SL-tivity 1: Student training

Time and place:

The 1^st SL-tivity took place on Wednesday the 8^th October 2008 at LSBU. Six students participated in this session.

Structure of the session:

The session was two-hour long and divided into two halves. There was a 15-minute break in between. During the first hour, our Keeper of the Media Zoo who was involved in the technological and pedagogical aspects of SL-tivities introduced students to the basic skills in SL.

In the second half, students were given 20-25 minutes to explore different islands and places in SL and take some pictures which they would use for creating their story-cubes for the next session. After this activity, students came back to the Media Zoo island and discussed as a group their experience in SL.

Observations:

At the beginning of the first half of the session, the Keeper of the Media Zoo briefly introduced himself and his avatar, myself and my avatar, and the tutor’s avatar. He then got students to introduce briefly their avatars. The Media Zookeeper gave students a tour of the Media Zoo island. They visited the boat house, one of the seminar domes, and the Kalasha valley (developed as part of another series of Sl-tivities). He introduced students to a wide range of basic skills in SL. These included:

·         Adding  someone as a friend in SL

·         sending and accept a teleport invitation to and from a friend

·         using  teleport function within the Media Zoo island

·         practising movement skills, such as how to walk and fly around efficiently

·         sitting down and standing up

·         using the chat log and instant message functions

·         using  the snapshot and camera control functions

·         creating a landmark

·         using  the inventory

·         using  the environmental settings

·         using  the search and map tool

·         joining a group

·         playing a PowerPoint presentation by using the big screens set up in the Media Zoo Island

·         getting really close to watch pictures displayed on the PowerPoint slide

I found that most students were already very good at basic skills. Perhaps they had practised a lot before they came to the session. All of them had created their avatars and customised the appearance of their avatars to some extent. Some of them have already visited the Media Zoo island before the session. Most of them found moving around and navigation in SL quite easy. Two students knew how to dance in SL! Some knew how to teleport. One student’s avatars lost her hair by accident during the session. She was able to use the editing avatar function quite efficiently to get her hair back, while still managing to keep up with the session. Some of the functions such as snapshot, camera control, landmark, inventory, and environmental settings can be completely new to most students. However, they found them easy to master. Occasionally, students chatted to each other in RL. For example, one of the students was given instruction by another student on using one of the SL functions.

During the second half of the session, students were set out to take pictures in relation to subcultures in SL. They used the search function and teleported themselves to different places and islands in SL and took some pictures by using the snapshot and cameral control functions. During this part, students talked to each other quite a lot in RL. They also used instant messaging function a lot to communicate with each other. They sent each other teleport invitations and visited each other’s places. They watched each other’s screen, showed something interesting to their neighbours, commented and laughed at each other’s findings. This activity went on for about half an hour.

Students’ avatars were then teleported back to one of the seminar domes in the Media Zoo island for discussion. The keeper of the media zoo took the role of moderator and facilitated the discussion.  Students’ avatars were invited to have a seat and make themselves comfortable. They were then asked in turn to reflect on what they feel of SL so far. There was little conversation happening in RL during this session. Students were all busy typing their answers, some of which managed to bring some humour and fun to the session. The discussion lasted for about 15 minutes.