Graduate Students in Second Life
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Presentation by Drs. Meyer & O'Connor on graduate students work in Second Life.
![Students in Second Life: The Roller Coaster Ride of a Shifting Paradigm -- adventures in online courses conducted in part in a virtual synchronous environment . . . the rules themselves are changing [email_address] / [email_address] Empire State College (SUNY) – May 2009](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/cit2009-grad-std-v4-090518160605-phpapp02/85/Graduate-Students-in-Second-Life-1-320.jpg)
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Graduate Students in Second Life
- 1. Students in Second Life: The Roller Coaster Ride of a Shifting Paradigm -- adventures in online courses conducted in part in a virtual synchronous environment . . . the rules themselves are changing [email_address] / [email_address] Empire State College (SUNY) – May 2009
- 3. The Many Roller Coasters When Incorporating SL Your own learning: tech & ambiguity Tech: SL availability / student support Students: how can their uses, complaints & ideas inform an instructor? Course: objectives, design & assessment
- 4. Demographics TOTAL Course 1 Course 2 Course 3 Female 15 5 5 5 Male 19 2 10 7 Age: 23 - 29 4 2 2 0 Age: 30 - 39 14 1 6 7 Age: 40 - 49 13 3 6 4 Age: 50 + 3 1 1 1
- 5. Courses: time frames, focus, and student experience
- 6. MAT Science Center (under revamping)
- 7. Students across the state give virtual presentations
- 9. International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE)
- 10. Class meeting using ISTE space
- 11. National Oceanographic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
- 12. NOAA – virtual, real-time weather Map (Northeast)
- 13. SL Expectations in Course 1 More on this course in the paper that will be submitted
- 14. SL Expectations in Course 2
- 15. SL Expectations in Course 3
- 18. The layout committee considered physical and social spaces Notice how students gain rich, intuitive understanding of the environment after the initial adjustment - no need to “teach” about ways to use SL Area addressed What wanted: Type of spaces: Lounging spaces – open areas Open booths Schedule posting areas for meeting Signage: Simple but informative – not cluttered Mapping: Teleports to get around ; pathways & boardwalks; “You are here”
- 19. The layout committee is clear about their expectations (images are from the report)
- 20. The logistics committee addressed working within SL, in general Scheduling becomes an issue though Committee recommended uses: Amplification Small group discussions 5 participants max Attending lecture & events At other islands too In addition to face-to-face For presentations & for orientation Value to administration too; beyond the courses themselves Give options for attending . . . such as, attend 3 out of 5 For office hours
- 21. Logistics committee noted problems SL makes an asynchronous class more time restrictive for faculty too Large group activities are difficult to organize Vertigo . . . for some (need better navigation & camera skills) Losing the flexibility of online Some had trouble signing on at home Too much too soon -- spend more time orienting NOTE: really tech support issues here; there is an Orientation Island
- 22. Still committees concluded . . .
- 24. Useful areas cited by third course students – spontaneous in blue / prompted (required within the assignment) in pink
- 34. Best expressed through an instructional metaphor : like designing an intelligent experience (field trip / discussions / role playing / construction) . . . with an assessment More advanced uses
- 37. . . . gleaned from the school of hard knocks
- 38. Designing an SL portion to a course Course objectives Is there a requirement for collaboration, sharing, discussion? Meeting arrangements Some required time, at least initially Give multiple times for participation if online course Tasks & conversations Discussions / role playing / guest speakers Overheard – real discussions Collaboration spaces You don’t have to be there all the time Require documenting & reporting; snapshots in Shared experiences Field trips / presentations / scavenger hunts Put PowerPoint into SL for presentations (it’s easy) Methods of gaining SL expertise Tutorial / handouts / peer tutoring / tech support Posit, expect and support awkwardness & learning curve Ways of communicating Voice chatting (w/ headsets) is useful with smaller group In larger groups, determine who speaks and have others use text
- 39. Considering students & their learning curve Issue Ways instructor can help - Technology requirements - In the school lab if possible; alternatives if necessary - Finding time to learn SL - Embed learning into an early assignment - Time to overcome awkwardness - Instructor can model learning and awkwardness (generally easy to do); have a field trip - Problems with scheduling - Have multiple sessions and/or times & ways to participate - Problems with voice chatting - Work with them on their audio / headset settings; get tech help if possible; use text chatting as a backup - Problems with collaborating - Provide structured / required interactions until groups can work on their own - Problems with valuing SL - Don’t expect all will “like” SL at the start; over time more come to value the experience
Editor's Notes
- These authors will present how students in online graduate courses participated in Second Life, addressing their struggles to participate, their range of virtual activities, and the useful advice students offered for improving SL course interactions. A conceptual framework for developing instructional activities in immersive virtual environments is emerging. Abstract Working in immersive virtual environments, such as Second Life (SL), offers great promise to higher education faculty who are willing to brave the wilds of a very new and different way to interact with students. The paper will present an overview of the complexities, challenges, and victories students have experienced in SL; over several courses, more than 30 science teachers have worked and collaborated in this environment to meet some of the course objectives. Part of this paper will address the activities in which student engaged, the type of interactions that occurred and the learning curve involved, the results of the students debriefings on their experience, suggestions that student committees made for improving the Second Life experience, and the results of implementing these improvements in later courses. In studying the process and outcomes of graduate students in SL (a third class is currently being conducted during the spring 2009 semester), the authors are beginning to understand the implicit conceptual framework that appears to underpin this roller coaster experience. Much is new and different about Second Life, however, the fundamentals of the multi-faceted and diverse interactions that can happen within a virtual environment have much in common with the complexities of real-world classes, often even more so then the controlled and limited interactions available within online classes. The authors will articulate an emerging conceptual framework that can help them and others consider the complexities of this environment and to determine what “affordances” (things you can do with the platform) are most useful to courses where SL is intended as a way to facilitate collaboration and interaction and as a way to simulate experiences that would be difficult to create in reality. Second Life opens new vistas. With SL, an online course can have many of the aspects of a face-to-face course, and more. Virtual explorations offer new platforms for educational discussion – for instance, the class can all experience a tsunami and consider it implications. This paper will both explain students’ perspectives and outline a framework that can promote more effective and efficient development in this environment. Who would benefit / who is the target audience? Instructors who might be designing or considering designing in this environment; K12 teacher educators; science instructors and science-teacher educators; administrators and staff who would support faculty as they move into Second-Life development Three questions we would expect from our target audience? How do you address the logistics of bringing students into a virtual environment that has a steep learning curve? What activities and interactions worked best in this environment? Is there a way of thinking about an immersive, virtual space that can help me understand where it might be useful in a course?