May 29, 2008

Inside the Lab Podcast

Topic: Education in Second Life

Featuring: Claudia, Katt, and Pathfinder Linden

Katt: You’re listening to an instalment of Radio Linden’s “Inside the Lab” podcast series. Today, we’re having a conversation with Linden Lab’s Second Life education experts, Claudia and Pathfinder Linden.

In this podcast, you’ll hear about the variety of ways the virtual world of Second Life and Teen Second Life can be used for education, as well as information on the many resources available for educators who are interested in getting involved.

Welcome! I’m Katt Linden. I’m the Communications Manager here at Linden Lab. Let’s get started.

So, we are here talking with Claudia Linden and Pathfinder Linden. Claudia, I wanted to start with you. For folks who don’t know you yet, could you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do at Linden Lab?

Claudia: Sure! Thanks, Katt. I’m on the Community Initiatives Team. I work with educators. I provide support for educators just getting started and connect them to each other. I help facilitate the K-12 community, working with teens, 13 to 17 year olds. So, that’s a little bit about what I do.

Katt: Nice! Pathfinder Linden, what do you do at Linden Lab? What are you here for?

Pathfinder: Well, I work in the Proactive Initiatives Team. My focus is working with educators, folks using Second Life for academic purposes, for things like scientific visualization, for simulation. Actually, I also work with a large group of folks now using Second Life for healthcare purposes--so, healthcare professionals, people working with patients and caregivers in Second Life.

Basically, my primary goal is to help share strategies for success with them and help them succeed in what they’re trying to do. I also do a lot of connecting people with the right people because the best educational projects… Really, any projects in Second Life are ones that involve collaborators, people with slightly different perspectives on a common problem and with common goals.

So, I try to make sure that people get integrated into the community as quickly as possible and also help answer questions when organizations are trying to bring their entire organization into Second Life, like, say, trying to bring an entire class.

Katt: Nice! So, how big is that community? Generally speaking, how many educators are using the Second Life Grid and how are in Teen Second Life?

Claudia: I think one great measure of how many educators are using Second Life is the Second Life Educators LISTSERV. That’s got 5,000 plus members on it, active from all over the world. Islands, educational private islands, there are hundreds of them. New Media Consortium, who host a lot of education islands, has, I think, a hundred universities participating in their islands alone. Teen Second Life has, I think, 90+ estates that are education projects run by schools and nonprofits and other groups like that.

Pathfinder: Yeah, in terms of institutions and organizations, it’s in the hundreds. In terms of individuals, it’s definitely in the thousands. You’ll very often have individual pioneering faculty members coming into Second Life and experimenting with it individually and then you also have organizations coming in, say, like Princeton who has islands with wonderful, beautiful architectural builds on it. They’re doing a lot of really amazing things with creating really compelling and beautiful spaces that people communicate in, they have conferences and meetings and so forth.

Really, a good measure of it is to see the activity on the Second Life Educators Mailing List. If you go to secondlifegrid.net and you look under “Resources,” you can find links to those different mailing lists. There’s also a healthcare mailing list, there’s also one for government agencies, there is one for nonprofit organizations.

What’s really in common with all of these types of organizations is that they’re intensely collaborative. That’s something that Second Life is extremely powerful for. It’s the often serendipitous meeting of people from different organizations in academia. They come together and they share ideas and they start meeting in Second Life and working together on projects.

That’s the sign, I think, of a very robust community, is one that is extremely collaborative. People frequently use the mailing list to introduce themselves. In fact, they’re highly encouraged to at the very beginning. They’ll introduce themselves and say, “I’m working on some architecture projects,” and then immediately, other people pop out of the woodwork and say, “Hey! I’m also doing this. Would you like to collaborate on this project?”

Particularly in academia, in education, it all comes down to collaboration. It comes down to people not working by themselves, but with other people toward common goals. That type of a community in Second Life exists. It’s really beautiful to see.

Katt: So, if some of our listeners are interested in getting involved themselves, say again how they would find that list and how they would understand how to get involved.

Claudia: I was going to point them to the secondlifegrid.net. The “Education” tab is a good place to go. That will point to the LISTSERV. Another resource that would be good to start with is the Second Life Education Blog, which is sl-educationblog.org. That’s a place that highlights the projects that are going on and gives events that are happening each week. It’s a good entry point for people new to education in Second Life.

Pathfinder: Another good way is actually to just go on to Google and search for Second Life and, say, the name of the university, because what every often happens are that as academic institutions come in to Second Life and start doing things, they will typically set-up a blog or a website where people can learn more about it and particularly, if it’s a project that they’re trying to get public involvement in.

There are academic organizations and universities and institutions that come in to Second Life and do a lot of private things but typically, over time, what we see is that they realize that one of their real powers of Second Life is the community overall. It’s the thousands and thousands of Residents here.

And so, they’ll very often have things like public lectures that they’ll open up to folks. Harvard’s Berkman Center frequently has lectures where they invite the public to come and listen and even participate and ask questions of the guest lecturers and so forth.

Claudia: That’s a great point, Pathfinder. I’d also add, when you’re talking about new educators or people who are interested in seeing what’s going on and experiencing it, especially the education aspects in Second Life, I’d recommend that they join some of the groups. So, a few groups to mention would be Discovery Educators Network has a group. They have an active organization in first world and first life and they have regular weekly events in Second Life.

Another group that’s really interesting for people that’s a little broader is “Metanomics.” That’s from Cornell. They have a real range of speakers each week. If you join that group, then you’ll get events sent to you, notices of events. So, that’s a really good way to find out what’s going on and to meet some interesting people right off.

Pathfinder: There’s also the very general purpose Real Life Education group in Second Life. So, if you go search for groups and you search for “Real Life Education,” that group actually has almost 3,000 members. That’s a very general purpose group. Every once in a while, you’ll see somebody send a message to the group, announcing an interesting event or asking a question, “Where are some good people teaching Biology in Second Life?”

Really, you’re starting to realize that pretty quick in Second Life, that there are many different ways to connect with so many different educators doing so many different things and to get collaborative opportunities is easy. In fact, it’s almost overwhelming. I think that’s the challenge for most educators. There are so many different, amazingly interesting things to do, that the challenge is really figuring out what you’re going to focus on.

Claudia: That’s why we help to facilitate the Second Life Education Blog, to make it a little easier for people to find their way into events that interest them.

Pathfinder: Exactly.

Claudia: So, I definitely recommend checking that out.

Katt: Those are great resources, Claudia and Pathfinder. Thanks! You mentioned Cornell, you mentioned Biology teachers. It can be a little overwhelming. So, again, for our listeners, who are the educators that they’re going to find if they come inworld and they start looking at the blogs and start getting involved in groups? Who are they going to meet inworld? Are they primarily universities? Community colleges? Are they international? Are they mostly based in the US? Who is it that’s engaged here?

Pathfinder: Really, everyone [laughs]. Second Life is fundamentally an international platform. Most of the residents of Second Life, over 60% of the user base are outside of the United States. One interesting thing, in terms of the international aspect of it, is that language teaching is really big in Second Life. I mean, if you think about it, it’s a way to create a perceptually immersive environment where you’re learning a foreign language (ie. Language Lab).

I was showing somebody the other day a series of regions in Second Life where predominantly people from Poland hang out and they speak Polish in voice, they use voice. They also use text chat. And so, they’re typing Polish to each other. Educators, particularly, who are trying to teach, not just language, but also teach people about different cultures, find Second Life a very compelling platform because it allows you to immerse yourself.

So, you can actually walk down a street in a region and it looks like Paris and it has the artwork, the architecture, the French cars driving down the streets. It’s really an amazing platform for people trying to immerse themselves in content.

Claudia: There’s a little bit of everything represented. I mean, there’s the single educator, the lone educator who’s the early adopter at a community college. But there are whole community colleges and universities that are involved, as well as a consortium of universities, both in the US and international and international collaborations. There are high schools that are collaborating, US and Japan and Australia.

A place to find out some of the universities and community colleges that are involved is the http://www.simteach.com wiki. If you click in there, you’ll find in one of the front pages there under Second Life, you’ll find a whole list of all of the universities that are involved. It’s not a comprehensive list because people self-report. But it’s a pretty fair-sized list and it’s a great place to start if you’re trying to see who all are participating.

Katt: Excellent! That sounds really helpful. So, what are they doing, all these people? What kinds of education projects? You mentioned some really interesting language programs that are taking advantage of the immersiveness of this world. But what other kinds of educational efforts are happening and are some more popular than others? Are virtual classes, for instance, in real life topics are more popular than, let’s say, 3D modelling?

Pathfinder: Well, I think what initially happens, and this is true of any new medium, is that people tend to replicate what they already do and they realize that the new medium maybe allows them to do what they already do, a little bit better. So, one of the things that you see very often in Second Life in the education space are people having classes and lectures. So, a room where a bunch of people are sitting and listening to somebody presenting and asking questions and having discussions around the contents and people even showing slides, the same material that they use in the physical world.

So, for them, it’s more powerful because it allows their students to be distributed around the world. And over time, you start to see people then realizing, “Hey, maybe I can teach things here that I couldn’t teach in the same way in the physical world.” Well, the example I love to give is a while ago, I was speaking with somebody who was teaching Cell Biology in Second Life.

I said, “How’s it going? What are you doing?” He goes, “Well, we are having these lectures and I’m getting desks and I’ve got chairs for the students to sit on and we’re showing slides that we use, images of human cells and so forth and cellular organelles and the anatomy of cells and so forth.” I said, “That’s pretty cool. But you know, you could always be creative. Imagine having a classroom that is a huge cell, where you have the nucleus, the ribosomes, the mitochondria and heck, you could even have your students, their avatars, be different cellular organelles and have the students really immersed in the content and this can see DNA being transcribed right in from of them and interacting with it.

Over time, what you see are people creating more immersive learning experiences like that. The other sort of low hanging fruit that’s very popular for educators in Second Life is obviously, this is an environment where you can build things very easily. So, you have a lot of people teaching architecture. But then they start to realize, “Hey, I can build these things and we can actually have people in them. We can actually bring our class through an architectural build that we just did and we can work collaboratively while we’re building.”

So, it allows them to do things that they don’t typically do when they’re studying architecture without using Second Life.

Claudia: It’s also a really beautiful environment for role playing and simulations. Just yesterday, I took a tour of a build in process, and it’s not quite finished yet, for the World Health Organization that New Media Consortium is working on. It’s a model of a Third World clinic, a health clinic, a prenatal care clinic. Students will go in and be able to select from a variety of avatars, depending on which role they want to play, whether they want to be a person coming in to the clinic for prenatal care or maybe one of the doctors.

Then they have several rooms set-up with all of the equipment, just like what they would have in this clinic. They’ll be doing training there on the different procedures and processes for prenatal care. It’s really beautiful and you really have the feeling that you’re there. There’s also a cabana set-up for training where they’ll be able to stream media. So, it really excels at that, I think.

Katt: So, I guess my question to you then, Claudia, is that sounds really interesting and cool. But is it practical? What’s the point of doing an education program like that? What’s the benefit of it? Or is it just a great way to show off these kinds of programs?

Claudia: It’s hard to create certain kinds of role play environments where you actually get the feeling that you’re there. So, one of the benefits of it is that it’s incredibly useful in conserving resources because the resources are pretty infinite in Second Life. You can create very detailed settings and you can model all the equipment that you might be using. I’ve also been to the opposite extreme, from a very low tech clinic to the highest tech models of some hospitals of the future and hospitals that are currently existing, that are being used to train nurses and new doctors on very complicated equipment.

They can bring a lot of people into this environment. It can really reduce training expenses. Some internal research that has come out of IBM shows (video) that actually, immersive learning in the day-to-day for a kind of continual training that needs to happen in a lot of jobs, because learning isn’t just over here in academia, it’s also in business as well these days, can happen very effectively and save time, like up to 10 times, I think, was the factor that they found, in the speed of learning because it’s really engaging.

I think it’s hard to get that across until you’ve experienced being inworld, in an immersive world with other people. But as we become more and more distributed in our teams, in our workplaces, I’m blending over a little bit into learning and work, it becomes really valuable to have a place where we can actually be together and immerse in environments that can be extremely realistic.

Pathfinder: Academics always talk about “pedagogy,” the art of teaching, the instructional methods that educators use to help students learn. Really, the real power of Second Life is in its immersiveness, the ability to have conversations with people in real time while you’re immersed in the content. You’re in it, you’re able to create interactive spaces, spaces that have things inside of them that you interact with and you’re surrounded by real people, real students, by real faculty, who are able to interact with each other while they’re interacting with the content and it all happens in a real place.

There’s no context to the conversation. Everything in Second Life is all about context, it’s all about conversations around the content and having contextually relevant conversations. That level of immersiveness, if you look at the sort of art of teaching, it’s well-known that that level of immersiveness really engages students. It makes them feel connected to the content more. That, in the end, really helps them in the learning process.

I think we’re starting to see people trying to study the efficacy of Second Life as a teaching platform. The results are very positive so far. People are seeing more engagement. They’re seeing more excited students. I think if you talk to any academic, one of the big challenges is simply just to get the students excited about the content, to get them really engaged, as opposed to just plopping a book in front of them and saying, “Yeah, read this and learn it.”

So, I think it’s a lot more than eye candy. It’s an immersive environment where you’ll find that your students are more engaged. That’s really one of the ultimate goals for any educator, to engage the students, and then the learning really happens after that.

Katt: Right. So, you’re saying that students become much more engaged, that the material is more accessible and that rather than a solo study or a traditional passive study, you are able to interact with the material and Claudia, to your point, potentially spend a great deal less money creating an education process. Is that correct?

Claudia: Yeah, that sounds like a pretty good summary of what we were aiming for there.

Claudia: I’m thinking of some of the Machinima work that Global Kids is doing. Machinima is creating videos with the inworld camera. It’s hard to set-up a video studio for high school and middle school students. That’s not very accessible to lots of schools and kids all over the world. But I’m seeing just some amazing videos that are being created by kids totally in Second Life.

They’re able to create their characters; they’re creating their sets in Second Life. So, there’s one example of just in Second Life you’ve got resources available to you that are sometimes hard to have in first life. When I think some of the science exhibits that are in Second Life, that people are able to not only bring in to the classroom, but the kids can go into those exhibits.

[Laughter]

Pathfinder: Because we’re so passionate, we’re both so passionate about this, you’re going to have to throw water on us.

Katt: That’s okay. I think in some ways, you guys know the specific examples that a lot of people are hungry to hear about because it’s easy to talk in generality about these things, but if you’re not actually there taking part in it, it can be difficult to really visualize what is so really different. So, I’m very interested to hear the specific examples that you’re coming up with.

So, my next question for both of you is, as an educator, why is it a good idea to use the Grid? Why is the Second Life Grid going to help meet your goals? I suppose the corollary to that is, what support does Linden Lab offer to educators who are trying to experiment or work inworld?

Claudia: So, Linden Lab offers an educational discount for organizations that are education-based and for not for profits, if it’s a registered nonprofit. The information for that is on the Grid site. So, anyone who wants to take advantage of that can go to the “Education” tab on SecondLifeGrid.net. It lets people purchase an island for half the regular/full price of estates and it also is half-priced on their monthly maintenance fees.

There are also many other groups now in Second Life that are providing affordable options for educators to get involved inworld from absolutely free by finding a great collaboration with someone that’s a good fit for you to groups like Info Island, like New Media Consortium, like Edu Nation and Edu Island, who all offer parcels, smaller parcels for rent, so that you can actually be in a community with other education-oriented groups.

Katt: That sounds really useful. What about you, Pathfinder, can you speak to why educators are using the Second Life Grid and what support that Linden Lab has to offer them?

Pathfinder: To take off of what Claudia already said, we provide a substantial discount for the initial one time set-up fee for regions in the Second Life Grid, as well as a substantial discount for the monthly fees as well. What we try to do at Linden Lab is, as much as possible, build scaffolding and then step back from that scaffolding because, really, the greatest resource for educators in Second Life are other educators. And so, what we try to do is build systems that allow them to connect with each other, to find each other, to share information and to establish those collaborative opportunities.

The Second Life mailing list is one such resource. The SL educator blog that Claudia mentioned is another one. We have, as well, individuals like Claudia and myself, who spend a great deal of time trying to share strategies for success with educators coming in to Second Life and helping them get connected to other people who they can go and collaborate with.

So, I think, in terms of supporting educators, in addition to the discounts and the scaffolding of systems like the wiki and so forth, for educators to share information, is really about trying to help them get connected to the communities as quickly as possible and to help find other people, as quickly as possible, to collaborate with.

In our experience, that’s the best thing we can do, is to help them find other people doing amazing things, other educators.

Claudia: I was going to add that Pathfinder and I also do a lot of outreach. So, we attend a lot of conferences and speak at different engagements to help people who are new to Second Life in education, understand what other people are doing, what are some of the emerging best practices, what are the great projects that are happening to just help the community to continue to expand.

Pathfinder: That’s a really good point, Claudia. There are multiple communities of practice in Second Life around education. And, again, it’s really the educators themselves who have formed these. What we do often, when we go to conferences or speak at universities or speak at meetings where there are academics, is we help connect people with other people. We do a lot of, “You should be talking to so and so” or “I know the perfect place for you to go. You’re thinking of doing this? Well, here’s a great location for you to see another university doing a similar project. Maybe there’s some collaborative opportunities there.”

I think a lot of it too is, in terms of the outreaches, just letting educators know that we deeply feel that this is an incredibly important use of the Second Life Grid. We feel that some of the greatest innovations that we’ve seen, in terms of using Second Life, is coming out of the educator community.

I mean, we’re blown away by it all the time. We’re constantly thinking about, what can we do in terms of developing processes or tools that can make it even better for them to succeed because when the educators come in here and succeed, ultimately, all of the Residents win because the community just becomes more interesting, it’s used in more creative ways, it’s used in ways to spread learning across the globe.

Katt: Okay. So, I’m going to ask you both this question since it’s such a great resource to have you both here, Pathfinder and Claudia. I’ll start with you, Claudia. What advice would you give to educators who are interested in Second Life? What works best and what would just not work very well?

Claudia: Great question. One of the things that I would suggest is that if you’re interested in getting into Second Life, find a practice partner. Find someone that you think would be interested in getting into Second Life with you because it’s a lot more fun to do it with someone else and also, it’s a great way of knowledge sharing and kind of helping each other ramp up your learning curve.

Just like any new software, there’s a commitment of time upfront in mastering the interface and finding your way around. So, I suggest to people that when they get inworld, that they join a group right away like ISTE, the International Society for Technology in Education or a group like Metanomics and start to attend some of the event because just like in first life, it’s showing up over time at different gatherings where you really get to know people and deepen your relationships. Second Life is no different.

I think, also, to use the SLED list really well to definitely introduce yourself, introduce your project, let people know what you’re interested in doing. I think you’ll be surprised at the warm welcome that you’ll receive and people that will share what they’re doing is similar to what you’re doing. And just be aware that Second Life is an ecosystem. It’s the Second Life world, but it’s also the many blogs that all of the Residents and educators are writing on a daily basis. And so, you can start to find out about some of those.

The Second Life Education Blog (and wiki), of course, is a great place to begin, but there are many and you can ask people on the SLED list for some recommendations.

Katt: Sweet! Pathfinder, what’s your very best advice to an educator who’s maybe new to virtual worlds but interested in finding out what they can do and getting involved in Second Life? What is the best thing that you would suggest to somebody like that?

Pathfinder: I would reiterate what Claudia said, her point on joining these Second Life educator mailing lists. The abbreviation is SLED, so everyone calls it “Sled.” Introducing yourself on that list is key. Another strategy is to buy some books on Second Life. If you go to, say, Amazon, and you search for “Second Life,” you’ll see a variety of books on Second Life and they’re all very excellent.

One that I’m particularly fond of is the “Second Life Official Guide.” I know a number of educators who actually are using that as a course-required textbook. It’s a wonderful overview. It’s not like a manual for using Second Life. It’s more like a guide book to a new country or a new world. It explains, not just technically, how to use Second Life, but also, the kinds of things you can do in it and it gives a lot of examples.

So, I really think for educators and academics, books are an important part of the whole process and having an actual tangible book that you can give your students or give other faculties is critical. Lastly, look for the different academic conferences out there that have maybe tracks about virtual worlds in general. We’re starting to see academic conferences where they’ll often have workshops on sometimes even specifically Second Life.

I know a good conference of the organization, “Association of Internet Researchers.” If you go to aoir.org, you can see that they have conferences every year and that their upcoming conference this year, they have a whole workshop on Second Life, specifically for educators and academics who are interested in using it. So, that’s a good opportunity as well for educators, is to find other people who are interested in virtual worlds and in Second Life in the physical world at these different academic conferences.

You’ll see all the time at these different conferences, poster presentations and papers about educators using Second Life. So, the next time you’re going to an academic conference, just search for Second Life and you’ll often find really interesting resources to learn more.

Katt: That’s a great roundup. So, you’ve got ideas on the web or at education conferences and for people who just dive in World to join up and get engaged. Claudia, did you have something else you wanted to add?

Claudia: Yeah. I would recommend that if you have it in your budget, to look into attending the Second Life Community Convention. This year, it’s in Tampa, Florida at the beginning of September, I think, or maybe the middle. There’s a very active education track that goes over the whole… I think it’s two or three days. It’s a wonderful opportunity to meet people there who are practicing their incredible presentations and case studies, a very dynamic community. So, I’d really recommend that.

Pathfinder: That’s a great idea, Claudia. That’s an excellent resource.

Katt: Outstanding! Okay, so we are getting to the end of our time. I’m going to have one last question for you. I just really want to extend a huge thanks to Claudia Linden, to Pathfinder Linden and to the fantastic, watermelony Torley Linden, who is behind the scenes, doing our recording. And, also, behind the scenes, Melissa Linden, who has done an enormous amount of research to come with the topics that we should be talking about today.

So, my last question to both of you, Pathfinder and Claudia, and, again, we really need to be brief, is what’s in the future for education in Second Life? In the Second Life Grid, where is it headed?

Claudia: Well, I’ll start out with that one just by saying that I see the future when I see some of the incredibly innovative new approaches that people are coming up with in Second Life. Like, there’s one example that springs to mind. It’s a 3D wiki. I remember the day I saw it, it was just so exciting to see like this next new step in the 3D world that’s only possible here. If anyone wants to look into that one, you can search for “Studio Wikitechture” (Second Life Location) and you’ll find their blog. It’s a 3D way of allowing people to collaborate just like the 2D wikis.

So, I appreciate groups like the New Media Consortium, which just launched a learning prize, where they’re really trying consciously to push the boundaries of how we learn and teach in virtual space. So, they’ll be running a competition over the next several months and giving awards to groups who come up with really whole new ways of teaching in Second Life.

And so, I think that’s one of the places that I’m going to look to see the future. I see it all around me everyday when I step in and notice whole new approaches like the 3D wiki.

Katt: That is exciting. What about you, Pathfinder? What do you see as the future of education on the Second Life Grid?

Pathfinder: Well, one thing I get excited about is when I see more and more people really thinking about how to study the efficacy of the Second Life Grid as a platform for learning. One of the key things that you need to do as an educator is to figure out, are my students learning better? Are they learning more? Are they becoming more prepared, when they graduate, to go out into the world and do whatever they’re going to do?

I think in the future we’re going to be seeing more research around that, more research around how exactly is learning in Second Life teaching people? Is it teaching them differently? How is it teaching them better? There’s a lot of anecdotal evidence, but the plural of anecdote is not data. You need to actually have real research around that.

So, I get very excited when I hear about projects like a neurologist at Massachusetts General Hospital teaching Relaxation Response Therapy in Second Life and actually quantifying it, having a control group and all of that. I think ultimately, that’s what will cause this environment of the Second Life Grid to really explode as a platform, when people start seeing more and more data on how this environment is teaching people in ways that they can’t be taught in the physical world.

In terms of just innovative uses of Second Life, I really don’t know what’s going to happen and I actually like it that way. I think we haven’t even scratched the surface in terms of how a virtual world like Second Life can be used for learning in a truly innovative way.

I think five years, ten years from now, those few things that we couldn’t have even imagined, all of that innovation will come out of the educator community itself. They will experiment, they’ll push the boundaries, they’ll quantify how it’s being used as a learning platform and how it’s teaching students in ways that they couldn’t be taught before. I get very excited about that.

Katt: That is exciting. So, to you, listeners of this show, we’re really looking to you to show us how the boundaries can be pushed and what incredible innovation that you can bring into Second Life and the future of education in Second Life.

Thank you so much, Claudia Linden and Pathfinder Linden, for this excellent opportunity to talk about education and best practices in Second Life.

Pathfinder: Thank you very much.

- End of Podcast –