Ideas for Teaching in SL at the university level

I'd love to hear your ideas for using SL in the university classroom for teaching?

Some of the obvious ones can be listed right away:

Have students build something together
Have students keep snapshot blogs
Have students make a machinima movie
Do reports on events that take place in SL
Play games together

These are all nice, but they are not concrete examples. I'd like to hear something like:

Sociology
Make groups of 5 students each and assign them roles such as manager, clerk, security, customer and reporter. The customer is a 13 year old boy (avatar is clean and well dressed). The customer steals something and is caught by the clerk who then calls the manager. The police somehow get involved. Act it out while the reporter takes snapshots or a video. Then report to the class why the course of action you took to resolve the matter and why.

English
Sentence Structure Treasure Hunt
Subject Verb Object SVO. Students are given a card with seven questions to help them find seven parts of a sentence (parts of speech) that when brought together will form a sentence. If the group finds and assembles the word object correctly within the given time frame they are awarded points. The points are accumulated and result in a grade.

What's your idea?

I'd be willing to bet there are as many different applications in SL for learning as there are in the world of reality....such as

Marketing (I actually did this in an English class in college)
Develop an entire marketing plan from product concept to advertising/promotion/etc.

Economics
Have them follow the Linden market conditions.
Identify monopolies in SecondLife

Art
Visit the SL Galleries and identify styles/mediums/etc.

Architecture
A few obvious ones here.... build a 3d model in SL (I've known a few people that have done this in lieu of the trad model or just drawings)
Visit areas of SL and identify impressive builds.. or identify styles of architecture.

Just a few off the top of my head.. if I think of more I will post again.

I got started in SL because of an Ethics class, and now I'm addicted. I'm not sure about the wisdom of expanding SL to teach classes such as sociology. The social dynamics in SL are very different from RL. For instance, you can't steal something from a store, and there are no police.

So, it might be interesting to study the differences between online sociology and RL sociology, but you're potentially creating a bunch more addicts like me!

I've become interested in using SL for the support of distance/blended learning initiatives. On the face of it, SL has so much more to offer than old faithfuls like Blackboard, Viper and so on. However, while there might be potential for on-site learning (where a team of technicians supporting standard services one might optimise for SL is available), I have had to recommend to my university that it does not invest more than token amounts in exploring distance/blended applications via SL. The sheer variety of hardware and support systems in different countries means that to structure distance-learning-based undergraduate and Masters modules around SL would be very unwise, until SL can offer a more reliable service. Universities have a legal obligation to deliver and, while the core SL offering remains so unreliable, I don't think the risk can be taken.
So, let's by all means use SL for occasional learning tasks of the kind being discussed in this forum, and view SL as an occasional treat when we can get it to work as it should, _and_ have a non-SL-based backup activity and delivery system standing by. But unless Linden can improve their service in all the ways suggested in neighbouring forums over the past 2 years by people much more technically informed than myself, I don't feel that any more ambitious use is worth the effort.
And as today's downtime (the longest that I can recall for 2 years) suggests, it may well be that Linden have to invest serious money if they are to provide the stable infrastructure that would be required. Or some clear thinking about the support of leased versions of their open software for the creation of private grids. This would mean abandoning their ambition of a single, general environment based on interconnections within a single grid: one that has provided a wonderful space for entertainment and casual interaction hitherto, and which I hope will continue of course; but one which appears, at present, to be incapable of serious application for distance learning support.

I teach jewelry making in SL at an advanced level, and teach the basics of building a business here. Making products is fine, but making products that sell requires marketing analysis skills and training. Larger builds require a team that can come together and be effective and efficient to get the job done.

I find that SL shines as a venue for teaching collaborative teaming techniques. You can work on a project with your classmates from around the world that combines the aspects of planning, research, analysis, work prioritization, action on the project, and then measurement of success. I teach these project processes as well as teaming techniques as part of the jewelry class. Many students have commented that these are life lessons - not just SL skills, and this was their first significant exposure to team building and team training. Some have commented that this took them temporarily out of their comfort zone, but it was worth it.

I've gone through the learning curve for this training and have the syllabus and methods fairly tight now...and for the most part the results are excellent. I also am very upfront as to what this class really is; not just jewelry training but a compressed course in business skills. WIth that said, I now and again still get a student in SL who doesn't want to take on the learning challenge of getting along in a team. My guess it would be true if this training occurred in a non-virtual environment as well.

Contact me in world if you want additional information or a copy of my syllabus.

Emcee Widget

Hi,
I've only just joined within the last 3 weeks as part of a course that I'm doing for my Masters of Education. We've been exploring SL with a view to how we can incorporate it into our teaching.
As a primary school teacher I can see how a virtual environment could be a great way for students to experience new concepts. Prim building could be used to teach 3d shapes, textures to teach tesselating patterns, exploring recreations of major world icons eg Pyramids, Taj Mahal.
However, there are many aspects of SL that you wouldn't want to expose students of that age to and they would probably be better off on a private grid set up specifically for that type of activity. There is a grid called Media Grid which Harvard is involved in which bears further investigation also. It has been specifically set up for educational purposes.


Pen : )

I have been involved in SL (for fun) for over a year now, but as a real life educator I do see some potential uses of SL but at present I think it would be difficult to implement/justify these.

SL clearly has some advantages for delivering distance learning over traditional VLE systems such as Blackboard. It has the potential for delivering a much more genuinely interactive learning experience. However, I would have reservations in recommending it for use here. First I am not sure it is reliable enough to use for such teaching. Not only is the entire SL down at times--although frequently planned--but sims themselves crash not infrquently and individual AVs crash even more frequently. Secondly SL as a whole seems to be rather dominated by crass commercialism and sex shops, brothels, etc. etc. I am not sure if this is the sort of environment I would like to be seen as being involved in--I am thinking as much of griefers/news descending on a class, sure you could restrict your land to a particular group, but this by itself could cause problems. Finally I am not sure that given these reservations, that the benefits justify the cost of running a sim when we can already use blackboard and online conferencing with ease and it is supported by a team of IT experts.

I also have another interest in SL for teaching though. I teach a lot of source-based early American history modules and have for a long time been interested in trying to build/recreate a settlement using notecard dispensers etc. to provide detailed information on different buildings and objects, providing links to sources which describe a particular item or building. This would be a very useful teaching tool and would make it much easier for students to visualise what we are talking about in class but would be as much a hobby as a formal resource. In fact one of my students has already build a model settlement using a static CAD program. The problem for me here is firstly the direct cost to me and secondly finding out whether I would be eligible--almost certainly as an 'alt'--to register for an educational discout. LL talks a lot about 'educators' but these almost always seem to be institutions rather than individuals and I am sure that my institution would not invest money for my 'hobby'. I have heard elsewhere that it is almost impossible for individuals to register as 'educators' and LL provides little very little specific information on this.

Hi!

I worked for an e-learning group from 2000 - 2006. We provided online and application-based e-learning courseware for the material handling industry (i.e. - the mechanical and electrical side of airports and distribution centers; conveyor and sortation systems that move product from point A to point B.). We developed multimedia applications and rich media assets utilizing 3D Studio Max, Macromedia (at the time) Flash, Quick Time VR, still photos, images, and videos.

I got hired on in 2000 as a 3D/Flash developer; I tell everyone SL was a lateral move for me. I have also told everyone that I used to work with that if my job/company was just starting out today, they would be hiring SL developers as well as 3d modelers and Flash gurus, and here's why.

Our courseware was based around training mechanics, electricians and installers how to install and maintain industrial material handling equipment. There were always notions and thoughts of converting our e-learning into a gaming platform; we developed a few forklift simulators using 3d models and Macromedia(at the time) Director 8.5, when MM first implemented 3d models via Havok in Director. The idea of our e-learning was to allow mechanics and installers to virtually interact with the equipment before touching it in the field. One aspect we worked with was Skill Checks; users would schedule a skill check with a trainer, in order to demostrate applied learning. Taking skill checks to the virtual world would and could be an asset to the e-learning package.

Another great new media format would most definitely be machinima, which would take the stability issues of sl out of the picture. We would go to the field/site quite often to do live video capture of equipment running, mainenance procedures being performed. new equipment being installed, etc. Not that machinima could replace all technical videos, but it certainly could subsidise it, as well as capture the interest of users. In that regards, a virtual airport or distribution center could be built and troubleshooting scenarios could be acted out in Second Life. This would be a cost-effective way to develop videos, especially when the budget for a video would not provide for traveling to site. Plus, if a virtual DC/Airport was built, it might encourage e-learners to visit when they're not studying, not to mention the warehouse would used to hold raves in the off hours

I have now come full circle and am about to take a new position for an e-learning company that provides online MBA courseware, and they are quite interested in utilizing SL as a delivery mechanism. To say the least, I'll be watching this thread, and combing the forums for other points on sl e-learning.


Cheers to you for reading,

The future professional Second Life e-learning developer (lol),
~Chipley

...and don't EVEN get me started on OpenSim, I could chat about this for hours ...