July

20

07

Andy Powell, Eduserv Foundationandy.powell@eduserv.org.uk

www.eduserv.org.uk/foundation

When worlds collide: learning activity management for avatars

or “Taking LAMS to Second Life” (but hopefully not “Like LAMS to the SLaughter”)

image by ialja @ flickr.com

July 20072007 European LAMS Conference, London 2

Summary

July 20072007 European LAMS Conference, London 3

Second what?

• 3-D virtual world

• run by Linden Lab

• populated by avatars, a.k.a. residents

• ‘proprietary’, but public commitment to open standards and OSS

• a ‘metaverse’ almost entirely built by its residents

www.secondlife.com

July 20072007 European LAMS Conference, London 4

So it’s just a game right?

• looks and feels like a gaming environment

• but no purpose as such

– use it to buy / sell, entertain, learn, collaborate, …

• do not approach it simply as a game – you’ll be disappointed! image by J0@nn@ @ flickr.com

July 20072007 European LAMS Conference, London 5

A collaborative space

images by silversprite @ flickr.com

• meetings

• conferences

• lectures

• group work

• informal discussions

• chat, IM, groups and gestures

July 20072007 European LAMS Conference, London 6

A creative space

• not just building objects…

• scripting

• putting on plays / gigs / performances

• art installations

• creating machinima

• written text

• …

July 20072007 European LAMS Conference, London 7

But note…

• “It's easier for [Second Life] to be a chemistry set than a chemistry class”

• “One of the issues with SL is that generally only 10% of people get it”

Babbage Lindenhttp://artfossett.net/meetings/2007/06/19/efsym-followup/transcript.txt

July 20072007 European LAMS Conference, London 8

SL as part of a blended experience• SL is good for some things but not everything - good for some people but not everyone

• SL will offer a potentially useful

venue for some of the activities

managed using LAMS

• pedagogies have to be flexible enough to allow for multiple modes of collaboration and creativity

• our learners won’t be fully immersed in virtual worlds for the foreseeable future – therefore LAMS integration can be partial

July 20072007 European LAMS Conference, London 9

Functional requirements

• in-world (LAMS->SL) information about activities

– workflow snapshot (what have I done? what do I still need to do?)

– dates and times (when do I need to do it by?)

– participants (who do I need to do it with?)

• out-world (SL->LAMS) information / tracking about progress

– stored chat-logs

– log of activity

– saved artefacts

July 20072007 European LAMS Conference, London 10

Issue 1 – logging collaborations

• chat and IM history not stored persistently across sessions

• need to maintain record elsewhere

• automatically or by manual copy-and-paste

July 20072007 European LAMS Conference, London 11

Issue 2 - displaying text in-world

http://www.jeff-barr.com/?p=587

• difficult to dynamically display textual information in-world

• XYText vs. ‘text as image’ vs. chat

• HTML on a prim long promised but not yet available :-(

http://www.slexchange.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=123668

July 20072007 European LAMS Conference, London 12

Issue 3 – data transfer

• SL scripting language has built-in support for HTTP requests and RPC

• but no in-world XML or Ajax parser support

• so need to process complex data using external scripts and pass data in-world using simple formats (e.g. CSV)

• also note limitations in amount of data that can be passed

July 20072007 European LAMS Conference, London 13

Issue 4 - shared credentials

• avatars have a name – e.g. Art Fossett

• in-world objects have a unique identifier

• need to reliably tie avatars to LAMS accounts and LAMS accounts to avatars

• need to trust the intermediate in-world objects thru which messages are passed

July 20072007 European LAMS Conference, London 14

Mapping the landscape

Second Life

Moodle

LAMS

July 20072007 European LAMS Conference, London 15

Learning activity management for avatars

• LAMS adds activity management to the mix

July 20072007 European LAMS Conference, London 16

• Eduserv Foundation currently funding

development of SLoodle

• contact Daniel Livingstone

[daniel.livingstone@googlemail.com] to

find out more