Herding cats virtually: Managing a multi-

disciplinary university island in Second Life

A University Island and Modern Languages Project

Fiona Grindey and Julie Watson 29th January 2010

Overview • Development of the UoS island

• Our collaboration model

• Maintaining contact, sharing ideas and sustainability

• Island tour

• Modern Languages in SL

• M3 (MUVE, Moodle and Microblogging) Project and the Language Café

• Future directions

• Questions and discussion

3

Collaboration Model • Joint approach between

Administration and Education

• Creative space – education/research projects internally funded

• Ground level – structured space for University

• Range of Schools from across University

4

Information points for Archaeology and Education

Sandbox area for Archaeology Sandbox area for Education

Chemistry information area Medicine information area

Chemistry sandboxMedicine sandbox area

Modern Languages information area

Modern Languages Sandbox

Maintaining contact, sharing ideas and sustainability

• Coordinator of all activity on the island (Fiona Grindey) within Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit

• Southampton Educators Group (in world)

• Regular updates on activity within Second Life

• Wiki – for all projects to update progress so far (real teams)

• Training events

• Individual meetings – formal and informal

• Sharing skills across projects in world/real world

• Seminar events – ‘show and tell’ (one big event)

7

Island Tour

http://www.blip.tv/file/2813967

M3 (MUVE, Moodle and Micoblogging)Project aims:

• To integrate Second Life and Twitter with an existing (pre-arrival) online Moodle course for international students

• To see what value this might add to students’ experience of the online course

• To explore one way of using Second Life and Twitter for educational purposes

Moodle• Arrive UK

• 5 week online course for international students coming to study at UoS

• Focus on living and studying in the UK

• Blend of technologies (learning objects, podcasts, videos, discussion forum, chat room)

• E-tutored

MUVE and MicrobloggingCreate a purpose built environment in SL where the student

community can

- experience part of the online course more immersively

- meet and take part in activities with tutor

- use course learning materials adapted/enhanced for SL

Create a Twitter plug-in for Moodle and a Twitter link from SL

- use Twitter to link students for social networking and discussion about course resources (e.g video)

Second Life development• Disaggregate and adapt selected Learning Objects

for use in SL:

Example: ‘Finding out about Southampton’

– THINc book ( history of Southampton, tourist attractions, climate etc)

– Google floor map of south of the UK

– Set of interactive local maps ( differing scales)

– In world quiz

Project successes

• Model for integration of new technologies within an online course

• Adaptation/ enhancement of course learning resources (Learning Objects and videos) for use in SL and with Twitter

• Open source Twitter plug-in for Moodle

Project challenges

• Web 2.0 services unreliable and subject to change/frequent updating

• New technologies lack of accommodation to needs of non native speakers (Eng)

• Supporting participants at distance with new technologies

• SL Learning curve and participants’ lack of time

Future directions• Steering Group

• Student evaluations

• Expansion - interest from Careers, International Office, Widening Participation, The Library

• Collaborations with Winchester University and Coventry

• Investigating other virtual worlds

Thank youF.Grindey@soton.ac.uk

J.Watson@soton.ac.uk

Second Life: University of Southampton region:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/University%20of%20Southampton/132/126/26

M3 project:

http://www.elanguages.ac.uk/secondlife/index.html