This document summarizes a presentation about using Second Life for educational purposes. The presentation covered: - An overview of what Second Life is and how it can be used in courses. - Tips for getting started with Second Life, including networking with other educators and exploring existing resources. - Examples of learning objectives that could be better achieved in Second Life than traditional classrooms. - Best practices like creating meaningful and collaborative activities and managing student expectations. - Student comments about their positive experiences using Second Life for educational activities and projects.

1. Learning Technology Center
Meeting Your Pedagogical Needs More
Effectively: How to Best Use Second Life
Session 2, Room: N, 9:00a.m. - 9:50a.m.
Tanya Joosten
tjoosten@uwm.edu
Learning Technology Center
Department of Communication
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
SL Juice Gyoza

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Abstract
• Every educator wants to know is how do I use
Second Life in my course? Educators are
looking for not only concrete examples of
Second Life use, but they are looking for
pedagogically sound best practices that are
supported by research, which I will provide.

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Session Overview: Outcomes
• What is Second Life?
• How do we use it in our courses?
• Why should we use it?

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University Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Second Life Initiative
• Pilot started Summer 07, Delivered Spring 08
• UW System Emerging Technology Grant
• Faculty Development Workshops for Second
Life – over 40 new faculty
• Second Life Wiki for Faculty
– http://uwmsecondlife.wikispaces.com

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Who are you?
• Who is teaching using Second Life already?
• Who wants to teach using Second Life?
• Who is helping faculty teach using Second
Life?
• Who is trying to figure out what Second Life
is?
• Who is waiting to be convinced to use it?
Who has an avatar?

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What is Second Life?
• Not a Game
• Online, Virtual World, 3-D
• Network through software to a virtual space
• Not just information
• People, Places
• User constructed

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What is Second Life?

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What is Second Life?
Asynchronous Synchronous Virtual Worlds
Medium Discussion Collaboration Tools
Forums
Technology Text-Only, Static Text, Audio (VOIP), Text, Audio (VOIP), Static Images,
Images, Tables Static Images, Video Video, 3-D
Cues Written Verbal, Written Verbal, Written Verbal, Emoticons, Oral
Emoticons Emoticons, Oral Verbal, Verbal, Nonverbal: Paralanguage,
Nonverbal: Kinesics, Proxemics, Haptics,
Paralanguage, Kinesics Objectics, Environmentics
Feedback Delayed Immediate/Real Time Immediate/Real Time
Participants Limited to course Limited by task, invitees, Somewhat limited by bandwidth and
size and bandwidth, task, open attendance
Media Richness Lean Medium Rich

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How do we use Second Life?

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Getting Started: Tips for Faculty
• 1: Learn basic navigation
– https://pantherfile.uwm.edu/groups/sa/ltc/SecondLife/Faculty%20Workshop/
• 2: Network
– Finding events: http://sl.nmc.org/wiki/SLED_Calender
– Second Life Educators list:
– https://lists.secondlife.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/educators
– Search SLED archives: http://tinyurl.com/y234ht
• 3: Tour
– Collect SLURLS from colleagues and networks

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Question 1
• What networks will you tap in order to find
out more about the resources that already
exist in Second Life? To support your
implementation of Second Life?

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Pedagogical Task -- Medium Richness
Experiential
Didactic
Lean Rich

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Question 2
• With the richness of Second Life, what
learning objectives could you achieve better in
Second Life than in the f2f classroom or the
traditional online classroom? (whichever
applies)

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Question 3
• Students who spend more time completing a
meaningful project in Second Life are more
satisfied with the experience. How much time
do you foresee your students spending in
Second Life (weekly, over the semester)?
How can you make the learning activity a
meaningful one?

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How do we use: Best practices
• Create meaningful activities in SL
• Create a collaborative activities for SL
• Manage student expectations
• Don’t have to build to use SL

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Question 4
• Second Life has a great impact when the
activity is collaborative. How could you move
a current group project into Second Life?
What new activity could you create that
would facilitate the collaborative nature of
Second Life?

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Question 5
• The learning curve for students is a concern
for many faculty.
• How would you introduce your students to
Second Life? How would you orient your
students to Second Life? What do you see as
the crisis points for your students?

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Why should I use Second Life?

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Communication Student
Comments
• “I thought the content of the course was very
interesting. I really enjoyed the face that we
incorporated Second Life into the course. I also think
it is very useful to work in virtual teams to complete
a project(despite the fact the it can be a pain:])”
• “I would have liked to see more required
participation within second life. I noticed many
students went in did what they had to fro the first
couple task and then did not sue it again.”

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Health Sciences Student
• Students response after visiting
numerous health resources in SL
• “Overall, I think Second Life provides
endless opportunities to explore and
learn about an infinite number of
subjects.”

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Emerging Technology Grant
• How do virtual worlds, an emerging
technology, impact student learning?
• What are some best practices in using virtual
worlds?

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Obvious Question

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Evaluating Virtual Worlds

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Preliminary Survey Results

50. Media Richness
Learning Technology Center
I was able to use rich and varied language in Second Life

51. Social Presence
Learning Technology Center
I felt as if I was communicating with a real person
in Second Life

52. Engagement
Learning Technology Center
Second Life aroused my imagination

53. Learning
Learning Technology Center
Second Life was beneficial to my learning
7.1%, no response

54. Satisfaction
Learning Technology Center
Participating in Second Life was a useful experience

55. Satisfaction
Learning Technology Center
Second Life was fun and exciting

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Tanya M. Joosten
http://uwmsecondlife.wikispaces.com
tjoosten@uwm.edu
SL: Juice Gyoza
414.229.4319

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Questions?

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Getting Started in Second Life

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Communication Student Blogs
• Option 1, Managing Change, an Implementation of SL
• http://emily-second-life.blogspot.com/ , tba
• http://teamdynasty4.blogspot.com/ , 12.18, 2pm
• Option 2, Virtual Decision Making in Second Life
http://www.teamcatalyst.blogspot.com/ , 12.17, 4pm