Learning to teach in Second Life

Angelina Macedo, Portugal Lina Morgado, Portugal EDEN Open Classroom Conference 09 16th October 2009

SUMMARY
I. Second Life: what is it?
II. Learning to teach in Second Life: An experience
as a learner

Second Life
SL has some components that facilitate innovation and pedagogical activities in online education :
- extended or rich interaction;
- visualization and contextualization;
- exposure to authentic content and culture;
- individual and collective identity play;
- immersion in a 3D environment;
- simulation;
- community presence and content production.
(Warburton and Perez-Garcia, 2009)
3

I. Second Life: what is it? 4

Second Life: what is it?
3D Multi-User Virtual
Environment (MUVE):
Linden Lab 2003
It tries to reproduce
the physical world:
economy (Linden dollar)
business (IBM, Microsoft…)
education (universities and colleges)
…
5 It isn’t a game It has neither scores nor story or set rules It is a social virtual world created by its residents, where people can meet for different purposes.

SL: People-Avatar
People in Second Life are called residents ;
Their presence is mediated by their Avatars (3D representations);
6

SL: Communication
- CMC
- Verbal (Voice chat or written text; notecards, profiles, IM – private or in local chat)
- Nonverbal
- Small Group
- Interpersonal
7

Second Life potential for learning: Situated Learning/Immersion
Avatars mediate a learning experience in a 3D virtual world that is unique;
It cannot be experienced via other virtual environment
8

II. Learning to teach in Second Life 9

Learning to Teach in Second Life
In order to teach in SL, you have to: . Be a learner first; . Get familiar with the new technology; . Rebuild classroom rules; . Take into account different learning styles and activities; . Adopt a distance learning model that allows learners to be co-authors.
(Martinez, 2007)
10

The MUVEnation Experience
Peer learning programme : one year;
Explore, analyse, develop and evaluate within context the effectiveness of this innovative way of teaching and learning;
Its approach was to explore the promising potential of active learning approaches integrated to MUVEs.
11

Learning to Teach in Second Life: How?
Based on a student-centred approach, peer collaboration and tutor orientation;
- Learning in a virtual community;
- Virtual tools:
.Moodle for online forum discussions, structured activities, news and resources
.Blog for personal reflection;
.Wiki for collaborative work;
.Flickr to share photos;
.Twitter for microblogging;
.Second Life for immersive learning.
12

Learning to Teach in SL: Hands-on Workshop
Designing and implementing a Hands-on Workshop.
13

Learning to Teach in SL: Hands-on Workshop
Instructional text based activity;
Delivered to a small group;
In a tutor-led teaching setting;
The virtual learning space can be configured in a variety of ways.
14

Designing a Hands-on Workshop 15
Aim: To develop specific competencies and skills in building and/or scripting in-world objects
Delivery:
Written chat
Average length:
- Usually an hour
These workshops are usually delivered by non-formal learning instructors and most of them are free.
Four key steps:
- Planning and preparation;
- Delivery of instruction;
- Follow up and evaluation;
- Recall and transfer of learning.

Learning to Teach in SL: Hands-on Workshop 16 We observed some workshops; Discussed best practices; Used a specific template to analyse and evaluate them which had been previously validated by a panel of teachers.

Learning to Teach in SL: Hands-on Workshop 17 Methodology: - participatory observation, followed by tutor’s and critical friends’ feedback (two peers would be our critical friends: observe the workshop, give feedback on the best practices and on what required improvement); Assessment: of the quality of the students’ learning experience and outcomes. Preparing a Hands-on Workshop

Learning to Teach in SL: Hands-on Workshop 18 Designing and implementing a Hands-on Workshop - Aim of the workshop: understand how prims work and create a table and a stool, just with one prim each. - By manipulating a tube and setting different parametres, participants would create a table and a stool. Finally, they would texture them.

Learning to Teach in SL: Hands-on Workshop 19 Preparation of the virtual setting: - Individual, well limited working areas; - Participants’ seats had a double function: keep participants locked in place (thus reducing lag) and allowed them to rise their hands when/if they wanted to ask any questions; - Examples of the objects that were going to be built – a table and a stool; - A folder with several textures and a poseball for the stool was given to each participant; - Notecards with all the instructions (important when the participants’ level of skills is different); - Notecard reader; - Asked a friend to test things in advance;

Learning to Teach in SL: Hands-on Workshop 20 While delivering the workshop Stated the workshop objectives at the beginning; Explained the task; Gave instructions both through chat voice and a notecard that was being shown on the notecard reader; Helped a less experienced participant through private Instant Messaging .

Learning to Teach in SL: Hands-on Workshop 21 At the end of the workshop All the participants managed to create a table and a stool. As some still struggled with the pose ball for the stool, we met in-world to solve this issue.

Learning to Teach in SL: Best Practices 22
Previous preparation and checking;
Written text (allowed participants to visualise the instructions);
Short and clear instructions;
Few issues/topics in each session - avoid cognitive overload;
Finish the task in the specified time;
Recall and transfer of information;
Reflect upon the process and the outcomes (our practice);

Learning to Teach in SL: Best Practices 23
Analyse our friends’ and tutor’s feedback;
Build transferability;
Set the communication rules at the beginning of the workshop in order to avoid disruption;
Design support for students who get behind.

Recent research and our practices show that some design patterns can be defined such as
- sharing stories/accounts of what worked and what requires improvement;
- identification of problems that are common and of the associated forces;
- listing the successful solutions.
Sharing and discussing these patterns facilitate their refinement, improvement and the creation of a design language.
Design patterns 24

Insights to implement a learning project with my teen students to learn English as a Second Language and to develop their Citizenship and themselves as global citizens.
This project is being implemented on a private island where there are several schools from all over the world where their teachers and students develop learning projects, interact and collaborate in a virtual learning community.
Implications of the MUVEnation programme in my practice 25

Second Life potentiates collaboration, sharing, decision making, critical thinking and experiential learning in the virtual community.
Austin & Boulder (2007) state that this virtual world is growing in popularity because it provides social networking; the ability to share rich media seamlessly; the ability to connect with friends; a feeling of presence; and a connection to the community.
Nevertheless, educators must be aware of SL challenges when transferring their first life pedagogical approaches to their second life teaching.
Conclusions 26

Teachers need to learn how to teach in SL as Real Life teaching expertise does not guarantee SL teaching positive experiences.
It requires that educators identify and select the strategies and activities that are more appropriate either for face-to-face context or virtual context.
SL encourages people to interact and collaborate in a way that conveys a sense of presence that is not found in other media.
Conclusions 27

There’s evidence that SL can help to develop skills concerning socialisation, peer and group work, critical thinking and problem solving.
SL has a great potential for learning which can be enhanced with the improvement of technology and communication.
More research is required to make this world more accessible and easy to use so that educators can optimize these virtual worlds for the teaching and learning process.
Conclusions 28

Thanks for your attention!
Any questions?
Contact: [email_address]
[email_address]

http://plataforma1.instituto-camoes.pt	2600
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http://luismiguel-digital.blogspot.com	17
http://morgen-virtualworlds.blogspot.com	7
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http://plataforma1.instituto-camoes.net	1
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Learning to teach in Second Life

by Angelina Macedo on Oct 17, 2009

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