continued

It seems that the choices we make in SL about how we are represented in-world are an important ingredient in the recipe for the social context of living a virtual existence, and contributes to a great extent in a sense of ownership and connection that a driver has with his av. There is a moment, after a time traveling in SL, that one can believe the rest of the avs and their drivers when they say that SL is not a game, and as a result of a personal and shared experiences, is a real world. The av then becomes an extension of the self, and the membranes between worlds and lives become permeable.
The sense of place offers students a suggestion that they are “actually there,” but may or may not influence their engagement in learning. In and of itself it is not as significant an influence as educators using SL might think or hope. Some educators believe that the comfort offered by the familiar surroundings presented by a campus replica can be comforting to students, while the believability of such environments are usually less than desired. A place in SL, like a college campus that is designed to be familiar, a replica, or a classroom with a roof and chairs in a world where they are completely unnecessary, may increase a student’s level of comfort and feeling of safety. When I return to my cottage on the island of Necros, I know that I have a home base at which to log off, a place that I’ll remain until I log back into SL. There is familiarity and ownership that is comforting. These effects, at Necros or in a in a learning context contribute to a feeling of being somewhere with others. In this I have lots of company in the body of scholars and researchers that work and play in SL. In an environment designed for learning, this feeling of being somewhere with others will influence students’ engagement in learning.
I’ve found that the terms “telepresence” and “co-location” more accurately represent the praxis of the senses of embodiment and place that contribute to the knowledge that one is present and in the presence of others. A feeling of co-location does enhance engagement in learning if the learning objectives are written to embrace the social context. Telepresence is a hot topic that is worthy of future research, one that is rich in a growing body of academic literature.
The educators I interviewed were as generous with recommendations to their colleagues as they were with their time. SL is far from the edge of the envelope, nor is it representative of what resident generated virtual environments will be in a few years. It may be a sample of the experience of living and learning in virtual worlds, but is not the model. It is important to push the boundaries of creativity in order to reap the benefits of the 3D web for education. The status quo, no matter how familiar and warm, should not be a template for how we will teach in synthetic worlds.

Michael and Terrans' learning, continued

Twitter is a recent social media tool that is catching on quickly while spawning different and better widgets throughout the last few months. It is an IM based mini-blog that is audible (with chirps and dings and tweets) and viewable as an ongoing conversation between “friends” in a variety of browsers and forums, including within the SL viewer. Many educators using new media, especially those who are fans and residents of virtual worlds are avid users of Twitter, and share web links to academic articles and other Web 2.0 media such as Slideshare, Flickr, personal blogs, and interesting happenings in second life.
A few weeks prior to this writing I saw and heard a tweet pop up that told of yet another Relay for Life event in SL that was taking place on an island designed as an amusement park, a message that told the “tweeterverse” that several of the most revered and popular female avs were positioned in kissing booths in order to raise money for the American Cancer Society. I had been to a previous event in-world a few months prior at which some of my educator acquaintances were auctioning themselves off as virtual dates. Hoping to participate in this noble philanthropy once again and looking forward to buying a kiss with one or more of the metaverse’s most stunning avs, I teleported directly from Twitterific (the desktop Tweet tool I now prefer) into SL to enjoy a few moments of diversion from this writing. As I arrived, I found myself at a teleport station on one side of the island that happened to be surrounded by a dance party. Activating my streaming audio, I walked the perimeter of the island to classic Motown tunes in search of the kissing booths.
As I walked through the 3D environment I barely missed getting squashed by a fifty foot T-Rex who was taking a similar tour, and spent sometime watching five of SL’s most attractive avs raking in two-hundred Linden dollars for three chances to throw a ball at the paddle that would activate their dunk tank. I paid my money, but never quite figured out how to throw the balls. Other fair-goers were doing quite well, and I spent a few moments enjoying the ladies and gents getting wet, some of them wearing bikini’s and Bermudas while other’s wore their Elizabethan finest. I found the kissing booths, and paid another two hundred Linden to enjoy a sustained kiss in the hands of a lovely av, who chatted amiably with me throughout that moment. Terran Timeless, my av who is gaining familiarity in academic circles in-world, toured these fairgrounds in three dimensions, walking through crowds of people and admiring the amazing textures and colors on the leaves of trees dappling gently in the breeze. My four hundred Linden (about $1.35 on the exchange rate for the day) added to a US dollar amount of four million dollars that SL efforts for Relay for Life have raised since the New Year. I logged off of SL to return to my work having been somewhere, in the company of others, having experienced a few unreal things that were as real as my fingers tapping keys and the good work that was being done.

if anyone really wants to read this, the "episodes" go from bottom up

I was interested to discover what my participants thought of the requirements for a working virtual community. This sort of list, as little as three years ago, was composed of a wish list of features that the flat web could have in a more perfect world. With the advent of the 3D Web, these needs are no longer considerations for the educators already using SL. These educators tell me that a primary ingredient of a virtual learining environment is a common purpose, some glue that holds the tapestry together. Another interesting common requirement for these educators is the ability to socially construct the community: to build and to collaborate. Effective communication was a missing ingredient a few years past. SL provides near synchronous and synchronous communication. From a cultural perspective, a community will develop shared memories, traditions and artifacts, one that can persist with use. For some of my respondents, a sense of support and acceptance is important. Lastly, most agree that, through the lens of the teacher, a true facilitator presence is essential. Someone must guide the experience; someone must lead.
In the early stages of my research I believed that the sense of embodiment provided by being the driver of a highly animated and mobile avatar was one of the crucial features that inject a synthetic world with reality, and thereby influenced student engagement in learning. I still believe so, but fear that in my ignorance I asked the wrong question, so this relationship remains to be seen. The question begs two more; engaged in what, and how do we know and measure this? With regard to embodiment and its direct relationship to student engagement, there are mixed opinions. If I were to ask an educator who drives an avatar how that representation influences their engagement in the virtual environment, they would answer that it is a significant influence. As to engagement in learning, a sense of being there seems to be more important than the sense of being-with-others until one-to-one communication becomes the focus, when embodiment may enhance the feeling of emotional presence and thereby enhances the sense of place. It appears to be true that the experience of embodiment may be less important to traditional age students to other adults as well. My colleagues, most of them at least approaching middle age and many of them proud grandparents, admit that they enjoy driving their avatar while seeking new experiences more than their students. Many educators find that for the traditional student avatar embodiment may be as much of a distraction as it is an enhancement as it applies to student engagement in learning.
It is possible, speaking from recent personal experience, that as a participant in an intentional immersive learning experience, my embodiment may improve my focus and attention to task and the collaborative work that it entails. As my sense of play is teased out, I begin to find the virtual environment more believable, for the moment, and that, in Buddhist terms; “mindfulness” is cultivated.

Michael's Summary: virtues and challenges of teaching with SL

The educators that I spoke with have a variety of mixed feelings about the virtues of SL as a teaching and learning tool, but have no problems listing those that they appreciate, acknowledging that they may be powerful characteristics albeit with questionable instructional value. A student and teacher may find useful applications for distance learning, a sense of shared space, a social and emotional presence and co-presence, a feeling of connectedness, the ability to engage with others from different cultures in different languages in an un-sanitized environment, immediacy, designing experiences that would be impossible in a RL classroom, the immersion, role play, the ability to collaborate and build in a dedicated environment, shaping content to educational purposes, a lack of diversity issues, easy communication, a creative and safe space, interactive teaching, and flexible learning. These responses confirm my own conclusions regarding the value of virtual environments for teaching and learning. I’ve sat in classes, taken field trips, built new things, and felt that I was there, in a place with others, sharing the same experience at the same time.
The challenges inherent in using SL as an educational tool are not so numerous and provide problems to solve. The learning curve is a mountain that many students and some faculty would prefer not to climb. The time one must invest to be comfortable living and learning in a virtual world can be substantially more than finding a room number and an empty seat. The digital divide, varied levels of computer literacy and the technological requirements that an institution must meet are problematic. The infrastructure is often not up to the task. Gaining institutional support is a frequent challenge, where budgets and faculty resistance to change can be barriers to successful implementation. These challenges will, for the most part, be moot within a few years, as an institution upgrades to technology that supports the 3D web and students and faculty find more comfort in using the environments as tools

Sprouting

more:Michael's research summary:how students react to learining in SL

The reactions of students to learning in SL is as varied as the type of student, and perhaps has more to do with the instructor variable than their prior experience in VWs, their technical expertise, the technical limitations, or their inclination to use play in learning. Some love it. Some hate it, while some don’t know why it’s part of the teaching. The general opinion seems to be that we are preparing for the next generation of students, those that have been living in VWs for a few years, and those to whom it makes perfect sense. It seems that one concern among a portion of current student users is that it takes work to learn in a virtual world. The teacher is asking them to learn new skills, be engaged, move about the world and work with each other. As Kevin says: some students just want to be taught to. They suit up, they show up, they paid for the class, don’t ask them to do stuff. buridan would point out that if SL was being used as a distance classroom, then that is what it will be. If the instruction is aimed at learning objectives that are unique to the virtual environment, those that are present to learn will enjoy all that it entails, while others will take the opportunity to catch up on emails, watch television, and text with their friends, because that is what they would do in a physical classroom anyway.

More of Michael's summary: "classroom" communicating in SL

All of the educators do seem to agree that the collaboration and helping behaviors that students exhibit through design and as a by product of the virtual environment represent benefits that are near to impossible to realize in the “flat web world” (two dimensional Learning Management Systems). It feels like a place where students from differing time zones and cultures can feel a “togetherness”. And many speak of the sense of presence and heightened level of social comfort afforded by the near anonymous and playful nature of the av as a representation of the self. Nearly all of the educators I spoke with agree that using a virtual 3D identity, as an extension of RL. will be common in the near future. It is just where we are going, and becoming proficient at living and learning in a second life will prove to be a survival tool.
I was interested in the extent to which courses taught using SL were completely in-world. The answer to this question is “it depends”. Most of the educators using SL as a teaching tool or environment seem to do so as a supplement to some RL classroom experience, although as educators become experienced using synthetic environments and new pedagogies move toward guided collaborative learning as the standard, a significant and growing number of courses are completely scheduled in-world, especially those that lend themselves toward distance learning technologies, with students and instructors participating from around the globe. The need for a RL location for anything more than an administrative center is diminishing.
Before I had any experience of educating in Second Life, I thought that the form of communication was a significant notion, one that might influence the appropriateness of using a virtual world. My question was born of my prior research into distance learning, and my assumption that asynchronous communication was a barrier to student engagement in learning. Not every undergraduate can feel in touch with his or her classmates when the mode of communication is much like email. It appears that the chat generation has already conquered that barrier. In SL, there are two nearly synchronous channels of text communication: one public, and one potentially private. In addition, Second Life introduced voice communication in 2006, which has evolved to the level of high quality synchronous voice-over-internet.
There is no common mix of these channels in use during on in-world class, but there almost always seems to be a mix of all three. The Web2 student is proficient at managing multiple near synchronous chat conversations in addition to real time voice, and they use it all. Much as a RL brick and mortar class might, SL classes come to quick and organic agreement about the mix of signals, and who controls the voice. It is common for the instructor to hold the control of voice until students are invited to join, while the public chat is the formal classroom conversation and the private IM is the “backchannel”. Because for the next few years not all users will have the same voice technology available to them, some educators use text exclusively to insure that every student is receiving the same messages. An additional benefit might be gleaned by using the private IM channel as a group channel because an av can choose to have this chat saved to text, providing automatic lecture notes. Programs that activate gestures and mouth movements when an avatars driver uses voice are in development; these may change the dynamics of class communications somewhat.