Visit, learning, conference, time passes

Visitors from GFU: 6 (good); Conferences volunteered for: 1 (good - I think); GIS objects created: 4 (v.good); Dawns watched over Educational Informatics Island: 1 (at least)

Gosh, see that is nearly 2 weeks since last blogged. My how time flies when one is dashing around trying to do RL learning, teaching and assessment whilst maintaining one's SL wardrobe at the cutting edge of fashion.

Have been putting almost-finishing touches to Educational Informatics island, and one evening had to collapse exhausted into a hammock to recover a little before rising refreshed to face a new day of shopping. Island (in sky over Infolit iSchool) is for the RL class Inf6011 Educational Informatics. Idea is that each member (there are only 11 of them) will claim a house. In each house is a poster board with a landmark and notecard giver in it. People have to find an educational place in SL, take a pic of it, and also put in a landmark and write a notecard with an educational critique. They will talk about this in a Show and Tell session after Easter.

A few more of them have already been into SL, and the thing kicks of properly next Friday. In the meantime I was able to show it off as the final destination on the tour of Infolit iSchool given to educators from George Fox University, led by Robin. Maggie joined us for this last bit, and people seemed to enjoy it (2 middle photos show visit).

There is a tutor's room, where North (who is doing a session for us) will probably put up a link. Also installed Graham's Story Machine which people liked. Am sort of hoping that one of students will want to get to grips with it and do something interesting, as is embarrassingly long time ago that was given a demo by Graham.

Have drifted into organising committee for Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education conference being held in March - turned up to one meeting and was struck by lack of Europeans so felt should get involved. Have volunteered to chair one session and also suggested a couple of keynotes, one of which (Jackie) was agreed on, so that introduces a European element at least.

Also have gone to some Educators Coop meetings. With RxTopGun's CSI Austin made mistake of going home and logging in from there. Meant that couldn't see starting video properly, got stuck etc etc so didn't have full experience. Is pity, since is v. cute activity: first you enter a film theatre & see a video showing someone going to a rooftop bar and keeling over dead. Then you go THROUGH the film screen and fall down to the entrance to the building where the crime took place. You tp up to the bar where the woman died and there she is in a dramatic spotlight. Clicking on a board takes you to a website where you get different bits of info and then to have to answer some questions about what happened to her. Should have said earlier that is pharmacy course, so you can see the CSI connection.

Last meeting was more successful as logged in from work. Gadget gave demonstration of kits used in SL labs for a GIS (Geographic Information Systems) course (see picture). Very cool, and Gadget said that some students had commented about SL enabling them understand more through touching the objects they created with the kits.

Using SL with first years

Discussions held: 2 (good)
There is a transcript of the session on Using SL in a first year undergraduate module held on 15 May 2008 on Infolit iSchool in Second Life (the virtual world) online at http://sleeds.org/chatlog/?c=291
In this session Maggie, Ishbel and I talked about the class aims, the nature of the intervention etc. and our thoughts about its impact. Good lot of discussion. You can see were a good number of people there, in fact were even a few not in that pic e.g. Pancha, who was wearing a cool alien costume just out of shot. Am writing up a case study about it, and will do a post here when is online.


Today discussion was more informal but still a few people turned up. Had a chat about some of the usual things e.g. learners' attitudes to SL. Ab Marvin came along for the first time in a while. He and Ishbel were 2 people at very first Info Literacy group meeting. Turns out has been teaching in SL too at Abo Akademi. Interesting. After some chat toured the island including where have put up posters presented by Information Management students. have blogged that elsewhere.


By the end of tour was just Robin, Cas and me, but we celebrated with ice creams at the Shore Thing.

Visit, look North

Visits to other teachers: 1 (v. good); New skills learned: 2, joining land and selling land (good)

Had heard North Lamar talk at CITASA conf about the Educators Coop island he runs, and then met him at the SL conference. We IMed each other in friendly fashion when we realised we were both in information Departments. This week I IMed him to suggest meeting.

After small concern about time of meeting (time zones are v. confusing and he lives somewhere in USA) he offered me a teleport. In particular was interested in the class he is running, in which a good deal of teaching and learning happens in SL. Curiously (or not) it has the same module code (inf315) as one of our modules here. North is a doctoral student and tutor at a US university and also does consultancy which is where running his own islands also comes in.

His module is in fact focused on virtual worlds, so is more obvious rationale for using SL than for my semester 1 class. There are (I think he said) about 20 students. I arrived near the sandbox area, then teleported down to the beachfront. There was an attractive block of flats which were the students' residences. In front of that there was a display of benches: each student had just had to build one as a SL task.

The use of the students' flats was v. nice. Each student had to tell the story of his/her life by arranging and assembling. See last pic for one example, Another student had been a pro surfer and his room had water all over it, plus pics of him and surfing friends etc. I had already intended to give each 1st year student a basic room to name and occupy and customise, but hadn't thought of giving a purpose to the customisation. Is obviously good idea. Would really have to focus task around their lives and information ... need to think about that.

North's students get marks for blogging each week and for the SL tasks, as well as a project. It all sounded v. good. I said a bit about our 1st year classes and my Dept. From what North said it sounds like there are fewer information studies faculty teaching in SL than had thought, though perhaps more will pop up this year.

North has meetings on education for his tenants in the Educators' Coop island. I gave him a notecard about the CILR meetings. Altogether a good visit and we plan to meet again.

Afterwards celebrated by learning how to join adjacent pieces of my own land together (for no particular reason, really) and selling off a small piece of land - or at least putting up for sale to next door neighbour who said was interested.