Why DO Educators Need Second Life?

Location: House of Usher

For a long time, I've answered that question "as a platform for making immersive simulations that are not possible, for very expensive, in the world of bricks and mortar."

Let's skip the "expensive" part, now that OpenSim offers pricing at a fraction of the Linden Lab product. But most OpenSim grids are also "metaverses," where there are a range of social users, other educators, creatives, and roleplayers. Running into the Bloodlines vampires in SL reminded me that neither I nor my students need those folks to run something like The House of Usher.

In fact, we don't even need a metaverse. All we need is a one-sim private 3D world.

I think this argument will sway many colleagues. Unless a course of study asks students to go explore an alien online culture, why not simply build a closed 3D simulation so students could log into a shared account with all their inventory pieces and appearance in place, go through a short orientation with a mentor, then begin the assignment? Next term, we'd change the passwords for the shared accounts, fix any broken bits in the inventory, and run the simulation again. If visitors wanted a tour, we could create avatars as needed.

We did something like this in SL last term, sans the shared accounts, since Linden Lab never got back to me about setting up a series of stock accounts that could be reused from class to class. I'll file a feature request formally soon, but I don't expect an answer.

Meanwhile, my next immersive literary build with Viv Trafalgar, to be launched sometime in the 2011-2012 academic year, won't be in SL at all, but in a closed grid where only invited students and actors can participate.

Pity, really. I like the big grid for socializing and meeting colleagues, but since our first-year writing program changed, I'll not be teaching a class where they need such a grid.

I suspect that this sort of use of 3D grids will play a big role in educational use, just as the closed BlackBoard system does in course management.

Who's to blame? No one really, though had Linden Lab set up private grids at a fraction of the failed SL Enterprise product, they might have cornered the market. Reaction Grid offers just such a service, for those who don't have the knowhow to host their own OpenSim servers on campus.

That's the future I see, not SL, in education.

Bloodlines Silliness

Location: Shopping for Grave-Robber & Evil Doctor Tools

I was doing a bit of accessorizing for our university's House of Usher simulation when I stumbled into a Bloodlines' roleplaying region:

Vampire 1: What clan are you a part of

Vampire 2: santuary of darkness?

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: Academia...the undead. I'm here to shop

Vampire 1: Cool

Second Life...where the socializers and roleplayers rub shoulders with the shambling corpses from The Academy. Those vamps are lucky I didn't make an avatar out of my utterly evil Voodun cultist, Okonkwo Richelieu. I once ran him in Vampire the Masquerade and it was wicked fun.

Effective vampires do not say "cool." They say things like "it is going to be fun to see this city bleed on Mardi Gras."

Well, my next post will be about why contact with that social and RP aspect of SL may not be needed. Can faculty building a simulation simply do it without SL?

Back to School! What Educators New to Virtual Worlds Should Think About

Location: VWER Meeting

We had a small group gather last week at the VWER meeting, just before the Boston SLCC event where Philip Rosedale joined our group. I moderated a useful chat of what educators need to consider as the school years begin. Here's some group wisdom:

• Avoid "tossing students in" without orientation and practice (in person if possible, which is hard for distance ed.)
• Put pedagogy ahead of technology: target assignments to specific tasks and appeal to student interests
• Make students aware of community standards; use a signed waiver if you feel it's best
• Don't come in-world just to do a Powerpoint show for students
• Try new features out with an ALT account (notecard givers, interactive parts of simulations) before inflicting it on your students
• Use voice judiciously in student groups; allow one student to use voice at a time while others use text chat
• At the start of the academic term, clean out old groups, spruce up simulations if only to make things look fresh.

The rest of the transcript of our talk can be found here. In light of Rosedale's encouraging words, perhaps more of us will bring in colleagues to SL and other virtual worlds, both commerical and self-hosted grids.

Philip Rosedale at Virtual Worlds Education Roundtable

Location: Running late

image courtesy of Olivia Hotshot's Flickr Photostream

It speaks volumes that he came to AJ Kelton's meeting at SLCC 2010. Philip Rosedale has that Rock-Star thing going, and he didn't have to come see us. I'll thank him personally if I ever see him at a live event in either world.

I'm really encouraged by this. After months of feeling that the educators working hard in SL were getting repeated kicks in the teeth from the company Rosedale started, this felt very nice.

AJ, it seems Mr. Rosedale caught you speechless, at least in this photo. I'll run the transcript of our group's Q&A soon.

Of course, RL me was out running errands (Orientation Week begins!) so Iggy the avatar only caught the last bit of Rosedale's encouraging talk. Aside from closing the Teen Grid, something many secondary-school educators will lament, the talk seems very positive.

Yet, cynical Iggy the avatar reminds his maker, talk's cheap, even from someone whose vision I greatly admire. Now, of course, it's time to see Linden Lab walk the walk with us.