Conference Presentation presented at "The Future is Now: Libraries and Museums in Virtual Worlds," March 2010, http://www.opal-online.org/finschedule.htm,

1. Introducing Second Life as a Multimedia Web Interface:Distance Ed LIS Students in Second Life Vanessa Irvin Morris (SL: MarchenaRajal) Assistant Teaching Professor The iSchool at Drexel University Introducing Second Life as a Multimedia Web Interface by Vanessa Irvin Morris is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 UnportedLicense. Based on a work at www.slideshare.net.

2. Drexel University in SL Drexel has an island on SL; “Drexel Island” The iSchool has a small space on the island Other departments are building on this island Biochemistry Physics College of Arts and Sciences Looking to expand the iSchool’s space for the purpose of teaching distance ed students

4. Full time teaching faculty

5. Teach 4 sections per term, usually at full capacity

6. Terms are 10 weeks long

7. 25 students per class = 100 students

8. Usually teach 3 distance ed sections, 1 face-to-face

9. Coordinate/Teach INFO552, Introduction to Web Design for Information Organizations

10. Students learn html/css, principles of web design

11. Fall 2009 – Fall 2010:

12. Towards end of course, topic: intro multimedia (Week 8)

13. Offered Camtasia VOPP intro to SL as a multimedia platform

14. Intro as segue into introducing Part II of INFO552 (course still in development)

15. Winter term 2010 - onward

17. Offered SL experience incentivized as extra credit opportunity

18. Gave instructions on entering SL and creating av

19. Offered two (2) timeslots to meet and give tours

20. 12 noon SLT (3pm Eastern Time)

23. 10 students showed up

24. Met MarchenaRajal at the Community Virtual Library (CVL)

25. Students got to see a digital library in 3D platform

26. There were many questions

27. “What kinds of reference questions do you get?”

28. “What kinds of collections are here?”

29. “How do you access resources in the library?”

30. “How do librarians be librarians here?”

31. Gave student tutorial on SL interface

32. How to walk, fly, move around

33. They practiced while touring the CVL

34. Had them do “The Learning Curve” maze at CVL

35. Good news(kinda): It was too crowded on the parcel to give a tour

36. more avs = more “lag”However………….

37. Something amazing happened: Snow Scarmon Ander Vlodovic Lilia Anthony Chris Zamarung MarchenaRajal Because of high volume of students, 4 librarians “rezzed in” to help out. Librarianship’s strength in networking support is powerful in Second Life.

38. Winter 2010 Class Experience in SL 3pm SLT slot 5 students showed up Met Marchena Rajal at the Community Virtual Library Students got to see a digital library in 3D platform They had questions Gave them tutorial on SL interface How to walk, fly, move around They practiced while touring the CVL Had them do “The Learning Curve” maze at CVL

39. Smaller Group, relaxing time MarchenaRajal

40. Capturing Student Response (data) Recorded SL chat from tours Post Discussion Board forums on Blackboard

42. Responses:

43. Student#1:

44. “I found the experience changed my interaction with others because I could 'experience' a connection that the avatar figure unleashed as I interacted. … I first started online courses and felt the release from ordinary concerns about how my voice, visage, physical attributes, gender, age etc. would enter my mind as I tried to connect with others in a virtual class as opposed to a brick and mortar experience. There is a more lasting memory impression with an avatar connection. I 'saw' another human (avatar) react to my inquiries. I am remembering this 'connection different (sic) than an email or text.”

46. Student#2:

47. “I was eager to try SL and had registered days ago. … So when I signed on today before 6:00 p.m., I was disappointed to find no one in the class in Info Island. … I was getting pretty frustrated and lonely and decided to play around with the controls. I did a search for Professor Morris’s avatar and sent her an invitation to transport to my location. She, thankfully, responded with an invitation for me to transport to her location, which I did. Whew! …

49. Student#3:

50. “[I]t was great fun and good to virtually hang out with my class.”

51. Student#4:

52. “It gives you the feeling of actually speaking face to face.”

53. Student#5:

55. Student#6:

56. “This would be a great, fun resource if I had a better idea of how to use it. … it is an interesting idea and could become very useful in a distance program.”

57. Student#7:

58. “I found Second Life to be a powerful and interesting tool. … I understand why there is a call for an organized "library" presence, and it seems like a really neat way to virtually meet people. ”

59. Student#8:

61. Student Challenges “The Usual”: LAG, CRASH, & CURVE LAG – everyone “My computer experienced massive lag, but that seemed to be happening with quite a few people. Not sure what was going on there.” CRASH - many “I gave second life a try on my laptop, but second life crashed. I will try again at the 6 o'clock one.” “I succeeded in logging into sl after many failures!”

62. Student Challenges CURVE – fewer due to socialized initiation While students initially said they felt a steep learning curve (they were very anxious about being able to move around), upon experiencing “The Learning Curve” maze at the CVL, they said the maze was: “helpful” “good” “This was a lot less frustrating (mostly) than my first solo experience with this.”

65. Machinima

66. Building 3D objects

67. Creating apps that can transfer across platforms

68. Provide opportunities for students to explore, create and build in SL, and be able to transfer outcomes to the web via websites, and vice versa

69. Thank you for listening