Student Blog: Using Second Life for Education (Robbins)

Created by Jim Thomas (North Carolina State University) on March 29, 2007

The format of the ELI Session led everyone through five "Project Parlors" Tuesday afternoon for 15 minute introductions. On Wednesday, each participant chose two of these projects to attend for more in-depth 45 minute sessions. The Second Life parlor featured 30 or more laptops all with Second Life (SL) loaded up and ready to go. Instructor Sarah Smith Robbins had her laptop screen projected on the mega screens around class for all to see.

Now, Sarah had wisely told everyone to register for a free SL account (http://secondlife.com/) the day before and almost everyone followed through. Participants were segregated so that experienced users sat next to newbies (or NooBs) and some screen sharing was happening.

Okay, now I am going to write this just in case someone is reading this who knows nothing of Second Life. Hopefully I can pull this off, because even though I am the "Student Blogger" who spans generations and has wasted more hours in games than many of you combined, I had never ventured into SL until just before this conference. And frankly, I did not get what any of the fuss was about.

So, here is what we did in the session. We all "teleported" to Middletown island. Grok? Didn't think so. One of the primary ways that SL makes money is by having folks buy land. Organizations who buy land often end up buying entire "islands". Middletown island is the island associated with Ball State University, where Dr. Robbins teaches. In SL you can move your "avatar" (the little 3D cartoon that represents you) by walking, flying, or by teleporting. In the first two cases, you use keyboard keys and you see your avatar cross the space from point A to point B. To teleport, you click on a button that says "search" and a menu pops up with locations (islands) you might want to port to. By default, it shows this long list of available locations sorted by popularity. From this list one is quickly able to discern that a number of popular places in SL focus on sex, gambling, and sex. But we don't have time for that now, so we type "middletown" into a little text box on the search menu and shazzam! our screens start showing the same landscape we have been seeing on Sarah's screen projection up front, and in fact our "avatars" start popping into existence on her screen.

The first thing I notice is that my avatar "jt Sirbu" is like incredibly tall. Now, I am 6'4" in RL (Real Life) so when I created my avatar I pushed the slider for height all the way to the right, because I am usually one of the tallest people around. In SL, this made me like 10 feet tall. So here are all the comparatively normal looking folks (although their bodies seem to have spent a LOT more time in the gym than one would usually see), and some are bipedal jungle cats, but "jt Sirbu" is just knocking everyone down. No sweat, I click on "Edit Appearance" and make myself a more appropriate height. While I am at it, I take off my jacket, and change my clothes to look a bit less gothic.

The main thing Sarah wants to make sure we all learn is how to move and how to move the camera. To an experienced gamer this seems trivial, but she is spot on. I really think the key problem that the gamer generation experiences in trying to convert their elders is rushing pass this part. Like so many things, once you have played a few different games it becomes second nature, but when you are dealing with folks who have NEVER used keyboard based movements (or console controllers), you need to spend enough time to get comfortable with their avatar. At NCSU, we learned this the hard way with the teachers who are supposed to use our Hi-Fives (http://ced.ncsu.edu/hifives/) system to build their own games. Our orientation schedules had to be adjusted.

Now I am a self-described experienced gamer, but even I needed to hear Sarah's advice to "dock" the camera and movement control panels on screen so that they are always available. This helps considerably, especially when you are making your elephant juggle. Oh, did I skip something. Right, Sarah had gone out on safari sometime before the session and populated the island with several extremely agreeable elephants. We were able to ride these elephants and make them fly through the air (the rules of physics are meant to be broken), and they even know how to make balls appear that they juggle.

Next big lesson was making friends and chatting. SL chat is heard by anyone within 20 meters of your location. Instant messaging goes between friends even across islands. You make a friend by clicking on their avatar and selecting a "make friend" option. This sends a little dialog box to their screen "jt Sirbu is requesting friendship, do you accept". Well, everyone was trying to be nice, so lots of friendships were made.

We went through a bit more, but before you knew it, time was up. It was a lot more fun to do this with people you knew were inclined to be sociable with you. When I went on the system alone, I felt very lonely - lot's of people running around and no one wanted anything to do with me. I am still very curious about how SL helps in education. It still seems more like a high-tech dollhouse with slow, less-effective means of communication than email, IM, and the web. Eye candy.

But Sarah invited us to attend a class she is teaching in Middletown this evening at 6:30 PM EDT. "jt Sirbu" plans to be there and give you all a report tomorrow.

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Attending class in Second Life

Submitted by Jim Thomas (North Carolina State University) on March 30, 2007 - 10:31am.

Last night, while making dinner for my kids here in Cary, North Carolina, I attended a freshman composition class in the shadow of the Bell Tower at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. The catch is that the shadow was virtual, and fading quickly, as it was late evening in Middletown, an island in Second Life where the class was held. I was seated on a floating pad between a smoking Voldemort-like shade and a bipedal dragon underneath a glass-roofed gazebo thing. Through the glass roof I could see two of the massive feet of the pink elephant I had been flying before I parked it on the dome as class started.The main part of class was a group instant message system, not at all unlike the chat rooms that have been around for ages. It seemed to me that 99% of the conveyed information could have been accomplished through a chat room, although it would not have looked as interesting. Very little additional information was conveyed through the projection of our 3D avatars. When someone is typing a message that will become part of the chat log, you can see their character making typing motions in the air. Although users can cause their characters to make gestures, I did not see much of that. It was fun, but to my mind, not revolutionary.After 20 minutes or so of this, I noticed people flying off their pads. I did not see anything in the chat log to signal it, but I used the mini-map to see that most of the on-line users had moved to a different part of the island. I flew over to where they were and discovered a Second Life barn raising in progress. Looking back at the chat, I saw that the conversation had moved from talking about last week's paper assignment to talking about what I gathered to be a different class assignment to craft more space in the world conducive to holding seminars later in the course. Tethered to many of the avatars' hands were gossamer filaments pointed down to parts of the space. At intervals, these filaments would be transformed into some new object - a chair, a railing, or a fireplace. Each of these avatars was using their built-in power to build things in the world seemingly by magic. Walls and stairways were being created at an amazing pace. A block of water outside the building turned out to be a swimming pool whose walls had not yet been constructed. Furniture and features that users had gathered by visiting other islands in SL were being replicated here. Disco floors, a bar, a fireplace...it was amazing. Eventually, I noticed construction had slowed and everyone had returned to the site of the initial seminar. I must have missed a good bit, because chat is only broadcast to you if you are within 20 meters of the avatar. Also, I was playing Monopoly with my kids by this point.Clearly, SL could be put to great use for certain subjects. Architecture and landscape design classes would be greatly helped by SL. As we move away from subjects concerned with spatial relationships, I see the uses less compelling. Certainly it supports text chat (and is adding voice chat), but so do existing technologies. Think about it. We have had the ability to do conference calls on the telephone with dozens of participants for the better part of the decade, but this has not caused us to port all seminar-based classes to the phone. In the SL world, the release of the exact same technology this week is being heralded as a major step forward. My impression is that SL is the flavor-of-the-month in educational circles and I fear that the expectations are exceeding its potential. I expect that for certain types of teaching it will have a lasting impact as an accompaniment to traditional instruction. Seminars and distance learning and especially seminars within distance learning can be enhanced through SL. Otherwise, I think its greatest particular pedagogical use will be in subjects like architecture and design. Sure, you could try to use SL to teach chemistry or African-American studies, but I fear the benefit would exceed the cost. If someone had already taken the time to create "Molecular Construction Island" or "Underground Railway Landscape" it might be worth a tour. Perhaps an academia-wide barn building could be organized. Lacking that, building a virtual museum to illustrate each lecture is likely beyond the time budget of most educators. jt

		Student Blog: Using Second Life for Education (Robbins) Created by Jim Thomas (North Carolina State University) on March 29, 2007 The format of the ELI Session led everyone through five "Project Parlors" Tuesday afternoon for 15 minute introductions. On Wednesday, each participant chose two of these projects to attend for more in-depth 45 minute sessions. The Second Life parlor featured 30 or more laptops all with Second Life (SL) loaded up and ready to go. Instructor Sarah Smith Robbins had her laptop screen projected on the mega screens around class for all to see. Now, Sarah had wisely told everyone to register for a free SL account (http://secondlife.com/) the day before and almost everyone followed through. Participants were segregated so that experienced users sat next to newbies (or NooBs) and some screen sharing was happening. Okay, now I am going to write this just in case someone is reading this who knows nothing of Second Life. Hopefully I can pull this off, because even though I am the "Student Blogger" who spans generations and has wasted more hours in games than many of you combined, I had never ventured into SL until just before this conference. And frankly, I did not get what any of the fuss was about. So, here is what we did in the session. We all "teleported" to Middletown island. Grok? Didn't think so. One of the primary ways that SL makes money is by having folks buy land. Organizations who buy land often end up buying entire "islands". Middletown island is the island associated with Ball State University, where Dr. Robbins teaches. In SL you can move your "avatar" (the little 3D cartoon that represents you) by walking, flying, or by teleporting. In the first two cases, you use keyboard keys and you see your avatar cross the space from point A to point B. To teleport, you click on a button that says "search" and a menu pops up with locations (islands) you might want to port to. By default, it shows this long list of available locations sorted by popularity. From this list one is quickly able to discern that a number of popular places in SL focus on sex, gambling, and sex. But we don't have time for that now, so we type "middletown" into a little text box on the search menu and shazzam! our screens start showing the same landscape we have been seeing on Sarah's screen projection up front, and in fact our "avatars" start popping into existence on her screen. The first thing I notice is that my avatar "jt Sirbu" is like incredibly tall. Now, I am 6'4" in RL (Real Life) so when I created my avatar I pushed the slider for height all the way to the right, because I am usually one of the tallest people around. In SL, this made me like 10 feet tall. So here are all the comparatively normal looking folks (although their bodies seem to have spent a LOT more time in the gym than one would usually see), and some are bipedal jungle cats, but "jt Sirbu" is just knocking everyone down. No sweat, I click on "Edit Appearance" and make myself a more appropriate height. While I am at it, I take off my jacket, and change my clothes to look a bit less gothic. The main thing Sarah wants to make sure we all learn is how to move and how to move the camera. To an experienced gamer this seems trivial, but she is spot on. I really think the key problem that the gamer generation experiences in trying to convert their elders is rushing pass this part. Like so many things, once you have played a few different games it becomes second nature, but when you are dealing with folks who have NEVER used keyboard based movements (or console controllers), you need to spend enough time to get comfortable with their avatar. At NCSU, we learned this the hard way with the teachers who are supposed to use our Hi-Fives (http://ced.ncsu.edu/hifives/) system to build their own games. Our orientation schedules had to be adjusted. Now I am a self-described experienced gamer, but even I needed to hear Sarah's advice to "dock" the camera and movement control panels on screen so that they are always available. This helps considerably, especially when you are making your elephant juggle. Oh, did I skip something. Right, Sarah had gone out on safari sometime before the session and populated the island with several extremely agreeable elephants. We were able to ride these elephants and make them fly through the air (the rules of physics are meant to be broken), and they even know how to make balls appear that they juggle. Next big lesson was making friends and chatting. SL chat is heard by anyone within 20 meters of your location. Instant messaging goes between friends even across islands. You make a friend by clicking on their avatar and selecting a "make friend" option. This sends a little dialog box to their screen "jt Sirbu is requesting friendship, do you accept". Well, everyone was trying to be nice, so lots of friendships were made. We went through a bit more, but before you knew it, time was up. It was a lot more fun to do this with people you knew were inclined to be sociable with you. When I went on the system alone, I felt very lonely - lot's of people running around and no one wanted anything to do with me. I am still very curious about how SL helps in education. It still seems more like a high-tech dollhouse with slow, less-effective means of communication than email, IM, and the web. Eye candy. But Sarah invited us to attend a class she is teaching in Middletown this evening at 6:30 PM EDT. "jt Sirbu" plans to be there and give you all a report tomorrow. Conference Coverage \| ELI_07_SpringFocusSession \| immersive learning environments and simulations Jim's blog Login or register to post comments 4909 reads Attending class in Second Life Submitted by Jim Thomas (North Carolina State University) on March 30, 2007 - 10:31am. Last night, while making dinner for my kids here in Cary, North Carolina, I attended a freshman composition class in the shadow of the Bell Tower at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. The catch is that the shadow was virtual, and fading quickly, as it was late evening in Middletown, an island in Second Life where the class was held. I was seated on a floating pad between a smoking Voldemort-like shade and a bipedal dragon underneath a glass-roofed gazebo thing. Through the glass roof I could see two of the massive feet of the pink elephant I had been flying before I parked it on the dome as class started.The main part of class was a group instant message system, not at all unlike the chat rooms that have been around for ages. It seemed to me that 99% of the conveyed information could have been accomplished through a chat room, although it would not have looked as interesting. Very little additional information was conveyed through the projection of our 3D avatars. When someone is typing a message that will become part of the chat log, you can see their character making typing motions in the air. Although users can cause their characters to make gestures, I did not see much of that. It was fun, but to my mind, not revolutionary.After 20 minutes or so of this, I noticed people flying off their pads. I did not see anything in the chat log to signal it, but I used the mini-map to see that most of the on-line users had moved to a different part of the island. I flew over to where they were and discovered a Second Life barn raising in progress. Looking back at the chat, I saw that the conversation had moved from talking about last week's paper assignment to talking about what I gathered to be a different class assignment to craft more space in the world conducive to holding seminars later in the course. Tethered to many of the avatars' hands were gossamer filaments pointed down to parts of the space. At intervals, these filaments would be transformed into some new object - a chair, a railing, or a fireplace. Each of these avatars was using their built-in power to build things in the world seemingly by magic. Walls and stairways were being created at an amazing pace. A block of water outside the building turned out to be a swimming pool whose walls had not yet been constructed. Furniture and features that users had gathered by visiting other islands in SL were being replicated here. Disco floors, a bar, a fireplace...it was amazing. Eventually, I noticed construction had slowed and everyone had returned to the site of the initial seminar. I must have missed a good bit, because chat is only broadcast to you if you are within 20 meters of the avatar. Also, I was playing Monopoly with my kids by this point.Clearly, SL could be put to great use for certain subjects. Architecture and landscape design classes would be greatly helped by SL. As we move away from subjects concerned with spatial relationships, I see the uses less compelling. Certainly it supports text chat (and is adding voice chat), but so do existing technologies. Think about it. We have had the ability to do conference calls on the telephone with dozens of participants for the better part of the decade, but this has not caused us to port all seminar-based classes to the phone. In the SL world, the release of the exact same technology this week is being heralded as a major step forward. My impression is that SL is the flavor-of-the-month in educational circles and I fear that the expectations are exceeding its potential. I expect that for certain types of teaching it will have a lasting impact as an accompaniment to traditional instruction. Seminars and distance learning and especially seminars within distance learning can be enhanced through SL. Otherwise, I think its greatest particular pedagogical use will be in subjects like architecture and design. Sure, you could try to use SL to teach chemistry or African-American studies, but I fear the benefit would exceed the cost. If someone had already taken the time to create "Molecular Construction Island" or "Underground Railway Landscape" it might be worth a tour. Perhaps an academia-wide barn building could be organized. Lacking that, building a virtual museum to illustrate each lecture is likely beyond the time budget of most educators. jt Login or register to post comments
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