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/media/documents/programmes/elearninginnovation/gamingreport_v3.pdf

•  

• 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?

Another Take on Considerations on planning your time with students in Second Life: 

Ensure that the students have access to appropriate computer equipment. This is crucial!

Are there any students with disabilities who would need access to the same kind of help that they might get in any other lab situation or in a face-to-face classroom situation?

If a lab will be used for training, make sure that Second Life will run on the computers in question. Be prepared to solve problems presented by firewalls, etc.  Software may need updating over the course of a semester.  (The software for Second Life can be run off a flash drive – but if the computers used don’t have an appropriate graphics card, even that won’t help.)  Using a lab? Expect to use some bandwidth!

Be prepared for downtime. It’s always a possibility

There are a few books out for new users of Second Life.  One of them could be suggested as a textbook. 

Decide if a learning experience can go on in a borrowed space – or will purchase of land be worthwhile.  It can take up to 6 weeks from the date of the request to receiving an island.  It will take some time before that to work out purchasing with your campus financial officers (but this is done. There are colleges and universities that own islands)

Speaking of money… decide how to handle providing students with a few Lindens to upload textures (for example images for in-world slide shows) or purchase items that might be necessary for class activities.  Some instructors earn money in Second Life by doing surveys, etc.

Decide if the learning space will be opened or closed. Many instructors choose to leave their space open and invite guests to visit class sessions and tolerate and get rid of griefers should any show up.  If the space is open to all comers, alert students that some avatars might exhibit annoying or harassing behavior. Teach them how to handle those situations should they arise.  (Decide if students will be advised against roaming the seamier areas of Second Life.)

Develop a code of conduct (i.e. class behavior rules) for the students. There are models out there. 

Be prepared to provide technical support and expect a learning curve even for the so-called Millenial “digital natives

Plan on time for the real basics like moving around  - learn the basic commands on the rather complicated interface. There are checklists available for newcomers – and there are in-world orientation areas that are education-focused – most notable is one provided by the New Media Consortium

Plan on time to learn the jargon

As an instructor have expertise in Second Life tasks that will be required of the students:  If building is required, know how to do it yourself or get someone available to help the students

Be sure that the tasks that students are expected to undertake in SL correspond with the learning objectives of the course  (If they move beyond the tasks set, applaud them!)

Provide a social space where students can gather.  (Michael Mayrath says the area should include seating where students face each other.)

Using chat text instead of voice has some advantages. It is easy to save a transcript of chat.  Students practice their writing skills.

Chat can become confusing until you get used to it

(IMs between individuals provides a back channel)

Observations from various faculty: When using chat, everyone tends to contribute. No one tends to dominate

The use  of voice is no longer "new"- but some still prefer text chat to use of voice. Some users still prefer  using Skype and/or Ventrillo for voice rather than Second Life's built-in VoIP.

Faculty talk about students developing a  sense of community

Codes of Conduct: 

Linden Lab.  Guidelines for Community Standards in Second Life.

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

 

Memorial University (Canada) 

http://www.distance.mun.ca/secondlife/Policies_Waiver_Guidelines.pdf

 

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 

 

More info/More examples: 

 

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   

 

 

Examples of ways to get space to teach in Second Life: 

 

 Bruce Sommerville from the University of Technology in Sydney had offered SLED educators who's institutions do not yet have a presence on Second Life, use of "the Study Space" on Gualala.  There was no charge for using the areas.  See the SLED discussion list for others who might be providing similar options.

 

NMC Virtual Worlds. Services

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

    Includes parcels for lease.

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

 

Educators Coop

Check to see if this option is still available, but here's another example of reasonably priced space for educators.  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

 

 

Example of something you can do in Second Life... stream media! 

SLGuide. Play audio and video on any inworld screen. 

 http://slguide.com 

 

 

 

More on Second Life