joesanchez's blog

My students begin spring break today which is great for me because while they all head south to the beaches on South Padre Island I get to stay home in student-free Austin and attend SXSW. Since we have almost hit the midpoint in the semester i thought now is a good time to share some of the work they have been doing in my Working in Virtual Worlds Class.

Tasks completed so far in SL:

1. Get to the island

2. Claim a condo

3. Use their condo to tell a story

4. Give a tour of their condo to the class and tell their story

5. Build a flag that waves in the wind, a bench, and send a postcard and notecard

6. Create a group and take the class on a tour of an SL location

7. use a 4096m plot of land and create a scene with a group.

#7 was just completed on Tuesday, mind you, they have had weekly readings, weekly 350 word blog posts, and a test already this semester. Here are the instructions i gave for #7.

Nathan Lowell, a resident of the Educators Coop, author, budding internet superstar, and all around great guy just posted this video Re:21st Century Learners on youtube.

I love this video Nathan, you have given us a lot to think about here. To learn more about Nathan's work you may want to start with Quarter Share. It is the first audio book in a series and can be downloaded for free. Actually you can download all of the books from the site...See yall at SXSW!joe

This is a machinima created by the G3s, a group of 4 students in my Working in Virtual Worlds class that held a fundraiser at the Happy Clam for a non-profit organization called the Wildlife Trust (see this post below for more info). The students raised 72,000 Linden, about 300USD during their 2 hour benefit party. This was an open ended video project, the instructions were to keep it to 2 1/2 - 3 minutes, and to have each student's voice represented in the video.

This is the first of four student machinima projects I will be posting created by the students of Working in Virtual Worlds, a class I teach in the School of Information at the University of Texas at Austin. Students were required to plan, coordinate, and host an event in Second Life as part of the class activities. Originally we had planned on having two tests in the semester but when the students asked to replaced the second test with a machinima project I agreed ; ).

The machinima project was an open assignment, i required the machinima be about the event they held and that every group member's voice be heard. Other than that they had creative freedom. This is a video produced by the Drag Rats (4 students) who held a custom motorcycle show in Second Life. Many thanks to the Saints of Hell in Second Life for agreeing to partner and work with the students on their assignment. As you will see, the event was a huge success, at the highest point over 60 avatars were at the event. The video is five minutes and the students begin their narrative about 3 1/2 minutes into it.

The final student project in my Working in Virtual Worlds Class will be held Tuesday 7pm PDT at Slaytona. The event will feature a live DJ and several cars and motorcycles built by some of the best custom vehicle makers in Second Life. If you haven't seen the high quality custom cars and motorcycles being built in Second Life this is an event you won't want to miss. The work from these builders will inspire you. Big cash prizes will be given to the builders in both the MC and car class.

1st prize 5000L

2nd prize 4,000L

3rd prize 2,500L

One of my favorite places in Second Life is the Music Academy Online, if you are a music lover and you haven't visted Benton Wunderlich yet, you need to get there. I met Benton through Joskie, a fellow Educator Coop resident. At my first visit to the music academy Benton was hosting one of his weekly Wednesday night dance parties (9pm) where he was pulling songs from his vast music collection. Great thing with Benton is that he not only plays great songs but he can't help but tell you about each one as he plays them. Keep in mind, he has taught music appreciation and has a Ph.D. in composition so he "knows" his collection.Monday night night I attended a presentation by Benton called ZAPPA AND IVES. The content of the presentaton was fantastic but the way Benton used Second Life to create a musical experience within SL is what really blew me away.

Last night one of my four student groups enrolled in INF315e held their VirtuaL Work Team Project in Second Life. Taken from the Syllabus the project is

This Thursday the first of four student groups in INF 315e will be having their team event in Second Life. The "G3s" as they have named themselves are hosting a benifit party at the Happy Clam this Thursday from 7-9PST
Their invitation is below. I hope to see some of you there, they are tyring to raise $60,000L for the habitat Trust for Wildlife.

Hello
We are a group of students from the University of Texas at Austin. We are enrolled in a class " Working in Virtual Worlds". As part of a class project:
We are hosting an event on Thursday, November the 15.9-11 pm central time. 7-9 pm SL time.
It will be a benefit concert at the Happy Clam Island. On the Organica Stage.

Its conference season which means I haven't been posting lately but I wanted to revist my post about breaking the SL High Learning curve. To recap, I have a class of 20 undergrads at Univeristy of Texas at Austin and I am teaching a course in Second Life called Working in Virtual Worlds. We meet once a week in class and once a week in SL. I have never offered a "training" session or a handbook or any other of the "best practices" often talked about at SLED events. In fact, i really wish we would stop using the term "best practices" in regards to teaching in SL. We should replace it with "some practices" but that is another blog post...

My class island was setup so that each student would have their own space, a condo. The first week of class each student had to claim a condo and by the fourth day of class each student had to use their condo to tell their life story following the "hero's journey" and give a tour and presentation to their classmates. The condos were fully integrated into my curriculum for the first four weeks of class.

Much has been said though little published about the high learning curve in Second Life. In a research study I wrote last year, Second Life an Interactive Qualitative Analysis, students reported a very high learning curve in SL. In fact, the IQA systems map of the affinities reported Anger as a primary outcome of the student Second Life experience. Along with Anger, interface difficulties and technical difficulties were secondary drivers within the system.

I thought I would post this video I made about Second Life a few months ago. This video was part of a presentation I gave to the Austin Technology Forum and many asked me to post it. I'm finally getting around to it. Enjoy. If you are interested in learning about the process of making the video and more on virtual worlds i often blog at http://educatorscoop.org/blog

Looking for personal land in Second Life has always made me feel dirty. The hidden fees, unscrupulous land lords, lack of zoning laws, and the inevitable possibility of living next to an escort, griefer, anatomically correct avatar, or other SL deviant. I have enjoyed meeting educators, librarians, and researchers in Second Life but the visits always seemed short-lived. I wanted more than a chance run-in or a weekly meeting.

These are some of the reasons why a trio of avatars in Second Life have created the Educators Coop. The Educators Coop is a residential community for educators. One sim has been sectioned of into 64 parcels of land each 1024m plots. We are offering 60 of these plots to educators/researchers/librarians interested in forming a community in Second Life. Our plots are available at below market value $80 a year and include access to large communal sandboxes, meeting spaces, auditoriums, and free houses. This concept is the first of its kind in Second Life. If you want to become a part of a community of educators in Second Life, come take a look at our site Educators Coop

Continuing the series of post from a foucs group of 19 students in an undergraduate English course using Second Life for building activites.

Affinity = World expectations
When students first learned they were going to be using Second Life in their class many developed preconceived notations of what they were going to do. Students were excited by the marketing pictures of Second Life that they viewed on the Internet, “On the website they made it all look fun and interesting and you get into the real thing and its not all”. Students also expected to “play” something similar to a popular computer game called “The Sims”.

Because of the island’s private status and restricted user accounts, students were not allowed to leave the virtual campus.  Students were disappointed with their lack of interaction with other Second Life residents, “It would have been more fun in the real SL rather than the UT island, the actual second Life game, there is more stuff to do, its not just a campus, it’s a whole world”.

One of the affinities students described during a focus group about the Second Life learning experience was titled Time Consuming.

Working in Second Life is very time consuming. Students were surprised and burdened by the amount of time they needed to spend in order to complete their assignments. A student commented about the extraordinary amount of time needed to build in Second Life, “it took hours and hours to do anything but things didn’t turn out at all”. Another student described the tedious attention to detail required in Second Life in order to perfect a building, “After creating a building, I noticed there were a lot of little spaces between the walls and roof and I just couldn’t figure out how to get it right”.