December 2009
SECOND LIFE
What are we doing?
Teesside’s island ‘Teeslife’ has now been open just a year. It
has – is – being used for a variety of things. Some things are
developmental, trying to identify how Second Life (SL) works and
if it is good for x, some are surer and are building activities which
cannot easily be done in a classroom or via a VLE/LMS. Some look
to provide a support space – a virtual lounge for people to come
together (e.g. digital champions) in a more physically co-present
way than is offered by other social networks. Some use by staff –
Want to join in?
Go to join.secondlife.com
and a few students – has been simply to move in residentially so
that they have somewhere to feel at home while they explore or
develop. We have some things that are Teesside-specific and some
things that we’ve developed or are developing to share. There are
formal and informal spaces and activities at module, programme
and university level and on both a personal and on a national and
international collaborative level.
What have we learnt?
We’ve learnt a lot over the last year. We’ve learnt that cooperation
and collaboration works better for us as a development model
than contracting out and competition. We’ve learnt that there is
neither time in the day (or night!) to achieve everything that is
dreamt of or suggested, nor an end to the stream of ideas and
possibilities. We’ve learnt one island isn’t enough!
We’ve realised that some ideas are way more complex than they
need to be to effect the desired learning outcomes. That, despite
some cynical comments, treasure hunts/quests/game-style design
can be very effective, especially in orientation. That sometimes
it’s easier to buy than make, and sometimes it’s faster to grit your
teeth and get your mouse dirty building than unsuccessfully
trailing round shops!
We’ve understood that kinaesthetic and visual learners can get
a lot from activities in virtual worlds, so we shouldn’t be put off
by those who say some people will ‘never get it’. That there are a
surprising number of fellow professionals who seemingly feel that
ignoring (commercial or open-source) virtual worlds’ real potential
for learning enhancement is ok. It’s not.
We’re excited that there are opportunities to connect Blackboard
with SL e.g. for kicking off a PBL scenario in SL and writing SL chat
direct to the Blackboard discussion boards is hopefully the start a
tool set for Blackboard which will lead to being able to think about
assessment of the virtual world activity.
Overall we’ve learnt that we can be proud of what we’ve
achieved with no funding beyond the island purchase and no
external help beyond those colleagues ready to offer advice
and tips. Clearly this isn’t sustainable to provide the full support
for all the opportunities that are brought to us, so how quickly
developments continue will be interesting to see over the next
few months.
Some of the projects on Teeslife
The Virtual Maternity Unit
The Virtual Maternity Unit is an embedded part of midwifery training at Teesside. It has
36 ante- and post-natal rooms and two birthing suites. Each cohort of student midwives
have complete ownership of the ‘Unit’, choosing its name, décor, layout of some rooms and
working through - with roles which include community midwives with home birth duties
- case scenarios of a variety of girls and women for whom to establish care plans and
identify mother or baby health problems in monitoring their progress.
Unfortunately the ‘virtual’ maternity unit isn’t. But SL now offers the opportunity to engage
in a much more realistic manner with many of the exercises, and undertake research and
make choices as to the environment as well as the medical issues.
The greater learning however - and testament to the ‘reality’ of the virtual world - is that
squeamish men have backed off from the actual birthing activity, so it was a great antenatal
resource for the two new fathers on our team.
2
2pm - 4pm
Distance Learning
9
2pm - 3pm
Second Life
JANUARY
DECEMBER
Blackboard Workshops
All of these sessions are for M701b which
means there will be 14 spaces available
per session.
13
2pm - 4pm
Scholar & Social Bookmarking
20
2pm - 4pm
Surveys, Tests & Assignments
To book a place email [email protected]
Fraud Investigation
Fraud Investigation students have to learn - obviously among other things - the key skills
of reflection and analysis which direct their seizure procedures. There are as many office
environments as there are individual offices, and though one can broadly expect to find
the same equipment and items in each location, their seizeable state will vary. The lecturer
wanted to be able to put students into more environments than he can create in real life
for them to engage in the discussions around if, why and how they should seize specific
items. Whilst a photograph, panoramic video picture or flash-based virtual scenario might
be technically easier for the students to access, creating a variety of environments is still
resource intensive. In SL the scenarios can be changed, cloned, endlessly modified. Because
most of the interaction beyond an item providing information about itself occurs between the students, for example discussion
whether a personal diary should be seized or how to secure a PC with active screensaver, then these are exceptionally easy to
create. Additionally, because you can use the integration with Blackboard discussion boards,
students can return to reflect on their decisions later without needing to log in to SL.
Although some of the students were initially sceptical, they soon saw that not only did they
gain an opportunity to practise, individually and collaboratively, inbetween teaching blocks
(these are all serving criminal investigators) but the introduction of the SL element opened
up their understanding of the potential of virtual worlds to launder money similarly to
through other electronic means and thus offered an entirely additional unexpected learning
outcome.
The Digital Bayeux Tapestry
The digital Bayeux Tapestry offers an example of a learning
experience not usually available to students. Presented to
scale with audio guides, it pushed the boundaries of audio
capability in SL, in order that per-person guidance can be
offered to an individual avatar without distracting those
around them. Links to additional web-based resources and
literary/research works are available in the entrance. This
exhibition is unique in allowing the visitor to see the whole of
the Bayeux Tapestry at the same time, which is not possible
even in real life due to the nature of its display case.
E@T Lunches
9 DECEMBER 2009
SecondLife
Lunch provided (booking required)
The Comedy Club
New for 2009-10 is
a building for the
School of Arts and
Media, specifically
for Performing
Arts, where there
are a number of
staff interested in
the potential for
performance of varying kinds in SL, not least in providing the
stand up comedians with a ‘safe’ rehearsal venue prior to their
summative assessment of a live recorded session. This building
has been created as a flexible space including galleries and
a bar, and replaces the gallery and bar previously in separate
buildings on the island. It is hoped that the bands, DJs and
radio production students will also move in to this building
from the Tower over the course of the next few months.
All sessions are followed by a stay and play workshop where the E-learning
Team can help you try these out for yourselves. Book workshop separately
13 JANUARY 2009
CMALT - Association of Learning Technology’s
registered practitioner scheme
To book a place email [email protected]
Perse’s Pies
The virtual food factory on Teeslife has been designed for the Trading Standards and
Consumer Protection degree in SSE. The development represents an area of regulatory
work difficult to reconstruct in a classroom environment. It is believed that the immersive
nature of a virtual world encourages student participation in role play. It is anticipated
that it will help develop the cognitive skills required to improve professional performance
and provide graduates with an as near real world experience as possible, in alignment with
the University objective of providing graduates who are work ready and engaging with
the needs of employers. The factory itself provides the opportunity for students to work
both individually and in collaboration with others providing a diverse platform in which to
learn about the role of the regulator from differing viewpoints. The design is interactive,
giving links to information on the web, instant information to enhance the student
knowledge or challenging the student to research further through questions and links for further study. Objects students interact with
report back to the tutor via email. This enables monitoring of student progress and gives an opportunity for feedback for the student.
The factory provides the illusion of more space and activity through well-placed pictures of additional rooms and machinery and is
accompanied by sounds of office and factory work.
Greig Gallery
The quality and success of games and animation programmes within SCM is dependent
on the provision of training and resources for both staff and students and the quality and
standard of teaching is dependent on keeping up with current technologies and using
their potential in learning and teaching.The virtual ‘Greig Gallery’ was built specifically
to show undergraduate and post-graduate art work produced by students. Images in
this virtual gallery enable easy access and international exposure to Teesside University’s
courses which publicise the standard of artwork produced by undergraduates.
The potential for artists to use SL for not simply exhibiting, but for understanding principles of designing, curating and marketing
exhibitions is a valuable practical skill for those hoping to work professionally in this field. Students in Fine Art also have the
opportunity to explore how they wish to display and be displayed, and to practise their interpersonal skills in presenting and guiding
visitors around their virtual exhibitions via SL. Because there is a strong art community in SL, there is a wide spectrum of amateurs and
professionals who can offer feedback and suggestions to students taking advantage of this, and may lead to valuable connections and
networking which will be of help in the future.
The French Market & Café
One of the SCM MSc students explored whether the immersiveness virtual worlds provided
a better space to learn a foreign language than by using the BBC website or teach yourself
materials. A market and a café were created, and language classes took place in them. These
were recorded and both students and tutor subsequently took part in an evaluation of the
exercises compared with doing similar exercises via BBC videos. Results suggested that
although some students encountered some difficulty with using their microphones, they all
approved of the method and said they would be likely to try it again.
If you have any queries, suggestions or comments please do not
hesitate to contact the E-learning Team
[email protected]
created by Jennifer Gutridge - E-learning Team