I have been progressively more vocal about Second Life's scripting language inadequacies. While the syntax is simple enough it lacks the ability to be versatile, it in my opinion doesn't measure up to the creative people doing projects and programming in Second Life.
While I am sure the LSL is "Turing Complete" it is slow and lacks a lot of feature available in languages such as python, java, ruby..etc. Moreover, LSL lacks the libraries and the huge communities developing those libraries and other applications. However this is about to change. Linden Lab has started moving to Mono a C# like language. This move could very much be the deciding factor for the future of Second Life and Linden Labs.
Less important in my opinion is the fact that mono scripts run 220 times faster than their LSL2 counterpart. Yet a welcomed addition
Mono, will allow developers to program more flawlessly, focusing on content rather than spending time struggling with LSL.
Showing posts with label Education K-12 Second Life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Education K-12 Second Life. Show all posts
Monday, April 7, 2008
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
MUVEs in K-12 Education
I came in a little late to class today because I got tied up at work (school), but I wanted to weigh in on the education discussion.
If the Alvarez article proves anything, it is that there is very little known, and very little being done with Virtual Worlds in K-12 education. In fact, I’m pretty sure this is the only thing this article says convincingly. In my opinion MUVEs do have the ability to provide educational benefits in K-12, but it is extremely difficult to take advantage of them in their current state.
The logistical issues if using MUVEs in K1-2 are unfortunate, unavoidable, and nearly impossible to overcome. We have discussed at length how difficult it is to establish a K-12 presence in teen second life, and even if you do you can’t control where students go and what they do elsewhere in teen second life. To be a plausible option, I think you would have to go with Active Worlds, or some other secure MUVE where you could control who had access and who didn’t, and where else they can go. It’s easy to say that this isn’t an issue, but if you work in a position where you are responsible for what students do and don’t do online you realize the importance of control.
You could theoretically create excellent virtual learning environments if you had time. Most teachers, even if interested, do not have the time to learn how to create objects and setup a virtual world, let alone scripting to create any meaningful interaction with the environment. The current state of things is that teachers would need to team up with developers, or get paid over their summers to have any sort of a hope of developing an original, effective virtual world experience. Yes, students could log into a virtual world and interact, but without a meaningful environment developed around them, it really does become a glorified chat. Premade virtual environments (like islands in SL, or existing games) are options, but they are few and of varying quality right now.
Another major roadblock is pedagogical. While we know that role playing / experiential learning / social constructivism etc. are effective learning tools very few people have started working out how to apply these in practical ways to MUVEs. That’s not to say that we shouldn’t or can’t, but there is a lot more pioneering to be done before we can say with any surety that MUVEs are effective.
There are administrative / security issues, but I see those as outgrowths of the pedagogical issues. If you can show an administrator that a method is effective, that it can cover the standards required, and that it can motivate and engage students, then these issues become much easier to over come.
My primary reason for taking this class was to explore whether bringing a MUVE to classes at our school would be a plausible option. At this point I can say that SL and TSL are definitely not good options for K-12 education. I see other virtual worlds as a reasonable option with good educational possibilities, but again the time investment that it would take to create world, add meaningful structures for learning, and deploy it would require funding above what most schools could afford.
With this said, I think there are some real, concrete ways that teachers can start using MUVEs in their classrooms with relatively small amount of effort.
1) Use a SL account to demonstrate a trip to an educational location in Second Life. For example, the teacher could visit the Abyss (http://slurl.com/secondlife/Gun/61/48/82) and lead the class in an exploration of the area without needing everyone to have accounts. Yes, it would be better if each student could explore individually, but this method could serve as a starting point.
2) Use existing role playing video games as a demonstration in the class to lead discussions on decision making, ethics, etc. I don’t have access to the article anymore, but there was an article on a teacher who used Neverwinter Nights for this in a secondary class with one computer and a projector with much success (http://www.aect.org/Intranet/Publications/index.asp#tt)/
3) Use elements of game design in lesson design. If you can’t use actual games or MUVEs in the classroom, you can at least recognize those features of the games that provide motivation and effective teaching. For example, problem solving, scaffolding, mystery, narrative etc.
4) Use existing educational games in the classroom. Drill and Skill is fine when used in the proper context for appropriate purposes, but that’s not what I’m talking about. The Algebra game DimensionM that I posted before is a good option. Some teachers have use Civilization in their history classes. There are few games that fall into this category, but I think there will be more in the near future.
In summary, I think MUVEs provide the opportunity to effectively teach secondary students, but in their current form they are not a practical option for most schools.
-David
If the Alvarez article proves anything, it is that there is very little known, and very little being done with Virtual Worlds in K-12 education. In fact, I’m pretty sure this is the only thing this article says convincingly. In my opinion MUVEs do have the ability to provide educational benefits in K-12, but it is extremely difficult to take advantage of them in their current state.
The logistical issues if using MUVEs in K1-2 are unfortunate, unavoidable, and nearly impossible to overcome. We have discussed at length how difficult it is to establish a K-12 presence in teen second life, and even if you do you can’t control where students go and what they do elsewhere in teen second life. To be a plausible option, I think you would have to go with Active Worlds, or some other secure MUVE where you could control who had access and who didn’t, and where else they can go. It’s easy to say that this isn’t an issue, but if you work in a position where you are responsible for what students do and don’t do online you realize the importance of control.
You could theoretically create excellent virtual learning environments if you had time. Most teachers, even if interested, do not have the time to learn how to create objects and setup a virtual world, let alone scripting to create any meaningful interaction with the environment. The current state of things is that teachers would need to team up with developers, or get paid over their summers to have any sort of a hope of developing an original, effective virtual world experience. Yes, students could log into a virtual world and interact, but without a meaningful environment developed around them, it really does become a glorified chat. Premade virtual environments (like islands in SL, or existing games) are options, but they are few and of varying quality right now.
Another major roadblock is pedagogical. While we know that role playing / experiential learning / social constructivism etc. are effective learning tools very few people have started working out how to apply these in practical ways to MUVEs. That’s not to say that we shouldn’t or can’t, but there is a lot more pioneering to be done before we can say with any surety that MUVEs are effective.
There are administrative / security issues, but I see those as outgrowths of the pedagogical issues. If you can show an administrator that a method is effective, that it can cover the standards required, and that it can motivate and engage students, then these issues become much easier to over come.
My primary reason for taking this class was to explore whether bringing a MUVE to classes at our school would be a plausible option. At this point I can say that SL and TSL are definitely not good options for K-12 education. I see other virtual worlds as a reasonable option with good educational possibilities, but again the time investment that it would take to create world, add meaningful structures for learning, and deploy it would require funding above what most schools could afford.
With this said, I think there are some real, concrete ways that teachers can start using MUVEs in their classrooms with relatively small amount of effort.
1) Use a SL account to demonstrate a trip to an educational location in Second Life. For example, the teacher could visit the Abyss (http://slurl.com/secondlife/Gun/61/48/82) and lead the class in an exploration of the area without needing everyone to have accounts. Yes, it would be better if each student could explore individually, but this method could serve as a starting point.
2) Use existing role playing video games as a demonstration in the class to lead discussions on decision making, ethics, etc. I don’t have access to the article anymore, but there was an article on a teacher who used Neverwinter Nights for this in a secondary class with one computer and a projector with much success (http://www.aect.org/Intranet/Publications/index.asp#tt)/
3) Use elements of game design in lesson design. If you can’t use actual games or MUVEs in the classroom, you can at least recognize those features of the games that provide motivation and effective teaching. For example, problem solving, scaffolding, mystery, narrative etc.
4) Use existing educational games in the classroom. Drill and Skill is fine when used in the proper context for appropriate purposes, but that’s not what I’m talking about. The Algebra game DimensionM that I posted before is a good option. Some teachers have use Civilization in their history classes. There are few games that fall into this category, but I think there will be more in the near future.
In summary, I think MUVEs provide the opportunity to effectively teach secondary students, but in their current form they are not a practical option for most schools.
-David
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