Second Life’s virtual environment offers a unique opportunity for educators to weave into their curriculum real-time interactive activities that support experiential learning. 

To help with the planning and development of your SL educational activities, I’ve created a planning and resource guide to assist you as you plan your lessons. This includes the steps you can take regarding how to introduce your students to the SL environment.

By integrating a SL student orientation into your curriculum, your students are more likely to acquire the skills necessary to make their involvement in your SL assignments more participatory and engaging.  Think of it as the building blocks or foundation for your SL educational activities. Here are a few things to consider as you start planning your lessons.

• As you develop your lesson plans, consider the type of skills needed for your students to complete your planned activities. For example, a Sociology class may only need to acquire skills necessary for observation and interviewing while an Architecture class may need to develop building and scripting skills.

• Introducing SL to your students at the beginning of the term via an SL orientation is a good way to engage them when their interest level is usually high. Without a solid foundation, students can struggle while trying to learn the navigational skills necessary to complete your assignments. Frustration can lead to disengagement and once you lose their attention, it’s hard to get it back.

• Recommend two class sessions for the orientation depending on the length of class time, though students can practice more on their own time.

• People tend to learn best in “small bites,” so focus only on a few skills to learn at one time. Develop a few exercises for each learning level you wish your students to work through.

• Suggest that you have your students work in groups of 2 or 3 it will help them to practice their basic skills such as walking and chatting. It will also encourage them to collaborate and share their knowledge, as each student brings a different skill set to the environment.

• Be sure that students go through the stations in Orientation Island, it is here that they learn basic SL skills such as walking, flying, moving objects, etc.

• At the conclusion of Orientation Island, students will be given the choice between going to Help Island or directly to the Mainland—they should choose to go to Help Island. At Help Island, there are SL mentors (volunteers) that are available to help students with everything from flying -- changing their appearance – shopping – basic building – basic scripting and more.

Here are a few things your students can do while on Help Island:

• Demo Area
• Freebie Store
• Explore Help Island
• Obtain: Explorer Guide Book
• Tutorial Zone: building tutorial, intro to scripting (for those that need these skills)

 

• IMPORTANT NOTE: Once students leave Help Island they cannot return, so they should be encouraged to visit the appropriate tutorial stations necessary to develop the skills for your assignments.

• For more practice acquiring SL skills, you can have your class go through each of the learning activities available in the RL Student Orientation Area (Campus 175, 95, 24). These activities help students to practice:

• Basic Skills
• Moving Objects
• Using the Map
• Teleporting
• Opening Boxes
• Taking Snapshots, etc.

It is adjacent to the Campus: Second Life where students can practice their skills in the Sandbox area.

• Be sure to provide a context for your students, in other words, tell them why it is necessary to learn certain skills (i.e. camera control helps one to see objects up close, read signs, take pictures, etc.) Doing so will give them motivation for learning a skill particularly as it applies to your required work :)

• Give your students navigational “cheat sheets” to help make using the tools easier (see examples.)

• Consider scheduling an SL mentor to work with your students during your orientation sessions, they enjoy assisting new residents in acclimating to the SL environment.

• Mac “key stroke” instructions are slightly different from PC, to reduce learning frustration, provide Mac users with their own set of navigational instructions (see resources).

• Integrate SL student work with RL resources such as Wikis, Blogs, Web pages where students can share their knowledge and experiences with one another as well as access other online information.

• Use other technologies along with SL, for example, students can engage in skype conference calls while in-world working on collective projects.

• SL is an adult environment, but you might consider the sim rating (PG vs. Mature) when assigning students to specific locations in-world.

• While us educators may be using SL for educational purposes, many residents are involved in SL for other reasons such as business, leisure and community. Remind students to be respectful of others who reside in-world.

• By integrating a SL orientation into your curriculum, the quality of the project, assignment, activity submitted by your students is likely to be higher than without an orientation. For example, if your class is held during an 18 week term with 4 weeks of orientation, that allows for 14 weeks devoted to completion of the actual assignment. Shorter terms would be adjusted accordingly (i.e. 10 week term, 2 weeks of orientation). The key is to identify specific SL skills to be acquired, provide exercises to practice those skills, then time for students to play (experiment) with their new skills.

• Remember, “Your World, Your Imagination” so try new things in SL that can’t be done in RL, you’re only limited by your own vision. 

Determining SL Skill Level

 Cheat Sheets

 Real Life Student Orientation Practice Stations

RL Student Orientation Stations QuickTime Video

SL Education Rubric Template

SL Volunteer Knowledge Sharing Project