PIVOTE is a virtual learning authoring system for virtual worlds. It was developed as part of the JISC funded PREVIEW project, where it was used to develop training material for Paramedic students at St George's Hospital and Kingston University. Although based on the Medbiquitous Virtual Patient standard the feeling of all involved in the project was that the system could be used for any sort of structured learning in virtual worlds. The result was that JISC have funded the creation of PIVOTE - this open source project.

The key point about PIVOTE is that all the structure and information content of an exercise is stored on the web, not in the virtual world. This means that it is easy to create, and then edit and maintain, courseware INDEPENDENT OF VIRTUAL WORLD. And since even structure and content are separate you can have the same exercise but with different levels of student information - from loads of help and structure for beginners, to minimal information and structure for assessment purposes.

From here you can download all the code you need to use PIVOTE to run your own courses in virtual worlds. From our PIVOTE Information Centre in Second Life you can download a starter set of objects, and the Controller, and you can of course create (and hopefully share) your own. PIVOTE supports users in Second Life (and OpenSim) and on the Web, but it is possible to create controllers for other virtual worlds - why not do it yourself or add it to our wish-list (see Issues).


Learning About PIVOTE

We've already created a variety of resources to help you get to grips with PIVOTE:

 

Whilst developed initially for training medical professionals in Higher Education, we believe that PIVOTE could become a valuable too for anyone delivering training or education in any topic in any virtual world, as well as on the web and to mobile phones.

Go on, get involved.


Getting Started with PIVOTE

There are two ways to get started with PIVOTE:

  • Visit our Google Code site and download the server code and install it yourself
  • Sign up with one of the organisations offering PIVOTE hosting. PIVOTE developer Daden are offering a free trial service, as well as longer term commercial hosting.

Whichever route you take you'll also need to pick up the SL  Controller to use PIVOTE in Second Life, either at St George's sim or at the Daden Prime sim - SLURLs to the left. These sites also have a variety of SL objects ready to use with PIVOTE.

For support in your use of  PIVOTE the best bet is other users - meet them and share information through our PIVOTE Google Group. We are working on a Wiki as well.

 

Contact Us

If you want to contact us then:

  • Email us at info@pivote.info
  • IM us in Second Life as Pivote Engineer
  • Contact Daden on +44 (0)121 698 8520 or email info@daden.co.uk
  • Contact St George's at lwoodham@sgul.ac.uk or skavia@sgul.ac.uk.