Second Life: Teaching Tips from the Virtual Frontier

Cynthia CalongneColorado Technical UniversityOnline Teaching and Learning Conference, October 7, 2008

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Teaching in a Virtual World

• Virtual world class ingredients– Presence– Place– Content– Discussion

– Interaction– Project Creation– Assessment

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Eric McLuhan in Second Life

SLCN machinima October 27, 2007http://slcn.tv/media-ecology-eric-mcluhan

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Presence

Who are these people?

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Sense of Presence• Appearance

– 1st self or ideal self?

• Movement– SL user interface

– Animation override (AO) custom device

• Communication– Voice, text, gestures

• Group Notices & IMs

• Hair, skin, shape and clothes

• Moving your avatar – Arrow keys or Navigation

Menu

– Poses and animations

• Looking at the class– Camera controls

• Arrows or View menu

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If You Build It, They Will Come

• The interaction between people and content– Explore– Discover– Discuss– Create– Play

A student ignites the professor

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Colorado Tech Island

Classes andlive music festivals onColorado Tech in SL

Student projects are displayedon the Boardwalk and onLyr Lobo’s class islands

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Imaginative Learning Spaces

Bardic storytelling circle in the foreground; fairytale designs

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Instructor and student-designed projects

Creative and innovative environments

Spaces where students can get messy and learn

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Virtual Office Hours

Underwater office - a window with a view!

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How we Teach and Learn in SL• Self image

• Mentor, collaborate

• Social networks

• Class projects

• Roleplay

• Learning games

• Blended reality

• Exploration

• Build

• Create an avatar - you!

• Office hours, facilitation

• Share ideas, hold meetings

• Applied learning

• Immersive learning

• Interactivities

• Real & virtual meetings

• Visit, tour, study

• Create and customize

80% of the world’s Internet users will be in a virtual world by 2011 (Gartner, 2007) -- Are you ready?

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Second Life Classes at CTU

MGM 845 Strategic Thinking

CS 855 Socio-technical Futuring10+ classes taught in

Second Life

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Robotics Projects

Four projects were created during a 3-week class session

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Blended Reality Meetings

Use of games in education

The MacArthur Foundation

answers Lyr Lobo’s question during the Fall

2006 NMC Symposium

in Second Life

Avatars in Second Life interact with the panel

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MBA 770 Class at Wright State

Shu Shiller’s students participate in a collaboration exercise in Second Life

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Getting Ready to Teach and Learn

• Readiness checklist– Avatar -- yourself!

• Appearance

• Communication

– User interface• Motor skills

• Camera controls

– Class content• Activities

– AssessmentLyr Lobo and Dancer in Second Life

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Communicating with studentsin Second Life

Left to right

TeleportGroup Notice

2nd rowVoice Chat (*)Instant MessageURLs embedded

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Shall we dance?

Movement in Second Life

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Learning Times Reception

Dance animation menu displays after clicking the floor; control menus on screen

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Social Networking

A screenshot of the reception in Second Lifefrom a dual monitor system; notice Twitter in the back channel

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Looking at Objects and People

• Camera orientation– Control

– Coordination

– Confidence

– Alt click an object• Your camera locks onto it

– Use the Escape key twice (Esc) to return to your view

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Science Comes to Life

The National Physics Laboratorypresents the advances in

Nanotechnology

Interactive Nano Labs

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Virtual World Learning Spaces

Nanotechnology Lab in Second Life, an asynchronous learning environment

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Middle School Students at Ramapo

Roleplay andconflict in animmersive literature class

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, portrayed by Suffern Middle School students

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Interactivities

Human barometer activityFuturing and Innovation students

take a standCTU students

shop for academic regaliaat the NMC Orientation island

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Bridging Classes Together

A student created amonorail and sent it up 300 meters to thevisit another class.

Not unlike running down the hall to visit a different class

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Virtual Hallucinations

University of Queensboro University of Calif, Davis

Survey Instrument in SLVoices and Perception

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Modeling the Problem

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Crooked House

You never run out of house as it rolls over while you walk

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CS 820 at CTU included novice users who learned to build their class projects

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A self-guided tutorial for building a 20-minute project

32Student projects and class content on display at Acheron LV426

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Students new to SL create class projects and

conduct usability tests in a virtual world

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Conducting usability tests of two accessibility projects

Evaluating Student Work

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Virtual Spaces and Content

• Immersive, interactive, imaginative settings

• Asynchronous and synchronous activities

• 3D graphics, sounds, gestures and interaction

• Immersive literature, immersive history, scientific discovery, contextual settings, applied math, creativity and social networks

• Are you ready to teach in Second Life?

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SL Research Links 1• Second Life

– http://secondlife.com/ http://secondlifegrid.net/

• Cynthia Calongne’s Classes in Second Life– http://ctusoftware.blogspot.com

• Research in Second Life presentation– http://www.slideshare.net/lyrlobo/research-in-second-life

• Artificial Intelligence in SL– http://web.bvu.edu/faculty/schweller/

• TCC Preconference Wiki -- SL from a Flash drive tips– http://tccpre-conference.pbwiki.com/

• Edumuve– http://edumuve.com/tour/ and http://edumuve.com/blended/

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SL Research Links 2• National Public Radio’s Science Friday in SL

– http://www.sciencefriday.com/

• NMC Campus Observer– http://sl.nmc.org/

• NOAA’s Traffic Analysis– http://mayarealities.com/

• Best Practices in SL– http://www.slcn.tv/bpe-lyr-lobo

• Annotated Bibliograophy of SL Educational Resources – http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~mpepper/slbib

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SL Research Links 3• Second Life as a Virtual Learning Environment

– http://www.dokimos.org/secondlife/education/index.html

• An Educational Tour of Second Life– http://www.slideshare.net/lyrlobo/an-educational-tour-of-second-life

• A View from Second Life’s Trenches: Are you a Pioneer or a Settler?– http://sl.nmc.org/2007/06/09/pioneer-or-settler/

• Leveraging the Affordances, Minimizing the Barriers of Virtual Worlds– http://sl.nmc.org/2007/06/09/edu-panel/

• LearnScope in Second Life– http://www.slideshare.net/lyrlobo/learnscope-in-second-life

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SL Research Links 4• Using Second Life

– www.educause.edu/ir/library/powerpoint/SAC07025A.pps

• Beyond Course Management Tools: Second Life – www.educause.edu/ir/library/powerpoint/SAC07014.pps

• Virtual worlds in Online Education: Are You Ready to Teach in Second Life?– http://www.telecoop.org/conference/materials/CalogneTeachinginSecondLife.ppt

• What Can We Learn from World of Warcraft & Second Life?– http://archive.nmc.org/events/2006fallregional/materials/calongne.ppt

• SL Podcast by Bayne, Walker and Calongne– http://connect.educause.edu/blog/gbayne/podcastusingsecondli/44967?time=1188754831

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SL Research Links 5• Who’s on Second? Educational Podcasts

– http://www.rabble.ca/rpn/podcast.php?id=wos

• Second Life Development -- VITAL Lab– http://vital.cs.ohiou.edu/vitalwiki/index.php/Second_Life_Development

• Suffern Middle School in Second Life– http://rampoislands.blogspot.com/2007_02_01_archive.html

• Second Life Library 2.0– http://www.infoisland.org/drupal/ and http://www.myspace.com/73899784

• Second Life Education Wiki– http://www.simteach.com/wiki/index.php?title=Second_Life_Education_Wiki

• LSL Wiki -- programming tools– http://www.lslwiki.net/lslwiki/wakka.php?wakka=HomePage

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SL Research Links 6• Secondary Worlds

– http://secondaryworlds.com/

• Reuters -- Doors to open on Google Virtual world(s)?– http://blogs.reuters.com/mediafile/2007/10/24/doors-to-open-on-google-virtual-

worlds/

• SL and Google Earth are Transforming the Idea of Architectural Collaboration– http://archrecord.construction.com/features/digital/archives/0701dignews-2.asp

• Timeline - History of Second Life Wiki – http://secondlife.wikia.com/index.php/Second_Life_Through_The_Ages

• UberNoggin: Big Brains - Big Ideas– http://www.ubernoggin.com/

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SL Research Links 7 - News• Reuters in Second life

– http://secondlife.reuters.com/

• The SL Newspaper– http://www.sl-newspaper.com/

• Second Life Herald– http://www.secondlifeherald.com/

• Metaverse Messenger– http://metaversemessenger.com/index.html

• SLNN– http://www.slnn.com/index.php

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SL Research Links 8• New Worlds Notes

– http://nwn.blogs.com/

• SL A Virtual Universe for Real Engineering– http://www.designnews.com/index.asp?

layout=article&articleid=CA6490691

• Just Virtual– http://www.justvirtual.com/index.php/category/second-life/

• Seifert Surface - Math in Second Life– http://www.segerman.org/2ndlife.html

• Eric McLuhan in Second Life - Playing Media Ecology– http://slcn.tv/media-ecology-eric-mcluhan

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Second Life: Teaching Tips from the Virtual Frontier

Cynthia CalongneLyr Lobo in Second Life

calongne@pcisys.nethttp://ctusoftware.blogspot.com

www.slideshare.net/lyrlobo

For more information

Copyright Cynthia M. Calongne, 2008.Permission is granted for this material to be shared under a

Creative Commons Attribution - Share Alike 3.0 United States.

Second Life is a trademark of Linden Lab. No infringement is intended.Images of the SL interface are the property of Linden Lab.