SL's #1 problem for .edu is...

by Jeremy Kemp

...not sin (porn, gambling etc.)

...not accessibility (tech reqs, tools for the disabled, complex interface)

...not disruptive strangers (griefers, unaffiliated interlopers, etc.)

...not commercialism and corporatization

...not legal issues with Intellectual Property and the legally questionable Terms of Service

But the MOST troubling feature of this setting for education is the lack of affordances for reflective learning and asynchronous tools in support of learning communities.

Many class sessions in SL seem to wander into the realm of decorative chat.

But the vast majority of online learning at the post secondary level is NOT synchronous. Here at our university, only a small percentage of faculty add a chatroom tool to their LMS designs.

Students who flock to distance learning for flexibility and time-shifting are loathe to set aside a specific time for meetings - especially nano-band activities like instant messaging. I just can't imagine spending ALL my students' time in SL parking their avatars an nyawning through excruciatingly slow chat interactions.

Blending RL synchronous meetings and online asynchronous reflective activities such as threaded messaging and project work seems to be the most successful model. I've used the "book ends" approach in my elearning classes from 2002 on. Students meet for a longish in-person session on campus, arrange teams. This also allows for in-person pre and post assessments and also public speaking training at the final session. Students get the face-to-face benefits but are able to spend less time on campus tied down to a schedule. Each mode has its strengths and their work is tightly integrated RL/online.

So virtual environments for learning represent a two-legged stool when used by themselves. We benefit from an engaging feeling of presence and also from the visualization and modeling. But the missing third leg of the stool is reflectivity. The platform is woefully lacking ways to integrate in-world learning with existing distance learning tools for reflection such as threaded messaging, blogs, portfolios, assignment structures and assessments.

In my own class work, I'm struggling to create a multi-modal experience where my students may choose how they devote time to the class. Grading is a pain: How do you assign grades for a team when 1/2 of the members want to meet in-world to give chat presentations while the others cannot commit to meeting times and prefer building on their own and leaving items for the others to work with?

Does anyone have advice for instructional design in a multi-modal setting like this? For connecting your previous LMS instructional designs with this new synchronous-centric tool?

Ideas?

Jeremy Kemp, M.Ed., M.S.J.
Assistant Director, SL Campus
School of Library & Information Science
San Jose State University
SL: Jeremy Kabumpo

Workshop Materials

by Kim Hampton and James Rickman

Kim writes: I am creating a workshop Web site as part of a professional resource we are developing at Bedford/St. Martin's (an academic publisher). I am interested in providing a forum for teachers to exchange, share, comment on, and post workshop materials for community use. One topic I'd like to include is "Teaching in a Virtual Environment."

Has anyone created a collection of workshop materials that address this topic, specifically how to teach in SL? We would love to work out a deal where these materials could be posted to our site. Please let me know if you have anything you'd like to contribute.

James replies:

http://www.njit.edu/v2/CCCC/VC/Papers/Teaching.html

http://www.teachingquality.org/pdfs/tlnvirtualchat.pdf

Underlying pedagogical assumptions (Editorial)

by Owen Kelly

I find it interesting the way different strands of different threads can come together sometimes in an entirely personal way and trigger off something else entirely.

For example:

• People have been worrying about the right clothing to wear when appearing before your students in an SL class;
• Mechthild Schmidt leapt on someone she thought might be commercialising Teen Sl, when I read the post as indicating that a bright teenager was using Teen SL to rehearse his life as an adult;
• Kimberley Hampton has just wondered if anyone has "created a collection of workshop materials that address this topic, specifically how to teach in SL?" and would like to publish it;
• Birdie Newborn has just challenged Chris Swaine, saying that "the underlying assumption of your argument, Chris, seems to be to corral Second Life into traditional guidelines" while she thinks that "SL offers wholly new potentialities".

These all tie together for me into a topic that concerns me: what kind of pedagogy does Second Life support, or (more interestingly) what will happen to pedagogy once it has been metaversed?

Almost everyone in SL is a prosumer in Toffler's sense of the word: their consumption and production are inextricably intertwined. This necessarily includes their part in the production of the comunal meanings that they in turn consume. This must be especially true of so-called virtual worlds like SL where the very existence of the world is a communal fantasy: an act of communal production that is at the same moment an act of communal consumption.

This means that everyone in SL is (to one extent or another) self-educating (we can throw in terms like micro-learning, informal learning, if you like) and that puts a large burden on almost all traditional notions of pedagogy. In a knowledge economy mediated by digital interfaces you should be able to claim prior-learning credits for all the PlayStation games you have become familiar with.

I have several specific reasons for raising these general points now.

1. We have just finished a project in SL called Semano Semano, which was a pedagogical experiment that I have documented in two interlinking essays here:
- http://www.owenkelly.net/2007/05/15/semano-semano/
- http://www.owenkelly.net/2007/05/25/second-life-a-component-in-a-vle/

I would be very interested to have any reactions or comments either here or on the site itself. (Please note: I am not suggesting that our work is either interesting, important or right; merely that it is interesting and important to me and I would like to share it because I think it may be pointing in an interesting direction).

2. The fourth League of Worlds conference will be taking place in Sweden at the end of October (The first 3 were in Helsinki, Finland; Melbourne, Australia; and Boone, North Carolina. The fifth is scheduled to be in Mexico.) This conference arose from the kind of concerns that I am outlining here. If you are interested then you should find details at www.leagueofworlds.com This year we are planning to hold a shadown conference in SL and I will keep the list up to date with news about that.

Both 1 and 2 are attempts to wrestle with the question of how pedagogy will radically change in a world of self-training prosumers (of whom our teenage entrepeneur from Teen Second Life might be a good example). I suspect that we ignore this question at our peril.

And I teach in outfits borrowed from Zorro or the Matrix depending on my mood :)

Eduserv "Virtual worlds, real learning?" Symposium 2007

by Nick Noakes (from Eduserv listserv)

Subject: Eduserv "Virtual worlds, real learning?" Symposium 2007
Powerpoint slides and streaming media

The Powerpoint slides and streaming media from the Eduserv Foundation
"Virtual worlds, real learning?" Symposium 2007, which was held on the
10th May, are now available from the Eduserv Website at the following
location:-

http://www.eduserv.org.uk/foundation/symposium/2007/presentations

E-Portfolio Open Access

By Jonathon Richter (Univ. of Oregon; WainBrave Bernal)

Jeremy Kemp and I presented at AERA last month on the Virtual Portfolio or vPortfolio concept - extending and enhancing the ePortfolio notion into 3D space. The slurl for our work-in-progress spot is here: http://tinyurl.com/ytqjna and we'd really like to collaborate with folks from the Second Life Educators group on ways to build out this idea, literally! :)

While 2D portfolios have traditionally relied, in one way / degree to another on the metaphors of (a) Map, (b) Sonnet, and (c) Mirror - depending upon the purpose of the ePortfolio (who is the audience, who is setting the goals, who is reviewing it - and is it for summative or formative evaluation?) - 3D or vPortfolios may generate new metaphors for collections of student work for the purposes of teaching and learning:

1) the Portfolio as Quest: collections of work can now immerse the viewer in a story, retold when a user ventures through.

2) the Portfolio as built Community: students can "hang out" and create things in a formal or informal setting, making and doing (much like a number of sims in SL - like my home in Chilbo!)

3) the Portfolio as Museum: Students can create a walkthrough (or flythrough) of an interactive exhibit - on a large or small scale.

4) the Portfolio as Marketplace : Students can use an economic scale to see how well the artifacts that demonstrate their knowledge now bear out their own skills.

There may be others out there in SL and other Multi-User Virtual environments - but my belief is that you are using a relatively inexpensive Portfolio Tool with Second Life. There just hasn't yet been a lot of development in any of the above 4 areas - though there ARE examples, of which I would humbly ask folks to submit so we may showcase them at the vPortfolio build on San Jose State's place.

We also are experimenting with the use of SLoodle as a way to capture reflection (via chat and blog tools) so students have a way of narrating why they feel they have met particular standards.

As for 2D, I like Elgg for learner - centered and OSPI for institution-centered portfolios. I've used Adobe Acrobat Writer and HyperStudio (ahem!) as generic tools to create them at Montana State, where I was in a previous life.

TaskStream and Avenet are great proprietary options.

If you or anyone is interested in finding out more about our vPortfolio work, let me know!

How about an open source OBJECT repository to enhance education in SL?

A question by Fire Centaur: ...Since we have all of these fabulous educators making great 3D objects for their presentations, why not create a repository where everyone could submit and catalog the objects they've created for their presentations... then, the community would have a rick library of presentation aids to use and share... I think this would be a great way to enhance the current SL education offerings... what do you think?

Jonathon Richeter (Wainbrave Bernal) responds...

We're aiming to do just that! Creating a repository and searchable database of Learning Objects available in Second Life with the help of the whole Community of Practice is precisely the aim of a newly funded "proof of concept" project called SLamander or The Salamander Project.

We have recently struck a partnership with MERLOT ( http://www.merlot.org/) to develop a typology of interrelated dimensions that are useful for educators of all stripes using this mileu.

We are also working with the good people at San Jose State - particularly Jeremy Kemp and a new group of mentors to assist teachers in SL (Greylin) - to develop the concept on several fronts: Salamander Tool development in Sloodle and a Salamander HUD and in testing things out prior to an official launch.

Right now, for example, we are working on developing the best way to create a slurl nomination and survey-based description tool that would log directly to a database. We will then filter these - possibly asking folks for further info - and then starting to place them in the MERLOT search interface. Next friday we're presenting at the Best Practices Conference on the concept and plan to be releasing more information about the particulars when they are more concrete such that we have capacity for folks to be more involved.

We should be ready for a full public announcement in the Fall 2007 - though this is a way of "getting the word out" now. ;)

Our initial effort, prior to officially partnering with MERLOT, was done here: http://www.eduisland.net/salamanderwiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

Anyone interested in this is welcome to suggest ideas, or get involved by emailing me: jrichter -at- uoregon . edu

Miscelleneous notes from Jeremy Kemp

Check out this 2005 groundbreaking study on ways to maximize learning "transfer" in simulations: http://cognitrn.psych.indiana.edu/rgoldsto/pdfs/CASfade.pdf

The key phrase is "concreteness fading" or the assertion that REALISM in a simulation is not in itself a key goal. Most helpful is a coordinated movement of the sim from realistic to abstract representations.

Time spent heightening realism in Second Life is often WASTED time. And we should focus more on the juxtaposition of easy verisimilitude (low load) with meaningful abstraction (making principles salient).

Example:

I have a script that illustrates the "Flocking" algorithm:
http://www.simteach.com/wiki/index.php?title=SL_Swarming_Script

You can make cool groupings of fish, water molecules, etc. Show this to a high school student and they might enjoy the spectacle (concreteness).

But by studying and dissecting the underlying script (abstraction), they might better master the concepts of mass, friction and force.

This paper asserts that students show less errors on future exams if they are presented the concrete representation FIRST followed up by the abstraction.

Second Life is uniquely effective at helping us instructional designers experiment with this technique because of its flexibility.

Take that to your administrators. :-)

--J

SLED Listserv, Jeremy Kemp, 14MAY07

Call for participation in a survey about SL teaching practice

About three weeks ago Lili Luo launched a survey to study the current teaching practice (especially pedagogy) on SL, but only 15 responses have been received so far....

Could you please take 5 minutes to complete this survey and share your experience teaching a course in SL?

Here's the survey URL: http://senna.sjsu.edu/survey/phpq6/fillsurvey.php?sid=2

Luo promises to compile the results and send it to the SLED listserv.

SLED Listserv, Lili Luo, 10MAY07

Best Practices Conference Update

Can you believe that in just a few short weeks, the VERY FIRST inworld conference of educators will take place??

1. Are you planning to attend?
2. Do you want to present?
3. Does your college/school/program want a stand?
4. Do you play a game that you want to share?

It is OK if you are new to SL or if you can't be there all day. It is ok if you don't yet have students inworld. And it is OK if you just want to drop in for one or two sessions. Among the long list of talented keynotes and speakers, we have the awesome and lovely Intellagirl Tully and IBM's Chuck Hamilton.

Even if you are only popping in to see one session, we would like to know to expect you (to make sure we have enough chairs and all). As of right this moment, we are expecting about 300 people. ISN'T THAT AWESOME??? But, we want to make sure we have enough room for YOU!

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE register on the wiki at http://slbestpractices2007.wikispaces.com/

If you would like to showcase your work in some way, you can submit your awesome ideas via the wiki, as well.

We hope to see you there!

Posted to SLED Listserv on 09-MAY-07 by Beth Ritter-Guth

Guardian UK Article: "It's a world of possibilities"

An article from today's UK Education Guardian (May 8, 2007)

"Virtual campuses are springing up in Second Life, as universities discover the advantages of cyberspace."

http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,2074240,00.html

Posted to SLED Listserv (08-MAY-07) by Andy Fossett