Tag Archives: mvn08

Jun 28

Holodeck or Builder’s Buddy Challenge

Posted on by

Many dismiss holodecks or Builder’s Buddy scenes (see my previous posts here and here) as tools for learning and teaching languages in Second Life thinking they are only good for role-plays (e.g. restaurant scene to practise ordering food). While I personally don’t like role-plays that much, they have their place in language teaching. However, when we started the Holodeck Challenge two months ago, we asked participants to be creative and literary think out of the box when creating scenes for language teaching and learning. And they did!! I am still amazed  what they have come up with — those who built scenes and participants who were at the final event and contributed with their ideas. The final event took place on Saturday, 27th June 2009.

Here are snapshots of some of the scenes and some ideas that have come up:

1. Mary Roussel’s gardens

Holodeck Challenge Final Event
Holodeck Challenge Final Event

Mary added some free educational tools to her beautiful class spaces which can be used to brainstorm and write words collaboratively and to display notecards.

Her teaching idea:

Send students to a furnished building to collect furniture names. Then, they come back and write the words on the board, which can then be used to for further activities.

If I had been taught in such lovely class spaces, I might have liked school more.

2. Mary’s Venezuelan market

Holodeck Challenge Final Event

Teaching ideas:

  • Role-play different tourist/sales-person dialogues (not only for buying/selling souvenirs. Tourist could ask questions about the culture, city, life in Venezuela, etc).
  • Learn/teach the names of the objects in Spanish
  • Talk about Venezuela
  • Talk about markets and customs associated with them in different countries/cultures
  • Talk about traveling, holidays, souvenirs, shopping, etc.
  • Talk about handicraft, art, …

Mary created this Souvenir Market because there seems to be nothing about Venezuela in SL.

All participants loved this scene. It is such a lovely scene that it made me want to stay there longer and explore. It also made me want to say something. I wanted to express my feelings and ask questions about the place and objects. I think this is a very important point in language teaching. If emotions and feelings  are involved, then students do want express them and they will more readily seek and accept help to formulate what they want to say in the target  language.

3. Anna Begonina’s shop scenes

Holodeck Challenge Final Event
Holodeck Challenge Final Event
Holodeck Chalenge Final Event

Anna teaches Italian in Second Life and always comes up with creative ideas. She said that although, there are a lot of shops in Second Life, shops and items are mostly named in English even in Italian places. Shops also often move or close so you can never really on using them again when you need them for a class. Also, most items in a shop cost money and are not modifiable. This is why Anna has created two different market/shop scenes in which the objects show typical Italian brands and the names of the objects are in Italian. They are modifiable so that objects can be moved, copied, renamed or retextured (e.g. for teachers who teach other languages).

Teaching ideas:

  • Teach/learn names of the objects in display
  • Practise shopping language and dialogues

4. Anna’s kitchen scene

Link to snapshot with kitchen scene

Teaching ideas:

  • Talking about how to cook pasta
  • Talking about Italian food
  • Learning vocabulary related to kitchen and cooking
  • Moving objects from one table to another (e.g. those that are needed for a certain recipe)

—> Check out Anna’s Italianiamo blog where, I am sure, she will post more ideas

5. Dennis’s Dogme garden

Holodeck Challenge Final Event

Dennis has created a garden which can be used as a nice place to sit together and talk about anything that comes up in a language lesson. As it is as a Dome garden, he could obviously not give specific ideas or language points that would be taught there.

One thing that is special about his garden is that the some of the textures that he used (like the walls) are from Real Life, which would well be a starting point for discussions as well as the up-side-down trees, which he wanted to “correct” but we thought he should leave as they are 🙂

6. Carolrb Roux’s garden scenes

Holodeck Challenge Final Event

The first one is intended as a meeting space (above).

Link to snapshot of The Owl and the Pussy Cat garden.

The second one is The Owl and the Pussy Cat garden. It is a beautiful place to explore. There is music, hidden objects in the trees and the garden, a snake ladder game and many other things from the poem. Carol even recited the poem for us as a special treat because some of us didn’t know the poem.

Carol’s reading room with some books in notecard form, notecard giver and dropbox.

This is a nice room to sit together to read and talk about a book. It also makes a nice space for other kinds of meetings and discussions.

Carol also generously helped other participants to build their scenes and troubleshoot them during the two months which this challenge lasted.

Teaching ideas:

I don’t remember whether any were mentioned because I had some technical trouble at this stage but I can imagine the following:

  • Have students explore the garden and think what this could be about
  • If students had to memorize the poem, playing in the garden can help them remember the poem.  They can walk from place to place and recite the lines connected to the objects.
  • It can also be simply a fun activity after having worked with the poem as a kind of bonus or reward.

I’m sure Carol and others have more ideas.

7. Nahiram Yakubu’s flea market street scene

Holodeck Challenge Final Event
Nahiram has created this beautiful flea market scene.

Teaching ideas:

I missed most of this because I had to relog but one idea nahiram mentioned when I was back is the following:

Students take out objects from their inventory and set up there stand or area. Then, they can all walk around and explore the market, ask questions about the objects on sale and haggle over the prices of the objects. If students don’t have enough freebie objects in their inventory, they can either be given different boxes full of objects by the teacher or sent freebie shopping in SL first (depending on the available time). If two students have the same object, it could be interesting because they might have different prices and would have to justify why theirs is more expensive.

Of course, their could be an activity first to learn or review the names of the objects or this could come at the end and only if necessary.

8. Shawn’s maze

Another brilliant idea and very different way of using holodecks for language teaching purposes. Shawn has built this (and other scenes) with the Horizons holodeck.

Teaching idea:

Students work in pairs. One student sits on a chair that automatically lifts them up to a certain hight where they have a good bird’s eye view of the maze. The other student stand in front of the entrance of the maze and waits for instructions. The student on the chair gives directions to the student on the ground and guides him either to certain objects that are distributed in the maze or to the exit.

I can imagine adding extra fun to this activity by having them go to certain objects in the maze to interact with them (e.g. retrieve their content, get a copy) and then find the exit. Several teams could compete with each other using IM voice/text chat so that they wouldn’t be overheard by the other teams.

We have tried this activity with some colleagues and it generated a lot of speaking (giving instructions, clarifying, asking for help, providing help, vocabulary, different tenses and structures).

You can see more snapshots in the SLExperiments flickr pool.

There are some more ideas about how to use holodeck or Builder’s Buddy scenes in language lessons in my previous posts here and here.

We have also created a page in the SLExperiments wiki for the Holodeck scenes and ideas.

The Holodeck Challenge is over but this does not mean we don’t accept more scenes 🙂

I know that others wanted to create scenes but couldn’t do so out of lack of time. Maybe some have time during the summer holidays. If so, we are happy to see more scenes and ideas here or in the wiki.

We will find a place where we will deposit the created scenes and language teachers will be able to grab a copy. Whether the creators will offer them all for free to everybody is up to them. As soon as we have agreed on how to make them available, I will post it here.

If you are interested in Holodecks, you might also want to check out what EUROCALL and CALICO are up to at their HQ in Second Life. You can contact Groovy Winkler or Randall Renoir in SL or join one of their in-world groups for more information.

A big thanks to everybody!!!

—> Link to all blog posts related to holodecks, Builder’s Buddy and language teaching ideas.

Apr 22

Holodecks and language learning

Posted on by

In my first post about holodecks, I mentioned some ideas how holodecks could be used for language learning. Meanwhile I had time to create a scene with the Horizons holodeck. In our last SLExperiments meeting, we sat in my holodeck living room I have created and brainstormed some ideas. Here is what we came up with (some ideas depend on the permissions settings which we still have to find out about):

  • Describe a scene students are in
  • Give a description of a scene to students (notecard?) and they build it in groups. Then, compare and talk about the differences
  • Students build scenes collaboratively (or alone), then describe why they built it that way, etc.
  • Instead of describing a scene, give students a description of a situation or a dialogue and have students build the scene which will then be used as to role-play the dialogue/situation.

Building scenes might sound difficult but the advantage of holodecks and the Builder’s Buddy script (see below) is that very basic building skills are sufficient. Students or teachers can use objects that are available as freebies (permissions need to be at least copy/modify) and don’t need to build anything from scratch.

A snapshot of my living room scene:

And here is a short video that shows how the scene is made to appear when needed:

A good alternative to commercial holodecks is the free Builder’s Buddy script. In my first post about holodecks, you can see pictures and watch a video of a scene that I created with the BB script. Should it turn out that it is not possible to build collaboratively with a commerical holodeck or the class has no money at all to invest in (a) holodeck(s), students can all be given the BB script.

Scenes like the living room or the worshop setting are not the only situation that you can use the BB script. Anything from complex building to simple creations (like in the following video) can be built.

When several prims that contain different scripts are linked only the scripts in the last object will be recognized. In such cases, instead of linking them, the BB script can be used

Another advantage of the BB script is that several scenes can be nested. If you are, for example, giving a presentation and you want to reveal  the “scene” step-by-step, this can be done relatively easily. The most important thing to remember here is to use different channels for the nested scenes.

—> Link to all blog posts related to holodecks, Builder’s Buddy and language teaching ideas.

Apr 11

Project Based Learning in Second Life

Posted on by

muvenation logoOne of our activities in module 2 of the MUVEnation course is to look at different learning or teaching approaches and finding out how they can be implemented in Second Life or in general in a virtual world. I have chosen Project Based Learning because I want to plan a project-based English language course in SL.

What is Project Based Learning?

There are many definitions but here is one from an Asian EFL Journal (underscores added by me):

Project-based language instruction is a flexible methodology allowing multiple skills to be developed in an integrated, meaningful, ongoing activity…. it is “an instructional approach that contextualizes learning by presenting learners with problems to solve or products to develop” (Moss & Van Duzer, 1998, p. 2). Projects are generally thought of “as a long-term (several weeks) activity” (Beckett, 2002, p. 54) which are part of an instructional method which “promote[s] the simultaneous acquisition of language, content, and skills” (Beckett & Slater, 2005, p. 108). A major goal of project-based instruction is comprehensible output (Beckett, 2002), which generally occurs both during the project and as the final product of the project. Link to source

Why is it used?

PBL allows for a more learner-centred “teaching” and thus fosters learner autonomy. Because of this and If the tasks are real-life relevant, it can enhance student motivation and thus improve learning. PBL allows for deep thinking skills. Students also learn soft skills like team work, leading a team, managing a project and interpersonal communication. Combined with web 2.0 tools or 3D virtual worlds like Second Life, students also learn the technical skills which they need or will need in their professional lives. PBL is collaborative and can be interdisciplanary.

It is important that tasks are as authentic as possible and ill-defined (so that students can define the sub tasks necessary to successfully complete a task). The outcomes and perspectives should be varied. There is no one correct solution.

What are the challenges to bring PBL to virtual worlds?

  • teacher and learners need to have or learn the necessary SL skills
  • like in RL: time
  • time zones of learners?
  • technical requirements for computers (e. g. to run Second Life)
  • limits of a specific virtual world like prim count when building in SL (the number prims available for a task or on a parcel of land)

Some PBL examples from Second Life (mostly not directly language related)

1. The Theorist Project

Students at Montclair State University work in groups and add theory-specific content to rooms dedicated to certain theorists of psychology like Freud, Jung, Adler and Rogers with the guidance of their tutors Edina and Bob (responsible for content), AJ and Robert (building). Edina came up with this idea of creating an immersive experience in SL in lieu of group presentations for her group councelling class.

They cooperated with Athabasca University in Canada, who provided the Freud bot for this project (see below).

Students had no prior SL experience and were only given two classes, one to learn the basics like moving and camera controls plus 4 short videos (How to sign up, etc), the second about the project itself. They usually worked on campus in the computer lab.

According to Edina, the added values of using SL are:

  • interactivity
  • being in the learning envirinment
  • catering to different learner types
  • understanding and remembering (putting together the content for the rooms and interacting with them helped students understand and remember the theories better)
  • students can go through the caes in their own time/pace and as often as they want.

One of the “main attractions” on the SIM (= simulation = island in SL) is the replica of Sigmund Freud’s office and especially the Freud bot (a bot is an avatar controlled by a computer instead of a human). The Freudbod invites one to lie down and have a chat. Here is the SLURL.

Project-based learning in SL - The Theorist Project

Here is the transcript of the chat I had with the Freudbot 🙂
Freudbot Voom: Greetings, Daffodil Fargis.  Please have a seat on the couch if you would like to chat with me.
Freudbot Voom: Hello. My name is Sigmund Freud. What would you like to talk about?
Daffodil Fargis: About you
Freudbot Voom: I am Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis and a major proponent of the unconscious as a psychological force.
Daffodil Fargis: Interesting
Freudbot Voom: I started my career in 1886 as a neurologist in private practice and primarily treated cases of hysteria. I eventually developed my own techniques involving free association and dream analysis to uncover clues about the origin of psychological problems and ways of treating them.
Daffodil Fargis: Aha
Freudbot Voom: I lost my train of thought. Could you try saying that again but with more context.
Daffodil Fargis: I was saying that’s interesting. Can you tell me more?
Freudbot Voom: I am responsible for numerous concepts that are now well known both inside and outside of psychology. Some of these include: id, ego, and superego; life and death instincts; ego defense mechanisms; repression; psychosexual stages of development; and the Oedipal complex. My contributions to psychology include the first comprehensive theory of personality, new ways of dealing with mental disorders, expansion of psychology’s influence to other fields (e.g. religion, art, and literature), and synthesizing several disparate conceptions about human nature from the great minds in history (Leibniz, Goethe, Nietzsche, Fechner, Darwin, and Helmholtz) into a comprehensive theory.
Daffodil Fargis: Very impressive but still true?
Freudbot Voom: What do you think of the Oedipus Complex?
Daffodil Fargis: Hm, can’t say much about it. I’m a woman after all.
Freudbot Voom: The Oedipus Complex refers to a situation that occurs during the phallic stage of psychosexual development.
Daffodil Fargis: Aha?
Freudbot Voom: I don’t believe I have an answer for you.
Daffodil Fargis: Thought so.
Freudbot Voom: I’d rather return to the subject at hand. Shall I continue?
Daffodil Fargis: If you will, please.
Freudbot Voom: What do you think about ‘Appollion aspect of human nature’. Shall we discuss that?
Daffodil Fargis: Why not?
Freudbot Voom: For Nietzsche, the Appollion aspect of human nature is the irrational side, characterized by creative chaos, passion, and change.
Daffodil Fargis: I see.
Freudbot Voom: Friedrich Nietzsche believed there are two sides to human nature: the Appollion (rational) aspect, characterized by tranquility, orderliness, and predictability; and Dionysian (irrational) aspect, characterized by creative chaos, passion, and change.
Daffodil Fargis: But this is more a lecture than a discussion, isn’t it?
Freudbot Voom: What makes you say that?
Daffodil Fargis: 🙂
Freudbot Voom: Thank you for your feedback.<br/><br/>
Daffodil Fargis: Need to go now
Freudbot Voom: Would you like to know about my cocaine habit?
Daffodil Fargis: What?
Freudbot Voom: I began to experiment with the drug cocaine in the early 1880s. As I wrote to Martha, I took very small doses of it regularly to fight depression and indigestion with great success.
Daffodil Fargis: Didn’t know that.
Freudbot Voom: Have you ever been to the United States?
Daffodil Fargis: Yes, I have.
Freudbot Voom: I gave a set of lectures in America in 1909 at Clark University at the request of G. Stanley Hull, a well-know American psychologist.
Daffodil Fargis: Aha.
Freudbot Voom: What you said sounded interesting. Could you explain further?
Daffodil Fargis: No, I don’t think so 🙂
Freudbot Voom: I see.
Daffodil Fargis: Well, I really need to get going now.
Freudbot Voom: Your response leaves me speechless.
Daffodil Fargis: ha ha
Freudbot Voom: I see you find that amusing.<br/><br/> I presented my work on psychoanalysis and the lectures were warmly received by my American hosts, including William James.
Daffodil Fargis: Bye!
Freudbot Voom: Thank you for talking to me. Stand up if you would like to stop chatting.
Freudbot Voom: Goodbye. It’s been a pleasure talking with you.
Daffodil Fargis: Thanks!

2. The Music Academy

David (or Benton in SL) was kind enough to show me around his Music Academy in Second Life (website). His aim is to teach music immersively and interdisciplenary (e.g. if you know about the time, history, events, fashion, architectrue, etc of a musical era, it is easier to understand). Here is the SLURL.
Project-based learning in SL - Music Academy

The houses that represent the different eras were built and furnished in that times fashion and often show scenes of historic events that took place then. These scenes were built by students.
Project-based learning in SL - Music Academy

3. Otis Island – Art project

This is a building project with Michael Wright’s art students. Groups of students (who had no previous SL experience) were assigned parcels to build their art objects according to a chosen theme.
Project-based learning in SL - Otis Island - Art

Student and instructor reflections and more snapshots are here. And here is the SLURL.

4. Talkademy.org‘s project-based Business English course

Students have to work in teams, get roles assigned and have to come up with a product and a business plan. This is a blended course using Moodle, a wiki and snychronous meetings held in Second Life. In a second project technical students have to produce a machinima (a video made in Second Life). You can see the machinima produced by these students and an interview with their teacher here.

Some ideas for PBL in SL for language learning

  • Language learning students explore different ways of how SL can be used for learning and/or practising the target language and present their results in different ways (exhibition, presentation, panel discussion, book+presentation, blog, essay, report, etc.)
  • CLIL: Biology, Sociology, etc (visit related places, experiment, explore, interview, etc. – depending on the topic – then create a final product to present their results
  • BE: Set up a business, have project meetings, etc, report results
  • Event organisation (students take on the different roles necessary in the organisation of an even, plan the steps and execute their plan (e.g. an exhibition, an end-of-course party, a conference, a charitable event, etc.)

These are just some ideas. I’d be very happy if others contributed with their ideas and thoughts.

Apr 11

Building holodeck scenes in Second Life

Posted on by

muvenation logoNow, some of you might ask: “What on earth is a holodeck?” Those who have watched Star Trek are familiar with the term and this is how Wikipedia explains it. The article mentions several uses for holodecks (see Application) one of which is training. So, even in Star Trek, they had educational value 😉 Holodecks in SL, can be simple to complex scenes, built in advance and packed up which can then be created “on demand” by one click in a limited space. Unfortunately, the SL versions lack the function of simulating smell… Well, not yet… And, well, yes, it could be a disadvantage, too, but would definitely add to the immersiveness 😀

OK, back to the seriousness of this task. Here is a definition of Second Life holodecks, what they are used for and links to different kinds of holodecks. Loki Clifton, who introduced himself as “the grandfather” of holodecks in SL, was apparently the first person who invented holodecks for SL. He was kind enough to show us different types of holodecks and explained how they are used and demonstrated how to build a scene with a production holodeck. As our task would include building our own scenes, Loki generously agreed to give us all a copy for testing purposes – a 2in1 production holodeck.

Holodecks can be quite expensive compared to other tools in Second Life. There are some free or inexpensive ones but usually with very limited functionality. In most cases, they do not allow the owner to build new scenes, which is what we wanted to do. It is also possible to buy scenes for some holodecks. Again, this depends on the type of holodeck you have (here is an example). A free simple alternative is the Builder’s Buddy script, which functions in a very similar way.

Due to lack of time 🙁 , I have only been able to play around a bit with Loki’s holodeck but built my workshop scene for the MUVEnation task with the free Builder’s Buddy script. You can see the scene below.

Workshop scene packed - Builder's Buddy

Above: This is the box in which the whole scenes is packed. I can take drag it from my inventory on the ground anywhere I am and rez (= create) the scene with a click. I can also allow others to rez my scene. With the BB script, every scene is in its own box (or any other object used as base).
Workshop scene - Builder's Buddy

Above: Here, you can see the rezzed workshop scene (and the green box). The scene normally rezzes within seconds. I can reposition the scene by simply dragging the green box. All other objects then reposition themselves accordingly keeping their distances to each other. One click and everything is cleaned up and back in the box and the space available for other things.

Here is a short video showing how the above scene is being rezzed (built) and then, cleared with one click:

Besides the MUVEnation task, I am also working with a group of colleagues on a holodeck project. Actually two projects joined togehter now, one initiated by Kip Boan who shares his holodecks with the SL English group, the other by Leon Cych. The aim is to explore its uses for educational purposes. Leon has kindly provided me with a professional Horizon holodeck. So, after building simple scenes with the Builder’s Buddy, I will try my hand at building a scene for a holodeck. Here is a short video of Leon demonstrating a holodeck:

And here is another video showing some scenes of Loki’s holodeck:

Language learning and holodecks

The first use of holodecks for language learning that springs to mind is scenes for role-plays (checking in at a hotel, ordering food in a restaurant, etc.). Scenes could also be used for students to learn the names of objects (furniture, plants, animals, kitchen utilities, …). But one can also imagine creating different cozy places for more undisturbed meetings with students or different spaces for students to work in groups. The settings could be changed according to the topic the group is talking about. Students can also be asked to build their own scenes as a kind of project work. One interesting project I have come across is the Literary Holodeck Project where educators built scenes to represent different literary works.

These are only some initial thoughts. I hope working with my colleagues in the projects mentioned above will bring about more ideas. If you have ideas on how holodecks could be used for language learning (or learning/education in general) or you know of other educational holodeck projects, I would be very happy to read your comments.

—> Link to all blog posts related to holodecks, Builder’s Buddy and language teaching ideas.

Mar 20

Conducting a hands-on workshop in SL

Posted on by

muvenation logoIn module 2, section 1, we explored hands-on workshops in Second Life. The activities consisted of

  1. Analysing hands-on workshops using an analysis grid and coming up with a list of key factors for the design and delivery of successful SL workshops. My personal list is here.
  2. Designing and implementing our own hands-on workshop
  3. Peer-evaluation of the workshops using an observation form based on the key factors that came up in activity 1.
  4. Writing an analytical “story” of our experience with our workshop using the STARR template for storytelling which was provided.

Peer evaluation

Constructive feedback from peers can help tremendously in helping a teacher to improve their teaching practise. Peer observation and evaluation can be rewarding for both sides, the observer and the teacher being observed. Having read most evaluations, in this workshop activity peer observation did not work well in my opinion. One reason might be that the observation form had not yet been complete before some of the observations started. Another reason, I suspect, was that peer feedback was “public” and could be viewed by all course participants and coordinators. This might have been a dilemma for some who might not have wanted to be critical openly. Additionally, as many of the participants are still very new to SL and this was the first workshop they had conducted in a virtual world, peers wanted to be encouraging. This is perfectly fine but for feedback to be developmental, there should also be suggestions for improvement.

As a result, I think peer observation and giving constructive feedback is a skill that needs to be practised. Also, as trust is an important factor in peer evaluation, these should not be made public. Instead, in a course, where all could benefit from reading about others’ evaluations, participants could be asked to collect main points they observed together with suggestions for improvement in a separate place without names, kind of like a  teacher who gives general class feedback at the end with relevant points that they observed while monitoring a class activity.

My STARR story: Building a Board Game with Daffodil

Summary
A beginner Second Life builder trying her hand at giving a hands-on building workshop.

Situation
What was the setting in which this case study occurred?
After having observed and analysed hands-on workshops, we had to plan and deliver our own. It was difficult for me to think about a topic for my workshop. I had thought about and discarded several ideas due to time, space or other constraints. My building and scripting skills are limited but I decided I could manage a beginner building workshop. I knew I wanted it to be useful to my peers and fun.

Task
What was the problem to be solved, or the intended effect?
To plan and deliver a workshop for beginners to build a simple interactive board game within a time limit of 60 minutes. The number of participants was limited by the number of building spaces provided to a maximum of 12.

Actions
What was done to fulfil the task?
When I had decided on building a board game, I first wanted it to be a collaborative building task but in the end I didn’t dare to do it. I was not sure I could handle all the problems with permissions that might come up, especially with beginners. So, I decided every participant would have their own building space which would be their game board. This meant that there was not enough space nor time for everybody to build a complete game that we could play together at the end but it would be enough to demonstrate the skills and the concept.

Preparation: I prepared 12 boards/building spaces for participants. This meant some of them would be out of normal chat range. I modified my SpeakEasy HUD script to make it shout the instructions (suggested by a friend) but we would also communicate and needed a save means for this. Not everybody knows how to shout. I thought of putting up a sign but participants might forget to and by habit simply hit the enter key. A friend came up with the idea of chat relay but an experienced workshop tutor said it caused lag. Another friend suggested I use group IM. Why didn’t I think of that? Sometimes, in a stressful situation (and preparing the workshop was stressful for me because I had no time), we forget even what we know.
I wanted to announce a demo of my workshop in another group of educators to test it, improve the instructions but again because of lack of time, I could not do that. On the day of the workshop, an experienced friend asked me on Twitter whether I wanted to do a run through. It was only three hours before the actual workshop but I agreed and am so happy I did. As a result, I simplified my instructions, deleted some slides and additional information and most importantly found out and solved some issues with permissions.

Another issue that came up in the run-through was that participants would have several windows open at certain times in the workshop (edit window, notecard, group or local chat window) plus needed to look at the slides and back at their objects. I could not avoid any of these but I decided to tell participants this would happen and gave some tips at the beginning (making windows smaller or minimising them when not needed).

Multi-tasking for the tutor can be challenging, too. In other lessons I taught in SL, it often happened that I received several IMs from friends who did not know I was teaching, from students who wanted to be teleported (instead of asking peers or finding the LM in their inventory), IMs from students present who preferred to ask a question privately than in local chat plus group notices or IMs from groups I belong to. At the same time having to deliver the lesson, change slides, take notes, chat with students in local chat, etc. can be quite demanding. And I am usually much more exhausted after a SL lesson than a Real Life one. In regular classes, I establish some rules with students (e. .g “send teleport requests to peers not the teacher”, “don’t IM teacher during the lesson except when it is required in a task or absolutely necessary”, for friends: “when I am in busy mode, it really means I am busy and will not reply”. This was not possible really for this workshop because it was a one-off session.

Tools can be of great help in delivering lessons but they can be a real pain, too. I rarely use more than two teaching aids or tools in a session. Of course, this depends a bit on the situation. The same goes for the actual topic and the lesson plan. For the workshop, I decided a slide screen, a material giver and (the invisible) SpeakEasy HUD was enough. I had prepared slides of the different steps to avoid having to give long-winded instructions. I used a screen that I had recently be shown by a friend on which you can highlight areas. Very useful indeed! I also printed out the instruction text and crossed off what I had already said with the SpeakEasy HUD.

I was a bit worried that my workshop might be too simple and my instructions too detailed. However, it was declared as a beginner workshop and details can always be ignored by those participants who don’t need them 🙂

At first there were only the two participants who had also signed up as criticla friends. But then two more came. The session went smoothly and participants could follow the instructions easily. I have to say, however, that several were not beginners. A late-comer started on his own and was able to catch up. One participant had frequent crashes and fell behind. Another participant did something I had not expected and this caused her problems for the later steps. I helped by giving her additional instructions in IM to remedy the situation. I am still not sure what caused this: my instructions, language issues or the participant being distracted by private IMs (which I suspected).

From MUVEnation hands-on workshop

Latecomers can cause havoc in a workshop. I did not observe enough workshops in SL to know how experienced tutors deal with them but having planned to deliver my workshop in the MUVEnation sandbox, I knew I could expect latecomers and guests and this was to some extend even welcome. I did say how I would deal with them in my workshop description (observe or take the worshop material and try on your own) but, of course, not all would have read it. Some just popped in to do something in the sandbox, saw that something was going on and started chatting with me: “Long time no see” 🙂 I was determined not to have the flow of the workshop be interrupted too much by these but I didn’t mind observers and I didn’t want to sound unfriendly or unwelcoming. So I said a few words but indicated in local chat that we were going back to the instructions.

Surprise guest: At some point, a former SL student of mine suddenly materialised on a participant’s board. He was one of the students who were on the slide that I had shown at the beginning of the workshop showing him and peers playing my first board game. I thought I was dreaming and tried to make sense of it. I know a lot can happen in SL but I started thinking “my showing a slide of him can’t have made him appear in my workshop. Yeah, after being in SL for a longer while, you start believing such weird things can happen 🙂 It turned out that he had been teleported by the participant on whose board he arrived. I had introduced them some time ago and apparently they had developed a friendship.

All participants were able to finish their game. Although, none of them had prepared questions in advance (I had asked for this as preparation for the workshop). Nobody seemed willing to spend the time to write all the question notecards but they did write some so we could test the games. When taking their objects (the board with the tiles) into their inventory, they could not take the boards although I had set permissions to copy/mod. I had forgotten to tick one more box and when I did, participant were able to take them.

Lessons learned
What did you learn from the experience?

  • Instructions can never be detailed enough
  • Talk your ideas through with someone
  • Always do a run-through before you do the workshop for the first time
  • Don’t expect participants to have read through your announcement and have prepared for it.
  • Be prepared to do shortcuts and don’t force participants to do all the steps if it is not absolutely necessary.
  • Always double-check permissions of your material.
Feb 12

Key factors for the design and delivery of successful Second Life workshops

Posted on by

muvenation logoAnother MUVEnation task after a long break. This is for module two, activity one: Analysis of hands-on workshops. We were provided with a very comprehensive analysis grid which was very helpful in compiling the list of factors. Factors I found missing were 

  1. Importance of announcements (clearly defined task, aims, level, duration, prerequisites, …)
  2. Pace of delivery (too fast can cause stress, too slow can break the flow or bore participants)
  3. Motivation (to come back, continue learning, finish the task, …)

This is by no means a complete list but what I have collected through attending in-world workshops, chatting with experienced workshop instructors and adding a bit from my own SL teaching experience where appropriate. I have not numbered the lists because the factors are not in a particular order and there is no specific number of items. Also, this is related to SL skills workshops. Other types of workshops, seminars or lessons will call for partly or completely different approaches.

 Postcard from Second Life.

Workshop design: planning and preparation

  • Detailed/accurate instructions and supplies prepared in advance and handed out at the beginning of the session. The folder should include all the material needed, like textures, scripts, and sounds, slides, but also a notecard with the instructions so that latecomers or those falling behind can catch up (Copyright: This might lead to the instructions being used by others for their workshops but they can be copied from local chat anyway.
  • Announcements to tell participants about prerequisites needed (level, pre-knowledge, objectives, duration…)
  • Limit the number of participants to be able to be able to provide sufficient individual help.
  • Picture/slide or in case of building, a finished version of the object that participants are going to build placed visibly.
  • Improving/adding to instructions (clarification about questions asked during a session can be added to the instructions for future session.
  • Interesting topic (obviously there isn‘t always a choice but even though the learning aim might be fixed, like „basic building“, „how to build a box that hands out content“, the instructor can make it interesting and timely „Gift box building“.
  • Spacial design: In most building workshops, the space seems to be designed very traditionally with neat rows for participants (though often with cushions instead of desks and chairs) and instructor sitting/standing in front facing the group. This means, the instructors have to shout instructions. Asked whether it has any advantages, I was told that it didn‘t. I discussed other options with instructors: A circle of a 20m diameter would eliminate the need to shout. On the downside, some students would face the instructors back and and would need to use the camera controls more to see the slides used for the class. A semi-circle might be the best option.

Workshop design: delivery and instruction

  • Start punctually but plan activities/workshop in such a way that latecomers can catch up with the least disruption. Agree on and display (slides) rules of conduct for such cases (and also on how you intend to deal with questions, etc.).
  • Especially in beginner workshop, provide visual/textual help with SL user interface (e. g. how to zoom in on slides, use camera controls).
  • Most instructors, I was told, copy/paste instructions from notecard that has been prepared in advance (see planning and preparation). Although, this is already a much better solution than typing instructions life, I use a tool like the SpeakEasy HUD instead of copy/paste. The HUD automatically brings up the next step of the instructions typed in advance in a notecard with one click on its icon eliminating the need to have a separate window with the text opened. The HUD gives me enough flexibility to react to questions during a session or add personal (live) remarks to not make it feel impersonal.
  • Show slides instead of trying to describe things in text. A combination of both is probably the best to cater to the needs of different learner types.
  • Use slides and other means to show/tell first what participants are going to do next and then do it. This gives participants a sense of direction and confidence. 
  • Show the final product(s) and explain or demonstrate what it is good for and when it is used (knowing the purpose of what is being done.
  • Make the different steps visual (slides of steps or instructor building the object together with participants) so that participants can check whether they have done steps correctly.
  • When using slides, make sure the rez quickly (e. g. by pre-rezzing them on a small prim or using presenters that have this feature built-in).
  • Keep to the subject/topic (e.g. if a class is about basic scripting don‘t lecture about the history of programming) Participants usually want to to do something and have something to take away.
  • If too many participants have problems and need help, it is good to be able to call another instructor for help. Even better would be to always have a ”helper” there who help with technical or similar problems. After such a session ”problematic” session, it is important to analyse why the problems occurred and try and eliminate the cause as much as possible.
  • Personalize activities whenever possible even if it is simple things like choosing ones own textures, sound, text or colour.
  • Conversational flow/Communication dynamics: Allow participants to interrupt, ask questions and react to comments by them whenever possible during the session to make session less stressful and more light-hearted. Especially when the instruction text has been pre-prepared, it can sound very impersonal if nothing else is ”spoken”. Also, these mini-chats give those who have fallen behind a chance to breathe and catch up. This will create a positive atmosphere and lower the affective filter and thus enable better learning.
  • Whenever possible and if the nature of the workshop and time allows, allow participants to reflect on what is being done. A pure step-by-step instruction on how to build something or script might be time-efficient if only the result is important but will not result in real learning. For learning to take place, participants need to think about the process and reflect on their learning (if not possible during the workshop than outside of it by providing learners with questions). 

Implementation of the workshop: follow up and evaluation

  • Decide which questions to answer in local chat and which in IM (If one participants asks a question, replying in local chat might confuse others. However, even if a question has been asked in IM but could be relevant for all, it should be answered in local chat).
  • Monitor students‘ progress by asking how they are doing after major steps and if possible, by looking at their builds/objects and trying out if they function as they should.
  • Assessment depends on the nature of the workshop and what the expected outcomes are (An object with certain looks or function or a script can be assessed by their looks, accuracy or trying if they work. The process might also be taken into account. In other workshops like ”how to best use communication tools“, assessment could be by level of engagement, correct etiquette or relevance and nature of contributions), collaboration might be assessed if that was a requirement or completion of a task or solving of a problem. 

Implementation of the workshop: recall and transfer of learning

  • Recapitulation is important at the end of a session for better learning to take place. I haven‘t seen this done in any of the workshops I have attended. In my lesson, I always plan to show the sign-posts from the beginning of the  lesson again to help recap but often run out of time and can‘t do it.
  • Provide access to a network and/or forum where participants can help each other in between sessions. I use Moodle forum and created a Second Life group for my students.
  • Provide additional help, material, exercises and information after the class. These could be accessed in-world or on the web. I use Moodle (for chat logs, vocabulary lists, other material) and web 2.0 tools (for exercise, self-paced practice). The instructor of the scripting workshop I have attended, Simon Kline, provides video tutorials of the topics covered in-world.
  • Motivation: Providing a forum, in-world group and creating a network can also be highly motivating. Another way of motivation participants is to showcase their ”products“ and success stories. In my course I did this by making an exhibition of students‘ builds, a party at the end and framed SL certificates. The scripting instructor mentioned above compiles some successful stories of his students.

Note: It is important to keep in mind that this list of some key factors is for hands-on workshops like those for learning about basic SL building and scripting. Workshops can take very different forms and factors affecting success will vary and not all of the above will be suitable. A lot also depends on whether the workshop is one of a serious or a stand-alone one, whether participation is compulsory or voluntary and other such factors.

I found the workshops I have attended interesting and learned new skills plus took away a finished product and scripts and knowledge that I can use/apply for other tasks. I found one of the building workshops a bit stressful and the delivery a bit impersonal whereas there was more interaction in the scripting workshop. In both the scripting workshop and a gift box building workshop there was humour which I find essential in any learning environment.

I had the chance to talk to two instructors, Simon Kline and revochen Mayne, who I would like to thank very much for the extra time they spent with me to talk about their workshops and what they think are key factors for successful hands-on workshops. 

Jan 01

Building a tree

Posted on by

 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). 

 

Dec 23

Communication and interaction tools

Posted on by

muvenation logo

What is the task?

Activity 6 of session 3 asks us

  • To collect, describe and comment on a number of tools that are suitable for teaching and learning in Second Life based upon a chosen theme
  • To design an experience-based, interactive and playful activity for a teacher to discover these tools in Second Life, such as creating a tour guide.

The themes are

  • Delivery of learning material
  • Communication and interaction
  • Cooperation
  • Creation of content
  • Individualisation of learning paths
  • Assessment, feedback and tracking
  • Self-organisation and group-organisation
  • Reflection and meta cognition

I decided to join colleagues to collaborate on finding tools (in the broadest sense) that help teachers to manage social interaction and communication with their learners. As I mentioned in a previous post, effective communication can be a challenge in SL for many reasons but is  very important and can decide about the success or failure of a session or even a course. 

Which tools are essential?

There are tens of communication tools and facilities in SL. We have selected only a few for this activity. The three I added to the book are the following:

1. Avatar Scanner (also often referred to as “chat range alarm”): Many avatars are not aware that what they say can only be heard within a certain distance and even if they know it is difficult to judge when one is outside the range. This can lead to communication breakdown and misunderstandings. An teacher or participant of a meeting might wonder why nobody or not all are following the conversation or instructions not realising that they are out of chat range. One solution that has been suggested to me in the comments of another post is using a kind of visual circle but that is limited to one place. This is good when the teacher or moderator wants to create spaces for group work or discussion. Another solution is a HUD that avatars can wear and take with them where ever they go. This Avatar Scanner HUD is user friendly, small and available for free. 
Avatar Scanner HUD

2. Another very common issue in meetings with a lot of avatars is the flow of conversation. Often many conversation threads and topics are interwoven and it becomes difficult to follow the conversation. Therefore, in some instances the moderator might want to control the stream of conversation. There are several tools available but some are too rigid and others too expensive. The Meeting control lights tool gives more control to both the moderator and the speakers and is more transparent (e. g. everybody can see whose next). 
Meeting Control Lights Tags SecondLife DaffodilFargis tools Muvenation mvn08

3. Static lessons are not good in Real Life but even less suitable for SL. With the Opinionator, lessons and meetings can be much more interactive and fun. Instead of simply replying in text or voice to discussion questions, participants can use the Opinionator, which is a 3D Likert Scale social graphing tool that collates votes. When a question is asked, avatars walk into the different sections of the opinionator to show their vote or opinion. The total number of avatars and the percentage is calculated and shown immediately. Great before or after discussions. Very interactive and good for visual and kinaesthetic learners.
Edu Tools - Opinionator

The rest of our list is here (work in progress). If you think we missed a good tool, especially if it is a free or reasonably-priced one, let me know.

How will we present them?

Book about SL toolsBook about SL tools
We discussed two options to present our tools, a tour HUD or a book. Personally, I did not like the free tour HUDs that were available. The text field and the font itself was too small and I have tools which are not available in an in-world shop but only online and the HUDs we have do not provide URLs.

I finally found a book that can also be worn as a HUD. I provided the Slurls and URLs in shortened form and we added a notecard with the Landmarks and a notecard giver script to the book. 

What can go wrong?

The problem with such a HUD tour and even the book is that tools, shops or other educational places and facilities can be moved to other locations or disappear completely. Only recently, one of the participants in our group has created a tour which includes Boracay, an educational island. However, two days later, the island was dismantled and will soon cease to exist completely after having been there for over two years. This is probably something we have to get used to although it is very sad to see such work disappear. Some tour or guide objects that provide lists of educational places take this into account and update their lists regularly. One such tool is the free Squirrel notebook which is available for free here.

Where?

Here is the Slurl to the location where you can get a copy of our book and the tool collections of the other groups are nearby, too. The exhibition is only temporary so visit it soon.

Dec 11

Communication breakdown

Posted on by

muvenation logoIn one of the meetings in SL that I regularly attend, there was a partial communication breakdown that let to a lot of confusion, misunderstandings and even hurt feelings the latter of which I wasn’t even aware of during the meeting.

As far as I can reconstruct what happened after looking through the chatlog and talking to the participants, the following seemed to have been some of the reasons for the communication breakdown:

  1. Some participants used voice some text
  2. Some of those using voice missed what was being written in text
  3. Some participants were not aware of the fact that the normal chat range is 19 m and what there actual distance to the others was. 
  4. Participants might have been confused about the roles and the agenda (Who is leading the session? What is the agenda?)

Because of number 2 and 3, some participants thought they or what they were saying was being ignored by the others.

Communication in SL, especially with larger groups, different members participating in the meetings, changing roles and agenda can be a challenge. Besides the issues mentioned above,

  • information overload,
  • non-linear discourse and
  • lack of body language

can cause disruption of a conversation.

Coincidentally, one of the new activities for section 3 is about collecting tools and building a guide for them (HUD, interactive book, bot, …) using the playfulness approach. Among the themes suggested is also one about tools for Communication and interaction. I’ve already been thinking of looking for ways of how to make group discussions more effective after having attended several (chaotic and ineffective) discussion with larger groups. Now, seeing what negative effects such communication breakdown can have on the rapport of a group, I want to look for tools and procedures that can help make such group conversations more pleasant and effective.

If anyone reading this knows of such tools or procedures in Second Life, I’d be more than happy if you left a comment and let me know. 

Tools

One tool I can already add to my list and can recommend to everybody in SL is 

  1. A chat range indicator (included in the Sloddle and Mysti tool) that shows a list of avatars within the chat range so that the speaker knows who can hear them.

 

Procedure’s that can help

  1. Explicitly mentioning/showing

a) who the moderator of the current meeting is

b) what the agenda is and in which order they topics will be dealt with.

(to be continued)