There comes a time when you have to admit you were wrong, or perhaps misguided, or simply that you were a little bit ‘out of time’, or perhaps – better said – that somebody let you down and maybe it wasn’t your fault. And this is one of those times, because it’s goodbye to Second Life for me, at least in its current incarnation – in terms of teaching and training – and I’d like to try and explain why…
When I started with Second Life it was a much smaller place than it was now. There was no voice, it crashed constantly, there were ´Black Wednesdays´without access as server updates were done, and there was lots and lots of downtime.
During that time I persevered… I learnt the tools of the SL trade – I learnt to build and script and texture… I made a lot of friends and I built our first island and there we offered free teaching spaces for people, and eventually started the annual SLanguages conference. And the reason I did all this is not because I was convinced that SL was the future of education, but rather that I thought it was the future of the web (not SL, you’ll understand, more the notion of 3D). But I also thought it had a place in education in certain contexts.
Indeed, I learnt to script in SL by taking lessons in SL, and it was a fantastic experience. And I used that knowledge to further our SL presence…. taking on two more islands, going into the rental business and scripting a large set of free tools for educators – tools which enhanced language teaching, tools which integrated with web services, bringing in blogs, wikis and much more. It was an exciting and creative time.
And SL improved too. Black Wednesdays disappeared and the viewer became more stable. Voice was introduced and changed the face of many events (when it worked), and so on. But there was still one thing that didn’t change – it was cripplingly difficult to get started with SL for the casual visitor (unlike, say, Skype or Adobe Connect) and the ‘first hour experience’ was terrible.
Add to this the need for high-end equipment, a fast Net connection, decent phones and a microphone, some money to make you look a little less like Spongebob Squarepants and all the rest and you get a system which doesn’t lend itself to much use over and above the committed. And, having worked in education and technology for a long time, I know that these people are still few and far between. On a scale of 1-100 I’d put SL at the 100 end of the scale in terms of people being willing to invest the time and effort…
The period in which I found myself having less time to invest in SL also coincided with the new viewer which brought HTML on a prim to SL and made a lot of tools (mine included) largely redundant. And I’m very happy about that – media is now much easier to use in SL, as is any web content, and this has changed the lives of many educators who now don’t have to fudge solutions in-world.
But I can’t get on with the new viewer at all – all those windows popping up, three clicks to do what it used to take one click to do, useful things hidden away, useless video RAM application.. I could go on, particularly as I now spend a large amount of time in SL waiting for my avatar to change from a cloud of smoke into the sexy, virile cartonn character we all know and love. But often I can’t go on (at least in SL) because voice isn’t working properly and loads of people are chatting about that rather than about anything useful.
So I’m on a quad core machine with 8GB RAM and 2 x nVidia 9600 cards and a downstream that regularly comes in at around 12MBits. How is this possible? Every event I go to there are regular users (people who know how to configure and run SL) complaining that voice isn’t currently working for them, that they can’t hear anything. It happened to me and a large percentage of the audience today at a high profile event on Shakespeare.
Of all the improvements (the changes to the forums, the blogs, the bloody shopping site and all the rest) why is it that the overall experience isn´t really that much better than it was two years ago? I think that’s where I’m heading…. it’s frustrating not to improve at a better pace, it’s frustrating to see competent users still having voice and other problems and, well, it’s just frustrating sometimes.
But you see I really do like SL – I like the fact you can build and script, share video and music (when it works) chat to people using text and voice (when it works) and I like the social side of it an awful lot. I have plenty of friends in SL and I like to sit and chat with them – it’s been social, it’s been fun and it’s also been professionally fruitful a lot of the time.
But really, I can’t help thinking I get more out of blogs and Twitter (in terms of professional development), and more out of other social platforms (and I’d include Elluminate and Adobe Connect in there too) than I can see myself getting out of SL these days. So whilst I will continue to interact socially there, the thought of trying to teach is really quite painful.
It´s one thing to run an event like SLanguages (though it is still fraught with dangers such as voice problems, new users not training up before attending, etc.) but quite another to try to run an interactive and participatory class when the toolset is limited and when the investment needed is so great. And I’m not even talking about the financial investment there, either…
Some time ago I co-wrote a chapter for a book about Second Life. Tha chapter my colleague Howard Ramsay and I wrote was entitled “Second Life: Overcoming the Entry Barriers in Hogher and Further Education”. Looking back at that chapter now I can’t see a great deal of change, and those entry barriers are, at best, a real detractor in terms of getting educators in, but – at worst – they are very good reasons not to even start.
Sometimes it does come down to the shiny-shiny, and for me this is one of those times. SL is too demanding and too unreliable for most educators. It pains me to say this, but I just don’t think it’s improved enough, or become easy enough for most people to bother. There are better ways of doing most things you can do in SL in terms of education, and – almost five years down the line – as far as I’m concerend SL hasn’t delivered enough to make it worthwhile.
I still think the future of web interactions is 3D, and I still think avatars are a grand idea, and I still love the concept of a vast space to be wandered and enjoyed… but I have to conclude that in pure terms of investment (time and money) SL doesn’t make much sense, at least for most educators.
So later this year we´ll be dropping two of our islands and handing over the SLanguages conference to a team of people who have the drive and enthusiasm to take it forward (I’ll truly miss organising and running that) and we’ll be refocussing time and budget on mobile learning, which I now think has finally come of age (screen size, usability, connectivity, etc.). Some call it fickle, but I think mobile has come on in leaps and bounds in the past couple of years, and the possibilities are very exciting. Plus, you don’t need high-end equipment and shedloads of patience with mobile, most of the time.
I know many will be surprised and disappointed at this turnaround, and some will see it as vindication of their ante-diluvian views on technology, but hey, whichever camp you fall into (even the ‘told you it was crap’ camp [ which it patently isn´t, so don't bother! ] ), you’re most welcome to leave a comment here…
A privilege. You were certainly at the frontier…I agree with your point about mobile -check out uLearning and how mobile andweb 2.0 *are* transforming the future
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admin Reply:
July 12th, 2010 at 8:50 pm
Hugh,
The problem with being an early adopter is things don’t always go the way you plan or hope for, I reckon. But it’s exciting to be somewhere in the early days and see how it pans out. I do think mobile has finally come of age, though, and I’m excited by the possibilities – not mobile phones, as such, but the other more usable gadgets which are surfacing. Couple them with good cheap access and you have real possibilities, I reckon.
Gavin
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Sorry to see you leaving SL, Gavin – but I know you’ll stick around to socialise. I agree the learning curve for SL newbies is pretty steep, but ironically this helps me make a living as a trainer. I agree that the future is 3D and mobile -I just read your blog and replied on my iPhone.
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admin Reply:
July 12th, 2010 at 9:53 pm
Graham,
I ran a hybrid training course (Moodle and SL) for over two years and it usually went fine, but when you’re on limited time and people are being logged off, having trouble with voice and all the rest it can be pretty frustrating. To be honest, it’s usually more fun to script and build in SL than it is to teach…
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Graham Davies Reply:
July 13th, 2010 at 11:08 am
Gavin, I should have thanked you for all the help you gave me as an SL newbie around 3 years ago. It is the SLanguages 2007 conference that triggered my enthusiasm for SL. Before that, I couldn’t see much in it that I could make use of. These days I run mainly f2f courses for newbies at different locations. I prefer this to running online courses. I still like the idea of walking round the computer lab and helping out trainees who are finding it difficult to get to grips with SL. However, I am often frustrated by the obstacles that computer services units in universities put in the way, and I often have to negotiate with them several days in advance of a course to ensure that that have unblocked ports, made firewalls perceive SL as friendly, etc. And then, occasionally, SL just goes down in the middle of a session, which convinces the sceptics that it’s not worthwhile looking at seriously.
That said, I love the environment. I spend a lot of time on virtual travel, practising the various languages that I speak. And my wife Sally is now an SL addict. SL is the ONLY application that has really grabbed her attention. She used to hate computers, but now spends several hours per day exploring SL and has become something of a fashion consultant.
I have written tutorial materials for Viewer 1 and Viewer 2, which can be downloaded free of charge from Section 14.2.1 of Module 1.5 at the ICT4LT site:
http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_mod1-5.htm#secondlife
Graham Davies
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The usability issues you mentioned are one of the reasons we’re putting our company offices on an OpenSim grid rather than in Second Life. If SL was significantly more usable than OpenSim, we may have considered building there. But at this point, the usability differences are minor, we don’t need the SL community (my company is its own community) and we like the ability to make backups of our regions, and to teleport to other grids.
Instead, we just keep a small office in Second Life, for the occasional interview or other in-world meeting, and to test out new SL technologies (like media-on-a-prim).
– Maria
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admin Reply:
July 12th, 2010 at 10:29 pm
Maria,
For me, it’s the community that makes SL. I’d hate to put people behind a social firewall, particularly in education.
Gavin
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As I am far from a techie wizzardess,I told myself I would wait for SL to be easier to use to try and get into it… think I’ll wait a bit longer. It’s ok to write honestly that the tool isn’t accessible enough for the moment : makes me feel less guilty about it all!
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Thanks for the posting. It affirms that it wasn’t just me that found it a challenge. And you were so much further along that I and more skilled.
I admire the SL possibility, but found the learning curve too high. It takes courage to move to a new challenge. Thanks for your thoughtful reflection.
David
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You’ve captured many of the feelings I’ve been struggling with the past year. As a 4-year veteran of SL, I still do like the place, but I get frustrated at how little some things have changed (hello? 25 groups?) while others have changed much for the worse (Viewer 2.x Search). While stability is definitely better than the “dark ages,” and many new features have been added the past couple of years, (as you said) I’m not sure that basic ease-of-use has improved much.
A new computer with more robust graphics has me helped a lot this summer, but I’m still uncertain over the bigger future. It’s a tough place in which to find myself–do I stay or do I go?
Thanks for all of your contributions and good luck on future adventures…
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HUGSaLOT Valkyrie Reply:
July 12th, 2010 at 10:09 pm
Used to be a lot less than 25 groups. That has actually improved. And honestly there’s been VERY LITTLE difference in visual quality, other than the Windlight stuff which was really just something to make the sky look more pretty. If it looks like crap, it will remain crap, no matter how much you polish it.
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I am surprised with your pc setup that you are having the issues that you do. Mine is much less than yours and I seldom have any issues. The most I experience is an occasional rubberband or delay in rezzing and maybe once a week crash. Minor irritation but nothing compared to what it was like 3.5 years ago. I only used the 2.x version a few times then went back to the Snowglobe 1.x which IMHO is the best viewer (outside of Emerald). It is always sad to see someone give up on SL. I’ve been a big supporter of the Open Sims (I have land in several) however, IMHO, they are a long way away from being any competition to, or replacement for, SL. Best wishes for wherever you may next rezz into.
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I’m sure you know this but you’re not forced to use Viewer 2, Emerald Viewer is a great alternative. And while LL has a “official” list of viewers they allow on SL, they don’t enforce any of it. And there’s many other viewers to choose from, not to mention OTHER GRIDS, like OSgrid.org it’s littereally open, free, and you can run your own sim on your own hardware.
[Reply]
admin Reply:
July 12th, 2010 at 10:10 pm
Hi,
Yes, I’ve tried most viewers, but then you try getting tech staff in a university to install one of them… or one of your learners to try out one of them…. It doesn’t happen, really.
Gavin
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try opensim – and recover your stuff – i’am also veteran from sl and switch off since long time and found a great share space in opensim grid . hope to see you
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admin Reply:
July 12th, 2010 at 10:32 pm
Fab,
I don’t think any of the alternatives come near to SL yet – as an overall product, but I’ll keep watching.
Gavin
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Wow. A great post, very honest and insightful. I was one who felt always a bit guilty about not getting into SL enough, there just didn’t ever seem to be time and the entry barriers you described seemed just too big for me. Still, I may try it out but I have to tip my hat to you for this post.
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admin Reply:
July 12th, 2010 at 10:31 pm
Lindsay,
Alice, David and you and – I suspect – many other people simply don’t have the time to invest in SL. It’s a pity, because there’s a lot of good in it, but until it becomes easier, I’m afraid the situation won’t change much.
Gavin
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[...] This post was Twitted by MarillaAnne [...]
Yup, I’ve been through the awful first hour experience… several times actually. And I’ve been to conferences with exciting SL link-ups…. and watched it crash. There is something in it, but until it can do what it is supposed to do consistently and comfortably it’s no good to me. I hear it is great for learning and practising techniques which are too dangerous, difficult or expensive to do in ‘real-life’ (surgical procedures, bomb disposal etc).
Do you think (a genuine question) that educators have used SL well? My image is that of a faux classroom in an emulation of a university, created with pixels and populated by avatars, doing the chalk and talk….. probably a totally incorrect image. Is part of the problem that the potential to create a world in SL leads us towards an emulation of reality, which then lets us down because it doesn’t work as smoothly? And the success of mobile learning, twitter and other ‘lighter’ technologies is that they force us to conceptualise our relationships in totally new ways?
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admin Reply:
July 13th, 2010 at 12:02 am
Darren,
Good question…. I’ve seen some amazing education projects in SL, and very few of them have emulated real life spaces or chalk and talk approaches. I’ve seen the schizophrneia simulator (amazingly real and difficult to emulate in real life), medical builds (effective and safe), projects in English and archeology (practical and more feasible than in real life), creative business English classes and so much more. It’s not that it can’t be done – it can be done, abd very well at that, but it’s often beyond the ‘average’ teacher…
Gavin
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I don’t think I will ever forget Christmas 2007, I had only recently joined Second Life and had not really established a reason for using it other than exploratory interest. I was watching you building in the sandbox on EduNation and asked how you put a script into the item you were building. Your answer, and the techniques that you showed me opened up a whole new Second Life for me, endless possibilities were suddenly revealed and though I could not build or script or do anything very much I was inspired, hooked… and have remained so. Thank you
I still use Second Life lots, I went in for 20 minutes to meet a colleague to talk through our Elluminate Session immediately before we did one late this afternoon and concurring with your view of the future of tech in education the Elluminate session was about our iPod Touch trial. It was interesting to hear later this evening though from someone who attended, that the sound is better in SL than in Elluminate,(not my words) certainly the sense of presence is miles better, for me there is no comparison though I do like Elluminate for what it offers! I have also been into SL later tonight to find out some history places for someone to visit – and, as always, stayed in there chatting….
I find it so useful as an always available meeting place even when whomever I am meeting and I are not geographically close. We still use it regularly as a team to provide e-safety CPD sessions for teachers and have recently joined Skoolaborate on the Teen Grid to help there. I actually find it difficult to contemplate managing to do all that I want to do without it now.
I can’t understand anyone’s issue with Viewer 2, I think it is very good, I fail to spot extra clicks, the only thing I do extra to the basic download is add the Map, Mini-map and Build icons to the bottom toolbar. The web-on-a-prim makes sharing website, VLEs access and collaborative work a dream, there is a wonderful little website called Synchtube which enables easy synchronized playlists for video sharing. A downside – the cloud effect is usually only the first time I log in with a new version of the browser, after that it is normally quick.
I am sure I will be bringing the gods of fortune down on my head when I say that these days is it generally very stable and we rarely have voice issues though Macs seem to suffer more than PCs. I love the friendship, fun, creativity and more that the virtual world has to offer.
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admin Reply:
July 13th, 2010 at 9:27 am
Carol,
Thanks for your thouhgful response. As you know, I’ve been a strong champion of SL over the years and have invested plenty of time in helping people to get there and get skilled up. I love the place, I really do – have made some great friends there that have become real life friends, been to some great events, watched some great classes, etc., etc….
My point isn’t really that it’s rubbish, more that it’s needlessly complicated and demanding for most educators to be able to get to the right side of comfort with it to ensure useful and efficient (!) teaching…
Just looking through the past month of postings to the SLED list I see more problems than solutions, more hassle than delight and that’s from the devoted. My point, I guess, is that whilst I love the place and what it can do and offer, but I’m no longer under any illusions that anyone else will share my enthusiasm enough to end up teaching with it (even if that teaching makes sense due to distance or affordance).
Gavin
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Hi Gavin,
Love your post- and I agree with everything that you said. I know that SL has got lots of potential but as a teacher who just wants an easy access to online TPD, SL is just too troublesome. The only reason why I re-downloaded SL was for today’s session- Crystal’s session on Myths and Realities of English on the Internet. Will see how it goes!
Aiden
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I think I’m thinking along the same lines as most people here – I’ve always been intrigued by the potential offered by Second Life – but never been able to get to grips with it… Too many conceptual and technical leaps…
I do think it, or something like it, will come good – Moore’s law and all that should lower the technical bar and (completely unfounded hypothesis coming up….) I reckon that the tech bar might have some influence on the usability bar… If the level of hardware keeps it a bit exclusive, there’s less pressure on making it mass-market simple-to-use… I reckon at some point virtual worlds will get their “iphone moment” when they become more mainstream…
Until then I reckon there’s a lot of potential around mobile learning – MoleNet in the UK has been doing a lot of work on it… I’m also fascinated by the BBC’s Janala project in Bangladesh…
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Gavin,
Thanks for the thoughtful post; you summarise my thoughts over the past few years neatly. It’s always been a good idea badly executed. It’s astounding as well, given that there are a number of Virtual Worlds that work far better. Perhaps SL will turn around yet; in the meantime, see you on Twitter!
Eric
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admin Reply:
July 13th, 2010 at 10:34 am
Eric,
Which ones do you think work better (and that’s not a leading question)? SL for me has always stood out because of the building and scripting possibilities – do you think there are others that offer that kind of thing? Without the building and scripting, I don’t think I would have bothered – and maybe that´s why many people don´t see the point – only a small percentage of users actualy do anything of that sort.
Gavin
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Thanks, Gavin, for the excellent post. I fall into that camp that always felt SL was too complicated, but take no joy in the problems hampering it now. I understood and admired the vision from the start, though, and I think you were both right to persue and promote it with vigour, and will surely have takn a great deal from it – both professinally and personally.
Keep up the pioneering, Gavin, and I look forward to seeng what you have up your sleeve on the mobile front.
Brendan
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Wow, I thought maybe you had left blogging. It’s been so long. Good to see you back.
I never got into SL precisely because of what you are explaining. I spent 2 hours bumming around and I don’t think I even figured out how to change my avatar’s clothes. Plus I was on a netbook and it ran too slow to be worthwhile.
For me, the blogs, wikis, and web conferences are still the best part of education online.
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Hi Gavin,
The Languagelab Team are sad that you are leaving Second Life, you have done a great deal of good promoting teaching and learning in virtual worlds.
If educators are looking at Second Life as anything more than a technical platform sadly it will to lead to disappointment. Making something that is accessible to students requires significant customisation, all of which Second Life allows. Languagelab has had to do this to such an extent that the average student doesn’t realise they are in Second Life until a couple of months in to their time in English City. By which time they have the skill and confidence they need to explore the wider world.
To illustrate what I mean by customisation I want to take take the example of installing the software, getting to the right place and working out what you’re doing in Second Life
If a student wants to use Second Life they would sign up on secondlife.com (not so easy), download the software from there, install it, log in and get to an orientation island that has nothing to do with what you’re looking for (confusing). Then try and find where you’re meant to be (not so easy without help).
To help solve these problems Languagelab has completely customised to the user experience. What we have done is offer a sign up on our website ( an easy step by step guide), down load & install the software log in and arrive at our reception where there is a Languagelab team member to help you. The Second life websites and orientation/ help island have been removed from the process and replaced with our own.
I agree that Second Life is not as simple as Adobe Connect, but the immersiveness of the virtual world and the embodied experience of being an avatar make it worthwhile.
Once a student has spent 15 minutes with a member of staff (usually less) learning the basics they can get to all the events in English City by clicking on links on our website. It launches the SL client and takes them to the right place.
Every usability issue eased by SL can be addressed in a similar way. This takes investment but it’s worth it.
In any case, if it was true that complicated interfaces and installation procedures prevented the masses from using software the PC games industry would not exist. Not only does it exist, it’s a fast growing multi-billion dollar industry. As you might expect students find the platform considerably less challening than teachers do.
But the fact about SL is that the minimum hardware requirement has stayed the same for a while.The minimum spec machines we purchased 4 years ago run the new viewer fine. It is more stable and much easier for new users to navigate. It is designed to make the basic functions of walking, talking & typing as easy as possible and does that well. It’s not very good for advanced functions but that’s not its purpose and we have found that students don’t need those to participate in engaging classes and be part of the English City Community.
As any gamer will tell you, it’s common for machines with specialised high end graphics set-ups to need special configuration when using 3D applications. This is no way representative of the average users experience.
You made a good point about teaching. It took a massive effort to work out how to effectively teach in a virtual world, 3+ years in beta and more since. Class room replication won’t really cut it. This takes investment as you say and is not for the average teacher, but who wants average teachers?
Regarding our teachers, some of them have experienced technical problems and the learning curve has been a steep one for them. However, with a good support network and encouragement from staff and students they have become proficient users of Second Life and see the learning curve as a challenge to teacher development and not a barrier. Of the 300 new (paying) students we have had in the last month, the only students who have experienced major technical issues are those who live in countries that have very poor internet connections. Although thus is regrettable this is also changing daily as students from countries like Yemen, Egypt, Haiti and Vietnam able to get online. Now for many people (and in the long term for the rest of the world) the cost of attending a local language school will be more prohibitive than technology requred to get online.
There is however a plus side. It is common practice to take the methods & approaches used in a classroom and just apply them to whatever new technology comes along. New technology is adopted and deployed without any R&D investment in pedagogy. This has resulted in numerous e-learning or online learning services there were not any good, wasting time and money, and raising sectionalism about online learning in general. It should take time and effort to teach on using a new medium and as it has never been done and old methods probably won’t apply.
The key thing here that should be mentioned is effectiveness. How much does the student learn in a given period. This is something the entire industry seems reluctant to talk about. I would confidently say that our method of teaching is much more effective than anything else out there, online or offline and would happily put that to the test. This should be the most important factor in deciding teaching methods.
Most of your criticisms of SL are true if you see it as a consumer offering in itself . But that is not what it is. It is a platform for us to shape to our needs.
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admin Reply:
July 13th, 2010 at 5:15 pm
Shiv,
Sadly, 99% of users are not in a position to offer what you do, and that is why it is still not much good for the average educator. Sure, you can set up a company and try to work the economics so you can set up your own sign up process, your own orientation island and all the rest – but really, how many people are in a position to do that?
Either you and all your learners are extraordinarily lucky and the majority of users on the SLED list are not, or something is not quite right here. As a private company that has invested so much in SL, you have to see it work and you have the money to provide certain services that will make it work for many – but the fact is that most people cannot afford to do that, and most people have problems – check out the SLED list, check out the events I’ve been to in the past couple of days, and all the rest.
You user experience is not the user experience of themajority. And whilst it may work for you and your learners, you have had to bend over backwards to solve all the problems I highlighted. But the problems still remain – and most other people can’t get past them for lack of time or money… Life and education shouldn’t have to be like that, and it is precisely because of all you have had to do to make it usable for your clients that I think it is doomed as an educational platform in its current incarnation…
I’m not sure you can say things like “I would confidently say that our method of teaching is much more effective than anything else out there, online or offline and would happily put that to the test” and keep a straight face whilst you do so. Without decent research, that statement has as much truth as my “I can confidently state that my powers of telekinesis are more effective than anybody else’s.”
I know you have to come to a blog entry and defend SL, because that’s where you make your living – but the simple fact is that you have had to put serious effort into making Sl useable, and most educators can not afford the time or money to do that. That is why SL doesn’t yet work as an educational platform.
When you can show me it is easy and cheap to use, and that your claims of it being the best teaching method possible, then I will come back in. Until then, I am joining the “nice idea, but too complex and unreliable to make it worthwhile” crowd.
Gavin
[Reply]
Shiv Reply:
July 13th, 2010 at 7:55 pm
The SLED list is somewhere people go to find help so it is gong to have a large number of people with problems on there. Even then the list is probably about 20% technical problems. Even if it was 100% the group is by no means representative of all potential users of SL. We’ve brought thousands of students (who don’t speak English as their first language) into SL through our gateway, the ones that can’t actually use it are a small minority. This is going to be a common theme in my comments; my opinions are based on work with real students, thousands of them from dozens of countries.
“Your user experience is not the user experience of the majority”
True, but it can be. It takes time & money but teaching effectively via a new medium requires a large investment anyway. I would guess that your opinion is based primarily on bad implementations of SL.
I’m not sure you can say things like “I would confide…..
-We’ve done more than enough research for me to say I’m confident and willing to put it to the test: in fact we’ve done almost all of it in this field. On the other hand saying something is doomed for educators without considering its effectiveness seems a bit one-sided. Comparative tests are needed to prove that it is better than other methods and we would happily take part in them.
The claim is nothing like your point about telekinesis. Firstly, it is based on thousands of hours of actual teaching with real students. Your claim that it has no future has not in anyway been influenced by how much students can and do learn. Your argument is instead entirely based on technical problems you have had. The fact that students are learning a lot seems besides the point to you.
While it is perfectly correct for you to question my research you should tell everyone what research your claims about SL being doomed are based on. So far you have said they are based on the SLED list, which does not represent ESL students and your own computer, which is far from an average computer.
Gavin, it wasn’t my intention to defend SL specifically. We have backup platforms we can move to and if a better virtual world comes along we may do that. If SL vanished tomorrow it would be annoying but not a serious problem.
The idea behind Languagelab pre-dates Second Life. In a nutshell, it was for language learning via immersion in a problem based virtual world. Second Life was simply the technology we chose to implement that idea. Most that have tried teaching languages in SL have taken different approaches. You’ve not discussed the effectiveness of any of these approaches. Nor have you suggested a better approach that SL can’t accommodate or would be better implemented via another medium. Your criticism of the technology excludes any consideration of what is done with it.
“When you can show me it is easy and cheap to use”
Even if it took a student an hour to install and learn to use (which it doesn’t), how long is the average commute to a language school? How long does it take to find a baby sitter, parking space and time to get there from work? You would have to make that commute every day, you only have to learn to use Second Life once.
Cost is even easier. It is less expensive to run than a physical school. Most importantly it is much much cheaper for the student. Not to mention all the savings on transport costs, carbon produced etc.
Tech in education should be focused on delivering more to students. You can build a website that is cheap and easy to use but that doesn’t mean it is any good. We have expertise to build on any platform and certainly all of them would be easier to develop and maintain than Second Life. We chose virtual worlds for what they can provide, a level of engagement, immersion, and learning effectiveness that other mediums just don’t match. If any of the technologies you’re currently endorsing/teaching/recommending can offer more to students please tell us about them. We can compare them to virtual worlds. But in the end if we don’t talk about effectiveness and delivering more to students then what is the point of talking about technology at all?
[Reply]
admin Reply:
July 13th, 2010 at 8:04 pm
Shiv,
I understand your defending Sl to the hilt, I really do – but you still don’t answer my main points:
1) You have the time, money and resources to make the end user experience relatively quick and relatively easy. You are in a great minority compared to most other educators who (as the research we did for our chapter showed) are usually working on their own, unsupported, with little or no budget and not-very-helpful technical support. As such, your experience and your end-users’ experiences are in no way indicative of the average user experience.
2) I’d like to see the research that shows that “our method of teaching is much more effective than anything else out there, online or offline”, because I simply can’t believe that is the case – and you suggest it isn’t by saying that you’d like to be involved in comparative tests. If you haven’t done so, how can you make the claim?
This may look like I’m being deliberately difficult, but those two points above are key to how people will perceive and experience SL, and the worth they may ascribe to it.
Gavin
Shiv Reply:
July 14th, 2010 at 8:41 pm
Gavin,
1)
Here’s one way to get students on-line effectively with no budget.
Create the avatars for your students yourself, log in with them, take them to the correct plot of land, email the user names/passwords & download link to the students.
The students can then download the software, log in and they will be at the right place with no faffing.
This might not be scalable, but for the most part you’re not talking about large projects. It should only take a teacher a couple of minutes to set up each avatar, by the way.
If you are talking about a small number of students there is lots you can do to create a good user experience without a large investment.
You can overcome most usability issues in a similar way.
But you’re right, it does require a significant investment to teach effectively in virtual worlds, even on a small scale. That investment, howerever, should not be in technology. The real cost is in figuring out how to teach well. Of course, the same can be said of any other new medium; this is not unique to SL. And it is much easier for an individual teacher to set up a project in SL than a mobile phone app.
2)
Here is what I actually said:
“I would confidently say that our method of teaching is much more effective than anything else out there, online or offline and would happily put that to the test. “
and in another post:
“We’ve done more than enough research for me to say I’m confident and willing to put it to the test: “
3)
The basic controls for SL are much the same as many computer games and the interface, particularly viewer 2, is simpler than many. Most students come on-line and can use it right away without any trouble.
[Reply]
In terms of barriers identified, here’s a short list (these are glossed well in the chapter, which I don’t think I could legally share here). Many of these will not affect people working outside (traditional) educational institutions or those with the money to set up their own sign-up procedures, welcome spaces, private islands, etc. However, according to the research we did, people in that position are few and far between…
- Protocols for communication
- Avatar dress and behaviour
- Negative attitudes (it’s a game with naked ladies)
- First-hour experience
- General Griefing
- Welcome Island griefing
- e-Safety
- Hardware
- Software
- Connection speed
- Additional hardware (headsets, etc.)
“All of our labs are pretty good for standard web browsing, viewing media and using MS Office. However, the graphics are embedded Intel chips, so Second Life runs poorly and will give a poor experience, thus becoming a barrier to end-users (…) the current state of the economy will result in very slow upgrades of the labs.”
- Access, ports and client upgrades
- Bulk account creation
“Experienced significant problems white listing adequate number of PCs via LL (Linden Labs) tech support; should probably have gone via concierge service; even now, only 30% of our PCs are (somewhat arbitrarily) white listed. LL should really sort out the first-contact issues.”
- VOIP being prohibited in certain countries
- bandwidth requirements
- client complexity
- client and voice stability
“Another important hurdle to overcome is the complexity of the user interface of Second Life. I am currently struggling with that issue in my orienting students in a face to face situation, which requires much time and can affect a budget in education. This is a most essential activity for learner so that they become moderately capable in using learning objects, use of cameras, moving and communicating. Extensive one on one training is needed especially for many adult learners, students and teachers alike (…)”
- lack of support for learning difficulties
Those are some of the most important ones. If you have the money to control the environment, individual learners logging on from diverse locations, your own sign-up and welcome island procedures, etc., etc. you may be able to mitigate against some or many of these… but who is in that position in the education community? As a regular reader of SLED for many years, I’d say they’re in the minority.
Gavin
[Reply]
Shiv Reply:
July 14th, 2010 at 7:45 pm
All these ‘barriers’ exist for World of Warcraft too. However 10 million+ people not only use it but are willing to pay a monthly fee to use it.
[Reply]
admin Reply:
July 14th, 2010 at 7:54 pm
Shiv,
That may well be true, but very few of those are using it for education behind firewalls in locked down computer labs in higher and further education – so your comparison is moot.
Gavin
[Reply]
Shiv Reply:
July 14th, 2010 at 8:22 pm
Gavin,
1)
Here’s one way to get students on-line effectively with no budget.
Create the avatars for your students yourself, log in with them, take them to the correct plot of land, email the user names/passwords & download link to the students.
The students can then download the software, log in and they will be at the right place with no faffing.
This might not be scalable, but for the most part you’re not talking about large projects. It should only take a teacher a couple of minutes to set up each avatar, by the way.
If you are talking about a small number of students there is lots you can do to create a good user experience without a large investment.
You can overcome most usability issues in a similar way.
But you’re right, it does require a significant investment to teach effectively in virtual worlds, even on a small scale. That investment, howerever, should not be in technology. The real cost is in figuring out how to teach well. Of course, the same can be said of any other new medium; this is not unique to SL. And it is much easier for an individual teacher to set up a project in SL than a mobile phone app.
2)
Here is what I actually said:
“I would confidently say that our method of teaching is much more effective than anything else out there, online or offline and would happily put that to the test. “
and in another post:
“We’ve done more than enough research for me to say I’m confident and willing to put it to the test: “
3)
The basic controls for SL are much the same as many computer games and the interface, particularly viewer 2, is simpler than many. Most students come on-line and can use it right away without any trouble.
Tim Walsh Reply:
July 16th, 2010 at 12:49 am
Sorry to do this Gavin but WoW is used for education you said so yourself here. http://slife.dudeney.com/?p=327
You need to show people more evidence than anonymous two year old posts from help forums if you want them to believe you.
Graham Davies Reply:
July 15th, 2010 at 11:21 am
Regarding World of Warcraft, have a look Steve Thorne’s plenary presentation at EUROCALL 2009? He is a WOW fan and mentioned it frequently in his presentation, titled “Language learning as bricolage in new media environments”. The video can be viewed here:
http://eurocall.webs.upv.es/eurocall2009/speakers.php
And, of course, don’t forget Gavin’s plenary presentation at EUROCALL 2009, titled “Beyond the Book – What Computer Games Teach Us About Today’s Learners”, which can be also be viewed at the above location.
[Reply]
admin Reply:
July 16th, 2010 at 6:07 am
Tim,
Not a problem – but you need to read a bit more carefully. . Of course WoW is used for education, and of course I remember writing that blog post. My point was not that it is isn’t used for education, but that Shiv’s 10 million quoted users of WoW do not have anything to do with this discussion, nor are the vast majority of them anything to do with education, nor playing from educational institutions, etc.
As for anonymous quotes from a help forum, those quotations come from a chapter in a printed book, a chapter which I co-authored and which was researched. They were all said by real people.
Gavin
Tim Walsh Reply:
July 17th, 2010 at 12:39 am
Hi Gavin,
That’s not true. Postgraduates at my faculty can install WoW on their computers and many have. Anyone can use it on the college network if they have it on their laptops. We have a lab equipped with Second Life too. Both work great. I know of many other colleges with a similar policy.
I do have a few questions. I’m sure you agree that a healthy debate of this issue is important and hope you see my questions as part of that.
1)Above it is claimed one of the quote’s you have used is from 2008. It will be difficult to tell us which version of Second Life all the quotes refer to but can you tell us how many are from March 2010 or later? (These would refer to the new server and client code)
2)For the technical barriers you have listed above can you give us some data on how many institutions or students have such problems vs how many are successfully using the platform?
3)Your own SL conference, which I learned a lot from last year , has grown extraordinarily over the years and I expect it will continue to. I see this as an indication of the growing popularity of Second Life among educators, do you disagree?
4)Aside from your own experience and that of the people on the SLED list you mentioned, is there any real evidence that educators are having trouble with Second Life?
Thanks again for your time.
Graham Mills Reply:
July 14th, 2010 at 10:31 pm
The quote of mine that you use was written in Dec 2008, i.e. 18 months ago. That’s a long time ago and I think things have improved since then. I agree with Shiv that most students don’t find the basics difficult. Firewalls have not been a problem at my institution.
[Reply]
Graham Davies Reply:
July 17th, 2010 at 10:09 am
There is a World of Warcraft in School wiki:
http://wowinschool.pbworks.com/
I have never played the game, but I can see some possibilities for language learning.
[Reply]
admin Reply:
July 17th, 2010 at 11:12 am
Graham,
I think any technology that allows for the meeting of cultures and speakers from around the world has great potential for language practice – WoW included. The only thing worth bearing in mind is that the vocabulary and language used will be limited in scope due to the focus on a certain aspect of life, and also due to the level of activity in the game.
Gavin
admin Reply:
July 17th, 2010 at 11:36 am
Tim,
It’s not true for you and your institution (and others you know of), and I certainly accept that. However, here I am in Stuttgart doing a ‘Tech Tools Training Day’ in a very nice computer lab… except you’re not allowed to install anything, and the lab runs a version of Internet Explorer that won’t even show YouTube videos this is currently causing a problem for the out-of-town presenter) – and for every institution that allows people to install and run WoW, I’m sure I could find you one where installing anything is prohibited, access to sites is limited, VOIP and other social communication software is restricted and access to something like SL is a distant dream.
Yes, given the nature of print publishing, those quotations are not from last month. However, read back through the archives of the SLED list for the past six months to find a a plethora of problems and issues with voice, access, account creation and all the rest.
In terms of data, of course I can’t – I suspect that’s an impossible request to fulfill. What I can tell you is that when we were writing the chapter and we put out a call for data around those issues, we had plenty of examples. And, as I say, you can search the SLED list for similar, or Google to find plenty of examples. And, of course, you will find plenty of example of people who are having no problems. But it is undeniable, I think, that compare to many other technologies which can be used in teaching and training, SL is still demanding both on hardware, connection speed and skillset.
The SLanguages conference has grown and I expect it to continue to grow. But the numbers are a drop in the ocean compared to the number successfully using other technologies in their everyday teaching and I can’t see that changing significantly (and yes, that is purely my opinion). Unlike some other subjects and disciplines where SL has clear advantages, I think in terms of language teaching and learning, Second Life is a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
Real evidence? Well, the research we did for the book, the SLED list (as you mention)… I can’t do all the work, I don’t think. Just Google and you’ll find plenty of example. But I don’t think playing the numbers game is necessarily the way to go – my point (simple though it was) was merely that SL has not improved much in usability for a long time, and that it is still inherently unstable for many people, and beset with issues outside their control in many contexts.
I like the thing, I really do – but I’m not going to blindly extol its virtues without also considering its limitations and weaknesses.
Gavin
[Reply]
Tim Walsh Reply:
July 23rd, 2010 at 2:02 am
Hi Gavin,
Thanks for your answers.
There have been several recent studies in both neuroscience and cognitive science that suggest significant potential for language learning in 3d immersive environments. Much more study is needed, but our initial online courses have produced positive results, and if we stop now we will never know what can be achieved.
If you are ever in my part of the world I would love to show you some of our work.
admin Reply:
July 23rd, 2010 at 7:14 am
Tim,
It appears for some vague reason that I’ll have to reply above your comment (perhaps this post has just been too popular and has confused the nested comments plugin).
I’d like to see those studies that suggest the potential for language learning in envirnments such as SL – if you could forward some references.
My own feeling is that places such as SL really should be ideal for language practice and improvement, but I still take issue with Shiv’s fanciful claims of his use of SL being much more effective than anything else out there, offline or online. Decades of development and study in the field are not blown away overnight by some cartoon characters and some verbs you can float in…
Which part of the world are you in – I travel a lot, so I may just drop in! In the meantime, can you point me to your website, or any research you’ve done into the effectiveness?
And once again, let me restate – I like SL, it has a lot of potential. It’s beyond most people, purely in budgetary, access or time terms…
Gavin
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Gavin Dudeney and carldowse, Sara Hannam. Sara Hannam said: What a fascinating post over at http://bit.ly/9orVaw on educators and second life by @dudeneyge. Thank you. [...]
This is a fascinating discussion. Firstly I think it is totally acceptable, necessary and I would go as far as to say excellent that any one of us can move away from previous activities in education because they are no longer working for us. This is for me a sign of evolution and development. There is nothing written anywhere that says we have to stick with something because we once said it was good. People do this all the time (change their minds). Not everyone offers an explanation and invites others to comment. So hats off Gavin for your comprehensive and thorough post and your courage in being prepared to accept what I am sure you knew would be an inevitably mixed response from others.
I relate to what you said. For me Second Life is not something I have really had the time to explore. And the technical hurdles you mention were also true for me and I concluded that the level of skill required was too high for my particular educational context and it would not be utilisable with my students. However, I am supportive and positive of those who *do* use SL successfully, and I am also always happy to read about the many ways it is now being discussed (e.g. Scott Thornbury’s post on SL and identity as a new configuration). I know some educators who really use it in ways that are ground breaking. And I accept that some seem to get into it with no particular problems at all. Such is the subjectivity of the experience perhaps? For me though, it is not something I have invested in.
Now as a researcher I do have a few things to say about the latest thread between Shiv and Gavin re: claims about research and how they can be “proved”. As you will both know, this is an age old discussion in any kind of research setting and for this reason, it is always better to be cautious about the size of any claims being made. I would say nowadays the pressure is on to keep the claims small and manageable and always bound by context – gone are the days when generalisation is the norm. Even with the necessary back up evidence, I have to say Shiv that I am inclined to agree with Gavin that the claim “our method of teaching is much more effective than anything else out there, online or offline” is one that could be accused of falling into a kind of marketing approach to research design and development. But I could be wrong and there may be things I am not seeing as blogging can encourage a kind of shorthand and its easy to make assumptions. Can you help?
I personally would like to know more about how you set out to prove this assertion and precisely how you attempted to compare the extensive number of different teaching contexts that potentially exist in the world (on and off line) and to say that yours is superior. Could you provide detail. This seems like an enormous project and what perhaps we know is the larger the context base the harder it becomes to prove a common thread. But not always – so again please tell us more.
Initially it does seem that it is an almost impossible task to claim that you had compared all on and off line teaching methods (and indeed what kind of tool could be versatile enough to apply to all contexts would be my first question?). I would wonder about how you are calculating “success” (language exam results, your own internal mechanism of measurement, student satisfaction, other?). As you will know, none of these are universally stable categories and all are open to scrutiny. Can you provide more info here so we can get a better insight into how you assess the success of your method. I am also curious as to how you define method? Is SL a method in itself for you are are you fusing other teaching methods onto SL that pre-exist in other teaching contexts?
Notwithstanding all this, I see the clear benefits that you mention in terms of cost saving for S’s and schools, the environmental savings etc, but I do wonder why it is necessary to claim your SL teaching experience as better rather than perhaps seeing it as different to other teaching contexts and beginning there with a comparative analysis.
Just thoughts!
Thanks
Sara
OK that’s more tuppence worth from a research perspective.
[Reply]
admin Reply:
July 13th, 2010 at 8:46 pm
Sara,
As most of your post speaks to Shiv, I’ll let him have his say on the research and the claim of superiority of teaching in SL. I’d like to debunk one myth, though – and that is of the ‘greenness’ of Second Life (or, indeed, any web technologies which rely heavily on server farms. You might be interested in this article: http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2006/12/avatars_consume.php
A little quote from it:
“… Which, annualized, gives us 1,752 kWh. So an avatar consumes 1,752 kWh per year. By comparison, the average human, on a worldwide basis, consumes 2,436 kWh per year. So there you have it: an avatar consumes a bit less energy than a real person, though they’re in the same ballpark.
Now, if we limit the comparison to developed countries, where per-capita energy consumption is 7,702 kWh a year, the avatars appear considerably less energy hungry than the humans. But if we look at developing countries, where per-capita consumption is 1,015 kWh, we find that avatars burn through considerably more electricity than people do.
More narrowly still, the average citizen of Brazil consumes 1,884 kWh, which, given the fact that my avatar estimate was rough and conservative, means that your average Second Life avatar consumes about as much electricity as your average Brazilian.
Which means, in turn, that avatars aren’t quite as intangible as they seem. They don’t have bodies, but they do leave footprints.”
Gavin
[Reply]
Sara Hannam Reply:
July 13th, 2010 at 8:52 pm
Yes Gavin I think these are all fair points regarding energy consumption and when put in those terms we begin to see that SL is perhaps also a technology that is most utlised in richer countries. For me I was thinking more I guess of international contexts where flights etc could be avoided and travelling kept to a minimum. But as you point out, one “green” claim can be offset with another disparity. I also agree with what you said about the financial outlay of starting in Second Life and perhaps having an avator there which moves beyond the “I’ve just arrived and haven’t found my way around look”. I was reading a great article the other day by someone on SL style for educators and its cost implications!! All food for thought indeed.
[Reply]
Graham Mills Reply:
July 14th, 2010 at 10:20 pm
If you read the comments, you’ll see that the author didn’t really understand how SL works and his figure is basically specious. Moreover, the calculation is based on 2006 figures; I think things have moved on somewhat since then.
[Reply]
admin Reply:
July 17th, 2010 at 11:10 am
Graham,
yes, the figures are certainly not accurate, nor do I see how they could be – the only thing I wanted to raise was tat distributed technologies which rely on server farms have a cost and are not as green as some believe them to be.
Gavin
Shiv Reply:
July 14th, 2010 at 7:04 pm
Hi Sara,
I wrote a while ago about measuring the effectiveness of teaching methods see http://esl.ly/6A . Your opinion would be most welcome.
[Reply]
admin Reply:
July 14th, 2010 at 7:42 pm
Shiv,
Interesting reading, but it still doesn’t explain how you came to the conclusion that “our method of teaching is much more effective than anything else out there, online or offline”, which is really what I think both Sara and I were questioning from your original post.
Gavin
[Reply]
Shiv Reply:
July 14th, 2010 at 8:24 pm
There is a lot to be written about how we measure effectiveness, more than I can write about now. I will blog about it at the next opportunity. Watch http://shv.me
I am very disheartened reading all of this…
Second Life teaching works for me and our tiny ICT curriculum team! We have small groups of people in-world for four sessions at a time to cover very specific material. This is proving successful for us! It enables teachers to take part in sessions which will help them, give them necessary skills, understanding, resources to use in school and finally a certificate. So far they have all enjoyed it, have had few problems, learn very little about how SL works, scripting or building, they do not need to.
Despite the fact that I do use a big, quite powerful desktop computer when I am home and able, I run it off my netbook when needs be!
I can’t argue its worth for huge classes, though have attended several very successful ones, but I know of lots of small groups who use it regularly and do not have the issues that some seem to have. The only people who need to be really skilled up for many education sessions are those presenting / teaching.
I do have to acknowledge that I live in the UK and generally even our oldish kit will run SL enough for our needs and our broadband is generally quite good.I do appreciate this is not the case in many places but I restate – it works very well for us and enables our teachers to do CPD that would otherwise be harder to access.
Recently I facilitated an important update conference for a group people in the UK – they needed to attend urgently but were having problems being in the right place at the right time physically. The new avatars came in with Viewer 2. I ran two sessions when the 9 avatars could come for me to help them get organised – some didn’t bother, I prepared the resources, and was on hand to help with the event. It worked – it actually worked well enough that it may be offered as one of the alternatives for the next event.
I get a feeling of doom and gloom about using SL for education from reading thse posts and that does not help the thousand of people, universities, large and small groups who use it simply because it is good and it works for them. Can we add some upbeat posts please
[Reply]
admin Reply:
July 13th, 2010 at 9:38 pm
I think you just did, Carol
[Reply]
Thanks Gavin for our meeting earlier.
I am happy to announce that we, Paul East of Pyramid Group and myself, Heike Philp aka Gwen Gwasi will be taking over EduNation I as from the beginning of November 2010.
We are very happy to take over ownership of the island that you founded and thank you warmly that you have decided to pass it on and not just let it sink.
The statements you raised on this blog though make me wonder whether we just bought the Titanic, hehe.
Admittedly, the technology is a handful and it reminds me of when I started using virtual classroom technology back in 2003. There was no Skype. Because of a 2-3 sec voice lag, we used half-duplex mode, which was a walky talky effect with ‘over’ at the end of each sentence. We went through 15 month of beta-development, having had to re-install software with several hundred clients sometimes as often as once a month. Teachers required constant tech support and there was no proven methodology of teaching online, our teachers just tried anything to keep the clients happy. Virtual classroom was so hugely expensive and we went through the phase of the beginnings of XP and the viruse menance to a time when companies locked every possible proxy, just to be secure and installation became a no-no. Interestingly we rarely lost students. Some of them stuck with us for years. I put this down to our excellent teachers.
Today, there is Skype, there is Adobe ConnectPro as cheap as 15$ a month (SuperCoolSchool), there are some 8 solutions out there free for one-to-one tuition, a host of flash based solutions, no installation required, fully-featured, a great multi-media tool to teach with and Gartner Gartner study confirms by the year 2011, web conferencing will be available to 75% of croporate users as a standard. A bumper opportunity for language teachers to offer their lessons incompany using the webconferencing solutions provided by the company to train their members of staff on how to use them for meetings and for presentations (language competence + media competence). A great value add for companies and good business for English teachers.
Will we see a similar development with Second Life? Yes, I believe it is only a matter of time and we will see Second Life run in a browser. Sad that Google gave up on Lively so early. Real shame, I loved it and I thought they will build it so that we can walk a 3D google earth being able to meet online in the pub down the road. Real shame this went off the table. But yes, I believe that we will see Second Life run in a browser, sooner or later.
The question is when? More so, the question is, what do we do in the meantime?
Well, we do development and this is what AVALON was all about, namely to develop language training in Second Life.
Three, well actually four great things came out of the project for me.
a) A didactical approach of making it easier for our learners to enter SL, an ease of access point as it were so as to make the first time user experience a great one (we demonstrate this approach for the first time during the SLanguages conference).
b) A teacher training course to shorten the learning curve from “several years of learning by doing” to a “5 weeks training”.
c) An active community of educators who are getting together on a regular basis to exchange best practise AND to run the SLanguages conference as a group – awesome!
d) (still under development!)
My aspirations is to take over EduNation to continue the fabulous work that the AVALON project has put in motion.
And I am really looking forward to it and hope that the residents at EduNation I are equally happy with their new owners.
[Reply]
admin Reply:
July 14th, 2010 at 9:11 am
Heike,
Thanks for this. I can’t see SL running well in a browser for quite some time, personally – but then again, I have been known to be wrong, so…
I think your ’5 weeks training’ does rather prove my point, though – if you need five weeks to train competent teachers how to use SL well, then I would say that that suggests the platform itself is not overly friendly or usable to the average person.
Gavin
[Reply]
Heike Philp Reply:
July 14th, 2010 at 9:52 am
Gavin,
I actually thought it would be flash that would kick it off, but it it seems to be HTML 5 (Google developer I/O Conference in May 2010 video http://www.youtube.com/user/GoogleDevelopers#p/c/02292AD8CFFE1349/5/DKaJ6jEPXGE watch the demo of a 3D game from min 9 onwards).
5 weeks training, two evenings a week is I think also the time needed to learn Moodle well enough to create courses as a teacher. AVALON is a course that trains language teachers even as far as scripting.
rgds Heike
[Reply]
Heike. Bless you for that (typically) informed, competent, cheery, energetic, heartening, positive forward-looking, “The show must go on” statement. You posted just in time. I was able to clamber clumsily down from the roof of the tall building I was about to jump from after reading Gavin’s gloomy statement without anyone noticing. You know that you have my full support if my fragile skills in SL can be of any use at any time now or in the future.
[Reply]
admin Reply:
July 14th, 2010 at 9:15 am
Dennis,
Where you see ‘gloomy statements’, I see a pragmatic resignation to the fact that SL is hardly any more user-friendly nor (often) stable than it was two years ago. You yourself would be the first to admit that your experiences with voice in SL are not exactly optimum, and a meeting of the SLanguages committee recently was plagued with issues of people not being able to hear or communicate with each other.
So, I’m not gloomy – I’m just being realistic and daring to poke my head over the parapet and say what many others are perhaps reluctant to say – it´s not as stable, reliable and user-friendly as it should be by now.
Gavin
[Reply]
Osna Dennis Reply:
July 14th, 2010 at 11:49 am
Gavin,
It would be unfair of me not to say immediately: You are quite right. If I am moved, I have a tendency to miss the target – what I say or write is not precisely what I mean! It was my reaction to your statements that was gloomy, or the facts about SL that you articulated that are gloomy in themselves, not your being a spoil-sport! I totally agree: Don’t blame the messenger.
And you are SO right about the frustrations I have with voice in SL. And the learning curve for a newbie to master walking, flying, sitting down, focussing on objects, teleporting, giving TPs etc. , managing the inventory, muting microphones, trouble-shooting in general etc. etc. is steep, steep, steep.
The following is probably naive in the extreme, but, musing on my own at the top of my infamous Meditation Tower , years in the building and still not complete, looking down on EduNation, I find myself thinking – Isn’t the only real way forward for someone influential to persuade the Lindens to set up an advisory committee to work out a plan for making SL more reliable and viable for would-be users in the business and educational worlds? That would be in every one’s interests, surely.
Osna Dennis
[Reply]
admin Reply:
July 14th, 2010 at 12:34 pm
Dennis,
Yes, Messenger not to be shot! I’m not sure what LL do in terms of stability, etc., but I suspect they’re working on thst as a priority most of the time.
Sadly the same can not be said for education in SL. The support for educators (who I’m sure have brought the company a fair deal of exposure and money over the years) has now been cut back, with the sad losses of Pathfinder and Claudia, etc., and LL themselves seem less than interested in it these days.
Gavin
At least when you leave Twitter, Gavin, you’ll hopefully not labour the point. How about: “Two years later, still getting fail whale and “older tweets unavailable”, still 140 char limit, stalkers, spam, phishing, bye all…”. Nuff said.
[Reply]
admin Reply:
July 14th, 2010 at 11:13 am
Graham,
I’m not sure one blog post is ‘labouring the point’, to be honest, that and responding to people´s comments. I’m not sure how I could have laboured the point less really, short of not actually posting anything at all…
As for Twitter – yes, point taken, it certainly does break down a little, though it is a much younger product than Second Life, so I’d probably give it a bit more leeway at the moment. The 140 character limit is not something I’m going to take as an inherent failure, since it’s the principal feature of Twitter, so I don’t think that’s a fair compariosn.
As for stalkers, spam, phishing – yes, all a sad by-product of the connected era and definitely not something I’m fond of. However, the chances of being harassed by a leather-wearing, giant plastic penis sporting arse are somewhat lower on Twitter than on any of the welcome islands in SL.
I know people get upset when people leave things, there’s a mourning and a regrouping to push the person further away and ensure that his/her ‘negative’ views don’t taint anyone else – but, seriously, SL is really very difficult for many people, has many, many problems and is not as stable or as easy to use as many other technologies. That was really all I was saying – that is is not heading for the mainstream even after all this time, because it is simply not stable enough or intuitive enough for most people to cope with. After all this time…
Not a big or original point, I’ll grant you that – but this was a personal post on my blog about why we’re cutting back (though not completely dropping) our presence in SL and concentrating more of the time and money on an area which is more feasible, more reliable and open to many, many more people around the world – particularly in countries where mobile infrastructure is way, way ahead of computer penetration.
Gavin
[Reply]
Graham Mills Reply:
July 14th, 2010 at 10:45 pm
I am an occasional Twitter user and well aware that the 140 character limit is driven by SMS compatibility. What I was trying to say is that even newer (2006), leaner tech like Twitter has its issues but there are generally ways of working round them (like protecting your tweets, for example). Ditto SL.
I don’t use the “Welcome areas” with my students — they come straight to the sim. Having said that, some of the community portals I’ve looked at seem pretty well controlled.
Whether SL mainstreams or not doesn’t worry me greatly though obviously I should prefer that it or something like it stick around for a few more years.
[Reply]
This is a fascinating discussion, with many useful points being made.
Yes, SL is not easy to get into, but I reckon I can train someone to get around quite confidently in SL in 3-4 hours. Wow! 3-4 hours, that’s an eternity for you youngsters who start throwing tantrums when you cannot find your way around a new app in less than 15 minutes.
I embarked upon my career in computer assisted language learning in (CALL) 1976 at the age of 34. There were no commercially produced CALL programs and there was no Web. We had to write our own programs in arcane programming languages such as Fortran, Pascal or Basic. Handling text in these programming languages was a nightmare as they were designed mainly for mathematicians, but many of the CALL pioneers such as Rex Last, Brian Farrington, John Higgins, Tim Johns (and dare I include myself?) got round the problems of writing code that enabled text to be manipulated and turned into primitive exercises for learners of foreign languages. It took many, many hours to get to grips with a programming language, and each program took many more hours to write. It was estimated at that time that it took 100 hours of programming to produce one hour of learning materials – but it got easier when user-friendly authoring programs began to appear.
OK, we were all mad and, thinking back to those times, I often wonder why we bothered, but we were a patient generation. Like Gavin, I have often changed my mind about different aspects of CALL over the years and I left paths that appeared to be leading nowhere, Artificial Intelligence (AI) being one that I went down for a few years until I realised that it would be a very, very long time before AI could bring real benefits in language learning and teaching. Maybe it has by now, but I have not kept up with new developments in this area.
Getting into CALL is a lot easier these days, and advice and support is available from many of the CALL associations worldwide: CALICO, EUROCALL, IALLT, APACALL, AsiaCALL and WorldCALL. There are many dedicated CALL apps that novices can get into very easily and quickly, and the Web bristles with general apps that lend themselves to use in CALL. Our expectations of ease of use have risen – and why not?
But the evidence that CALL is effective is thin on the ground – and here I tend to take issue with Shiv. A great deal of research into CALL has been conducted over the last 30 years, and the results have been published in refereed journals such as the CALICO Journal and ReCALL. All one can say in the end is that, in the hands of the right teacher, technology can be effective but it is not the panacea. Using technology may even have a negative effect; I have recently examined a PhD thesis in which it was claimed that a group of students using technology to improve their listening and speaking skills performed measurably worse than the control group that were taught face-to-face by teachers. I look forward to seeing more articles reporting on the effectiveness (or not) of SL. How about submitting an article to ReCALL, Shiv?
I take Gavin’s main point that SL is currently too cumbersome and too time-consuming for the average language teacher, but I am prepared to persevere, just as I persevered with programming in BASIC in the early 1980s – and I am in similar company with members of the EUROCALL/CALICO Virtual Worlds Special Interest Group and AVALON.
I find SL a fascinating environment and I don’t seem to be beset with the technical problems that some of you report. My wife and I are often inworld at the same time and we rarely experience technical problems – occasional glitches, yes, but nothing major, and we both like Viewer 2. We use computers with similar specs: HPs with 2GB of RAM, a clock speed of around 2GHz and a broadband connection of 4Mbps. Of course, there is room for improvement: all apps can be made easier to use, and there are aspects of Viewer 2 (handling audio and video, for example), that drive me crazy. Linden Lab, please take note.
Finally, have a look at this video by Helen Myers (Karelia Kondor in SL) on her introduction to SL and her experiences in learning Italian: Language learning in Second Life: an introduction. I often use it in my training sessions. It may convince some of the sceptics:
http://kareliakondor.blip.tv
[Reply]
Shiv Reply:
July 14th, 2010 at 7:17 pm
HI Graham,
I’ll have to take you up on that article to ReCALL. I am however talking about a specific methodology and implementation rather than CALL, virtual worlds or Second Life in a general sense.
[Reply]
Graham Davies Reply:
July 15th, 2010 at 11:12 am
Shiv wrote
“I’ll have to take you up on that article to ReCALL. I am however talking about a specific methodology and implementation rather than CALL, virtual worlds or Second Life in a general sense.”
That would certainly be suitable for ReCALL, i.e. if you focused on how the technology enabled the methodology to be implemented and enhanced. Your research would need to provide evidence that this approach is more effective than not using the technology. There is a long history of this kind of research: see the works by Levy, Chapelle, Hubbard, Garrett, Felix – all of which are listed in the Resource Centre Bibliography at the ICT4LT site at http://www.ict4lt.org
See especially:
Chapelle C. (1997) “CALL in the Year 2000: still in search of research paradigms?” Language Learning & Technology 1, 1: 19-43. Available at: http://llt.msu.edu/vol1num1/chapelle/default.html
Felix U. (2003) “Teaching languages online: deconstructing the myths”, Australian Journal of Educational Technology 19, 1: 118-138. Available at: http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet19/felix.html
Felix U. (2005) “What do meta-analyses tell us about CALL effectiveness?” ReCALL 17, 2: 269-288.
Felix U. (2008) “The unreasonable effectiveness of CALL: what have we learned in two decades of research?” ReCALL 20, 2: 141-161.
ReCALL articles are evaluated according to the following criteria – and so far no articles relating to virtual worlds that the editors have received have been able to satisfy these criteria.
1. There should be a clearly-stated topic of investigation, under a suitably academic title, supported by a rationale which relates the investigation to specific areas of research and/or development and/or practice in computer-assisted language learning.
2. The topic should be located with regard to other work in CALL and related fields, by means of a literature or state-of-the-art review, which makes it clear what has been learned from the work of others, and what is original about the current investigation.
3. There should be a coherent and appropriate method of investigation, in which the nature of actual or potential findings, outcomes or products is clearly indicated. Methods may include theoretical discussion, experimental or ethnographic studies, design or evaluation methodologies, action research, or any other systematic way of generating an outcome to the investigation.
4. Where appropriate, there should be evidence, or consideration, of relevant data analysis and its role in indicating, supporting or confirming findings or conclusions. This should indicate whether data is actual or potential, whether analysis is quantitative or qualitative, and whether the investigation is repeatable or replicable.
5. Actual or potential conclusions or products should have a relevance to research, development, or practice in CALL beyond the context of the investigation itself.
[Reply]
Gavin,
Rather than repeat what others have already said above (I think everyone knows where I stand, although I do sympathise with your views- I had hoped we’d be in a much better place now than where we were 4 years ago in SL) I’d just like to say that I’m sorry to see you go – I’ve been impressed by and learned lots from your enthusiasm and energy for the platform, your persuasive arguments for why educators should be using it, your posts and comments on your blog and others, and in various mailing lists and forums, etc.
I think you have done a fabulous job for the SL Languages community with the SLanguages conference and also by making space available and creating so many wonderful tools, etc. Because of this, your decision is particularly sad to hear. I still see potential, and have been very encouraged in particular by our experience on the AVALON project that SL is still worth the effort. but I completely understand the reasoning behind it. We all have limited time to spend, and we have to follow our instincts, head and heart when it comes to where we choose to direct our energy.
It sounds like you’ll still be around in SL from time to time, and that you’ll be keeping your eye on developments in SL and other virtual worlds, so I’m hoping this is not the long goodbye, but just a short ‘hasta luego’ – time will tell…
[Reply]
admin Reply:
July 14th, 2010 at 7:44 pm
Graham,
Kind words – thank you. Yes, I’ll still be around, but I don’t want to spend any more ‘official work/company’ time on SL as I can’t see its worth from that angle. I still think it’s a magical place with amazing affordances not found elsewhere, but it’s too damn tricky – not for me, I hasten to add, because I’ve invested hundreds of hours in it – but for casual users who might be interested.
Gavin
[Reply]
Sorry to see you drop out of teaching in SL Gavin. Hopefully catch up with you in-world for a chat sometime though.
Thanks to the bad reactions to the 2.x series, LL still supports 1.23 officially – should be easy enough to find and install, and official enough for most IT departments. Search got a major overhaul last week, and while it’s far from perfect still, initial comments and my personal experience suggest it’s a lot better.
And whilst I understand your preference for voice, I’ll sit here smugly and suggest that all the examples you cite are ones where voice plays little or no part. Take out voice and Second Life works really pretty reliably these days.
There are enough people who will offer free support or reasonably cheap work to develop your first teaching experience in SL, mentor you through it and so on, that it’s not as much of a minefield to many as you seem to think.
That’s not to even try and suggest that Second Life is the ideal solution to everything. It’s a tool like anything else, and teachers should assess it for their specific needs. Teaching languages… maybe it’s not a good tool, although the chances to find native speakers and writers and practise text and voice chat with them strike me as something that might be hard to replicate in other platforms, but that’s outside the formal classroom setting. I just think the sweeping statements that the entry requirements etc. are too steep for most educators are on the wrong side of the balance.
It’s great for some subset of educators. It’s good-to-acceptable for another subset. Between them, I think there’s a majority of those who are at all interested in the possibility of using Second Life. Those who choose not to even consider it, like those that choose never to consider using IT in the classroom, shouldn’t really be counted to try and sway the figures. Unless you’re standing for parliament somewhere and not telling us?
Anyway, all the best in your future endeavours, wherever they take you, and drop in for a chat sometime. Still got that dreaded stone bench set up there!
[Reply]
admin Reply:
July 14th, 2010 at 7:57 pm
El!
Wondered if you were ignoring me… Ah yes, the stone bench where I got my best scripting lessons in SL from one of the best (hope you’re blushing now). Not sure there’s a parliament that would have me, to be honest.
You know I love SL, and you know I’ve put in a fair few hours for the community… I just wish it were a little better and more stable and user-friendly than it is – that was my main point, really…
Gavin
[Reply]
Eloise Reply:
July 14th, 2010 at 9:55 pm
Not ignoring you, just trying to find a good reply and a bit under the weather so sleeping when I should have been thinking of an answer for you.
As for blushing… yup.
[Reply]
admin Reply:
July 14th, 2010 at 10:04 pm
Hope you feel better soon! As for answers, there are only questions
Gavin
Hi Gavin,
Last night when we talked you told us about when you accidentally left terraforming on and found someone had some fun playing around with with peaks spiking into the air some 400m high.
Can you relate some funny happenings on EduNation? What were your most embarassing moments? Your most challenging tasks? Which session or person at the Slanguages conference impressed you most? With whom did you share most of the time during the initial lonely hours? What annoyed you and what did you enjoy? Did you ever fall in love with an avatar? Ever got stuck for days in some rock?
Just curious.
Rgds Heike
[Reply]
admin Reply:
July 14th, 2010 at 10:03 pm
Hmm…
Funny incidents? Well, nothing sticks in my mind.. As I told you, I bought the island set everything out and had it returned sometiem shortly after, ruining a whole two days of work. Plenty of trouble with terraforming (the tools are not great)… but I’m not sure any of that is actually funny, really.
I spent an awful lot of time on my own in the first few weeks, but there was lots to do, so the time flew by. Pretty much everything anoyed me, to be honest… the building tools, the terraformng tools, but I soon got used to them all (after a fashion) and if anyone wants to learn scripting, then I’d hure Eloise, because she’s brilliant and makes you work hard and ask all the difficult questions!
Fall in love with an avatar? Um… I don’t generally fall in love with cartoon characters, but I have met some amazing and lovely people over the years. Not love, exactly – friendship and respect, I suspect.
I wore a box on my head a few times (I miss those early days!) but I never got stuck in a rock.
Gavin
[Reply]
I will share a slightly funny incident where Gavin suffered mercilessly at my hands. Of course he is far too much a gentleman to have ever mentioned it but every time I think of it I still cringe with embarrassment
It was very early on in my time in SL, before I had learned to do anything (not that I ever improved much). one of the days over the Christmas holiday Gavin showed me how to make a block and put a texture on it and a script in it. I was delighted and started playing with making loads of very simple things, adding scripts and textures, just generally going mad with my newfound skills and having a wonderful time.
Not many days later and new avatar came on to EduNation and started to chat. I showed her how to do all of the same things – thrilled beyond belief to be able to share something. This poor lady avatar, I still have her in my friends list, suffered in silence… it was weeks before I realized it was Gavin in one of his many alt avatars that I had been trying to teach – embarrassed or what?
– red blushing smiley…
[Reply]
admin Reply:
July 14th, 2010 at 10:31 pm
Carol,
Patently that was very, very naughty of me… Or a cunningly disguised revision activity. I’ll let you decide!
Gavin
[Reply]
I must admit I have often appeared in one of my alternative guises, one of which is a female. It’s interesting to hear what people say to them about my main avatar!
[Reply]
Carol,
Gavin,
May I ask who on EduNation is still around as long as you both have been? Who has been the man or the woman from the first hour? Dennis? Nergiz?
rgds Heike
[Reply]
admin Reply:
July 15th, 2010 at 12:42 pm
Heike,
Difficult to tell, to be honest. Certainly Dennis was around when it was just EduNation rather than the three islands. Nergiz I remember more from EduNation II, but my memory isn’t what it used to be… Not sure if anyone from the really early days is still hanging around – perhaps the folk from Study.Com…
However, I reckon we should be looking forward, not back… that’s all ancient history now.
Gavin
[Reply]
I joined SL on 3 June 2007. I set up the EUROCALL HQ on EduNation III in September 2007.
Graham
[Reply]
Graham Mills Reply:
July 16th, 2010 at 10:13 pm
Just for completeness, I’m fairly sure the original island was still in place in June 2007 (I remember visiting and thinking how nice it would be to rent there). I started renting on the restructured EduNation in July 2007 by which time EduNation II was certainly in place — can’t recall whether it was there on my original visit.
[Reply]
admin Reply:
July 17th, 2010 at 11:08 am
Graham,
Thanks for this – my memory isn’t what it used to be, so this is a timely reminder. Time flies when you’re having fun…
Gavin
[Reply]
Who is ancient, young Gavin?
Let me record again, as I look forward, that I came into SL after having lengthy discussions with one Dudeney and another SL household name, Graham Stanley, on various e-lists. Unbelievably, I was arguing sceptically AGAINST SL .What argumentss did I use? I cannot imagine.But I was so young and naive, an unconceived let alone a fledgling newbie. Mr. Linden’s profile tells me I joined SL on 10/12/2006 i.e. I am
currently 3 years 9 months old. I led a sheltered life, almost exclusively on the EduNation islands, where Gavin became my landlord, and he, Nergiz, Carol, Nick Noakes, and later Mary and Heieke and finally Kaylan have devoted hours of their lives patiently educating Osna Dennis in how to do things in this super world. Don’t judge the teachers by their pupils.
Hey, young lad Gavin. You haven’t said when the farewell party is yet. And since I am allegedly retired and can do what I like as long as it does not inconvenience others, and while I firmly believe in two both alternative when you can instead of having to take a choice – point me in the right direction to find out about this mobile thing youare so excited about.
Long live excitement in all its forms.
Osna Dennis
[Reply]
Using Second Life may be difficult and frustrating, as Gavin and several contributors to this blog thread have pointed out, but just using a computer ain’t that easy either. Those of you who work in educational institutions can probably rely on their computer services unit to handle most technical problems, but many of you are probably driven mad by the local techies who insist on blocking everything that you find useful: Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Youtube and even Google – yes, I once ran a training day in a secondary school in Birmingham (UK) that blocked Google, doubtless to prevent the little darlings (or maybe the male staff) from searching for pics and videos of pneumatically built ladies performing interesting tasks.
People like me, who work at home, have to sort out their own technical problems. Generally I am pretty good at this, having had a lot of experience as an owner of personal computers since 1981. But the last 3-4 weeks have been a nightmare, stretching my expertise to the limit. Two days before I went on holiday in the third week of June my Internet connection went down. I immediately phoned the help desk of my ISP. A very patient and pleasant guy at the help desk talked me through a series of checks and tests to ensure that everything was in order within my home – no disconnected plugs, no internal computer faults, etc, and he told me that he would therefore contact our local British Telecom exchange. About two hours later he reported back to me that the local exchange had been upgrading its equipment and that there had been a major outage lasting several hours. He promised to let me know when the fault was rectified. But the fault was not rectified before I went on holiday and I was obliged to leave everything in the hands of my younger daughter, who is very PC-literate and who continued to keep in touch with my ISP, carrying out further checks and tests as directed. Two weeks later I returned from my holiday and found I still had no Internet connection. I phoned the help desk of my ISP again, prepared to have a flaming row with them. But another very patient and pleasant guy calmed me down and talked me through more elaborate checks and tests which took well over two hours in three separate phone calls (paid for by my ISP) to complete. He finally pinned the problem down at the local exchange. It was a very obscure fault and was limited to my personal line, which he was able to identify by getting me to enter a series of codes and digits, one after another, into my Web browser. One hour later I was back on line, but restricted to 512Kbps until the line settled down 2-3 days later, when it got back up to its normal 4Mbps speed – due to BT’s so-called “dynamic line management” system which lowers and raises the speed of a line according to its measured stability.
When my line got back up to its normal speed I was puzzled because some Web pages were still taking 2-3 minutes to appear in my browser. I spent a couple of hours doing the usual checks in order to find out why my computer was running so slowly, but I drew a blank. Finally, I decided to use the Windows XP restore facility, choosing a restore point dated two days before my Internet connection went down. It worked and I got my speed back, but I then had to update a number of applications. I also ran checks with three different virus checkers. It appears that a virus had got in around this date and had multiplied while I was away and while my daughter was using the computer, but only one of my three virus checkers picked it up, namely AdAware. Problem finally solved, but all this cost an estimated 8 hours of my time. Using Second Life in comparison is a pushover.
My elder daughter, a committed Mac user, was totally unsympathetic. “I always told you to get a Mac”, she said.
[Reply]
admin Reply:
July 15th, 2010 at 6:38 pm
Graham,
Two points there – you know what you’re doing, through years of playing with computers – as do I. Most people do not, and will generally give up as soon as they encounter a problem that takes more than five minutes to solve.
The other is that running three virus checkers is really not recommended – you’re liable to get false posivitives from the rivals and spend days going round in circles trying to identify a virus that simply doesn’t exist.
Gavin
[Reply]
I only have one virus checker running in the background all the time, namely Avast, which has been pretty good so far. I run AdAware and SpyBot at regular intervals too. I know about false positives. My ICT guru (the guy who installed our hoem network) has always said that using different virus checkers is better than using just one, but not to panic when one checker throws up an virus that the others miss as it could be a false positive. I tested Spyware Doctor once, which was particularly prone to identifying non-existent viruses, so I ditched it.
AdAware found a genuine trojan. Avast missed it – it probably slipped in between upgrades between 16 and 17 June.
[Reply]
admin Reply:
July 15th, 2010 at 7:14 pm
Ah!
It was a terminology thing – Avast is an anti-virus programme, the others are software to ward off spyware, trojans and the like. No problem running those side-by-side, as there would be with three actual anti-virus programmes.
Gavin
[Reply]
Graham Davies Reply:
July 15th, 2010 at 7:51 pm
Actually, I have just realised that AdAware and SpyBot do run in the background too but, as you say, they do different things and they seem to do this quite unobtrusively without slowing my home computer network down. I would never run more than one AV programme in the background at the same time, e.g. Norton alongside McAfee – neither of which I like and both of which did slow my network down when I tested them.
Graham
[Reply]
Graham, Gavin. I have always thought there is a crying need for a site, a series of workshops, an electronic list – whatever – where keen users of computers who have, however, little or no knowledge of what is under the bonnet, who do not know their bits from their bytes and who would not recognize a stranded graphics card if they tripped over it, and would not know where or how to put it back where it belongs – lost my grip on my syntax – but we keen ignoramuses do want and need to learn as much as possible about the powerhouses on or under our desks. We don’t want the theory or the grammar of computers, but we urgently need trouble-shooting skills. Any suggestions?
[Reply]
admin Reply:
July 15th, 2010 at 7:58 pm
Dennis,
Without wishing to sound too flippant, I usually use Google and YouTube when I have a problem I can’t solve, or need to do something I haven’t done before. A good recent example was replacing the hard drive in my Macbook Pro. Having never taken the back off a Mac before, I was reticent – but YouTube came up trumps.
Gavin
[Reply]
Graham Davies Reply:
July 15th, 2010 at 8:05 pm
I used to run trouble-shooting workshops back in the 1980s and 1990s, but demand dropped as more and more schools installed networks and employed full-time network managers.
It’s a lot more difficult to trouble-shoot these days as there are more things to go wrong. There are also more diagnostic tools – few of which, however, I have found really useful. I always hunt around on the Web for solutions by typing key phrases such as “Web pages slow to display” or “iPhone will not connect to iTunes” – which happened to me recently and I did find a solution that worked. I also have a brilliant friend in Italy who thinks and breathes ICT. I can email him or talk to him on Skype and he nearly always knows the answer.
I am really a novice in these areas compared to my Italian friend, but I can offer simple advice such regularly clearing your computer’s cache, virus checking, running defrag now and again, limiting the number of startup programs, etc. What do other people think? I have a few pages at my website where I post advice, e.g.
Dodgy Links
http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/DodgyLinks.htm
Computer Viruses
http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/bugs.htm
…which reminds me to update them soon.
Graham
[Reply]
I take your point, Gavin. But being the sort of person who tries to learn only those functions of a program that I currently need, I have also often wished I could get around to an overview, a systematic coverage of what is there if I only I discover it.And, on top of that, I seem to specialise in problems that no-one else has experienced, ones that have not been Googleised or YouTubed.
Osna Dennis
[Reply]
Even Philip Linden doesn’t think SL is very stable or user-friendly…
http://blogs.secondlife.com/community/features/blog/2010/07/16/update-on-strategy-and-call-for-in-world-meeting
Gavin
[Reply]
Graham Mills Reply:
July 18th, 2010 at 6:32 pm
Perceived stability must vary a lot between users. Although the stats are surprisingly bad (LL believes that something like one session in eight ends in a crash), that is certainly not my experience, either at home or at work. I crashed once last week (while attempting to load an external PDF) and was genuinely surprised when it happened.
Again, the more experienced you get, the less you perceive and worry about lag. You know the rough topography of sims you are using and, if they are slow to rez, know to give it some time before taking a seat. If you are using a relatively small number of sims, there may be some benefits that accrue from local caching. You can explain this to students. Not a show-stopper unless you throw uncontrolled script and media use into the mix. It’s true then that just because something works perfectly for you under one set of conditions, e.g. one avatar in a sim, doesn’t mean it works just as well for a class under different conditions. Again, not a show-stopper provided the teacher is aware of the issues. Just need to be a little conservative.
Positing that improved “user-friendliness” is the main barrier to mass-market uptake is an untested hypothesis. I’m not saying that the viewer couldn’t be improved in that regard, just that, as I’ve said before, the basics are not that hard to pick up so long as you don’t rush things.
Philip Linden is, of course welcome to his own opinion though I think he’s looking at his diminished resources and playing to the gallery somewhat.
[Reply]
Eloise Reply:
July 18th, 2010 at 6:50 pm
You’re just trying to provocative now I guess.
Steve Jobs uses a lot of the same language, or similar language when the same terms aren’t quite applicable, each time there’s a new version of OSX released. It will improve speed, improve stability, improve the user experience. I don’t follow the Microsoft press releases, but their longer adverts on TV here last year said a lot of the same things.
I’m not trying to claim there aren’t improvements possible, in all three situations, but taking that as a genuine indicator of how user-friendly and stable things are is silly.
[Reply]
admin Reply:
July 18th, 2010 at 8:46 pm
El,
Yes, that was deliberately provocative in part – though it´s funny to see it coming up from Philip at such an opportune moment, I reckon. I take Graham’s points above – but I still reckon that if you have to describe the issues with technology as ‘not show stoppers’ then there is still a way to go to make it a reliable platform, and then even more way to go to make it accessible to people with less experience, knowledge and commitment to experiment.
As I keep saying, I like SL a lot, but it’s not just about those of us who have put the hundreds of hours in to be able to work around the ‘not quite show stoppers’, it’s about those who will be stopped at the first hurdle. I think the hurdles should be fewer by now – I think that was really my only point.
Technology training with teachers at the weekend we came up against a lab that wouldn’t even run YouTube properly due to old (and crap) browsers – and once again I watched as some people were instantly demotivated, and had their worst suspicions about technology in teaching confirmed. I’m not saying all that is necessarily logical or valid, but it’s more the reality on the ground for the average teacher.
Gavin
[Reply]
One point I found particularly interesting in this lengthy debate is the implicit assumption that SL is just a tool, one of many pedagogical tools, to be used at the teacher’s discretion (or not). The original Gavin’s post appears to be based on this assumption: I fails to work properly, so let’s abandon it in favour of some better tools to get the job done. Fair enough! But to many of us SL educators SL is so much more: a life! A second life which we have thanks to LL to be there, enjoy, socialize, and — maybe — to use professionally for teaching. We are, in a word, immersionists
To an immersionist the (technical) problems with SL which Gavin identified are not more serious than some problems with our first lives: rainy sometimes, headaches, hard to catch up with the recent developments, etc. Yet, with all the FL problems, we do not easily give up: we try to correct/improve, and if we cannot, we simply take things for granted and continue to push on. It is our LIFE! One does not readily give up on it and grab another, does one?
[Reply]
Heike Philp Reply:
July 21st, 2010 at 2:38 pm
Beautifully said. I feel the same.
Heike
[Reply]
admin Reply:
July 21st, 2010 at 2:51 pm
Wlodzimierz,
Many things – such as rain and headaches, certainly happen, and are often unavoidable. However, Second Life is avoidable. Really you’re confirming my original point by saying “yes, it’s flaky, but I think it’s worth spending hours and hours looking for some kind of workarond that will let me do what I want”. My point (exactly that) is that most teachers do not have the luxury of the equipment, the connection and the hours and hours it takes to get au fait with SL, solve the contnuing problems of voice, etc., and learn the skills they need to put it to good use.
I make no assumption that SL is simply a tool – however, in many educational contexts it will be just a tool, a tool for dealing with knowledge and content. People will use it in their learning, but who’s to say they will also use it for the things you like – for the social aspect? I suspect that they’re more likely to carry on with Facebook, Twitter and SMS than suddenly find a deep liking for SL, if only for the shoddy graphics compared to the average computer game.
So, what is good for you is not necessarily good for either under-resourced and time-poor teachers, or for learners who are used to something easier, mre flexible, more reliable and, more importantly, readily-available on their mobile phone…
The sentiment is indeed beautiful, but the reality is not necessarily so.
Gavin
[Reply]
Eloise Reply:
July 21st, 2010 at 4:08 pm
I think there’s an erroneous assumption of dichotomy going on here.
I don’t think anyone that knows me would doubt that I live, work and play in Second Life. I genuinely use it as an extra or an addition to my life depending on how you want the semantics to be diced (not germane here).
But Gavin’s criticisms centre around it being too unstable and having too long a learning curve for the bulk of educators. They do form a distinct subset of residents, and they form a subset where they demand that people use it reasonably quickly, reliably, and above all that they learn. Assessing Second Life as a platform for that specific set of users is reasonable – just as assessing Second Life as a space for furries to explore is, or as a place for Goreans to role play, or clubbers to dance and listen to music (or maybe club each other to death).
Some of those groups (not Gavin, but some members of each of them), assume that everyone wants to use SL their way and if they’d just fix what they want fixing the world would be a happier place. That’s plain misguided and short-sighted in my opinion.
But let me try and phrase it this way. You use SL as an adjunct to living, not just a tool for teaching. Welcome to the club. Let’s say a RL friend of yours, one who works for a large company that isn’t already in SL, wants to know about the possibility of using SL for a virtual meeting space to reduce travel expenses for her employers.
Do you tell her everything about the opportunities in SL? Do you mention kinky sex clubs, balloon rides and the like? Or do you focus on buying or renting an island, voice and the like?
I still disagree with Gavin’s assessment that SL is too flakey for most educators, but making the assessment of “is it right for my educational purposes” doesn’t preclude me from deciding no and still using SL for other things. It’s a bit like arguing that my home isn’t fit for use as a lecture theatre so I’d better commit suicide.
[Reply]
admin Reply:
July 21st, 2010 at 4:27 pm
El,
Don’t you come over here to my blog and be all sensible… Yes, SL has been a source of much social enjoyment for me, and much learning, and much fun and creativity – that much has never really been in doubt. For all of those things there has never been a need directly to assess my mastery of the environment, or any learning I may have done.
In general education, however, that’s not often the case – so assessing the suitability of SL for education is of greater import than it is assessing its suitability for distance virtual sex, concerts, or whatever.
I’d be happy to carry on using it for socialising, etc., it’s just that I don’t have enough time to socialise generally, and most of my friends are not SL users, so it doesn’t make much sense.
It’s not so much only that I consider it a bit flaky (and the SLED list, recent events I’ve been to, and reports from friends going to events do bear that out a fair bit)) but that it is demanding when it *does* work – it demands good hardware, good connections, and a degree of training that a good many other edtech tools don’t. I just wonder if the payoff is worth it in most cases, andi if it isn’t often a sledgehammer to crack a nut…
Wish I had time to socialise in SL, I truly do – it’s a great platform for that, at the very least.
Gavin
[Reply]
Eloise Reply:
July 21st, 2010 at 4:34 pm
I could review the last film I saw instead if you’d prefer?
For some of the other frivolous uses, you’re just not my type I’m afraid!
Otherwise you’re stuck with sensible old me. Or with running away and claiming you’re too busy to ever visit!
As I understand Gavin’s point – my formulation, not his – it is that as a freelance he has to make practical, business decisions and be firm about priorities, especially with regard to how he spends his time and in which directions he focusses his energy. For some of us, layabout senior citizens like me or those who work in benevolent state or private institutions that pay them for being speculative, experimental, seekers after truth, it is possible to be less stringent. I, for example, converted to SL by Gavin, amongst others, as I have mentioned several times before, with no pressures on me beyond those I inflict on myself, have the freedom and luxury (and the lust)to go on optimistically experimenting.
Apart from this, I find myself very much in agreement with Wlodek, that SL is for some of us much more than just one of a range of tools for educational use. I agree with a recent contributor (sorry to have lost access to the name) who wrote that SL is something to be explored and experimented with. But I would add that cyou need to love SL to stay with it. It can be a very frustrating place indeed, as we all know.
Last night, to give an illustration of this point, I did a small workshop for about seven people on how to use the two scripts Builder’s Buddy to create a holodeck. It was a typically…..rich?? ….. SL experience.
1. The platform was new and the landmark turned out not to be very accurate. I kept on ending up underwater well below the platform rather than on it.
2. After a few successful visits, my avatar kept on falling through the surface, including when I was running the workshop, and I ended up teaching hovering.
3. One or two of the students could not land on the surface of platform. For a while, they hovered with me.
4. I had prepared a number of kits, boxes, containing the object and the scripts with which I wanted students to work. Students were not able to open or edit these objects – for a reason I have yet to discover.
5. The slide projector I was using stuck after showing one slide, and would go no further.
6. I tried to pass an object to a very competent SL student to pass on to the group. The transfer simply did not work.
7. Following plan not B but about F we moved to my residence to at least experience going up to the top of a tower by transporter. The transporters had not rezzed as they normally do, and could not be found. (So I rezzed someone else’s castle instead and at least generated a whoop of amazement).
So why will I be repeating the session tonight and carry on twice a week for the next few weeks? Because, despite these setbacks, I remain convinced that it is possible to go on improving one’s SL skills, trouble-shooting expertise being paramount. And I remain convinced, too, the interactions with the people behind the avatars in SL is frequently exciting, stimulating, rich and rewarding and potentially, at least, strongly conducive to learning.
[Reply]
Heike Philp Reply:
July 23rd, 2010 at 9:54 am
Thank you for sharing this experience, Dennis, I meant to ask you how your first workshop in SL went.
Since you are putting oil on Gavin’s fire, may I ask you, how much of these technical glitches was down to Second Life not working and how much down to ‘user error’, such as not knowing how to do it.
I guess it is difficult to say, but perhaps you have tried all of these things like passing objects, presenting slides, working on a sandbox etc. before and they worked for you and therefore you could also let us know why this time they didnt.
For example, was the sandbox you were working on somewhere different this time? In the sky?
Rgds Heike
[Reply]
Heike, Delighted to try to answer your questions. First of all, though, let me make it clear that my intention in writing about what went wrong was:
1. An attempt to amuse and share experience.
2. A way of illustrating that although I know all about the frustrations of SL and things going wrong I am STILL enthusiastic about it and will have to be carried out struggling before I leave permanently.
3. This was by no means my first appearance in SL as a presenter (though one might wonder…..), but, come to think of it, it was the first time I was completely on my own without a friend or colleague somewhere near to give moral or other kinds of support.
4. Poiut 3 does make me reflect that team teaching would be a most appropriate model for any kind of SL teaching. There are always likely to be technical hitches and it makes for much better efficiency if there is one person who can concentrate exclusively on the teaching.
5. Dealing with the things that went wrong – and I will gladly share any further feedback I get from friends and colleagues:
5.1. Sharing an object via the person’s profile – The space “Drop itms for sharing here” simply did not appear.
5.2 Was the platform new? Yes. Very – just a day-and-a-half old, and it had been moved a couple of times within that time period.
5.3 The slide projector that stopped working It stopped working, so I downloaded a new one and tried it out. It worked – at first, but not during the workshop session.
5.4 Why did my avatar keep going through the floor? No-one, including the creator of the platform, knows or has a clue. Re-booting improved matters – but not permanently.
5.5 The most serious problem – the students’ inability to open their kit boxes and rez and use the objects contained with the supplied scripts – that I am still researching. A severe self-criticism would be that I should have tried out the usability of these boxes with other people before the session began. On the other hand this probably something like the fourth or fifth time that I done a workshop on BB, and it was reasonable to assume that it would work as it had always worked in the past.
5.6 In oassing let me note that preparation for this workshop was very extensive and took a lot of time.
5.7 NOTWITHSTANDING my highlighting what went wrong, there are several positive comments that can be made:
5.7.1 7-8 people from various parts of the world with a common interest met each other and, as one of them put it, had an “adventure” together.
5.7.2 There was a lot of contextualised practice of various sub-skills:
a Movingstr objects L R up and down
b Using Alt plus L click mouse + scrolling to focus on a screen
c. Using the resources under View to look around the platform where the workshop was taking place
d. Excercising the power to ask and answer questions with other learners
e. Chatting to me and to students about a range of topics.
…. And all this in English for about 90 minutes, and at no cost beyond that of having access to a comuter and access through it the internet, including SL.
[Reply]
Osna Dennis Reply:
July 24th, 2010 at 6:33 am
Heike and readers of this blog. “Don’t shoot the messenger and don’t blame the tool.” To be fair to SL let me record that checking out why the kits I created for distribtion in my recent workshop on using Builder’s Buddy could not be used (participants could not see contents or rez items)it looks almost certain that this was because I had not checked permissions carefully enough. Some objects I had created slipped through without full permissions, critically copy and transfer.
No-one so far has been able to tell me why I fell through the surface of the platform or why the slide presenter stopped presenting.
On reflection, I think I was trying to be too cool – creating a clickable dispenser instead of just dropping copies of objects on to each avatar in the workshop, for example.
And to cut out the possibility of the projector malfunctioning I’ve just decided to turn each slide into a separate stand-lone poster linking them together and recording their positions relative to each other when I set them out and turning them into simple holodeck with Builder’s Buddy.
[Reply]
Dennis
We have two platforms above the EUROCALL/CALICO HQ on EduNation III. So far no one has fallen off – each platform is protected by a wall which you would have to jump over in order to fall off. One platform is the Resources Centre, where people can pick up free boxes of objects (plants, funrniture, buildings, clothing), and the other, the Skydeck, is used for a variety of purposes, including teaching and running training courses. There is a Horizons rezzer on the Skydeck, which we can use to generate different scenarios. Trainees cannot change the scenarios here, but we have two rezzers down below, on the main CALICO plot and on the roof of the EUROCALL HQ, which anybody can use.
You are welcome to use the decks at any time – just IM me (Groovy Winkler in SL) or Randall Sadler (Randall Renoir in SL).
There are two permanent PowerPoint presentations running in the EUROCALL HQ. Slides are presented on the Preso-Matic Turbo screen, which I obtained free of charge from the 6FI Technology Tower on International Schools Island. There is some fantastic free stuff there!
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/International%20Schools/29/88/73
The Preso-Matic Turbo screens are very easy to install and they can be set up to run under the control of visitors or under the control of presenters. I have found Preso-Matic Turbo very reliable.
As for Builder’s Buddy, we ran a workshop on Builder’s Buddy and the Horizons holodeck system at CALICO 2010 in June. It wasn’t easy. We found that if several people are building scenarios with Builder’s Buddy in the same area you may get overlaps – e.g. you end up deleting the objects of the person next to you or merging your objects with theirs. We also found that people found it quite difficult to follow the instructions correctly – one step out of sequence and Builder’s Buddy does not work. Personally, I think teaching building skills with Builder’s Buddy or the Horizons system is best done on a one-to-one basis. In future I will just demomstrate what this systems can do when I am training a group of people together – e.g. next week at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London.
Graham
[Reply]
Coming very late to this but Gavin,
what happened to your “view from the Plateau of Productivity? Maybe Gartner’s hype cycle is incomplete and there is another “Trough of Disillusionment” for some after the Plateau?
Nergiz
[Reply]
admin Reply:
July 26th, 2010 at 8:52 pm
Nergiz,
Maybe that’s the case for some… but I don’t think charts such as Gartner’s show the whole story, nor do they necessarily reflect the practical day-to-day of dealing with technology…
Gavin
[Reply]
I was referring to your article in the ETp (issue 61) from which I had the impression you were recommending SL but then again that was one and half years ago.
I actually agree with a lot what you say but couldn’t resist teasing you a bit
I belief that Second Life has a lot of potential but agree that it is not a resource like the Internet that you can quickly dip into for a short activity unless the students already have SL accounts and know the basics. It’s a long way before online teachers, who are often booked on an hourly basis, can take their students to Second Life for part of the lesson. Paying students want to have value for their money and not spent part of their lessons troubleshooting.
But there are many learners who take to Second Life and who appreciate the possibilities for language learning that it provides them with. These learners don’t find the software difficult to use and not all of them are interested in learning the advanced skills like building and scripting. They simply want to go to places, meet people and socialize and by doing so improve their language skills as a by-product or even main aim. Some of them appreciate the help of teachers in this process.
I completely agree with you that virtual worlds will take much longer to be a tool of choice for the masses of teachers or learners but they already work for many and I believe that they have a future. This is why I will continue learning about and working in a virtual world and helping other teachers learn how to teach there. At the same time, I am also interested in and use tools like the Internet and mobile phones with most of my students because these are the most accessible for them and are most suited to their situation.
Nergiz
[Reply]
Please, try to think of SL (if only for the sake of an intellectual exercise) as a foreign country which you take your language students to. Your main objective: teach them (or rather – let them learn) the language and culture in situ, in an authentic setting, interactively. All kinds of problems unavoidably come up, such as lost passports, delayed planes/trains, lousy cuisine, bad downtown quarters, hostel cockroaches, slow internet, bureaucracy, etc. After two or three such trips you’ve had enough and you want to withdraw, and continue to safely teach with the traditional methods (i.e. 2d internet, iphones, whiteboards, etc.
. But, suddenly at this point your past and in-spe students flood you with mails urging you NOT to give up, because — they say — they actually love/d the trip, DESPITE all those downsides, which they duly noticed, but ignored. They LOVED being there, the rich environment/culture so different from their own, the adventure, the fun. They did not think of their trip as a tool to use to better/faster learn grammar or pronunciation. To them it was (part of) their LIFE, not some kind of a clever gizmo or project. If they did learn some language, great! But this is not primarily why they treasure the experience. Language learning is — to them — the extra bonus. It’s the LIFE they loved most.
How many learners are like this? Not all, certainly. Fine! Let the ones who prefer to stay at home e-learn from there. Don’t take them into SL; they’ll suffer for all those reasons I mentioned above, and many more. But, Gavin, please don’t orphan the bunch of students who want to go. Who can take care of them better than you?
(Humbly undersigned as one of your students)
WS/B
[Reply]
admin Reply:
August 4th, 2010 at 1:37 pm
Wlodzimierz,
I sort of know what you’re saying, but I can’t go with the analogy without stretching my creative juices beyond credulity, I’m afraid. When you organise a foreign trip, you have quite a bit of control over the quality of accommodation, the airline, the sense of responsibility of your learners, the restaurants you choose, etc., etc.
Unlike SL, where everything is dictated by a benevolent ruler, on your analagous trip, I have a great degree of control over many facets of the experience and I can, to a large extent, ensure that my learners have as good a time as we can afford.
As for floods of emails from learners wanting to spend time in SL… well, when I get them I’ll let you know. I did a lot of teacher training in SL, and very few of the people I trained stayed in SL, came back to it, spent a significant amount of time in it, or carried out any teaching or training in it. No floods, I’m afraid… And very few have made it a part of their life.
As for who can take care of them better than me…. well, I suspect you and many other committed educators who are still prepared to make the effort in SL, and who have the experience to make it as comfortable and profitable as possible. I suppose, really, part of this whole post was the realisation that I don’t need SL, and – obviously – SL doesn’t need me either!
Gavin
[Reply]
Bit late to the discussion.
I take the opinion that while Second Life is a great idea and definitely the way the web will be. But technology is not mature enough for the implementation of a full 3D world yet.
The parallel I see is with the development of Voice over IP (VoIP). I was working in high tech in 1996 and one of our clients was a technology start-up that was developing VoIP, millions of dollars of venture capital money was invested and the tech columns were full of articles about the possibility and need for VoIP.
Were did they go……… The technology worked but not well enough. The infrastructure and Internet were not mature enough. It wasn’t till Skype came along in 2003 that ‘We’ were ready and 500 million user accounts and 13% of all international calls proves that the need and market are very real.
We need educators to use technology in their teaching, it is a vital necessity for their students but it is difficult enough to reach this target without placing additional technology barriers in their way. I initiated an European Union project called Web2.0 European resource centre http://www.web20erc.eu/ that is producing Web 2.0 tools with appropriate guides and examples specifically for educators that is attempting to lower technology barriers and in my opinion, this is the way to go.
Joel
Kindersite Project
http://www.kindersite.org/
[Reply]
Folks,
I think we may have done this one to death. I noticed earlier this week Chris Pirillo (of Lockergnome fame) being blasted – quite rightly – for referring to SL as all gambling and porn. I also just noticed that he was invited back to SL for a reassessment and this is what Wagner James Au concludes over on New World Notes (http://nwn.blogs.com/):
There’s more here on the Phasing Grace site:
There’s a lot in this little debacle with Pirillo, including, I think, my observations on stability and ‘first hour’ experience – but the one thing I noted was right at the end of that particular post:
Interesting stuff, to be sure… As a ‘novice user’, Pirillo’s concerns and observations are perfectly valid, I think – the big question is: is anything being done about this, and will stability be improved in the short/mid/long term?
[Reply]
Life after death
Admin writes:
“I think we may have done this one to death.”
For those who wish to continue fighting the good fight see:
from Lesley Scopes
reply-to Second Life Research Listserv
subject [Slrl] No Confidence in Educational uses of SL
Hi Listers,
I have been working very hard to bring structure to the issue of teaching in SL. I developed a model of Cybergogy which is specific to 3D virtual worlds – The Cybergogy of Learning Archetypes. I gave a presentation at VWBPE 2010 and my work appears in Learning in 3D (Kapp & O’Driscoll 2010) My goal was to eliminate quasi teaching which undermines all we set out to demonstrate, which is the legitimacy of the effectiveness of 3D platforms like SL, and others, and to install validity into teaching methods using 3DiVW’s. Whilst I agree there is little evidence of valuable teaching going on in SL I’m pretty sure it does on private islands. This post is from a long-time list lurker in an effort to demonstrate that there are people who desperately believe that virtual worlds are the probable future of e-learning and stake their academia upon it. And yet I agree, there may be little evidence of SL being effectively used as a ‘platform’. I have the obvious resolution to this!
Please feel free to contact me off list at xxxxxxx
Lesley Scopes MSc
University of Southampton, UK
[Reply]
admin Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 3:50 pm
Dennis,
You’ll forgive me the intrusion, but I’ve edited this comment to remove Lesley’s email address since this comes from a subscription listserv.
Best,
Gavin
[Reply]
[...] not) and there are many many detractors who would like this to be so. Then you get people like Gavin bowing out, and you wonder who might be next. And I wonder, I really wonder, if I should abandon any effort I [...]
Dear all,
I am trying to reach the tenants of EduNation I and III to invite them to a tenants meeting on August 22-23,2010. Here is the doodle to indicate your availabilities for those interested in meeting up. http://www.doodle.com/vvtarw2idz7k49e5
Also included are those who are genuinly interested in the future of EduNation without actually being tenants. You are most welcome to put your name down on the doodle. We will meet as usual on EduNation II in the sandbox.
So as not to take away the suprise of what will be announced at the meeting, I can not say much here. However what I can say is, that it is worth attending because some really great development is being planned and I am very excited.
The key man in this development is Randall Sadler aka Randall Renoir who has agreed to take over ownership of EduNation III only about 1 week ago. He represents CALICO on the island and is assistant professor of Linguistics and Second Language Acquistion and Teacher Education at the University of Illinois.
He is a master in building and his holodecks are famous (don’t forget to ask him for a copy of his Renoir castle). His building work is of low prim counts and at the same time very beautiful. He buys where appropriate textures, plants and other artifacts, if they hold value for money, and is resourceful with a great imagination on how to use space efficiently.
I kept saying that EduNation is an island for language educators and that it is not really an island for language learners. Why? Because if you are learning Spanish, then this is what your surroundings should be, namely Spanish. If you are learning German, German and so on. So, I always felt that EduNation is only there for us educators to form a community and to learn from each other.
Randall however made me see that, by using holodecks it is quite possible to develop language themes for a group of learners and that it may be possible for us educators to collaborate and bring our learners together. English learners in the US (Mexicans for example) together with English learners in France.
This is just an idea.
So, Randall does the building and we at LANCELOT School, what will we do? Well, more about what is going to change at the meeting… I shouldn’t take away all the suprises, shouldn’t I?
Look forward to seeing you there.
[Reply]
Heike Philp Reply:
August 19th, 2010 at 6:59 pm
So, the tenants meeting has now been fixed to be Sunday, 23 August, 7pm GMT, 12pm noon SL time, 3pm New York.
World Times: http://tinyurl.com/37w67wf
[Reply]
Dennis Reply:
August 20th, 2010 at 6:12 am
Heike,
Your World Times link points to Thursday 21 September!
[Reply]
Heike Philp Reply:
August 20th, 2010 at 8:55 am
Hi Dennis,
You are right, deng, here is the correct URL.
http://tinyurl.com/3273puw
Thanks for letting me know.
Heike
BTW, nice new blog design Gavin, very cool.
I am replying to your note about the new SL viewer and the new environment for learning. SL the new version does take some getting use to but it is designed for a younger generation that are not necessarily into further education but social networking only. Yes, I agree that 3D and virtual learning is a preferred method in a lot of cases for learning and we will see more and more of these type of applications on the web. I do not go into SL much anymore since the viewer was changed but I haven’t given up on this platform entirely.
Thanks for your thoughts on SL they sound a lot like mine were the first times I used their new viewer.
[Reply]
Aloha Gavin,
Just seeing this post . . . First, I must thank-you – many warn Hawaiian mahalos – for all the incredibly helpful education tools you so carefully scripted and gifted to the sl community. They made a huge difference in many teachers’ creative endeavors in sl. I have been a sl & LL evangelist for all my sl life, and it has been difficult lately to see the radical changes and feel what “experiences” like a de-stabaliztion of the user experience, rather than any real enhancements. Initially I felt it was a personal reaction, so I was quiet, assuming I would “catch on” to the “improved UI”. I realize now though, they ARE radical changes, they are NOT geared to the veteran residents, they ARE completely re-vamped with goals in mind other than enhancing the user experience for existing residents. WHAT those goals are remain unknown to me and seemingly unforthcoming from Linden Lab. Still, Second Life remains my virtual world home base. As I always have, and like you and many others, I explore alternative virtual platforms and other opensim grids. As niche purpose worlds develop, hypergridding w/assets becomes a standard and a secure virtual currency exchange is established, we sl residents can continue to pioneer virtual horizons. Go Forth! Create! Aloha nui loa to you all . . . cy’all there ;-D
[Reply]
Gavin Dudeney Reply:
September 10th, 2010 at 3:34 pm
Gwenette,
Thanks for the kind words – it was a pleasure to experiment and design useful tools. Maybe it’s just me…. maybe as Mark suggests (below) I’m just a bit jaded….
Gavin
[Reply]
thanks for writing this article – the personal perspective, the walk through time – very useful. i’ve been in SL since 2007 and only just began teaching this spring. class of 20 students, no SL experience, viewer 2, many with nothing more than UMTS sticks. value-add: this class could not have met in real life. results: smashing. we’re on 2 islands since earlier this year and i am looking forward to doing a lot more with this. however: there must be a value-add – none of my colleagues will follow me into virtuality just because it’s there and it’s pretty. good luck with your endeavours!
[Reply]
Gavin Dudeney Reply:
September 10th, 2010 at 3:36 pm
Marcus,
Thanks for the comment – I reckon it’s like everything else: works for some, doesn’t work for others. I think it just stopped working for me – I’d rather use an easier, more reliable platform like Adobe Connect or Elluminate for distance teaching and training. I do miss the look of SL, though!
Gavin
[Reply]
The Distance Education Schools in Australia are have a great deal of success in Skoolaborate – a roped off area of SL. Maybe Gavin you got into it too early – were ahead of your time – met too many road blocks and ultimately became jaded. Get in touch with me at Distance Education Centre Victoria – in a country as vast as ours we are already using SL to connect kids and build community. Perhaps if you shrugged off the doldrums you might like to help progress this environment as a means of building community and connecting teachers and students. Feel free to get in touch.
[Reply]
Gavin Dudeney Reply:
September 10th, 2010 at 3:29 pm
Mark,
I don’t think it’s so much being ahead of time and the roadblocks. I worked through that era because I though things were going to get better… but I really don’t think they have. Now with Viewer 2.0, LL letting go anybody comitted to and supporting education in SL, the recent Emerald Viewer troubles and all the rest, it just seems like some kind of weird personal fiefdom where users are not important as long as there are enough of them to pay the bills. I just don’t see any evolution. I do, however, recognise that some amazing educational projects are still taking place in SL (though fewer, as people migrate to other platforms) and I honestly salute those who are still going.
Gavin
[Reply]
[...] morning a colleague in History and Philosophy guided me to this article, http://slife.dudeney.com/?p=446. It was good to know I was not alone in my frustration. My avatar, Oyama Maroon, looking upset with [...]
[...] MultimediaGavin Dudeney on More iPad TipsFrustrations with Second Life « EDMT and Beyond on Second Life – The Long GoodbyeGood Findings… Search [...]
[...] Autumn #elearning — Topsy.com on Eventful AutumnEventful Autumn « That'SLife on Second Life – The Long GoodbyeGavin on Keynote – Ipad – MultimediaGood Findings… Search [...]
For those who are interested in the development of EduNation.
EduNation III is nearly completed and most of the plots have been let already.
Randall has done a fantastic job of turning the island into a tropical paradise. Kudos for this outstandingly beautiful handywork.
EduNation I will close for development this coming weekend and re-open on Monday 15 November. Carol Rainbow is working on it and she is an incredible master worker in Second Life, knows the insight out of terraforming and due to all development changes had to even do the island three times over! She is an awesome and hardworking SL expert indeed.
For more information on the new EduNation check out the new website
http://edunation-islands.wikispaces.com
Hope to see you inworld. Heike aka Gwen
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[...] Gavin Dudeney’s Second Life – The Long Goodbye [...]
[...] are really just conversation starters. When the post post discussion burns brightly such as when Gavin Dudeney of the Consultants-e blogged about his reasons for pulling out of Second Life, it can be a fantastic crystalisation of community and important issues through a conversation. [...]
[...] Gavin Dudeney’s Second Life – The Long Goodbye [...]
I understand your choice but I still sorry it has come to that. Maybe I am still a believe. I too have been very involved in the SL community for years. It saddens me to see so many of the major organizations who jumped on board in 2009 when SL was the new hot thing drop away one by one. Even so I still believe that SL is not so much dying as sleeping. I see the success of groups like Rockville, Stanford and many others and I hear the early rustling of the penudium slowing swinging back. I hope at some point Lindens get a clue and realize that throwing massive amounts of money at sims for fickle gamers is a waste when simply deceasing tier fees for educational sims would be a cheap way of building stable user base. oh well, I can dream
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