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Welcome. 1. Vue Region - status, current plans, potential and next stages (Austin Tate) 2. ACE on Vue (Henrik Ekeus) 3. Management School on Vue (Ian Graham) 4. Informatics on Vue (David Richardson) 5. Education on Vue: Holyrood Park, from open space to learning space (Fiona Littleton)
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Welcome 1. Vue Region - status, current plans, potential and next stages (Austin Tate) 2. ACE on Vue (Henrik Ekeus) 3. Management School on Vue (Ian Graham) 4. Informatics on Vue (David Richardson) 5. Education on Vue: Holyrood Park, from open space to learning space (Fiona Littleton) 6. Student views of Second Life as a teaching space (Sian Bayne) 7. Comments and Questions (chair: Hamish Macleod) 8. Next Steps - Vue governance (Austin Tate) end: 3.30 (4.00)
Vue Region - Status, Current Plans, Potential and Next Stages Austin Tate (a.tate@ed.ac.uk)
ACE on Vue Henrik Ekeus (H.Ekeus@sms.ed.ac.uk)
Management School on Vue Ian Graham (I.Graham@ed.ac.uk)
Informatics on Vue David Richardson (djcr@ed.ac.uk)
Education on Vue: Holyrood Park, open space to learning space Fiona Littleton (fiona.littleton@education.ed.ac.uk)
Holyrood Park • place where rich resources exist • where interesting things have happened, and continue to happen • where people can go to have certain sorts of experiences • great place to play • build social presenc
Student views of Second Life as a teaching space Siân Bayne (sian.bayne@ed.ac.uk)
Student talk: some key themes the good the bad and the strange….
The good… “Second Life is really a platform for role playing and socialising. I mentioned to Moira that I was amazed at how deep our conversation was and how close it felt talking to her. She felt exactly the same. Then suddenly, I don't know how, we started talking about foreign languages. She started talking in Italian and I replied in Spanish. We carried on like that for about 15 minutes! We were both so thrilled at the experience. It was so easy to quickly ask what something meant and then just carry on...It was also very easy to give examples of situated grammar. In First Life students are always so conscious of their speaking but our virtual identities just did not mind.” student weblog
“Mark kept getting stuck with objects. I somehow managed to acquire the swing seat. When Frank Lassard asked where it was, I argued it was down my newly acquired cleavage. This was just the beginning of some wild hilarity and most of us spent the next 5 minutes barely being able to type for laughing. … I think it represents my subversive self, the one that likes risks and creativity and boundary pushing and questioning, and I find that I am much more pushy in Second Life, and jokey and cheeky... I mean I am fairly like that anyway but I am much more so in Second Life, and certainly in the Second Life classes I have been much more provocative that I would normally be in a class.” student weblog
“My initial impression of in-world 'talk' is that there is a significant shift in dynamics when three dimensions are involved. A 'person' can move around, approach people, fly, and visit things much like we do with our physical bodies. This is a quantum leap from a simple text discussion, like we experienced in the early weeks of this course, and adds a far more intuitive dimension to communication - like taking the 'smileys' a great leap forward. ” student weblog
“Had my first experiences in Second Life yesterday. Found it hard to get anywhere, flying and teleporting were quite hard. Had trouble getting back to the Campus. Met some witches and monsters and things. Didn't run into any other students. All in all, it wasn't all that educational and the graphics were really slow. In the end it crashed.” student weblog
The bad… “It was quite obvious to me that I can't use my home computer for SL sessions because of the limited bandwidth and system requirements. So I planned to use my office computer which performs much better than my home one. So I installed the SL browser and tried to access it using a wireless connection. It worked but I couldn't change the settings of my appearance. Next time I tried to access second life with ADSL connection and it didn't work because of the proxy and firewall settings (I think). So, using my office computer I could take a quick peak of my "in-world" and I felt quite embarrassed to see myself half naked there. Fiona helped me to find out what happened and also to overcome the embarrassment. But I still don't know why I can't change the appearance myself. …
“… However, I didn't give up on SL yet. I went to an Internet cafe close to my home and tried it out there. The only problem was that I had to install the SL browser and most cafes don't allow you to install anything. So I asked them to install it for me and they did. I took a copy of the setup that I have downloaded and after the installation it asked to do an update. I clicked ok and my goodness it was a 23 Mb update! So it took some time to update and finally I was able to get in touch with my in-world again. What a relief! …
“… I updated the SL browser and logged in. Still I couldn't change the appearance but I could walk and fly and use some gestures. However, it took some time to render pictures and when I click the arrow keys to move, it took some time to walk. Sometimes trees block my view and I can't see where I am. It almost felt like a blind person moving around in an unknown territory without the white stick. Since our meeting place was so close to the sea I was really worried of drowning because of this time delay. That is another experience that I could not even begin to describe. It truly gives you an out of the body experience with unshakable feelings of getting lost, drowning and even dying. …
“… My orientation session with the class members was on Thursday. Since I had to go to the Internet cafe and book the same computer I used earlier, I took a half-day leave from the office. Fortunately I was able to use the same computer. So I logged in again and find my way back to the meeting place. I saw several students of our class and I was able to greet them. But soon I realized that I couldn't see what the others are saying because of the time delay. And when I finally try to respond they are talking about something else. It really freaked me out! …
“ … Also whenever I tried to do a new thing like checking the chat history and landmarking this place the screen gets frozen and the machine gets stuck. Fiona also tried to chat with me using msn messenger to give instructions but it was clear to me that the machine I used in the cafe did not meet the requirements of SL. So the orientation session went pretty bad and I was disappointed. However, I do not intend to give up on Second Life. Maybe someday soon I will be able to go back to the virtual world without worrying about the system requirements or the bandwidth limitations.” student weblog
“I couldn't get logged into Second Life and I thought it was a really negative experience. During the course I said to Sian its sort of like you are at school and you get these school... you use to get like the cool kids and you get people who aren't the cool kids and you get the outsiders, and you would sort of felt like an outsider at school looking through the gates at all the cool kids having fun, but it was worse than that, you couldn't even look through the gates because you couldn't get into Second Life at all.” student interview
“The appearance of an avatar may sadly be a 'put-off' for those with which it interacts. … Choice of animal heads for avatar faces may send a terribly wrong message in my culture. Such an avatar may be considered a sorcerer or witch / wizard. Who would want to interact with such a 'person'?” student weblog
…and the strange Dark Roly: Its really wierd You: Second Life? Dark Roly: Yes. Its fun but sort of wierd, I can see why it becomes addictive You: In what way d'you find it weird? Dark Roly: Communicating via an avatar, sort of real and not real all at the same time in-world conversation with a student
“The wind sounds in the background tend to make it feel like this is a dream or at least all happening in your head. When someone makes a sound then it really stands out like a banshee wailing in the night.” post-course interview with student
“Avatars are nothing but corpses. So, somebody comes along and will fill those dead corpses with something that is believed to be identity or feelings? It's like dressing a Barbie doll … An avatar is a dead mass that has been built up into a convenient, average identity, an object for an average user.” student weblog
Comments and Questions Chair: Hamish Macleod (h.a.macleod@ed.ac.uk)
Next Steps - Vue Governance Austin Tate (a.tate@ed.ac.uk)
Second Life – Laboratory Demonstration Fiona Littleton (fiona.littleton@education.ed.ac.uk)
Second Life – Laboratory Demonstration New to Second Life? Need help getting started? Sign up sheet now – for early 2008 Fiona Littleton (fiona.littleton@education.ed.ac.uk)
