Monday, May 26, 2008

26 May 2008 Statistics Course

I've started a stats course today. It is fascinating. It is trying. But it is excellent. The lecturer is so well prepared. The tutorials are wonderful. The content is just so relevant.

I'm thinking about conducting surveys and cases simultaneously. Run a survey to identify and classify categories of adopters. Then do a case on each and at points when the case moves to a new phase or level of usage to administer the survey to their peers. To improve generalizatbility. It may be too much for one study and the numbers might not be big enough. But for difference based research questions it could be very fascinating.

I submitted the book chapter. Moments after clicking send I remembered two comments that I never removed. And I made notes of what I'd like to change for the next version. I'd like to add something about social software. Was under the impression that I'd uncovered something new. But as I look at my available labels, social software is looking out at me. What is that all about?

Saturday, May 24, 2008

24 May 2008 Methodology

I am trying to write the methodology chapter. I am working by answering each question as it presents itself. This is a good approach. Very reassuring to put yesses and nos beside things but I find myself wnating more information before answering any question. For instance can I ahve propositions in a pluraslist strategy? I'm sure I can. At a particular part of it. Welll, how many parts do I have? Survey and case and blog analysis somewhere. Ok well, what is each part meant to achieve? Agghhhhh.

I think what P was suggesting when he said that I was covering the material but writing like a first year was that I was keeping the story telling part of the literature to myself. I think I'm realizing that part of being an academic is including your own interpretation of the facts with them. You've got to tell a story around what you're talking about. As the Galway reviewer said: it's nice to know but not need to know because I'm not providing (at the moment) the so what part.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

20 May 2008 Notes on Going Teaching

I was thinking about rolling out part or all of the ecommerce module I teach using Second Life. So I was asked to assess the feasibility of it. I made notes. This is what this post is about.

I decided against the approach based on a number of issues.

First and foremost, though the idea would have given me an incredible amount of structure, I was hesitant. There were about three reasons for this: to hang a phd on something never done before seems an unnecessarily risky business. It seems to me that virtual worlds are wonderful tools for collaboration and team work, which the phd would not have permitted. Also, I doubted that I could deliver the innovative tools that would be needed to truly distinguish the study given my own inexperience. We have to get beyond in world slide shows if we really are to deliver the potential of virtual worlds for education, I think.

Then there were some technical issues.
- a lengthy treatise from technical staff about the security and ethical issues to consider (e.g. having students sign up for SL terms of service for instance, copyright issues etc)
- network configuration may have hampered my efforts
- not one lab in this department meets the minimum spec (in terms of graphics card which is a bit of a deal-breaker)

There were commentaries from others about the difficulties of doing this (even for very senior staff members). It also occured to me that for every activity in SL I would also need a backup plan in case the grid was down or in case there were other problems. There would be issues around assessing students in world. Preventing

The notes I took were as follows:


Technical issues
- Lag? Dependent on number of avs in one location or not?
- Running SL in labs? Can it be done at all?
- Need to test in labs but don't have download priviledge (or update)
- Bandwidth?

Response:
"I have heard of no 'bandwidth issues' there will be limited lag on a
10mb connection of most older ethernet. the real issue is that you
can only have, unless this has changed, a limited number of
connections from one ip address. most labs are arranged with 1 real
ip address and the rest of the computers use nat through that
address. many concurrent connections will be rejected by sl. so lab
architecture is more important than bandwidth."
- Audio, video, machinima? I'll have to learn to design all of these.
- Recording text and sound and image? I'll need to trace everything. What about SL terms of service? The copying of chat trascripts for instance, is a violation.
- Having backups or alternative platforms for when SL isn't good
- Griefers - serious issue. Need an island.
- Student age - will not have to use teen grid...

Legal Issues
- SL Terms of Service
"I believe that MIT had very similar concerns, and chose to work with
the New Media Consortium to "lease" the land from NMC rather than
"purchase" the land from Linden Lab directly. By doing so, NMC took
on the legal liability rather than MIT, if I remember correctly from
one of Philip Long's presentations about their Student Design contest
in SL (page is at https://wikis.mit.edu/confluence/display/sldc/Home
but hm, it looks like they put some of the information behind a
private log in)." 1 may 2008 Educators Digest mailing


Commercial issues
- How do students buy land?
- Costs:
Island is http://blog.secondlife.com/2008/04/09/details-on-the-q2-2008-island-price-change/ 700 dollars set up
Not sure about maintenance fees


Teaching issues
- What tools exist (e.g whiteboards)
- Sloodle - what's that like?
- Guidelines (samples)

Social Issues
- "College students barely make it into the demographic that is really comfortable here."
- Idea that SL is an adult world

IDT Issues
- Selling it to COmmerce
- Work with marketing people?


Design issues
"Is there a clearly identify community of SL users on your campus, such
as a SL Users Group or a group of faculty and students of substantive
number that are using SL to demonstrable and continuing success?

the design principle is; Design to the real needs of the
real community. If there is no community, there is no design.
Develop and sponsor a users group first to develop that community.

if there is, then it really does not matter too much what you build,
as they might use it. if there is not such a group, then what are you
doing in sl organizationally that would require a campus build? "


"Designing a sim for a university is a lot like designing a course in that you need to first identify your goals and objectives. What is your purpose for being in Second Life? What do you hope to accomplish? You also want some sort of assessment to determine whether or not you have achieved those goals. This might be a notecard drop or sensors to pull statistics.

When designing the islands for my university, I traveled far and wide around SL looking at what other colleges and universities had done. I got lots of ideas on ways we could contribute to the SL learning community. Again, as with a RL course, we storyboarded out the area and brainstormed ideas of what we could do. Developing was a snap after that."

Ideas
- Modular continuous assessment
- production of machinima
- collaboration
- treasure hunts
- using term 1 tutorials to teach
- using term 2 tutorials to implement modular continuous assessment
- how structured to be?
- implement strategies?
- Need evaluation instruments, objectives
- Using BOTS??
- Sloodle, Moodle, noodling?
- Something about natives (millennials) learning faster and being more comfortable.
- It seems crazy to me to work solo on this, like doing a solo open source project and writing it up

Thursday, May 08, 2008

08-05-2008

"Despite our best efforts, something unexpected has gone wrong."
So I can't log in. So much for getting to grips with building. Hmmm. Am having an off day.

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

07 05 2008 Building

07 05 2008

Building sandbox greeter etiquette graphics card driver error I am reluctant to do this. This building thing. I'm not sure if I'm afraid that I wont be able to (which makes very little sense) or if I'm unsure of committing to buying land. I don't know what the reluctance stems from. But I'm doing it anyway.

I'm in my lab. A PC is logged on. My av is sitting on a deckchair in 'cork' (http://slurl.com/secondlife/Cork/169/189/41) waiting for me to start. Chapter 7 Second Life Official Guide starts with "If you have used other 3D modeling software in the past..." There is so much out there that I am unfamiliar with. They mention maya and lightwave. I'm looking up Safari books. I think I need to find a public sandbox. Fnding one is another thing. so I search for a popular place. most are flea markets, free lindens places, skin, shape and clothes shops. I listen to some Jazz (http://slurl.com/secondlife/Jades%20Jazz%20Island/16/201/32). I search All for public sandbox. I go to the first one on the list (the second is a mature content sandbox). I miss the jazz. I liked the jazz. It would be cool to bring someone to the jazz, I think to myself.

So now I'm at a public sandbox (http://slurl.com/secondlife/Solang/173/13/34). A Public sandbox greeter tells me:
[3:29] Public Sandbox Greeter: Please Clean Up after yourself before leaving. Your mother does not work here!
[3:30] Public Sandbox Greeter: The Public Sandbox is fairly large. Please don't build in this greeting area.
[3:30] Public Sandbox Greeter: Use of Cagers and Orbiters are PROHIBITED! Report Violations to PSG members.
[3:31] Public Sandbox Greeter: Welcome to the Public Sandbox!
[3:32] Public Sandbox Greeter: No Selling! The Public Sandbox is NOT a Mall. Please do NOT set up shop here!
[3:32] Public Sandbox Greeter: The Public Sandbox is fairly large. Please don't build in this greeting area.
[3:33] Public Sandbox Greeter: Please Clean Up after yourself before leaving. Your mother does not work here!
[3:34] Public Sandbox Greeter: Use of Cagers and Orbiters are PROHIBITED! Report Violations to PSG members.
[3:34] Public Sandbox Greeter: This is a PG area. Please NO Nudity, Indecency, Violence and/or Profanity.
[3:35] Public Sandbox Greeter: Sound effects can be fun, too much can get annoying. Sound-spamming is unwelcome.
[3:36] Public Sandbox Greeter: No Selling! The Public Sandbox is NOT a Mall. Please do NOT set up shop here!
[3:36] Public Sandbox Greeter: Combat is NOT allowed here! Please find other PvP or Combat Places for that!
I need to get permission to use chat logs...

While this is happening, I'm looking up F1 help which very quickly tells me how to create a Landmark for the sandbox (basically a bookmark). It's just World | Create landmark here.

Shite, the screen on the PC has just gone blank. The resolution is ruined. A message says "The ialmrnt 5 driver has stopped working normally. Save your work and reboot the system to restore full display functionality. The next time you reboot the machine a dialog will be displayed giving you a chance to upload data about this failure to Microsoft". Some web searching reveals that I should update graphics card drivers. I can probably do this myself. But I prefer to ask tech support to do this for me. Not much point continuing until I sort this out. One hour spent on nothing. There is no point continuing until I sort this out. And anyway, I'm meeting a student at 12.

Ooh, blogger just crashed. Again. SO glad I'm working in notepad too!!

2pm
I had to look up a way to identify the graphics card (Intel 82945G Express Chipset). I typed dxdiag into Run. I now have to double check the operating system (XP Professional). I'm not sure if I should be updating with a generic Intel driver or a Dell driver. This is not fun. The labs are probably different again. And I still need to talk to Bob about testing in the labs. All this before I even create my first prim!

5.40pm
I've contacted Bob at Phil's request. He says support for SL in the labs is unlike. he points me to a useful 30 minute video. Very cautionary clip. Legal issues. IP issues. Copyright issues. The word litigation comes up a lot. Now I happen to be one the few people I know who still concerns herself with copyright infringement but it hadn't occured to me that by forcing students to use SL, I was forcing them to accept user agreements and terms of service that have implications for their own IP and I also hadn't considered that even by using this blogging tool, my information can be used by Blogger. That's a scary thought.

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

6 May 2008 - Delving into Development

6 May 2008 - Delving into Development

I'm starting with Second Life Getting Started. I want to find out about developers who can help, I need to know about accounts and land. I'm looking for educational best practices.

Land
- Buy land
- Land Use fee
- Islands are separate and they seem to be the way to go. "Private Island ownership lets you create a secure "intranet" space with restricted membership for your students and faculty, or you can open it up to be accessible to everyone on the Second Life Grid". I think this is what most people do. Also, less vulnerable to griefers.

- Charged based on max usage over 30 days

I find Guidelines for Educators. It looks interesting.

I decide to open the Second Life Official Guide
Prims, objects, parameter modelling, models, meshes, rezzing objects...
This is a lot of jargon and it's all introduced before the Getting Started Section, which is scary.
But they say it's like using Lego
I may need to just get a premium account and go do this

I'm interested in how short my attention span is here. Cognitive load is something I find compelling.

"Islands are priced at US$1,000 for 65,536 square meters (about 16 acres). Monthly land fees for maintenance are US$295."
Yikes!

I'm very hungry. I'm going home now.

Friday, May 02, 2008

2 May 2008 Logos Sohl is Born

I knew I needed to change my avatar when Nick from CleverZebra couldn't pronounce my name at the vBusiness Expo. So today I did it. Having experimented with Nonethe Wiser and a host of other puns, I finally landed on Logos Sohl. The Platonic Soul had 3 parts: logos, thymos and eros. Logos is mind or reason. It sounds quite masculine and the phrase "masculine principle of rationality" from Yung is annoying me. Anyway, my avatar is still female and will stay that way. And I like the name. I like the contradiction. I like the associations. I'm already defending it, aren't I?

May 2nd 2008 - Teaching in SL

Fred and Phil are very excited about me teaching parts of IS3317 online. I'm nervous. Tentative. Fearing the work load. Feeling that doing this solo is not wise. But I'm rummaging.

Listening to Fleep Tuque discussing her observational study. She talks about best practice, innovation and experimentation. Best practices included greeting notecards, outside links (embedding 2D content into it), teleports that are systematically signed, having sandboxes. The role of officespaces was similar. Dance clubs was surprising. Media use was sporadic. She couldn't tell if classes were happening or not. Some were soliciting donations. Some are marketing the institution.

I've created a note file called educational resources. I'm using mailing lists to get these. I have:

Education in Second Life: Explore the Possibilities (movie 6:00min)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMGR9q43dag

Educational Uses of Second Life (movie 6:59min)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOFU9oUF2HA&feature=related

101 Uses of Second Life in the College Classroom
http://facstaff.elon.edu/mconklin/pubs/glshandout.pdf (includes monetary and economic issues)

Puritans Guide> http://puritansguidetosecondlife.blogspot.com/index.html (see also on right "Educator Survival Pack" links)

Seven Wonders of Second Life from techLearning
http://www.techlearning.com/blog/2007/07/seven_wonders_of_second_life_1.php

Second Seeker (reviews) http://secondseeker.com/

SL Trip Tips> http://www.sltriptips.com/

SaLamander Wiki http://www.eduisland.net/salamanderwiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

Linda L. Woods, MLS. MA. (Ed Tech)
AT&T Education Advocate
http://www.kn.att.com/
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Eduisland%20II/25/195/21

Fleep Tuque
http://slcn.tv/bpe-fleep-tuque

This so it so far.