Hit the Ground Running in Second Life

Slide 1: The Next Generation of Digital Learning Spaces Hit The Ground Running In Second Life

Slide 2: Questions: How long have you been in Second Life? • Never, I didn’t create my account yet. • I’ve created an account but didn’t log in. • I’ve logged in but done nothing. • I’ve completed Orientation Island. • I’ve been exploring but I still consider myself a newbie. • I consider myself past the beginner stage so maybe I’m in the wrong workshop. What do hope to leave with by the end of the workshop?

Slide 3: Presentation Outline: • What is Second Life? • Why use it in the classroom? • Can I run it on my computer? • How does one get started? • Challenges? • How can I find other educators using Second Life? • Do you have any resources for me? • What’s next? Heidi Trotta and Nick Noakes Copyright Heidi Trotta, Nick Noakes, 2007. This work is the intellectual property of the authors. Permission is granted for this material to be shared for non-commercial, educational purposes, provided that this copyright statement appears on the reproduced materials and notice is given that the copying is by permission of the author. To disseminate otherwise or to republish requires written permission from the authors, however, we would be flattered!

Slide 4: What is Second Life? • Online, 3-D interactive space • Downloadable client program • Enables “residents” to interact with each other through avatars • Provides social networking • Residents can explore, meet others, participate in individual and group activities, create, trade items and services from one another • Not a game – a space! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxj8RTW4ev4

Slide 5: Why are you interested in using Second Life in Education? • Engages students • Encourages active learning and collaboration • Brings real world experiences into the classroom via technology • Allows for role-play and the “trying on” of different real-world identities So Cool! This content is so dry and boring!

Slide 6: Why use Second Life (con’t)? • Adds a sense of presence not available in other online environments • Gives students the ability to interact with others outside of the university community • Creates new landscapes for work, learning, teaching and collaborating • Encourages higher level cognitive skills – interpreting, analyzing, discovering, evaluating and problem solving • Provides an environment for creativity and innovation Introduction to Second Life – A Movie

Slide 7: Technical Considerations for Education • Account Setup - Challenging • High Learning Curve • Labor Intensive – Processing, Updates, Need Broadband • Online support and scaffolding needed

Slide 8: How do I get started? – Create an account – Login – Movement – Communication – Inventory – Changing your appearance and clothes – Searching – Notecards

Slide 9: How do I get started? Click the orange Join Now button to create an account – free or $

Slide 10: Download the client and you are ready to go!

Slide 13: Hitch a Ride Walk: Arrow Keys Teleport Fly: Page Up, Page Down How do you move?

Slide 14:  View > Chat History Communication - Chat

Slide 15:  View > Chat History Communication – Instant Message

Slide 16: Handout Changing Your Appearance and Clothes

Slide 17: Your clothes are in your inventory. Find someplace to change that is private! 

Slide 18: Don’t forget to take your current clothes off first by right clicking on yourself, choose “Take Off”.

Slide 19: Find the piece of clothing you want to wear, right click and choose “Wear”.

Slide 20: Give items away by dropping on profile here Many different options Search for People, Places, Events

Slide 21: Join Search for Groups with Similar Interests – NMC Guests

Slide 22: Location Teleport Search for Places - World Map

Slide 23: Find “Notecards” in your inventory, right click and choose “New Note” Knowing how to create a notecard is an important skill in Second Life

Slide 24: Type directly into the notecard and Type your content in here! remember to rename your card something that makes sense. Keep your card!

Slide 25: Just a review … We have: – Created an account – Logged in – Moved around – Communicated with people near and far – Found items in our inventory – Changed our appearance and clothes – Searched for people, places and events – Created a notecard

Slide 26: Need to improve your performance? Follow the instructions on the next couple of slides .

Slide 27: Windows XP – select > Right click desktop > Properties (display) > Settings tab > Advanced button > Troubleshoot tab > Acceleration = full >Full hardware acceleration Adjust to Full

Slide 28: If Second Life does not load, or if you have graphic problems, click on Preferences.

Slide 29: Lower the draw distance

Slide 30: Turn off bumpmapping; lower terrain detail

Slide 31: Turn off anisotropic filtering, reduce settings

Slide 32: http://sl.nmc.org/wiki/NMC2007_Hit_The_Ground_Running

Slide 33: Contacts: Heidi Trotta (aka Heidi TeeCee) trottahe@shu.edu Web: www.heiditrotta.com Nick Noakes (aka Corwin Carillon) nick.noakes@gmail.com Many thanks to Lyr Lobo for her slides on improving system performance that are included in this presentation.

Slide 34: Questions?