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Digital Education team blog

Dramatic Writing Utilising Virtual Worlds

This is a Teaching Fellowship Award project developed by Becky Freeman (Faculty of Arts Learning Technologist), Anthony Caleshu, (Programme Manager for English and Creative Writing, School of Humanities) and Mark Pannell (Learning Technologist).

Since English and Creative Writing as a subject is mostly page-bound, students often have difficulty imagining how to use and indeed write a ‘physical setting’. This project therefore aimed to enable the Dramatic Writing modules to benefit from the most current research into using virtual worlds as an educational tool, to envision the possibilities of putting that character into a public space. The project also aimed to foster team work by asking students to bring characters together, thus creating a dynamic network of collaboration.

In 2009, we ran 2 workshops for students on the Engl233 Dramatic Writing module. Students were asked to set up an account in Second Life and create an ‘avatar’ (a virtual character). They were given the opportunity to clothe and style their avatars as desired. In small groups, students were then asked to ‘explore’ the world of Second Life, visiting places recommended to them as well as finding locations of their own choice, with the aim of using one as a setting in which to stage their plays. They then worked collaboratively to write a small play (3-5 mins duration) to be staged ‘in world’ at their chosen locations.

Some of the plays were filmed using real time video capturing software (Fraps) and later edited using Adobe After Effects.

To view the machinimas made, follow these links:

http://video.plymouth.ac.uk/eresources/lararoseb.wmv
http://video.plymouth.ac.uk/eresources/loveatsecondsightb.wmv
http://video.plymouth.ac.uk/eresources/giraffesb.wmv
http://video.plymouth.ac.uk/eresources/siblingrivalryb.wmv
http://video.plymouth.ac.uk/eresources/vespaharryb.wmv
http://video.plymouth.ac.uk/eresources/wigglesb.wmv
http://video.plymouth.ac.uk/eresources/hybridheroesatseab.wmv

Anthony is still working on additional tasks with the students linked to this project and we also hope to gain some formal feedback from the students on the pros and cons of the workshop. As part of the Teaching Fellowship Award we will also be producing a report detailing our findings including both positive and negative outcomes.

We had a poster displayed at the VC’s Teaching and Learning Conference in July, and in addition, the following video (produced and edited by Jason Truscott, Research and Development Officer, CETL and Faculty of Science & Technology LT) showing the workshops, was included in the rolling presentation at the conference: http://video.plymouth.ac.uk/eresources/Dramatic_Writing_Final.wmv

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