Educational Demos in SL

Dygash Talamasca posted a suggestion:
...what about a video designed as a presentation for teachers considering SL's potential for teaching their students, a demo depicting the possibilities for education in a virtual environment would be useful. What i suggest is Linden Lab's draft out some example lessons for students and then ... film [several different classes] as they interact with SL in an educational constructive way. Make a promo with images from RL and SL as these students and teachers test the future of education.

I like this idea. It is too ambitious to do all at once. But you can eat a buffalo if you cut it into managable pieces. Presently there are ten instructional activites in the Linden Campus (according the Pathfinder Linden). Some of those probably have example lessons of the kind Dyghash mentions. They will certainly have experience that will bear on the ideal.

I run a blog on cognitive engineering and will be trying to do finterviews (forum interviews) with some of the instructors for use there. Pathfinder Linden might want to try to preserve some of the best lessons and make them available in SL as demos. That would make a couple of cuts on the buffalo. -- Thinkerer Melville

Why do we need LL to do this? Why don't we do this? Most of the video you see about Second Life is actually created by residents. The educators I have met in SL are all very approachable and I'd be more than willing to contact them to find out if we could machinima thier classes.

Off the top of my head, and surely missing a position somewhere, this is what we need (one person can assume multiple roles):

Production Manager:
Someone willing to spearhead the effort. Ultimately responsible for defining the goals and story boarding the concept.

Project Manager:
Coordinate the activities of everyone working on the project.

Creative Director:
Help define what the video would look like, and be onscene for filming to make suggestions. Also responsible for cutting, mixing and editing film.

Camera Man:
The Camera man has to use Fraps or Quicktime Broadcaster to record hi rez inworld content. One way to do this is to use a nice PC with all the SL Prefs turned up, and then pipe the video out via S-Video to a Mac that does the encoding.

Educational Liason:
Someone to work with the educators and make them feel comfortable about having thier classes filmed (pick ME, pick ME!)

p.s. I don't know where SLTV has disappeared to, but maybe they would help out as well.

I think Satchmo has the right idea here. I would be willing to assist in any way possible to make this happen.

Just let me know how I can help.

Satchmo. The Prototype of action. The difference between talk and action. People who are really going to do something say "We can..."

OK. I'll do project manager for the start. Satchmo's staffing plan is also good for a start. Satchmo, you're good for liason. Would you check with the educators and see who would be serious about cooperation? Here are the courses I thought would be of most general interest:

Introduction to Sociological Perspectives on Education
Introduction to International Business
Foundations of Instructional Technology
Introduction to Sociological Perspectives on Education

Do they have suggestions about units best suited for demo? Can we look over the relevant SL content?

We'll need team planning on this. I think this forum thread will do for the present.

Iron. I've seen some of your excellent work. But how would you best fit into Satchmo's staffing plan?

Ok I'll reach out to the educators... I suspect most of them won't check email til Monday, so forgive the delay. We'll see which ones climb on board so we can better storyboard the thing out.

One thing to note. I think currently there aren't many "lessons" as in lesson plan lessons going on in SL. There is more free play and communities of practice. What I mean is that a business professor is still likely to teach core concepts with books and lectures and then provide lab time to implement those concepts in SL. On the bright side, I think our video will be far more interesting that way. Imagine showing stuff that an architecture class built vs showing a class of students sitting down watching a PowerPoint.

I think you are correct, Sachmo, about the "lessons." I expect that there will be instructional units that include objectives, assignments, and criteria for evaluation of student progress. The objectives may say what the student will be able to do. Then the evaluation will assess what the student is able to do after completing the assignment.

You migh invite the educators and their students to check this thread. We would certainly be interested in their inputs.

And, by the way, it is a pleasure to work with somebody who considers waiting till Monday a delay. I have worked with many people who would consider it excessively prompt. TM

Tab Scott, has offered to allow us to shoot some footage of the work his Montant State University, "Digital Collaboration in Architecture" class is doing. His students are also shooting footage of thier own works and they would be willing to share that video to some extent.

The work going on at their private island was incredible and inspiring. Lots of nice eye candy for a promotional video, including minature models, rendered building storyboards and full size builds.

Great work, SP. Following the Zen method for bringing good fortune to your business: Work weekends.

We now have one candidate for the Demo. And two stories building. (The second story is about online collaboration in marketing. Not ready for video yet.)

We now need a Production Manager to begin defining the architecture project. We don't know whether that is the one that will go to video, but the only way to know that is to try it out.

I have asked Thinkerer Melville to take on the job of acting production manager. He doesn't have much experience at that sort of thing, but he does work weekends. He can begin to define goals and work on scenarios. Maybe then someone will com along who can do it better.

Meanwhile, I sent notes to Pathfinder Linden and Dygash Talamasca. I see that you have been looking for SLTV. Should we contact New World Notes about possibly using some of out intermediate products (storybords)?

I'll see if I can get something out of our acting production manager soon. TM

There are a number of talented camera/production crews in SL. All of the groups from The Second Life Movie Trailer Contest. Also Billy Madison has created this great commerical.

It would be great if we could get one of these fantastic groups to work with us. We definately need to expand the group of Av's interested in working on this project. Maybe one of those groups would be interested in a potentially high profile video? Otherwise maybe we can try to raise a budget of some sorts to bring them on (which if necessary, might be the death of this project).

Lets steer clear of NWN, both because I'm unclear what you had in mind and because Hamlet is bogged down with work as it is. When we finish the video maybe someone over at NWN would like to write about it.

I like your Zen philosophy I'm willing to work all the time. It's the only way to get things done. Well I do enjoy a few hours of sleep each night.

Passed your message on to the acting priject manager. He will get back to you on it. Meanwhile, from the computer of the acting production manager:

Our starting objective was demo depicting the possibilities for education in a virtual environment. That is probably too generic and requires specialization. Meaning that we would conceive of (not necessarily do) several demos fitted to some subset of education. Architecture, for example, might represent a subset that also includes various graphic arts and engineering.

My scenario would start (possibly as backstory) with the audience. I assume they are educators (probably college and university level for the present). They are sufficiently interested in virtual world work to look into it. They are not convinced that it will work with what they do. They have some questions in mind. The demo needs to answer those questions to their satisfaction.

So here is my starting list of questions:

How much money will it cost? Not just charges from Linden, but costs of building, if any.

How could it improve the effectiveness of my courses? We could use testimonials or (better) show something that looks like improved effectiveness.

How will it affect the way I evaluate the students? We probably need words from the educators. Perhaps video (products being evaluated) with voice over.

How will the students react to it? Obviously student reactions. Not “Cooool!!!” Concrete descriptions of specific experiences. “I got so tied up with what I was building that I forgot to buy beer.”

How much extra time will it take and will that time go down with reuse? Voice over. Educator reports. And consider the benefits, such as reduced communing to campus.
How does the cost/benefit work out for me? Educator assessments. Voice over.

How can I do a trial run before I get in too deep? Special projects courses. Did any of the educators do trial runs? Voice over.

I don’t think we would want to run through these like a list. Too predictable. My first thought is to have two players. One cautious and skeptical. The other brash and self-confident. These might be just voice-over. There would be another voice, of reality. Probably not one person. Perhaps audio takes from the educators and students.

Perhaps in some cases just a video demo like this:
Voice over: Making something like that must take hours. (Followed by 20 seconds of video showing the build in real time.)

But that’s just a first cut. The way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas to choose from. TM

Acting project manager here. Finally got something out of our production manager.

Yes, SP, I've seen the excellent camera work you mentioned. This is professional quality work and some of these people may be interested in building a portfolio to help market their services. They could probably get Google Video to host it if Linden Labs doesn't.

(Off topic: I don't think people are seeing the potential for ad production in SL Somebody will. Think about Jib-Jab.)

But we need to have some good prospect of camera work lined up as part of working with the educators. We wound not like to be going to them with a request: give us some help and maybe we'll get something done. And we need their inputs long before we are ready to do camera work.

What I had in mind about NWN was not for immediate use. I was thinking about coverage similar to what NWN did for Burning Life. But it would be a plan B. If we can't get camera work, we could give the stills and story to NWN. With rewrite as a news story, of course. Plan B would give us something a little stronger than maybe. But It wouldn't have to be NWN. I have a relevant blog. You have a website. So we would be able to put out the story with stills in any case.

WOW. You are creating some pretty awesome stuff that will be valuable for educators wanting to use SL. I think capturing specific examples of faculty teaching with SL is a great addition. Many faculty like to see what other teachers are also doing.

However, it can be helpful to have a framework for organizing these possibilities as well. Sophia Gilman and I have developed a conference presentation on the Educational Possibilities of Second Life. It's been very popular at conferences.

In our presentation, we introduce and develop a vision mechanism to organize these possibilities and assist faculty with identifying their course objectives which may have virtual world learning applications. An online version of our presentation is at:

http://www.educause.edu/LibraryDetailPage/666?ID=SWR0552

Basically, SL consists of people and objects, just like real life. And, these two things can interact in three ways: people-people, people-object, and object-object. Much of what we teach can be categorized into those three interaction patterns. For example, we teach doctors how to interact with patients (people-people). We teach engineers how to build bridges (people-object). We teach how planets orbit the sun (object-object).

We develop this idea further in our presentation and provide examples, including some videos. Once a faculty member can categorize a learning objective into one of these three interaction patterns, then he or she may be able to use a learning activity in SL to meet that objective.

I would be interested in seeing the extent to which this model reflects the way faculty are really using SL in their classes. It sounds like the architecture group may fit into the people-object pattern. I suspect many activities actually involve more than one interaction pattern.

Pietro

I think your closing conclusion is correct: most activities involve more than one kind of interaction. In the case of the architecture project, the title (Digital Collaboration in Architecture) indicates that the interaction is probably a traid: Several people working on an object. And there is a further subdivision: The different people may have different roles. In the real worls, there would be a client, an architect with aristic focus and an architect with engineering focus. The two architects could be the same person, but the two roles would call on different educational backgrounds.

Of course, you would note similar things in medicine. I want my GP to be understanding. I want my heart surgeon to interact effectively with my heart.

And I think education almost always involves a relevant triad. Planetary movement is only object to object if you ignore the teacher (who is usually supplying motivation, guidance, and evaluation).

As noted in your EDUCAUSE presentation: "In constructivist learning, collaboration is important, as knowledge is socially constructed." I think the projects here will generally fit in the constuctivist column.

I think the difference you may be pointing to here lies in the instructional objectives (when stated as action rather than as knowledge): Influence people. Influence objects. Predict and (possibly) control object-object interactions.

From your presentation, I gather that you have experience relevant to our planning for a demo. I hope you will look over the list of questions that prospective users might have. You have interacted with prospective users and may have identified other questions. You may also have thought of some answers we could use in the demo. Perhaps you could supply those answers in the forum. Or perhaps you would be willing to supply the answers in audio for our voice-overs.

Or perhaps you would like to suggest changes and alternatives to the initial proposal by our production manager. He is not very experienced and would welcome better ideas. TM

Yea Pietro is the bomb! If he joins this project it will continue to fly!

On another note, the Lindens are looking for video of education in SL as well. We are thinking of getting Campus Second Life involved but they are looking for education events that happen on the main grid. Like one big happy family the Lindens and us will share all our video clips so we can remix, mash and make derivative videos.

So if anyone is interested with working with them, you can contact Jesse Linden, but you can work with us too since we'll be sharing vids! So join our team and get maximum exposure for your work!

I reviewed the 2005 course list, but I'm looking for something to describe the project types.

My concepts involve role-based program level experiences, for instance starting an SL business with technology, business, psych and marketing students assuming roles in the business which progress as they move through the courses in their programs.

Does anyone know of similar examples that exist now?


Also, I am thinking about a plug and play project model to allow optional participation for those who choose to meet the requirements for participation. This would need to map the learning objectives of the in-world role to the LO's of the standard projects for the courses involved.

Also, some kind of cross-program project site would be needed to setup, support and coordinate participation in-world.

Who else is thinking along these lines?

Joe

A. A taxonomy grows from an objective. Here the project is educational demos. Here is my preliminary taxonomy with my guesses about where the present classes would go:

I. Dependent: Could not be duplicated without MMORPG context
A. Intrinsic Development: About MMORPG context per se
Course: "Multiplayer Game Design”
Course: "Designing Digital Communities"

B. Extrinsic Development: About developing ways to use MMORPG context for existing RL objectives.
Course: "Urban Planning in the Gaming World"
Course: "Digital Collaboration in Architecture"
Course: "Art in Virtual Worlds"
Course: “Human Computer Interface”
Course: "Exploring healthcare applications in Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing

II. MMORPG as tool: About using MMORPG context as developed medium for objectives already served in other ways.
Course: "Introduction to Sociological Perspectives on Education"
Course: "Foundations of Instructional Technology"
Course: "Introduction to International Business"

To distinguish Extrinsic Development from MMORPG as tool: MMORPG as tool uses existing course objectives and treats the MMORPG context simply as another medium. Extrinsic development includes the MMORPG context in the as part of the course objectives.

The MMORPG as tool category will later deserve subclasses. These might be based on features prominent in the tool set of MMORPG. For example:

Role playing in simulated society (business, management, political science, journalism)
Social interactions (sociology, psychology, economics, education)
Rapid prototyping (architecture, product design, marketing)
Object depiction and simulation (biology, medicine, chemistry, physics, engineering)

I think here like will demo like. And the rules change with class. People qualified to teach courses in Intrinsic Development will just want access, not prepared demos. People with potential interest in Extrinsic Development would be most interested in courses that demonstrate development. The largest market, people interested in MMORPG as tool would not be convinced by demos from the other categories. In fact, they would probably be misled into thinking that SL is too difficult for them. TM

Acting project director here. Since we haven’t found anybody to do video work, I have cut up the job of Creative Director into Writer/Director and Video/Director. The job of the Writer/Director is to plan the project in a way that is media-agnostic. Then if we get some camera work, we will have plans that can use it. And maybe somebody who can do camera work will be more interested if we have more concrete plans. If we don’t get camera help, we can use the content in other ways. At a minimum, I will use some of the content in my blogs and perhaps in my website.

Thinkerer Melville has agreed to take on the job of Writer/Director. TM

Acting Writer/Director here. The first thing I did was to imagine the audience. The list of existing courses was too heterogeneous to work with, so I cut it into bite-sized pieces. Check the Taxonomy posted yesterday. The taxonomy of courses seems appropriate also for audience. The audience consists of people who would consider running courses of the indicated category Meaning we have two potential projects:

1. Courses that are developing ways to use MMORPG context for existing RL objectives.
Course: "Urban Planning in the Gaming World"
Course: "Digital Collaboration in Architecture"
Course: "Art in Virtual Worlds"
Course: “Human Computer Interface”
Course: "Exploring healthcare applications in Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing

2. Courses that use the MMORPG context as a developed medium for objectives already served in other ways.
Course: "Introduction to Sociological Perspectives on Education"
Course: "Foundations of Instructional Technology"
Course: "Introduction to International Business"

This analysis omits two courses "Multiplayer Game Design” and "Designing Digital Communities." While we might use material from these courses for the projects above, I think the audience interested in these subjects is too sophisticated for any planned marketing. Let them know that they can have a free registration and they will make their own assessments.

Since our resources for this project are limited, I will focus on item 1 (with the greatest number of courses). The three courses under the second item may also have useful things to contribute, of course. But the audience I will plan for consists of people who might consider running a course that includes the development of ways to use SL to pursue existing instructional objectives.

The course objectives in Item 1 would probably involve the students in the development process. The students might do part of the development (building and scripting) or they might provide evaluations and recommendations for design change.

I think the above implies a fair amout of computer sophistication in the audience. Modest sophistication as assessed by Geeks. But not pure muggles.

The acting production manager gave me a list of questions that the audience might have. I will specialize them for the more specific audience I have in mind. Then probably seek comments from the instructors and students in the classes.

As part of the project described elsewhere in this thread, we are seeking inputs from the educators and the students. We hope to use the answers here as part of the planning for a video demo about Campus SL. At a minimum, I will use the results in my blogs and will try to push the video project farther next semester.

A simple way to use these questions is to copy them into your word processor, answer those that seem useful to you, and copy the answers back as forum replies. Thank you.

1. What led you to run a course in SL? What was the most important benefit you were expecting? "Briefly describe their course and how SL fits into their course, especially their learing goals or objectives for the SL course components." --Pietro Maracas

2. How much experience in SL did you have before you decided to set up a course?

3. What effort did it take to set up your course? How long did it take to set up for student access to your sim? What did you need to do to prepare the sim?

4. What was the reaction of your educational institution?

5. Did students have any problems getting to computers that met hardware requirements?

6. Did the use of SL affect the kinds of students who chose to take the course?

7. What problems, if any, did students have in learning to do things in SL? How were the problems resolved? Help from other students? Your teaching assistant? Yourself?

8. How did the students react to the inclusion of SL as the course progressed? (Direct student comments solicited here.)

9. How would other educators in your profession react to the idea of teaching their own course like this? What misgivings might they have? What aspects would they consider most attractive?

10. How did the use of SL impact your time and schedule? How did the time demands compare with your expectations?

11. Did you get/Are you getting the benefits that you expected? What is the most important benefit you are seeing? What is the most important benefit students are seeing? (Direct student comments solicited here.)

12. Do you expect to run a course like this in the future? If so, what will you do differently?

13. What else should we have asked about?

Thinkerer, I'm not sure if this list is finalized, but you might want to add a question where they briefly describe their course and how SL fits into their course, especially their learing goals or objectives for the SL course components.

For the course description the can just copy what they gave to the institution. As to "briefly describe their course and how SL fits into their course, especially their learing goals or objectives for the SL course components," that a useful elaboration of question 1.

I have updated the original post. Thanks. In the forurm format, nothing is final.

I started a new thread in response to questions from Deb Sartre. This thread is for FAQ about CSL. I hope other people will post additional questions. And answers. Eventually I will rework the contents and put them on the existing wiki.

Noobies: Post your questions and I will try to answer them. Or find out the answers.

Educators and students: Post questions that occured to you or that people asked you. If you have an answer, inculde it. It doesn't have to be right. Other people will comment if they know a better answer.

Golden oldies: Post questions that you think of or review the existing question and offer better answers.

Some of these questions and answers may go into the demos we are working on in this thread. TM

Time to look at resources for the EDMO project. About camera work, S. Prototype indicated: “… the Lindens are looking for video of education in SL as well. We are thinking of getting Campus Second Life involved but they are looking for education events that happen on the main grid…the Lindens [and we] will share all our video clips so we can remix, mash and make derivative videos.” I also have word from the Lindens that they might make some support available for the EDMO project.

Our starting objective was to produce video demos depicting the possibilities for education in a virtual environment. The demos would be for people who are not here yet. I don’t think the demos have much reason to distinguish between Campus Second Life activities and education that happens on the main grid. The audience would not know or care about the distinction. They would care about support, but we should talk about all support, not just CSL.

The main grid is relevant to our demos, however, in that we expect the audience to see the demos and sign up for the basic service. We would like to we presenting demos that these new people can find in the VR. So we would want most final products in the demos to be available on the main grid.

Now about resources for these demos. Learn Island is relevant. It looks as if it is being set up as an entry point for people interested in educational SL (a superset that I take to include Campus SL and other educational work). Iron Perth has set up his class support system. There is an impressive build of the planets. (Imagine an avatar emerging from behind Jupiter, perhaps with the Zarathustra theme pounding accompaniment.)

Learn Island also offers the instructional videos offered in Boniface. A demo might directly offer the object-building video (or a revision with an educational object) to show how easy it is. The video about using audio or video feeds from another site might alse be used.

(Note: I am not suggesting that these videos would be used by themselves. They are for people already in SL. Our demos need to tell a story for people who are just wondering whether SL would be worth the effort.)

If Learn Island is a permanent installation, perhaps they will move some material (stills, miniatures, videos, builds) from the current courses. And from next year’s courses. Set up a display called “Campus Second Life Museum of the Future.”

What we need from the CSL courses, then, is not videos of their builds. If we need any of those, we can reproduce they in simplified form and put in the disclaimer: “Some scenes were restaged because we were not smart enough to get videos on the first build. No avatars were harmed in this process.”

What we need from the CSL courses are reports about experiences. For example responses to the questions I posted. Better yet, audio files (perhaps done as interviews) in which the educators and their students answer the questions “in their own words.” We would cut and use those interviews as voice-overs in the demos.

What I am going to hope here is that some of the educators will make their own audio files. Those could be discussions with their students or as interviews by students in the local Media departments. The mechanisms would be similar to making podcasts. Some of the educators will probably be setting up their own websites. In that case, they might just give us links to their content (and permission to reuse).

Here is my first cut at the backstory about CSL. This is my speculation about what CSL is or might become. I don’t know whether this fits the expectations of the Lindens. But this is an RPG isn’t it?

“All life is a game. But in some places it’s harder to know the score.”

Campus Second Life is a facility for online education. It is a place where accredited educational institutions can offer relevant educational experiences in connection with regular courses. These experiences may be analogous to lab work, field work, prepared instructional units, or full courses offered for distance learning.

Institutions with possible interest in CSL include colleges, universities, and accredited institutions offering specialized training. High schools and junior high schools may offer courses or draw on prepared units in Teen Second Life. (Arrangements for home schooling and supplementary homework assistance will also be of interest later.)

Note that prepared instructional units are things like videos. They present a standard and widely used unit of instruction. Examples: “How a bill becomes a law,” “The structure and function of your heart.” Such units would not be produced for a single class, although the modification potential of SL might permit the evolution of units built by multiple classes. Such units might be also be supported by textbook publishers, government funding agencies or private agencies like the Heart Association. These are also part of our potential audience for demos.

A preliminary example of a prepared instructional unit is the display of planets by Aimee Weber on Learn Island. (Could that be sponsored by the Planetary Society? Probably not if it cost them much. But how would they react if you offered them free listing for a year? Just to see if they got any traffic from it.)

CSL offers special financial support for educators who want to try the facility. I view this as a minor consideration. If I were an educator considering the use of CSL for a course, my main concern would be how it would affect my course, my students, and my time. The cost of registration as resident is $70 on an annual basis. That’s $35 a semester, with free summer use. As a lab fee, it is cheap.

(As part of a business model, the economics of selling this service to educational institutions looks good.)

The objective of the EDMO project is to communicate to interested educators and to others as noted above the benefits and costs (time and effort) of using CSL in connection with courses. We are still working on specifying these. Meanwhile, I have started a thread on FAQ for CSL and will soon start a thread on Campus Second Life Course Catalog. These may contribute ideas and other support to the EDMO project. TM

We now have an offer of help from someone who can do camera work. That kind of help will let us begin thinking about products.

Meanwhile, I have been working on more specification of the audience characteristics and related objectives. A simple model of common human choice is: Awareness; Contemplation; Decision. Our demos would be aimed at the Contemplation stage. In that stage, people typical consider the following questions:
1. Why should I be interested in this?
2. What are the obstacles?
3. What are the costs of climbing the obstacles (time, money, effort)?
4. Is the payoff worth the costs?

These questions make a decision tree. Give a wrong answer at any point and you lose the customer. Our demos might focus on good answers to 1. and/or 3. Answers to 3. would depend on identifying the obstacles. I had thought we might get this from the current CSL educators, but I have not gotten any from them yet. I have found queries on this forum indicating that privacy is an important issue, one that we might want to address in a demo.

This observation brings in the time dimension. A satisfactory answer to 1 might lead to joining (at least) the free version of SL. So if we aim a demo at 1, we would be seeking that outcome objective.

Some people might want partial answers to 3 before joining free version of SL. That’s because time is not free to educators. If you get paid $100/hour, how much does it cost you to spend ten hours learning how to use free software? So we probably need demos to answer some questions relevant to 2 and 3. Maybe privacy is an example. We need to look for more questions that would occur to educators early in the contemplation stage.

Meanwhile, I am working on criteria for the demos that answer 1.
A. Illustrate instruction about something the educator is familiar with.
B. Illustrate an aspect of instruction that is easy in SL but difficult, impractical, or impossible in RL.
C. Show that a non-geek educator can set up a unit of this kind with reasonable effort.
D. Show that the unit, once constructed, would pay for itself in some aspects of instructional efficiency.

One example that I have in mind would grow from the planetary display that Aimee Webber has at learn island and the video based on it at
http://alt-zoom.com/movies/azpresents/aweber/SolarSystem.html. I think that planetary subject would meet criterion A. We would need to develop a scenario to meet the rest. And we need answers to the question: What aspects of instruction can SL offer that are not readily available elsewhere?