learning - Academic Conferences Limited

Rose Heaney and Megan Anne Arroll
A published example (Walker, 2009) of a real-time interaction model concerns the use of SL to teach
counselling skills to distance learning students. When assessing students’ and staff’s experiences,
Walker’s findings are mixed; students’ perceptions of the benefits of SL were only reported as slightly
higher than those of more traditional learning environments, whereas the instructor found the
environment very useful and reported that it offered potential in terms of pedagogy. This is at odds
with other studies evaluating online learning environments (OLEs) (Jones and Jones 2005; Palmer
and Holt; 2009), where students’ ratings were higher than staff’s. However this mixed picture of SL is
typical of other such studies and only serves to underline the potential barriers to effective use of this
complex and demanding environment summarised by Warburton (2009) under the headings of
technical, identity, culture, collaboration and time amongst others. The present study aims to focus
exclusively on academic staff’s experiences and perceptions in an attempt to uncover in greater depth
both the barriers and advantages of using SL in a higher education context and thereby hope to
contribute to greater pedagogical efficacy in future.
3. Context of the present study
The University of East London (UEL) has had a presence on SL since early 2009 in the form of two
islands. The school of Psychology is housed on UEL island where it has some large lecture rooms,
break-out rooms and tutorial huts outside as well as space for social interaction and information
boards and notices. The second island UEL HABitat belongs to the school of Health and Bioscience
and hosts a range of simulations and problem based learning resources including a laboratory for
molecular biology experiments, a multi-disciplinary polyclinic with virtual patient scenarios and a crime
scene house for forensic investigations as well as formal and informal meeting spaces. The HAB
activities are designed in the main to be used by students on a self-directed, asynchronous basis with
minimal use to date for synchronous or group learning activities. This contrasts with the use of SL by
the school of Psychology as a virtual conference and teaching space to complement or replace
equivalent activities and resources on the physical campus.
Having commissioned a specialist SL developer to build conferencing and tutorial facilities on UEL
Island, a group of staff in the school of Psychology have been running a range of activities for
students from all levels of the BSc Hons Psychology programme since early 2010. The students on
this programme are all part-time or full-time campus based students i.e. none are distance learners.
This paper focuses on staff experience of running group tutorials in the specially designed huts
outside the main building (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Small tutorial hut on the UEL Island, outside the main Psychology building
Tutorials on this programme are normally offered face to face and in the rare event of offering
anything online, the primary mechanism would be the VLE (Blackboard) discussion forums or
chatrooms. The main drivers for using SL were a perceived need to find alternatives to physical
tutorial spaces which are at a premium on UEL’s compact Stratford campus and to establish the
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