Last night I was wandering around Morocco with an info fez on that told me what I was looking at. One of my Pepperdine students and one of my Cerro Coso students were there with me as I tried my hand (or foot) on a Moroccan soccer field, jumped on a sailboat on the mediterranean, and got to belly dance at a club there. Whoever set it up had info stations all over the place that told about the food, the culture, the native vegetation, etc. Later on, I was in a French-language sim where I could get immersed in the language while walking around different shops and the beach front (many of these are on “islands”… lots of beach in SL). Parlez-vous francais?
Earlier in the day I had been to an island created by an Australian University and was able to talk to the owner, who was cleaning up from a big open house party from the day before. I teleported one of my Pepperdine students over there so we could take a tour pod that flew us over the main areas, describing what we were seeing. I really like how they set up the different learning spaces, both public and private. The owner of the island recommended a nice hair shop in SL so I did a little window shopping before selecting two new styles of flexi-prim hair. I spent some time in the Computer History Museum talking to Ken, a computational linguist who created the museum and will be teaching an AI class in SL for his university in Iowa. He just put in a scale model of the Eniac computer that we could actually walk up to and look at. When I do that chapter in the 101 class, I will definitely be bringing my students there somehow! A newbie popped in as we were talking and it turned out he was from Austria. We were able to give him a tour before I headed over to Ken’s classroom space and saw that he has been doing a lot of work getting it ready for the students that will be coming soon.
When I went back to Malibu Island (Pepperdine’s place) to try on the new hair, I found one of my Cerro Coso students working on his rubric cube project. He’s building it up in the sky and working on scripting it so that visitors can manipulate it and try to solve it. We went a little crazy the other day shopping for stuff for our beach there. Once the owner finishes terraforming it to our liking, we will be putting out a pier, a tiki hut, a bonfire, and of course some wildlife. I currently have a shark, several schools of fish, a bunch of tadpoles, and lots of starfish waiting to call our space home. We’ll be setting up an underwater grotto in the cave she is making for us to use for small group meetings or private conferences. For larger groups, we will meet around the bonfire, kicking back on some bamboo lounge chairs and beach towels I put out. Pepperdine gave me a pretty nice section of beach so we have lots of room to work with. I’m thinking a hammock slung between two banana palms would be a nice addition 
The other day you and I talked about how to apply this to disciplines like English. What if, when reading Wadsworth’s Ode to Immortality, students can wander through a scene filled with imagery from the poem or better yet… construct the imagery themselves, adding interpretatations as they go along? Or when studying The Sun Also Rises, students can visit and create places similar to the ones the expatriates frequented as the story unfolds? How about a scene where students take on the appearance of the main characters in a story, discussing issues as if they were the character themselves? What a cool way to get inside the head of the character and see things from their point of view!
I envision a castle in Denmark where all is not well… a field full of windmills awaiting the brave, and slightly addled, Quixote… or the Academy where students in Greek togas discuss the nature of love, the human soul, and other deep questions of philosophical importance, while reclining on marble steps or chaise lounges and eating grapes. SL allows students to benefit from scenarios created by others by immersing them in role play, but on a much higher level, it allows them to construct their own knowledge, their own interpretation of reality, in collaboration with others on the same quest.
I had an epiphany last night… I love taking pictures “inworld” as much as I do in Real Life (RL). I have a flickr set up if you want to see some of the adventures I’ve been on so far: http://flickr.com/photos/debbyk/sets/72157594467549181/
SL has an educator land grant program where they will give you a pretty sizable area to develop. There is an application process. You have to submit a syllabus and have a specific outcome in mind. If approved, you can use the space for a semeter at no cost. I will probably apply for that for the fall 07 semeter, unless, as I hope, we can get a “Coyote Island” set up first. The more I am in there, the more excited I become about the possibilities.
Debby
Leila and I take a tour of Terra Incognita (before my digital plastic surgery).
Campground in Bliss Garden
Treehouse in Bliss Garden
Hanging out at Ken’s Classroom area
Dom and I sit up on a Rubric Cube he is working on making on Malibu Island. A map of the island is up in the sky behind us.
The InfoFez described different areas in Morocco.
View from the baloncy of the Morocco Club.
Sitting around the table at the Moroccan club.
Belly dancing in Morocco
View inside the French Quarters
Parlez-vous francais?
[...] I am not interested in erecting buildings that mimic what we have on campus. I would like to see this as an innovate learning space where students are able to not only chat (because we can do that in other spaces), but where they can create their own learning experiences and construct their own knowledge in collaboration with others. In the short time that a few of my students have had access to Second Life, they have taken on the design and implementation of their own learning projects, apparently engaged by the sense of presence they feel when there and the tools available to help them implement the things they imagine. I am hoping to take the experiences from our spring semester in Second Life to use as a case study when making the argument that this would be a good project to support. If you are interested, I blogged an email that I wrote to one of our English professors when he asked what SL was all about: http://codecrunchers.wordpress.com/2007/01/14/an-email-to-an-english-prof/ [...]