SL University

Unfortunatly Gray went down with 1.1.7 heh... I'm hoping it'll be back up soon.

Thanks Kitra, I'll look you up in-game one Gray is back up =)

Xylor

Hi, I'm a grad student @ UCB and for a seminar I'm working on an on-line learning environment(which has brought me to SL) which I think might be of interest to your university project.

In the pict(attached) of an outside render I did you can see the basic idea: multiple workshop/classroom "pods" orbiting around a vertical 3D testing/puzzle maze. Ideally the pods orbit along trajectories that begin to align depending on similarities in content generated by the groups & the size of the maze's chambers would be occupancy reactive. But at the very least I'ld like to have the pods orbiting around like planets and the maze is morphed and changed by instructors in order to change the testing course to suit the students' progress(sort of like the GREs but cooler cuz you're flying around a 3d maze and you're not answering ETS bullshit questions to get into Grad School).

Anyway, rather then go on like verbal nose bleed, why don't you take a look at the pict. attached and let me know if you're interested. I'm gonna have to build it for my seminar anyway, but if I knew there was a life for it outside of that I would get more into it. Hopefully I'll soon have SL versions of it to show. Which reminds me actually, I am in need of a few good scripters so if anyone knows any or if you are interested please let me know. Salary is included.

Overall, sounds like a great idea and I would be interested in taking classes.
peace
ask

Hmm very interesting. Not sure I understand the full purpose of the 3d testing maze though. Is this supposed to be a test of the student's overall spacial intelligence, or as they pass exams do they get access to proceed further into the maze? Is there anything special in the 'center' of the maze?

I'd be interested in seeing this in-game. You may run into tax problems however, and I'd be willing to give you an auto-building script that you could save your progress into to re-rez on command, instead of taking tax hits (which looking at height of the building would probably become an issue). I'd recommend building in Cordova (the sandbox sim, no taxes, but everything is wiped at night), and then saving progress for re-rezzing the next day.

I am also a scripter, but I have many projects on my plate already. Give me an IM in game when you have something, I will come by and take a look at it. We can see if its something that would be useful as a teaching tool for the SL community, even if only for the fun teaching environment. =)

Xylor

This is a note to let people know what is currently going on with SLU. The meeting we had last sunday provided some good input, and I thank those who showed up =).

We will be starting up classes next month, if all goes well. Unfortunately, Kanker hasn't been around, so I don't know who all was interested in teaching, or what class proposal were submitted. Please send me an IM, or email me at [email]xylor77@yahoo.com[/email] if you would like to teach a class. There is a campus in Gray in the south-west corner (87, 60). I plan on a few teacher's aid scripts, but could use input as to what would be useful for teachers. So far I plan on implementing these aids:

A slide-show 'projector' which teachers can load with textures to go through during the lecture. There is a built-in pointer that if movable by clicking anywhere on the projector in mouse-look mode (it senses where you clicked by detecting which you are facing in mouse-look).

A notecard reader which displays notecards on a white board. The prototype version has an html-like syntax which allows for hyperlinks to be clicked on which gives inventory items, color changes, font changes, and size changes.

As proposed by Christopher Omega, we will hopefully have a lecture recorder, which will take notes of the lecture and will provide people with a means of reading up on previous lectures given at SLU.

If there are other teacher's aids which you think may be helpful, please let us know.


For the students, there are plans to provide an in-game Scripting Library. I will be writing up many example, and providing these for free in the library for study. I plan on initially providing commented examples for scripting basics, starting from simple thinks such as having a script just say something when you click it. From there, the script examples will progress in difficulty, each showing an example of a new function and/or programming technique.

The goal is to have a library which provides examples for much more advanced subjects, such as inter-object communication, databases, sensors, rezzed object system instantiation, etc. These are meant as a supplement to the scripting classes, but should be useful as a stand-alone learning aid as well. If you have any specific scripting-related topics you would like to be included in the library please let us know.


I am still in classes until later next month, and will only be able to work on this during what free time I get until then. After that, I will be teaching classes for SLU myself, and working on this more. Until then, teachers are free to start teaching classes anytime, just without fully completed teacher's aids.


Xylor

The maze is basically a fun format to test in is all. Initially I was thinking of having geometric problems worked into it but that became too problem specific. Now it's just an interactive testing tool. The center would be a hollow axis for viewing from - except for an occasional path across it.

An auto-building script. . .not sure I understand but sounds like it would be useful. I am working on it in the sandbox and saving. I'll find a site later. I'm not too concerned with taxes right now cuz I'm allowed a bit of a budget for the project but after that I guess it would be an issue. I'll think about it.
ask