Where have all the classes gone?

Someone should offer a private tutor service, if they aren't already. That way, if I want to learn scripting, I could hire a scripter and we could move at my pace, taking into account my fore-knowledge of certain areas of SL experience. It would save me time, allow me to ask direct questions without the worry of delaying a class full of folks, and also offer the teacher/tutor monetairy compensation for thier time.

Same could be done for building, poser, PSP, PS, clothing design, specific areas such as vehicles or particles, etc.

This wouldn't help newbs overly much if the cost were restrictive, but would be great for us older dogs that would like to learn new tricks.

Anyway..just a thought.

oh, lots of people want you aimee

some creative class topics will be dreamt up I am sure





( kidding! )

Forseti want's me to teach bootie school.

Hey folks,
Just chuckin my two cents in...

I've started a group who's purpose is developing classes in Second Life called Touchstone. If anyone is interested in teaching a class with us, please IM me in game and I'l get back to you ASAP.
As far as I know..none of our instructors (Pathfinders) have put in for Linden support for their classes. We're also putting together a carny style fair just for the fun of it.

As far as other classes go, Jamie Otis has been running scripting on a regular basis, and theres at least a class a day on Montmartre by Mae Best. Ive seen other classes for building and new folks pop up alot. Also discussion groups like the Principals of Buddhism by Vudu, StoneSelf's On The Ground groups ...theres lots of quality interaction out there, just gotta look for it.


Peace and brownies

Jase

I couldn't possibly agree more.

I still stop in there from time to time, but lately when I try to help people in the welcome area, it often backfires on me. Now I am very reluctant to help people who do not specifically address me to ask a question.

In fact the worst experience I've ever had with someone in SL came as a result of trying to help people in the welcome area, and the hate-filled person responsible still hangs out there regularly and continues to spew her own special blend of ignorant vitriol to many others who were just there to have fun or help new residents.

As far as teaching classes, I just can't see doing it anymore. People are just far too abusive and overdemanding these days for me to be comfortable with it.

Sad as this may be, Midnight City has been happy to get more Kex visits.

booty call!!

You can teach "how to bag a Linden in 7 days or less"

Was this person the namesake of an absolutely horrid, buy hilarious, Mariah Carey movie? If so, same person that did it to me. Perhaps some abuse reports are in order.

I actually wrote distance learning web portals with my last company, and still maintain the writes to the code. Maybe its time to dust it off, open source it, and build a collaborative SL learning portal... sounds like a good tool for the Touchstone group. That said, I don't think I would have used it myself. There's something about learning in world that web tutorials just don't quite provide. Let me think that over; this portal might be overkill, as I don't think we need a grading system.

One last idea: How about having two tabs in FIND... Keep Events, but make a SEPARATE "SL Classes" tab? Each class must be picked from a drop down: SL Basics, Scripting, Building 101, Texturing, etc. The Lindens could be petitioned to add new topics to the dropdown, but don't make it a text field, to avoid contests like, "How to wear your tringo thong while making virtual love on SLboutique.com". It may also encourage people to teach and attend classes more often. That way it wouldn't get cluttered amongst all the tringo.

Now who wants to teach me Poser?!

Regards,

-Flip

Teaching is hard. It's time consuming. It takes preparation. It takes patience. Which is why it needs to be rewarded better. Compare the time and effort it takes to host a Tringo vs the time and effort to develop a curriculum, create class materials, get the course approved, actually present the class, and then field follow-up questions from students over time...all this for $500 lindens? Do you wonder there are more tringo events than classes?

Teaching is not a very rewarding field. If you want good teachers, top quality education, then you have to attract talented people and provide them with the tools to teach. Thats how it works in the real world, and thats how it works in SL.

SL has poor edudcation because it pays crap and has zero infrastructure to support or train new teachers.

Teachers get burnt out. Instead of expecting people from 2 years ago to step up endlessly to teach over and over, we should be training new teachers. We need classes to teach people how to teach. We need teacher kits with recommended curriculums and teaching materials.

These are a few changes I recommend strongly to help move SL education from the stone age.

1) The current system should be more widely known. Advertise it! LL use your own systems to advertise your own programs. Create an event that discusses this and other programs and hold them regularly! Actively recruit, for godssakes!

2) The current system should have an instant reward for teachers submittting courses that are approved. Even consider a curriculum library, where new teachers could simply browse for ideas or even pre-approved courses they may want to teach. Developing course material is a valuable and time-intensive activity that should be recognized as such.

3) Up the stinking pay. While LL may have a pre-conceived notion of what $500 lindens should be worth, they need to take a hard look at what type events are being held regularly and realize the economic realities of the marketplace.Teachers work hard, answer questions, not just in class, but afterhours too (like real teachers, you might notice), and are expected to do this, despite the fact they could make more money for considerably less hassle hosting tringo. Please LL, make teacher's pay attractive. It will not only attract talented veteran residents. It will encourage new residents to see teaching as a viable occupation in SL.

4) TRAIN TEACHERS! Yes people aren't born with an innate understanding of what it takes to instruct a group of people! Take action to educate teachers. Help residents who may have a desire to teach but are uncertain of their abilities get the tips, tricks, skills, etc that will help them! Even a simple teacher orientation will help increase the confidence of the teachers and the quality of the classes.

5) PROVIDE MATERIALS! Couse work does not appear out of thin air. It takes a lot of time and effort. Reward people separately for providing couse material other people can use. Create some basic starter materials to help instructors develop their own.

Make education a priority, Fund it. Provide tools to help teachers. Create ways to train new teachers. It should be apparent, that its an aspect of our community that we have actively encourage, instead of sit back expecting it to just happen.

I withdraw my offer.

Good ideas. Maybe someone should come up with pre-written instructions/guidelines for potential instructors? While I can be good at explaining somethings, Im probably not that great at developing a topic outline and keeping things on track. But if someone was to provide pre-written instructions and even include course materials (ie lab work/examples), I'd be willing to go thru the materials myself and make sure Im real comfortable with the subject at hand. Then I would hold a class, pay the person who created all the prep-work materials like 100/per class. And/or do trade offs by providing attendees with LMs or products from said person.

How 'bout if I give you a shiny new nickle!

Just for the record, this has been the best thread I have read in weeks in general. Everyone's ideas are really good and on the money.

Hopefully we can come up with some solutions to these problems. Anyone up for heading up an event where we can discuss these things in world? I'd gladly attend.

Regards,

-Flip

I'd gladly be willing to put together an event for this. The only problem I would forsee is that I would think we would need some of the higher-up Lindens to have a listen in and give us their 2 cents on the issue as well, since they *are* the ones coughing up the money.

Any FIC members wanna call up some owed favors?

o.O

um...

WHY THE HELL DIDN'T WE ALL THINK OF THAT SOONER!?

i mean... have an 'entertainment' tab with entertainment oriented events.. and then have a 'classes' or 'education' tab... that makes so much sense its just jaw dropping... someone needs to like... tell LL about that.. cause that would REALLY help out new users and help diferentiate actual honest legit teaching events from tringo madness

Nala, this is awesome you want to step up! But you dont have to be FIC or any kind of "core" to speak with the Lindens. Write up a letter. State the problem, the areas that will be discussed, direct their attention to any appropriate threads or other related materials, explain why you think their presence at such a discussion is important. Urge them strongly to have a presence at this event.

Do it! Go ahead. Do it!

Sure! Send me a tshirt saying "I taught Shadow Weaver how to script and all I got was this stupid tshirt!"

i remember seeing this suggested by someone months ago but it disappeared into the depths of the forum. I agree. Great idea.

Aside: Kex, I'm sorry you've been having such a tough time with some people. I hope that changes.

Good idea. I joined Touchstone and maybe I can run a class or something educational when I get a moment.

Naw. Before you came along, there was a group of players. Some of those players spent their SL creating or teaching. They weren't a seperate caste until you invented it via labeling and segregation.

Large? Bwahahahahah. It's got less than 40 employees. Is that "large"? I don't think so, although it may give you a more tangible target. You are missing one of the fundamentals of SL. Their intent was to give US the developer's tools. To have US create the environment from a blank canvas. Certainly this means that there will be those who are more savvy with the toolset. LL relies on those folks to disseminate knowledge. I don't know what to tell you other than to suggest you may be in the wrong place. A dog trying to have sex (rough sex) with a cat.

They do. Juro sells homes. Chips sells clothes. Cris sells animations. Amy sells clothes. Nexus sells scripts. Torrid and Mistress sell clothes. Francis sells guns. What do you mean? This is what is already occuring. I realize you may think you are reinventing the wheel here, whatever makes you feel more perceptive and morally superior, I suppose.

The fact that these conditions already exist, and yet you are trying to re-establish them, is a testament to the fact that you are jaded because you didn't get to SL earlier. Yes, it's THAT obvious. I guess you were still too busy trying to take down Will Wright and TSO. Is it our fault that you obsess? When are you going to go after the D/s community in SL? It can't be far away, given your track record in TSO, right? You simply cannot keep your nose out of what other people do can you?

Can you please give me examples of the "FIC" "ranting" about "how uncool and uneducated and annoying the masses are."?

By the way, Mr./Mrs./Miss/Ms. "high class word", commas are free, and I think you mean "lessen" not "lesson".

How does one go about not being polemic, when responding to polemics?

This is just a friendly reminder that I am in the process of organising a SL new player instructional video(s?) for new players. Any help is welcomed.

--Jack Lambert

Zarah Dawn and I are putting the finishing touches on a beginning building class that we hope will be well received. We're trying to do some things differently than we've both seen them done in the past, in the hopes of improving the educational experience. If this one goes over well, we have many other ideas in store that we think could benefit from the same treatment.

Still have some work to do, but we're hoping to kick off the first session in a week or so.

There is a drop down menu that has events categorized. Now there isn't a specific one called Educational but there is a Mentor one to select.

If one was looking for an event in a certain category it looks to me that feature is already availalbe. Maybe it is under utilized by the user? I do see the feature being suggested is different but it is also similar. I am game for trying new things and encourage it at well to get a more desirable result. I just wanted to point out what resources we do already have if some of you were not aware or had forgotten about it.

For the most part I teach one on one right now. I too am waiting for the next version, because many things will have to learned or relearned. I also find the signing up thing a total hassle.

I saw a thread somewhere about Adopt-A-Noobie, but I somehow missed reading it, but I sort of do that on my own. Help someone understand the basics of clothing creation via appearance mode, help with the (very) basics of building, and so on - one noobie at a time.

I love teaching, I'm working on qualifying for my RL credential. I have taught SL classes in the past as well as more RL type seminars and workshops. I always try to tie those into a feature of SL - how understanding the principles of texture and art can help you with your building projects/clothing creations that sort of thing.

My partner Ariel Monde also is preparing a few SL classes to teach, and she also does mentoring and tutoring on building. So I guess we are out there, but really until SL gets behind its education program as suggested so eloquently by Bel Muse you won't see much change in the events listings.

Hi all, this is one of the more relaxing (and somewhat uplifting) threads I've seen in some time.

I definately agree that there is a need to have educational (and similar) events more rewarding. In the case of last month, my Uru discussion series was self-rewarding (being a former Live player, and the Shutdown on my RL birthday), but I was exhausted for nearly a week after. I am thinking of bringing it back, but re-tooling as a General Gaming discussion series so it can be ongoing (and I know about a lot of games, not just Uru).

Now, will I get any support for this kinda thing? Nope. Do I care? Nope, it's my own concerns (which mirrors most of y'alls long before this thread) that are driving it. Of course, since I'm not getting any L$ reward from this (even dwell, since its rental land), I will likely restrict to once a week. But my RL is also insane working as a UNIX Admin on 3rd shift EST. I may do more of something like this if its worth cutting into time that's 'on-call' RL for me.

I've also begun to send feelers out to help others, like I used to, long ago before a certain event here in the NYC area... Any educators, old and new, looking for suggestions and refinement help - please drop me a notecard in-world and I'll see if I can stop by to look. I may even learn something new and neat.