Why teach in Second Life?

 

A  April 24, 2007 press release from Gartner suggests that 80% of Internet users will be on some sort of virtual world in the next few years. "Internet users (and Fortune 500 enterprises) will have a "second life", but not necessarily in Second Life, according to Gartner, Inc….”

(http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=503861 ). 

 

Worlds of Warcraft has over 9 million users as of May 2007. Games capture users attention and keep them engaged.  Can we provide the same sort of environment for education?   More than 200 educational institutions, museums and libraries are exploring Second Life.

 

Nick Yee has done research on games and user behavior.

http://www.nickyee.com/cv.html

 

 

Since much of the educationally-oriented activity on Second Life has gone on within the last year or two at the most, there is not a lot of hard data to pass along to administrators about the value of this particular virtual environment. (Harvard's course CyberOne: Law in the Court of Public Opinion was first offered in 2006 - not the first Second Life course, but one of the first to recieve a lot of media attention.)  In spite of the lack of hard data about Second Life in particular, some educators on the SLED discussion list point out, virtual worlds have been around for 20 years and research has been done on those environments.  Milosun Czverik (SL name) suggests trying ERIC and other education databases to search for research on virtual worlds.  Use terms such as massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), 3D multiuser virtual environment, MUVEs, computer simulation, video games, Active Worlds, Second Life. 

 

• Mark Pepper has an Annotated Bibliography of Second Life Online Educational Resources at

http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~mpepper/slbib  Among other links, Pepper includes:

 

• Ixchel, Anya. (2006).  My Teaching Semester in Second Life: Pitfalls, Challenges and Joys

http://www.slatenight.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=107&Itemid=40

 

• Freitas, Sara de. (2006)  "Learning in Immersive Worlds: A Review of  Game Based Learning." Prepared for the JISC e-learning program.

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/programmes/elearning_innovation/gaming%20report_v3.3.pdf 

 

• Stoerger, Sharon (2007) It's Not Whether You Win or Lose, but How You Play the Game: The Role of Virtual Worlds in Education.

Annotated Bibliography  

http://ella.slis.indiana.edu/~sstoerge/virtualworlds.htm

 

Additional documents: 

 

• Livingstone, Daniel, (Ed.); Kemp, Jeremy, (Ed.) (2006).

Proceedings of the Second Life Education Workshop, Part of the Second Life Community Convention (1st, San Francisco, California, August 18-20, 2006).  "...14 papers from presentations and posters from the Second Life Education Workshop at the Second Life Community Convention, presented at the Fort Mason Centre in San Francisco, California in August 2006." ERIC document:  ED493670.

http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/1b/ef/03.pdf

 

 

• Life Science Informatics Trends Analysis for Community College Program Builders -

Volume 3: Virtual Worlds: http://bellevuecollege.edu/informatics/VWTAFinal.pdf

An excellent introduction and overview education and Second Life from Spring 2007.  

 

• Educators Coop

• Published Research Papers

http://www.educatorscoop.org/index.php?module=documents&JAS_DocumentManager_op=categories&category=1

• Syllabi

http://www.educatorscoop.org/index.php?module=documents&JAS_DocumentManager_op=categories&category=2

 

•  SaLamander Project http://www.eduisland.net/salamanderwiki/index.php?title=Literature_review (more generally on gaming and distance education)

 

Planning to teach in Second Life 

 

 

When it comes to policies, how many policies can mirror what your institution already has in place for appropriate computer use, email use, copyright, other aspects of distance learning, etc.?  What adaptations need to be made to existing policies so they will apply to the Second Life environmnet?   

 

• -Does your administration have concerns about students visiting areas in Second Life outside of your classroom space?   Do you have concerns?

   

 

• -What do you want to tell your students about the aspects of Second Life outside of your educational boundaries?  If your institution has concerns, what policies need to be in place regarding your students?  Can the policies mirror codes of conduct already in place for your institution? 

   

 

• -Should you (or the institution) make rules about where students can go and what they can do?  Should student accounts on Second Life be restricted in the same way that campus email and other tech uses might be restricted? Some faculty leave their areas open to all comers and deal with the annoying as it comes up.

   

 

•  -What will you do about warning students about Second Life's odder situations?  Some things might offend some students.  

 

•  

  -ADA:  Are there ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) rules at your institution that preclude you from setting up a "special topics" class or special section of a class in an environment like Second Life that may prove a hardship for students with certain kinds of disabilities? Are there provisions you can make for students with disabilities?  Can you use the same provisions you would use in  a face-to-face class?

   

• -Intellectual property:  Who owns the work of the students created in Second Life?  What do students need to know about copyright, etc. to function in the Second Life environment? 

   

•  -If students violate Linden Lab Terms of Service or conditions set by you and/or your institution for appropriate behavior in Second Life, what are the ramifications?  Students will need to be aware of the Linden Lab terms of service.  Will violations result in lower grades, dismissal from the class? 

   

•  -Whatever happens in Second Life should parallel real life policies when it comes to issues such as sexual harassment, etc.

   

 

• -Students right to privacy:  FERPA rules will be in effect.  Grades shouldn't be discussed in an open way in Second Life. 

 

 

What do you need to consider in terms of setting up the actual course content in Second Life? 

 

 

• -What are your course objectives?  What aspects of Second Life can help you achieve your objectives?  Are there other tools that will serve your purposes? 

   

 

• - Once you have your objectives, what activities will take place in Second Life? What kinds of things can be done in Second Life?  Second Life seems especially useful for simulations, role-playing, scavenger hunts/ web quests, exploring issues of identity (including gender and appearance), social networking including meeting with others from all over the world, creating digital art, architecture, historical, scientific, or fantasy environments - the list is not exhaustive! With the up-coming addition of voice, language learning, oral presentations and debates, etc. should be easier to achieve.    

   

• -Will students have to do the Second Life activities no matter what? Will activities in Second Life be considered optional or extra credit?

•  -Will students need any money in order to operate in Second Life? Students can join Second Life for free, but keep in mind that many activities while low cost, could cost something! There are many “freebies” available which might suffice, but for example, uploading images and textures into Second Life costs a few cents for each.  If you want your students to simulate a PowerPoint presentation in Second Life, they will need access to a few Linden dollars in order to upload the “slides”.  Will you ask students to earn money by taking surveys, etc. in Second Life?  Will you and/or your institution be able to give each student some money? Do you have a way to charge students a fee for taking the course so that you can distribute some money to each student?  

 

 

• -Think about assessment on more than one level: You will need a rubric for activities for the students.  Think about assessment of the course: What questions will you want to ask about the course in relation to Second Life?   Will you compare grades in your section with grades in sections that do not use Second Life?   Will you ask about student satisfaction?

   

 

 

 

 

Some ideas extracted from those already teaching in Second Life:

 

 

Ensure that the students have access to appropriate computer equipment. This is crucial! 

 

 

Are there any students with disabilities who would need access to the same kind of help that they might get in any other lab situation or in a face-to-face classroom situation? 

 

If a lab will be used for training, make sure that Second Life will run on the computers in question. Be prepared to solve problems presented by firewalls, etc.  Software may need updating over the course of a semester.  (The software for Second Life can be run off a flash drive – but if the computers used don’t have an appropriate graphics card, even that won’t help.)

 

Using a lab? Expect to use some bandwidth!

 

Be prepared for downtime. It’s always a possibility

 

There are a few books out for new users of Second Life.  One of them could be suggested as a textbook.  

 

Decide if a learning experience can go on in a borrowed space – or will purchase of land be worthwhile. 

   It can take up to 6 weeks from the date of the request to receiving an island.  It will take some time before that to work out purchasing with your

   campus financial officers (but this is done. There are colleges and universities that own islands)

 

Speaking of money… decide how to handle providing students with a few Lindens to upload textures (for example images for in-world slide shows) or purchase items that might be necessary for class activities.  Some instructors earn money in Second Life by doing surveys, etc. 

 

Decide if the learning space will be opened or closed. Many instructors choose to leave their space open and invite guests to visit class sessions and tolerate and get rid of griefers should any show up.  If the space is open to all comers, alert students that some avatars might exhibit annoying or harassing behavior. Teach them how to handle those situations should they arise.  (Decide if students will be advised against roaming the seamier areas of Second Life.) 

 

Develop a code of conduct (i.e. class behavior rules) for the students. There are models out there.  

 

Be prepared to provide technical support and expect a learning curve even for the so-called Millenial “digital natives”

 

Plan on time for the real basics like moving around  - learn the basic commands on the rather complicated interface

   There are checklists available for newcomers – and there are in-world orientation areas that are education-focused – most notable is one provided

    by the New Media Consortium

 

Plan on time to learn the jargon

 

As an instructor have expertise in Second Life tasks that will be required of the students:  If building is required, know how to do it yourself or get someone available to help the students

 

Be sure that the tasks that students are expected to undertake in SL correspond with the learning objectives of the course  (If they move beyond the tasks set, applaud them!)

 

Provide a social space where students can gather.  (Michael Mayrath says the area should include seating where students face each other.)

 

Using chat text instead of voice has some advantages. It is easy to save a transcript of chat.  Students practice their writing skills.

 

Chat can become confusing until you get used to it

(IMs between individuals provides a back channel) 

 

Observations from various faculty:

When using chat

Everyone tends to contribute

No one tends to dominate

 

The advent of voice is relatively new

Some used Skype along with SL before there was in-world voice

 

Faculty talk about students developing a  sense of community

 

 

From:  SLEDUCATION  wiki.  http://sleducation.wikispaces.com/educationaluses

Good list with many highlights of educational uses of Second Life

 

New Media Consortium  Create a Second Life account

http://sl.nmc.org/create.php

 

 

Examples:

 

Kim Flintoff is using drama to explore some ethical issues concerning technology expecting students and volunteers to take on roles concerning the scenario presented.  (November 27 posting on SLED)

 

Digital story-telling class from Case Western Reserve. Students created works that were exhibited to the wider educational community over a few days.

November 29 posting on SLED   Student Digital Story Exhibition on Second Life) 

 

Jen Doolittle (SL name): Transcript about her course "The Human Animal" for art students. (Scroll down for the transcript) 

https://lists.secondlife.com/pipermail/educators/2006-April/000672.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Finding a place to teach in Second Life

 

  -Where will the activities take place?  Do you need a specific place to meet your class for each session or is this unnecessary?  If you need to purchase land in Second Life, which administrators will you need to convince?

 

• You and/or your institution might be willing to purchase an island. Cost for educational purposes is roughly $2000 for the year.  

• Other organizations are willing to rent smaller amounts of space. New Media Consortium rents space and includes some “property management” along with the rental of space.  

   

• Some educators are happy to share space. Messages to the SLED list with requests for space are effective.    

   

 

 

• -What kind of environment do you need on Second Life? Do you need a space that functions like a traditional classroom?  Something more fantastical? Can you meet at a beach or sit on the grass?   If the students aren’t required to build and leave exhibitions of their work in place, owning land may be less of an issue. (There are sandboxes available for building.)  If the class sessions consist of activities rather than lectures, a classroom or auditorium might not be necessary. 

   

   

 

 

Some technical things to consider about teaching in Second Life

 

 

• -Will you offer the course on a permit-required basis to ensure that students enrolled have their own computer equipment to run Second Life?    Or will you be able to run Second Life in a computer lab on your campus?  Perhaps some students have laptops they can bring to class and allow other students to take turns.  Second Life has some higher-end computer requirements,  Will students be screened ahead of time via some kind of permit process to ensure that they understand the nature of the course, computer requirements, etc.?   

   

 

• -Technology support issues:  Who does the support?  Will support be provided at the institution level or will the faculty member do all support on their own?

 

• -Second Life requires a lot of downloading!  If you are using a lab, will you have permissions to do the administrative work yourself?  If not, will your computer staff be willing to make sure the lab is up-to-date? 

   

 

 

Planning your time in Second Life:

 

 

 

• -How much time will it take for students to get up to speed in Second Life?  Some faculty run a day-long boot camp on a Saturday to get students started.    

   

 

• -Build some time into the syllabus to get students comfortable with Second Life.  Consider planning some low-stakes activities to start out with so that students can learn to use Second Life without worrying about their grades.  

   

 

• -Who can help get students up to speed?  As a faculty member, are there technical support people at your institution who can help? Are there savvy students who might be enlisted?  Are there other Second Life enthusiasts who would be willing to assist and act as mentors to your students?  

   

 

• -What will students be permitted to do in Second Life?  Will they be building? Changing their appearance? 

   

 

• -Will you hold the class sessions in areas where only your students are permitted? Land owners can set permissions to allow only certain users to access the area.    

 

• -Do you hope to restrict your students to course-related use of Second Life only?  We do not see any way that an institution could mandate such a restriction, but perhaps an institution could suggest that students who want to wander off the Second Life "campus", do not represent themselves as students at that institution.

 

• -Do you want to warn students about aspects of Second Life that they might find uncomfortable?

 

 

 

 

Examples:   

 

 

Examples of " Codes of Conduct:

 

 

Linden Lab.  Guidelines for Community Standards in Second Life.

http://secondlife.com/corporate/cs.php

 

New Media Consortium.  Campus Code of Conduct.

http://sl.nmc.org/wiki/Campus_Code

 

Penn State Virtual Worlds. SLEtiquette at Penn State

http://ets.tlt.psu.edu/virtualworlds/node/203

 

 

IBM Guidelines for Virtual Worlds

http://domino.research.ibm.com/comm/research_projects.nsf/pages/virtualworlds.IBMVirtualWorldGuidelines.html 

 

 

Examples of syllabi for courses taught in Second Life

 

 

Ed Lamoureux. Bradley University.  Field Research Methods on Second Life

http://slane.bradley.edu/com/faculty/lamoureux/website2/slstuff.html

 

 

 

 Beth Ritter-Guth. Lehigh Carbon Community College.

 

Courses in English lit, American lit, Womens Studies

 

http://collegeenglish.wikispaces.com/ritterguthclasses

 

Literature Alive! Blog: http://literaturealive.blogspot.com/ or wiki at http://literaturealive.wikispaces.com 

 

  

 

Jeremy Kemp: San Jose State University.

 

LIBR 246: Information Technology Tools and Applications - Advanced (Multi-User Virtual Environment Workshop)

 

http://slisweb.sjsu.edu/courses/246.kemp/246su07gs.htm

 

 

 

Harvard University. CyberOne: Law in the Court of Public Opinion

 

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/cyberone/administration/syllabus

 

 

 

Justine Cassell. Northwestern University. Online Communities and Computer Mediated Communication

 

http://www.soc.northwestern.edu/justine/online-communities07/syllabus.html

 

 

 

 

 

Examples of Offers of Educational Space on Second Life

 

 

 

Bruce Sommerville from the University of Technology in Sydney offered SLED educators who's institutions do not yet have a presence on Second Life, use of "the Study Space" on Gualala.  There is no charge for using the area.

 

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Gualala/68/105/22/

 

 

 

NMC Virtual Worlds. Services

 

http://virtualworlds.nmc.org/services/

 

Includes parcels for lease.

 

http://virtualworlds.nmc.org/2007/04/01/leases/

 

 

 

"Edunation I has land parcels available for rent, not many left. They can be used for both personal and educational use & he's only renting to educators. No clubs or anything like that allowed.. and each one allows 500 prims. Landlord very nice to deal with. Can rent month to month or more, up to 1 year. Could be good for anyone who doesn't already have an institutional presence and wants to set something up." Group Notice sent to Angel Learning Group. July 16, 2007.

 

Educators Coop

Leasing parcels for $80 for a year for residental use by educators with some restrictions. For example they include a fairly elaborate policy on land use

 

 

Examples of tools available to educators in Second Life: 

 

 

ICT Library: 

 

Look for class ideas for many disciplines; tools, scripts, etc.

 

Examples: Whiteboards, slide viewers, an in-world timer, browser launch scripts, information kiosk scripts, etc.

 

 

 

HoloEmitter

 

http://holoemitter.wordpress.com

 

 

 

SLGuide

 

Play these Second Life movies on any inworld screen. 

 

http://slguide.com 

 

 

 

Shop OnRez (Formerly SLBoutique)

 

http://shop.onrez.com/

 

 Professor and Teacher Make-over Kit (Free);  Presentation Boards (Free) ; A muddy boot (Free): Students can put in notecards about the "muddiest point" about a class session.

 

SL Exchange  http://www.slexchange.com

 

 

 

Examples of transcripts and other means to archive information from Second Life:

 

Teachers Buzz Session. New Media Consortium

http://sl.nmc.org/wiki/Teachers_Buzz_Session

Archives include transcripts of sessions, Flickr photos, etc.

 

http://slbestpractices2007.wikispaces.com/SLCN.tv+Archives

Second Life Cable Network - Archives of the Second Life Best Practices Conference May 2007

 

 

 

TIPS

 

 

-Some users are putting Second Life on a flash drive and running it from there.  Users must still keep up with current downloads. However using this strategy might save computer lab administrators some responsibility and make you as a faculty member more self-sufficient.

For instructions on putting Second Life on a Flash Drive see Penn State Virtual Worlds posting by  Brett Bixler on Fri, 01/05/2007 - 15:35. http://ets.tlt.psu.edu/virtualworlds/node?page=9

 

 

 

-When it comes to scheduling sessions in Second Life, Wednesday is a good day to skip!  That’s the usual day for regular maintenance. 

 

Second Life: General Information

 

 

 

Second Life in Education.

A collection of resources with general information, resources for teachers, in-world tools, "how to" videos for Second Life. http://sleducation.wikispaces.com/secondliferesources 

 

 

 

Learning - PacificRim (Stan Trevena)

 

Nicely organized list of resources about Second Life - mostly "how to's"

 

http://pacificrimx.wordpress.com/learning/

 

 

 General Information/Getting Started 

 

 

Tutorials on using Second Life on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com  Search "Second Life" tutorial 

 

 

 

Beth Ritter-Guth (Desideria Stockton on Second Life) is working on an OpenSLedware wiki.

 

This should develop into an excellent site to fnd out more about the nuts and bolts of teaching in SL.

 

http://opensledware.wikispaces.com/

 

 

 

NMC2007: Hit the Ground Running - a Preconference Workshop on Second Life:

 

Includes info for newbies!

 

http://sl.nmc.org/wiki/NMC2007_Hit_The_Ground_Running

 

 

Education in Second Life:  Vance Stevens' collection of resources:

 

Includes links to "getting around in Second Life" as well as information on educational uses

 

http://www.geocities.com/vance_stevens/secondlife_edu.htm

 

Jo Kay & Sean Fitzgerald's Educational Uses of Second Life

http://sleducation.wikispaces.com/educationaluses

 

101 Uses for Second Life in the College Classroom (Dr. Megan Conklin) http://facstaff.elon.edu/mconklin/pubs/glshandout.pdf

 

 

 

Unofficial Complete Fools Guide to Second Life:  http://www.sldrama.com/index.php?page=2 

 

Introducing Your RL Students to SL: http://www.cxknowledge.com/Intro_SL.html  

 

Videos about Second Life. See YouTube http://www.youtube.com  

Search for  “Second Life”;  “Second Life” education

 

 

 

Places to get stuff!

 

Fabulously Free (all sorts of places to get free things on SL - not necessarily for education)  http://fabfree.wordpress.com/

 

Where to get a good smile - for free!: http://slurl.com/secondlife/DollyRock/128/128/0 or search dollyrock

 

Suggestions on where to shop for "professional clothes": Search that phrase in the SLED discussion list archives.

 

Second Life Boutique  Note: As of July 23, SLBoutique becomes Shop OnRez

http://shop.onrez.com/

 

SLXchange.com  (Second Life Exchange)  http://www.slexchange.com

 

Other resources:

 

InfoIsland.org (Second Life library activities)  http:// infoisland.org

 

Second L!fe  L!brary: The SL Library 2.0 Website  (includes calendar of events)  

 

http://infoisland.org/drupal/

 

Second Life: Education    http://secondlife.com/education/

SLED (Educators discussion list) https://lists.secondlife.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/educators

 

Simteach wiki – Second Life:    http://www.simteach.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

 

 

 

Have a Question about Education and Second Life?  

Join the SLED email discussion list, search the archives.  

 

https://lists.secondlife.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/educators

 

 

 

 

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