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July
20
07
Andy Powell, Eduserv [email protected]
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
[[email protected]] to
find out more