This document discusses using the virtual world Second Life to teach photography composition skills as part of an online course at the University of the Philippines Open University. Students were given an optional activity to take screenshots of compositions within Second Life. While some students found it a useful tool to learn composition without a real camera, others struggled with Second Life's learning curve, hardware requirements, and potential for motion sickness. Overall it showed promise as an activity but more study is needed before making it a required part of the course due to technical issues some students experienced.

1. Benefits and challenges of
online learning in a virtual
world: the UPOU setting
Al Francis D. Librero
Assistant Professor
Faculty of Information and Communication Studies
University of the Philippines Open University
http://www.upou.edu.ph
http://www.allibrero.com
alfrancis.librero@upou.edu.ph

2. University of the Philippines
Open University
• Virtual campus in the University of the
Philippines system typically with 2,000-3,000
enrolled students in a given semester.
• All courses are deployed online via Learning
Management System (Moodle).
• Caters to students scattered across and beyond
the Philippines .

3. Multimedia Studies 173:
Photography in Multimedia
• Photography course taught in online/blended
mode within a 12-week trimestral schedule.
• Covers photographic composition, exposure,
editing and publishing
• Use of Second Life incorporated as an optional
activity (bonus work)

4. Why a Virtual World?
• Take the camera out of the equation, at least at
the beginning
• Picque interest of gamers not into photography
• Possible alternate learning tool for students with
disabilities

6. Why Second Life?
• Free to play
• Within a middle ground, but with a high degree
of scalability in terms of system requirements
• Several virtual locations to visit
• Allows for nearly unrestricted camera movement
and screenshots

7. Second Life

8. The Activity

9. The Activity

10. The Good
•It is useful.
• “You're right about how it teaches a person to focus on
composition. Its a great training tool.”
• “Even though some shots in SL would be impossible in
real life, it still brought a venue for me to experience
the freedom and the fun to wander around and take
photos.”
• “Second life experience is something I wanted to share
among my peers at work. It's like a game and at the
same time a learning ground for photography. ”
• “I attempted to do this activity and I can say that this is
really a good tool develop our "eye" for visual
composition.”

11. Second Life : Virtual PhotographyExercise

12. Second Life : Virtual PhotographyExercise

13. The Good
•Grade booster
•Non-participants = 2.11
•Participants
•Counting extra credit = 1.78
•Not counting extra credit = 2.03

14. The Bad: Learning Curve
•I downloaded it early on but am still
trying to figure out how it works. It’s
not as intuitive as I imagined it to
be…
•I struggled with the controls. They
weren't as accurate as I wanted
them to be.

15. The Bad: Inadequate hardware
and bandwidth
•It takes a lot of time loading a scene. I
really wanted to take photos of
players in the game but I can't since it
takes almost 15 minutes for it to load
completely.
•I did give up after a couple of tries as I
wasn’t able to see all the objects
render.

16. Wala sa pana yan. Nasa Indyan yan.

17. Wala sa pana yan. Nasa Indyan yan.

18. The Bad: Stability and
performance
•I noticed SL viewer crashes from
disconnections that appear to be
coming from the SL server itself. I'm
not sure if is because the server
automatically severs connection that
are slow or problematic, it just doesn't
seem to have a persistent connection
at all.

19. The Bad: Cybersickness
•Unfortunately for me I really couldn't
handle the motion sickness only after
a few minutes of walking or floating
around and I would be sick to my
stomach for hours.
•I got dizzy and my blood pressure
went up when I first played the game
prompting me to stop for a while.

20. The Verdict
• Performing the activity = Higher grades
• There is evidence, but may just be
circumstantial.
• Requires further study to say definitively
• Clear value of the activity, based on student
feedback
• Issues must be properly addressed before the
activity can transition into a course requirement.

21. Thank you!
Feel free to contact me:
alfrancis.librero@upou.edu.ph
http://www.allibrero.com
http://www.facebook.com/al.librero
http://ph.linkedin.com/pub/al-librero/3/922/8a/