Tag Archives: module1

Jan 01

Building a tree

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 muvenation logoTeachers teaching in Second Life might need to have at least some building and skripting skills (to design learning space, create or manipulate tools, etc.). In order to further develop these skill, we are asked to build a tree. Other objectives of this activity are:

  • to cooperate in a community project
  • to experience and develop master-apprenticeship model and other forms of peer to peer support
  • to explore informal learning opportunities in-world

My building and scripting skills are still very basic and although I haven’t needed more sophisticated skills for my lessons so far, I do want to improve them. 

My tree

I tweeted about this assignment on Twitter in the hope to find others to help me brainstorm what kind of tree to build. Carol Rainbow replied and had some good suggestions. In the end, I decided to make an ice tree fitting the season 🙂 What I knew from the beginning is that I wanted to make my tree do something and not just a tree to be looked at. Again, because of the season and because of the ice tree, I decided it should recite a snow poem. It would be the first time for me to create the necessary sound files to upload to Second Life.

I started building some crystals for “leaves” and was looking for a tree trunk that I could use. I wanted to change the texture to something that looked icy. Then, Carol joined me and she found a leafless, snow-covered tree in her inventory which was luckily modifiable and transferrable. I made several copies in different sizes of my crystal and attached them to the branches of the tree. I also added a snow emitter so that it snows.
Blue singing tree
Meanwhile, I had given up on finding a good snow poem and decided it should be a winter song instead but I didn’t know how to overcome the 10-second limit (sound files uploaded to SL need to be under 10 seconds). I don’t have the rights to stream sound on the MUVEnation sim. Carol made my day by telling me about Psyke’s Music script that connects 9-second long sound files to a continuous sound. I was thrilled not only because this solved my song problem but also because this would be extremely useful for creating objects for my language lessons. I found a free version of my song, a very popular German song about a snow flake, Schneeflöckchen.

The only drawback that the script has is that all the sound files need to be exactly 9 seconds long. I’m sure there is an easy (automatic) way of splitting a longer sound file into 9-second bits but I haven’t worked much with sound files, yet so that this took me ages. I uploaded my six 9-second sound files and dragged them onto my tree together with the script. Carol also showed me what to do to have the cursor turn into a hand indicating that this object does something when clicked on (write “Touch to play music” into the description field of the object in edit mode). So, now, I had an ice tree that snowed and played a song when clicked on 🙂 Thank you for all your help, Carol!

Some days later, I felt like I didn’t really build a tree and wanted to create a second version from scratch. I used the same ice crystal and coloured them. The script is the same, too.
Ice Tree
My main problem when building is that aligning objects takes me incredibly long although I use camera control to look at my object from all angles and zoom in on my objects. I know I can use the grid but that wouldn’t help with objects like my tree. Whenever I added a crystal and thought it was positioned correctly on a branch and I looked at it from another angle, I saw that it was not where it should be at all. Another issue with this tree is that the number of prims I used is very high, which is something that good builders always try to avoid. Therefore, I am looking forward to the master builder session on the MUVEnation island which will take place soon.

My trees and all the other trees built for this activity are located on the MUVEnation island (temporarily). 

 

Nov 26

All about my avatar: Daffodil Fargis

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 muvenation logoNo, I’m not obsesses with my avatar 🙂 If you are wondering why I am writing so much about my avatar and her appearance it’s because section 2 in module 1 of the MUVEnation course is all about appearance and identity. In activiy 9, we are asked to tell about our avatar’s history, motivations, characteristics, main activities and what effects we’d like to produce with our appearance. So, here i go:

My rezday is 28 August 2007. Nergiz signed up for SL and created me because she was curious about how educators were using it. I have to say I looked horrible at the beginning because Nergiz was determined not to spend any money on my looks and outfit. She didn’t know how to make clothes for me, either. I had to walk around like one of those newbies for quite some time. I was so ashamed of myself. I could feel that Nergiz wasn’t very impressed by SL at the beginning and she didn’t feel any relation to me. I am glad she didn’t know how to make snapshots at that time so there are no pictures of my pitiful state.

Then, finally, she met some generous people who gave her some free items for me, clothes, headscarves and even a new shape and skin. Now I looked a bit nicer and could even change my outfit now and then.
SL Daffodil in Central Park Dreamland 29 July 2008_001
My looks were more coherent and I resembled Nergiz a bit and she started to like me. We made some more friends and socialised. I quite liked that but Nergiz’ motivation was to find out how to teach languages here. So, we went on a search for educators and educational places. It wasn’t easy but slowly we were getting more connected.

Nergiz and I learned a lot during these days, weeks and months. She found more friends who gave her more freebie clothing for me and then she “earned” her first Linden dollars and we went shopping for the first time. It wasn’t easy to find something modest so she bought me a traditional Turkish outfit and even a Kimono (for free). Well, it wasn’t our style but it did fit in SL. 
Dressing up
Dressing up
After a while, we learned how we could modify some of the outfit we had found and I think i look quite all right now. Nergiz wants me to look similar to her, dress modestly and look friendly. She also wants me not to look too serious but also not too flippant. She doesn’t like formal outfit in RL and thinks it creates distance, which she doesn’t want between our students, colleagues and ourselves.

By now, we had met colleagues of Nergiz’ and formed a group for language teachers. Since then, we’ve been meeting every Friday. I even got my own classroom and house, which makes me feel more like a real SL resident.

We do socialize quite a bit in Second Life and have made many new friends. Finally, last summer, we felt ready to offer our first English course. It was so much work and we were excited but it was also a lot of fun, too. We and our students liked it a lot. I am happy because Nergiz has decided to keep me and continue teaching in SL and she can relate much more to me by now. That’s why she has filled in my profile and told people who we are with links to her Real Life activities.
Daffodil at her desk
 

Nov 25

What makes an Avatar look professional?

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muvenation logoIn activity 7 of the current MUVenation session, we are asked to reflect on an consider our and our students’ perceptions of appearance in Second Life teaching settings. I answered some of the questions in my previous post as a reaction to a forum discussion but will address some of the questions given in this activity.

Do you think avatar appearance is an important aspect of educational activities that are being undertaken in Second Life? What is a appropriate professional avatar appearance for education? 


A lot depends on the nature of the course. Appearance in an art or design course, will matter more than in a language or philosophy course, I assume. But even in courses where appearance is not the focus, out of the ordinary outfit or avatar shapes might not be appropriate. They might be simply distracting, seen as immoral, not serious looking enough, too serious looking or unfitting in an educational setting. Reasons for seeing a certain appearance as unfitting can be related to different cultural norms, religious believes or expectations about and knowledge of Virtual Worlds (game? serious?). In general, I would say that extremes in whatever direction should be avoided both by teachers and students and more so at the beginning of a course or with participants who are new to Second Life.
Does your avatar have a professional appearance for educational contexts? Yes, no? Why? 

Dressing up


Again, what professional is depends on the kind of educational context. As a free-lance language teacher working in-company as well as doing private tutoring, I am very flexible regarding my outfit and usually wear more casual clothes, which is seen as appropriately professional where I taught/teach. This is also the way I dress in Second Life. Although, in SL I often tend to look more formal and often wear dresses which I almost never do in RL. This has partly to do with my not being able to find the kind of appropriate clothes that I am looking for.
Is there any appearance you would never use to teach in Second Life and why? 
Yes, I would not appear in anything that reveals (too much) skin. This is based on my religious believes but also on what is considered inappropriate for teachers in Germany as well as Turkey. I would also not appear as a very unusual avatar (animal, robot, etc) if it is not part of the lesson, in order not to become the centre of attention as the teacher.

The ability to change avatar appearance could be described as an affordance of Second Life. How can the ability to alter avatar appearance be used as a teaching tool? 


Looking at it from a language teaching/learning perspective, being able to change the avatar’s appearance is a wonderful “tool” for role-play activities to make avatars feel and look more real and thus help to find into one’s role. I can imagine many activities like “describing an avatar to practise colours, shapes, and other adjectives and descriptive language”, “showing one’s favourite outfit and telling why – similar to “show and tell” activities at schools”, etc. I could even imagine to have a session about “What is an appropriate outfit for a student/teacher in SL/RL” kind of discussion like I am writing here about. I would have such a session at the beginning of a course to find out what expectations students have and might try to dress accordingly within my own limits and comfort-zone.