1. Using Second Life in Education Yifeng Hu, Ph.D. Second Life Name: Yolanda Zimmer Assistant Professor Department of Communication Studies The College of New Jersey [email_address]
Good afternoon, everyone. I’d like to thank Robin for inviting me to share with you my experiences with Second Life in teaching and learning.
I have invited many educators all over the world to give virtual speeches to my classes (Considering how much I have saved for their travels!). These pictures were taken from some SL guest speeches I organized for my students. In real life, the students gathered in a lab. In SL, their avatars sat on the podium or in the TCNJ castle or on this floating platform. Students loved the castle! One student said she had never been to a castle; it was exciting that her avatar could actually sit in a castle and listen to a speech. The guest speaker used each voice or text while the students used local chat function, typing in their comments and questions. I recruit content experts with diverse backgrounds to supplement my course offerings. The topics of speeches vary as well.
Mostly for the New Media and Health Comm course: A medical intern from the Netherlands talked about breast cancer awareness and guided my students through a breast self-exam simulation in the woman health centre at Ann Myers Medical Center, a virtual medical center in Second Life. AMMC was designed to train real life med students, in this virtual world, to become better doctors, specially in social skills. “ I did not know that medical schools were working on developing virtual patients to train their students before interacting with actual patients.” (a Biology student in my New Media and Health Comm class) “ One of the most powerful tools in the woman health centre is a pink chair. You all will see it in a bit, specially for the women in the audience, do remember this once a month, it will only take 5 minutes of your time.” (Vera Zhaoying) The students reported that the virtual demonstration “was more engaging than just reading a plain-text explanation of how to do it.” Several students even reported feeling “empowered” by the experience. Other examples: Virtual birth unit Virtual hallucination tour to get a sense of what kind of visual and audio hallucinations one may experience if one has Schizophrenia
After running several SL guest speeches, I felt more comfortable running my own lecture in SL! In fact, students themselves suggested that I should make this bold move! This was quite challenging, as it differed a lot from a guest speech. Not only should I be fully prepared, from technology to content (as you can see from the picture, the slide show and the video screens were set up side by side), but students would stay at places of their choice, and they would use voices in addition to local chat! SL is not so good at affording multiple people talking together. The voice is most clear if one person talks at one time, and once done talking, you turn off the talk button. This needs practice; also, you have to use a headphone otherwise you would hear feedback if you talk. In order to avoid chaos as much as possible, I purchased hand-raising chairs. So once a student wanted to speak, she/he could raise his/her hand so that I can call him/her name. So, the class was launched on April 7, just one week ago, on our newly built floating platform! After the initial technological problems, things ran quite smoothly, until…
Two hackers intruded our open classroom in the last ten minutes, caged me and the batman – our IT guy who was helping me recording the lecture in SL. Not only was I hijacked, but I was also thrown into the sea. After I flew back (you don’t die in SL!), the terrorists started to bomb obscene signs to the class! The students were first confused; then amused, and laughed out, as I could tell from their local chat. They said: “Well at least we'll have something to write about in our papers!” They even said “Hope you're all alive by Friday.” But they also seriously reflected this occurrence (so did I). They realized although it was entertaining, it was also alarming, reminding us how open an environment SL is. Later I figured out I actually could prohibited these kids from entering TCNJ’s land, or I could ban them and eject them from our land. My students were not kidnapped because they were sitting while me and Ryan were standing (these immature tricks only work if you are not holding to some objects). As you can see, the lecture was also a learning experience for me. A student talked to these attackers in Spanish (they said they were Spanish). It turned out that they had no idea we were having a class! They said “since when are classes given through games” – as you can see, even people in SL don’t necessarily realize the potential of SL in education, and thought it’s just a game!
Despite the strange event occurred in the end of the lecture… On 7-point scales
One assignment is to write reflection papers that discuss whether and why communication theories are applicable in Second Life. Students should identify similarities and differences between theories’ applications in Second Life and those in Real Life, and provide personal examples of exploring Second Life to prove their findings. E.g. Spiral of Silence Media has a profound effect on public opinion. Media works with majority opinions and silences minority beliefs. Individuals with minority views are prone to conform to the majority view in fear of social isolation. People with the majority view feel more encouraged to speak while those in the minority feel constrained and less assertive in communicating their opinion. Extreme democrats wrote in Local chat: “change you better believe in, or I’m gonna kill you!” We pretended to be McCain supporters. The other avatars began verbally attacking us, calling us “baby boomers,” “ignorant fools,” and “anti-technology.” We acted as the hard core, willing to speak out at any cost, defying threats of isolation. But in the end we were socially isolated when ejected from the island by a bomb. “ I never would have thought that some sort of online role-playing could help me better understand a course’s material … This assignment caused me to really understand the theories and how they could be applied elsewhere.” “ Second Life provided me a new perspective to look at the theories I learned.”
“ Before viewing SL through Uses and Gratifications theory I was very skeptical about the reasons it was used. I assumed these were people who didn’t have a good real life, or many friends, and so they just used SL because they had nothing better to do. That sounds harsh, but it is what I honestly believed. After meeting and discussing with many of the people there I can understand how helpful the program actually is .” Students also found people with autism use SL to train social skills. Disability groups in SL: Wheelies, Virtual Ability, Chairwomen / Chairmen Perceived benefits: Getting help from a diverse community, Discussing taboo topics, Gaining self esteem, Having a great experience
While at NMC’s conference, many educators who had tried SL warned me: as a pre-tenured faculty member, you’d better be cautious as SL has not gained much acceptance among college students. In fact, before I went to NMC’s conference, a TCNJ faculty member who tried SL in his classes earlier also shared the some negative views towards using SL. One guest speaker I invited said during one of our virtual talks: “I have been on SL for almost two years and I dare not to fully involve my students.” Nevertheless, I tried. And yes there are risks and costs. Time spent on incorporating SL into the courseware? Just think about getting to know where to buy some educational tools such as the opiniator. Need to be considerate of and sensitive to student concerns.
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