Discovered Skoolaborate

Was browsing through a mail list post on SLEDT and followed a link to Skoolaborate:

Skoolaborate is a global project that uses a blend of technolocies including, blogs, an LMS [learning management system, e.g. Blackboard, Moodle], wiki’s and ‘virtual worlds’ for collaborative learning of both teachers and students. By providing a common place to learn and share ideas, educators can leverage the power of new media to engage students and provide opportunities that might otherwise not exist. Using a group of islands in SecondLife, Skoolaborate helps students to collaborate on social action projects that benefit students who are less privileged than themselves. These projects integrate curriculum and digital technologies into collaborative global actions.

The idea of social action projects sounds very relevant for GP. However, there are lists of requirements and ‘minimum commitment’ you can find here. Still, that doesn’t stop us from learning from their experiences. The blog has been in existence since July last year, so the amount of material to sift through might be just right.

Also stumbled upon Schome, which looks terribly interesting. But I must get ready for my lesson soon.

Lesson Ideas

A homework handout for Avatars and Identity from Elon University – looks manageable

Global Kids, Inc.’s Best Practices in Using Virtual Worlds For Education – seems more advanced

Found a sandbox at this SLurl (don’t remember how though) and finally tried my hand at building something, even though it was only a cube.

This looks like a great overview of some of ways Second Life can be used, and in some cases, has been used for educational purposes.

Thinking about Second Life in education

A candid discussion (started in March this year; last reply December 15) of the use of Second Life in education can be found on this page on the Classroom 2.0 blog. Found via the Edublog Awards. The following is what I extracted from the discussion:

Some (potential or actual) applications described

• Learner flies around an expanded 3D model of an eye to learn its parts and their functions
• Build an internal combustion engine to demonstrate how the parts of it work so they can get up close and personal to see it actually in motion without being burned
• Build a space station — pick your lesson plan here between astronomy, physics, materials sciences, math, geography …
• Use a 3d model of the solar system to teach about the planets
• Museums and science exhibits
• Language learning – Second Life English
• Education UK – An island in Second Life supporting teaching and learning
• Eduisland II
• Simulations for nursing students to use as pre-tests for their clinicals

Issues raised

• Cost of buying islands
• Cognitive overload dealing solely with the interface and navigation controls (including learning them)
• Going out of the classroom model
• unfamiliar, hard for people to grasp educational uses quickly
• less than 5,000 active teen residents on the Teen Grid (source)
• Not a viable teaching platform in the US because it’s not accessible (to all students). Regulations 504 and 508 prohibit the use of these technologies to actually teach a class for any institution receiving federal funds. That said, a lot of institutions are using them anyway on the grounds that ‘we don’t have any blind students’
• Controlling the learning
• Expensive, funding required
• Very time-consuming – ‘bleeding edge’
• Bandwidth-hungry
• Most people are not early adopters
• Hardware requirements are too much to ensure equal or ubiquitous access
• User contribution aspect of SL seems significantly more technical and difficult to participate in
• Lack of focus on rigorous content, e.g. ‘advanced math and science skills’
• Not currently developed to the extent where it is efficient for a teacher to utilize its full potential
• Safety

Interesting mention

• Google SketchUp – ‘a free, easy-to-learn 3D modeling tool that enables you to explore the world in 3D’
• River City – ‘A Multi-User Virtual Environment for Learning Scientific Inquiry and 21st Century Skills’
• Runescape – a browser-based MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game)
• TappedIn – ‘The online workplace of an international community of education professionals’; ‘a groupware website with integrated chat and a geographical metaphor (offices, buildings, etc.)’
• Project Darkstar – ‘a research effort aimed at simplifying the process of developing multiplayer online games that can be deployed on a massive scale and made available to players using virtually any client device’
• Sloodle – ‘an Open Source project which aims to develop and share useful, usable, desirable tools for supporting education in virtual worlds, making teaching easier’
• Virtual Worlds Review – Last site update: February 20, 2006
• Croquet – ‘a powerful new open source software development environment and software infrastructure for creating and deploying deeply collaborative multi-user online applications and metaverses on and across multiple operating systems and devices’. See also this group for Croquet/Secondlife/OpenSim 3D virtual classroom users and developers

Virtual living

The online version of ‘The Week’, a US magazine which looks at the international media, ran an article in February this year about virtual worlds. Second Life is referred to as ‘the most talked-about new game’ and dominates the article. Looks like a good introduction to the topic of virtual worlds and issues related to them. Go to http://www.theweekmagazine.com/news/articles/news.aspx?ArticleID=1930

What to do?

Found a ready guide to help figure out what to do with Second Life. The contents table looks promising. Heck, the fact that it has a contents table is promising:

1. Introduction and History of this Document
2. Getting Started
2.1. Physical Setup
2.2. Bandwidth
2.3. Downtime
2.4. Introductory Material (Books, Blogs, Wikis)
2.5. The SL Forums
2.6. Orientation
2.7. Choosing Last Names
2.8. Choosing First Names
2.9. Setting Up User Groups
3. In-World Dynamics
3.1. The Lindens
3.2. Money and Stipends
3.3. Unsafe, Mature, PG
3.4. Creating a Safe Lab
3.5. How to Report Abuse
4. Sample Assignments
4.1. Avatar and Identity
4.2. Build a Chair
4.3. Simple Scripting
4.4. Compare to Snow Crash
4.5. Scavenger Hunt
5. Classroom Objectives, Issue-by-Issue
5.1. Cooperation Games
5.2. Reputation Economy
5.3. Sharing economy
5.4. Monetary Policies and Gaming Economies
5.5. Grey Markets5.6. Business Simulation
5.7. Real Estate
5.8. Intellectual Property
5.9. Sweatshops
5.10. Class and Status
5.11. Subcultures
5.12. Religion
5.13. Marriage and Relationships
5.14. Death and Dying
5.15. Race
5.16. Gender
5.17. Crime and Punishment
5.18. Legal
5.19. Anti-Terrorism and Military Training
5.20. Avatars and Identity
5.21. Experiments in Government
5.22. Disabilities, Illness, Awareness
5.23. Gambling
5.24. Geography
5.25. Language and Culture
5.26. Art, Public Art, and Theater
5.27. Biology
5.28. Mathematics
5.29. Programming
5.30. Physics
5.31. Astronomy
6. References
7. Acknowledgements
APPENDIX A: Dailey Bibliography

Next thing to do is to read it