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WP2: framework for good practices

Page history last edited by Donovan Babin 11 years, 3 months ago

This manual aims at providing guidance for organizations and individual teachers in getting started with teaching in a 3D virtual world such as Second Life. The information found in this guide has been drawn from a range of different projects[1] and teaching experiences[2], both from public and private institutions from across Europe and in Israel. These participating institutions have experience in the use and development of online virtual platforms for education across a range of disciplines (i.e. language education, cultural studies, literature, economics, religious studies, media studies, intercultural communication, digital design, computer science and software engineering, science) and contexts (lower and higher education, educational and business). [Comment: I'm not sure if the marked word above ("science") is left from an older version? Could the context be more concrete?]

The guide aims at supporting other practitioners [Comment: new ones in this setting and experienced ones] on best practice implementation of courses within virtual worlds.

 

The manual includes recommendations about pre-course preparation, course implementation and evaluation/assessment. Further guidance is also provided on organizational, technical and ethical issues. Best practices (reflections, evaluations, lessons learned) are described and discussed in detail.  In addition, related resources are indicated where appropriate.

 

The manual has a three part modular structure:preparation; implementation; and evaluation issues. Within the pre-course preparation section the focus will be on the decision making process, aims and objectives of the course, funding, understanding the environment and the learners, logistics and timetabling, course syllabus and advertising. In the course implementation section the following issues will be tackled: technical issues and support, interaction, resources and ethical issues. Finally, the third section (post-course) will deal with the assessment and evaluation part. Throughout the guide EUROVERSITY specific documents (case studies) are combined with links to good practices.  The case studies used to support this report will be further supplemented over the lifetime of this wiki with the expectation that this document is a 'living' document which can be further supplemented with good practice overtime.

 

All EUROVERSITY partners have contributed in one way or another to the assembly of the guide; therefore, the manual includes examples from different disciplines (language education, cultural studies, literature, economics, religious studies, media studies, intercultural communication, digital design, computer science and software engineering, science). This EUROVERSITY “Good Practice” guide which focuses particularly on:

-Pre-course preparation

-Course implementation

-Post- course assessment and evaluation

is available on-line and is downloadable.

 

[Comment: I like this introduction very much :)]

 

2. Pre-course preparation [Comment: Shouldn't these points be included in the precourse-section by Christina and Isabel?][Not sure what is happening in this section] [Commemt: There is a separate page in the wiki for the pre-course section of the framework called"Pre-course preparation (revised draft by UC team on Dec6 2012)"]

2.1 Decision making process

 

Gerhilde: key point must be how to keep students motivated and engaged, thus: give students some freedom to choose what and how to work; do project work; make sure topics are interesting for students; include external experts; think, if students can gain reputation in their peer-group by the work, etc.... This is the core of planning the course.

 

Silvia: make sure it's going to add value to your course, do some research about how other experiences in your field have been carried out similar programs

 

2.2 Aims/objectives

 

Gerhilde: It might be difficult to stick to a curriculum - don't mind. Clearly describe what the course will be about and what students will learn. This, plus the attractivity of an immersive environment should be enough to be interesting for students.

 

Silvia: emphasize the "authenticity" value that SL can bring to your course and make clear connections on how it's going to benefit the course and its outcomes.

 

2.3 Funding

 

Gerhilde: It's a lot easier to run the course within a university, thus be funded publically. If your students have to pay individually, your organisational load increases - and your drop-out rate might increase.

 

Silvia: if you decide to do it without the help of any funding, don't underestimate the value of some services you might not be an expert at [i.e building] and think carefully how you could "pay" for them in case you needed them.

 

2.4   Environment and the learners

 

Gerhilde: Make sure your learners get a profound introduction into the environment. Keep your time for that! Consider a "registration week" (or "onboarding hours") before the course starts, where each student has to show up in-world and register. Doing that, you are sure, that they have no more technical problems when the course starts.

 

Silvia: it helps to have a fixed meeting point [base] in SL where all sessions can start from. If making use of public locations, be sure to have selected them carefully knowing what you can and can not do there. Have you checked the landmark at different times? This could give you an idea of what type of avatars might be present at those locations while your students are carrying out tasks and with this info decide if the location is suitable or not. Once they are familiar with the environment, a few optional "help sessions" in world are handy for people who might have problems with certain aspects of the task, that way they feel like they are being supported and while maybe nobody shows up [good sign, no problems encountered] others might thank you for it. Tutorials [video ro text] available off line are also helpful when trying to solve some technical problems. Plan informal meetings before the course/activities start.

 

2.5   Logistics and timetabling

 

Gerhilde: Start on time! Train your participants: your sessions start on time. People that are late, miss the first part. If you are not consequent enough, you will loose between 15 and 30 minutes at the beginning. People should be logged-in 10 minutes before the class starts.

However, plan the session in a way, that you start with an activity that can be missed - e.g. a game, some revision of last time, etc.)

 

Gerhilde: make sure you have technical assistance during the first 1 or 2 sessions.

 

Gerhilde: Our courses last at least 8 weeks. Less does not make much sense, because of the project work.

 

Silvia: do all students have to do the same tasks but have the freedom to do them at different times? can two parallel groups do the same task at the same time? If that is not the case, and all students have to make use of the same space [landmark, holodeck, etc] to do the same task, organize a calendar where the different groups write down when they will be carrying out the task, that way you avoid clashes and delays from groups having to wait until another one has finished. Stress the importance of having to write down date and time in the calendar and to stick to it. Here you will also have to take into account the duration of each task. When participating with students from another country be aware of time differences, holidays, etc, when planning. Think ahead about how they are going to work: pairs, groups of 3? who is going to group them? are they always going to work with the same partners or is it going to be different per task?

 

Silvia: consider if the presence of the tutor is necessary during task performance. If not, but if the tasks are going to be graded later by the tutor, select a recording tool so the tutor can have later access to those recordings to garde the task. Not all participants will have the same operating system and different recording tools might be necessary [for Mac, for windows, etc].

 

2.6   Course syllabus

 

Silvia: Make sure all tasks are tested before including them in your course. They need to be tested in the same circumstances as the students will encounter them, that way you can check that instructions are understood and that the process is the one you expect.

Silvia: if using a textbook [because you are working with a blended approach] make sure that the virtual tasks are linked to the course syllabus

Silvia: if these SL activities have a certain weight in students' grades a clear definition of what is being measured is essential

 

2.7   Advertising the course

 

Gerhilde: Don't forget to use social media for advertising!

Silvia: if it's voluntary participation, an informative session at your institution showing examples and explaining positive aspects might attract volunteers.

 

3. Course implementation [There is a revised versions of section 3 in the WP2 folder.]

 

3.1 Technical issues and support

 

Gerhilde: Technical issues are very normal - thus be prepared. There are several ways how to mitigate them, but you need a strategy:

1) sort technical issues out before the course starts (see above: onboarding hours).

2) have additional staff for technical assistance - at least for the first 2 sessions

3) make sure, your own technology runs really reliable. maybe, have a backup machine

4) make sure, you have contact-info of all participants: facebook, skype, eMail, ... so, in case of troubel, you can reach them in time; tell them to have their skype/facebook/eMail open during (or shortly before) class.

5) have quick solution guides with easy referencing system to allow for very quick communications to get stduents active again without losing too much time (see a example and prototype in the Dropbox WP2 folder "Uni-Bielefeld FAQ - final") - Added by Donovan

6) have fallback-solutions for partial problems: e.g. use Skype, if SecondLife-voice does not work. 

7) have fallback-sessions: e.g.: if SecondLife is not available (which sometimes happens), have a Skype-session prepared; or a facebook-session, ...

8) train students well: teach them to use text-chat if they don't hear; teach them to answer if you ask a question; teach them to activly participate - in order to show, that they do not have technical problems.

 

[Comment: I think these tips are very useful and can be implemented and adapted for all platforms and they are always up-to-date. As there was the question if there should be some concrete troubleshooting for the different platforms in the pre-course section this might be a good solution also for there.]

 

Silvia: a "help session" per task can be helpful for some participants, particularly at the beginning. State clearly what is allowed and what is not as problem solving strategy [i.e a text chat session can not be a substitute for an oral activity] 

 

3.2 Interaction

 

In general:

Given the fact that (oral) interaction is key to realising the majority of course aims (in the EUroversity case collection) the availability of good quality voice and related user technical skills is a vital precondition. It is therefore advisable to invest a) in  proper induction sessions & materials (also see 3.1. above) and b) -if resources allow - in having an assistant present during inworld contact hours. In this way also loss of teaching/learning time due to lack of basic SL skills can be avoided. 

 

 

3.2.x Inworld Communication Modes

(Examples + purposes of and advice for these various modes)

 

     i. Human / non-human - these are the types of relationships and roles to keep in mind. Second Life has different potential than a normal classroom. There is more to consider and more to exploit. There are certain risks to consider as well

          a. types of human: peer2peer, teacher - student, student - actor, student/teacher - other SL residents

          b. human roles: students, teacher, actors (e.g. investors, simulation partners, board of directors, interviewer, interviewee)

          c. in-world interaction with bots

          d. basic interaction with objects and the varied outcomes (e.g. normal object commands, switches, shops [free and paid], control panels, teleport points, boxes and accepting objects) - how these can be exploited?

          e. risk management:

               - strategies and tools for dealing with hostile natives (people encountered when visiting a public place)

              - data protection: keeping data safe (example of sharing Doodle link in Euroversity meeting and it being wiped by a hostile spammer.)

               - Identity theft

               - seedy areas in-world

 

[Comment: It might be good to make different sections about the communication modes and the risks under different headlines. Perhaps it is also possible to make a table which risks can occur in which communication modes? ]

 

     ii. Active: Written / Spoken - this is the primary way students communicate with each other. Besides gestures and implicit actions, this is all there is. Exploitation of these tools and methods are an active and continuous part of the teaching in virtual worlds. 
          a. Synchronous - this will represent most of the active communication in class
               - IM, Calls, Class chats, SMS, [Comment: I'm not totally sure if SMS is really synchronous or more like an email? ]
               - Adobe connect can all be synchronous and used in collaboration (see 3.2.x)
               - Chat window as feedback
               - Chat window as white board
               - Powerpoint Presentations [Comment: Hm, ppt slides are not necessarily synchronous, aren't they? In much educational settings the students get access to the slides via moodle or other learning management systems - then they can look at them every time they want. Or is with ppt-presentation meant the real presentation when the students are listening to the presenter? ]
               - Internet browser as a window out and in
          b. Asynchronous - allows for students to miss but stay up to date and allows communication at a casual pace outside of classroom
               - IM can be set to be delivered asynchronously,
               - email is asynchronous
               - Tools like Facebook, Twitter and Skype can be both
               - m-learning aspect when connecting with these tools
               - use of LMS with forums or other forum tools
               - Chat log - archiving, posting to LMS, used to profile class or individual student issues or mistakes, used to build exercises, resource to build vocabulary list from or based on
     iii. Passive: Reading/Listening (Audio/Visual) - Is often the biggest part of how the students are interacting with the world is through this mode, however strategies and knowledge regarding the working of these functions is critical to success and avoiding students lost staring at a screen barely engaged.

          a. strategies for listening

          b. setting audio to camera or to avatar

          c. Setting the individual volume

          d. pre alerting students to a possible need  and ability to turn off volume in areas visited that are not controlled by educational group

          e. zooming in on a presentation

          f. opening windows in external browser for better viewing and listening experience

 

[Comment: As mentioned above there could be different sections with the different modes, the risks and how they can be avoided. ]

 

3.2.x Interaction triggers

     i. teacher designed tasks: models used for task design may differ depending on the objectives of the interaction planned during the in-world activity (e.g. deepening understanding of concepts through p2p communication (collaborative learning)) or the promotion of exchange of information & negotiation of meaning (e.g. in language learning & ICC development)

     ii. methodology and approaches

     iii. user driven, informal activities 

     iv. object triggered interaction (including games)

 

 

3.2.x Session & Group Management
     i. Creating Groups and Friends
          a. friending people and fellow classmates in world makes them easily locatable and can send them location
          b. grouping friends
          c. SL dashboard setup for optimal group management
          d. there is a need for a group building tool to be created or found (Does Sloodle have this capacity?); Klaus/Donovan WOW Dungeon finder idea.
     ii. In-world Tools to enable and facilitate group and pair work (i.e. in-world objects)
          a. Skytable and chairs with controller,
          b. room with internet browser in the round (on all walls)
          c. Object based group building - building groups around objects that indicate the different groups and limiting the number of students
     iii. Build-in SecondLife Tools for Group Management (e.g. build in chat, IM and individual phone calls)

          a. Using Chat, Phone and IM for group management

          b. Combined approach with FAQ Guide (Uni-Bielefeld prototype in Dropbox - added by Donovan). Using a guide with a well structured table of contents and referencing system to give students with problems or when they are lost - often the biggest issues that break up a group

          c. Minimap and world map combined with touch teleporting - to find people

 

[Comment: As the guide should also be used by new users it might be good if there could be some definitions what is f.e. meant by Sloodle, Skytable and so on.]

 

3.2.x Additional communication means

     i. Provide information about additional communication tools (mail, forum, skype, facebook) to support communication with and between course participants

     ii. List of possible support and fallback solutions (a description of each of these tools function and software type is essential to keep this information up-to-date as market leaders may change.)

          a. Adobe Connect

          b. Skype / MSN

          c. Facebook

          d. Twitter

          e. Google+

          f. Moodle or other LMS (Sloodle add-on for Moodle)

          g. Wordpress or similar Blog

 

 

3.3 Resources

 

Gerhilde: whatever resources (in-world material, documents in an LMS, quizzes, etc.) you use: make sure they are available and functional (test them before class starts!). Always think about reusing existing material and how to share material that you create yourself with the existing community.

 

3.4 Ethical issues

 

Gerhilde: Bullying is definitly an issue that the students must be prepared to. We use to say, that SecondLife is like the real world: Everything that exists in the real world exists in there as well.Avalon TT Course Assessment

 

4. Post-course [Comment: Shouldn't these points be included in the post-course-section by Silvia and Judith? ] 

 

4.1 Assessment

 

Gerhilde: Make peer-assessment an integral part of the course. Make sure, you receive assessment from your participants - keep asking for feedback. If you have to assess your students: make sure you know beforehand which assessment criteria need to be applied. If possible, try "non-invasive" assessment, thus derive assessment from what students do in class (no explicit exams needed). In the NEXT-TELL-project we have developed some examples of non-invasive assessment using quests.

 

Silvia: make clear to participants what is expected from them during these virtual tasks and make them aware of the criteria being used to grade their participation

 

 

4.2 Evaluation

 

Silvia: plan you revaluation carefully: do you want a general evaluation of the whole course? do you also want/need evaluation per task/activity to further improve them in the future? Try to get as many evaluations as possible, their information is very valuable [plan them during a lesson, before a task, etc]. Use a tool that is going to make gathering and analysing that information easy [digital surveys]. Recorded interviews of the participants can serve future research purposes. Make sure to include all aspects of the course in the evaluation. 

 

5. Conclusion

 

Gerhilde: Careful course design supported by thoughtful preparation is the critical success factor for a course in virtual worlds. Make it a story; make it a quest; make it a project; give it a thread; give it a goad - and give enough freedom to the participants.

 

Comments (2)

schaller@paedagogik.uni-kiel.de said

at 3:52 pm on Dec 6, 2012

As in the other sections I added my comments in orange.

Best wishes,
Regina

Ellinor said

at 9:58 pm on Dec 7, 2012

I don’t understand ‘contexts’ in brackets – what does ‘educational’ mean? (...cross a range of disciplines (i.e. language education, cultural studies, literature, economics, religious studies, media studies, intercultural communication, digital design, computer science and software engineering, science) and contexts (lower and higher education, educational and business).
2.1 Decision making process: make sure it is an integrative part of your course and make sure that it copes with your aims
2.2 Aims/objectives: on how it's going to benefit the course and its outcomes.
Comment: show that it is a meaningful part of the overall course and not just some pastime
2.3 Funding: Comment: speak also with other public institutions like libraries, adult education centres etc. to find out whether you can run the course there
2.6 Course syllabus: Comment: when testing, make sure that you test persons with different personal, social, professional background and from different age groups

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