 Hello everyone and welcome to the 1.30pm session in the content and community track. As a reminder to our in-world and web audience, you can view the full conference schedule at conferenceopensimulator.org and tweet your questions or comments to atopensimcc with the hashtag OSCC14. This hour we are happy to introduce a terrific session called the Camelot Project, Language Learning with Machinima in Virtual Worlds. Our speaker today is Michael Thomas, a senior lecturer at the University of Central Lancashire in the UK. His research interests are in e-learning and language education with specific interests in learner collaboration using computer mediated communication. He is the lead and founding editor of two book series, Advances in Digital Language Learning and Teaching and Digital Education and Learning. From all, let's begin the session. Okay, thank you everyone. So I'm going to talk about an EU funded project called the Camelot Project. It started in December 2013 and runs until November 2015 and I'm the coordinator of this project and it has nine European partners and we have around about 12 affiliate partners and now over 30 network partners. I'm going to talk about the motivation for the project. It really derives from the Lisbon key competencies which underline the importance of language learning, online learning and intercultural communication among its key priorities. With ever increasing widening participation in education and the turn towards open access in educational resources, it's important to identify new ways of engaging language learners and learners in general utilizing new pedagogies and new technologies to motivate learners in the pursuit of lifelong education. The motivation of the Camelot Project, which stands for creating machinima to empower live online language teaching and learning, derives from this network of key factors. Moving pictures, sounds, stories are becoming one of the most powerful ways of communicating learning content in the digital age. An increasing number of learners today across all educational sectors use digital video as the favorite means of communication. YouTube for example has become the second most popular online community after Facebook and the second largest search engine after Google. Not only as a tool of self-expression but also as a tool for learning. Camelot derives from the shared interest of the partners, the consortium partners, the network partners in the use of the new generation of cost-effective digital video tools and applications to enhance the student experience in a European Union language learning context. Compared to language learning conversations recorded with traditional technologies, there's a distinct difference in the case of recording in virtual worlds such as Second Life. In the latter, learners can join online environments and navigate to the virtual site where the videos were shot and reenact the conversations with avatars at hand. This is independent of the location where the learners connect. This is why the process can be referred to as a live video production. So the distinctive foresight of Camelot are evident in four main development areas. So language learning in authentic virtual environments with a task-based approach, so we really focus on task-based language learning which derives from an experiential school of learning. We focus on real-time animation, video production, we engage in field testing the machinima across four educational sectors, that is the school sector, the higher education sector, adult education and vocational education, and we produce a teacher training course and we pilot test the teacher training course as well. So machinima can record authentic conversations in situated learning contexts and it derives from digital storytelling and a lot of research that's taking place in that field. So digital storytelling and emoting, that's a way of expressing action in the third person singular, often using role-play, these are important new skills that learners and teachers acquire in the process of actually creating machinima. So the technical challenges of producing real-time animated videos in three-dimensional environments are manifold. Traditional film production techniques include recording, camera control, editing, storyboarding, costume design, designing settings and drafting scripts. So prerequisite is familiarization with the 3D environment and it's inherent technical challenges of navigating avatar movements, etc. So after editing, machinima are uploaded to video sharing sites such as YouTube's or video for example. Interestingly such ubiquitous sites help exploit the creative content because these videos can then be played even on mobile devices by interested learners. So in Camelot the field test phase will involve a number of data partners in various educational sectors with the goal of determining the best use of machinima. It needs and challenges that we face in the Camelot project. So while digital video presents learners and educators with numerous educational opportunities, Camelot is also aware of the technological and pedagogical challenges, especially in terms of presenting the structured and meaningful use of ICTs. So Camelot takes up the challenge of video as a new language of learning and proposes to train and equip language educations in particular to produce authentic target language conversations in a visually appealing way that is motivating and highly engaging. So Camelot uses machinima to create cinematic productions. The technology produces 3D computer graphics in real time and is already used in video games and virtual worlds. In these digital environments the avatars take the roles of actors and the stage is provided by computer generated imagery. The camera used to record the interaction of the characters is screen recording software making these productions highly cost effective. The finished videos which are often highly sophisticated narratives based on intricate tasks planning by the learners can be disseminated to learners and teachers as video podcasts. So this is a more appealing genre than audio only resources. So the aim of Camelot then is not simply to provide visually appealing authentic conversations in the target language that teachers can readily use but to provide the know-how both technological and pedagogical for teachers to create and adapt their own machinima to their own particular teaching environment. So by providing example materials as indicators of the potential for language learning and training guidelines both concerning the technical practicalities necessary to create machinima and how to use them the Camelot project will provide a range of educational benefits. It is fit for purpose because teachers can create learning environments for their own students. It focuses on learner autonomy for students learn and practice at their own pace. It focuses on empowering learners because learners can try a new language without feeling self-conscious within a three-dimensional virtual environment which is quite anonymous in many respects. It focuses on collaborative learning because teachers and students can jointly create these environments and jointly create machinima and it's low cost and yet high quality video productions that we actually produce at the end of the process. So by addressing these five areas Camelot combines cutting-edge technology with an innovative task-based language teaching approach. So Avalon in many respects Camelot actually builds on a previous project called Avalon which took place in 2009 and 2010 and Avalon had outcomes in four main areas. It provides scenarios designed to encourage communication and toolkit to enable learners to make best use of materials within three-dimensional virtual worlds. It provided a training course and a school where the course could be taken. In the technical area it provided a 2D and 3D platform which was able to host a community of participants who could either learn languages or engage and teach education. And finally it made available a series of reports, presentations, a blog, web page and various other dissemination activities, creating a community for language educators. So Camelot in many ways builds on the Avalon project and it does this in four main ways. It provides structured and creative opportunities for learners and teachers to use immersive worlds. It extends the pedagogical potential of immersive environments by allowing learners to create videos in the target language and then experience authentic cultural artifacts. For example by creating and recording a dialogue in French, by actually visiting Paris within a virtual environment. Number three it promotes the know-how of live video production to a community of educators and finally it attempts to cascade teacher autonomy by powering them with the relevant pedagogical and technological know-how. So the use of immersive digital games and virtual environments has led to an increasing amount of research in the field of education over the last five or six years. Developing from this potential educators are now considering how the use of recording video production that is Machinima can be used to stimulate task-based learning. How it can be used to stimulate learner motivation and engagement in authentic contexts. So Camelot deals with the use of Machinima that is recorded videos made in the virtual environment such as Second Life or a digital gaming environment specifically related to the under-researched area of language learning. So Machinima is a Portmanteau word that combines cinema and machine refers to filming actions, role plays and dialogues between 3D virtual characters. So learners and instructors engage in a wide variety of creative preparation and planning tasks such as rehearsing, scripting and storyboarding. Users can then edit and refilm where appropriate to construct a complex and sophisticated video narrative that is potentially of immense value in many ways in a variety of fields that equips the users with a variety of technical digital literacy skills as well as presenting opportunities for language practice in the target language. An impressive array of Machinima resources have already been developed. For example there's the SL Shakespeare Company which provides an excellent example of the power and creativity of Machinima. You also have an impressive and extensive array of Machinima in digital gaming contexts of course. So these examples demonstrate that users can quickly learn the skills required to make complex and powerful Machinima. The technology is accessible and educators do not require complex programming skills. What's important however is that in order to exploit the potential of Machinima, language educators require a structured relationship with technology and to understand the pedagogical potential. So the Camelot project specifically addresses this gap in existing research. So a number of Machinima techniques have been identified and Camelot explores these specifically in the context of language education. These include puppetry that is game characters are manipulated to perform actions according to a screenplay which is recorded in real time for later editing. You have recamming builds on the puppet approach and combines it with recording or re-recording. Additional characters might be added, lights changed or cameras moved for example. And you also have scripting which involves programming the game's characters to perform in a particular and specific way as well as of course simple recording of what actually appears on the screen. So the value of Machinima is in building connections between people who feel strong affiliation with digital worlds and those who are new to them as well. That's a key point. So the appeal of Machinima is the range of skills that can be learned as well as the rich variety of ideas that can be explored. So Camelot also obviously has the ambition of trying to get people into three-dimensional virtual environments in order to experience this potential. So creating authenticity in the language classroom has long been a challenge. Obviously it's directly related to the communicative language teaching approach and the task-based language teaching approach as well. But with Machinima learners and instructors can design backgrounds, environments, film sets and locations as well as the costumes that are required to make roleplays realistic. And this gives learners opportunities to explore the languages that sorry the languages they are learning in a real world context. So utilizing technical skills, learners can occupy a range of roles from sound engineer to actor and set designer. So we move in many respects from a task-based approach into a project-based approach as well. Learners have been assigned different tasks within the project from like we said from director to sound engineer to editor to people who write the script to actors for example. So everybody's engaged in this collaborative authentic experiential engagement with the target language. In terms of aims and objectives then Camelot has a series of aims and objectives which we can identify. So aims to create and test Machinima but are designed to promote language learning, intercultural exchange as well as digital literacy skills. So it's not just focusing on target grammatical structures but trying to inculcate a range of other skills. Trying to develop learners' socialization intercultural skills and technical skills. So Camelot stores the Machinima in open access repositories. That's a big commitment that we have to sharing the resources that we make to enable language learners instructors and teacher trainers to use to reuse and to share these digital films during the life cycle of the project. So we aim to make this a sustainable project as well. So along with the language-related Machinima there will be guidelines about how to create them in immersive environments. Camelot creates an online community of practice around Machinima promoting their benefits among a broad cross-section of educational sectors and disseminates good practice via a wide range of academics and practitioners. Camelot intends to impact national policies in the area of language learning in relation to intercultural communication, digital literacy skills, raising awareness of creative and flexible forms of learning, and the potential of immersive virtual environments to promote tele-collaboration and networking between educators across the European Union in the first instance. The video recordings aim to promote intercultural communication opportunities for learners from different cultures to co-produce digital artifacts that can be shared and reused. It attempts to stimulate rich and meaningful intercultural exchanges among language learners and this is one of the key consequences of the project. It aims to explore the role of visual communication techniques, to support language conversation in relation to new digital environments that younger learners in particular utilise to great effect outside traditional learning environments. So rather than merely focusing on the gaming experience within 3D environments, Camelot examines how they support genuine opportunities for structured communication and deep learning by allowing learners to visit the in-world environments they are actually discussing. So Camelot contributes to changing the previous field of operation by demonstrating how Machinima can lead to genuine communication acts that take place at a distance. Exploring the creative potential of immersive worlds offers learners an effective experience beyond the classroom, linking it to the real world and providing a social network which is engaging for learners. So Machinima tries to empower language teachers to record conversations in a variety of languages and Camelot foregrounds the importance of stimulating language learning in less commonly used European languages. Although e-learning is more accessible than for previous generations of instructors, it remains nevertheless far too marginal within educational institutions across the European Union. So Camelot empowers language teachers to see the benefits of e-learning and promotes cost effective and creative ways to engage in multimedia learning material design and creation. So while Machinima has become popular to pockets of specialists within the immersive worlds environments and that kind of research area, Camelot is concerned with transferring the knowledge into the mainstream showing how it can be used to promote learners' cognitive and analytical skills and immersive language learners in creative approaches in the language learning process. So Camelot also promotes teacher autonomy and professional development, prompting a reconsideration of the role of instructors and how they provide a blended approach that facilitates and guides language learning rather than adopting an overly prescriptive approach. Focusing on the added value of the Camelot project then. So Camelot promotes cooperation among teachers and teacher trainers, policymakers, administrators and learning technologists across the four educational sectors that I previously identified in order to research new ways of utilizing digital videos for language learning. And building on this objective, Camelot produces guides in multiple languages to facilitate the creative and creative use and reuse of digital video production, in particular in relation to Machinima and digital video creation. So Camelot adds value to the European language learning context so its foundational commitment to advancing open educational resources, open courseware and creative commons licensing. This commitment to transparency in core production will be reflected in many of our dissemination activities. We currently have a webinar series which has just started. The next webinar will be with Randall Sadler from the University of Illinois. For example, he'll be talking about a Machinima project that he's undertaken with young learners. So we have a wide variety of dissemination activities that you can take a look at if you go to our website. You can also, of course, become a network partner of the Camelot project if you're interested in collaborating with us and extending our knowledge and teacher training materials and resources outside of the European Union and around the world. So one of the strongest aspects of Camelot then is its live appeal. So language learning is not an add-on to the curriculum. It should lie at the very heart of the curriculum across all four sectors that I've identified. So Camelot uses immersive online environments to enable live communication between learners from different member states in the EU, promoting opportunities for learners to interact and speak to one another. So it has a strong emphasis on telecollaboration. Now, so these are mainly the key points. In terms of the expected impact of the project, so the impact of Camelot is targeted at a number of areas like we've seen focusing, in particular on the European language learning community, but like I said, we hope to transfer this knowledge more widely throughout the course of the project as well as after the project when we enter the exploitation phase and we cover, like I say, all those four areas. We cover the Erasmus program, the Comenius sector, Grundwig and Leonardo da Vinci, if you're familiar with these particular sectors in the European Union, lifelong learning program. So assuring the impact of the project and measurable outcomes is a top priority of the project. The synergies between practical language learning skills, digital literacy skills, learner creativity, collaboration and innovative pedagogy through the use of creative commons licensing and open educational resources, these make Camelot a very distinctive networking community. We have a strong commitment to open resources in particular, as well as an online social networking community. And this attempts to situate the project at the cutting edge of innovation that helps us to bring the project closer to communities of language learners and language educators. So we aim to make Camelot an inclusive project. It's committed to dialogue, to intercultural communication and linguistic diversity. It uses web 2 and social media technologies, virtual online environments and open educational resources and promotes interactive and collaborative task based pedagogies. This inclusive approach utilizing innovative ICTs will continue after the lifecycle of the project. We've developed a project website that you can take a look at. We have multiple social media channels, for example, syndicated content. We have a dedicated YouTube channel as well. We've developed an online social networking community for teachers and learners. And we participate in other relevant online social networks as well. We attend and present at many European conferences. And we engage in monthly activities as well as disseminating our newsletter and webinar series. So that is an overview of the main aspects of the Camelot project. And like I say, we are now into, well coming up to the end of year one, we've engaged in creating Machinima in a variety of languages in Czech, in English, in Polish and in German. And we are now moving ahead into the field testing phase. We are looking for field testing partners. If anybody out there is interested in field testing Machinima and joining with us in order to create suitable and appropriate lesson plans, we'd be very grateful to hear from you. So the field testing phase is in operation now and runs until January, February time. From December, we start to create our online language teacher training course to help educate language teachers to make and produce their own Machinima. And we already have a, in MOOC, we've called it a Machinima open online course or MOOC actually Machinima open online training course. And we run this in two modes autonomously so you can study at your own pace. And you can learn all the different techniques concerned with producing Machinima from storyboarding all the way through to actual video production. So it runs as an autonomous MOOC if you like, a massive open online training course. And it also runs as a facilitated course as well. And the next course that will be facilitated will be in January. And you can sign up for this on our website if you wish. And the training course starts in December and continues into year two of the project. And we will continue throughout year two to create Machinima in a variety of different environments in second life. Also exploring, of course, using open sim. And in particular, we like to focus on the use of Minecraft as well in relation to young learners. We think that is one of the areas where this potentially has, that potentially has something that can be used and be taken forward in the school sector in a variety of languages. So I think I've given you an overview of the Camelot Project. If you have any questions, I'd be glad to take them. If you're interested in being one of our network partners, please take a look at our website. If you Google Camelot Project EU, you will find a website and you can sign up there for our massive open online training course as well as become a network project partner if you wish. So if you have any questions, please let me know. Be happy to take any questions. There's a couple of questions in the chat. Yeah, I'm just trying to read them there. How much time do students spend on learning? What we're trying to do is to define this whole area of Machinima production and obviously it's a kind of continuum. At one end of the scale, you have high production. If you like, it takes a long time. People want to invest a lot of time in creating really detailed, sophisticated Machinima and obviously that can be quite time-intensive. In many respects that presents barriers to educators, I think, and particularly to students. But at the other end of the scale, what we really want to emphasize is that anybody can make Machinima and do it very quickly by going in world. This could be a team project, taking it through from the storyboarding phase. In a language learning context, they can do that quite quickly. In order to use screen recording software, I think it's something that learners can pick up very, very quickly within a matter of a couple of hours. Basically, it is really a case of focusing on getting learners into the three-dimensional virtual environment, whether that's a digital gaming environment where they may already be, in many respects, and just getting them to actually learn by doing and trying to take away all of the obstacles that prevent them from doing that. It's really focusing on getting them to do it very, very quickly and with minimum challenges from a technical point of view. Obviously, from a school sector point of view, in the UK and in Europe, Second Life presents certain issues in terms of firewalls and things like that. What we really are waiting for in terms of Machinima production is the movement of digital environments into browser settings where you take away many of these restrictions and they have access directly via a 3D browser into an immersive environment. Sorry, I don't know if there have been any other questions there. If you want to take your questions out there, I'll see if I can respond to them. Or maybe you can repeat them for me, Ruby, if I didn't get that. Yeah, I think there's a couple of questions. One of the question is, you will provide a course for teaching students to build a virtual world and make Machinima. How long are these courses? And another one asks about your budget at EU. Well, the course that we have is, like I say, we call it a MOOC or a Moot, but we've replaced, I think, massive with Machinima. Machinima open online training course. So at the moment, we have one segment and it's actually five weeks long and it's aimed specifically at teachers. So that's what we aim to do in the first instance is to provide a teacher training course. And that focuses on the technical aspects of it at the moment. And we hope to develop two further modules at least, which focus on the pedagogy. So we imagine that this teacher training course, which will be offered entirely online for free, will consist of at least three five week blocks of teaching materials aimed at teachers and making them proficient in the first instance. Another one asks, how is Camelot organized and who is doing what? How is it organized? Well, take a look at our website and you can see all the different deliverables in the projects. And you can see all the different work packages that we have and which of the partners actually coordinate the different work packages. So I think if you're really interested in that, have a look at our website and that gives you more information about the consortium and their particular responsibilities in the project. Yeah. Any other questions? Another one says, you were talking about future development and open cinema. I'm actually working in an open sim environment run by the Italian department of education. So might I use it after following the moot course? Moot, of course. Yeah, of course. Definitely. Yeah, we aim to produce, you know, guidelines, as it were, that could be transferred across a range of immersive digital environments. We don't want to overly focus on second life, for example. We certainly would like to develop a lot more materials in open sim. And if you're doing that already, I think that would be great if you could get in touch with us and we certainly like to collaborate on that. I think, like I said, I identified these different sectors that we focus on adult education, university education, school education or vocational education. I think there are challenges in all of these areas in relation to using machinima in in a language learning context or using machinima in an educational context. One of the areas I find that has the biggest potential is the school sector. And through, for example, Minecraft, I think that is something where we would like to investigate a lot more. But yeah, definitely, if there are people out there working in Italian, we would certainly be very interested in working with you, maybe as a data partner, as a network partner, and looking at what you're doing in open sim and seeing if we can develop some synergies there. Someone else asked about the budget. I don't know if you have a specific question you have on that. The project itself is worth €489,000, so nearly half a million euros in total. Any other questions? Is there anything you'd like to close with, Michael? Well, like I said, Camelot project is ongoing. We're nearly up to the one-year mark at the moment. We're entering the most exciting phase, if you like, of field testing. And like I say, if you're really interested in this particular project, please get in touch with us. Have a look at our website, camelotproject.eu, and we'd be happy to collaborate with you. And maybe we can report back next year, and we can report some of the findings that we have based on our data. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you, Michael, for a terrific presentation. As a reminder to our audience, you can see what's coming up on the conference schedule at conference.opensimulator.org. In this room, the next session will be the new association for grid owners with Mark Wiseman and Terry Ford at 2.30 p.m. Thank you again to our speaker and the audience. We'll be back shortly with the next session.