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The Inter-Life Project: Intercultural Spaces for Young People to Use Creative Practices and Research to Assist with Life Changes and Transition

This paper is part of a special issue of Research in Comparative and International Education (edited by Professor David Phillips of the University of Oxford) - Volume 7 Number 4 2012: Researching Transitions in Learning and Education: international perspectives on complex challenges and imaginative solutions (Guest Editors: Vic Lally & Lesley Doyle) http://www.wwwords.co.uk/rcie/content/pdfs/7/issue7_4.asp. The paper reports findings of the interdisciplinary ‘Inter-Life’ Project (ESRC/EPSRC 2008-11, RES-139-25-0402). The aim of the 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 used multi-method analyses of virtual environments and Activity Theory to provide an analytical lens combining creative practices from Art and Design with informal learning. 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 paper analyses how creative practices (photography, digital storytelling and filmmaking) can enable young people to access and develop new personal and shared narratives on 'Interlife Island': an embryonic virtual social research laboratory (https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=21xtQRxwTgg). The paper focused on how participants act in Inter-Life, while engaged in co-designed creative and research activities and how their acquired skills and understandings map onto their real-world experience. The paper concludes by assessing the potential of augmented 3D digital technologies to assist young people in the social and emotional challenges of transition in their lives. It considers the potential of 3D environments to support student transitions in higher education and provides the most complete inter-disciplinary perspective yet of the potential of virtual worlds in educational domains.