The document discusses the integration of avatars and virtual worlds in education, highlighting immersive learning experiences and the future of virtual education. It covers various aspects such as avatar identity, simulation features, and innovative educational strategies facilitated by virtual environments. The text concludes with a call to action for educators to embrace virtual world teaching and collaborate within the community.

1. Teaching in an Avatar World Dr. Cynthia Calongne Colorado Technical University CACTA 2012 Creative Commons-Share Alike

2. Agenda Introduction Personal power and risk What are avatars? Research Immersive learning Community Call to action References

3. Our Virtual World Experience How many have a virtual world account? Have attended a conference in a virtual world? Have taught a class in a virtual world? Have designed content in a 3D virtual world? Manage a parcel or region in a virtual world? Faculty? Instructional Designers? Librarians, IT and Support Staff? Administrators, Deans, Provosts, Chancellor?

4. The Future Looms Near “ 80% of the world’s active Internet users will be in a virtual world by the end of 2011” (Gartner, 2007) Are you there yet? Not all avatars look alike

5. Hype Cycle of Emerging Technologies 2011 by Gartner

7. Virtual Office Hours

8. Identity and Presence (l) Lyr Lobo and Larry Johnson with a ghost, a guest and a Tardis; (r) three students in class

9. Visually stimulating - how many avatars do you see?

10. Many Avatar Choices Who are these people?

12. Human Barometer Activity in Second Life, February 2012

13. Meeting minds in immersive spaces Presence in a Virtual world Education and Research

14. Virtual World Simulation Features Modeling a real life activity Serious game, game simulation kit or scenario The Holodeck - changing environments Ephemeral scenes that appear on demand The scene deletes and disappears when finished In Second Life (SL) Avatars request, use & delete these temporary scenes, and use them as interactive educational settings

15. Air University - Global Learning Forum - Serious Game Simulation

16. Atlantis on Virtual Harmony

17. From Virtual Harmony to Unity3D Browser game developed from Sue Blackman’s Unity 3D book

18. Open Source Holodecks

19. Non-Linear Educational Games

20. The Mars Expedition – Grand Prize Winner in the FVWC at GameTech 2010

25. Create a Pandorabot

26. Add information to Customize your Bot in the Properties

27. MOSES and Ephemeral Research to develop a stable, open source virtual world

28. Holodecks

29. Teaching in a Virtual World Self image - avatar Social networks Immersive training SL skills Roleplay Help desk Projects Tool integration Build simulations Sense of presence, identity Attend meetings, conferences Context-sensitive, stimulating Camera, navigation, communicate Cases & problem-based learning Virtual office hours, support Activity-based learning Mobile & augmented reality Create content & an environment

31. Control Panel for educational games Instructors can create simulations, monitor and assess student progress. Apollo Segall at MyBase Zeta

32. Stories Identity and presence Of Mice and Men Famous biographies The road not taken

33. Ramapo 8 th grade In a virtual world After the story ends, what happens next? Literature comes alive!

34. Kids in the courtroom: First Police responder takes the stand

35. Not Your Typical 8th Grade Class Roleplay and conflict, an immersive literature experience for teens on the Teen Grid Suffern Middle School students at Ramapo portrayed the roles from the book, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. Imagine living the scenes from literature and history rather than memorizing them. A juror hollers “Boo!” when Curley takes the stand

36. Virtual World Considerations System & bandwidth Create content? Requires skills & time Buy and use content? Custom design? Open source? Successful operations and support 3D media, voice Own, control & adapt Reuse and share Quality site & brand Professional image Community Site access, cleanup, control and activities

37. CTU Class Island by Night

38. Education Support Faire 2009 SL Education Support Faire 2009 January 25-30, 2009 3,785 unique visitors from 93 countries 50 displays 50 presentations Top 10 countries USA 2,123 UK 364 Canada 173 Australia 117 Germany 112 Brazil 91 Italy 66 Netherlands 56 France 53 Spain 53 http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Education_Support_Faire

39. NMC New Media and Learning Conference

40. Educational Conferences in Second Life Examining Technology at the NMC Symposium Nov 2008

41. Stepping inside the content during the conference presentation

42. CTU exhibit booth at the NMC Rock the Academy Symposium 2008

43. Content Considerations Virtual environment Public or private? Buy or build Open source or SL? Visual content Signs & textures 3D objects Animations Does size matter? Island, parcel or sandbox Context-sensitive scenes Imaginative spaces Build, texture and script Upload textures into SL Scripted behaviors 3D Holograms

44. Modeling the Problem

45. Crooked House You never run out of house as it rolls over while you walk

46. Class Projects in Second Life Newsstand for low vision users, Electronic Voting Machine Refrigerator for wheelchair use CCSC Rocky Mountain Regional Conference 2008 From early ideas to testable projects Students collaborate and work independently

47. A Call to Action We are at the crossroads, gazing at the future. Are you ready to teach in a virtual world? Join the VWER community, VWBPE and the virtual world groups Photo: An Air Force Global Learning Forum Event at the MyBase region in Second Life, a Huffman Prairie design

48. Maintaining Your Personal Power Personal power The domain expert You are in control Smooth course delivery Retaining your power Focus is on learning Plan for assessment Collaborate with others Risks Looking foolish Loss of control Risk of failure Manage risk Develop your skills Control the environment Leverage the community

49. An Immersive Educational Space Requirements The environment Training Instructional design Learning artifacts Operations & support Assessment & archives Harassment concerns Adult content Abuse and misuse Compliance issues School image and brand Protection of assets Proprietary content Protection of human rights FERPA Ethics Planning for success

50. Blended Reality Conferences A MacArthur Foundation panel on games in education answers an avatar’s question. Alternatively, a chat bridge can integrate participation from web browser & Second Life participants

51. Space Shuttle simulation at Spaceport Bravo

56. References 1 Cynthia Calongne’s blog – Emerging Media and Innovation http://ctusoftware.blogspot.com Presentations http://www.slideshare.net/lyrlobo/presentations Military Open Simulator Enterprise Strategy (MOSES) http://fvwc.army.mil/moses/ and http://fvwc.army.mil/ Cynthia Calongne’s Wiki on the Ephemeral project - MOSES http://107.7.21.234/redmine/wiki/moses/Ephemeral Virtual Harmony – research collaboration http://harmonyestate.dyndns-ip.com/ Sustainable 3D Worlds http://unity.em840.com/Virtual_Harmony/Welcome.html

57. References 2 Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education (VWBPE) http://www.vwbpe.org/ Artificial Intelligence in SL http://web.bvu.edu/faculty/schweller/ Pandorabots http://www.pandorabots.com/botmaster/en/home Virtual World Traffic Analysis - NOAA http://www.slideshare.net/hackshaven/noaa-in-second-life-traffic-report Best Practices in SL http://business.treet.tv/shows/bpeducation/episodes/lyr-lobo Annotated Bibliography of SL Educational Resources http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~mpepper/slbib

58. References 3 Second Life http://secondlife.com/ Second Life as a Virtual Learning Environment http://www.dokimos.org/secondlife/education/index.html A View from Second Life’s Trenches: Are you a Pioneer or a Settler? http://sl.nmc.org/2007/06/09/pioneer-or-settler/ Leveraging the Affordances, Minimizing the Barriers of Virtual Worlds http://sl.nmc.org/2007/06/09/edu-panel/ NMC Campus Observer http://sl.nmc.org/ The 1 st Question – science game show in SL and iTunes http://www.the1stquestion.com/

59. References 4 Using Second Life www.educause.edu/ir/library/powerpoint/SAC07025A.pps Beyond Course Management Tools: Second Life www.educause.edu/ir/library/powerpoint/SAC07014.pps SL Podcast by Bayne, Walker and Calongne http://connect.educause.edu/blog/gbayne/podcastusingsecondli/44967?time=1188754831 TCC Preconference Wiki -- SL from a Flash drive tips http://tccpre-conference.pbwiki.com/ Second Life Education Wiki http://www.simteach.com/wiki/index.php?title=Second_Life_Education_Wiki Virtual Worlds Comparison Chart http://www.virtualenvironments.info/virtual-worlds-comparison-chart

60. References 5 Who’s on Second? Educational Podcasts http://www.rabble.ca/rpn/podcast.php?id=wos Second Life Development -- VITAL Lab http://vital.cs.ohiou.edu/vitalwiki/index.php/Second_Life_Development Suffern Middle School in Second Life http://rampoislands.blogspot.com/2007_02_01_archive.html LSL Wiki -- programming tools http://www.lslwiki.net/lslwiki/wakka.php?wakka=HomePage Autoscript - a script generator http://3greeneggs.com/autoscript/ LSL Script Library http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Category:LSL_Library

61. References 6 Secondary Worlds http://secondaryworlds.com/ Reuters -- Doors to open on Google Virtual world(s)? http://blogs.reuters.com/mediafile/2007/10/24/doors-to-open-on-google-virtual-worlds/ SL and Google Earth are Transforming the Idea of Architectural Collaboration – C. Kieran on architect Terry Beaubois http://archrecord.construction.com/features/digital/archives/0701dignews-2.asp Second Life Wikia http://secondlife.wikia.com/index.php/Second_Life_Through_The_Ages UberNoggin - Intellagirl’s blog http://ubernoggin.com/archives/430

62. References 7 The Alphaville Herald http://alphavilleherald.com/ Treet TV (and the SLCN.tv archives) http://treet.tv/ What does your dream library look like? http://martavallelibrary.wordpress.com/2009/05/08/what-does-your-dream-library-look-like/ John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men , 1937 Virtual worlds now at bottom of Gartner hype cycle http://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2010/10/virtual-worlds-now-at-bottom-of-gartner-hype-cycle/ 2011 Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies http://ebiquity.umbc.edu/blogger/2011/08/24/2011-hype-cycle-for-emerging-technologies/

63. Research Links 8 New Worlds Notes http://nwn.blogs.com/ Just Virtual http://www.justvirtual.com/index.php/category/second-life/ Seifert Surface - Math in Second Life http://www.segerman.org/2ndlife.html Eric McLuhan in Second Life - Playing Media Ecology http://slcn.tv/media-ecology-eric-mcluhan Second Life Education Support Faire 2009 statistics http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Education_Support_Faire#Second_Life_Education_Support_Faire_2009_-_Statistics http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Education_Support_Faire NMC Horizon Report Wiki -- http://horizon.wiki.nmc.org/

64. Teaching in an Avatar World Dr. Cynthia Calongne Lyr Lobo in Second Life http://ctusoftware.blogspot.com www.slideshare.net/lyrlobo Twitter: Lyrlobo For more information Lyr Lobo http://www.slideshare.net/lyrlobo For a copy of these slides, visit: