December 8 Week's Blog

This week I completed the following activities:

Viewed Camtasia Tutorial Videos.
Created three Camtasia SL videos on the following topics: camera and movement controls, inventory in SL, finding a presentation or workshop in SL.
Continued to read daily the Educator’s Digest (SLED) and Slrl Digest(Research).
Worked on my Evaluation of Success and will post this soon.
Reviewed the SL survey results.
Read SL articles and webpages.
Worked on SL handouts for OAD270 class.

Getting ready for the holidays now.

December 1 Week's Blog

This has been an interesting week with the opening of the Owens Island in Second Life. The island is really well-constructed, and I have a new office located on the island. Here are this week's activities:

Read and reviewed articles and my collected webpages on Second Life. As a result, I've been updating my pkwiki.

Participated in the Open House on Thursday (10-5) and Friday (noon-4:30). Friday was busier than Thursday. We had visitors from OSU, UC, Montana State, along with other Owens faculty and staff who have created avatars. A few of our ITS staff visited since they will be supporting SL. I now know of one important area that the Help Desk needs to assist students with: voice chat. That is if faculty choose to use voice chat instead of text chat. This is one feature that I believe students will have the most problems.

I have decided that SL will enhance my Presentation Management course so I've decided to incorporate Second Life in this course. In OAD270 students learn presentation delivery skills and PowerPoint. Students can evaluate the differences between presenting in Second Life and Real Life by participating in the many free educational presentations. Students will also have the option of using Second Life to deliver one of their presentations. As a result the students too will upgrade their technology skills by learning how PowerPoint works in Second Life.

Additionally, I still believe Second Life has value as a recruitment tool. I have been working with an Office Administration (OAD) graduate creating a podcast of the student experience in the OAD program and would like to have it posted on the Island. If my OAD260, Administrative Office Management course, runs (there are low numbers), I know I can use SL in this course also.

This week I plan to meet with the IR office to review my survey results and how best I can report the results.

Next week's blog will address the items under EVALUATION OF SUCCESS.

November 24 Week's Blog

I took some time off for the Thanksgiving holiday, but I did accomplish the following in SL:

Attended class in SL: Groups and Group Management, held at Insight Virtual College. SL allows an avatar to be a member of up to 25 groups. You can tell a lot about someone by checking the types of groups they are involved in. I'll be creating a group for my classes then I can share slurls with them and communicate other information to them. In this class we learned to create a group, assign roles with the group, set permissions for group roles, and set parameters for roles that will enable you to manage your business and land.

Completed my OCC Office. I continued to work on my office such as creating prims and adding textures to complete my wall hangings and photo frame. It's now decorated for the holidays, and I'm ready for this week's Open House.

Created Notecards for OCC. I created the following notecards and dropped them in Zaia's inventory: Griefers and Your Profile. I also shared some other information with Zaia that she may use for the Open House.

Watched Videos: I watched several videos which helped me with building and working with textures.

Watched Zaia and Biker's podcast that they created for Drexel University. They did a great job sharing Second Life's capabilities for education.

Continued to read the Educator's Digest and the Slrl Digest. As a result of reading these, I often update my PBwiki with information that I've learned.

Camtasia Video Tutorials. I watched almost all of the Camtasia video tutorials so I plan to create a short presentation using Camtasia. I've used Camtasia in the past, but the new version has additional options.

Continued reading materials and reviewing the websites that I've tagged as Second life in Delicious.

My sabbatical is coming to an end. This is the official last week of classes for fall semester.

November 17 Week's Blog

I didn’t accomplish as much this week in SL since I had the ACBSP Board of Commissioners meeting and a lot of reports to read and forms to complete. However, here are some of my accomplishments:

First, our Island is being redone so I had to select a new office and refurnish and redecorate my office. That took some time. I now have an office with quite a view--even better than my face-to-face office that overlooks a courtyard.

Attended SL Class: Groups and Group Management. Groups may be used to mange a business or land. Additionally, this is an important topic because an instructor may want to set up a class as a group so one can distribute materials, slurls, etc. However, Linden Lab does limit an avatar's group memberships to 25 groups. Assigning roles to the group is also important because the group officer may not want the group members to have the ability to redo a parcel. There is a lot of information about groups, and I need to read more about it in my reference books. Since I’m not an officer of our island, my knowledge of the advanced features of groups is not necessary. When you meet someone new in SL, right-click their avatar, select Profile, and read the profile to learn about the avatar. One can tell a lot about someone by looking at the Groups the avatar is a member. For example, if you check my Profile, you’ll know I’m involved in higher education. I enjoy beading so I might consider creating a group. This is somewhat similar to groups in Facebook.

Watched Videos. Torley Linden creates wonderful videos posted in YouTube and at the Second Life website. I watched one on textures and while I’m not using Photoshop, I wanted to take one of my vacation photos of Neuschwanstein Castle, a royal palace in the Bavarian Alps of Fussen, Germany, and make it a wall photo. Yeh! Success—I was able to complete this task by creating a PowerPoint slide, insert picture, save as PNG file, upload to SL for $10L. Then I created a prim and applied the texture. I also placed my Ph.D. diploma on the wall. So I was able to do this without using Photoshop, but Photoshop and Gimp are programs that many SL users use for creating objects.

Survey results. My survey results are coming in from the Owens faculty, librarians, and instructional designers. Last count I had about 175 responses. A reminder was sent on the 21st. These results will provide information on the use and interest of Second Life.

OAD recruitment podcast. I've been working with one of our OAD graduates creating a script about her experience with the program. She talks about some of the student learning objectives and what she did to accomplish them. We are meeting on Monday, the 24th, to finalize her podcast.

Continued to read daily the Educator’s Digest (SLED) and Slrl Digest (Research) but it was a challenge with my travels. As I peruse these digests, I normally take away something valuable whether it’s a contact, website, slrl, or just ideas. This week, I learned about the use of the “Activity Theory.” Everyone asks about “pedagogy in virtual environments.” Yet, pedagogy historically refers to teaching young people; andragogy refers to teaching adults. So which theory to use? The Digest discussed the “activity theory” along with the well-know Connectivity and Connective Knowledge theory as areas to research. Andrew Churches has done an interesting analysis of Bloom's Revised Taxonomy called Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy v. 2.12: http://www.scribd.com/doc/8000050/Blooms-Digital-Taxonomy-v212. This might assist anyone in the formulation of an approach to learning in SL.

The OSU Buckeye fans are happy today! I'm one of them!

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

November 10 Week's Blog

Observed Brian’s African American Literature class in SL. Brian teaches at University of Central Missouri, and he was the instructor for the Continuing Ed. Class I took “Managing a Class in Second Life.” Today Brian was in Paris, France, while a conference he attended was ending so he conducted his class from Paris. Today’s topic was a discussion of Ann Petrey’s The Street.

At the beginning of the class we met in a room with circular seating (Abyssian Library) , looking at the backs of everyone, and while waiting for the class to begin, a PowerPoint on their Research Project was playing. Brian spends a lot of time building rapport at each class session. This does allow students to resolve computer and audio issues. Plus his class has an embedded librarian assigned to it to assist with the research component. He also asks students if they have any information on the status of other students in the class. After responding to students’ questions, the class moved downstairs in a more casual, circular environment. We sat around a piano. Then two students portrayed historic African American authors and gave a presentation. They were excellent. The presentations gave us valuable information in an entertaining and engaging way on the authors, their works, lives, etc. This is one benefit of Second Life—the ability to portray historic characters. They have some interesting assignments one of which requires them to post three voice threads on their readings. They can post these to the course blog and to their personal blogs. They use a lot of technological tools.

I was glad I teleported to the site early because my audio wasn’t working probably. My computer acquired a virus and my operating system was reinstalled and I had to reinstall all my programs. My settings weren’t right with the Hardware tab under Sounds, Speech, and Audio Devices. I had voice chat enabled in SL so I knew my problem was with the hardware.

Continued to read daily the Educator’s Digest (SLED) and Slrl Digest (Research). As I peruse these digests, I normally take away something valuable whether it’s a contact, website, slrl, or just ideas.

Off to New York City so until next week!

OSU Versus Northwestern Game Footage 45-10 Win

November 3 Week's Blog

Learning more about Second Life in these ways this past week:

SL Class: Attended an NCI Basic Textures Class. When you create a prim, it’s plywood by default. In most cases when building in SL, you want to attach a texture to your build. The inventory comes with many textures to choose from depending on what you are building. For example, if you are building a sidewalk, you might apply the stone texture; a house, brick texture. Also discussed were the file types for uploading to textures. I created my OCC sign in PowerPoint and saved it as a PNG file. Then File, Upload, and paid 10 Lindens. Then I can attach the file to any texture created like a billboard. For my classes, I don’t see my students using textures. However, understanding how to upload a texture such as a photo or PowerPoint presentation is important.

SL Class: Attended a GQ Class, Your Profile. This class addressed the various tabs of the profile page and how you learn about others from their profiles. When you meet a new Avatar, point to their AV and right click to open the pie menu and then choose Profile. One important tab is the My Notes tab. This tab is only seen by the creator, and it’s helpful to use when you meet people. For example, I will write “was in my cont. ed. class” or “met at CIT in Salt Lake.” Otherwise, it may be difficult to remember the avatars because avatar names are very unusual. I actually compare this to a Facebook Profile or any social networking tool. One can share as much or as little as one wants to. I can usually tell about people by the Groups they are members of. For example, if they are an academic, they most likely will be in groups such as EdTech Community, College Professors, Distance Educators, and the list goes on and on.

SL Class. Attended Learn How to Set Up a Blog from Inworld and Post Landmarks. This was a very interesting class. We attached a HUD to ourselves that created a blog within SL. Then within SL we can post text, landmarks, and images to our blog. The images are only SL images. My blog address is http://bletaverse.com/Susie Felisimo. I’m not sure how I’ll use it at this point since I have one blog already.

SL Class.Attended Dealing with Griefers. Griefers are people who are rude, annoying and interrupt the activities on a sim. They enjoy being obstructive. A griefer may be an avatar in all shapes and forms, an object such as a cage or orbit, and particles. The key is to stay Calm and to Sit Down when a griefer is around. When one is sitting the griefer cannot affect you. Also, one must file an abuse report. This class addressed the various ways to report abuse and other tips on dealing with griefers.

SL Presentation. Attended a presentation at the ISTE Island titled Beyond Exercise Books: Powerful Learning Looks Different. The speaker was Dean Groom, Sidney Australia, Head Teaching and Learning Designer, and he used a PowerPoint presentation. He compared the old tools to the new tools and how technology changes learning. However, with the technology there are too many answers on our desktops, and this is a problem for students. We need to be selective with the tools and teach students how and went to put information into context. Heard the term “data smog” or “information overload?” He also talked about how the classroom has changed to a blended collaborative environment. This is what he is talking about. It’s all about the learning! There were approximately 60 attending the presentation. About 20 minutes into the presentation, there was a lot of noise. I understand another class was close by. Just one of the obstacles in participating in an SL presentation.

Meeting. Met face-to-face with Biker on our Findlay Campus. He uses SL in a couple of his classes, and we talked about SL and his assignments. He, too, uses the SL environment as a learning tool for his students to complete assignments and work together. He shared two great assignments with me. Kudos to Biker for forging ahead in SL.

Chatted with GentlemenKey who I met in my Profile class. We had a lengthy conversation about using SL in our classes. He teaches a lot of workplace skills classes to adults.

Continued to read daily the Educator’s Digest (SLED) and Slrl Digest (Research). As I peruse these digests, I normally take away something valuable whether it’s a contact, website, slrl, or just ideas.

One advantage of attending classes in SL are the great handouts the presenters share with us. They normally provide course handouts in an orb, and we right-click, touch, or buy (for free), and then receive the handouts in our inventory. Plus, if text chat is used, we can save the chat for review.

Off to see the Bucks beat the Wildcats!

Go Bucks!

Next week I'll have some footage of the OSU/Northwestern game.

October 27 Week's Blog

This week I was busy in SL after returning from the League’s CIT conference. Here were my activities:

• Reviewed and keyed notes from the CIT Conference. While reviewing notes, I visited slurls in SL and websites that I listed in my notes.
  
• Viewed the webinar “Increase DL Retention in SL” provided by Campus Technology. The presenter from Huntington Jr. College in W VA presented on why they are turning to SL. They have 900 students, and they were looking for new ways to grow their programs without adding brick and mortar. She indicated that research shows that a social presence may lead to retention as based on Tinto’s research. Socially active and engaged students will be retained. She indicated using SL takes the “distance” out of distance education. Not sure that’s good or not!
  
• Visited the Abyss Museum of Ocean Science. This is a great build for anyone teaching science or biology as it provides an experience that students could not have in RL.
  
• Viewed Torley Linden’s videos on taking and saving snapshots. Although I know how to do this, I needed to review the shortcut keys for me to position my avatar for photos. I learned about the “freeze” feature too—just right click any attachment on your avatar. This is helpful since avatars are “fidgeting.” Snapshots are a great tool to have students use to verify they have been to various islands in SL.
  
• Observed Brian Mnemonic’s African American Literature class (University of Central Missouri) at the Virtual Harlem location. Brian instructed the continuing ed. class I took in August, and he offered that we could observe his classes at any time. He uses voice chat, and the students mostly use text chat. Brian stated that voice chat is ok, but it appears students prefer text chat. He does require voice chat when speaking with a student about a project or paper. I observed most students participating, and Brian provides a lot of positive feedback.
  
• Attended Selma Park’s Open House. This build is located on the University of Central Missouri’s island. I toured the island, drank lemonade, and listened to a piano recital. The library is very invested in SL at UCM. The librarian talked about grant opportunities, and I think this is something we could offer at Owens with the Perkins Grants that are usually available in late spring. Their grants include a parcel with 500 prims, and a LindeX allowance. I’m going to see if I can receive a copy of their grant application.
  
• Attended in-world the Educause panel session, Teaching and Learning: Assessing the Student Experience in Second Life.” This session was live in Orlando at the conference and streamed in Second Life. There were about 60 avatars attending. Voice chat was used, and there were some challenges with this because besides the panel members we heard a video, but we weren’t suppose to hear the video. Then we were instructed to turn “media” sound down, and that corrected the situation. Sometimes though there were echoes and the panel members voices would break up. I used text chat to verify what I missed. One panel member asked “why assess one tool any differently than another.” Good point. It’s not the tool we assess but the learning.
  
• Participated in an Introduction Building and Scripting class in Second Life conducted by Tech Virtual Org. I’ve attended some in the past, but a class like this is a good review, and this one was a little different. The instructor was promoting www.thetecvirtual.org, which is a virtual museum in SL. They have competition for the best interactive exhibits, and they provide space for building and scripting. The instructor said we could now call ourselves “software developers” (LOL).
• Reviewed research on Second Life surveys that have been completed by different organizations.
  
• Created a short survey to send to all Owens faculty (full-time and adjuncts) about their knowledge and use of Second Life. Hope to deploy the survey within the next two weeks. OLN is planning to deploy a Second Life survey to Ohio's universities and colleges in December or January.
  
• Continued to read daily the Educator's Digest (SLED) and Slrl Digest (Research). As I peruse these digests, I normally take away something valuable whether it's a contact, webstie, or slrl, or just ideas.

I think I’ll call it a week!

October 13 & 20 Blog

Many of my activities during the week of October 13 didn’t involve SL:

• Attended the AQIP Systems Portfolio training in Columbus, OH, as I am one of the editors of our Systems Portfolio. Steve Spangehl from HLC conducted the training.
• Submitted a proposal titled “A Second Life Primer” for the University System of Ohio Learning, Libraries + Technology Conference (formerly ODCE) held at Easton for March 1-3.
• Attended the Central Ohio Chapter ASTD one-day Conference and Expo (Explore Learning and Performance) at COSI in Columbus thanks to Dave Hylsop giving me his registration. ASTD’s Public Policy Council conducted a study and published the results in Bridging the Skills Gap, and the keynote discussed this topic. I also learned about a book Crucial Confrontations. The afternoon keynote is the author (Kurt Southam, Ph.D.) of the book, and it was a very interesting and interactive presentation.
• Attended the ACBSP Great Lakes Council conference on Thursday evening and Friday in Findlay, OH. Kudos to Barb and those involved in the planning. The sessions I attended were excellent.

Then I left for the League’s CIT Conference on the 18^th and returned on the 22^nd in Salt Lake City. For fun and educational value, I did tour Temple Square. See the video below attached to this blog. I attended all the forum sessions on Second Life along with many Web 2.0 sessions—both forum and hands-on. I learned the following about SL:

• In many instances I know what the presenters discussed and even more. While attending these forum sessions, I realized that most attendees need a very basic introduction to SL. I’m glad the PowerPoint I’ve been creating is called “A Second Life Primer,”—primer meaning “basic.” Many are curious as to “where did it come from,” how do you get there,” what’s the cost,” etc., etc.
• Some colleges’ islands are not as developed as our Island while others are extensively developed. Many indicated they would like to be invited to our "open house" so I hope it is opened to outsiders.
• It seems that faculty are still struggling with how best to use this environment as an educational delivery method. Some faculty use SL in their courses during class and never have the students enter SL. Instead, they conduct a tour on the screen for the students to see during class. This is a safe and easy way to “get your feet wet” in SL. Then there are those that hold their distance classes in SL.
• Using Web 2.0 tools is huge among the colleges.
• Good news! Next year CIT is in Detroit City—home of Motown on October 11-13.

When I returned home, I did attend one role playing session in SL conducted by Insight Virtual College. I FINALLY GET IT! What role playing is for? I don’t see any value in classes unless you are teaching diversity, creative thinking, etc.--now I do realize these are important skills. There are sims in SL where you take on “in character” and play off of others characters. So if you want to take part in the Civil War, you could locate a sim that provides this build and participate as a soldier. There is also a lot of role playing with vampires. Perhaps a historical sim would be a valuable role play opportunity, but I don’t see any value in SOBIS.

Continued to read daily the Educator’s Digest (SLED) and Slrl Digest (Research). As I peruse these digests, I normally take away something valuable whether it’s a contact, website, slrl, or just ideas.

Next week I’ll work on making sense of my research. Until then . . Happy Halloween!

October 6 Week's Blog

This week I completed the following activities:

• SL Class: All about the LindeX @ Insight Virtual College: this class addressed the LindeX, which is Second Life’s market currency. We learned how to earn money and differentiate among the trading levels. I don’t believe I would trade LindeX, but I can see how a finance or economics class could learn a great deal from the LindeX. It’s the best exchange rate in currency.
  
• SL Class: Interactive Role Play: I realized that I already attended this particular class, but this time there was a “griefer.” I’ve only encountered one other griefer who visited one of my other classes, but he didn’t stay long. The griefer in the role play class was booted out by the owner of the island as he was very annoying and used abusive language. Needless to say class was detained. Then when I realized I attended this session previously I teleported home.
  
• SL Class: SL Education Roundtable discussions: I am a member of this group which meets every Tuesday at Montclair State University to talk about a variety of subjects. We site around a “round table.” Some weeks we may have a guest speaker and/or focus on one topic and other weeks we may just talk about what members feel like chatting about. I learned about a tool called “Meeting transcript maker,” which records a session in SL. I also learned about Cool Viewer by Boy Lane, a site meant to publish patches and pre-compiled versions of the Second Life viewer for Linux.
  
• Continued to read daily the Educator’s Digest (SLED) and Slrl Digest (Research). As I peruse these digests, I normally take away something valuable whether it’s a contact, website, slrl, or just ideas.
  
• Attended OBTA and enjoyed a session on Web 2.0 tools. Since working on my sabbatical, I have learned a lot about Web 2.0 tools. However, this session provided additional websites to visit. One especially interesting website is Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies.
• Unfortunately at OBTA, I did not find anyone interested in collaborating with me in SL. Most said they are so busy they don't have the time to learn SL. They have a point. Without this sabatical I would not have had the time to devote to this tool.
  

During my sabbatical I’m learning about other web tools. For example, I downloaded and played with jingproject which allows one to capture photos or videos to share online up to 5 minutes in length. It was developed by TechSmith, who developed Camtasia Studio. Then the presenters at the Web 2.0 session at OBTA included Jing in their presentation.

I’m learning more than just Second Life as a result of my research. For example, I learned a new term “heutagogy.” A heutagogical approach recognizes the need to be flexible in the learning where the teacher provides resources but the learner designs the curriculum, not just the learning process, by negotiating the learning. Thus learners might read around critical issues or questions and determine what is of interest and relevance to them, and then negotiate further reading and assessment tasks. With respect to the latter, assessment becomes more of a learning experience rather than a means to measure attainment.

I connected with someone who developed a simulator of business skills for training. As yet, I have not seen a demo, but I have been invited to do so. Therefore, I will follow up on this invitation.

This week I plan to work on reviewing my collected resources and prepare for the League’s CIT conference. Plus, I have ACBSP 's Region 4 conference this week too. What! Another busy and fun-filled professional week!

September 29 Week's Blog

SL Activities included the following:

• Given a tour by the dean of IVC (Insight Virtual College). IVC provides classrooms and conducts classes for SL residents. I really enjoyed the personal tour. I learned about IVC at the SL Convention. BTW, the dean is an instructional designer at an Ohio 4-yr. University. She is a professional colleague. One location at IVC helps residents practice flying. All the classrooms have unique features—one is under water and called the Sea Floor Classroom. The tour lasted about 1 ½ hrs. I joined their group so I can receive updates on classes, etc.
• Visited ISTE Island. ISTE is the International Society for Technology in Education, and they offer RL memberships. I joined their group so I can receive updates on classes, etc. There were some members and a docent at the Island to explain what goes on. I toured the Island, and they have a lot to offer. ISTE is for educators, and often meet at the ISTE island to discuss teaching and learning. For fun, a couple of us took a Magic Carpet ride over the ISTE Island.
  
• Continued to read daily the Educator’s Digest (SLED) and Slrl Digest (Research). As I peruse these digests, I normally take away something valuable whether it’s a contact, website, slrl, or just ideas. Consequently, this is a time-consuming task.
  
• Started researching more about companies in SL.
  
• Updated my PBwiki.
  
• Continued collecting websites in Delicious. It’s amazing—with Web 2.0 sites are “social” and require one to be a member with username, password, etc. It's all about sharing! Then there is the entire process (with as little information as you wish) of creating a profile, etc. I’m a member of LinkIn.org along with Rezed.org, and many of the other sites are similar—like Facebook. Sometimes it's like "Oh no! Not another profile! Not another login to remember!"
  

This upcoming week is a busy one since I have OBTA Thursdsay and Friday so I won't have the entire week for SL. I'm hoping to connect with some fellow OBTA members who may be interested in collaborating in SL for spring semester.

SL Continues

This past week I worked on the following:

• Created notecards on the following: Taking a Snapshot, Camera Control, Communicating with Chat, Chat History, and Instant Message. I dropped these into Zaia's eOwens' inventory. I used Rezed.org's curriculum guides, which I learned about at the SL Convention. I personalized them for our purposes. I also created one on Inviting Friends, but I haven't dropped this one yet.
• Talked with Mark about the YouTube videos for Owens' ads. He will work with AC on converting these files so we can work with them in SL.
• Purchased a YouTube video viewer, but I'm having difficulty with it. One problem is that I don't have rights (or permissions) on our Island, and that seems to be a problem with using this viewer.
• Continued to teleport to various islands to learn what is available.
• Continued to read daily the SLED Educators Digest and the Slrl Digest (research). Oftentimes, these have some valuable information and resources. Thanks to Delicious, I can tag any of these resources and access them from any computer. This is a great program.
• Ordered and received the following books, which I learned about from attending the SL Convention: The Wisdom of Crowds, Here Comes Everybody, and The Tipping Point.
• Attended the GTAC-ASTD monthly meeting on the "10 M's of Engagement." Interesting information was shared. Plus, I was interested in learning if any of the members have used Second Life and while I didn't talk with everyone, those I did seemed to know about SL but not using it. Since ASTD has an island, I thought some would know about it. Additionally, there were quite a few trainers at the SL Convention so I wondered if anything was being done with SL in our area.
• Continued to perfect my SL PowerPoint Presentation "A Second Life Primer."
  

This week I plan to attend some workshops in SL. Still looking for a good one on role playing. Plus, I have a lot of research to do.

Second Life (SL) Continues

This past week I sorted through my notes from the SL convention. Trying to organize so they will be useful later.

• In Second Life, I visited the Manpower Island and talked with a staff member and a coordinator. At this time, they don't have any opportunities for administrative assistants, but they believe this will change. They have a nice orientation overview--easy to read and navigate but little hands-on. I believe it would be effective for students to review. Plus, they have laptops with stools, and the avatar sits on a stool and learns about topics such as Positions in SL, Interviewing in SL, and I think this would be valuable for students to review in the OAD260 class.

• I teleported to Microsoft's Island, but it's not always available to outsiders. What I do like is the workshop/training sessions the Microsoft Users Group conducts in SL. For example, this past week it was on MailMerge in Word. Again, a good training session for students in OAD260.
  

• I teleported to Mill Pond and talked with a colleague from another two-year Ohio school. We've been friends for awhile. He plans to use SL for his economics class, but the only problem is his college doesn't have an island. SL is a great tool for economics with the LindeX and trading.

• I attended a Basic Scripting workshop this week at the Human Resource Island. While I am not a programmer, at least I understand some of what has to happen to make SL work.

• I met with Ruth, and she provided an overview of our College's Island and its future as far as she knows. The College is planning an SL Island Open House sometime in November, and she asked if I would participate. Of course, I will. I'm working on some content for orientation. This upcoming week I'll work on "taking a snapshot." I'll create a notecard and put it in her inventory. Will contribute another topic, but I'm not sure what topic yet.
  

• Flying. I perfected this skill this past week.
  

• I also contacted our Public Relations Dept. to acquire the fall advertisements. We thought these videos would be great to include in our Island. These ads will be updated this month, and then we'll use the udpated ones. In the meantime, Ruth can work with what she receives to see how they can best be incorporated on our Island.

• Finally, I started a PowerPoint presentation. I think I'll call it "A Second Life Primer." When I tell people I'm working in Second Life, they all ask the same questions? What is it? How long has it been around? Who owns it? So I'm including this information in my PPT.

As time progresses, I see more application in OAD260, Administrative Office Management, and OAD270, Presentation Management. Not so sure about internship opportunities especially since "internship" usually designates "no pay," and our students are paid in their cooperative experience course. I've contacted one individual who, I understand, has a successful internship program in SL. I haven't heard back from her yet.

Looking forward to the upcoming League's CIT conference as there are quite a few SL presentations. Also, I hope to connect with someone at OBTA who might want to collaborate in SL.

Another week forges ahead!

SL Convention in Tampa - Update

This past week my activities included attending the Second Life Convention in Tampa, FL, along with participating in a Sloan workshop entitled “Introduction to Second Life.” The best thing about the SL convention is I didn’t have to explain what “second life” is to anyone. It was difficult to get use to introducing myself by my avatar’s name, Susie, Felisimo, which was on my nametag. Some eye openers:

• A lot of corporate trainers attended who are involved in SL. IBM has 48 islands.
• I networked with one individual about internship opportunities. I have some work to do here.
• Some colleges and libraries are doing some awesome education in SL.
• It’s very profound and on the cutting edge.
• Not your typical business education type conference.
• I saw one walking around with a furry tail who was probably replicating his “furry” avatar.
• So many new businesses have begun as a result of SL such as Avatrian, a Second Life development shop and metaverse consulting firm.
• Saw some of my Ohio friends and attended some of their presentations.
• Attendees represented all generations. This surprised me as I didn’t think I would see many Baby Boomers, but there were a lot of us. Probably a fair split on gender.
• Enjoyed hearing Philip Rosedale (Philip Linden), the founder of Linden Labs. He gave a keynote presentation.
• Enjoyed Intellagirl’s keynote on The Promise based on Clay Shirkey’s Here Comes Everybody. Intellagirl presented at the Stark State workshop I attended this past January. I plan to read this book.
• Attended two presentations about two new virtual colleges offering training and education: Rockcliffe University and Insight Virtual College.
• I didn’t meet anyone in the field of office administration. I’m sure I was the “loner.” Many were in the arts and sciences area, health area, and some in computer science. I did connect with an individual from Florida teaching in the computer information area.
• An SL Certification program is in the development stages.
• At Teachers College of Columbia University, they provide cubical spaces for students on their island and use the following: in-world discussions, group and individual visits, guided tours, group work, and assigned individual and group work. They ask their students to take a snapshot of their Avatar and RL person, scale them, make a frame, apply to a texture, mount it on the wall—Class of 09! I like this idea.
• The importance of ethical digital citizenship was addressed in many sessions along with Terms of Service, and Code of Conduct. It was recommended that College’s should revise their Student Code of Conduct to include Second Life.
  

Then I spent time participating in the in Sloan Workshop. I completed a lot of the forums prior to leaving for the SL convention. I was able to attend the final in-world session on Thursday, but I really didn’t find it that valuable. I think it’s because I did this in the four-week class I took. This course really was for “noobs.” I’m a little beyond that. I do like the information the facilitators provided regarding scavenger hunts along with how they ran the course. We used Moodle, which I’d never used before. I don’t think it’s as user-friendly as Blackboard.

This week, I’m back to attending some workshops in SL and typing my convention notes along with researching websites and other information I received at the convention.

Intro to SL - Begins Today

I have a lot going on in the SL world. Today I started “Introduction to Second Life for Educators, a course conducted through The Sloan Consortium and offered to us "free" through OLN. It runs through September 12. The CMS is Moodle so that's a new tool for me to use. I've started responding to the forums and teleporting to some of the slurls and taking my photo at these places. It looks like there are some great resources available, and the facilitators have been involved in SL for a few years. Unfortunately, since I'm attending the SL Convention and staying in Florida a little longer, I won't be able to attend all the live sessions. Taking an online course is time consuming. I've spent about three hours today on this course so far. I'm also meeting some new AVs through this course.

More Free SL Workshops and Other Activities

This week (through Saturday) I continued attending free workshops in Second Life. I attended the following:

• NCI’s Prim Skirt Class, and I made a skirt. I was more interested in learning how to build, and I learned terms such as flex prim, root prim, etc.
• Building Basics Class where I continued to learn about building, rezzing, etc.
• Building for Beginners just another variation of building.
• Animation Override Class where I was unsuccessful in creating my overrides. I may need to attend this class again.
• ASTD Member’s Discussion on the ASTD Island. I entered into a discussion with other ASTD members about Second Life. I learned quite a bit about organizations that have a virtual presence in SL, and some of the members are involved in training. I can see that in OAD260, this could be a great site for the training and orientation topics.
• Interactive Role Playing, and in this class I learned about three types in SL: Interactive, Narrative, Expressive. We discussed the importance of gestures and learned how to create gestures. This information was very valuable. We did not actually role play.
• NCI Skills Starting a Business in SL, and I didn't find this class as valuable as I thought I would. More discussion was on the properties of items you might sell. To start a busines in SL, you need to do the same things you would do in RL: need a business plan. I did learn about www.gimp.org and www.paint.net as alternative free programs for Photoshop.
  
• GQ Communications in SL. This class was excellent because we talked about the various communiation tools: text chat, IM, voice chat and all the associated settings for these. Our instructor said we should use the name of the person we are talking to--especially in a crowd. IM is used for "out of character" communication and it is limited to 1023 characters. Plus, only 100 offine IMs can be recorded. IM is good to us when AVs are outside of the immediate area. Also, she mentioned the importance of reading any notecards for items because these notecards tell us how to communicate with the item.

Some of these classes move very, very quickly, and they use text chat so you are reading quickly and trying to open windows and do the activities at the same time. I consider myself to be a “quick” learner, but sometimes I find them challenging. At least with text chat, there is a written log for reference.

I really like attending the classes because the instructors do give notecards, objects, etc. that we can use later. Sometimes they are just freebies. In return, I tip these instructors in Linden Dollars. Oftentimes, there is a tip jar “appreciated but not necessary.” I also like attending them because I learn other things. I’m gradually learning the shortcut language for text chat such as afk, ty, np, tp, lmd. I do have difficulty using these instead of writing out the entire word since I am an old “English” major. When I don't know what they are saying, I ask!

Plus, I meet new AVs, and we become "friends." These people can become valuable resources. That means we can contact one another in SL. I met Parrot, a virtual entrepreneur, who talked with me about how she is looking for SL interns in web design and marketing. We talked about how I might investigate opportunities for students in SL as interns. The only problem is these would be “non-paid” positions. She suggested I begin contacting the CEO’s at the SL organizations such as IBM, Manpower, Sun Microsystems, Circuit City, etc. So I believe I will investigate these.

Along with these activities, on a daily basis I review the OLN Resource of the Day, and the Educator’s Digest, which is a compilation of the SLED Listserv.

I also purchased Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson (1992), which is really one of the first novels about the Metaverse. I plan to begin reading this book.

I’m looking forward to the upcoming Second Life convention in Tampa.

Managing a Class in Second Life - Final Class

My final class was Monday, and I am really glad I registered for this class. I’ve formed some SL friendships and have a great resource in Brian, our instructor.

We reviewed and teleported to the Music Academy Online where we listened to a guest speaker, Stacey Fox from KU, who is a classically trained musician and techie. Plus, they were tapping a live show for SLCN-TV with composer Amen Bhatia. Yes, Google him, and you will learn he is well received in SL and RL. The interview format was conducted by the CEO of Music Academy Online. Music Academy Online is associated with KU. Stacey provided these tips for acceptance of SL especially with higher administration at your institution. Next to each tip, I’ve provided my ideas for using SL in the OAD program.

• Show quality and promotional use of SL: OAD recruitment piece available for potential students and employers
• Show international component: OAD140 has an international project. OAD260 could address the international component because we discuss the global environment.
• Emphasize the presence of Reuters news: OAD260 current events
• Have a virtual party at end of semester: I like this idea for any class using SL
• Leave activities for students to accomplish between classes: this is just homework but I believe it must be focused.
• Do you take attendance? Stacey states she conducts a couple classes face-to-face and listens to the sound of their voices. Then when she does an audio roll call, this dissuades anyone from having someone else log in for them.
• Conduct interviews because many organizations have a presence in SL: OAD260 portfolio project could find these organizations such as Manpower, IBM, Best Buy, etc.
• Have a usage policy for SL that students sign: Most likely current student code of conduct and computer Acceptable Use Policy would apply. However, there is a session at the upcoming SL conference about the syllabus, etc. Verbiage needs to be included about SL in the class syllabus.

Brian's suggestions:

• He shared the Salamander HUD with us and recommended sloog.org. This helps to tag locations. He gives this to his students.
• Survey: Brian distributes a short survey to all his students and then after they complete it he gives them their first allowance. We received $50 Lindens. I think this is a good idea. The survey is similar to the one-minute assessments from Angelo and Cross. Some additional tips from Brian who stated SL is like “organized chaos” at times.
• After students create their Avatar, Brian asks them to write why they made the choices regarding their Avatar, has them take a photo and send to him.
• Next, he assigns an exploration activity in SL.
• Students create a personal blog during the course. Brian communicates a lot using the blog—giving assignments and milestone activities. He mentioned that you can add reference tags on the course blog that will open the students’ blogs. This makes it easier to review the students’ blogs without keying individual urls.
• Backup plan when SL down. There are many free video conferencing options (Brian will share). His college uses Adobe Connect (there is a fee for this one). I attended a session at the League’s CIT last November on Adobe Connect, and I recall it’s expensive. He informs his students when they can’t get into SL to check their e-mail because he will notify them and post an announcement. Not that this happens a lot, but one needs a backup plan when class meets one day a week.

Brian said we are welcome to observe his classes this semester: 8:00 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. T H (Central) and 6:00 p.m. and 8:45 p.m. (Central) T. The evening class won’t be in SL until a couple weeks yet. I plan to do this. Plus, our class blog will continue as long as people are contributing. There are some great ideas and slurls provided in this blog that I plan to use. Great class for $150!

More Workshops in SL - Free!

I’m continuing my education in SL for my sabbatical leave. Today I attended two free workshops in Second Life each 1 hour long: How to Skydive in SL & Inventory Control—both conducted with text chat. The advantage of text chat is having the text log for reference. You can copy/paste into a Word document. However, I do like interacting with Voice—of course, if you know me you know why that is true!

Below are the descriptions:

How to Skydive: Want to learn how to skydive in SL? It’s the most fun you can have with your clothes on! Skydiving is one of SL resident's choice past times! Come join me and learn how to read altitude in SL, operate a free parachute for you to keep, operate skypods, target basics and some FUN places in SL to skydive!

Inventory Control: Almost everybody in Second Life has an out of control inventory. Join us for some advice and a look at some of the products available to help you tame the inventory beast.

One of the best things about attending these free workshops is meeting new Avatars and offering friendships. They are very friendly, and the instructors give you freebies. I now have a parachute for skydiving. Why skydive? To get somewhere quickly or just for the fun of it. I would never try it in RL. I learned a lot of valuable information about inventory control. I decided I should tip these instructors since they don’t charge for the classes. I gave them each 5 Lindens.

Wow! I just can’t believe all that is offered in SL. Until another day of learning. . .

My Slideshow

BubbleShare: Share photos - Create and Share Crafts

Attendance at SL Workshops (Free)

Today I had a productive Second Life by attending two free workshops each 1 hr. long. I realized there are many free workshops to take advantage of during my sabbatical.

CI Class: SL Skills - AVATAR MAKEOVER
Instructor: Alexandria LeShelle
Location: Boomer Island, NCI Classroom
Sponsored by: CF University

I learned how to spruce up my Avatar's appearance without spending lots of Linden dollar along with the ins and outs of hair, skins, shapes, shoes, and clothing. Since she used text chat, I was able to copy the chat log for reference.

I also attended The Tech Virtual for an interactive scripting and building class in their Sandbox Dome.

I had some difficulty with this class. The instructor used voice chat so there isn’t a log. He did insert some urls for us though.

I’ve almost done reading The Complete Fool’s Guide to Second Life” by Foolish Frost.

Managing a Class in Second Life, 3rd Monday

Tonight’s class included a recap of important skills that should be included in orientations for students and/or faculty:

• Teleporting
• Camera position
• Take snapshot and convert to jpeg
• Searching using map
• Finding people/friends
• Creating notecards
• Using voice chat
• Find chat log on hard drive (only if it’s enabled)
• Transferring inventory items
• Unpackaging/opening boxes
• Cleaning up after yourself, land manager and auto return feature
  

We had a guest speaker who uses SL to teach Dante’s Inferno. In Second Life there is a recreation of the levels of hell—sounds, objects, etc. tied into student projects and assessment. We formed teams and were each assigned to investigate a level and report back. I found this difficult. First, I never really collaborated with my other two or three team members. Since the AV’s names are different, I couldn’t even remember who was on my team (I should have asked her to repeat this information, but I didn’t) Plus, I didn’t necessarily see them all on my level. Then I had difficulty navigating in the narrow spaces and returning to the group.

Dante’s Inferno is quite an impressive site, and it can be visited at any time. Our guest speaker said being positive is very important and I’d like her quote: ““If you kick sand up you get sand in your eyes." She is referring to trying the different technologies for teaching and learning that aren’t always accepted by our colleagues. At the end she stated “that we are all like Vergil’s guarding the Dante’s of the future.”

I read Dante’s Inferno in college (as an English major). I would have enjoyed it so much more had I experienced this 3-D world in Second Life. To be totally immersed in the levels of hell is an amazing teaching/learning strategy. Spooky too!

Gantt Chart

Here is my Fall Semester 2008 sabbatical schedule. Hopefully, I'll stay on schedule.

Gantt Chart.xlsx

Managing a Class in Second Life, 2nd Monday

This evening's class met at the Abyssinnian Church at Virtual Harlem-- a sim our instructor created as part of his dissertation. We also walked to the Library and viewed our presentation and looked at instructional orbs he created for his students. By touching the orbs, an assignment appears along with a notecard. I think I can adapt the Business Writing assignment and the Appearance, Acceptance, Identity assignment. For example, I could have students role play interviewing where they would have to dress appropriately, interview with individuals and make judgments on appearances. I may also be able to use the Cyberfeminism assignment.

We learned about how a gvurl (graphical url) is easy to find and allows the AV to teleport to the specific location. It's expected that we will see more gvurl instead of slurls.

Objective of Class: are they to build or construct objects to study or use the environment in which to study. I believe my objective is to "use the environment in which to study."

Some tips:

• So that we know who the AVs are is to add the AVs real name in their profile.


• In a F2F class to pass out a sheet for students to write their AV name and PC information. Then as an instructor you know what students are dealing with technically.


• Use a "cheat" sheet regarding how to prepare at the beginning of the class. It's important to acculturate the students to getting to class early to check their technical specs. Brian indicated he would provide us with his handout.


• It's important to make sure students are active and participate. During a presentation students may ask questions through the "chat" feature or by using the "voice" feature. Brian, our instructor, indicated he doesn't care how students communicate with him as long as they are communicating. He also indicated he uses "long pauses" so this gives students a chance to formulate, type, and or ask their questions.

• Design an environment that encourages students to spend time in SL.
  


• Have students create individual blogs and connect them to the course blog. As these grow, the individual blog could become an ePortfolio for the students. Never thought of using a blog as an ePortfolio. Along with the ePortfolio is linking a paper resume to the blog. Also, a second blog could be created as a virtual resume. Of course, students can just post their resume to their blog.
  

Something new I experienced in tonight's class were the pose balls for sitting.

One important point made was that students who are gamers will find that Second Life is a step down because of its graphical quality and interaction.

Taking a class in Second Life is a great experience for me. Mmm, I wonder if my students would want to sit for 2 hrs. participating like this. I'm thinking a blended approach is the best way to go in using Second Life.

I'm getting excited about attending the upcoming SL Convention.

I'm proud of myself because it appears I was able to upload a PowerPoint presentation to my viewer in my SL office. It costs me 140 Lindens (10 Linden per slide).

Managing a Class in Second Life, 1st Monday

I've been apprehensive about working in SL since I don't have any formal training. After last evening's class, I feel more confident that I can find some way to use SL in my OAD courses and/or program. I enjoyed the SL class taught by Bryan Carter in SL. This experience is so valuable for me, and I learned so much in two hours. As in any class, orientation and the first classes are very important. I suggest that Owens creates a Student Center Building for Orientation of all students who will be learning in the SL environment. We discussed in class how Orientation Island in SL is very confusing. Others recommended looking at NMC, New Media Consortium, ISTE, and ASTD sites. It was also suggested that we consider offering a face-to-face meeting with our students to orient them to SL and address issues such as voice chat, etc. I am feeling more confident with my sabbatical topic now. I'm getting a head start for sure, but I like to stay ahead of schedule. I'm really looking forward to the SL Convention in Tampa in early September.

Managing a Class in Second Life

My daughter forwarded me an e-mail about this class offered through the Graduate School of Library and Information Science, the School at Illinois. It is a continuing education (CE) non-credit course presented by the Illinois Alliance Library System and GSLIS for librarians and others interested in virtual worlds. It's a four-week course meeting in SL for the next four Monday evenings. I decided it was worth my own investment of $150 for the course. The course covers the following: Week One: Setting up a class in Second Life; Week Two: The Pedagogy of Second LifeWeek; Three: Student ProjectsWeek; Four: Managing a Project/Sim. I plan to blog after each class.

Using pbwiki as an organizational tool

Today I created a wiki using pkwiki as a way to organize my research in Second Life. I will need to spend time viewing tutorials and attending webinars on pbwiki. I decided to use this tool instead of MS OneNote because I can collaborate easier with individuals. I have names of some individuals from other Ohio two-year colleges who may be interested in collaborating with me on implementing Second Life in the office administration program. Therefore, this wiki is a great tool for this purpose. My wiki is "private" with the ability to add individuals as necessary.

My Timeframe

I developed a Gantt Chart using the Excel QI Macro 2008 Planning Tools outlining my sabbatical activities in Second Life. Since I'm part of the Train the Trainer program for the College's Quality Teams, using this planning tool is great reinforcement.
At this point, I view my sabbatical as a four-phase process.
1. Second Life research including library research, examining educational role playing environments, and contacting and working with individuals from the following organizations:
a. Ohio Learning Network
b. Bonnie Fink, Center for Teaching and Learning, Bowling Green State University
c. Mark Karamol, Director, eLearning Department, Owens Community College
d. Instructional Support, eLearning Department, Owens Community College
e. Chris Collins, Facilitator, UC Second Life Learning Community Ohio Learning Network Second Life Ambassador
2. Hands-on Training in Second Life—including the following:
a. Self-taught using manuals such as the following:
i. Second Life For Dummies (For Dummies) by Sarah Robbins
ii. Second Life: The Official Guide by Michael Rymaszewski, Wagner James Au, Cory Ondrejka, and Richard Platel.
b. Attending available webinars, workshops, and any available tutorials.
3. Identify, develop, and address specific OAD specific challenges and concerns with Second Life implementation.
4. After conducting research and completing my hands-on training in Second Life, I will determine the best way to implement Second Life into my courses and the OAD curriculum.

My Sabbatical Rationale

Because information technology is a dynamic field, it seems that the curriculum is always in transition and adapting to this change requires constant research. The purpose of my sabbatical plan is to research, upgrade, and develop my technology skills with the new platform, Second Life, and to explore its impact on the office administration program. Second Life is a 3-D virtual world entirely created by its Residents. It provides for rich sensory immersive experiences, authentic contexts and activities for experiential learning, simulation and role-play, along with opportunities for collaboration and co-creation that cannot be easily experienced using other platforms such as Blackboard. Although many people today give quizzical looks when they hear the term avatar, by the end of 2011, 80 percent of active Internet users and major companies are expected to have some virtual-world-type presence, according to Gartner Inc., a Stamford, Conn.-based research company (http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=503861). Consequently, Second Life offers a range of new and exciting possibilities for the community college. Since we are preparing our students for future positions, using Second Life as a platform for flexible delivery and online education assures our students will graduate with the skills used in the workforce.