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6 building mini-challenges for educators in Second Life

June 23rd, 2010 • MUVEs • No comments

During the MUVEnation programme, I often heard: ‘I’m an educator, I don’t need building skills! There are a lot of freebies out there!’ To this I always explained that even educators need to know how to interact with objects without frustration or fear to destroy everything. That when we use a classroom or display objects inworld, we need to be able to apply simple modifications, position and align comfortably objects in the space.

For this purpose, I have created, in April 2009, a series of mini-challenges aimed at developing basic skills, necessary for building (or better putting things together) in Second Life. I wanted to exploit the advantages of: a) micro-learning by creating activities that could be carried out in just a few minutes; b) learning by doing and exploratory learning by designing activities that achieved through practice and which solutions had to be “found out” by the learners themselves; c) self-paced learning by giving total freedom to participants to carry out the activities in their preferred rhythm and order; and finally d) create a (sort of) playful learning experience.

The mini-challenges were structured as follows:

One evocative and short title
One image that shows what has to be achieved by the student: the image of the challenge.
One simple instruction about a task to perform which evidence of performance can be shown by the students in a screenshot With eventually, a question.
Finally, a set of resources that would help the student to solve the mini-challenge, if required

I published each mini-challenge in a dedicated forum, and asked the participants to reply with the visual evidence of their performance. I loved designing these mini-challenges and the participants enjoyed doing them. And I have received positive feedback about them:

“Marga this is an excelent approach to get the teachers ready with the SL basis. I enjoyed it a lot! The exercises are easy and fun, the overhead comes when you have to take the picture, upload it to flicker, get the code for the medium size and create your record here! Nice idea!” Max Ugaz
“Thak you very much for the opportunity Margarita. The tasks are very simple. At the beginning they look somehow challenging especially for a newbie like me. But I manage to master some skill by attending workshops given either by MUVEnation colleagues or other instructors in other regions inworld. I see these are the basics.” Hamid Mernaoui

I only wish I have realised how successful this approach was and have used it to design the activities of the introductory course!

Here my first 6 mini-challenges. I have been asked permission to re-use these mini-challenges in other teaching contextsAnd I have happily accepted. These challenges are released under Creative Commons, by attribution, non-commercial. If you build upon this work, remix or translate it or even build extra mini-challenges like these, please share! I am also happy to share the verctor files I used for the keyboard and mouse in the pictures.

01 – How to take snapshots of your interface?

Take two photos of your interface with your avatar facing the camera:

the first with the snapshot button
the second showing the snapshot window, by using the Screen print key of your keayboard

Put the photos on your Flickr account and post it here, in medium size, as a reply to this discussion.

02 – I go nuts when I see all these numbers

Create 4 boxes on the ground:

The first will be a perfect cube with size at X:1.750, Y:1.750, Z:1.750
The second will be a large prim X:3.250, Y:3.250, but with Z:0.750. Mind the dot!
The third will be a tall and thin prim X:O.950, Y:0950, Z:4.500
The Fourth will be a wall X:0.200, Y:3.000, Z:5.000

If your prims with the modification get half buried in the ground, then lift them up by pulling the blue arrow. Now guess! What are all these numbers for? Which coordinates X, Y, Z help you to make an object larger? Which help you to make an object taller?

Want more?

Opening edit tools – Second Life Video TuTORial QUICKTIP
Learn building at the Ivory Tower of Primitives
Strongly advised: The 1-prim barstool trick – Second Life Video TuTORial (If you manage to make a barstool, sit on it and add it to the photo)
For a quick overview on building: Building is Second LIfe

03 – One meter higher please!

Take a photo of the 4 prims created during challenge 02, but positioning them precisely on the space, in the MUVEnation sandbox

First prim, the cube, at position X:135, Y:205, Z:25
Second, the large prim, at position X:138, Y:205, Z:26
Third, the thin and tall prim, at position X:141, Y:205, Z:28
Fourth, the wall, at position X:143, Y:205, Z:32

Now guess! What does the black bar with numbers in the upper part of the screen indicate? If someone asks you to put a box a little bit higher, which position coordinate do you have to change: X, Y or Z?

04 – Remind me again: How do I duplicate an object?

Take a photo of 10 walls, their size is X:0.200, Y:3.000, Z:5.000. You will have to make the first wall and then reproduce the others 9 horizontally. To duplicate just SHIFT+click+drag on X. Once finished, make sure that all your walls are spaced horizontally, 0.500 between them! What? Aha! Work out how you do this by increasing your horizontal position!

Now guess! Which coordinate do you have to drag to duplicate a prim vertically? How do you make sure that your objects are positioned precisely at 0.500 from each other?

Want more?

Go to the Duplicating prims station in the Ivory tower of primitives at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Natoma/176/196/26
Shift-drag to copy objects – Second Life Video TuTORial
Copy prim
Building in second Life Basics 4: duplicating objetcs

05 – Rotate that prim and show me the East!

Take a photo of a wall with size X:0.200, Y:3.000, Z:5.000, with the initial rotation at 0, 0, 0, when you are rotating it to the East. Your photo must show the rotation circle on Y (green) around the object and the related grid with East and West positions. Final rotation should be 0, 90, 0.

Want more?

Go to the Rotating prims station in the Ivory tower of primitives at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Natoma/161/171/26
Rotating a prim: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHSSfCRPIZ0

06 – Under the grid

Rez two boxes, standard size in the sandbox. Sit on the first. And put the second one at Z:24.500, then rotate on X it at 225. Activate the local ruler mode and make it visible by touching the green/orange position ‘sliders’ (or tiny triangles or whatever you prefer to call them). Take a photo of yourself under the grid!

Now guess! What are the differences between world and local grid? Why the local grid is useful?

Want more?

The Holodeck versus the Builder’s Buddy script: 3 teacher’s point of view

June 23rd, 2010 • MUVEs • 2 comments

Last year, during the MUVEnation programme we explored different holodeck technologies for the design and deployment of flexible learning scenarios inworld. Amongst these, we focused in the 2in1 Production Holodeck by Inside This World and the Builder’s Buddy Script by Newfie Pendragon.

Professor Shirley Williams, from The University of Reading, led this process and developed herself the tutorials that we first used in the course: Building with limited space, Workshop on using the Builder’s Buddy Script, Unpacking your Holodeck, and Putting content inside your Holodeck. She also blogged about it here: Holodeck: first steps at production and Builder’s Buddy First workshop

The participants found the process particularly challenging. We even had a collection of Holodeck horror tales in a dedicated forum! But despite the complexity, 50 participants effectively engaged in and completed the production of their learning scenario with either the holodeck or the Builder’s Buddy Script. To support this process, I have also developed a detailed visual tutorial of the 2in1 Production Holodeck that can be found here: Creating a simple scene with the Holodeck!

The release of these tutorials launched an interesting discussion about pro and cons of the 2in1 Production Holodeck for educators and its comparison with the Builder’s Buddy Script. You will find here 3 teacher’s point of view about their use, all based in personal experience of the tools: Jaime Álamo Serrano, professor of chemistry at the University of Valencia, Spain; Nergiz Kern, English language teacher in Turkey, presently completing a MA in Educational Technology and TESOL at the University of Manchester; and me!

For Jaime, the main criticism was related to the conceptual differences between exterior and interior scenes that are not so clear:

I would add that the difference between exterior and interior are not so clear. For instance, to say that a house is the exterior and the furniture is the interior is very restrictive idea, because you cannot ass more interior scenes as any new replaces the former. Instead think of ‘exterior’ as what will be permanent and not changed accordd different ‘changing’ (interior) scenes. Another example: think of your classroom. Some furniture will be always the same, but in each day or session you’ll use specific scenes for the topic of that class. You need different interior to practice different sets of vocabulary, botanical species, architectonic samples, and so on. So that part of the furniture, educational tools and other parts being always there should be ‘exterior’. A kitchen, another example, will have different foods each time you teach how to cook. These changing foods will be the interior.

In relation to using the Holodeck versus the BB script, Jaime’s opinion is that:

The Builder’s Buddy is much more customizable than the Holodeck. It’s open source and free.

Also the BB rezzes the components more precisely and much better than with the Holodeck

Also the BB has the possibilities to Reset and Record again that the Holodecks lacks.

In addition when using the BB you can nest several levels of BB scripts. When using the Holodeck, only two (interior and exterior). Besides the BB provides a much nicer and intituitive menu system.

Finally, the only issue is that you have to learn to handle the channels.

My opinion is that:

The process of using the BB script and the Holodeck are close: making scene, putting scripts, taking back, recording position… However using the holodeck is more complex. Once you learn one, the other won’t be very difficult to learn.
On the other hand I find the holodeck, once you’ve learned how to use it, quite practical, in one single object you have all the scenes you need.
I agree: “the Builder’s Buddy is much more customizable than the holodeck. It’s open source and free”.
I agree: “Also the BB has the posibilities to Reset and Record again that the holodeck lacks”.
I agree: “Using the BB you can nest several levels of BB’s. Using the holodeck, ony two (interior and exterior)”. But I still prefer the Holodeck menu, because it offers all in one.
Finally what I really prefer in the Holodeck is the easy way to be used by visitors and owners with different set of rights , without touching the scripts.

One issue that came often during the MUVEnation programme was the complexity of using the Holodeck. I’ve received requests for help and even complaints about people who could not use the Holodeck because it was too difficult. At the time, some of these people were not yet able to position correctly a platform or a door, to modify alone a simple script, or even to retrieve the Holodeck object in their inventory or to send a landmark to another resident’s profile. Without any doubt using the Holodeck is much more difficult than using the BB script. And in the Holodeck’s user manual, it is clearly stated that the Holodeck is for people who have two months of building experience.

But what concretely is two months of building experience for an educator? In helping the students to understand and use the Holodeck I observed that those who succeeded were confident inworld and were capable of 1) managing their inventory and retrieve perfectly any element within; 2) positioning precisely objects in the grid; 3) editing the basic features of these objects using the camera independently of their avatar’s position.

At the time of this discussion, in April 2009, Nergiz Kern’s opinion was:

So, on one side we have the issue with building skills. You need to have some basic building skills as you mention. You don’t need to really now how to “build” from scratch, though. The scenes most of us built are made up of freebie objects like chairs, boards, tables, etc.. So, you only need to be able to move them and position them where you want.

The only scripting skills you need for the BB script is to be able to open a script, modify and save it. For simple scenes (that are not nested), the only thing people will need to change in the script is the channel number. The version we are using, makes changing other settings easy, too.

On the other side, we have the different tools, namely the holodeck(s) and the BB script. Which is easier, more intuitive and more practical?

I think we can’t anwser the more practical question clearly because a lot will depend on your needs and the purpose of the scene. If you, for example, need a shell, a holodeck can be easier because it provides you with ready shells that you can, then, modify according to your needs. In order to build shells with the BB script, you need to have good building skills and it will take time.

I agree with Marga, that the holodeck allows you to have everything in one place/prim with a nice menu to select the scenes you want. On the other hand, I can easily hand out the boxed scenes made with the BB script.

Holodecks, because they are commercial products, have some important limitations regarding permissions. I am not quite sure yet how far these go but this makes them less useful for educational purposes, especially when you want students to work together or don’t have the money to buy everyone a holodeck.

Regarding ease of use, there seem to be huge differences between different holodecks. I have unpacked, rezzed and browsed through the scenes in the Production holodeck, unpacked the scripts, etc. But reading the long instruction and reading all your “horror” stories, did not make me want to use it.

Around the same time, I was provided with a Horizons holodeck. And I have to say, creating a scene was very easy, even easier than with the BB script. There is only one script and the moment you put it into an object, it’s position is recorded. It’s also much cheaper then the Production holodeck. Another advantage is that rezzing and clearing scenes is much easier, also changing permissions from private, to public or group. When rezzed, the holodeck looks like a disk which is easier to click on than a small wall pannel. It has a small wall pannel, too and even a HUD to control it, when this is want you want.

There is only one problem that I have to find out about. Once you create a scene and save it, it becomes unmodifiable which is a complete nuisance if you want to change a scene or even only rename it.

My conclusion is that the BB script

is easy to use once you have used it a couple of times and practised by creating mini scenes,

It doesn’t cost anything,

you can easily share your creations

you can be creative with the box. It can come in all kinds of shapes (Nick/Corwin showed me one that came in the shape of a rucksack which had a picnic scene in it).

The nesting allows for complex structures. Again, it was Nick I thik who showed me a kind of pyramid. Each time you clicked one level the next appeared. Great for presenting something in a gradual way.

If you have a folder in your inventory with all the boxed scenes, it is not much more difficult or time consuming to drag out the scene you need than to rez your holodeck and select the scene from the menu. Also, sometimes, you might not want others to see all your scenes. You could have differen copies of your holodeck for this but then it gets complicated again. If you want all your BB scenes in one place, you can create a picture board like you did, Marga.

Nergiz has also extensively written about her experiences using the holodecks for education in:

And you, Holodecks or Builder’s Buddy Scripts, what do you think?

Creating a simple scene with the Holodeck!

June 23rd, 2010 • MUVEs • 1 comment

Last year I created a 10 pages visual tutorial*, with Comic Life, about using the 2in1 production Holodeck from Inside this world. At the time, it was carefully reviewed by my colleague and friend Jaime Álamo (Professor at the University of Valencia), but I never had time to integrate his changes to the tutorial and release a new version. This has been done now. You can download the PDF file here. Enjoy!

*At the time of the production of this tutorial, many teachers asked me how was it done. Here some information about the process: the visual tutorial was made from the experience gained during the workshop to my own students. It took me 32 hours of work. This included in particular: the review of the complete documentation of the holodeck, writing the story board/scenario, testing the instructions, 50 snapshots taken inworld to illustrate each of the steps of the tutorial, preparing the layout and putting together the objects (photos and text) into Comic Life.

Invited artists to the JKPP drawn by me… with the iPad

June 11th, 2010 • Au fil des rencontres, Julia Kay's Portrait Party • No comments

These portraits are drawn with the iPad and belong to the Julia Kay’s Portrait Party: www.flickr.com/groups/portraitparty/

Putting children first: a design pattern for parents and guardians who publish online images of their children

June 11th, 2010 • Moi Numérique, Technologies sociales • No comments

Please, no more photos…, by Paula FJ

Summary

This pattern highlights the tension between personal online identity authoring and the responsibility we have towards others when their identity is enmeshed with ours. Specifically, how parents and guardians mitigate the risks associated with publishing online images of their children and the resulting contribution they make to a child’s digital identity.

Authors*

Margarita Pérez García, Steven Warburton, Phil Archer, Josie Fraser, Sally Griffin, Jim Hensman, Mark Kramer, Finbar Mulholland, Leon Cych, Jonathan Poole, Mira Vogel, Yishay Mor. *Please ensure that the full development history remains with this pattern so that all authors are acknowledged.

Problem

Photographs have an important place in presenting, reflecting and understanding our identities, and in preserving our memories. The ease of capturing digital images combined with the proliferation of social sites and services for publishing them online make it is simple to share such content publicly on the Internet.

Parents and guardians who create an online identity that includes images and text about their children inevitably contribute to their children’s online presence. Parents and guardians can unknowingly participate in the construction of the digital identity of dependents who subsequently have little control over how they are presented or who they are presented to.

Whatever the reasons or justifications for the online publication of these images, the problem remains. An online picture of a child that is posted on the Internet contributes and/or interferes with that child’s online identity before they understand the implications and are able to build and manage their own digital identity. At worst these images can present a series of risks that need to be mitigated:

Potential for abuse – this can be via cutting and pasting images, editing images or changing the context within which an image is viewed.
Access to personal information – images can be used within flaming, stalking and cyber-bullying type behaviours.
Identity theft – too much personal information can accidentally be made visible and lead to identities being stolen.
Attraction of unsolicited communication – this could be to a parent or child represented in a given image via the online service in which the image resides, but this could also translate into tracing a person in the real-world if geotags (geographical identification metadata usually consisting of latitude and longitude coordinates) have been used.
Misinterpretation – information may be inappropriately represented, errors amplified and false conclusions drawn, for example when images are taken out of their original context and aggregated into pornographic collections.
Interference – images that persist over time have the potential to affect their adult life for good or ill. The created identity can interfere with the identity the children create for themselves in the future that will evolve over time as they play with their identity.
Potential embarrassment of children in the short, medium and long term.

‘Angst’ a mosaic-portrait by Gila Rayberg

May 13th, 2010 • Au fil des rencontres, Julia Kay's Portrait Party • No comments

All rights to this image are reserved to Gila Rayberg.

For more information about Gila’s work, including her exhibitions and workshops, please go to http://www.gilamosaics.com/.

If you are interested in buying one her amazing mosaics, please visit her online shop at Etsy: http://www.etsy.com/shop/gilamosaics

Portrait by Wally Torta

May 13th, 2010 • Au fil des rencontres, Julia Kay's Portrait Party • No comments

All rights to this image are reserved to Wally Torta/Ruben Fletcher.

Please see the artist’s blog at: http://crackskullbob.squarespace.com/. And the artist’s imagestream in Flickr at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wallytorta/

Portrait by Martin Beek

May 13th, 2010 • Au fil des rencontres, Julia Kay's Portrait Party • No comments

All rights are reserved to Martin Beek.

This Portrait has been drawn by artist Martin Beek for Julia Kay’s Portrait Party:
www.flickr.com/groups/portraitparty/pool/

You can see Martin’s artwork on his flickr imagestream:
www.flickr.com/photos/oxfordshire_church_photos/

Photos of Martin and other artists’ portraits of him can be seen here:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/portraitparty/discuss/72157623745644424/

Invited artists to the JKPP drawn by me

May 3rd, 2010 • Au fil des rencontres, Julia Kay's Portrait Party • No comments

These portraits are drawn with the iPhone and belong to the Julia Kay’s Portrait Party: www.flickr.com/groups/portraitparty/

I have more than 100 portraits to paint! These are my first 22 so far (Flickr names when real names of the artist are not available): Julia Kay, dolores666, FlickChick2, viavisconti1, Patricio Villaroel, Jerry Waese, Anne Watkins, Marina Mozhayeva, Andrew Mirzoian, Mariah O’Neill, Gila Rayberg, Martin Beek, Barry Farmer, Rita Flores, razor_nl, Roger Lee, Murilo S. Romeiro, Cloudbuilder, NC Mallory, RK Schlueter, Monica Machniewska, and Andy Donohue.

Portraits by invited artists to Julia Kay’s Portrait Party

April 29th, 2010 • Au fil des rencontres, Julia Kay's Portrait Party, Moi Numérique • No comments

In Julia Kay’s Portrait Party, one has to make a portrait, drawn or paint, of all other invited artists, so far 155 from over the world. In few words: you paint everyone and everyone else paints you. These are, so far, the 14 portraits made of me by (Flickr names and artwork’s order): marmozh, Patricio Villaroel, Julia Kay, artbwf, mariahoneill, Anne Watkins NYC, viavisconti1, razor_nl, mariahoneill, Andrew Mirzoian, jerry waese, Anne Watkins NYC, Monica-M, and -Murilo-.