1. It’s Learning Jim but not as we know it (or is it ?)
Panellists and audience at Virtual Worlds at Work Sleminar
Many years ago (long before the desktop computer and in the age of punched card
input) I joined the Post Office (gives you a clue as to how long ago that was) before it
became British Telecom. I was a Student Apprentice with a Post Office scholarship to
study electronic and electrical engineering at Birmingham University as part of a thick
sandwich course. In the pre-University year we used to go for training at Horwood
House - out in the country near Little Horwood, which I suspect is now in the middle
of Milton Keynes.
My greatest claim to fame during these often tedious weeks was that I responded to a
tabloid article breaking the news that Harry Corbett’s “Sooty” contract with the BBC
was not being renewed. Prompted by a mixture of boredom and mischievousness I
wrote an irate letter to “Points of View” suggesting that my colleagues and I were
being groomed for senior positions in the Post Office and that when one of us became
Postmaster General we would revoke the BBC’s licence to broadcast. My pathetic
attempt to disguise the identity of the sender was to get all my course colleagues to
sign in a circle, but I compounded my crime by using the first notepaper I could lay
my hands on – which unfortunately was the college’s official headed notepaper.
The letter was aired on national television and, the next morning, a large red faced
tutor demanded to know the identity of the writer. After an embarrassing pause I
owned up to the crime and after an even longer and more embarrassing pause,
following which he graphically described the flood of calls from Post Office HQ, he
let me off the hook by saying how amusing people thought it was.

2. I mention this anecdote because the tutor had been given the nickname “Or is it?”
because of his habit of asking rhetorical questions all of which seemed to end with the
words “Or is it ?”
This is perhaps a rather contrived segue into the topic of this article – an exploration
of the role of electronic games and virtual worlds like Second Life in Learning. As
Bones might have said to Captain Kirk on the deck of the Starship Enterprise “Its
Learning Jim – but not as we know it” to which I will neatly add the question “or is it
?”
In my role as Director of the Serious Games Institute on Coventry University’s
Technology Park, I often encounter a lot of scepticism about the role of electronic
games and virtual worlds in learning. There is a sense, especially amongst the
business community that it is all a gimmick and alien to true learning activities. My
response these days is to point out that games and virtual worlds have been
fundamental to effective learning since the dawn of time.
Children’s Games by Pieter Breugel (Copyright ?)
The painting by Pieter Breugel shows a whole host of activities where people are
learning about themselves, developing new skills, discovering the world around them,
and measuring their capabilities against their peers. Today, the activities are the same
– it is only the medium that is new. The current generation are in a world where
technology can assist and accelerate these processes to the point where young people
have many skills and capabilities that exceed those tasked with teaching them.

3. Entering the virtual world created by the cave artist
Nor are virtual worlds new to learning activities. Whenever we look at a painting,
read a book, listen to the radio or watch television we enter a virtual world which we
share with the creator of that work. The virtual world is a shared experience which is
shaped by 2 or more people coming together into a space which only exists in our
minds and which is dynamically created by the different experiences and perceptions
of the creator and the beholder. By definition the learning experience is individual,
personal and unique to the learner. In these types of virtual worlds, the learning
experience is asynchronous because the creation and the learning experience are
separated in time.
Today’s virtual worlds of the web conference and Second Life Seminar (SLeminar)
are only different in the sense that they are synchronous and more like traditional
classroom learning in which real time interaction can help shape a more uniform and
homogeneous learning experience.

4. Neurosky uses brainwaves to control the computer
Once the notion becomes commonly accepted that serious games and virtual worlds
are not new concepts in the spectrum of learning, the world may have to brace itself
for a whole host of new devices that could potentially totally transform the way we
use technology to learn.
Devices like the Neurosky monitor brainwave activity to determine levels of
concentration and meditation. With surprisingly little practice and without calibration
of the device, most people can quickly begin to control technology with the power of
thought. When this begins to find its way onto the consumer market on the scale of
the Nintendo Wii, once again we may hear the cry “Its Learning Jim but not as we
know it – or is it ?”
David Wortley
Director
Serious Games Institute
Coventry University
Tel: 07974984351
Email: d.wortley@cad.coventry.ac.uk