 All right. Hello, everyone and welcome to the 830 breakout session of the open simulator community conference 2013 As a reminder to our in-world and web audiences You can view the full conference schedule on our website at conference dot open simulator Dot org and you can post your questions in local chat on the uStream chat or tweet your comments using the hashtag oscc13 This hour we are happy to introduce Kay McLennan who will be presenting DIY build blueprints for creating engaging and effective virtual world learning simulations Kay McLennan is a professor of practice at Tulane University Kay started using virtual world simulations in her e-learning courses in 2008 and was a finalist in the federal virtual world challenge in 2012 for her prisoners dilemma game theory simulation and in 2013 for her data detectives game Kay's recent presentations on virtual world education simulations include interactive engagement and increasing learning outcomes in 3d virtual world educational simulations and activities and leveraging government and academic partnerships in Moses academic e-learning open simulator use case and Using 3d virtual world models and e economics instruction welcome Kay Good morning. Thank you Joe for the introduction It's a pleasure to attend this informative conference set in such a splendid virtual world venue Also, it's my pleasure to be able to share a bit about my use of the open sim platform in my e-teaching courses To start this presentation I want to provide some background on student preferences for simulation types and features Also, how to adapt virtual world builds to student preferences then elements in game theory elements in at my scenario game the data detectives game My DIY or do-it-yourself approach and then we'll have a long question-and-answer period But first I wanted to give a little bit of background on the open simulator advantage I moved to open simulator in 2012 and the first advantage I gleaned was a market increase in the voluntary participation rates of my students first When I was in second life my student voluntary participation rate was about 10% and it jumped Markedly to 33% with spikes to over 50% in the last three years And this is because I believe strongly in the open sim advantages including pre-created avatars and The avatars can have different permissions pre-stocked avatar inventories prepositioned avatars No need for x-rated warnings more space for more simulations and the ability to have or files and inventory files and also Last but not least lower costs So turning first to student preferences for virtual world learning simulations But interestingly in terms of engagement interactivity and e-learning increased e-learning outcomes My top pick was not my students top pick my students top pick was resource materials And in many cases the resource materials that I had initially put into the builds like vocabulary flashcards was just filler and I was I can tell you I was shocked to find out that Students ranked my filler much higher than the different games that I had developed thinking that they were the be all end all So let's start with a checklist for virtual world basics When it comes to building educational simulations My students require I teach online and sort of the gold standard for online is the ability to have asynchronous learning So asynchronous learning is the first thing that all of my students Declare it to be an important feature of virtual worlds however once a student is Has some experience with virtual worlds the next thing they say they're interested in is real-time sessions so It's kind of a schizophrenic outcome there Also the need for expansive builds and I've heard this over and over again throughout the last five years that virtual worlds have more affordances and Have to be more than what a student or a class can get from either a webinar a Skype call or Now there's Google Hangouts, so they have to be interactive students have to be able to have Learning outcomes that they can't receive for many of those other Platforms For novices believe that the virtual world learning activities should not be mandatory and non-nobvious Novices believe that they should be mandatory At next the slide that I've just put up is Quantifying the engagement factor. I asked students now a quick disclosure Obviously the students in my E-courses self-select themselves for e-learning and then within my online courses The students self-select themselves for the virtual world learning activities I run two parallel tracks where they can continue to discuss in our LMS our learning management system text based discussions or go into the virtual world But the interesting finding is that in terms of a Likert scale agreement with One being strongly disagree and five being strongly agree in terms of engagement classroom delivery ranked 3.5 e-course delivery or online courses 4.1 and then virtual world delivery 4.4 so almost a point higher when you compare face-to-face classroom delivery to virtual world delivery The next slide I put up a few quotes from students and I'm going to excerpts a few I love the idea of real-time discussions It makes the class more interesting the virtual world presentations were more interesting and caused me to want to read and learn I found myself wandering into other buildings not related to my class Keeping studies interesting is a factor that will lead to a higher success rate So students are sold In addition if we look at the correlation between interactivity engagement and increased learning if we look at Interactivity and engagement all all three are highly correlated that is classroom delivery E-course delivery and virtual world delivery, but when we look at engagement plus Increased learning classroom delivery is only moderately correlated E-course delivery is strongly correlated at 0.79 and virtual world delivery is even more strongly Correlated at 0.87 So students like virtual worlds virtual worlds are more engaging virtual worlds increased learning returning for a second to the actual types of simulations that students ranked the highest a resource center vocabulary flashcards again these were both fillers and they both got perfect scores The little horse that you see in the bottom is to signify that they're my dark horse Simulation types another highly rated type of simulation was meet the economists where students press buttons on Board with that take them to biographies of relevant economists and that ranked quite highly Gender dynamics in the workplace. This is another highly rated type of simulation Where students could relate to this simulation? Owing to what they've experienced in their own workplace and careers and work scenarios Turning next to the actual build and game features The first thing that I discovered when students got what they wanted which was expansive builds is That once they were in world even with note card descriptors and learning management system Descriptors of the available activities cafeteria style. I heard what do I do now? How do my I find my way around and of course as detailed in their findings Earlier, there's a need for resource materials. There's a need for asynchronous and real-time activities and a need for expansive builds The first build feature to respond to students interest in what to do now Was the addition of a student handbook? I went ahead and created a document that detailed everything that they might ever want to know about the build next What you see on the screen now the build feature is a museum inspired movement path. I'm going to take my cursor the entrance to the Build is here. There is a On-site orientation area that newbies can dash into there's icebreakers In this first hall, there's learning objectives Benchmarking and then turning the corner tutorial stations and Then entering the game Let me advance and as you can also see on the left side of this slide There's actual arrows in the floor. So there's no mistake about where they need to go here's a close-up of the integrated new user tutorial area again This is just off the waiting area where a whole class might assemble waiting for different avatars to RIS There are there's a video clip different slide shows Avatar accoutrements anything you might find in an orientation area or an island in a build the Learning objectives again and benchmarking is available and Of course with resource materials such a highly rated item in by students I took a lot of time putting together The different tutorial stations with definitions examples and rules that they can flip through slide shows to see and I Just received a notice that the slide resin is taking a little bit along So we'll all slow that down on the screen now is the Longshot of the scenario-based game and this was the key L Evolution from the desire for both asynchronous and real-time activities at the same time Rather than just limit the real-time activities to discussions The game I developed the game to be either asynchronous or To be played in pairs and groups There are four different clue stations So either four players or four teams can play at the same time This is an overview again. I'm going to it's a little bit of a different angle So let me see if I can use the cursor to go in here's the entrance way Here's the new user tutorials off to the left and then the movement through this first hallway is as somebody reads left to right a waiting area icebreaker area the learning objectives Benchmarking if desired The tutorial stations down one hall tutorial stations down a second hall and entrance into the game and after proceeding through the game exit into the wrap-up area with more land yapp and even a few souvenirs in building a game the key was the narrative and the Topic or issue that students have to solve that is should cloud buds this fictitious product to be introduced into this fictitious marketplace, which is a fictitious study called New London Each time Clues are found throughout the game board playing area There's little rizzards individual Rizzer buttons and if you look up to the top left and top right or top right You can see one of the four button Rizzards also in the top right hand corner of The sets that are surrounding the slideshow in this auditorium you'll see one sample clue analysis station and There are again, there are four Pinwheel fashion clue analysis centers and When a student or a team finds a clue If they're group one or student one player one They touch the button for that clue and it rizzes on the clue analysis board The other media on a prim features on in the clue analysis center include a calculator Which is used in calculating the rents for example There's also a stopwatch up stopwatch down if that's relevant to the game and play there's a whiteboard and also a clue analysis checkmark where students can keep track of How they evaluate the clues that they find whether they're pluses minuses or question marks On the screen now are four different scene examples in the top left-hand corner is the ministry of business registration and so the types of Clues that students fair it through include Ease of registering a business in this fictitious city and As you can see there are lots of other avatars NPCs waiting around and there's a long wait time As detailed take a ticket As well, there are different signs for Stereo austerity measures that have reduced this available staff But in in short the wait time is probably equivalent to the wait time to get your License renewed in the United States and so maybe some students might not think this is such a you know long wait after all In a clock-wide fashion number two is the rents. That's an important feature Since this is new London and I created the game while the London Olympics were underway I ended up with a castle crown castle and Some clues related to the royals Influence on culture and the community Again, this is just a close-up of the clue Rizor buttons and Where are the little blocks Riz and each time and each time a button is pressed a no-card is given Also, if the no-cards are lost in an inventory The players or students can touch any of the boxes that raise upon their little clue analysis center to get a duplicate notecard There's a long shot of Clue analysis center and again, it's up in the far right corner of the set that's surrounding the slides After the game is played The wrap-up can occur As a real-time discussion with different team boards set up or if the game is being played asynchronously students are going to need to Provide their instructor with some kind of feedback on what their analysis is also in the lower right-hand corner of the 3d set surrounding the stage is a rubric that Provides guidance on grading the evaluations that students come up with and you know feedback to them as well And of course, there's also a post game assessment possible One of the features of this game which may end up being a little bit of overkill But it was fun to build it was a dual instructor control center in a hot-air balloon above the game every White board it has a duplicate address and You know little screen up in the instructor control center and it was fairly easy to do the same with the all of the different clue analysis Boards the blocks as they raise down on in the student level They also raise simultaneously in the instructor level and the reason for this is if there's a large group playing the instructor or the TA monitoring play Can speed up or equalize play as needed and of course provide assistance and send out note cards Turning next to my favorite the di Y approach or do-it-yourself approach The reason why I ended up on this Is Using this approach to all of my 3d builds is that I fear nothing would have gotten done working with an emerging technology Had I not done otherwise If the getting the islands funded first in second life and now a grid funded in open simulator It takes all the energy I've got and getting additional resources at my institution for Interns and assistance and other help is just beyond You know what is possible with an emerging technology? But I'm very happy that I've gotten funding for the islands again Students respond very favorably to what they've experienced so far So looking next at at a dy do-it-yourself approach. There's four Aspects to it one is the platform itself self-hosting or hosted I'm not going to discuss this much because I use a hosting solution myself Hypergrid business and the second is a state region or grid management tools The third is the actual creation of the physical space and then last is the creation of the build and learning materials When it comes to region or grid management, there's really no I've just sort of assembled Kind of a hodgepodge here of Different items. There's no you know Nothing better than actually just experimenting with the region tab and the land tab in your region to figure out all The different settings and what they all mean Also, there are resources that were first Targeted towards second life scripting your world the official guide to second life creating your world all excellent resources That I purchased and one of the things that it wasn't my original thought Somebody suggested that you can get copies of these different Resources on half.com or used to books for even just a couple of dollars apiece. So that's another place to start There's the fleet world wiki There's also a very good resource the open sim school quick start guide I put the link in the note card that you can take a copy of Moving on to the physical space Boy, there are so many resources now open sim creations for or files terrain files Texture files Is one Linda Kelly or files for just an assortment of really great Starting content that you can modify and change as well. I'm a fan of the open Vee builds I have a Website link in the note card and I always like to give a shout out to clever zebra Back in gosh 2008 was when the clever zebra just first gave their freebies away in SL And that was sort of the light bulb above my avatars head that I could do this myself When they gave out their freebies In the note card, I've also provided links to some of my favorite OS grid shopping spots Right Plaza Mal D. Violent where I got some great castles and tutor buildings and the Venus Emporium on steam And also some places that I can't get to anymore. I don't know whether they're offline or what The deal is with that In terms of my wrap-up all I can say is two enthusiastic thumbs up for open sim If we look at the open sim advantages Repeating what I had said earlier the ability to pre-create avatars with different permissions for hyper grid jumping and just about anything else is Decided advantage the ability to pre-stock avatar inventories with no cars and other educational materials like for example when I'm playing the Free trade game to give them the widget components Pre-positioning avatars right in front of where they need to be. I don't have to include any x-rated warnings There's much lower costs. I've got more space and the ability to make and use Or files and inventory files is invaluable Looking at the student advantages, of course, there's increased learning outcomes increase engagement Experience with a platform that may benefit students in their future work efforts, and that's something that I've just come to realize Is important to students and not only that This is almost a funny revelation recently students started Telling me that they took my particular finance course or economics course in lieu of another Section precisely because of the virtual world component and I have to say at first, you know and and to To this day that kind of disturbs me because you know I spend so much time building and creating all these virtual worlds and managing the grid all by myself And and you know that was okay when it was just my choice But now all of a sudden there's this thinking feeling that students are depending on it Sort of changed the equation slightly, but I'm hoping to get over that That you know the fact or get over the thought that I have to keep doing it In terms of the instructor benefits There's it's kind of a land-yap thing or something extra for my students now not that I Did this to set out to pander to my students But it doesn't hurt that you know I get lots of accolades in my student evaluation of teaching about the virtual world component I feel it's just increased my creativity a hundredfold and As I've ended up making more and more of my own virtual world sets I've ended up making more and more of my own teaching ancillary material and I find I'm less reliant on expensive textbook solutions and really hope to you know move my teaching materials and textbooks away from expensive Textbook solutions into more open source and my own materials and then finally the do-it-yourself advantages And they're connected to the instructor advantages there's kind of a case for the need for basic knowledge of virtual world platforms as Essential to the creation of effective learning simulations in this platform and of course DIY is best suited to the platform Because open sim allows instant changes So when you're using a platform that allows instant changes the instructor needs to know how to make those changes And of course it sped up my development I wouldn't have been able to have gotten this far this fast if I was relying on Extra funding for assistance and other workers, so all right That's completes my formal presentation now We can get back to questions and if I've missed any questions Since we came back from When the stream was lost the recording stream, please do type them again in the chat I think we've got ten minutes here for Discussion and chat any comments to any sharing similarities We've got several of our presenters that are going to follow my talk sitting in the audience Rachel and Rami's and Probably more as well any comments and questions George adds once I had an interesting discussion with a cyber psychologist. Yes, there is such an occupation We were wondering if the people who spend a lot of time in virtual worlds need less dreaming in real life Gosh, I don't know the answer to that. Does anybody in the audience have the answer to that? Ellie asks what would you recommend for those of us teeter on the edge of starting up in OS? I'm wondering how hard it is to manage your own grid and what are the best options. Ah, that's an excellent question my Response is that a hosted solution may be one way for you to easily get up and running and open sim and Ellie adds Answers George questions. I find building augments my dreaming exponentially I'm gonna come back to George's question. I just know when I first started working in virtual worlds with the ability Yes, I've been asked to repeat George's question George asks once I had an interesting discussion with a Hyperpsychologist and yes, there is such an occupation we were wondering if the people who spend a lot of time in virtual worlds need less dreaming time in real life and Ellie answers George at George. I find building augments my dreaming exponentially And Steven and the second question asked Ellie was asking what is recommended for those of the audience that may be teetering on the edge of starting up in open sim and Steven is responding to Ellie to find support groups including hosting solutions and the g-plus communities that's an excellent tip and Another tip, there's the different listservs that I Steven just jotted my memory the OS Open sim educators list form the open sim users list form the users List is Primarily for technical issues. I subscribe to both but and there's a One there's a different format the sled listserv You find people Gosh repeating when they respond, you know E repeating 15 messages and They'll shout you down in some of these new open sim listservs You have to just copy over the one sentence or two at the top of your reply that you're responding to and then as Put your answer underneath it Okay Rachel asks or comments. What are the essential components of the DIY team? Well, the essential my DIY team is me me and me I am the scriptor builder grid manager content designer all wrapped up in one Yes The only difference I is that I'm not the platform Hoster I that's where for the moment. That's where I draw the line here And I'm sure we're going to hear from Rachel She's probably the chief cook and bottle washer, too George is responding back to Ellie. I use divas universal campus distribution fairly easy to set up This is what we use for virtual cow tech students find it easy to use and manage this is the breakout zone that we're in now is a Modification of part of the universal campus and this is back at you George The universal campus is a mega region build it when you bring it into your grid it goes over for sims and I had the devil of the time I was experimenting with it one day and I put it in at the edge of My and I thought I had only gotten one of the islands But I put in all four islands and they poured over my grid and there was no way to remove them Because every time I tried to remove one of the prims it would grow back again So finally the solution I had was to upload a blank or file and it erased it So what I would really like is the universal campus broken up into four individual or files just a wish list there But the universal campus items are beautiful Just like the swag items that came with this conference I thought we we got some great items there Ramesh asks how much of the physics in SL. Do you miss an open sim? I missed the car physics until I realized that I found open-source script recipe for wearable cars in my prisoner's dilemma Simulation one of the learning activities is a chicken game where The students have to face off with the cars You know something quite dangerous in real life, but not dangerous and an open in a virtual world simulation And I had a devil of a time I was trying to get the car script to run and it would only run on the X on the XY axis from You know Y to X it was on the X axis from east to west that was what it was But it's still it didn't even work right, but all of this is going to change very soon when the bullet Physics engine which I get the senses even better than what is in second life now is going to be deployed Let me see what else I'm missing here you Paul Comments you mentioned that sharing content and or and Inventory files is an advantage of open sim. Is it possible to share? Is it not possible to share content already created and available in the second-life marketplace? You can only export from second life what you create Are both the creator and the owner of? so the And actually as a rule of thumb, that's exactly What you need to be doing in open sim unless you've got explicit? Permissions to do so in open sim, but a second life It's really hard to get content out if you know if you even if you purchase it you can't get the content out George comments just find some students who are good with computers and games and they're good with this I I agree Steven washes mist of Rachel's dishes and keeps up the kitchen. All right, let me get down to here Blank wars are essential. Yes, I've learned that Any final questions or comments this has been a great audience I've enjoyed hearing your comments and questions and we can always go back to Ellie Does anybody have any advice more advice for Ellie thinking of I assume perhaps leaving it a second life and coming into open sim It wait to you it. I am excited for you Ellie to be coming into open sim The hosting service that I have has a web page interface and so you can just upload an or file download and war file And it's so fun I you'll spend an entire day going through all of the Linda Linda Kelly files And just a basic setup in open sim is for islands. So think about that You're gonna have four islands to play with and you won't know what to put up and pretty soon It will go to eight and probably 12 so well. Thank you all for your attention and If there's any other comments We've got two minutes Ellie comments seems to me that those of us who know our way around SL are hesitant to lose all that expertise It's been great for confidence building. I I agree. I Second life got a lot of things right and I enjoyed Let's see. I was there for two years and you know, I still have avatars my main avatar and my inventories I a lot of things that I purchased in there that I can't take out and there's you know, some events I Duck in to see so it was a great way to start I agree and the one thing about the DIY approach is that the one the individuals I observed I don't know whether I this is this is an unscientific Observation, but it seemed like the ones that had the least money and had to do more themselves in second life Were the ones best suited for leaving early and going into open sim But open sim is very stable and robust now. So enjoy Steven has just asked a question. What degree programs are students in typically all school of continuing studies, right? Most of the of all the students in my courses are school of continuing studies courses but I do have some Day school students at Tulane or other students in Newcombe Tulane in my courses. There's a bit of a Cross-pollinization where our students can take day school classes and vice versa and we've just started Allowing Newcombe Tulane students to Major in several of our school of continuing studies programs. I teach business studies courses and the three main courses I teach are economics finance and ethics and Those are the three courses that I've built Individual simulations for I have individual buildings set up with different simulations related to the middle part of the material in the course and the it's cafeteria style and That's how I started and now the data detective school is an example of me moving into more of an immersive game Environment and what I'm trying to do is in the future compare students views of cafeteria style versus the game style. I Think we're still holding for the recording to come back on any other questions. Did that answer your questions, Steven? Oh And they are undergraduate. Yes, it's all undergraduate courses Rachel asks a question. Do you think the increase in the number of students that volunteer would have happened anyway? No, I I thought again the feedback I got from my students When they were in second life was that it was really hard to get from the orientation Island to Figure out what to do to get to our Individual islands within second life now. I offer up six different starting looks three male and three female starting looks and Pre-create their avatars Pre-position their avatars to be right in front of where they need to be and That made it's a huge difference in the participation rate and Considering okay, Rachel expands on her question considering the timeline 2010 versus 2013 well, that's a good question. I Don't see myself going back into second life Because I'm used rather than having just one or two islands. I I'm now used to having nine islands and Also, I can it's completely private, but I could have them hyper grid jump to the OS grid the platform is As stable the VVox voice The only last piece in the puzzle is For our new bullet engine and that's headed Ellie asks if my slides are on slide share and They're not Right now But I do have one version of them at this link. I've just put into the chat plus link to the website and Also, if you haven't already there is a note card I haven't gotten to the point where I'm describing the DIY my DIY approach we're waiting for the recording stream to come back but I've just been told one more try and we'll be coming back. Let me see if I've missed any questions here Rachel, are you in a second-life teaching? I just I Guess I'm I'd be curious for some Somebody who has a more up-to-date comparison of teaching in second life versus open sim Everything works for me in open sim and I have to say that wasn't the case when I was in second life Rachel does have builds both in SL and open sim and is your experience different do you find students Find it ease as easy to be in second life as an OS and Ellie's in second life as well and Rachel states that she agrees that OS builds can be much more expansive and at a much less cost and And Steven adds Rachel is dual SL and open sim right now She will talk later at 1230 in this zone good. We'll all be here For Rachel's talk Thank you all. I'm gonna close out here and Please email me if you have any more questions or ping me during the rest of the conference All right, that's very good. Thank you Kay for terrific presentation as a reminder to our audience You can see what's coming up on the conference schedule at conference dot open simulator dot org In this room next session will be virtual exercise design in the mercy virtual learning environments Recent emerging approaches with Ramesh Rahul Thank you again first speaker and I will be back shortly with the next session. Thank you