Transcript of the Virtual Worlds Education Roundtable: March 1, 2018
Topic: Favourite Tools for Educators in Virtual Worlds
What are your favourite tools or equipment for teaching and learning in virtual worlds? Please bring along examples of them, to demonstrate if you can!
Sheila Yoshikawa: Hi everyone, and welcome to the Virtual Worlds Education Roundtable. We meet on Thursdays at 12 noon SLT for an hour. 8pm In UK, 3pm EST. VWER is a forum to educate and inform the community about issues that are important and relevant to education in virtual worlds. This is a public meeting, so we will be keeping and publishing a transcript.
Sheila Yoshikawa: The VWER continues to develop a community of educators from around the world. Please join the VWER group here in SL. If you are on Facebook, or Google+ please join our group there. Our group on Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/159154226946/, and our Google+ community at https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/101630374387475211030. Also find and post pictures to our Flickr group and follow us on Twitter @VWER. When you blog or tweet, please remember to include the tag #vwer. you can catch up on our tweetchat at #vwer.
Sheila Yoshikawa:I am moderating today. The topic for this week’s meeting will be: “Favourite tools for educators in virtual worlds” Let’s start as we normally do and introduce ourselves. As usual we will be in text chat for the whole session.
ThinkererSelby Evans (Thinkerer Melville): Selby Evans, blogger, Web report: Educator Edition: Virtual Libraries and digital smarts February edition https://virtualoutworlding.blogspot.com/2018/02/web-report-educator-edition-virtual.html
ThinkererSelby Evans (Thinkerer Melville): SL was under DDOS attack earlier in the week
Sheila Yoshikawa: yes I saw there were problems
Sheila Yoshikawa: So I teach and research in the Information School at the university of Sheffield, UK
Marly (Marly Milena): Niela Miller, M.S. Ed/Communications: Gestalt therapist, educational designer/facilitator, trainer, coach, multi-artist. Group in SL- Octagon:Creative Exploration. See http://www.peoplesystemspotential.com.
Beth Ghostraven: I’m Beth Ghostraven, middle school teacher-librarian in RL and owner of the Book and Tankard Pub in Victoria City, Caledon in SL; owner of Ghostraven Professional Attire, classic clothing for educators in SL (http://bethghostraven.com); Communications Chair for the VWBPE Conference; Communications Chair and Focus Sessions Producer for the ISTE Virtual Environments Network; and unofficial liaison between education groups in SL.For information on events for the educational groups that I work with, see the ISTE VEN Massive Open Online Calendar at http://venetwork.weebly.com/calendar.html; Twitter: @booklady. I’ll be taking photos to publish with the transcript; if you have any objection, please IM me.
Jimmster Zapedzki: I work in primary in the UK, for the last 12 years I have worked in online learning and developed platforms to provide individualised learning for children
Shailey Garfield: Shailey Minocha in RL, The Open University, UK; Love SL – still feel that it is the best 3D environment for learning and teaching. It was ahead of its time. I like coming here in SL.
Sheila Yoshikawa: Thanks everyone
Sheila Yoshikawa: The topic for this week is “Educators’ favourite tools in virtual worlds”, so we thought it would be nice to share information and ideas on any tools that we use in educating in SL that might be objects or applications, scripted objects or other things
Shailey Garfield: I use the note-giver a lot. It is a great way for a teacher to give our notes.
Sheila Yoshikawa: yes, and indeed there is an example here
Shailey Garfield: Also, the presenter – I still have the same presenter for the last 6-7 years but it works for me.
Sheila Yoshikawa: yes I was rooting through my inventory; the standard tools i use are from a number of years ago. Is the presenter full perms, Shailey?
Shailey Garfield: Yes, I think it is, Sheila
ThinkererSelby Evans (Thinkerer Melville): A script for presenting answer options and scoring answer sounds valuable to me, tho I don’t have one ( don’t teach)
Shailey Garfield: Although I haven’t changed my costume for a while, but the ability to change costumes as per the teaching occasion is also an effective tool for an educator.
Beth Ghostraven: Shailey, yes! We can all be Ms Frizzle!
Sheila Yoshikawa: Yes, I think even the library of clothes we are given in inventory is useful; people can play with them
Shailey Garfield: Yes, indeed, Beth
Beth Ghostraven: Sheila, did you know that there are two rideable horses in that Library? Bento horses
Sheila Yoshikawa: I think I did but I have never tried them, Beth, which avatar is it?
Beth Ghostraven: Rhiannon and Thomas
Shailey Garfield: I remember using a board on which you can upload a Youtube video – again, watching a video in-world is quite effective and immersive too instead of being sent out to a website.
Sheila Yoshikawa: Yes there is the option of making any object into a media object so yon have videos etc.
Marly (Marly Milena): I use a lot of visual and building tools with people for symbolic representations of values, ideas, feeling states, new perspectives. If you want a notecard with some info re upcoming programs, please IM me
Sheila Yoshikawa: there is a tool you use that enables people to create shapes easily even if they have done no building, I think; I can’t remember now who created that @Marly
Marly (Marly Milena): Yes, Maximillian Merlin’s Easy Build box
Shailey Garfield: That’s great to know, Marly.
Sheila Yoshikawa: I’m sorry, I seem to keep crashing
Sheila Yoshikawa: While I am standing I will mention that I rezzed these old (2011) items that I used in teaching then. They have full perm items, and can be bought for zero linden. One has simple posters and instructions about creating notecard giver or web link poster and the other has 2 items that I got at an old VWBPE
Camie Rembrandt: @Sheila, I’m having Internet problems as well
Beth Ghostraven: thank you, Sheila!
Marly (Marly Milena): Later this year, I will be offering a training in the use of SymMods for teaching and learning. I hope that people here will be interested. They can enhance whatever subject matter you want to use
Sheila Yoshikawa: I got the students to work in groups, each group set up and furnished one of the free houses and they had to create a presentation about – I think it was about the Google Generation, and search engines, and then they had to create a quiz with the quiz ball testing people’s knowledge of their presentation. It was then a little exhibition village that others could visit to view the presentations and take the quizzes
Sheila Yoshikawa: @Marly, you use videos viewed inworld I think? as well as the easybuilder?
Sheila Yoshikawa: Also just a general question, how people learn about new tools? There is Selby’s blog, that must be a good source, and discussions like this, and VWBPE conference sessions…and the ISTE/VSTE tours and talks
Shailey Garfield: I normally learned about new tools while preparing for an inworld conference
Beth Ghostraven: I mostly learn from going to other people’s sessions
Shailey Garfield: Yes, me too, Beth
Sheila Yoshikawa: Yes, you see people use things and ask how they did it
Marly (Marly Milena): I don’t ordinarily use the easy builder, just have people pull shapes out of Build. Or I have them upload photos, paintings. Or I sue a drawing board. I intend to demo all of this at the VWBPE Immersive. I also have a new Intro video which briefly explains how SymMods are applied in different ways and we are developing a film grove with separate videos on each mode for people who want to go more deeply
Sheila Yoshikawa: thanks Marly
Sheila Yoshikawa: A drawing board
Sheila Yoshikawa: yes that’s a useful tool
Marly (Marly Milena): You import it from the web and can use it in here without having the drawing fade after a minute as it used to!
Sheila Yoshikawa: I think everyone here has seen it, but I have used the opinionator lots of times – I rezzed it over to my left in the field https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Opinator-Vote-Opinion/6025406
Marly (Marly Milena): Max worked that one out as well
Sheila Yoshikawa: @Marly is that drawing tool available for sale from anywhere?
Marly (Marly Milena): The drawing board that retains images and more than one can use it at a time, I believe it is free. Ask my assistant, Fran, (Francisco Koolhoven) if you have questions
Sheila Yoshikawa: thanks!
Sheila Yoshikawa: I was doing a quick marketplace search and found this https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/really-useful-Blackboard-Ultimate-v4/3440811 which looks interesting
Beth Ghostraven: wow! 55 Li for that blackboard!!
Marly (Marly Milena): https://awwapp.com/
Sheila Yoshikawa: I remember the problem with many text-boards that responded to input from text chat etc. was that the land impact was huge, as each letter took up one prim; so probably the same with that
Sheila Yoshikawa: thanks Marly
Marly (Marly Milena): I think Max found a workaround for that problem
Marly (Marly Milena): Not sure, ask Fran…others attend to tech matters for me! LOL
Sheila Yoshikawa: perhaps we should invite Max to do a session here!
Marly (Marly Milena): Here’s something ironic about Max…he is a magician in regular life. But he has sure worked magic in here!
Sheila Yoshikawa: @Selby do you have any particular blog entry that you think is particularly relevant to this theme?
Sheila Yoshikawa: though apologies if you posted something whilst i was crashed!
ThinkererSelby Evans (Thinkerer Melville): It may be possible to bring in a web-based whiteboard and use that inworld — I can do that in OpenSim and web-worlds https://virtualoutworlding.blogspot.com/2018/01/2018-ima-biz-edu-business-meeting.html
Marly (Marly Milena): https://awwapp.com/
Marly (Marly Milena): This one has free usage, also prime if you want
Marly (Marly Milena): I think this is the one we have been using: https://webwhiteboard.com/
Dragon Shichiroji: how about collaborative document editing in world?
Shailey Garfield: I will be presenting at VWER this year with a colleague and I am already looking forward to using tools, etc.
ThinkererSelby Evans (Thinkerer Melville): https://virtualoutworlding.blogspot.com/2017/12/2017-ww-edu-interactive-whiteboards-in.html
Shailey Garfield: I remember a tool called SLOODLE that enabled you to bring in a wiki from Moodle to edit it inworld
Shailey Garfield: I don’t think SLOODLE is around any more
Dragon Shichiroji: that of course requires Moodle. would a Google doc go in well. I find some lag with that but it does work.
Dragon Shichiroji: if they could have a type of more accurate mouse when a Web window is up that would really help
Sheila Yoshikawa: I got the web drawing app to work!
Beth Ghostraven: I haven’t been able to do inworld collaboration on a doc yet
ThinkererSelby Evans (Thinkerer Melville): https://virtualoutworlding.blogspot.com/2017/07/2017-ww-ima-nonprofit-web-world-message.html
Beth Ghostraven: cool, Sheila!
Beth Ghostraven: ack! that board suddenly appeared in my entire view!
Beth Ghostraven: purely coincidental, I’m sure :o)
Sheila Yoshikawa: that was just going to https://awwapp.com and setting up an account and saving a drawing board and then building a prim and setting it to media on the texture tab
ThinkererSelby Evans (Thinkerer Melville): The last one uses Google docs — and works in a web world
Camie Rembrandt: I worked with SLOODLE, too – but can’t find it anymore
Camie Rembrandt: Anyway, with web on a prim we probably don’t need it anymore
Shailey Garfield: Camie, it was a funded project and I think it wasn’t supported after the funding ended.
Beth Ghostraven: wow! I can write on that board too!
Marly (Marly Milena): My group facilitation partner and I work on edits with email.No fuss, muss or bother. Then we put the final product on a notecard to send to our group
Camie Rembrandt: Oh, that would explain it
ThinkererSelby Evans (Thinkerer Melville): https://www.sloodle.org/
Sheila Yoshikawa: actually setting that board up was so easy I feel an idiot for not using that kind of thing before!
Sheila Yoshikawa: Oh I just also remembered the educators tower that we visited a year or so ago that Hiro set up. that had some tools in it. The Science Circle (182,76,21)
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/The%20Science%20Circle/182/76/21
Marly (Marly Milena): Has anyone joined ZOOM? I took their Back to Basics online seminar yesterday. A lot was covered, I couldn’t quite keep up, but it has a lot of interesting features that educators would find useful
Beth Ghostraven: what is ZOOM?
Dragon Shichiroji: zoom rocks; I use it a lot at work. Happy to show anyone how to use it. It’s a conference software video audio and screenshare, free for 45 mins
Marly (Marly Milena): https://www.zoom.us/?zcid=1173&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIvIGAioDM2QIVhLXACh1pWAfCEAAYASAAEgKRBPD_BwE
Dragon Shichiroji: and pro account gives unlimited. record also included. really recommend it
Marly (Marly Milena): It’s free to sign up
Dragon Shichiroji: is anyone here from the UK?
Sheila Yoshikawa: Yes me, Shailey
Jimmster Zapedzki: UK here
Dragon Shichiroji: that’s great. it would be useful to talk about Sansar as an education tool if that’s in scope of this
Sheila Yoshikawa: yes, let us address Sansar for the last few minutes! Unfortunately on my current setup I can’t use Sansar. I’m getting a new PC and upgraded graphics card in a month or so, so then…… but until then I’m resricted to watching videos. Basically I couldn’t get any further than starting to login, it would crash, and I found that I couldn’t access SL any more, so I deinstalled the Sansar browser
Beth Ghostraven: I still haven’t had time to get in to Sansar at all
Dragon Shichiroji: I’ve used Sansar for some time now. A few points on it: world space is huge. you get three free large lands; the sansar store is now ready. I made my first classroom and can stream audio and use voice. again happy to share the knowledge
Sheila Yoshikawa: yes, it definitely looks interesting to explore
Sheila Yoshikawa: Dragon, would you be willing to lead a discussion session on it? Or co-lead anyway
Camie Rembrandt: Can’t use Sansar either – using a mobile Internet connection (not fast enough)
Sheila Yoshikawa: at some future meeting
Dragon Shichiroji: yes I’d love to.
Sheila Yoshikawa: I will contact you with a few possible dates!
Sheila Yoshikawa: excellent
Sheila Yoshikawa: Well just at the end
Shailey Garfield: Sheila – that’s a great idea about Dragon sharing his experiences
Sheila Yoshikawa: I was going to suggest
Dragon Shichiroji: just call on me. I even managed to show it during a video conference using Zoom. Zoom can broadcast Sansar
Shailey Garfield: I have sent a tweet about our session today.
Sheila Yoshikawa: that next week we visit the Floating Gallery by Curei
Shailey Garfield: What is this Floating Gallery
Sheila Yoshikawa: since this is featured on the SL entry page at the moment and just opened
Dragon Shichiroji: do send me a friend request Sheila. and we can plan dates.
Shailey Garfield: ok
Sheila Yoshikawa: https://virtualinspirationisland.org/locations/floating-gallery/
Sheila Yoshikawa: I would need to check with Liss, but I think it will be ok
Sheila Yoshikawa: I thought a visit and then discussing its educational aspects
Shailey Garfield: yes, sounds good
Sheila Yoshikawa: ok that’s it for this week!
Sheila Yoshikawa: thank you everyone for participating
Shailey Garfield: Thank you, Sheila and all for a stimulating discussion
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