Looking at the feedback (35 people so far), I think we got an awful lot right this year, with a few improvements which can be implemented for the next one. What is immedaitely obvious is that this is now a ‘proper’ conference with a large number of people attending and speaking and is going to need a lot more people next time to guarantee it can continue to grow and serve the language learning and teaching community. We may even be looking for a third or possibly fourth sim on which to run it next year. Here I’d like to look at some of the feedback and comment on it:
1) Technical Support
Having said we would not be able to provide technical support on the day (the team was just too small) we inevitably ended up with a lot of new SL users and quite a few with problems. The biggest problems were not knowing how to deal with notecards and landmarks, and not having configured voice. I think we did what we could, but frankly if voice has worked for someone before and isn’t working at the time, then there’s little that can be done. I advised people with voice problems (provided they had used it before) to exit and come back in-world and that seemed to work most of the time. SL behaved amazingly for me for 24 hours and I only had to exit twice during that period. Next year we may need some technical support staff on hand.
2) Timetable
This year we scheduled talks over a straight twenty-four hour period and tried to get people to speak twice in order to guarantee a spread and a decent choice. One of the questions at the end was whether it might be better to have two twelve-hour days. My response was “twelve hours for whom?” As with a f2f conference, you’re never going to be able to see everything, and if we divided it into two twelve-hour days, we would have to do something like a ‘European’ twelve hour slot and an ‘American’ twelve-hour slot. And, to my mind, that makes… um…. a normal day! I’m not sure if the 24 hour model can be improved on, but suggestions are welcome in comment.
3) Variety of talks
I’m not sure if this is an SL thing, but people going to a f2f conference usually expect plenty of PowerPoint and a lot of talking, followed by (if they’re lucky) some discussion. In SL this is often criticised as not making good use of SL, but I’m wondering why SL is supposed to be different??? We did have a lot of PPT sessions followed by discussion, but we also had four field trips, an ‘introduction to building’ and a couple of other sessions. I guess I’d like to ask the person who said that it was dull to watch presentations in SL what they would do – and if they’d be prepared to actually come along and do it next time. Having said that, I think more workshops would be good. What’s holding that back is, of course, the skillset of a lot of the participants. I managed to get sixteen people with no experience of building to produce a notecard giver, but that’s hard work, and risky – people can get disappointed easily.
I think those are some of the more important issues, and there are things to do to improve on the event… Things we definitely got right were the sign-up process and the support website (thanks Howard!), the clear timetable, the social events and the variety of speakers. I think it’s now time to sit down and see how we can take this conference to new heights next year.
It’s all worth it, however, when you get feedback like this:
- I guess it’s been perfect from my point of view. Very carefully thought, organized, varied, etc.
- It was awesome! Two days non-stop educational conference? Where else???
- As an ESL teacher in Canada I know that this would just rock my colleagues.
- It’s been the best organised conference (in RL or SL) that I’ve been to all year!
- I think this is THE conference for language educators in SL.
- I learned more about SL in the few hours I was in this conference than the whole of the rest of my time in SL so far. In fact I signed up in SL to have just these types of experiences, so I finally felt that I got what SL was all about (finally)!
So, pretty good, I reckon. Lots to improve on – the one area I think we could definitely work on is getting next year going sooner with more information for speakers and presenters, and building the interest earlier. The other area is obviously more practical sessions – more building, more design, etc.
Time to start planning SLanguages 2009…
For me personally, the conference was a huge success. I’ve learned a lot and was very sad that I couldn’t attend more sessions due to some RL issues. It also helped me meet and connect to people I’d like to work with. I, too, had no technical problems during the event.
Regarding the person who said the presentations were dull. I think the PPT in-world were much more interesting than in RL because you can chat with the presenter and with the other participants during the presentation, which you can’t always do in RL. Plus in most cases there was a choice and you could attend a different session or have a break
My suggestion for next year: If there are still a lot of newbies who only recently signed up or sign up for the conference. You might offer (with the help of other people) an SL starter workshop so you wouldn’t have to help people get started during the conference. I attended a 4-day conference organised by Clever Zebra. The first session every day was a short workshop for beginners on SL basics and people they could IM with such issues.
All in all, you did an extremely good job and I am very much looking forward to SLanguages 2009.
Nergiz Kern
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Great conference! I did not know what to expect, I jumped in and presented… and yes, I used ppt slides. BUT… here in the United Arab Emirates, we are blocked from using VOIP. I wish I had been able to hear, because I believe that I missed a LOT of chatter behind the scenes. I truly wish I could have heard the voices of those asking questions and also been able to covey my passion though the intonations of my voice. But, on the other hand, I was quite pleased with how well the text loading Speakeasy HUD worked. Gavin, I was pleased with the selection of tools you provided the presenters.
I am looking forward to next year’s conference. I want to experience the Full Monty.
This said, next year I will have moved back to Canada and will be able to use the voice tools.
Thanks again Gavin and Co. Well done!
MK
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Hello-yes I agree with the post and the comments-slanguages2008 was a great success and I thank you for your hard work in organizing it.I appreciate the time and effort that goes into the preparation of the event and its well worth it; again well done.
It was I who criticized the use of ppp/ppt(power point presentations)-’death by powerpoint’as my mentor on the Post Graduate Certificate in Education described it–the vast majority of presentations on that course were also done in the same way as at the slanguages conference, and yes, I made the same criticism on the feedback form for that conference. One of the speakers-head teacher I believe-also spoke along the same lines during his presentation. I feel it is a valid point but I do apologize because I can see that after such hard work negative comments on the feedback form is a bit of a kick in the teeth;most unwelcome.However it is offered, it is my opinion.
What can be done and will I volunteer? Yes I will volunteer to lead some sessions-my lame excuse is that during this period I do exam marking and so cannot dedicate the time necessary to participate-this was my reason for not volunteering to led a session-I now see that its a chickensh*t excuse and I will be participating actively in the next conference-broadband access permitting as I will be teaching in Africa.
Ideas for alternatives to ppt- why not a quest? we had many sessions about quests couldn’t we do one? Yes its a lot of time and effort to set up.
A session of machinima(videos made in sl) videos-a how to session-there was a lot of interest expressed in this area by participants.
The trips to see teaching areas in SL were very successful and could be expanded and organized beforehand (the cancellation of the trip to one school without notice or explanation because one participant had a different preference was badly done)preference.
I agree with the need for ‘introduction to SL-to the vocabulary etc is a great idea-I have started preparing my session now.
OK well Gavin I give thanks to yourself and the team who made Slanguages possible and I will give you an opportunity to give me negative feedback at the next conference-I expect a good kicking and I will deserve it!But its true what you said-if I am gonna be negative in the feedback i should be prepared to step up to the plate as it were.
The avatar with the black cloud hanging over him muttering to himself in the corner–also known as
Goodday Tomorrow
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Goodday,
Ha! Got you! Well, I was sort of trying to engage and wondering if you would come out of the shadows and take up my challenge – so that’s good to see.
I think the whole ‘death by PowerPoint’ argument is a little old, and also often used by people who can’t actually get to grips with a computer (not suggesting that is your case,, not at all…), but I also agree that lots of people use it badly and boringly. In mitigation (since I used PPT myself at the conference) I would say a well-designed slide can do wonders, when accompanied by an engaging speaker.
I’m not overly cionvinced by the ‘everything has to be different in Sl from RL, because SL is sooooo different’ approach of plenty of people on the SLED list, as I tend to view it as a ‘baby with the bathwater’ attitude, but I do realise that conferences such as this could be more dynamic.
So I’m looking forward to your doing a session next year and not using PowerPoint. There are all sorts of issues with this kind of thing, of course – how do you cater for everyone including the newbies (they can usually watch a screen, but teleporting, interacting with objects, etc., is much more complicated), how do you find suitable land to rez and build…
My session teaching people to build a notecard giver was about as stressful a time I’ve had in SL. Now, it worked, and most people actually made one – but we have to remember that some people will not get there, and their disappointment will be manifest. Thers’s a lot to think about before offering a practical session.
Anyway, I thank you for your feedback, and I’ve been through it all (40 people so far) and marked things for improvement, and this is one area I think DOES need some improving, so no need to feel bad about what you wrote – it was a valid point and I was glad to read it.
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‘I am still in the shadows’ mutters
“I think the whole ‘death by PowerPoint’ argument is a little old,” An oldie but a goody too!
I am not against presentations using powerpoint slides or other formats, I use them regularly myself. But as you say its the boring repetitive nature of many such presentations that makes my arse itch.(I am a curmudgeon; I hate looking at friends’ photo collections too).
“‘everything has to be different in Sl from RL, because SL is sooooo different’” I agree. I will be using this paragraph in my Critical Thinking class as an example of the ‘straw man arguement’:( if that’s ok with you) The statement of a point of view that can then be easily demolished.I never said that ‘everything has to be different in SL’ and do not and have never held this viewpoint. I object to the overuse of powerpoint presentations in RL conferneces as well. It’s a valid point which was raised by others at the confernece too-and its valid in SL and RL.
Now your description of the stressful nature of the class you took is very interesting and helps illustrate some of the limitations and dificulties of SL.
The difficulty with voice is another area. Some people left the conference feelling frustrated because they could not get voice to work. Its an issue I have to deal with in my own classes. I use Skype as a backup and many conferences in SL use the parcel audio feed and/or a web based audio link.Points to consider when using SL for education. SLis a live and learn enviroment.As you said if people cannot get voice to work there is a limit to what you can do.
Conferences should have exchanges of views; its how we learn.Most teaching in SL uses traditional methods; I don’t see that this is a problem. The question is:if people preach that SL is a wondrous tool that can transform education-which many people argued during the conference-Where’s the beef?
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Ach no, I wasn’t referring to you – as I hope the bit where I said “approach of plenty of people on the SLED list” illustrated.
I don’t think the stress is anything to do with limitations in SL, but rather that people are so used to being spoon-fed that when they find something that takes longer than five minutes to pick up, they sit down and hope someone else will do it for them. SL is complicated to use – some people see this as a limitation or difficulty (again, not referring to you), others see it as an interesting challenge – but you do have to put some time in before it makes any sense or becomes of any use.
To an extent it’s the same with voice – I said way in advance that the conference would be using voice… I offered to be available all that week for people to meet up with me and make sure voice was working… I stuck helpful configuration screenshots up on the wall, too. But plenty of people turned up for the opening plenary saying “Oh, are we using voice? How do I get it working?”. So my point is there’s only so much you can do – and people have to take some initiative and do some of the work themselves.
As for traditional, I’m rather fond of good traditions that work well and are tried and tested. Combining them with new-fangled stuff seems to be exciting and stimulating. I don’t think we’ve got a beef, to be honest – we more or less agree on everything…
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Oh, and you’re welcome to come out of the shadows, as long as you have your ‘start planning SLanguages 2009 presentation not using PowerPoint’ notebook with you…
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I was intrigued by the thought of doing a poster presentation in Second Life and jumped at the chance! I managed to make two of the sessions, and had a good chat with people who wandered past. It was a very last-minute poster (I literally figured out how to do it 5mins before the first session!), but that’s my own silly fault.
I’m looking forward to designing a poster for next year’s conference that is more than just a page and involves some video, links and sound! How exciting!
Well done on a great conference – I particularly liked the tour… but also just the opportunity to “hang out” with other Languages teachers from far beyond my Aussie boarders
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Penny – next year we’ll have some ‘getting started’ workshop s, but then you probably won’t need them by then. Glad to hear you enjoyed the conference.
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