Teaching in virtual spaces (be it then Second Life, OpenSim och any other space) is dynamic and flexible learning situation. For an experienced teacher flexibility is a source of inspiration and motivation. For a newbie these aspects may seem more chaotic and unpredictable, which may lead to less positive teaching experiences. In this chapter we will be looking at some situations where support in virtual learning space is needed. These situations were identified as problematic by teachers in the network already using virtual worlds for teaching, as well as by partners that are in the beginning of their virtual journey. Although some of the problems may not have any solid solutions (as yet) we will be looking at what kind of support there is available for teachers and students that choose to take a course that is partly or entirely set up in a virtual environment. Some support is offered here and most of the links here concern teaching in Second Life but have great value even for those who want to set up their educational programs in OpenSim.

 

 

This page is still under refinement and is work-in-progress. We welcome comments and questions on this page.

 

1. QUESTIONS ABOUT THE NETWORK

 

1. Can I join Euroversity, if I don't know how to enter or use any virtual world?

 

Euroversity and the framework presented here is there for you no matter whether you are experienced user of virtual worlds or not. The network itself was motivated by the different needs of the initial partners, and such differing needs and goals will be the motivation and inspiration of the resulting association as well. Euroversity has developed a good practice framework that offers quidance, information and ideas for those that are considering or planning course activities or other educational events in virtual worlds. To get in touch with project partners you can visit the official webpage of the project at http://www.euroversity.eu/. On our webpage you will also find dates for coming seminars that are open for public, you will also get access to presentation in the seminar series that started in January 2014. You can also follow the open Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/euroversity/.

 

2. HOW DO I START

Many people, students and teachers feel that virtual worlds offer an interesting alternative for class room teaching, but in many cases the first questions is how to start. There are many terms, words and concepts that, even at basic level of the exploration of virtual worlds, may seem difficult to get a good grasp on. Newbies (people new to virtual environments) start often off by reading about a virtual learning space, e.g. Second Life, because this information is easily available in the Internet. Without initiating support it is, however, hard and it takes a lot of time to understand how one can get started in a virtual world. It takes even longer to find ways to utilize the space for e.g. teaching purposes if one has not got access to various teaching scenarios and guiding frameworks for teachers.This is partly why Euroversity was founded, to bring togehter people that have many years of experience of teaching in virtual worlds and those teachers and students (or other interested people) that want to take the next step into virtual world of teaching and learning.

 

We believe that good and solid initiation to virtual environment is needed in order to avoid e.g. loss of interest or loss of valuable teaching time. There are different ways to do this, and perhaps the best way is to combine different support models. This means that there is an actual support person available to help the teachers or students that are new to the space with hand-on support, and that in addition to this there are one or more supporting avatars available in-world. This kind of scenario is of course not very realistic for many reasons, one being that there are not so many skilled resource person available anywhere. When there is no support person available, learning to be in and use virtual worlds is often a matter of try-an-error. For some of the most experienced SL teachers in Euroversity this less favoured learning model has brought also many positive side effects as the teachers soon become their own support persons and can start to help the students with various technical and other problems. Try-and-error model is of course not to prefer when the teacher is visiting the virtual world for the first times with the students and is expected to solve technical problems and pedagogical challenges at the same time without really understanding the dynamics of the virtual space him- or herself.

 

We cannot offer assistance to all teachers that are in the beginning of their virtual teaching careers but here is a initiation document for free use SL initiation for Euroversity.docx . You can use the document to explore and learn more about Second Life, or if you are looking for a template for SL initiation for your own teaching then you can upload the document, change and modify the document to suit your purposes. This document was created for teacher training programme in English at Umeå university, but the model can be used on any course that requires visits to Second Life or acquiring basic skills in SL usage. There are also official SL start guides available in the Internet at e.g. http://community.secondlife.com/t5/English-Knowledge-Base/Second-Life-Quickstart/ta-p/1087919. If you have already started exploring SL then you might be wondering about the looks of your avatar and many people also feel that they want to start changing the appearance of their avatars quite soon after entering SL, here is a link to University of Delaware's detailed guide for editing the appearance of the avatar http://sites.udel.edu/udsled/appearance/ and here is a link to other useful tools noticed by the teachers and students at University of Delaware http://sites.udel.edu/udsled/resources/  and to the start page for Second life educators at that university http://sites.udel.edu/udsled/.

 

If you search for instructional videos at Youtube you will also be able to find more detailed help for e.g. building and creating things. User Torley (Linden Labs own representative) has created a helpful databank of tutorials for Second Life (check e.g. the tutorial for how to get rid of common annoyances in Second Life https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zajGLGuAf-A. Youtube has also tutorials in other languages than English.

 

3. QUESTIONS ABOUT TEACHING AND PEDAGOGY

During our project we have gotten comments from teachers and practicians saying that it is difficult to see the potential and to do any planning for virtual teaching if you don't have any knowledge on how to use the virtual space for teaching. This is of course a dilemma and a paradox with this kind of teaching models as the need for using the virtual world for teaching must come first and there should be motivation for choosing virtual environment so that the full potential of the environment can be seen by the new users.

 

We have identified two different kind of needs from the teachers' point of view -- the need for the basic skills in order to be able to teach in virtual environments and the need for pedagogical support (ideas, models, methods, tasks and task design, learning theories, explained learning goals, specific content areas). Having access to pedagogical and didactic models suited for online virtual teaching is very important. The models are not only converted into tools but what is important is understanding how and why one should do things in the virtual learning environment.

 

Some teachers also wonder whether or not teaching models used for language teaching are suitable in other disciplines. Euroversity takes an interdiciplinary view on teaching in virtual worlds although many of the more experienced users of virtual worlds in the projects come from languages background. Some of the courses that have been used either as models for the good practice framework or that have arisen from the learnings and knowledge gained from previous courses in the project show that lessons learned in language studies and teacher training programs can be accomodated into the areas of e.g. anthropology and gaming. One of the partners (P7, Umeå university) also has many years of experience of communication training in Second Life in the pharmacist program, that is of value for other educational programs where personal communication with the client, patient and their relatives or e.g. distance education students is required and part of the training program. In order to learn more about the interdiciplinary applications of the project visit the Presentations area on our web page http://www.euroversity.eu/. There you will find the presentations (recordings) given in our Webinar series. If you are interested in presenting in the series yourself or would like to attend to the live webinar sessions, contact Hanna Outakoski at Umeå university http://www.sprak.umu.se/om-institutionen/personal/?uid=haaoki98&guiseId=48259&orgId=497aea1408f9928467aa9f8712319dcb3f0ee6d1&name=Hanna%20Outakoski or send her a message via Second Life where her alias is Hanna Velde.

 

  This is Hanna Velde in Second Life.

 

 

, technological tools are just tools

It would be very helpful to observe lessons in virtual world - maybe this could be done internal to the project and done quickly

And vice versa - bring in the helper or the expert and let them observe for improving comments or function as support

 

Sources and support for teachers:

North Sami course in Second Life (ideas and information) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfNSy8Y26tw

Guided tour to open Sim application for language learning https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIvyJosLWAY

Languagelab in Second Life https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hJZ2bre_FI

Second Life language learning video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdkz59vfn3g

Action Based Learning in Second Life (playlist from Lancelotschool) http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5E66A2CC10DE3A6D

Tools for teaching in Second Life (low volume) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDRupT0ates

Teaching in SL - Second Life Teaching Tools playlist by rowenali99 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCF3E16D3342B171E

Tutorial: Create a Power Point Presentation for Second Life https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZvRk1Fi0Lk

Second Life for the university UONP podcast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXpNMUadpms

Teaching decision making using Second Life parts 1 and 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPDV5XBw_kA  and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVa5BHTixCk

Virtual Pharmacy Tabletting lab https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ErjFOifZVs

Communication Training in Virtual Pharmacy (Umeå university) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXLE7zh6jjY

AVALON Learning ning (community and news) http://avalon-project.ning.com/

AVALON Learning official website (EU project) http://avalonlearning.eu/

NIFLAR project http://niflar.eu/

UWN School of Health and Social Sciences - An introduction on learning in Second Life https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8je9YZs-ew

University of Delaware's useful link collection http://sites.udel.edu/udsled/resources/useful-web-links/

 

 

 

WHERE SHOULD I GO AND WHAT SHOULD I DO IN E.G. SECOND LIFE?

If you are new to e.g. Second Life, you can look for suggestions to do and places to visit at the Second Life webpage at http://www.secondlife.com . Second Life has also its own channel for videos on Youtube and you can be inspired by many of the videos. Check for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mVUXnAeibE .

 

LANGUAGE BARRIERS

Obstacle : language and all explanations in English

 

NEED FOR TEACHER TRAINING PRIOR TO CLASSES IN VIRTUAL SPACES

no teacher training for those who will use e.g. Sl for teaching - need to learn and no support, many things we did not know and still do not know

there are people familiar with games etc. but for those who are in need of basic knowledge

person to person guidance is valuable - new terms - good if this is in your language or can be explained by someone who knows the terms and can explain them

>>> there is a need for a teacher trainer course for those teachers who will be teaching in virtual worlds (a course that does take up all these questions + gives some advice on how to design some pedagogical tasks)

>>> there is a need for a virtual welcoming area for teachers - in addition to a course this is good help for those that come in and need quick help

teachers coming to SL or other virtual spaces need help in finding groups and places >>> there are some basic needs for teachers (and new members and newbies) that should be taken care of (a little help on how to use the map, how to find people or locations and how to contact people for help in-world)

AGAIN the course for the educators is becoming more important

 

DIFFERENT VIRTUAL SPACES AND SPECIFIC QUESTIONS

OpenSim: students from different countries - English was a problem for many students, cultural barriers between students (different ways of communicating - misunderstandings), not course but lessons in building ethical code together, synchronous meetings were problematic when people did not want to work together (impose an ethical code), miscommunication and perseived each other in negative way

these kind of misunderstands may happen in all kinds of courses - even when the students come from one and the same country, problem when people do not follow the norms and this is difficult to foresee, one person can change the dynamics of the course, people might have the idea that they can act differently on an online course

 

ETHICS

>> need for ethical discussion and discussion about cultural differences prior or in the beginning of the course

 

 

 

FRAMEWORK

because SL was used for meetings the partner (Coimbra) decided to use SL, it was the experience that was behind the choice >>> it is very obvious that even a little experience in any virtual space is more of a reason to choose the space as pedagogical space than the framwork itself >>> we should find a way to make the framework to attract people and not the virtual worlds to make people get interested in the framework

talking and personal contacts and guidance - but this is again a question of cost (consultation)

people are at different levels and different learners which is often forgotten

how to capture the different aims of the courses and the subjects? we might at least need a chapter that does discuss the pedagogical challenges for differnt

it is not the aim of the framework to offer the teachers ready made course packages although many users and potential partnes might need just that, we need personal freedom but also suggestions of how and why do things in a certain way,

Maybe a bank of tasks or little guide to task design, bring togehter suggestions of tasks from already existing tasks

Refernce  points - direct links or paths to certain things in the framework - some things must be learned step by step, but it would be helpful to have a direct link to places in framework for those that have special intrerests (e.g. task design, technical support)

 

What we can do: suggestion by Sebastien transmedial course ... language courses online >>> we must make it clearer in the framework that we don't want to build a course around the tools but we want to choose the tools to add value to the courses and use the tool because it enables us to do something we might not be able to do otherwise

Potential : disabled people and virtual worlds... we must capture this better

We must also find a way to reach out to companies (organizations, institutions) and try to get them understand why e.g. installing SL on the computers is important for those who will take a course - we could ask the members of the concertium if they already have a way to inform interested parts of the requirements for attending a course

 

CULTURAL DIFFERENCES AND CULTURAL SENSITIVITY

Important to consider that cultural differnces and the fact that people learn best trough their own language

 

TECHNOLOGY

Basic skill (avatar and entering the world), create and function in the world, how to interact with people and objects, details (all little things that can irritate, looks and accessories and so on)

 

OTHER PORBLEMS (real technical problems)

crashes in virtual world - there has to be a plan B know by all the participants

Sound problems in e.g. SL - solve e.g. with Skype - important to inform everyone on how to do this in case there is a problem, difficult when the group is very large

session preparations - the teachers must find to give the class anyway so there must always to be a plan B

We must capture why the plan B is not better than plan A in the first place, what is it that we lose when and if we must use the plan B, the potential is clear but the practice is another

how do we justify our time used for something that is unstable and takes a lot of our energy, what happens when the added value is not in balance with the work load?

 

We can't rely on programs that that the clients or the students can't get hold of

we must acknowledge the problem of big groups

Griefers, public spaces, designs, personal problems, others issues to be addressed, problems with existing and vanishing destinations linked to the destinations guide, are there too many channels for information (what is the best way to reach different target groups)

 

Creator of this document

Hanna Velde alias Hanna Outakoski at Umeå University, Department of Language studies