SHU's Second Life

(the other SHU that is ...Seton Hall University)

06 - pilot industrial and organisation psychology - way of engaging students who are struggling to identify with subject in traditional context.
06 - science facluty biosphere environment
07 - development grants and lease of a full island
The lease of the space is through membership of New Media Consortia (so you can get some assurance about who your neighbours are)....which reminds me, Andrew, any progress on the application???

Project name - House of 7 - analysis of the book House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Staff member was already using LMS - and had been for many years, students were using multimedia in presentations, students had developed websites/wiki etc
Reference Building Effective Course Sites (Michael O'Malley) - http://chnm.gmu.edu/resources/essays/building.php

reason for selecting second life - students creating mental models and make interpretative choices (like reader response theory in literary criticism)
motivation for student body very disciplinary (prospective teachers)
tutor built the shell of the house, everything else produced by the students (didn't want to go for traditional "all built by the instructor" - patronising). Students submitted draft proposals, gave feedback and revised the plan. Then space divided up and things are developed - it puts me in mind of an exhibition gallery - images of period, writings about aspects of the book, quizzes.

Questions - would it lend itself to SL if the book wasn't based on a physical space.
Nice way for students to collect resources/learning and share them with other students and very very well executed by the tutor - but it does feel a bit like a novelty exercise, not sure you'd want to do this all the time - does the effort of learning how to build the stuff in SL get in the way of learning about the subject matter.

This novel wasn't the topic of the final paper - cos students got "tired" of the book after all the work in SL, size of final assessment reduced to reflect the (very heavy) student time investment in the SL project.

Evaluation - likert and open ended survey Qus - topics accessibility, learning effectiveness and student satisfaction:
technology challenges - they didn't anticipate just how long it was going to take to do the assignment and work with the afforances of the technology. Also a perception that the activities value was diminished because of the SL use. Those happy with SL and its affordances were happy with the activity. All of the students read the full novel (which they didn't do with other novels on the course). Students enjoyed the web quests and online scavenger hunts that you don't see traditionally in a graduate literature course. Many of the students in the class were frustrated and anxiety was increased because of their perceived inability to use the environment and build/locate the exact objects they wanted in there (because they felt very invested in the space and getting it right) - although they rated their comfort with new technologies as very high. Their engagement with text in SL was heightened over the traditional student experience.

Cost to build the house ($1200) - debate about how much like the house in the novel should we make it, cos it is very run down in the book and might upset the neighbours of the island! Ended up with a house without walls (cost $500)

Interesting application of SL - driven by an early adopter/enthusiast

NB - I have on my machine the code for a RegAPI developed by Philip Long at MIT that allows you to authenticate through your campus single sign on system, register an avatar for the student and place the avatar where you (as the instructor) need it to be in SL, and keep the user data locally without the user having to go to Linden Labs (I think that's what I've got anyway). Not sure if it is any use to us, but when MIT experts are giving away free code I'm not gonna say no :-)