In Coronavirus' Wake, Virtual World-Based Educator Using Both Zoom and Second Life to Teach Her Classes (Comment of the Week)

As educators discuss the appeal of Linden Lab's new post-Coronavirus land discount for schools, teacher and reader Kaylee West offers a unique perspective on using virtual worlds as a pedagogic tool now that her students can't be in the same room as her:

Like many other institutions during the COVID-19 pandemic we are using Zoom for live online classes, and Zoom and similar platforms are excellent for a lot of the teaching we need to do. However, they can't do what virtual worlds like Second Life can do (simulation and multiuser collaboration), so my SL lessons will continue.

For the first time, however, I won't be physically in the same computer lab as my students, but will use a combination of Zoom and SL to conduct the classes. Zoom, with its screen sharing capability, will enable me to brief students at the start of a lesson, and help them solve technical problems during the lesson, which is much easier if you can see their screen.

For me, this has been one big area that I would love to see better developed in SL -- some form of desktop or screen sharing. Maybe this takes development into a whole other technical area that Linden Lab can't support, but it would make the functionality of SL much greater for assisting students and newbies during lessons. Still, if LL wants SL to be able to compete with platforms like Zoom and Collaborate for certain types of interaction, they will need to look at features like screen sharing, etc.

Hopefully someone at Linden Lab notices that last request. Kaylee's been using Second Life as a teaching tool in her university for 12 years, and has noticed some interesting (and positive) advantages to that over the years:

Mostly my students are not too fussed by the interface (we use Firestorm), and I've noticed over the years that student's ability to learn how to use and comfort with the interface has been improving as new generations of students come through. I am sure there are ways that the various interfaces could be improved, one of which for me would be the ability for me to set certain parameters in the students' viewers that are needed for a good experience via some kind of script so that they don't need to worry about those kinds of technical details.

I've also noticed that in a slightly counter-intuitive way that the fact that the SL engine is relatively old has worked to our advantage somewhat. Whereas when we first started with SL 12 years ago even our university computers couldn't run the programme well, nowadays most student laptops (usually Apple Macs) run the programme quite well.

The interface point is a good one -- I imagine students who grew up on Minecraft, Roblox, and Fortinte (or just as likely, still use them), will have a much easier time navigating and learning in a virtual world.

Comments

[Teacher5]

Pretty much no reputable school will touch SL after getting burned.
And educators talk so those who know SL to be a black hole will simply educate others about how they treat educators.

Nuff said

[Steve Chang]

Zoom’s servers are in China. Careful w/ lack of confidentiality.

[Iggy 1.0]

I'm glad it's working for her. My desire to take students into SL again, as you folks know, is nil.

We are finding that students working remotely have trouble with Zoom. Some have to use their phones, others have slow connections. I can barely manage a one-on-one meeting via video from home. I'm using Google for file sharing of non-confidential work and collaboration, plus a few short YouTube vids.

On the East Coast at least, broadband is slower than it was before we all came home. I've read that game services are being given lower priority by the telecomms. That's rumor, and I'd like to know if it's true.