When worlds collide - learning activity management for avatars

When worlds collide: learning activity management for avatars or “Taking LAMS to Second Life” (but hopefully not “Like LAMS to the SLaughter”) image by ialja @ flickr.com

Summary

Second what?
3-D virtual world
run by Linden Lab
populated by avatars, a.k.a. residents
‘ proprietary’, but public commitment to open standards and OSS
a ‘metaverse’ almost entirely built by its residents
www.secondlife.com

So it’s just a game right?
looks and feels like a gaming environment
but no purpose as such
use it to buy / sell, entertain, learn, collaborate, …
do not approach it simply as a game – you’ll be disappointed!
image by J0@nn@ @ flickr.com

A collaborative space images by silversprite @ flickr.com
meetings
conferences
lectures
group work
informal discussions
chat, IM, groups and gestures

A creative space
not just building objects…
scripting
putting on plays / gigs / performances
art installations
creating machinima
written text
…

But note…
“ It's easier for [Second Life] to be a chemistry set than a chemistry class”
“ One of the issues with SL is that generally only 10% of people get it”
Babbage Linden http://artfossett.net/meetings/2007/06/19/efsym-followup/transcript.txt

SL as part of a blended experience
SL is good for some things but not everything - good for some people but not everyone
SL will offer a potentially useful venue for some of the activities managed using LAMS
pedagogies have to be flexible enough to allow for multiple modes of collaboration and creativity
our learners won’t be fully immersed in virtual worlds for the foreseeable future – therefore LAMS integration can be partial

Functional requirements
in-world (LAMS->SL) information about activities
workflow snapshot (what have I done? what do I still need to do?)
dates and times (when do I need to do it by?)
participants (who do I need to do it with?)
out-world (SL->LAMS) information / tracking about progress
stored chat-logs
log of activity
saved artefacts

Issue 1 – logging collaborations
chat and IM history not stored persistently across sessions
need to maintain record elsewhere
automatically or by manual copy-and-paste

Issue 2 - displaying text in-world
difficult to dynamically display textual information in-world
XYText vs. ‘text as image’ vs. chat
HTML on a prim long promised but not yet available :-(
http://www.jeff-barr.com/?p=587 http://www.slexchange.com/modules.php? name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=123668

Issue 3 – data transfer
SL scripting language has built-in support for HTTP requests and RPC
but no in-world XML or Ajax parser support
so need to process complex data using external scripts and pass data in-world using simple formats (e.g. CSV)
also note limitations in amount of data that can be passed

Issue 4 - shared credentials
avatars have a name – e.g. Art Fossett
in-world objects have a unique identifier
need to reliably tie avatars to LAMS accounts and LAMS accounts to avatars
need to trust the intermediate in-world objects thru which messages are passed

Mapping the landscape Second Life Moodle LAMS

Learning activity management for avatars
LAMS adds activity management to the mix

Eduserv Foundation currently funding development of SLoodle
contact Daniel Livingstone [daniel.livingstone@googlemail.com] to find out more

When worlds collide - learning activity management for avatars

by Eduserv Foundation on Jul 04, 2007

Accessibility

Categories

Tags

Upload Details

Usage Rights

Statistics

When worlds collide - learning activity management for avatars — Presentation Transcript