I’ve been playing around with some scripts to display the contents of web pages on screens in SL (in itself not especially challenging). Displayed below is the home page from my home web server:

Scrolling is, of course, not possible: displays are snapshots of web pages.

Next I tried a text document in Zoho Writer, pretty much my favourite web-based word processor. Result was fine, other than the irritating bracketing within the Javascript document.write(’ …’);

Determining the correct URL for my Google Calendar proved troublesome, though the unique URL for each Google Doc made it straightforward to display text documents:

I’ve been reviewing the first of the remaining VR module projects today, and setting up posters in the exhibition space. The quality has varied; but, in light of the fact that this was students’ first introduction to VR in general and to Second Life in particular, I’m generally quite pleased with the outcomes. Some screenshots of work follow …

The first two of the student projects, for the Desktop VR module, are now close to completion. And I’ve been seeing some magnificent work from the teams.

Showcased below are two architectural projects, the first a reconstruction of Al-Masjid al-Nabawi in Medina, second holiest mosque in Islam, the other a reconstruction of the Tower of London.

Under constraints of time, resources, and space within which to build, the mosque-building team–Faruk Kurt, Naqash Baig, Haleema Khurshid, Asif Hussain, and Omama Farooqui–have created, with a feel of authenticity both inside and out, a very creditable simplified model. Well done, guys!

The Tower of London team, led by Razart Hasaj, with Spyros Nicolaidos, Ioannis Pemonis, Richard Polson, and Mahdi Salehi, have done a magnificent job, under rigid constraints of authenticity, in replicating the Tower of London as a task commissioned by Historic Royal Palaces.

I’m delighted that several of my VR students have responded to my call for expressions of interest in creating, as their main project for the module, a safari vehicle for Uthango / Virtual Africa.

There are a few online tutorials for building vehicles, some listed at the end of this post; if anyone knows of other tutorials, please let me know about them. I’m aware of no clearer, more straightforward, tutorial to get started with, however, than this one from Jeff Heaton:

‘A Speed Guide to Virtual Driving in Second Life: Find out how to use Linden Scripting Language to control virtual vehicles in Second Life.’
» http://www.devx.com/webdev/Article/35357

animated in the following video:

I’ve made the following recommendations to students:

1. make sure you know what a safari vehicle looks like. E.g. do a Google image search or book search. It’s important that the model you finally deliver should like like a bona fide safari vehicle, not simply what you imagine it should look like
2. look at Jeff Heaton’s video tutorial on YouTube and at his text tutorial “A Speed Guide to Virtual Driving in Second Life” at http://www.devx.com/webdev/Article/35357
3. it’s also worth checking SLexchange.com, onRez.com, SLshopper.com and elsewhere for L$0 full-perm vehicles that you can therefore take apart (you’ll then better understand how vehicle are built and perhaps also find stuff that’s reusable)
4. work as a team to share resources, ideas, insights, etc, but each of you should be building your own vehicle. A prize will be awarded at the end for the best one, with myself and Uthango director Dorette Steenkamp as judges
5. you’ll donate your car to Uthango; but (and here’s the additional incentive) you’ll be able to sell your completed vehicle, winning entry or not, on SLexchange, etc, when it’s complete (i.e. you retain ownership of the intellectual property), with the following two provisos: [1] since the safari vehicles must be unique and exclusive to Virtual Africa, the vehicles you sell must be discernibly different, and [2] all due credit, as appropriate, is given to Jeff Heaton or to anyone else whose work you’ve re-used
6. Dorette Steenkamp and I will always be available to offer guidance and advice–don’t be nervous about asking us.

Further readings and references

For a tutorial on modeling (i.e. ’sculpting’) a vehicle in Wings 3D (hence ensuring a low prim count), see:
‘Wings 3D: Tutorials: Box modeling a car with all Quad topography’
» http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wings_3D:_Tutorials:_Box_modeling…

Linden Vehicle Tutorial
» http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Vehicle_Tutorial

SL Scripting Guide: 08 - Vehicles
» http://www.2lifeblog.com/content/view/60/70/

A few thoughts to kick off a discussion …

Let’s start with a definition so that we’ll know we’re all thinking about the same thing:

Blended Learning is the combination of multiple approaches to learning. Blended learning can be accomplished through the use of ‘blended’ virtual and physical resources. A typical example of this would be a combination of technology-based materials and face-to-face sessions used together to deliver instruction.
In the strictest sense, blended learning is when an instructor combines two methods of delivery of instruction. However, this term most often applies to the use of technology on instruction. A good example of blended learning would be to give a well-structured introductory lesson in the classroom, and then to provide follow-up materials online. Guidance is suggested early in the process, to be faded as learners gain expertise.
» http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blended_learning

The views I’ll express here will be mine alone, and possibly idiosyncratic, and so I’d encourage (via Comments) some discussion.

The very essence of successful blended learning is, for me (and, I’d have thought, effectively by definition), integration, as seamless and as natural as possible, rather than separation and compartmentalisation of learning components … in other words, in its proper sense a ‘blend’. What this, in very general practical terms, means for me is:

• learning is unitary (”having the character of a single thing … marked by unity; not dual or segregated”). Activities in Second Life should not be seen as separate from other curriculum-related learning activities; there should be no discontinuity, no disruption, between offline and online learning
• there must be transparent complementarity between formal face-to-face tuition, workshops and informal class discussion, guided self-study, the real-world library, digital (e.g. web-based) documents and interactive learning resources, out-of-class assignments, etc
• the ultimate aim should, beyond simple complementarity, be the integration of all components in a seamless whole

Why is it important that we think about, and debate, such issues now? because, having now started to teach inworld, it’s essential to me that we get the paedogogy right, that we know exactly why it is that we are using Second Life and that we know how it’s use will enhance learning as an integrated component of a Blended Learning programme. Some observations:

• in the eight months that I’ve been actively in Second Life, and have been visiting virtual university campuses, my impression is that there has been in general very little (evidence of) activity. Most campuses, when I have visited, have been deserted; there has been scant evidence (in the form of, for example, billboards announcing class schedules or in-world events, or of notecards or other media reporting activities) of the medium being actively used. I may be mistaken: much may in fact be going on that, because of the times at which I’ve visited, I’ve simply been unable to witness; alternatively, many universities (and I’d obviously have to include Kingston University in this group) may still be in early stages of development, yet with paedogogically very sound plans for how the platform will in time be used. I hope to find the time and have the opportunity to speak with people from other institutions (and hope to hear good things from them); but, in the meantime, I flag this as a personal observation.
• I’ve attended a good number of in-world education-related meetings and discussions over the months. While some few have been interesting and informative, the general quality has been poor by comparison with face-to-face meetings and seminars. Meetings have often been poorly chaired and moderated; unmoderated text-based chat–thrown into inevitable disarray by variations in participants’ typing speed and, because of the felt urgency of the need to reply before the topic moves on, the tendancy to not reflect before typing–has determined that discussions are often chaotic and cacophonous; pushed by the medium into telegrammatic contributions to discussion, the potential for the development of coherent and intellectually rich content too often falls disappointingly short of what one would expect in real-world meetings
• in contrast, many lectures I have attended have been outstandingly good: well advertised, well organised, well attended, well presented with slides, video, voice, and well moderated Q&A sessions at the end. This, and the previous point, suggest that we need to reflect seriously on the issue of whether–and, if so, how–it makes any sense to assume that we can replicate in SL the kinds of teaching and learning activities that we take for granted in the real world
• almost endemic to Second Life culture (as a cursory glance at the ‘1st Life’ tab of a random selection of Profiles will confirm) is the insistence by residents that there be an absolute separation, a clean disjunction, between one’s ‘RL’ (real life) and one’s Second Life, and that the anonymity of the avatar be respected. In a context in which SL is treated as a game, a distraction, a form of entertainment, this is understandable: one’s online activities, whether in Second Life or World of Warcraft or Eve Online or wherever else, are unrelated to one’s real life. There is a risk that the cultural assumptions attendant on Second-Life-as-game may, by default, carry over into Second-Life-as-elearning-platform. My strong feeling is that, rather than simply plunging into Second Life for little better reason than that “every other university is doing so (and let’s watch what they do)”, we need to give a great deal of thought to what it is, paedogogically, that we hope to achieve through Second Life and what this implies about how we use Second Life.  If it is to be truly and effectively integrated into a Blended Learning programme, as characterised above, my personal feeling is that the direction we should be thinking in is: SL as tool, SL as extension of RL, SL as medium and platform for multimedia communication, SL as seamlessly an extension of RL as, for example, the telephone is seamlessly and invisibly an extension of the communicating self.

The above observations and musings continue the reflections I began in an early article, ‘Why Second Life?‘, which may be worth re-reading.  I look forward to reading your comments in response, and hope we can stimulate some productive debate.

Admittedly quick-and-dirty from a graphics perspective (I’ll have to re-design it) but functioning as it should: in the reception area of the CISM building I’ve constructed a computer, with scripts, that when asked for details of a member of staff or of a university department or service, will return a full reply. For example, typing into the Chat box:

find Khoisan Fisher

will return the response:

SL name: Khoisan Fisher. Real name: Chris Hutchison. Room: Sopwith 318. Blog: http://vorticism.wordpress.com Email: khoisan.fisher[AT]gmail.com Tel: 020 8547 7808

Not a lot of data in there at present, but a good start on a useful resource.

Many thanks to VR student and SL resident R1ch Paulse (Richard Poulsen) for letting me have a copy of the BBC Money Programme broadcast, Virtual World, Real Millions. First broadcast in June 2007, Michael Tuft’s documentary examines the business opportunities offered by Second Life, highlights the importance of the in-world Linden dollar as a convertible currency, and documents the investment in a SL presence of several major companies and corporations.

Although not directly relevant to educational uses of Second Life, clearly the greater the investment from industry the more mainline a platform SL becomes for the rest of us.

A little more work done on the CISM Library and Bookshop this morning. Grabbing cover images from Amazon and uploading them to SL as textures, I customised a number of books with a simple script in each to link it to its description page in Amazon’s bookstore.

Next step will be to augment the script such that it gives the option of connecting either to Amazon or to the university OPAC. The simplest solution will be that the script merely open a new browser window … though I still hope to work at integrating the OPAC into Second Life itself.

Such integration, reported on Amazon Web Services Blog, already enables in-world purchase of books from Amazon at the Life2Life store (screenshot below) which, cleverly, allows the shopper to add items to an in-world trolley before checking out.

Postscript, 15th February, 11:18am

It was encouraging to pop into SL this morning to find Zuro Zerbino wearing one of my T-shirts.

A box containing the shirt in five different colours is available in the Freebie area just outside of the south entrance to the building … please help yourselves and wear with pride! In these dismal times when recruitment to IT and computing degree courses is, across the country, a challenge and a struggle for all universities, it seems to me a great marketing ploy for Kingston to have staff and students traversing Second Life advertising the university to the world.

And not just for our own Faculty, of course. As other faculties begin the use Second Life (as we hope and presume they will), the wearing of the t-shirt will be proclaiming to the world that Kingston University is at the forefront of cutting-edge activity in social media.

Will students voluntarily wear the shirt? Fashion-conscious as they are, they might need an incentive. Make it more profitable for them than ‘camping’, for example … say, up to L$50 per day (i.e. around 10 pence) to wear the shirt outside of The Knowledge Zone? … at, for example, events such as those I blogged elsewhere?

Announced today. in-world, via the Educational Podcasting group and from the Real Life Education in Second Life group:

[9:04] Bjorlyn Loon: Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin will be speaking shortly (9:00 AM PST) from NASA’s Next Generation Exploration Conference. Live video. Location: http://slurl.com/secondlife/NASA%20CoLab/157/45/63

Yes, it is worthwhile attending such events; for although I could in all likelihood have watched this very same broadcast tomorrow on YouTube, only here do I have the opportunity to sit with likeminded souls, to chat in real time with people I’d otherwise probably never meet, to network with others from across the globe, and in general to do all the things I’d wish to do in RL and that are so much more cumbersome on the 2D web.

There are many such events around SL every week … public lectures and meetings, workshops, discussion groups, … that are likely to be of interest to both staff and students. I attended a Sloodle meeting a couple of days back. Last week, a ‘Lessons in Second Life’ education meeting. Not so long ago I went to a workshop on programming with Symfony (PHP-based web framework). And, back last September, the Software Freedom Day, as well as a CSIRO (Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) talk by James Bradfield Moody: “No Longer Virtual: convergence of the digital and natural worlds”. (CSIRO has, for a long while, been using Second Life as a platform for communicating its scientific work to an international audience.)

So many lectures, meetings, discussion, and talks I’ve attended, in fact, that I’ve lost track of them all (though a few were captured in screenshots; see end of this post).

So what’s this got to do with our endeavours at Kingston University and in The Knowledge Zone? I’m offering two suggestions:

1. that, in the short term, I publish announcements of a few upcoming events of interest in the CISM building that I’d encourage staff and students to attend
2. that in the longer term–and this is the strategically more important of my suggestions–The Knowledge Zone, once open to the world, offer open-access public lectures, for example the CISM Annual Industrial Lecture (the next, on 6th March in Knowledge Centre, John Galsworthy Building, is by Google’s Geospatial Technologist, Ed Parsons, speaking on “Google and Maps: Why Where is important”).

I’d be delighted if the university were to take my second suggestions seriously. There is an opportunity for the university to raise its profile as a serious-player education provider in Second Life.