I love the potential for serendipitous moment when in public. As an avid fan of public transport I enjoy the excitement, and the dangers, and the opportunities for mental stimulation that mixing with all sort of strangers brings. Some of the best conversations I have ever had have been with nutters who happened to sit next to me on the train. I also recognise the value of closed communities, like a University degree course. When I'm at Uni, I have conversations with people that I automatically have something in common with. I know who they are, and they know who I am.
I love the potential for serendipitous moment when in Second Life. As an avid fan of random double clicking on the mainland map, I enjoy the excitement, and the dangers, and the opportunities for mental stimulation that mixing with all sort of strangers brings. Some of the best conversations I have ever had have been with nutters who happened to stand next to me on a sim. I also recognise the value of closed communities, like a University degree course's private OpenSim grid. If I had a Uni MUVE, I could have conversations with people that I automatically have something in common with. I would also know who they were, and they would know who I am.
It would be pretty sad if my students and I stayed inside Uni all the time, but it would be pretty pointless having a degree course if we spent all our time outside. Private is good. Public is good. Similarly, the public space of Second Life provides amazing opportunities for deep learning through role-play and engagement with worldwide communities, but a private OpenSim grid would give all of our students a safe space to inhabit. Authentic identities would enable a blending of the virtual and the real, and once hooked, the students would possess the necessary skills and confidence to stride out into Second Life as whoever they choose to be.
Showing posts with label Second Life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Second Life. Show all posts
Sunday, 1 February 2009
Sunday, 28 December 2008
Wandering Aimlessly
It's good to have a sense of purpose, but it's also good to wander aimlessly. I tend to wander aimlessly when I first start using a new bit of technology that I sense has huge creative potential.
I did it when I first started using the web all those years ago. In the days before Google, Yahoo had a random website button on their search page, and I spent hours, days, months clicking on it and discovering all that the early web had to offer. The early web mostly offered purple and green striped backgrounds covered with red body text and "My Home Page!!!!!!!" in 72 point yellow Times New Roman. There was no real sense of purpose to my expeditions, but my brain was in a kind of 'neutral-receptive' mode, feeding on the dross and allowing my subconscious to speculate on what might be.
Webcams were my next meaningless time waster. You were lucky to get 1 frame per minute in those days, but I found these nearly live windows on the world fascinating. No immediately obvious creative potential, but feeding the brain all the same.
I did it again when I first signed up to Second Life. This time, I got into double clicking on random location on the map, seeing where I ended up and flying around for a bit. I got a bit obsessed with this, spending hours soaking up the nonsense and storing it, encrypted in my subconscious, for a later date.
During this Chrismas break, I've allowed myself the luxury of more meaningless meandering through technology. This time, it's Google's Streetview. I've spent far too long over the last few days wandering the streets of Lille, Paris, lots of random locations in the U.S. and some bits of Sydney. Not the interesting obvious places, but the normal streets and suburbs and backstreets and remote woodland tracks. Nothing of any great significance. I don't know why. It's like there is a secret hidden somewhere in the banal. Maybe the secret will be unlocked when Google start to make use of the 3D laser scanner data that they have started to capture from their cars. Wandering through Streetview is lonely, but if Google give us a detailed and accurate 3D world to explore, wouldn't it be fun if it was full of avatars to share the experience?
I did it when I first started using the web all those years ago. In the days before Google, Yahoo had a random website button on their search page, and I spent hours, days, months clicking on it and discovering all that the early web had to offer. The early web mostly offered purple and green striped backgrounds covered with red body text and "My Home Page!!!!!!!" in 72 point yellow Times New Roman. There was no real sense of purpose to my expeditions, but my brain was in a kind of 'neutral-receptive' mode, feeding on the dross and allowing my subconscious to speculate on what might be.
Webcams were my next meaningless time waster. You were lucky to get 1 frame per minute in those days, but I found these nearly live windows on the world fascinating. No immediately obvious creative potential, but feeding the brain all the same.
I did it again when I first signed up to Second Life. This time, I got into double clicking on random location on the map, seeing where I ended up and flying around for a bit. I got a bit obsessed with this, spending hours soaking up the nonsense and storing it, encrypted in my subconscious, for a later date.
During this Chrismas break, I've allowed myself the luxury of more meaningless meandering through technology. This time, it's Google's Streetview. I've spent far too long over the last few days wandering the streets of Lille, Paris, lots of random locations in the U.S. and some bits of Sydney. Not the interesting obvious places, but the normal streets and suburbs and backstreets and remote woodland tracks. Nothing of any great significance. I don't know why. It's like there is a secret hidden somewhere in the banal. Maybe the secret will be unlocked when Google start to make use of the 3D laser scanner data that they have started to capture from their cars. Wandering through Streetview is lonely, but if Google give us a detailed and accurate 3D world to explore, wouldn't it be fun if it was full of avatars to share the experience?
Thursday, 4 December 2008
Augment with OpenSim. Immerse with Second Life.
As we start rounding up the Open Habitat project, I've been thinking about how things might be in the future. I think the relationship between OpenSim and Second Life is an important one to focus on, especially when we are considering the use of virtual worlds in a fee paying, assessment driven, accreditation dependent blended learning context. Let me try to explain:
A student applies to a course and pays fees. They want marks, because marks equal credit points, and credit points add up to a degree. Fair enough. If we want to give them marks, we need to know who they are and what they have done. If they produce work in Second Life, then we invariably need to betray the identity of the avatar, so the puppeteer can get credit for the learning. This limits the potential for the really deep learning that a full-on immersionist/role play/fantasy apporoach enables. Can the immersionist ideal ever fully function in a traditional accreditation dependent framework? How might an immersionist programme of learning function? Is there really a need for any sort of formal framework for this immersonist extreme? Perhaps the role play involves an avatar going to University. The person behind the avatar may lack the usual credentials required to gain entry into a proper University, but in Second Life, the admissions criteria might be different, and the evidence could be fabricated. Maybe the avatar could pay fees (in Linden Dollars, obviously), and this could pay for the tutorial support and course design. Maybe this already happens, I don't know. What if the teacher-avatars were playing this role? Maybe pretend teachers could learn how to teach pretend students who are pretending to learn? What about quality? Perhaps a pretend Ofsted or QAA inspector could pay an unannounced visit, and suck all of the energy and enthusiasm out of everyone with an overly simplistic snap judgement about how everyone is doing it all wrong.
I'm rambling a bit, but one of the most significant aspects of the Open Habitat project for me has been the way that I've been able to role play pedagogy. By adapting my beliefs about education to suit a virtual environment, I've had to work out what my beliefs really are. In the process, I've realised just how powerful the art education model is, and that we aren't actually implementing it as well as we should in 'real life'. Recently, I've been reeled back in by the institution to run such a real-life course, but because of Open Habitat I know exactly how to do it. And I'm doing it. And it's better. Real benefits from virtual world research.
Still rambling. Stay with me...
Back to the OpenSim thing. Lets go to the augmentationist side now. On my real life course, I have 317 students. They all use the (dare I call it) virtual studio environment that Graham built to share their joy with fellow students and staff. They don't need to sign up. If they've enrolled on the course, they just log in and start uploading. They don't need to agree to the terms and conditions of some mystery company in America. They are all called what they are called in real life. Some of them sync their Flickr accounts, but many have never heard of Flickr, and might not want to share themselves and their work with the world anyway. So, might OpenSim provide every student with an instant virtual world to create, communicate and collaborate? No sign up. No name choosing. Just download a customised client, and log in using your usual user-name and password.
In the same way that all students can upload images to the VSE, but some also choose to have public Flickr accounts, could some students then choose to sign up to Second Life and do the whole public/role play thing? If they are familiar with OpenSim, I think that they will be more likely to engage meaningfully with Second Life. This also tackles that problem of the taught delivery part of the pilots, which were great in many ways, especially in our use of the standalone version of OpenSim, but I like the rhizome thing. It's what's happened with our VSE. Graham designed a tool that everyone could log into and work out how to use, all by themselves, in minutes. We were supposed to train everybody up in the 'teacher in front' way, but we got distracted, and the students and staff just got on with it. If you make a well designed tool available to everyone, then they will work it out. Especially if it is fun and useful. If we put a button on our VSE to an OpenSim world, they would click it and log in. They would phone their friends who would also log in, their avatars would meet, and the whole thing would explode.
Right. I've convinced myself. How can we make this happen? We need OpenSim running on a server somewhere. I could do this through LeedsMet's computing services department, but I'm a bit scared of them (my problem, not theirs), so I probably won't. Is there an OpenSim community dude who might host an island for us? We would need to create 317 accounts (or 600 if we do the whole School) using the database of usernames and passwords we have for the VSE. Graham could work with a friendly OpenSim dude to do this quite quickly. We will need a tweaked version of the Second Life client. This is just a standard client with a different login URI in the arguments.txt file. Can we do this under the T&C of the opensource client? Surely we can.
I want to do it! I want to do it! Lets do it!
For me, the logical conclusion to the Open Habitat project is to create an open-source open habitat for our students. We must recognise that the Second Life focussed art & design mini pilots, despite our best efforts, have produced visitors. Only by giving the whole school their own virtual playground and plenty of playtime, will our students ever become residents in a virtual world.
A student applies to a course and pays fees. They want marks, because marks equal credit points, and credit points add up to a degree. Fair enough. If we want to give them marks, we need to know who they are and what they have done. If they produce work in Second Life, then we invariably need to betray the identity of the avatar, so the puppeteer can get credit for the learning. This limits the potential for the really deep learning that a full-on immersionist/role play/fantasy apporoach enables. Can the immersionist ideal ever fully function in a traditional accreditation dependent framework? How might an immersionist programme of learning function? Is there really a need for any sort of formal framework for this immersonist extreme? Perhaps the role play involves an avatar going to University. The person behind the avatar may lack the usual credentials required to gain entry into a proper University, but in Second Life, the admissions criteria might be different, and the evidence could be fabricated. Maybe the avatar could pay fees (in Linden Dollars, obviously), and this could pay for the tutorial support and course design. Maybe this already happens, I don't know. What if the teacher-avatars were playing this role? Maybe pretend teachers could learn how to teach pretend students who are pretending to learn? What about quality? Perhaps a pretend Ofsted or QAA inspector could pay an unannounced visit, and suck all of the energy and enthusiasm out of everyone with an overly simplistic snap judgement about how everyone is doing it all wrong.
I'm rambling a bit, but one of the most significant aspects of the Open Habitat project for me has been the way that I've been able to role play pedagogy. By adapting my beliefs about education to suit a virtual environment, I've had to work out what my beliefs really are. In the process, I've realised just how powerful the art education model is, and that we aren't actually implementing it as well as we should in 'real life'. Recently, I've been reeled back in by the institution to run such a real-life course, but because of Open Habitat I know exactly how to do it. And I'm doing it. And it's better. Real benefits from virtual world research.
Still rambling. Stay with me...
Back to the OpenSim thing. Lets go to the augmentationist side now. On my real life course, I have 317 students. They all use the (dare I call it) virtual studio environment that Graham built to share their joy with fellow students and staff. They don't need to sign up. If they've enrolled on the course, they just log in and start uploading. They don't need to agree to the terms and conditions of some mystery company in America. They are all called what they are called in real life. Some of them sync their Flickr accounts, but many have never heard of Flickr, and might not want to share themselves and their work with the world anyway. So, might OpenSim provide every student with an instant virtual world to create, communicate and collaborate? No sign up. No name choosing. Just download a customised client, and log in using your usual user-name and password.
In the same way that all students can upload images to the VSE, but some also choose to have public Flickr accounts, could some students then choose to sign up to Second Life and do the whole public/role play thing? If they are familiar with OpenSim, I think that they will be more likely to engage meaningfully with Second Life. This also tackles that problem of the taught delivery part of the pilots, which were great in many ways, especially in our use of the standalone version of OpenSim, but I like the rhizome thing. It's what's happened with our VSE. Graham designed a tool that everyone could log into and work out how to use, all by themselves, in minutes. We were supposed to train everybody up in the 'teacher in front' way, but we got distracted, and the students and staff just got on with it. If you make a well designed tool available to everyone, then they will work it out. Especially if it is fun and useful. If we put a button on our VSE to an OpenSim world, they would click it and log in. They would phone their friends who would also log in, their avatars would meet, and the whole thing would explode.
Right. I've convinced myself. How can we make this happen? We need OpenSim running on a server somewhere. I could do this through LeedsMet's computing services department, but I'm a bit scared of them (my problem, not theirs), so I probably won't. Is there an OpenSim community dude who might host an island for us? We would need to create 317 accounts (or 600 if we do the whole School) using the database of usernames and passwords we have for the VSE. Graham could work with a friendly OpenSim dude to do this quite quickly. We will need a tweaked version of the Second Life client. This is just a standard client with a different login URI in the arguments.txt file. Can we do this under the T&C of the opensource client? Surely we can.
I want to do it! I want to do it! Lets do it!
For me, the logical conclusion to the Open Habitat project is to create an open-source open habitat for our students. We must recognise that the Second Life focussed art & design mini pilots, despite our best efforts, have produced visitors. Only by giving the whole school their own virtual playground and plenty of playtime, will our students ever become residents in a virtual world.
Virtual Studio Environment
More thoughts about the virtual studio environment idea:
What is a studio environment?
Art & Design education is predominantly studio based. Large, open spaces provide students with opportunities to learn through doing, supported by peers, tutors and technicians. The space and the overall learning experience is shaped by the students and the work that they produce. The walls and floors are filled with the ongoing products of learning, and provide a focus for dialogue. Informal, conversation based formative assessment is the predominant form of academic support. Formal delivery of content is minimal, and sometimes completely absent. Knowledge is transmitted from tutors to students through individualised feedback, and by students working alongside staff who are also active creative practitioners.
What is the virtual studio environment?
The VSE provides a range of networked software tools to augment or replicate the studio environment.
The primary tool for supporting the studio environment approach is an asynchronous web-based ePortfolio-like tool with a range of familiar features.
Uploads - Let's stick our work on the walls
Students and staff are able to upload work in progress in the form of images, video and text to their personal space within this tool.
Comments - Lets chat about your work
Work can be viewed by any member of the community, and comments can be added, enabling dialogue around particular piece of work.
Groups - This is our corner of the studio
The community provides the provision for multiple membership of groups within the tool to support a range of focussed learning activities. If the VSE is used in a formal educational context, community members are automatically assigned to their relevant course and level groups. Any member of the community can set up their own group, which provides them with similar functionality to the course groups. The membership of these sub-groups is invitation, but group owners can allow open membership, permitting anyone from the wider community to join. All groups provide a list of all members of that group (all students and staff, in the case of a course group), with links to their work.
Notices - I read it on the notice board.
The tool also provides a facility for posting notices that are relevant to that group, which appear as soon as a member logs in.
Sending images to a group - Lets pin all this stuff on our wall
Any member of a group can send a piece of their work to the group which appears in the 'recent items' stream. In the case of the course groups, work is automatically shown in the course stream when it is uploaded, providing a constantly refreshing view of recent activity.
Resources - I picked up a handout with all that stuff on it
There is a section within each group for the administrator to upload core resources such as PDFs of assessment criteria, but the emphasis is on the contributions of the members.
Discussion boards - Let's have a debate about this.
A discussion board tool is provided in each group to facilitate focussed dialogue.
Messages - Can I have a quiet word?
A messaging system allows private communication between members of the community, and a facility exists for the administrators of groups to send bulk messages to members of their group. For tutors, this provides an efficient and focussed method for communicating course and level specific information, such as upcoming events or meetings. For the administrators of other groups, such as a project group, it allows focussed communication to the members of that sub-group.
Feedback - Don't tell my mates, but...
Each student is provided with a feedback section which is only visible to that particular student and their tutors, allowing a level of privacy but allowing several tutors to support individual students. Both the individual students and staff can add text to this ongoing tutorial record, and students are encouraged to record and reflect on feedback received in synchronous tutorials in this section. Students record all relevant conversations with staff, and personal tutors check this section to ensure that the conversations were understood. This also allows tutors to gain an insight into conversations that their personal students are having with other tutors.
External services - I also stuck this on the wall outside.
As well as providing a core set of tools that all students and staff can use, the VSE allows members to integrate external services such as Flickr, Delicious and Blogger. The tool can be configured by the user to either automatically publish to these tools, or to fetch new content from them. This allows members to continue using familiar third party tools, and gives them the opportunity to show their work to a wider audience whilst sharing this activity with the local community via the VSE.
Identity management - Who are you?
Like the VLE and the ePortfolio, the gatekeeper of the VSE is an identity management system. Students log-in using either a central institutional database linked to their enrolment status (if the provision is paid for and students require accreditation), or via an open identity management system.
Synchronous tools
If the VSE is used to augment a physical learning context, then the primary synchronous learning environment is a traditional studio, and the primary form of support is in the form of face-to-face dialogue and formative assessment. In this context, the tool is used to reduce the amount of time staff traditionally spend on tracking, recording and controlling students, freeing up time to maximise face-to-face learning conversations.
In a distance context, other synchronous tools are required to replicate the studio environment.
Multi-user virtual environments.
User generated content focussed MUVEs such as Second Life provide learners with an environment that is highly conducive to studio based learning. Students and staff are able to function as creative practitioners in these environments in a manner that is very similar to how they would operate in a physical studio. The production of artwork in these virtual spaces can be witnessed by peers and tutors, and the synchronous communication tools allow learning conversations to take place around the work. When identity authenticity and a closed environment are important, open source solution such as OpenSim provide the opportunity for a close integration of the 2D and 3D aspects of the VSE. Commercial services such as Second Life provide the potential for richer learning through role play and exploration, and may have a looser link with the VSE. In the case of an open community, the Second Life identity may be the authentic identity in the VSE.
Conferencing tools.
Live conferencing tools such as Elluminate can facilitate group and individual tutorials, as they provide the facility not only for voice and video chat, but also for sharing and annotating 2D artwork. The whiteboard facility acts at the 'table' of the tutorial. Any artwork placed on it can be drawn and written on, as would happen in traditional tutorial. Conferencing tools are also suitable for the traditional 'crit' or presentation of outcomes in a group situation, as well as supporting ideation and brainstorming activities. They also provide an ideal platform for collaborative working. When 3D conferencing platforms such as Sun's Wonderland platform mature, they may also provide the VSE with an enhanced environment for dialogue.
Sounds good in theory, but will it work?
The description of a VSE above is based on a system that is currently operational within the Leeds School of Contemporary Art & Graphic Design at Leeds Metropolitan University. The asynchronous toolset is a php/mySQL system that has been developed in-house over the last three years, and is currently used by over 600 students and staff. The system has proved to be huge success with both students and staff alike, and over 59 000 items have been uploaded to the tool. As this VSE has been implemented on a physically located set of courses, the synchronous toolset described above has proved less necessary. However, through the JISC funded Open Habitat project, we have developed good practice guidelines for the use of multi user virtual environments in a studio context, making use of both OpenSim and Second Life with students in the School. Through our membership of the JISC Emerge community of practice, we have made extensive use of Elluminate, which has just been adopted by LeedsMet as its conferencing platform.
What next?
We need to work with others to evaluate and develop the virtual studio environment concept. We currently lack the capacity to evaluate the wealth of existing data in our current system, and we do not have the resources to turn our prototype into a robust and scalable solution. Graham Hibbert has developed the current prototype, and Ian Truelove has implemented it across the School. In addition to Ian and Graham, we need an experienced evaluator, a software developer with expertise in php/SQL, .net and service orientated architecture, networking support from LeedsMet computing services, a project manager and some funding to pay for it all.
What is a studio environment?
Art & Design education is predominantly studio based. Large, open spaces provide students with opportunities to learn through doing, supported by peers, tutors and technicians. The space and the overall learning experience is shaped by the students and the work that they produce. The walls and floors are filled with the ongoing products of learning, and provide a focus for dialogue. Informal, conversation based formative assessment is the predominant form of academic support. Formal delivery of content is minimal, and sometimes completely absent. Knowledge is transmitted from tutors to students through individualised feedback, and by students working alongside staff who are also active creative practitioners.
What is the virtual studio environment?
The VSE provides a range of networked software tools to augment or replicate the studio environment.
The primary tool for supporting the studio environment approach is an asynchronous web-based ePortfolio-like tool with a range of familiar features.
Uploads - Let's stick our work on the walls
Students and staff are able to upload work in progress in the form of images, video and text to their personal space within this tool.
Comments - Lets chat about your work
Work can be viewed by any member of the community, and comments can be added, enabling dialogue around particular piece of work.
Groups - This is our corner of the studio
The community provides the provision for multiple membership of groups within the tool to support a range of focussed learning activities. If the VSE is used in a formal educational context, community members are automatically assigned to their relevant course and level groups. Any member of the community can set up their own group, which provides them with similar functionality to the course groups. The membership of these sub-groups is invitation, but group owners can allow open membership, permitting anyone from the wider community to join. All groups provide a list of all members of that group (all students and staff, in the case of a course group), with links to their work.
Notices - I read it on the notice board.
The tool also provides a facility for posting notices that are relevant to that group, which appear as soon as a member logs in.
Sending images to a group - Lets pin all this stuff on our wall
Any member of a group can send a piece of their work to the group which appears in the 'recent items' stream. In the case of the course groups, work is automatically shown in the course stream when it is uploaded, providing a constantly refreshing view of recent activity.
Resources - I picked up a handout with all that stuff on it
There is a section within each group for the administrator to upload core resources such as PDFs of assessment criteria, but the emphasis is on the contributions of the members.
Discussion boards - Let's have a debate about this.
A discussion board tool is provided in each group to facilitate focussed dialogue.
Messages - Can I have a quiet word?
A messaging system allows private communication between members of the community, and a facility exists for the administrators of groups to send bulk messages to members of their group. For tutors, this provides an efficient and focussed method for communicating course and level specific information, such as upcoming events or meetings. For the administrators of other groups, such as a project group, it allows focussed communication to the members of that sub-group.
Feedback - Don't tell my mates, but...
Each student is provided with a feedback section which is only visible to that particular student and their tutors, allowing a level of privacy but allowing several tutors to support individual students. Both the individual students and staff can add text to this ongoing tutorial record, and students are encouraged to record and reflect on feedback received in synchronous tutorials in this section. Students record all relevant conversations with staff, and personal tutors check this section to ensure that the conversations were understood. This also allows tutors to gain an insight into conversations that their personal students are having with other tutors.
External services - I also stuck this on the wall outside.
As well as providing a core set of tools that all students and staff can use, the VSE allows members to integrate external services such as Flickr, Delicious and Blogger. The tool can be configured by the user to either automatically publish to these tools, or to fetch new content from them. This allows members to continue using familiar third party tools, and gives them the opportunity to show their work to a wider audience whilst sharing this activity with the local community via the VSE.
Identity management - Who are you?
Like the VLE and the ePortfolio, the gatekeeper of the VSE is an identity management system. Students log-in using either a central institutional database linked to their enrolment status (if the provision is paid for and students require accreditation), or via an open identity management system.
Synchronous tools
If the VSE is used to augment a physical learning context, then the primary synchronous learning environment is a traditional studio, and the primary form of support is in the form of face-to-face dialogue and formative assessment. In this context, the tool is used to reduce the amount of time staff traditionally spend on tracking, recording and controlling students, freeing up time to maximise face-to-face learning conversations.
In a distance context, other synchronous tools are required to replicate the studio environment.
Multi-user virtual environments.
User generated content focussed MUVEs such as Second Life provide learners with an environment that is highly conducive to studio based learning. Students and staff are able to function as creative practitioners in these environments in a manner that is very similar to how they would operate in a physical studio. The production of artwork in these virtual spaces can be witnessed by peers and tutors, and the synchronous communication tools allow learning conversations to take place around the work. When identity authenticity and a closed environment are important, open source solution such as OpenSim provide the opportunity for a close integration of the 2D and 3D aspects of the VSE. Commercial services such as Second Life provide the potential for richer learning through role play and exploration, and may have a looser link with the VSE. In the case of an open community, the Second Life identity may be the authentic identity in the VSE.
Conferencing tools.
Live conferencing tools such as Elluminate can facilitate group and individual tutorials, as they provide the facility not only for voice and video chat, but also for sharing and annotating 2D artwork. The whiteboard facility acts at the 'table' of the tutorial. Any artwork placed on it can be drawn and written on, as would happen in traditional tutorial. Conferencing tools are also suitable for the traditional 'crit' or presentation of outcomes in a group situation, as well as supporting ideation and brainstorming activities. They also provide an ideal platform for collaborative working. When 3D conferencing platforms such as Sun's Wonderland platform mature, they may also provide the VSE with an enhanced environment for dialogue.
Sounds good in theory, but will it work?
The description of a VSE above is based on a system that is currently operational within the Leeds School of Contemporary Art & Graphic Design at Leeds Metropolitan University. The asynchronous toolset is a php/mySQL system that has been developed in-house over the last three years, and is currently used by over 600 students and staff. The system has proved to be huge success with both students and staff alike, and over 59 000 items have been uploaded to the tool. As this VSE has been implemented on a physically located set of courses, the synchronous toolset described above has proved less necessary. However, through the JISC funded Open Habitat project, we have developed good practice guidelines for the use of multi user virtual environments in a studio context, making use of both OpenSim and Second Life with students in the School. Through our membership of the JISC Emerge community of practice, we have made extensive use of Elluminate, which has just been adopted by LeedsMet as its conferencing platform.
What next?
We need to work with others to evaluate and develop the virtual studio environment concept. We currently lack the capacity to evaluate the wealth of existing data in our current system, and we do not have the resources to turn our prototype into a robust and scalable solution. Graham Hibbert has developed the current prototype, and Ian Truelove has implemented it across the School. In addition to Ian and Graham, we need an experienced evaluator, a software developer with expertise in php/SQL, .net and service orientated architecture, networking support from LeedsMet computing services, a project manager and some funding to pay for it all.
Wednesday, 19 November 2008
Lessons ignored
I've just run a Second Life induction session for Library staff. I originally intended to do the established 'OpenSim standalone first' plan of action, but as I only had an hour with them, I decided to jump straight into the Second Life sign up, so that I could show off LeedsMet's islands.
All was going well, until the second person in the room got through the registration process. And it all came flooding back to me.
'Registration Denied!'
The old 'multiple sign-up from the same IP address' thing reared its ugly head, and I remembered why we worked out a different way of tackling Second Life induction. Anyway, it was too late to start fiddling about with Terminal to get OpenSim up and running, so I did a big screen fly through of the islands, and went onto Lecture auto-pilot.
Note to self: Follow the recommendations of your own research project in future, idiot.
All was going well, until the second person in the room got through the registration process. And it all came flooding back to me.
'Registration Denied!'
The old 'multiple sign-up from the same IP address' thing reared its ugly head, and I remembered why we worked out a different way of tackling Second Life induction. Anyway, it was too late to start fiddling about with Terminal to get OpenSim up and running, so I did a big screen fly through of the islands, and went onto Lecture auto-pilot.
Note to self: Follow the recommendations of your own research project in future, idiot.
Friday, 7 November 2008
The future of online HE
I should be posting about the pilot, but that bit of my brain has blown a fuse after today's 4 hour solid crit with the students. Instead, I've found a link from the JISC online conference discussions to a speech by John Denham, Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills, at the UUK Annual Conference
in September. This quote caught my eye:
So, don't dump course material onto the internet. Develop skills of evaluation, critical analysis and reflection, synthesis, problem-solving, creativity and thinking. Cross discipline boundaries. Give extra skills needed to make best use of technology.
How well has Open Habitat fulfilled these aims?
Are virtual worlds a key component in the future of online HE?
What is the role of the art and design approach in all of this?
So a key question for universities in Britain is this: How can we be one of the leading - if not the leading - centres of online higher education learning in the world. I am convinced if we want to achieve this aim, it cannot be achieved by a rush to dump more course material onto the internet than other higher education systems.
Our aim should be to be the best by showing that online learning can offer those features of higher education which make our university world class today: Our challenge is to support students in developing their skills of evaluation, critical analysis and reflection, synthesis, problem-solving, creativity and thinking across discipline boundaries, as well as giving them any extra skills they needed to make their use of IT fully effective.
Denham, J. (2008) UUK Annual Conference Cambridge. Keynote. [Internet] September 11. Available from http://www.dius.gov.uk/speeches/denham_uuk_110908.html [Accessed 7th Nov 2008]
So, don't dump course material onto the internet. Develop skills of evaluation, critical analysis and reflection, synthesis, problem-solving, creativity and thinking. Cross discipline boundaries. Give extra skills needed to make best use of technology.
How well has Open Habitat fulfilled these aims?
Are virtual worlds a key component in the future of online HE?
What is the role of the art and design approach in all of this?
Monday, 3 November 2008
Week 3
Ah, it's been a long time since day 2. The reality of learning in virtual world is that tutors keep getting dragged kicking and screaming back to the real world. Lots has happened in-world though. Check out my Flickr stream for some pics of activities. More to follow soon.
Tuesday, 21 October 2008
2nd A&D pilot - Day 2
First day totally in world.
We all met on LeedsMet island and the students considered the Manual tasks. I suggested doing the 'Red' task to start off with, and the teams split to make a decision. Both teams decided to do the word association-seating area creation task instead, which was much better. I hung around with team A, and helped them to get the word association going. Kisa went off with team B and did the same.
This particular task turned out to be a great way of getting all of the students involved in an initial, not too taxing chat based task. Everyone, whatever level of skill, can type the first thing that comes into their head, so it proved to be good way of structuring a simple, reassuring socialisation activity. When we got bored (actually, a couple of them wanted to carry on playing word association all morning), each student picked their 2 favourite words from the ones spoken in the game, and the task was to make or find two chairs that relate to those words and create a group seating area on the team plot.
Anyway, after some freebie plundering and pretty impressive building activities for ones so young, a collection of 'chairs' were assembled and everyone seemed pretty pleased with themselves. I particularly liked the toothpaste sofa.
Tomorrow: 2 hour real world session in the Mac room to help improve building skills.
Thursday, 25 September 2008
Oil spill
Twitter is the oil that has lubricated my ideas today.
A JISC-Emerge tweet alerted me to a blog post by Josie Frazer about Dave White's work on Residents and Visitors for the JISC funded Isthmus project. Dave is, of course, Open Habitat's project manager, which is quite handy.
My fuzzy thinking about all of this at the moment needn't prevent me from spilling a few ideas here.
It strikes me that the idea of 'Residents' might be the key to unlocking the problem of collaboration in the Art & Design pilot. We have just decided to split participants in the second pilot into teams, and to give each team a home. We are trying to make them into residents in a virtual world, rather than just visitors. The difference, I think, is that Isthmus is looking at web based communities and is dealing with a more abstract sense of residents and visitors. We are thinking much more literally about our students building a home (albeit a fairly abstracted one) and becoming residents in it. The collaboration aspect will come from the fact that we are forcing our students to share a house (which is, after all, what being a student is all about).
I've not quite got this one clear yet. I may well be missing some points. I'll try and pin things down a bit better tomorrow.
A JISC-Emerge tweet alerted me to a blog post by Josie Frazer about Dave White's work on Residents and Visitors for the JISC funded Isthmus project. Dave is, of course, Open Habitat's project manager, which is quite handy.
My fuzzy thinking about all of this at the moment needn't prevent me from spilling a few ideas here.
It strikes me that the idea of 'Residents' might be the key to unlocking the problem of collaboration in the Art & Design pilot. We have just decided to split participants in the second pilot into teams, and to give each team a home. We are trying to make them into residents in a virtual world, rather than just visitors. The difference, I think, is that Isthmus is looking at web based communities and is dealing with a more abstract sense of residents and visitors. We are thinking much more literally about our students building a home (albeit a fairly abstracted one) and becoming residents in it. The collaboration aspect will come from the fact that we are forcing our students to share a house (which is, after all, what being a student is all about).
I've not quite got this one clear yet. I may well be missing some points. I'll try and pin things down a bit better tomorrow.
Sunday, 21 September 2008
Pruning my previous ideas, and planting a big new one.
I recently helped the Police get their Freshers' safety message across by installing a poster on one of our islands:
The V.C. mentions it here in his daily reflection,
and here's a report in the Yorkshire Evening Post
On Tuesday, the Faculty is hosting a special Freshers' welcome day, where the Police will be promoting their Safety message and, hopefully, pointing Second Life savvy first years to our island. It has suddenly stuck me that this might provide an ideal opportunity to recruit the sort of experienced avatars to our study that we need. One of the findings from the evaluation of the first pilot was the limitations associated with getting noobs up to speed before we could tackle some of the more focussed activities around collaboration. I'm estimating that there will be around a thousand freshers at the event on Tuesday, so there is a good chance that there will be several SL experts in the audience. The faculty runs a broad range of programmes, including art & design, building & construction, cultural studies, social sciences, film and television, architecture and tourism. If we could bring together students from across these disciplines, we would stand a much better chance of getting some meaningful collaboration going.
One issue might be the potential conflict between the students' involvement with a weird virtual worlds project, and their chosen programme of study. I can imagine some of my colleagues in other parts of the Faculty perhaps taking exception to me interfering with their students learning. One solution to this that I've thought of is to support the University's strong commitment to volunteering. If the focus of collaboration between Faculty students in Second Life had a worthy aim, then not only would we sit comfortably outside the constraints of curriculum, but we could do something good for the world. There are several charity events exist already in Second Life. Relay for Life is in July, so this doesn't fit into out timeframe for the project. We're cutting it a bit fine for Burning Life, which starts on 27th September, but this event could provide a timely focus for socialisation activities, and to get the idea across about what we might do.
The other idea I had was to gather together the SL expert freshers next week and make them Leeds Met mentors, and than draft them in to assist with the previous plan that I blogged about recently. This would be a good way to test out the mentoring opportunity identified in the evaluation of the first pilot.
I think that if we could bring together a much bigger group of students on the fertile ground of Leeds Met's islands, then the sort of rhizomatic swellings of collaboration that Dave C talks about might just happen. If Kisa and I can act as gardeners, then we might just get something special growing out of this project.
Wednesday, 27 August 2008
A world within a world
Just had a thought that I need to capture before it escapes:
Could you run OpenSim as a shared application inside Wonderland? This may seem like an insane idea, I realise. Why would you want a 3D environment inside a 3D environment?
Well, I'm thinking about the draft evaluation of the first pilot by Steve and Marga, and one of the important issues that has been identified is the need to know when to do 'distance', and when to do 'blended'. I think that OpenSim standalone is just right for teaching building skills in a real life blended learning situation (Ian & Graham tutors), and Second Life is best done at a distance (Cubist and Kisa mentors).
Wonderland is closer to a blended learning environment, in that you are your real life self, speaking with your real voice, and you can interact properly with an application (interface elements and all) like you do in an I.T. lab. That's why I think it might be interesting to have OpenSim standalone as a shared virtual application. I can teach some building skills at a distance without it getting muddied by the whole role play and social complexity thing.
Well, it's just an idea.
Could you run OpenSim as a shared application inside Wonderland? This may seem like an insane idea, I realise. Why would you want a 3D environment inside a 3D environment?
Well, I'm thinking about the draft evaluation of the first pilot by Steve and Marga, and one of the important issues that has been identified is the need to know when to do 'distance', and when to do 'blended'. I think that OpenSim standalone is just right for teaching building skills in a real life blended learning situation (Ian & Graham tutors), and Second Life is best done at a distance (Cubist and Kisa mentors).
Wonderland is closer to a blended learning environment, in that you are your real life self, speaking with your real voice, and you can interact properly with an application (interface elements and all) like you do in an I.T. lab. That's why I think it might be interesting to have OpenSim standalone as a shared virtual application. I can teach some building skills at a distance without it getting muddied by the whole role play and social complexity thing.
Well, it's just an idea.
Friday, 30 May 2008
The ultimate OpenSim standalone installer
I have an idea. I wonder if it's possible?
We have a stack of dusty old PCs cluttering up the place at Uni. Their old network sockets have been stolen by the shiny new computers, and without a network connection, they're pretty useless. So useless, in fact, that their hard-drives could be wiped without anyone getting upset.
So, this is the idea:
Somebody clever creates an magic installer CD that I can boot up an old PC with.
The installer CD wipes the hard-drive and installs the Debian OS+OpenSim standalone+Second Life client.
I reboot the PC and it automatically loads OpenSim and connects to it via the Second Life client (preferably running full screen for maximum tidiness).
We have a stack of dusty old PCs cluttering up the place at Uni. Their old network sockets have been stolen by the shiny new computers, and without a network connection, they're pretty useless. So useless, in fact, that their hard-drives could be wiped without anyone getting upset.
So, this is the idea:
Somebody clever creates an magic installer CD that I can boot up an old PC with.
The installer CD wipes the hard-drive and installs the Debian OS+OpenSim standalone+Second Life client.
I reboot the PC and it automatically loads OpenSim and connects to it via the Second Life client (preferably running full screen for maximum tidiness).
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