Where does teaching stop and learning start in SL?

Some very useful discussion going on in SLED mailing list about the suitability or otherwise of Second Life for education. I will try and summarize some of the key ideas here to keep a note for future reference. This one from Paul of Language Lab:

"There isn’t one size fits all approach so to what extent this applies to your area is for you to judge. When we built Language lab we were unsure exactly what role the formal classroom would play. However we thought we should include a few and they formed the starting point for our systematic (learning about what is appropriate for our type of) teaching 8 months ago. Here is what happened…

Within about a month of classes meeting twice a week we had exhausted what the virtual classroom could offer:

• tutor led discussion? Tick
• pair and group work before reporting back to whole class? Tick
• presentations using whiteboards? Tick
• break out groups coming back to lead presentations? Tick
• reading, listening comprehension? Tick
• excursions and then back to the classroom? Tick
• video? Tick

Then we said – fine, we’ve done that but aren’t we restricting ourselves unnecessarily? Students said – this is great but why don’t we ‘get out’ more? Since then we have hardly had anyone in a formal classroom. Our classes which are either context specific speaking skills or functional / situational orientated have been in park, art gallery, museum, hotel, wine bar, cafe, nightclub etc etc etc. Usually a combination: start in the cafe (reflective / chat / introduce topic) and move to the clinic or the hotel depending on the class aim.

A classroom is only a convention for a RL gathering place. It can be deconstructed into a collection of functions and the teacher can carry around a projector (yes, they have their uses of course), chairs, board etc in their virtual pocket to take advantage of where they happen to be if that isn’t already allowed for. Not everyone has the luxury of being able to build whole neighbourhoods with specific functions so use holodecking. The same approach applies though…

For our purposes it has also been our experience that some places are clearly more functional / transactional , some are purely social and some work happily as both. Main thing for us is not to get hung up on absolutes. Rather see what works and doesn’t and take note."

Many thanks to Paul for this useful insight.

Real Hotel Activity Updates in SL

Hotel chains are stepping into the virtual world as a part of their development strategy. Is it for real? Neeti Mehra from Sunverse gives an update on two hotel groups using Second Life.

(caption: relaxing on the piano in the lobby of the PolyU Virtual Hotel)

Demographics of Virtual World users

Kzero Research has a useful blog post about the uniqueness of Second Life..." it’s not just the buildings and landscape. It’s the things that happen around them - commerce, education, meetings, groups, events and the depth of content creation. It’s a living, breathing environment." Read the full post here, and their graphic of the registered users of various virtual worlds users by age group.

Virtuality and reality 'to merge'

Speaking at the Games Development Conference in San Francisco, leading inventor Ray Kurzweil predicted that the virtual and real worlds will merge and that 'virtual' is a misnomer.

"In virtual worlds we do real romance, real learning, real business. Virtual reality is real reality." he said. "Games are the cutting edge of what is happening - we are going to spend more of our time in virtual reality environments."

"Fully emergent games is really where we want to go. We will do most of our learning through these massively parallel interactions. Play is how we principally learn and principally create."

Do you agree? Read the BBC's summary of his talk here.

UNLV and PolyU meet up in SL

Yesterday I met up with colleagues who teleported in from the US and Canada to exchange ideas on what we are all doing in the world of Second Life. It was great to have Patti Shock and Mauri Collins from University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), Dan Parks (creator of MeCo Mansion and Virtualis Convention Centre) from Vancouver and Gloria Nelson (Gloria Nelson Event Design) from Wisconsin, visit us in Hong Kong.

They arrived at our virtual PolyU campus at 8 am (HK time) and around 4 pm (US Pacific time) for a tour, and then flew to our new ‘resort hotels’ on the island next door.

We then flew over to tour Dan’s remarkable and beautifully designed MeCo Mansion. Dan has created both an innovative setting with a range of communication and technology tools to use in Second Life. Later he showed us around the Virtualis Convention and Learning Centre, the largest public convention center in Second Life with state-of-the art virtual facilities with educational breakout rooms, a grand ballroom, exhibition hall and the Eisenstodt Learning and Community Matters Center.

Dan has kindly offered to let educational institutions use the Centre for training and educating students in the meetings, events and hospitality fields at no charge. We finished our tour by swimming in the pool on Gloria's yacht Victoria and watching the pyrotechnics from the cockpit of the yacht.

During the visit some of my colleagues came into the office to see what was going on, and found they knew each other from previous real world meetings in the US and elsewhere. We were able to link up with Karin Weber and David Jones from Hong Kong PolyU, Dan Hawkins (Washington State Uni) and other PolyU colleagues who wandered in during the 3 hours of discussion, chat and exploration. All in all, a very interesting and informative time spend in the virtual world...and now back to work!

See snapshots of the tour and also Patti's blog posting on their visit

Creating Museum Content and Community in Second Life

For educational and museum communities, a social Internet can allow you to stay in touch with community members and casual audiences and design and present content that’s relevant for and interesting to them in a personal way. Multi-user 3D virtual worlds allow ‘face to face’ interaction between Internet users in spaces that are representational, abstract, or completely imaginary.
Visitors are not just bringing usernames; they’re residents who can express an identity and demonstrate their interest in your museum’s ideas, creations, and challenges. That persistence of identity and level of expressiveness through character design, chat, and gesture allows both museum staff and participants to make important social connections that, for many, are not as easily made or maintained on the 2D Web.

An interesting paper from the Exploratorium by Rothfarb and Doherty on creating content and community in Second Life

Second Life Annotated Bibliography

Second Life Annotated Bibliography

An evolving bibliography with a range of the more interesting, relevant, and popular sites about education in Second Life.

MUVE Forward: Real Life Education in Second Life by Topher Zwiers: Investigating the Learning Power of Second Life

This is a very timely article by Topher Zweiers on how Second Life educational development is progressing from the design of infrastructure and artifacts into the educational uses of virtual worlds for learning.He says, "What are some ways in which the effort required [to use Second Life for a learning activity] and benefits received [by learners] could be measured?"
MUVE Forward: Real Life Education in Second Life by Topher Zwiers: Investigating the Learning Power of Second Life: "Learning Power = Attention * Depth * Efficiency"

Another useful insight from the Sloan-C group workshop says, "If 'technology toys become our tools,' time will enable us to distinguish between wishful thinking and a genuinely useful solution. The true measure will not be how many colleges, universities, groups, wikis, blogs, listservs, and islands are dedicated to SL and virtual worlds in general, but the adoption and application of learning using this medium over a sustained period of time"

20 Trends Defining Virtual Worlds

This article deals with trends defining virtual worlds in 2007, much seems still relevant for 2008. Here are the key trends:

1. Shedloads of virtual worlds will be launched in 2008.
2. Teen-focused virtual worlds are huge.
3. Brands still get it wrong.
4. There's a problem with communication.
5. There will be big growth in corporate use of virtual worlds.
6. Virtual items will be a big moneyspinner.
7. Mobile is a bit of a wildcard.
8. Governments are waking up to virtual worlds.
9. Is it an online game or a virtual world, or both?
10. China is getting into virtual worlds.
11. Interoperability is important.
12. Advertising is another wild card.
13. Virtual worlds need to become easier to use.
14. Media streaming is more common, but strangely low-profile.
15. Social networking convergence.
16. Which brands should set up their own virtual worlds?
17. Different approaches to graphical realism.
18. Booze and fags.
19. Is Second Life going to stay a niche?
20. Nobody talks about sex.

Read the full article here.

Cruising in Second Life

Thought you might be interested in the virtual cruise ship (for field trips) now available. Maybe we can offer field trips for the classes? See news item below.

The SS Galaxy is a luxury ocean liner that is probably the single largest build ever to land within the realm of Second Life. Spanning three entire sims it is the creation of builder Bill Stirling.

Stirling had the idea for the ship build almost two years ago but didn’t get the chance to build it until he was contacted by Galaxy’s owner Nova Straffe. Beginning in February of this year,

Stirling has been working constantly on the ship, he said. “I really wanted to build something different for Second Life,”Stirling said. It looks as though he has accomplished his goal, for nowhere in SL is there a fully functional cruise ship of such massive proportions. It is in real life terms 1950 feet in overall length, making it 818 ft longer than the Queen Mary2.

Adorned in the style of the romantic cruise ships of the past, it is more of a floating palace than a ship. Hidden among the eight decks are large open spaces and cozy nooks. State rooms and suites are available for rent by the week or the month.

Over forty shops line the lower deck with designers from all over SL selling their wares and restaurants that make the stay on the ship inviting. The Japanese restaurant is more like a little quaint village than an eatery. An indoor pool with a sauna/steam room and a full-service work-out room complete with treadmills and tanning beds await the weary SL traveler. The luxury liner boasts a classic onboard casino.

The Zodiac Ballroom is a massive mid-ship area, which will host live jazz and dancing events.

Another club on board is the Boiler Room. According to Captain Seaton Skolnick, “The Boiler Room has that rustic Russian industrial look.”

Outside there is a pool deck where many events are also planned. There will be live streaming video during certain events sent to all three sims. A running track spans the upper deck’s perimeter.

Second Life residents can also "tie the knot" in the deluxe wedding chapel. The Galaxy’s chapel has high ceilings and rows of ornate columns. Adjacent to the chapel sits the Reception Garden , decorated with an array of plants and a fountain. Next to that is the Reception Hall where guests can congregate and chat about the ceremony. Honeymoon suites can also be arranged.

“This ship was built to live on and to play on. It is a fully functional cruise ship with everything one could ask for,” Skolnick said.

“The Inaugural cruise is called 'The Cruise to Nowhere' because nothing this large can move in SL,” Stirling joked. “For those hardcore seafaring types there is a joke done with the navigational lights, red, white, red, meaning 'Restricted in the Ability to Maneuver.'”

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Galaxy%20AFT%20/116/45/22/.

Second Life: the new Disney or vaporville?

Is Second Life the future? Or a cul de sac? On balance, there is in Second Life lots to like and lots to loathe. But I believe two things are clear. We now have proof of concept. And as Second Life supplies real opportunities for engagement and sorting, this social world will expand at pace, supplying in the longer term, every kind of cultural innovation and commercial opportunity.

A very interesting analysis of SL from Grant McCracken: Second Life: the new Disney or Vaporville?

Comparing synchronous 2D and 3D learning

Designing a 3D learning event

Very helpful checklist on designing 3D educational events, from Karl Kap

Prior to Class

* Make sure everyone can access the 3D world prior to the actual event...have a "dry run" exercise.(technical specs, fire walls and other requirements need to be addressed for all learners to be engaged during the event.)
* Send plenty of advance notices about when and where to meet.
* Set up a site outside of 3D world for correspondences and messages (like a wiki).
* Make sure learners have an avatar prior to class.
* Encourage learners to explore the 3D world prior to class so they are somewhat oriented to class.

In-World

* Make sure everyone can do basic navigation. Start with an orientation exercise.
* In Second Life (SL), make sure avatars are off of the Orientation Island.
* In SL, provide a SURL to transport students to place for instruction
* Regardless of the instructional exercise/archetype, create a gathering place for learners for pre or post briefings.
* Establish some method to speak (or text) to the entire group.
* In SL, consider whether or not you want to permit flying.

During the Class Activity

* Make instructions are clear (vague instructions are hard to follow, provide them in written format if possible…in SL, use a note card.)
* Provide a time limit for the instructional exercise.
* As the instructor, go group to group to see how the learners are doing and to answer any questions specific to a particular group (if a group exercise).
* If the setting is more classroom-oriented, provide a mechanism for hand raising and for developing an orderly method of call on students.
* Establish rules of behavior in terms of gestures, sounds, building.

After Class

* Conduct a debriefing.
* Make future assignments clear so everyone understands.
* Assign in-world activities outside of class to keep learners involved with 3D world when class is not officially meeting.
* Provide opportunities for after class, informal, peer-to-peer learning and exchange of information.

Educational uses of Second Life

China cafe in Second Life - English language for Chinese speakers

Today, the China Cafe officially opened in the virtual reality environment “Second Life” (www.secondlife.com) on the Info International sim. The purpose of this cafe is to provide English language instruction for Chinese persons. It will also be a forum for Chinese speakers to mingle with native English speakers to practice conversational English. This pagoda-shaped building features a garden with three types of tea, a classroom, a library, a meeting area, and a tai chi meditation rooftop area.