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!