When does an online class start?

Over fifteen years ago, while designing the very first online composition course for Lansing Community College, I recall discussing with other faculty working on their first courses to start in Fall 1997 the question of when online classes start.

Today, it seems obvious--when the semester starts. But even so, not such a simple answer. F2f classes have clear, weekly schedules. This section meets on Mondays and Wednesdays from 12-2 p.m., that section meets Thursdays from 6-10 p.m. It's labeled so in the schedule book, on an instructor's assignment page, and now on the web.

But online classes don't have a time listed in the schedule book. All they say is "Arranged." So when do they start? When the professor decides. Students have access to the Angel LMS web site from the first day, but that doesn't mean the professor starts it then. I usually have with online classes the basic pattern of posting assignments on Mondays by 5 p.m., with work for the week to be completed no later than Saturday night--no later than midnight. For all of my online classes, there are real-time meetings, as I've mentioned in earlier postings, using small group chats, and creating a schedule of 3-5 chat sessions for a week based on student schedules.

But with the use of Second Life, I've been experimenting with whole class meetings, where we do meet weekly at a specific time, like a f2f class would do. For this semester, I have creative students meeting with me on Tuesdays from 7-9 p.m. and Comp II students meet with me on Thursdays 7-9 p.m.

It's caused a problem doing so with the schedule book/web listing of the courses. They're still "Arranged" with a note stating when we're meeting. But of course, students are used to seeing day and time listed in a specific spot for f2f and hybrid courses, so when they don't see such for my classes, they don't expect to have to meet at a certain time. I've tried to have administration change this for my classes, but they've not been cooperative, telling me "it's just not done with online classes." Sigh.

Well, I solve the problem by emailing students before the semester starts, so everyone knows what they are getting into well before the semester starts, and those who cannot meet at the scheduled time can drop and go elsewhere.

Anyway, over the last few semesters, I've found a few benefits for meeting as a full class rather than in small group chats.

1. Second Life orientation goes much smoother when everyone meets at the same time.  I have students do the orientation and a scavenger hunt during week 2. It's much simpler for them to find a partner to work on completing tasks at Angel Learning Isle when they all show up between 7-9 p.m. on a particular evening than throughout the week as happens with sections who meet only in small groups. 
2. Whole class meetings are more energetic than small group chats. Now, don't get me wrong, small group chats can be quite animated with a rich conversation among well-prepared students. The song sharing I mentioned a couple posts back is an example. But sometimes they are not--especially on Friday afternoons when few are prepared! But when you have a whole class together, even if some aren't prepared, enough are that significant work and learning take place. 
3. Whole class meetings are easier on me. In the beginning of the semester, I attend every chat. So if I have a class with 5 chat meetings that last from 1-2 hours each, and I have several classes doing so, I can be in world (or online with 2D chats) for up to 24 hours. Now, I do bow out of chats later in the semester by choosing a moderator to keep things going in each group. But even so, it's much easier meeting with everyone, and saying something once rather than five times! A prime example is my creative writing class a couple weeks ago, where I do a lesson on how best to read poems aloud, showing them how to read a poem from sentence to sentence rather than line to line. We talk about nursery rhymes, songs, and literary poems, and I read to them one of their assigned poems to show how much clearer it can be when read from sentence to sentence. In past semesters, I did so three or four times, depending on the number of chat sessions. Last week, only once.

• Now, I don't tend to choose lessons or class organization based on what's easiest for me. I choose based on what works best for students. But it certainly doesn't hurt if the two coincide. Even more important that they do the older I get!

4.  Whole class meetings give students much more of a sense of community. It's true that they work with the whole class in Angel discussion forums, and in real time with a small group during chats. But meeting regularly with everyone gives students a sense of being a whole community, rather than isolated individuals or small groups. I'm not sure that such is important for everyone. A good number of students just want to get their work done and move on. But when part of the learning in a writing class is to address an audience in a community of writers, seeing that community regularly surely helps.

The other aspect of meeting regularly with a whole class is the question of whether to meet at the beginning or at the end of a week. It's an issue that arises with hybrid classes, where half or more of the work done in is done online and the other half on campus. So for a four hour class, usually two hours a week are scheduled to meet on campus.

So, I'm doing both this semester: the creative writing class meets at the beginning of their week (Tuesday); the composition II class meets closer to the end of their week (Thursday). The dynamics are different. For the beginning of the week, students are just getting introduced to the work they'll be doing; for later in the week, they're already full steam ahead.

Any benefits for one over the other? I have yet to decide. One of the benefits of having a later meeting is that  I can expect more significant preparation, kind of like chats, where I expect students to come to a session with notes on the reading or writing they're doing. Classes I start early may include later in the week small group chats. But late week meetings, small group chats don't take place.

Either way, I definitely plan to stay with whole class meetings, something that I've not found doable until virtual worlds.

Side note--I finally got shadows to work! Well, more like Linden Lab finally got the viewer to cooperate with my graphics card so I could take snapshots with shadows, ambient occlusion and even depth of field. My frame-rate drops to a crawl, but it's sufficient for pictures. Now if only the Arts & Sciences division will cooperate and grant me a computer upgrade!

One-on-one conferences

A couple of weeks ago, I had one-on-one conferences with my students in the Writing the Novel class, where we met individually and discussed their proposals for chapter 3 of their novels. The week prior, students signed up for a ten minute period to meet with me, in lieu of coming to class.

Now of course, one-on-one conferences are nothing new, hardly worth a blog post. Writing faculty all over the LCC campus do them every semester. We even have conferences noted in our master syllabi of the first-year composition courses. And I'm sure writing instructors all over the world do so.

But this is my first time doing a one-on-one conference with an online class. When I first started doing online classes fourteen years ago, I decided against them since requiring students to come to campus would be prohibitive for many, and the Virtual College at LCC really wanted to stress that these were to be fully online courses. Sure, I could have done phone conferences, and I know a number of professors who valiantly hold conferences with online students each semester, either asking them to come to campus, or talking on the phone.

I haven't. I do see some value in conferences, though I think there are other equally valuable ways to work with students through whole class meetings, small group interactions, and individually through text or meetings during office hours at a student's request.

But this semester, I decided that conferencing in Second Life should be as effective as f2f conferencing, and since I usually did a f2f conference with the novel writing students with a f2f class, why not in a virtual world?

Now for a f2f class, I normally print out a schedule, and students near the end of a class period gather around and sign up for a time slot. Then I will usually make copies of the schedule, put one on my office door, and one on the classroom door. Then the next week, students would wait in the hall of the classroom, during our regularly scheduled class period, and take turns meeting with me. Nothing else could take place because, well, having students do some type of activity in the hallway would be disruptive.

On Angel Learning Isle, the week prior, I also had students sign up near the end of the class session. But now, instead of a piece of paper to huddle over, students found a Google doc with the schedule on a media share screen that they could gather around and jot down their names. Worked great. I then posted the link to the Google doc in our Angel LMS course site on the announcements areas, so students could check to recall when their session was, and students who didn't come to the class meeting could still sign up.

Conference day, I had students come to the class area where we normally meet. I suggested coming a few minutes early, and told them that there would be an activity to complete before they left that evening. But they did not need to be there for the whole two hours of the class period. When I was ready for a student, I would send them a teleport invitation, and he or she would join me in a sky area, about 1200 meters in the air, where we could discuss their proposal in private.

Now, as I mentioned earlier, f2f conferences allowed for no learning activity before or after to take place in the hallway. But on Angel Learning Isle, they weren't waiting in the hall. So I was able to have them discuss with each other a quotation they brought to class from one of our novel writing rhetorics that they had included in their proposals. Here's what I had them do, which I had available in a notecard they could grab from the class mailbox when they arrived:

1. While you are waiting for your conference with me (I’ll tp you when I’m ready) or after we’re done, paste onto the Google doc here in the class area the quotation from Stein I asked you to bring to class. Along with your name.
2. Discuss the quotations pasted on the Google doc with class members. How well does the novel you read for novel analysis II exhibit effective writing expressed by the quotations?
3. Before you leave, drop off a notecard into the WRIT 278 mailbox that summarizes what you discussed and with whom.

A simple assignment, but it worked well. Students weren't just hanging around waiting for their ten minutes of fame, but had something to do that would enhance their learning for the week.

And the conferences worked well. We used voice, so a lot was accomplished in the scheduled ten minutes. I answered any questions that arose, and then they went on their merry way.

Of course, I could do conferences with online students through Skype. But then I wouldn't have even considered getting students to do a real-time learning activity while waiting because there would have been no place for them to wait. But on Angel Learning Isle, having a place to congregate afforded my feeble imagination to come up with something valuable for them to do while waiting that was better than just hanging out in the hall.

Another semester begins

Composition I chat

Well, starting this post on October 1st (and adding pictures on November 1st), I can't quite say that. But it's the beginning for this blog!

This semester has been a whirlwind. All four sections that I'm teaching this semester are online and using Second Life. Creative Writing I and Writing the Novel meet as a whole class weekly. Two sections of Composition I meet weekly either in small group chats or (starting next week) in peer response groups, where they will read aloud their drafts to each other.

At Bookstacks with CW students

The ability to read drafts aloud is one of the strong points with meeting in a virtual world over working together in a 2D learning management system (LMS). Obviously, audio can be done in a 2D environment, such as Skype. But I'm still convinced the spatial placement of a 3D world adds a richness to community and connection with others that 2D tools cannot.

And that's saying something after spending 16 hours this last week (and two more to go tomorrow, Sunday) with students in world. The high points are when everything is working and students are able to tell stories about an important song in their lives with stories so touching--from the ends of relationships, to the deaths of loved ones, to first loves turning into decades-long partners--that students are crying while telling, listening, discussing.

The low points are when little works, whether because of underpowered machines, students who didn't participate early in the semester but now show up with no in-world skills, clunky search, buggy viewers (v. 2.7x on has been dodgy the last couple months), or as one student said last week, SL has been "cranky"!

SL field trip with comp students

One of those underprepared students (who I must say is coming along), mentioned today that she felt so lost in SL, like she couldn't figure out where anything was. It reminded me of overhearing brand new first-year students, with eyes wide complaining about not knowing how to get around campus the first few days. Of course, we should expect some of the same trepidation in a virtual world because, just as the downtown campus of Lansing Community College is a place, so is Angel Learning Isle in Second Life. There's a north, south, east and west, and up and down, a left and right, a forward and behind.

At the Cavern Club

Orientations and scavenger hunts help, and those who participated (most this semester) get around fine. Underpowered computers and students who don't take those first weeks' activities make the experience in world more opaque. But for all, it's new and at some level intimidating.

It has been helpful, especially in the novel class, having students who've already taken a class with me in world. I had the foresight to make sure experienced users were paired with inexperienced during the scavenger hunt.

Writing the Novel class meeting

But what really struck me in the last couple weeks--why it is worth all of this heavy lifting I do to lead students in a virtual world--is a simple comment a WRIT 121 student made. He said that he had graduated from high school in 1995. Since then, he has only taken online courses. And this is the very first time, since high school, that he's had an actual classroom experience.

OK, I'm ready for chat tomorrow. I hope everything works!

Pixels or paper?

The semester has ended with most of my students improving their writing and succeeding in receiving a satisfactory grade (many with very good grades).

But there were three events from the end of the semester (and a day beyond) that I wanted to share before slipping into summer.

1. Week 14, composition students were revising for their portfolio to be submitted for external assessment. During my office hour one day, a student dropped by my office on Angel Learning Isle to ask some questions about MLA citation style on one of her works cited pages. Over the years I've had many students do so in my f2f office, and online through IM. Looking at the arcane vagaries of MLA minutiae has always been much simpler f2f--much easier to look at a page of citations over a desk than on mirror RTF files or through the small text windows of IM or chat.

But on SL with a media share screen, the student could throw the citations onto a Google Doc, we could both see it in the same space, and we could both highlight or edit till she understood how the citations should be presented. A colleague walked into my office watching us both work on the document. And she said, "This is no different than working with a student in my office!"

Many see the use of virtual worlds in education as an opportunity to do things you cannot do in the real world, and they are certainly valuable for such.  But I would suggest they are equally valuable for equipping faculty and students to do things that are difficult to do with online classes using only 2D tools, things that are easy to do f2f. Many more faculty who teach online will see the value of VWs using a Google Doc than an elaborate simulation.

2. Every semester I spend countless hours reading essays, stories and poems on paper presented in construction-paper pocket folders. Stacks of them. This semester I read my comp and creative writing students' portfolios on my iPad. After saving as PDF, I uploaded to dropbox.com opened on my iPad and read away, taking notes on a paper yellow pad.

The main concern I've had with reading portfolios electronically is eye fatigue, and I know such a concern to be held by many faculty in my department. I currently read and respond to my students' essays/stories/poems on my laptop using Word, marginal comments, and track changes. Then I send my response as a PDF file.

Even so, the idea of reading dozens (over a hundred each semester) of portfolios on a computer seemed wearisome. But I found that doing so on an iPad was not a problem. With its high resolution, I found it no less comfortable than reading paper. And the utter lack of pounds of folders to lug around was a great boon.

My next test would be to see how well it would work on an e-ink reader.

3. Finally, I went to (and presented at) the Computers & Writing conference in Ann Arbor the day after my last day at LCC. Besides attending a myriad of sessions on eportfolios, gamification and the nature of digital humanities, I also brought along my iPad and no paper books, for the first time--usually, I bring at least a couple books to read on the plane or bus ride, and in the evening before going to sleep. This time I instead read Bleak House from the iBook reader.

When I got home, I planned to return to the paper copy, so the next evening, in bed, I pulled down my Oxford Illustrated edition and began to read. After a couple minutes, I put it back on my head board shelf, and picked up the iPad, and finished the novel reading the free ebook from Project Gutenberg.

Why? Because I found the iPad more readable than the paper book while reading before bed. With the illumination turned down, and a sepia tone page, I could read comfortably without bothering my sleeping wife. All I needed was a single night light as backlight and the room was restfully dark, yet with plenty of light to read away.

During the C&W conference, Amazon announced that they are selling more ebooks than paper books (hardback and paperback). I'm beginning to understand why.

Does that mean I plan to abandon paper books? Absolutely not. But if booksellers want readers to buy paper books, they may want to consider including an e-copy as well.

OK, time for summer!

Bugs galore

Classes are going smoothly. My creative writing class meets weekly on Angel Learning Isle, and they all have mastered the basics of SL so that chatting, text and voice, watching web pages/assignments on the shared media board, and even getting into groups, teleporting to a sky platform and working together, reading drafts, planning an SL excursion to a writerly event, or jotting down notes onto a Google Doc comes easily to them.

And all three sections handle effectively meeting together for chats without my presence.

All good news. Though some new developments in SL have come about that need some planning in the fall, when I will have four sections to meet with inworld.

First off, Michigan Community College Association Virtual Learning Collaborative (MCCVLC) has purchased a region in SL. Anyone who has online classes in Michigan community colleges can have access and use the island. Only a handful of us have met with the director, Ronda Edwards, and I've gotten land management permissions, so I've been able to play for the first time with manipulating land. I've made an island, added the the plateau, and put an initial building with some trees just to show the director, who's very new the virtual world, what is possible.

So I have access to this region, along with Angel Learning Isle, for the fall. I haven't yet decided what I'm going to do there, but I expect to spend some time this summer increasing my building skills (at present very minimal) and hopefully hold some classes on the island, as least as a back up.

Second, Linden Lab has sprung a new version of viewer 2 (2.6x) that defaults to a basic browser for brand new users. This version is very stripped down, with no inventory, snapshots, notecards and such. It means that orientation sims are really going to need to rethink how they design their first hour experience, the second time in two years. Users can switch relatively easily to the Advanced viewer, though the number of steps to do so is unfortunate. But I'm really going to have to keep an eye on what happens with Virtual Ability Orientation Island to see if it will be viable for the fall. (Since I've started this blog entry, I've learned that students are discovering after installing an update that they are running the basic viewer, so I've had to send an email out to everyone warning of the possibility and how to get back to advanced. Fun times.)

So, that's frustrating: Linden Lab continues to exhibit their sterling communication skills with user groups, especially nonprofits and education. Many such institutions and individuals working for such are exploring open sims such as ReactionGrid and JokaydiaGrid, which is good, and I imagine such grids will be a significant part of the future in using virtual worlds in education.

However, they are still alpha, and rife with bugs. As an example: I tried to get into 3rd Rock Grid and VWER grid today. I hadn't been to 3rd Rock since last May when VWER had a meeting there. I remember liking the freebies I got for my avatar, so I wanted to return, get my avatar, and try hypergridding to VWER grid, or at least somewhere else.

Well, when I rezzed, I had been ruthed, completely stripped of everything I had, from my silver locks to my cool quiver. And I couldn't move.

I closed out, tried to go back in with a different viewer (from Hippo to Imprudence) and no change. I tried to add a male avie I had in my inventory. It only half loaded. I tried to move. Couldn't, until I logged out and in a third time. I set out to find some more freebies to dress less ruthily, and ended up looking like some demonic creature with glowing white eyes! Maybe a good look for me!

So, I gave up, decided to try VWER grid. I was not allowed to my home site, the 512m plot of land I call home, and couldn't get to it. Then when I tried to log out and back in, nothing, just a hung up viewer, both with Hippo and Imprudence.

So, again, open sims are a great promise, but the stability of SL, especially when dealing with three sections of students, cannot be discounted. I ran across a blog entry citing one VW developer who has seen an "uptick in corporate interest in the use of Second Life." James Neville (the blogger) and Bill Prensky (the VW developer) speculate why, and one reason they mention is that

Linden Lab seems to have gotten Second Life technology done right. That is, with the appropriate balance of performance versus resource demand necessary to run the product on a normal computer and be connected in a 24.7 “cloud” world. Competitors have yet to develop a working alternative that comes close to the Second Life server engine and thin client technology combination. And, lord knows, competitors are trying.

There is no way that I will commit to the usage of any virtual world outside of Second Life until I see much stabler operation. It's heavy lifting enough herding dozens of online students through the first hours of SL. I'd have mass revolt if I tried to do so with the open sims I've tried to date.

Testing BlogPress

One of the things I want to be able to do is to be able to write blog posts on my iPad. However Google's iPad app doesn't play well with Safari. So I'm trying out BlogPress. I'm sure it works better with Android tablets!

Which may be in my future. Don't get me wrong--the iPad is great. But I would much rather have Chrome as my browser. And really--not having flash is a problem. Too often I come across videos I want to view but cannot.

Back to BlogPress--setting up and signing into my blogger account was quick and easy. And text is a breeze, as would be expected. HTML is limited, with hyperlinks, bold, italics, block quote, and some font choices. No WYSIWYG, so the program just adds the HTML tags.

I can also add pictures either from Picasa or from the iPad.

Here's one I have on Picasa:





And here's one from my iPad:




From the lighthouse at the south end of Beaver Island.

I can only add the picture, though. No formatting.

One thing I can do, though, is save the posting as a draft online and then tweak formatting when on my computer. Which I will do. But I shouldn't have to.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Orientation 2.0

Spring break gives me a bit of time to raise my head and reflect a bit. I've started a couple different blog posts the last few months, but abandoned as work, holidays, freezing temperatures and snow, a Criterion half-off sale, you name it, kept me away from finishing.

Spring semester began with some changes that helped stave off a mass exodus from my classes using Second Life. As you may recall, the last couple semesters, I've had a problem with online students realizing that they were in a section that used SL. I had placed a note in the schedule book that said so, that noted students needed high speed Internet and a decent computer, with the URL to SL specs.

No one saw the note, whether in the print schedule book, or when registering online.

Furthermore, I sent a snail-mail letter in July, to remind students we were using SL with links on how to test their Internet speed and their computer's readiness to handle a virtual world.

Nobody recalled seeing the letter.

What made it worse in the fall is that for the WRIT 121 class, I was doing a Tuesday evening, 7-9 p.m. session each week that students had to attend. Not seeing the note or the letter, many had to drop because of previous commitments.

So for spring, before the semester started, I emailed everyone who registered for my classes with the letter I originally sent through snail mail. I grabbed every email, both LCC and personal, found on the student system site (Banner). And when one student dropped and another added, I sent out again the email to the new student.

I did this every day when the college was open from the first moment the classes were full until classes started.

Consequently, every student on day one knew that the section they were in used SL (even though many had no clue what that meant), and most stuck around for the first couple weeks rather than bailing en masse.

Sure, I've lost a few since, but most have dropped for reasons they usually drop online classes--they've taken on too much and thought online would be easier, family situations or illnesses pop up that keep them from continuing, they can't keep up with the work load for whatever reason (hey, I warn them up front this will take 9-14 hours a week depending on the class!). Only a couple have dropped because they don't have the equipment necessary to work in world, or because they simply don't like working with avatars.

Another thing that has happened is that I got most students to complete the orientation and the scavenger hunt. Last semester I had most in the creative writing class not do the hunt, or meet with me the second week in SL (I focus on the Angel LMS during the first week). Again, part of it was they weren't prepared. But another part is that I just expected them to be responsible. Always a great hope, usually a mistake.

So this semester, with everyone knowing they were to use SL, I had much higher participation in the orientation on Virtual Ability Island, and in completing the scavenger hunt. Of course, I made it required that they meet me in world the second week of class. Easy to do with the WRIT 260: Creative Writing I class since they knew we were all meeting on Tuesday evenings from 7-9 p.m.

More of a challenge with the two sections of WRIT 122: Composition II who had no whole class meeting. With them, I set up six times during the week that they could meet with me once they completed the orientation Here are the instructions I posted: http://express.lcc.edu/faculty/holtd/writ122/oasp11week2.htm#slorientation.

I also changed the scavenger hunt. Last semester, I required them to do the orientation with a

partner, knowing that they would learn more interacting with another, and find more value in the activity. The problem was that too many either couldn't find a partner, or were too shy to seek one out being so early in the semester. Consequently, most didn't complete the assignment. So this time, I allowed them to do the hunt alone, but in order to earn full credit, they had to complete more of the tasks than they would if working with another. And they could only earn Linden dollars if they worked with a partner. Consequently, everyone, except one or two, completed the orientation. And most of them, with a partner. Also, most of them did what it took (posting snapshots of their escapades) to earn Linden dollars.

The upshot of it all is that the majority of students by the end of week 2 were able to wander SL competently, communicate effectively, and participate fully with class activities the next week. And most of them enjoyed their experience, especially with parachuting, riding karts, petting a dog, and lounging on a lilypad.

Media Share on a Prim

A lot has been written in the last several months about the new SL viewer, particularly nashing of teeth by old timers who detest all of the changes.

Some of the whining is understandable. There are some tasks that take more key strokes than used to be so. But as an Angel user, I'm used to the philosophy of why use one keystroke when three will do.

I've not found the new viewer to be that problematic, and instead find it to be quite useful, such as the back and forth keys that teleport you to recent sites, or the Favorites bar. And the green i icon on avatars has been

quite useful, especially when using voice--much quicker to turn someone up down or out.

But to me the game changer with the new viewer is media share on a prim, where residents can share a live web page on a screen while in world. When I saw that last February, I said to myself, "I don't care what else this viewer has, my students will be using it come fall."

And they have. I've found my newbie students seem much more comfortable with the viewer, much quicker to pick up its uses, and off and running sooner than the last couple semesters. Now, part of this likely has to do with the fact that more students have reasonably powered computers than in previous semesters, and I'm more competent in preventing/solving problems. But I do think it's also the viewer.

But I digress. The main reason I wanted to use it was because of shared media. Yes, there are slide viewers aplenty in SL; some are quite effective, very smooth, and valuable for presentations or Powerpoints.

Slide viewers, though, add a step to my preparation that I could live with, but don't really want to. I'd like to create a web page and show it to students, not take a screenshot of it and download as a texture. And if I want to change the page minutes before a class, I want to be able to. Now, with media share, I can do so.

But even more important, I want students to be able to search the web, watch video and write on a screen while in world with other classmates.

And these last two weeks, for the first time, I was able to do so.

Let me describe an assignment that I do in f2f classes. Before the first peer response session, I like to have students write about what they want, and what they don't want from class member responses to their drafts. So I have them write for five minutes each on two very simple prompts:

1. What would you like to see in a response to your draft from a class member?
2. What would you not like to see in a response to your draft from a class member?

Then I have them get into groups, read what they've read to each other (which also gets them used to reading their writing to each other), and come up with 3 tips for responding effectively, 3 warnings about what to avoid.

After they then post these into an Angel discussion forum, we as a class come back together and discuss what they've come up with.

A very simple assignment that generates quickly ways to respond, and ways not to, that students have instant buy-in toward.

In thirteen years of teaching online, I've not been able to do this assignment as expressed here. I've done a more asynchronous version, but I've never thought it was as effective.

But now, with shared media and Google docs, I can do it.

My WRIT 121 class met one Tuesday evening and did the following:

1. They started off writing, either on a notecard or in their word processor, responses to the questions just mentioned, questions I posted on the media share screen from Google docs.
2. Then they got into groups. I had them separate into groups, moving to opposite sides of the classroom area, and then teleport to a sky classroom and sky platform above Angel Learning Isle.
3. When they got there, they found three screens I set up earlier in the day: one had my instructions, that I could change live (and did). The second screen had an empty Google doc that they could write on and everyone in the group could see. And the third screen had Angel LMS that one student could log into, copy/paste from the middle Google doc and paste into the discussion forum.
4. When done, we met back at the classroom area and discussed their tips/warnings as a whole.

While the students were in their groups, I stayed in the classroom area, and fielded the occasional IM, especially to determine when to switch from one prompt to the next in their discussion.

It went without a hitch. As long as the Google docs were set to public, anyone can edit, students could all see the page they added tips to, I could see what they were doing from Google docs, and I could change prompts from one to another when everyone was ready to move on.

Many faculty that I've talked with over the years, especially those who have taught online and gave it up, bemoaned the real-time interaction that they have in a f2f class. Yes, chat or web conferencing can counter some of the asynchronicity of most online classes. But to work with students in real time in a real spatial environment, using tools and techniques that work well in f2f settings, is a game changer with online classes. It's not flashy, it's not something that can only be done in a VW. But it is something that can enhance online classes, and make more faculty feel like teaching online does not mean giving something up.

The power of placeness

I was invited to submit a guest blog post at the Virtual Worlds Education Roundtable website, which was published today. Some of what I discuss will already be familiar to those reading this blog, but clearly not all.

Just click on the screen shot to read.

Crossing over to the dark side

School has started. What happened to the summer?!!!!!

So, besides balancing three storeys upon an aluminum ladder to scrape and paint the west side of my house, I spent some time exploring a couple of other MUVEs, Blue Mars and Friendshangout.

I had tried Blue Mars last fall but could never get in with my old laptop. However, I got a new laptop from LCC this summer that has a better graphics card (I can go up to Medium in graphics with SL and still have a decent frame rate) so I finally got in. Blue Mars is pretty, with nice shadows, and smooth avie animation. But the viewer is really stripped down and basic (though I've just installed a new version, so we'll see if that's improved). Not to mention you have to practically be a professional computer animator to build there (which makes my son, a professional computer animator, happy!).

Friendshangout gives you free land, and lots of it. But it's really alpha right now, and I haven't explored enough to figure out how to build, if you even can yet. But what I most found irritating was the landscape. You have mountains in the distance, but if you walk towards them, you never get to them! It's like a backdrop on a movie set rather than an actual virtual space that you can explore. And the camera shot always puts the URL on the photo. Of course, I could have trimmed or blotted out with Adobe Photoshop, but hey, the haze of summer is still upon me!

But the most significant event of the summer is that I've crossed over to the dark side and actually purchased for the very first time an Apple product! I picked up an iPad a couple of weeks ago. I decided to get one for a variety of reasons--smaller device to use in meetings, around the house, when travelling. And I really want to explore using the tablet for reading, to see if it's possible to grade student work with it, and if doing so is less taxing than doing so on a laptop. But the overriding reason I wanted one is because it seems to me that the device is a game changer in how we use computers, much as a laptop was compared to desktops. Or maybe even more so. It reminds me of the tablet used in Tad Williams' Otherland series, and in Star Trek: The Next Generation.

So do I think it was worth purchasing? So far, yes. The touch screen works really well, is very intuitive and makes reading, searching, viewing movies and writing (in small increments--like email or FB postings) quite enjoyable and productive. Also, the battery is long lived, and the device doesn't get hot, something I always hated with laptops in the summer.

But it really showed its mettle this last weekend when we helped my youngest daughter move to Ann Arbor to attend the University of Michigan. We spent hours in Meijer and Target while she and her mother deliberated over every little item to purchase for the apartment. I stayed sane by propping the iPad in the shopping cart and reading!

Also, my use of the iPad reminds me of what Philip Rosedale said in his keynote message at the SLCC a couple weeks ago concerning the iPhone: it's not as good as many phones, but it's a lot more enjoyable to use. Same with the iPad--it's not as good as a laptop, in that you cannot multitask (though coming in the fall?), the glass keyboard is slow (though much faster than a phone keyboard!), and it won't run flash. But it's a lot more enjoyable than a laptop.

Which brings me back to education in a virtual world. It may not be as efficient as an LMS like Angel, especially with asynchronous discussion or submission of assignments. But it's a lot more fun.

When I first heard Rosedale's mantra for moving SL forward--"fast, easy, fun"--I thought he was being cute or trendy, and took little stock in it. But the more I think about it, the more I realize he's exactly right. Second Life, for all communities who use it, but especially for education, needs to be fast to learn, fast to use, fast to access content, needs to be easy to maneuver, easy to find stuff, easy to communicate, and needs to be fun to use, fun to play, fun to work in.

Only then will its immersiveness become more pervasive among more users. And that's the key for expansion into virtual worlds with educators, especially in distant ed.

And face it--entering SL through an iPad would be really cool!

Roger and Me

A couple weeks ago (to be precise, on 6/17), Roger Ebert tweeted the following: "Find me a person who would value any video game above 'Huckleberry Finn,' and I'll show you a fool." As you can imagine, gamers lit Twitter, his blog, and their own with a wildfire of responses (one of his blog postings had over 4000 comments!). And then finally, Ebert relented, admitting that he shouldn't really be commenting on video games when he has had little experience with them.

The discussion led me to thinking about my own experiences with Huck Finn and video games.

My first memory of Twain and Huckleberry Finn go back to Christmas 1965, when I was in third grade, and my family lived in the Sierra Nevada foothills, the town of Oroville. My grandmother and grandfather Lyons had given me a handsome edition of the book for Christmas, and my father read it to us, one of the only times I remember my dad reading a book to his four children. I especially recall my father almost rolling on the floor laughing when reading the chapter "Was Solomon Wise?"

Jump ahead a decade to my first year in college, a few years after my father's death, a year out of high school, when I had always planned on majoring and working in the sciences, probably some form of physical chemistry. What I found, though, in that first year at Diablo Valley College, was that I really didn't want to pursue science. The work just didn't interest me as it had when in high school, for some unfathomable reason. I even took a disliking to math while taking a trig class, something I had thoroughly enjoyed up to calculus in high school.

It wasn't until I took a class on Mark Twain the second semester, that I realized my interests were much more focused on literature than on science, that I was much more interested in reading about science than in doing it. I was more engaged in works of imagination than in works of the physical world.

Now jump forward another fifteen years. My oldest son at ten years old bought a Nintendo Gameboy with his paper-route money. A number of evenings after work selling real estate, or just starting my career in teaching in community colleges, I would sit on our couch surrounded by my four children as we all watched me maneuver Mario through the little screen images of Super Mario World, jumping, running, flying, knocking turtle shells, and so on. All of us were immersed, engaged in that little 2-3 inch screen, watching that little plumber negotiate the obstacles of a rather unfriendly world.

Now was that video game as rich an experience as reading Huckleberry Finn? In many ways, of course not. A simple game on a little screen does not compare to the rich world along the Mississippi River filled with round characters that Twain creates. Or of any of the rich narratives that my children and I experienced together as I read dozens of books aloud to them. But in both cases, father and children experienced a world of imagination together, laughed and held their breaths together, talked and enjoyed being with each other.

You see, I'm convinced that the use of imagination in placing oneself into an virtual world, or as Tolkien calls it a secondary world--being immersed, lost in, enveloped by that world--is the key to engagement in a number of media. One doesn't become engaged in page after page of words, tiny screens of choppy images, models floating through a star scape on a black and white TV--even the most sophisticated imagery available today on an HD TV or digital theater, whether in video games or film--without placing oneself imaginatively into the midst of that world, becoming immersed in it. One cannot be surrounded by a virtual world literally. One can only imagine being so.

Consequently, the idea that children playing video games are mindless vegetables compared to those who read I find wrongheaded. A child cannot become immersed in a video game without using his or her imagination any more than he or she can with a book.

And I think that's the key to success for MUVEs, MMOGs, virtual worlds--being able to believe, again as Tolkien says, while in the world, that what takes place is reasonable given the initial setup of that world. I rationally recognize that my avatar in Second Life, Profdan Netizen, is not me, it's a blob of pixels on a server. And I know that anyone I interact with in SL is one removed from their avatar, just as I am. But with my imagination, I secondarily believe, and am hence immersed in that secondary world while I'm there, and hence can experience it as I would a rich novel, a vivid video game, or a well crafted movie.

But I also see, as I contemplate my relationship with Huck Finn and video games, that social interaction is crucial to the experiences. My father reading to me, my mother buying me books, even when it wasn't a special holiday (I remember one afternoon coming home to find three paperbacks arranged carefully on my bed--the Lord of the Rings). Reading to my children and playing video games, from Gameboy to Nintendo in all of its variations to Playstation. Although reading and playing video games often are solitary affairs, just as often they were social events in my family. The communal nature of collectively exercising our imaginations and entering a secondary world together magnified the immersion--same is so with watching TV or going to a movie together.

Jump ahead another twenty years. I now find myself working with students in a virtual world. As I've mentioned in earlier entries, I've taught online for a dozen years in the 2D world of the Web and learning management systems like Blackboard and Angel. All along, I've found the lack of space in the online educational experience to be a serious deficiency. Why? Yes, I've been able to work on writing with students as a community through 2D apps. But I've found the experience to be detached, imaginatively shallow, no sense of place. A big part of it has to do with the likelihood that who we are, what we are, what we do are all mightily influenced by geography. As Annie Dillard mentions at the beginning of An American Childhood, "When everything else has gone from my brain--the President's name, the state capitals, the neighborhoods where I lived, and then my own name and what it was on earth I sought, and then at length the faces of my friends, and finally the faces of my family--when all this has dissolved, what will be left, I believe, is topology: the dreaming memory of land as it lay this way and that." I've always thought that having an online world to work in, much like the worlds of a video game (hopefully more friendly than Super Mario World!), would enrich the experience, help students enjoy more fully the class, and give them an imaginative anchor--a topology of place--that would keep them in school more effectively than does 2D online learning.

Social interaction and imagination--both bring us back to virtual worlds. Both are essential to the richness of Second Life and other MUVEs and MMOGs.

Some students get imaginative/social interaction right off with Second Life, many don't. Part of it, I think, is the newness of the medium, much as many students didn't get working with a community of writers online twelve years ago. But I'm wondering what I might do to help students recognize the MUVE as a place of the imagination that will build community and exercise mental skills which improve their writing.

Face it, without a well developed imagination, one cannot write effectively.

Dog Days of Summer?

Although it's only early June, the brouhaha over Linden Lab and their downsizing makes it sound like we're in the throes of a miserable heat wave. All over Twitter and the SLED list, proclamations of the demise of Second Life are being proclaimed because LL has cut their work force by 30%, including the disbanding of the Singapore office, and most disturbing for educators, the lay off of Claudia and George Linden. Here's a CNET article on the layoffs: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-20007260-36.html.

There are also reports of colleges and universities pulling out, from Princeton to the College of DuPage.

So is the use of Second Life for educational purposes in trouble?

Well, maybe. But not any more than other aspects of education are in trouble because of the current recession. What seems to be forgotten is that we are in the worst recession since the Great Depression, and educational communities have been hit hard by the collapse of support from states and property taxes. Did we really think there would be no casualties in the MUVE?

Fortunately, the cost of using a virtual world in education is small compared to other expenses. Yes, it may be cut, or slow to expand for a while, but I would imagine the retreat will be short lived. Online education--not the only driver of VWs, but certainly a sizable aspect--continues to grow. VWs are a natural next step in bringing students into a fully immersive experience that gives them a sense of person and place that no 2D LMS or even Web 2.0 2D app can give them.

True, if Linden Lab so focuses on social network gaming (does it really want to become the next Farmville?!!!), as it also announced with the layoffs, and if it continues its overtures of slighting educators, the ramp up and development of open source VWs may be the place for colleges and universities (not to mention primary and secondary education).

The open source sims are still clunky, but they are improving rapidly. VWER has been hosting field trips to different educational builds on places such as ReactionGrid and 3rd Rock, which have been quite fascinating. They can't handle very many people without crashing, but that was so with SL, even just a couple years ago.

Linden Lab lays off 30% of its workforce during the the Great Recession. Not really news. I'm surprised it just now happened. Linden Lab is pursuing what they consider potentially lucrative 3D avenues. Again, not surprising. However, I hope they are not simply running scared and find themselves behind the curve in both the flatter social network 3D gaming world and more graphically rich new worlds, such as Blue Mars (though I've yet to get in because my computer's graphics card is too old!!!).

Swamped by the semester

Wow, where did February, March, and April go! I checked my notes and found I had started a couple new blog posts but never finished. That's what happens when you teach four writing classes a semester!

Now that I've had some time to decompress from the semester, here are some highlights for the middle part of the semester:

Voice

This semester, I've required students to use voice in order to share drafts of essays for composition courses and drafts of poems/stories for the creative writing course.

I hope for most writing instructors, the reasoning is self evident: having students hear their writing helps them to discover aspects of their expression that they will not realize when simply reading silently. The value is mostly for the writer, though it can also be beneficial for the listeners/respondents.

Having an oral reading component in online writing classes has always been problematic. In the early years of teaching writing online, I didn't even try. I considered it as one of the limitations of the delivery method that had to be abandoned. A few years ago, though, around the time when I began to teach creative writing online, I decided I had to have an audio component. Students who write poems and stories had to hear their writing. So I began to use WIMBA, which was supported by the college and accessible through Angel LMS. I would have students read and record their drafts and then asked group members to listen while reading before they responded.

It was all done asynchronously. WIMBA does have a synchronous voice chat, but it is rather clunky, and the archiving it does of mixing text and audio clips is hard to follow. So I stuck with asynchronous posting of oral drafts. I could determine whether or not students recorded drafts, and score accordingly. I couldn't really do so with the listening part. Participation over the years was never one hundred percent (little is!).

SL voice seemed to be a better solution. Students could read drafts, and share text copies in notecards. They could take turns reading their drafts, and elicit discussion, just as I would have them do in a f2f class. And the sense of space and presence would be superior to the bodiless voices of WIMBA or even something some students are more familiar with, Skype.

When it worked, it was great. Several students in their reflective essays at the end of the semester mentioned voluntarily how much they found voice presentation of drafts helpful. But SL voice proved to be buggy. Too often students couldn't get it to work, and one student never did even though she was pretty computer savvy (I suspect network congestion on her end). I think next semester I'll have them use Skype as a back up.

Which brings me to two other issues: too many apps and tech help inworld.

Too many apps

I've found that students get app overload pretty quickly. I lost a scad of students because they didn't read the schedule book concerning using SL, and the computer needs to take this course. Some dropped, or stopped working, right away. Those who stuck it out either were pretty tech savvy or very tenacious. But even among those who stayed, I could tell that having to juggle Angel LMS (including uploading/downloading files, discussion forums, reading web page assignments, looking up grades), Word or OpenOffice, Second Life, Twitter, AIM, and Diigo became difficult, especially for those who were doing online classes the first time. Next semester, I think I'll drop Twitter, even though I found its use quite valuable for quick communication and sharing between students and with me for those who tweeted frequently. However, I found too many ignoring it even though keeping a Twitter log while working on their essays was required.

Also, I plan to use Skype instead of AIM so that I'll have a back up voice chat should SL voice not work, and a back up text IM all in the same app. And for the first semester comp, I may also drop Diigo, though, since I don't use it until later in the semester, I may keep depending on how the group's competency pans out.

The point is that I have to juggle between making a rich online class experience and making it too opaque for weak tech users. As I've mentioned before, I will always lean towards a rich experience, and chance losing students, but I don't want to make it accessible for only the highly proficient tech user. Those with a moderate familiarity with the web and computer use should have no inordinate problem with the course, as long as they set aside enough time to do the work!

Tech help in world

The other issue is finding tech help in world. Students at LCC can get help with software and applications supported by the college, such as Angel (well, usually--they've not been very helpful with WIMBA!). But not with apps that are not supported currently by the college, such as SL or Twitter. Therefore, I have to do the heavy lifting of helping students solve technical problems, which I've done for many years. But I'm not available at all times, nor am I as technologically proficient with VW problems as I'd like to be (though I'm learning!). So I really need to find some places/people that students can contact when having problems in world.

This is really essential. Whether or not SL is effective as a place of learning for online students is directly affected by whether or not they can have a relatively trouble-free experience while in world. Problems will arise, but they need to be solved. Yes, those who try to do SL with underpowered machines or on weak home networks (wireless or Ethernet) or without purchasing enough RAM or a headset will find SL clunky and frustrating. But that shouldn't be the case for those with the right equipment/connection. Too often it is.

New Semester in Second Life

Spring 2010 is well underway. As you know, last semester, I taught one WRIT 121 hybrid course using Second Life. This semester, I'm teaching two WRIT 121 courses (combined as one in Angel LMS) fully online and with Second Life. I'm also teaching a WRIT 260: Creative Writing I course online and inworld.

So what's different this time through?

Well, first off, with fully online courses, we couldn't do an orientation all at the same time (both because there is no scheduled time when we would all meet, and there were potentially 55 students!). So instead, I gave instructions to do the orientation on their own on Virtual Ability Island, and then later in the second week, to come chat with me at Angel learning Isle.

I also put together a walk through, signing up through Virtual Ability, and then starting the orientation.

Overall, orientations/chats went well, though some students seemed to get lost on VA Island. And a good number seemed surprised that we were using SL, not realizing we were going to do so, even though it was announced in the schedule book. I had so many in their intros expressing ignorance we were going to use SL, I asked our lead instructional support, Brett, to check to make sure the notice was presented online when students registered (it was). Consequently, there were a good number who didn't have sufficient computers to deal with SL effectively.

But for those who jumped in and did the orientation, and met with me that first time on Angel Learning Isle, they seemed to enjoy themselves.

Week 3 in the WRIT 121 class, we had a chat, and then an SL field trip. Their first essay is about a particular toy, and its value to children (or adults, if they choose to explore) so they brought to the chat notes about three of their favorite toys as children. After the chat, they would search about their toys, and then decide to go to one sim that deals with the toy in some way.

Last semester, the student searches were hit or miss. Some sessions the students couldn't really find anything of value, so I realized I needed to have some possibilities in my back pocket in case that happened.

Come to find out, it didn't need them. Students had no problem finding interesting places to visit, in a very short amount of time, from bike trails to mechanical toy factories to baby dolls and furniture. It seems that Linden Labs has improved their search engine quite a bit, and/or more intriguing content is being built in SL.

Also, I had an experience that really surprised me during one of the WRIT 121 chats. After the chat, we went to Kool-Stop Country where we picked up some free bikes to explore the island.

One student found a dance ball to practice a little tai chi.

After the field trip, I went back to Angel to change out a notecard in the in the notecard dispenser. One of my students was on the office roof (where I have an oriental rug). She mentioned how pretty the sunset was.

So I jumped up to the roof, and she was lounging, enjoying the view. I sat, and we just started to talk. She told me about her husband and his family overseas, asked me about why we were using SL, and whether I'd done much traveling. In other words, we were just relaxing on the roof, and talking. After about a half hour, she said she had to go to work early the next morning, so needed to go, but thanked me and said, "This was nice." She then left, I finished my work, and left as well.

Now--I've done small talk with students f2f, and with online students, in chat. But the sense of presence, the connection, that took place in this online class, was very different than anything I've experienced before, and it solidifies the value I see in working in a MUVE.

Very simple, but I find very profound the spontaneous exchange we had during a sunset on a roof at Angel Learning Isle. If this doesn't exemplify the fact that SL is a place, I don't know what does.

In fact, I'm beginning to think that the power of SL with online education is that when students don't have f2f interaction with you, such as with a hybrid class, they rely more on avatar interaction, and hence it becomes much richer in creating a sense of presence.

Last semester we had SL field trips; I had students take snapshots; they posted them in Writer's Cafe. Same this semester. But this semester, students not only took pictures--they wanted to take a picture of the chat group posing. And not just one group suggested such. Again, not something that was ever suggested in the hybrid class. Could it be that when students never meet f2f, they make a much stronger connection with their avatar classmates and professor than takes place with a hybrid class? The hybrid class need not rely on SL avatars to have a connection with the prof and class members. They can enjoy the experience, but it's secondary. But with online classes, the 3D avatar interaction, possibly, becomes the primary connection, with the 2D interaction in the learning management system becoming secondary.

Of course, this is all tentative, and preliminary, but certainly promising.

Wish You Were Here: Learning in Second Life

Happy new year! I gave a presentation on my forays into teaching in Second Life this week for the spring 2010 professional development days at Lansing Community College. It went well, though the PowerPoint on the classroom computer was rather stingy in showing pictures, and the remote clicker I received from Center for Teaching Excellence died after two clicks. But the SL viewer worked fine and the faculty in the audience seemed to enjoy exploring Angel Learning Isle, as well as a couple other sites, such as Montclair State University, NOAA, and Blarney Stone Pub at the Dublin sim. A number expressed a desire for LCC to have an island in SL.

Here's the URL for the PowerPoint slides in PDF: http://web.lcc.edu/personal/holtd/wishyouwerehere--pd_1-2010.pdf

Whole class meeting in SL

A couple weeks ago, I met with my WRIT 121 class in Second Life as a whole. In other words, instead of meeting f2f on a Tuesday evening, we all met at Angel Learning Isle.

As you know, up to this point, I had met with students only in small groups on the balcony of my office.

Now we would meet in the classroom area.

The purpose of the class was for students to read/review the virtual lecture on thesis statements and then to get into three groups, where they would discuss their thesis statements, using some specific prompts to help them make sure they were working with a position that brought insight to the issue.

The lecture link was available on a sign with a screen shot of the first page of the lecture (behind me in this picture).

The prompts were available on a notecard in the blue box in the middle of the seating circle.

In a f2f class, I would have them get into groups, spread throughout the classroom, and they would take turns sharing/discussing.

In regular online classes, I would have them discuss in text chat sessions at different times.

Here on Angel Learning Isle, I had them spatially get up, move to three corners of the classroom area, and stand next to teleportation globes. Once I saw that the groups were evenly divided, I had them teleport to three sky class areas (one a gallion, or pirate ship), where they discussed their thesis statements. Doing so made it possible for them to discuss in small groups without hearing (if using voice) or seeing (if using text chat) the other group's discussion.

Once I got everyone situated--I had to lead a group from my balcony over to the classroom area--the explanation of what we were going to do, the reviewing of the lecture, the receipt of the note card prompts, and the movement to the sky discussion areas went smoothly.

While they met in groups, I stayed in the classroom area, in case late students showed up, and in case students had questions. When students had questions, they would IM me, which can be done anywhere in SL; one need not be close by.

What is interesting is that one student, instead of IMing, teleported back to the classroom, asked his question, and then returned to his group. It seemed like he did so deliberately, almost like he wanted the movement. That sense of movement, of going from one place to another, seems to add to engagement, much like having students move around in a classroom to break up a long class session. Online students participating in a text or voice chat never have a sense of movement within a landscape of any sort while working with each other.

I didn't have them return to the classroom area. Like I did with my online class that uses only the Angel LMS for chat, I had them write a note to send to me through the Angel drop box, summarizing what group said.

What I often do f2f is have groups report to class and share what they discovered from the group interaction. I didn't even think to have this class do so in SL, but of course, I could have, and might try that next time.

I don't know if I'll have any more whole class meetings this semester. But I do know that when I mentioned returning to f2f the next week, some students expressed disappointment, especially those who discussed their thesis statements in the hull of a pirate ship!