a shift towards more collaborative perpectives at the end of the Pilot, particularly
amongst the active participants in the forum discussions.
These SParkers (approx 25% of the SParkers) clearly One thing that I'm really grateful to 
achieved Level 3. A smaller number (just over 10% of the Schome Park for doing is making me 
SParkers), many of whom took an active role in the feel more confident about trying new 
governance discussions, achieved Level 4. These SParkers things, and also about helping others if 
initiated discussions, for example starting new topics in the I know something they don't, through 
forum and helped to moderate the discussions. Organisation communication. Learning certainly 
of activities, such as the Murder Mystery evening and the doesn't have to be a pen and paper ‐ I 
Wedding also provided evidence of their organisers operating much prefer learning through the 
at Communication Level 4. Schome way, because it has much 
more bearing on RL than a load of stuff 
Teamwork  I will have forgotten in a year's time. 
SParker (interview chatlog)
At Level 1 this is described by ‘Projects personal
characteristics’. The Pilot created a situation in which the
young people were anonymous. Staff and peers did not know the real names, ages or background
details of the SParkers. However, very quickly SParkers began to play with and create their own
Schome Park personal characteristics. The most obvious demonstration of this was through the
appearances and actions of their avatars. All of the SParkers who entered Schome Park edited
their avatar’s appearance. Commenting on and receiving comments on avatars’ appearance was a
frequent occurrence in early Schome Park interactions. Within the forum Sparkers chose identity
images and sayings to accompany and frame their contributions.
For Level 2 and above the descriptors are focussing on the nature of social interactions. A
comparison of the language used in Schome Park by the
SParkers with an adult reference language corpus provided I think that without the help of some of 
strong indications of positive relationship building and my schomies  i could not have built 
collaborative activities. There were significant differences in some of the buldings. i have also had 
the frequency of use of the following words by the SParkers quite alot of help  from people around 
compared with the adult reference language corpus: the place about  things like joining 
astonishingly high frequencies of 'yes' and a total abscence of groups and also teamwork is ealso 
'no'; 'haha' and 'LOL' were common and indicated shared essential in creating good quality group 
humour; 'help' and 'thanks' were frequently used, indicative of session. 
a situation where assistance was asked for and given; whilst  i mean there was this one time  when 
the governors group was going to 
the prevalence of 'thanks' and 'please' indicated politeness as
shambles but i think it was SparkerA  
well as mutual support.
who brought it back together. then we 
Initially the SParkers tended to work on individual projects. all started giving useful info. a bit 
This gradually changed, with greater emphasis on chaotic at first but nonetheless we 
cooperation and collaboration amongst the more active managed to get somewhrere later. 
members of the community. This involved the negotiation of SParker (Interview chatlog)
roles (Level 3) and there was evidence of some SParkers
taking on different roles within different projects. Tensions and power struggles could be read
into several of the early in-world projects, and some SParkers continued to work essentially
alone or gradually obtaining help from others without explicit roles being noted between them.
The 19 SParkers (13%) who were nominated as coordinators of the seven governance groups
within the community clearly demonstrated their ability to operate at Level 4. They were all
actively involved in problem solving as evidenced by the governance discussions within the
forum. The posts in the forum also provide ample evidence of members of this group actively
managing relationships.

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 Leadership 
As one might expect, there was considerable overlap between the performance of SParkers on
the Teamwork and Leadership dimensions of the knowledge
I say that each department has a co‐ age skills framework. As the SParkers started to move from
ordinator (as opposed to a leader  individual to group projects leaders started to emerge. In
which sort of implies supremacy  many cases these individuals initially adopted very
over the other members of the  heirachical and managerial appraoaches, which failed to take
into account the interests and expertise of members of their
group).  
team. With support they started to move towards less ‘leader
Then we have three overall 
centred’ models. Ultimately this was reflected in the form of
governmental co‐ordinators who  organisation that the SParkers decided to adopt for the
don't so much run the place as keep  governance of the island. This involved the formation of
it going smoothly. SP doesn't need a  seven governance groups, each of which had three
Prime Minister, but it needs a  ‘Department Officers’ (DOs), one of whom was identified as
functioning council. Everyone from  the group’s coordinator. The SParkers were very clear that the
all the departments can attend  role of the DOs and the group coordinators was to seek out
governmental meetings, or just  and represent the views of the whole community, whilst
send an emissary along to say what  ensuring that progress was made in making decisions.
the department as a whole thinks.  Whilst many of the SParkers who were more active within the
SParker (forum)  Pilot were providing leadership at Level 1, the numbers who
provided clear evidence of working at the higher leadership
levels was much lower. Only one or two SParkers achieved Level 4. The SParker who led the
development of the governance arrangements was clearly operating at Level 4.

Creativity 
Encouraging creative (yet grounded) thinking about schome (the education system for the
information age) is central to the schome community’s activities, as evidenced by the Aspire
Pilot (http://aspire-pilot.open.ac.uk/). The proposed levels in the knowledge age skills framework
were derived from The National Curriculum in Action (http://www.ncaction.org.uk/creativity/spot.htm).
Level 1 is described as ‘questions and challenges’ and within
I'm having a lot of fun doing this ‐ you  this level it is expected that young people will: “ask 'why?'
get to meet new people and become a  'how?' 'what if?'; ask unusual questions; respond to ideas,
new person. I've learnt so much that I  questions, tasks or problems in a surprising way; challenge
didn't know before, it's amazing what a  conventions and their own and others' assumptions” (ncaction
really close community can do. I've  2007).
particularly noticed that no matter 
what the problem, there's always some  There is evidence that Sparkers were often engaged in this
type of creative activity. The frequency analysis of SParkers’
bright SParker that will be able to help. 
I love the way we are now being  in-world communications provided indications of an
creative in more than one way.  atmosphere of interrogation and enquiry; as evidenced by the
SParker (wiki)  high frequecy words such as 'how' and 'what’.
One of the strengths of the Pilot appeared to be the ethos that
was created within the community, which encouraged the asking of questions, challenging
assumptions and making mistakes. The SParkers explicitly commented on the difference
between the ethos within the schome community and in their own schools. They noted that
within the Pilot they were treated as equals, irrespective of age; intelligent discussions were
valued; and trying out ideas was encouraged.
Level 2 is concerned with making connections between events and information, which might not
commonly be made and to communicate their ideas in novel or unexpected ways. One area
where this idea of connections and reinterpretation is evident has been in Forum Games. These

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text based games, used by a minority of the SParkers, often demonstrate a playful way of
reframing the use of language and ideas.
A considerable strength of the pilot has been the space that it affords for Creativity at Level 3.
Forum discussion allows user to share and discuss alternative visions of education. Those
SParkers who used the forum discussed how the Schome Park environment might be different in
physical sense, how the rules of
the environment could be
changed and how the social
structures, such as governance of
the island, could be improved.
Schome Park gives young people
not only the opportunity for
discussion of such ideas but the
possibility of implementing them
in-world.
Based on the sample of SParkers
using the discussion forums the
achievement of critical reflection
on ideas and practice was
relatively rare within the Pilot.
There are examples of staff
using the forum to support  
SParkers in challenging their Looks like [SParker A] is practicing building tornados in Schome Park ‐ 
assumptions, for example about hold on to your hats everyone! So far it just looks pretty, and moves 
how the island should be really well with a script provided by [SParker B] ... but will our weather 
designed and considering the wizards cause havoc as they work out how to pick up people?! Yet 
function of buildings and doors more mad science being tested in the ever‐active Physics area ... 
in a virtual world meeting space. Extract from the wiki
These interventions did appear to
change the ways in which some of the Sparkers perceived these issues. One or two of the
SParkers subsequently adopted similar approaches to challenging their peers’ thinking within the
forums, thus demonstrating their ability to operate at Level 4.
In terms of making new and novel creations an examination of the wiki shows a range of original
designs and structures from SchomePark (i.e a move away from pre-built design) and a variety in
avatar appearances. However, overall, the designs and practices tend to reflect the SchomePark
culture as modelled on the SParkers arrival (e.g. human avatars and conventionally recognisable
buildings and activity spaces - albeit often transposed several hundred metres into the air or
under the sea). Whilst the environment can support novel use of space and appearance this has
not happened to a significant degree.
In order to develop Level 4 creativity the SParkers are being encouraged to reconceptualise
Schome Park. Schome Park II (SPii or spee as the SParkers are calling it) will be rebuilt from the
ground up. The island was closed temporarily to allow the old island to be cleared and the land to
be reshaped. During this time the SParkers have been engaging in focussed discussions using the
forum and wiki, and with support from the staff team, about what SPii should be like. They have
been encouraged to go back to first principles – focussing on what worked well within the Pilot
and what did not work so well. In thinking about the design of the island they are asking
questions about the nature of the community that SPii should be, what activities and social
process need to be supported and thus what the physical environment should be like. They are
being supported in being critical and reflective and we are confident that this will enable many
more of them to achive higher levels within the creativity dimension of the knowledge age skills
framework.

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 The schome‐NAGTY Teen Second Life Pilot 

What lessons did we learn about using Teen Second Life? 
Plan for startup costs  I think I have made some great friends 
that hopefully I will be able to keep in 
Setting up and using Schome Park was a new experience for the
touch with for a long time. The big 
schome team. It rapidly became clear that Linden Labs (who run
thing for me personally, I think, is to 
Second Life) also had little experience of setting up or improve my confidence in social 
supporting a project of this kind or on this scale. Thus there was situations. I'm not the shyest person in 
a substantial learning curve for all involved. This Pilot has the world (in RL), but I don't like public 
helped to identify many pragmatic and pedagogical issues speaking and the meetings, for 
related to the use of Teen Second Life, which should help future example, have been great situations 
projects. It has also helped Linden Labs to improvement their where I've done things that I certainly 
procedures and policies in relation to Teen Second Life. would not do in RL. And yes, it has 
However, it should be anticipated that anyone setting up a improved my confidence already; I may 
similar project in the future will still have to invest a substantial not be willing to host a meeting in RL, 
amount of resource in initial set up costs and overcoming the but I'm happier to give my point of 
learning curve that one experiences with the introduction of any view and to convince people about it. 
new technology into education. SParker (wiki)
Establish effective channels of communication 
It is vital to have effective means of communicating with participants in a project such as this
Pilot. We had assumed that asking SParkers to provide us with an email address that we could
use to communicate with them would be sufficient. However, it soon became clear that some
students were not recieving our emails. This appeared to be because their email service was
treating our messages as Junk and either removing them to a Junk folder or simply deleting them
entirely. In addition many of the SParkers did not engage with the wiki and/or forum. This meant
that we were effectively unable to communicate with them in a timely (or cost effective) manner.

Be prepared for access issues  Problem solving is something else that I 
Second Life requires a high spec computer with a broadband think has been quite a good experience 
internet connection. Many universities and suppliers of for me ‐ if there is an in‐world problem, 
broadband to schools have firewalls in place which are whether it's to do with a build, a 
configured to block Second Life. We found that some LAs were 'bought' object or a personal problem, 
not willing to adjust their firewall settings, effectively blocking being able to sort them out is a good 
students in their schools from taking part in the Pilot. skill, and thinking outside the box as to 
how to go around doing that. 
Second Life is very demanding on bandwidth and both staff and SParker (forum)
students experienced difficulties as a result. For example,
project staff from the National Physics Laboratory were unable
to access Schome Park during the lunchtimes due to the amount of traffic on their network until
they installed a dedicated ADSL connection for the Pilot.
The Second Life environment is closed by Linden Labs for both scheduled and unscheduled
maintenance and technical issues. This occurs approximately once a week and little or no notice
may be provided. This led to scheduled in-world sessions being cancelled or postponed at short
notice.
The Second Life web client software is updated every few weeks. Users are required to
download and install the new version before they can continue to participate. The new
downloads are large (over 25Mb). An administrator's password is required to install new
software on many computers, which may prevent students from being able to access Second Life
for some time. Over the duration of the pilot there have been at least four new versions of the
client, each of which produced log-in problems for one or more students or staff. Some of the

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changes to the client require higher machine specs to run – so This project is very liberating. You can 
for example, one member of staff found that his laptop was speak to other people without the 
no longer supported following one of the client updates. hang‐ups of real life, like appearance. 
You can be the real you without the 
Think carefully about your community’s ethos  judgement that is considered normal in 
Second Life has been designed to support a virtual economy the real world and can pursue your 
and to generate revenue for Linden Labs. There is an in- interests with the help and support of 
world currency (the Linden dollar or L$) and one can buy and other ‘like minded individuals’. 
sell L$s for US dollars. Some key actions within Second Life SParker (wiki)
require you to pay L$. For example to load an image into
Schome Park, which is essential if one wants to create posters or build anything other than the
most basic objects, one has to pay L$10 per image.
We were keen to develop a collaborative and supportive community on Schome Park and felt
that a commercial influence would undermine this. We were also concerned about the prospect
of SParkers using their parents’ credit cards to buy L$s. We decided therefore to allocate in-
world money to students and accept this as a cost of the Pilot.

Think carefully about what information about participants you will share 
We made an active decision that neither staff nor students within the Pilot would know anything
about each other prior to meeting in-world. This meant that participants in the Pilot were treated
according to how they presented themselves rather than any pre-conceptions that people might
have had about them. This helped in developing an ethos in which SParkers felt was non-
judgemental and where they felt safe and that they were all equal.

Put adequate support mechanisms are in place (for students and staff) 
In-world support for the SParkers was critical. We developed a number of mechanisms to
enhance the effectiveness use of staff time. For example:
• we created noticeboards in-world which provided the SParkers with information on sources
of help (on the wiki, forum and in-world).
• we set a network of sensors on Schome Park that provided
us with information about who was on the island once
I think that what Schome is doing 
every minute. This was invaluable in working out when
through breaking down the barriers 
support needed to be provided in-world and about which
between 'teachers' and 'students', 
parts of the island were being underutilised and thus
making it hard to see where one stops 
needed to be rethought. and the other begins, is fantastic, 
• We also provided a ‘panic button’ for emergency use. because when everyone is on a 
This sent a message to a member of staff in-world, or if learning curve together, it brings about 
there were not staff in-world sent an email to all the staff less of a feeling of segregation and a 
so that someone could go in-world straight away. greater feeling of equality, and this 
Supporting the SParkers in-world could be very demanding leads to people trusting more.. 
and complex situations sometimes arose where staff felt the SParker (wiki)
need to get advice from colleagues.

Second Life offers real educational potential, but expect real world problems 
All of the sorts of issues that one might expect to encounter in any real world educational context
were evident within Schome Park. Policies on things such as Acceptable Use and Child
Protection need to be in place (and implemented by all concerned).
However, it is clear, even on the basis of this small scale pilot study, that Teen Second Life does
have educational potential. Clearly further work is needed to explore this more fully.

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 The schome‐NAGTY Teen Second Life Pilot 

The story so far ... 

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