Into the
Third Dimension
with
SLOODLE
Daniel Livingstone

Daniel Livingstone

Teaching & Learning with Moodle
• Document dissemination From
• Coursework submissions Space
• Management tools/tracking
– Gradebooks
• Learning object integration
• Asynchronous & synchronous
discussion
• Online Assessments To
• Collaborative learning activities Place

Learning in 3D MUVE
• Informal Learning in MMOGs
– Social interaction and coordination
– Planning, problem solving
A Virtual
• Various MUVEs
– Shared ‘Presence’
World is a
• Exploration, discovery Place
– Synchronous work … for
• Shared experiences, discussion
– Identity exploration education?
• Playful learning, shifting roles
• Second Life (and a few others…)
– User generated content

Teaching in SL: My first experience
• Virtual world too
open-ended, lack of
obvious goals, rich
social & technical
environment
• Students needed
support for working
towards goals and
reflecting on
experiences
– Second Life can be
distracting,
confusing, hard to
navigate

SLOODLE Concept Diagram

In the beginning…
Oct ‘06: Original SLOODLE concept by Jeremy Kemp
SLOODLE chat-logger by Paul Andrews & Daniel Livingstone

Three Views of SLOODLE
• Community
• Product
• Research

• Web-intercom
Product
• Registration booth
• Quiz Chair
• Virtual Drop Box
• Choice
• Toolbar
• Presenter

Community
• sloodle.org
– Forums, resources, links
• Sloodlers
– In-world group in Second Life
• SLOODLE Island in Second Life
– Meeting, chat, learning zones,
classrooms for community use
• Weekly meetings
– Community Meetings (Weds)
– SLOODLE 101 (Tue)

ALT-J SLOODLE Paper

Approaches to integration
• The 3D classroom
– Original conception
• UI integration
– SLOODLE toolbar
• Individual tools
– Set of utilities used as required
• Rich 3D learning landscapes
– The goal?

SLOODLE Architecture
Web Browser
Moodle
Php
HTTP Second Life
SLOODLE
Php
LSL
Moodle Object
DB
Moodle/SLOODLE
Web-server
Peter will be talking about the architecture later…
we hope you can come along!

Virtual Dropbox
• Gradebook
Integration
Presenter
• Multi-media
presentations
inside SL

Web-
Intercom
Quiz Chair
Registration
booth
Choice

Blogs and Postcards
• Toolbar allows blogging to
Moodle from SL
– Creates hyperlink SLurl to location
in SL
– Manually add images later
• Freemail plug-in for Moodle
allows users to email blog posts
– including images
– Second Life lets users send email
‘postcards’
– Some dependencies

‘Skinnable’ tools
in Second Life

Setting up a SLOODLE class
• Add ‘SLOODLE controller’ activity
to Moodle course
• Get the SLOODLE ‘Set’ in Second
Life
– Create an instance of the set
• Click on it to configure
– Enter Moodle URL
– Follow dialog link to log in to Moodle
– Click again in SL to download config
data

Setting up Various Tools
• Click on Set to ‘rez’ the tool (menu
driven)
• Click on tool to configure
– Again prompted to login to Moodle to
authorize & configure
– We don’t trust Second Life objects
without this!
• Click on tool again to download
configuration
• Alternatively…
– This can be ‘notecard’ driven
– Use dialogs in Moodle to generate
configuration data to drop in

Who’s using SLOODLE?
• To an extent we don’t really know…
– Need to develop registration ‘nags’
– Many hundreds of tutors have been
‘trying out’
– Unknown number actually using
– Many international community members
• Some tutors have reported back
and/or completed surveys
– Survey responses positive
– Range of subject areas

Today…
• SLOODLE 0.4
– Roadmap to SLOODLE 1.0
• SLOODLE is in active use
supporting classes around the
world
• Growing community
– Since January significant growth in
activity in forums
– Increasing amounts of
contributions

Subject Areas
• ESL • Second Life
• English skills
• Education • Programming
• Ethics • Women’s
studies
• Fashion
• HCI
… class sizes
from 6 to 120+

SLOODLE Island

BlueWall Slade
OSGrid
Christopher Flow
ReactionGrid

3rd Party Contribs: Practical
Michael Callaghan & Kerri McCusker
Intelligent Systems Research Centre
University of Ulster

SLOODLE for Moodle 2.0
• Major re-write
• Web APIs for Moodle 2.0 might
simplify a lot of our
development work
• Limitations of Second Life http
functions will likely still force a
lot of custom engineering (or
hacking)

Observations
• Making SLOODLE easier to install, to
set-up, to use – version 1.0 is coming
• Moodle integration lends legitimacy to
virtual worlds in education
– And yet many educators in SL are
unaware of LMS/VLE platforms
• 3rd Party Hosting available
– Free and commercial
• International Users & Support
– Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese,
German

The Future
• SLOODLE Roadmap
– 1.0 Due August 2009
• Long term?
– Many institutions are only now really
coming to terms with VLEs
– Virtual worlds are some way behind
• VirtualWorldWatch.net

A Virtual World is a Place
If students came to your class
when you were not there, what
would they learn?
What would they do?

Thank you!
http://www.sloodle.org/
daniel.livingstone@gmail.com