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Virtual Voices: Exploring Creative Practices to Support Life Skills Development among Young People Working in a Virtual World Community

The aim of the ESRC/EPSRC funded Inter-Life Project was to investigate the use of virtual worlds and creative practices to support the acquisition of transition skills for young people to enhance their management of important life events. The project was highly innovative in terms of its use of multi-method analyses of virtual environments, as well as in its development of Activity Theory to provide an analytical lens, and the ways in which it combined creative practices from Art and Design with informal learning in Education. Inter-Life http://tel.ioe.ac.uk/inter-life was part of the ESRC/EPSRC Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) Programme, which itself was the final phase of the Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP). Impact details are available at http://www.tel.ac.uk/category/impact The TEL Programme was featured at the Royal Society: http://tel.ioe.ac.uk/2012/11/tel-at-the-royal-society/ and a film of the Programme is also available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FBC496ggF0&feature=c4-overview-vl&list=PL9FB06867C28D5F07 The dialectical relationship between social justice, active participation, and the development of aesthetic sensibilities is re-emerging as a theme among art and design educators as concerns mount for the future of Art and Design education in the curriculum - particularly in the UK, but also internationally. This paper explores the potential of virtual worlds to support the development of young people’s voices using creative practices – photography, film-making and fashion - as the principal means of engaging young people in developing their understanding of active citizenship. The use of creative practices to support a range of wider educational aims in virtual worlds has not yet been investigated and, we contend, is an area of serious research endeavour. Some implications for future research are outlined.