Why teach in Second Life?

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

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

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

Nick Yee has done research on games and user behavior.

http://www.nickyee.com/

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

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

• Ixchel, Anya. (2006).  My Teaching Semester in Second Life: Pitfalls, Challenges and Joys (No longer available)

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

  http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearning_innovation/eli_outcomes/GamingReport.aspx

   

• Stoerger, Sharon (2007) It's Not Whether You Win or Lose, but How You Play the Game: The Role of Virtual Worlds in Education.  Annotated Bibliography  (Historical material on virtual worlds in education)  http://ella.slis.indiana.edu/~sstoerge/virtualworlds.htm

   

• Livingstone, Daniel, (Ed.); Kemp, Jeremy, (Ed.) (2006).Proceedings of the Second Life Education Workshop, Part of the Second Life Community Convention (1st, San Francisco, California, August 18-20, 2006).  "...14 papers from presentations and posters from the Second Life Education Workshop at the Second Life Community Convention, presented at the Fort Mason Centre in San Francisco, California in August 2006." ERICdocument:

  ED493670. http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/1b/ef/03.pdf
•  

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

           Educators Coop  http://educatorscoop.org/blog/

Teaching in Second Life

•  SaLamander Project http://www.eduisland.net/salamanderwiki/index.php?title=Main_Page  (See references, etc.) "Creating a Community-built index of Second Life content, activities, and tools of educational value using evidence-based approaches."

Planning to teach in Second Life  

Sarah Robbins. Explicit Bargains: Setting Realistic Expectations for Learning in Virtual Worlds. SLedCC, September 2008. Tampa Florida     http://www.slideshare.net/intellagirl/explicit-bargains-setting-realistic-expectations-for-learning-in-virtual-worlds-presentation/

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

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

   

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

    

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

   

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

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

    

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

   

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

     

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

   

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

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

     

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

   

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

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

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

     

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

     

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

   

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

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

     

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

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

     

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

   

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

    

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

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

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

Linden Lab.  Guidelines for Community Standards in Second Life.

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

 

New Media Consortium.  Campus Code of Conduct.

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

 

Penn State Virtual Worlds. SLEtiquette at Penn State

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

 

IBM Guidelines for Virtual Worlds

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

 

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

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

 

Beth Ritter-Guth. Lehigh Carbon Community College.

Courses in English lit, American lit, Womens Studies

 http://collegeenglish.wikispaces.com/ritterguthclasses

 

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

 

Jeremy Kemp: San Jose State University.

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

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

 

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

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

 

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

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

 

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

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

 

NMC Virtual Worlds. Services

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

    Includes parcels for lease.

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

 

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

 

Educators Coop

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

 

ICT Library:  Look for class ideas for many disciplines; tools, scripts, etc. Examples: Whiteboards, slide viewers, an in-world timer, browser launch scripts, information kiosk scripts, etc.

 

HoloEmitter

http://holoemitter.wordpress.com

 

SLGuide

 

Play these Second Life movies on any inworld screen. 

 http://slguide.com 

 

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

 

 

More on Second Life