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.

Chatting with students in Second Life

The last two weeks I've started holding chat sessions in Second Life on Angel Learning Isle on my office balcony.



For online classes, I usually require students to attend at least one chat a week, no more than an hour, based on times they send to me. For each class, I'll then set up 3-5 chat sessions (obviously more for double sections), usually from Wednesday through Saturday. Here's a link to the chat sessions I typically schedule for an online class using 2D web apps in Angel's LMS and AIM: http://web.lcc.edu/personal/holtd/writ121/chatimes.htm.

I have done this over the last dozen years for one main reason: it gives students a sense of person, a sense that they are working with real people, even though it's only text. Yes, they get some of the same with asynchronous apps, like discussion boards. But the immediacy of chat heightens the online experience.

Again, though, it's still all text:


Now, as a writing teacher, I have no problem with text. Text is great. But text is not a person. One point I've been making in this blog, and elsewhere, is that online students would benefit from a sense of place, just as f2f students experience when walking onto campus. And that sense of place, or sense of space, would enhance their experience as taking place with real people. This is what I had hoped would be possible in Second Life.

So with two weeks of chat sessions, what did I find?

First off, teaching on SL presents a deja vu experience for me, as simply dealing with SL has all year. As I mentioned earlier, SL reminded me a lot of the Web in 1996: lots of promise, tremendous potential, but in large part empty, with little valuable, useful content.

Take finding interesting articles online. In 1996, you were much more likely to find well researched, thoughtful articles from magazines, newspapers, journals by going to the library and searching something like Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature, or using CD ROMs to search, and even then, you likely had to find the full text on paper or microfilm. Occasionally you could find research online from colleges and universities. And some magazines began posting articles early on. But really--you had to go to the library to find most of what was published on an issue.

That changed, though, on the Web, in a very short time. Each six months, users found exponential increases in useful, valuable content, so that by today, there are very few venues that beat the Web in finding worthwhile resources, including physical libraries. Ask any librarian--most funds are being poured into digital acquisitions. Why? Because that is what patrons want, to be able to search and find stuff online.

Getting back to using SL with students: deja vu all over again--thanks, John Fogerty for a very timely song title. In 1997, when I first started teaching online classes using AltVista Forum as our learning management system, I found that one had to rethink teaching in substantial ways. I could not just plop a f2f class online and go on my merry way. Simple example: when does an online class start? Today, the answer is simple--whenever I decide it's going to start. But in 1996-97, while we were first designing online classes, that was a puzzling question. For f2f, we knew that class started when they were scheduled--on Mondays and Wednesdays from 2-4 p.m. beginning on August twentysomething. But with online classes, they could start, the minute the semester started, or later, or even before--since students would be populated into online sections usually weeks earlier.

So now, when moving from 2d online to 3d, do I just throw an online class onto SL and conduct just like I have with 2d Angel LMS?

Well, first of all, I can't. I have no discussion forums, no gradebook, no drop boxes in SL. Those developing Sloodle are furiously working to make such an integration between SL and Moodle, the open source LMS. And Angel started to, until Blackborg assimilated. However, I've recently heard Blackborg is now working on integration (resistance is futile).

Even so, one still cannot have students working on discussion forums in world, which I think would be cool. Maybe soon, when real time access to the web in world will be available.

But I can do chats in SL, real time communication with class members.

So how is it different? Well, first off, the sense of dealing with a person, the sense I found very strong in communicating with colleagues at conferences and meetings during my sabbatical, is as strong when meeting with students. Students overall seemed intrigued with the method of communication. Some were having friends watch over their shoulders--one with a friend from Lake Superior who insisted on seeing what she was doing because she said "we don't have anything like that at our campus!"

Furthermore, students seem really to enjoy meeting in SL. Throughout the years, I've had some students express enjoying chats, and others not so much. But students immediately found the medium engaging and our discussion about the Harvard video Shaped by Writing fun. The next week, I added something you can't do in Angel chat: a field trip, where students set off to visit toy sims in SL. The success of the groups with the field trips varied (more below). But last Tuesday, when I told students we weren't having a chat this week, some were really disappointed.

Meanwhile, I found that trying to give instructions about what to do in the chat to be challenging. I first tried to explain to students how to create a notecard and give it to me through chat. It did not work. They just got confused. So I created a notecard with instructions that they could open from a simple blue box.



That worked fine for most students, actually for all who had computers that worked decently in SL (I have several that have found their computers too old and rushed out to get new lap tops).

I also found that I must have back-up suggestions if I ask students to teleport somewhere to explore. As I mentioned above, I had students last week take a field trip to toy sites in SL. Their first essay is on the value of toys, based on their own experiences and observations. They need not write about SL, but I wanted them to do some exploration of SL to see if the toy they were writing about had a presence in the MUVE, especially since SL residents are all adults. Well, I found that if I don't have some back up possibilities, students can come up dry. Again, like the web in 1996, you can often search for something and find little of value. For example, one chat group decided to search for Barbie. And they learned one thing--Barbie is quite sexualized in the virtual world! One student accidentally ended up in an exotic dance club! But besides that, there was little out there except for some stores with Barbie avatars. And another group tried to find Lego sims, but found some profiles or teleport profiles that said they had Lego stuff didn't really. So I found that having some back up possibilities--like simply searching toys in Search--to be valuable.

The last group worked best, and it was the largest with seven students. I tried to break them up, but they wanted to stay together. I found that if I give them instructions first in text chat--to search for the toys they brought to discuss--and have them share in text chat what they find, that they find more sites that way. They ended up spending most of their time sledding in a winter park.

I think next time, I'll have them find a couple relevant sims on their own to bring to chat, and see how that goes (next week--essay topic, music).

So I think so far that SL as a real time meeting place for students is definitely worthwhile. It's still 1996, but the millenium is about to turn!

Creepy Treehouse III

Last post on creepy treehouses. I think that course management software falls into creepy treehousedom when it does two things:

1. keeps users from accessing applications from outside of its walls.
2. offers services that are so obviously more effective elsewhere.

I'll use some examples from my experience with three CMS's we've used at LCC.

Chat

In AltaVista Forum, one could chat with the CMS client, or with another client like mIRC. With both Blackboard and Angel, such is not possible. Furthermore, in both CMS's, chat has been clunky, dull (no actions as with MOOs or mIRC), and unreliable.

Email

I don't recall AltaVista Forum having an email function. Both Blackboard and Angel do, and especially with Angel, the email sucks. It's like they never looked at how it's done anywhere else and are trying to reinvent the wheel. Furthermore, you can't email to Angel email; you can only send out from Angel email to Internet email.

Dropboxes

You would think CMS's would be the most uncreepytreehouse with drop boxes, since they were integral to CMS's from the early days. However, in uploading files on Flickr, I've realized how clumsy they are. Angel's drop box function is much improved with that found in Blackboard. However, Angel's philosophy seems to be why use only one click when three will do? Consequently, getting anything done takes much longer than necessary and adds to that feeling of something being very wrong.

That's enough. I haven't tried the web 2.0ish features that Angel (and I'm sure Blackboard) has added in recent years such as blogs and wikis. However, from those I've talked to (or read on listservs), they aren't very good. It just seems that it would make a lot more sense to treat a CMS as a portal that offers things it does well at (or should do well at), such as a secure gradebook, and allow applications such as blogs, wikis, email, chat and such to be accessed through the common web page, like an aggregator does with widgets (more on these soon).

OK, enough creepiness!!!!