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.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Saturday, November 22, 2008
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!
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!
Friday, November 21, 2008
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!
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!
Sunday, November 9, 2008
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!
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!
Monday, November 3, 2008
Sunday, November 2, 2008
October 27 Week's Blog
- 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).
I think I’ll call it a week!
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