learning languages in SL

A nice video on language learning in SL by Karelia Kondor, a good friend of me in SL.

Ok, ok, it talks as well of Italianiamo, but I swear this is not direct marketing from my part.

Pyramidoodle, the kick off of a new project

Clicca sull'immagine per vedere le altre foto di Fiona

On Thursday I was invited by the Italian group Pyramidoodle, hosted on the beautiful Solaris Island, to present a little thing I prepared for my Italianiamo activities and share with them the experience and some reflections.

Pyramidoodle is one of the multiple expression of the Pyramid Cafè group and its aim is to encourage the use of 3D and virtual environments (Second Life, OpenSim among others) to help organisations, groups and educators to meet and share their knowledge in an informal and playful way.

I’m very glad to have had the chance to see them in action from behind the scenes because they gave me a lesson on how to organise an event.

In my, by now rather long life in SL (I will be 3 on the 11^th of November) I’ve never took part to anything so well organised (and it is to be said that I worked for almost a year for one of the biggest language school in SL).

Beside being connected in streaming to multiple places in SL, we were streamed as well in Opensim. Nothing was left to chance: each member of the organisation team had a defined role: Fiona was taking photos, Crisma was recording the event, Junta was typing what was being said for those who could not hear it while Zogia, Salazhar and Magicflute were introducing the project of Pyramidoodle and the event itself.

A part some little technical problems (what would be the fun in SL if one knew that everything will work perfectly?) due to the number of avatars participating, the event went on pretty also thanks to the collaboration of all the attendees.

The closing of the evening with small talk and playful improvisations was particularly pleasant and gave us the chance to know each other a bit more.

If you have time (it’s quite long) you can see here the video shooted by Crisma.

On avatars

I’m reading the blogpost Is your SL avatar a projection of yourself? by Shirley Williams and reflecting on my relation with Anna Begonia. I’m one of those who talk about their avatar in 3rd person. Anna Begonia does not resemble my cellular self at all: she is a brunette, wears pigtails, has red eyes and looks much younger (and thinner) than me. On the other hand, I usually say: I met Carol, I talked with Misy, I was interviewed by Cvetcka students, I’m working on a new activity for Italianiamo. So it’s a case of mixed identities .

This week I’ve actually been thinking a lot about avatars and the importance they have in our lives (both SL and RL): a friend of mine and former colleague woke up one day to discover that he did not have anymore access to his avatar. The company he was working with and who owned the avatar decided out of the blue, without even bothering to tell him, to deny him the access to his avatar. Normal, I would say, if this happened when he stopped working with them, less normal if it happens 8 months afterwards.

When he warned me that he wasn’t anymore himself I was shocked. For how things happened, and because I realised that he was loosing not only his inventory but, more important, his contact and his “name”.
Name in SL is very important, it’s how people know you, is what people know about you, it represents you much more than in RL: in SL you can change aspects but people will recognise you by the name. Your SL name is your reputation and in some cases of very well known people is a sort of brand. I will buy a scripted object from Eloise Pasteur, go to an event organised by Dudeney Ge, read with attention a blogspot by Tateru Nino because I know their “brand” means quality. I trust them even though I do not know them personally and in many cases I don’t know who they are in RL.

To think that now another person can go around with the name of my friend (although I hope with another aspect, since the avatar face resembled very closely my friend’s) gives me creeps, and I understand how students once felt when they discovered that an avatar they were very found of was actually another person (I think the original one left because she was sick of delayed payments). It makes me simply dizzy to think that I cannot be sure of the person beyond the avatar, but yes, this with avatars owned by companies and school can happen.

When I was working for Languagelab I was told that I was to use a company avatar. I understand the reasons, and I even found the idea very practical but I was very annoyed to leave Anna Begonia at home. She was the one that got me that job, wasn’t she? And she had been around Languagelab for quite a while, developed a relationship with students and co-workers, she had a character and I’m very fond and proud of her.

To prepare me mentally and to make the change less abrupt to students I made another avatar. I did her rather ugly, with a big nose and a pronounced jaw. While I was making her I did not love her at all… it was something forced on me, it was an idea I did not like but understand and that it was my duty to accept.

The funny thing is that when I was going to choose a skin for her I did not stop until I found something that made her look rather pretty. It was as if in the process of making her I developed a sort of affection towards this new and unwanted representation of myself, as if she came to live and I couldn’t be cruel to her and make her ugly and nasty.

And yes, she wore sort of pigtails and had red eyes.

Luckily Languagelab never managed to make us all a company avatar and I did not have to contact all my friends and coleagues in November 2008, when my collaboration finished, to warn them that I was not anymore myself.

In memory of old times I add here a Languagelab video documenting classes and citypeople activities from October/November 2008.

burglar buddy

An artist friend of mine was totaly disappointed when burglars visited her house and did not steal any of her works. It seems that to have one’s art work stolen adds up to your value.

In this case, I cannot complain. Yesterday while I was teaching some basic SL skills to a group of newbies someone stole almost all my brand new portable tutorial. Almost all because they left the room we were in, at least. But it was a big surprise for me when I said: let’s go to the next room… and we had the sky above us, and the sky below us… Not a big problem, since I rezzed a new one, but I think it’s rather representative of the culture of some people in SL: not sharing and collaborate with others but simply stealing.

As well, it was very annoying to have the staff of the sandbox to question us when we arrived (Who were us? was it a group? What were we going to do? and then they started sending their group to everybody…) I thought sandboxes were place anyone could use freely, with some norms, of course, but not a place where you feel intimidated or where to hunt for newbies to add to your group (and probably spam with notices ever after).

Lesson learned: when one brings inworld a group of newbies, only in well known sandboxes.

Here are the builder buddy that I made lately.

muvenation exercise

In muvenation we had to make and exercise with builderbuddy.

here are the instructions

• all the participants, from one extreme to the other are in chat range,
• all the participants have a delimited area or plot to build in,
• all the participants have a fixed position: they should be seated and aligned to the world grid,
• the instructor has a delimited space,
• from the individual areas all participants can see the instructor and the learning resources: image board and examples, without altering their camera controls,
• from the instructor area, the instructor can monitor the progress of the students without moving his/her camera control, unless for zooming and controlling building details,
• there is a device to give automatically resources to the participants. All the participants can see the object giver without altering their camera controls,
• When touched the object giver gives:
  • an object
  • a texture
  • a script
  • a notecard. The notecard itself contain:
    • an object
    • a texture
    • a script
    • a notecard
• there is a tip jar to receive donations. All the participants can see the tip jar without altering their camera controls.

I used the setting for my last workshop. In that case, I did not know about builderbuddy so I just linked all parts. You just take it out of your inventory and postition where you want.

Builderbuddy is a wonderful tool, but for more complex settings.

If you want to see the video, click here.

My happy Tuesdays

Lately on Tuesday I’m always happy and smiling. The reason of my happyness and smiliness is that on Monday night I meet with some… yes I can call them friend by now,  to do activities using the Italian language. I do not like to call it a class because there is no teaching aim in it , but I limit myself to create a situation where people can comunicate in a meaningful way in a foreign language. And it works. It works  thanks to the wonderful people who Italianizzano with me and who understand that this is like going back to childhood, when we played together pretending that we were knights and princesses and we built immaginary houses or played with dolls.

Here is a little film Carolrb took of one of the Mondays meeting.

testing builder buddy

How came that Anna gave a workshop on prims, textures, scripts, all bundled together

Warning: this is a long post. Danger of extreme boredom

Introduction:

Once upon a time there was a little and young avatar called Anna Begonia. She was in her early twos, and like all young and inexperienced avatars, she thought she was “old” and “experienced”.

One day a white fairy-avatar appeared by teleport in front of her and said: “Anna, We, the Muvenationers, have a mission for you”.

Anna had heard of the Muvenationers and knew that they were a big international guild of Educators, so she waited a bit nervously to hear what her mission was.

The white majestic fairy avatar said: “You have to prepare a workshop, a hand-on workshop” and teleported away.

“A hand-on workshop? What the hell is it?” – Anna Begonia used sometimes very strong expressions, but we have to be indulgent since she was rezzed from simple, anonymous pixels and never knew what a avatar-father and an avatar-mother are, poor thing.

She then noticed that the white fairy-avatar left a “link”, a magic object that gives you information if you click on it. She clicked, and after some deciphering and turning around in the cyberspace she came up with the information she wanted: instructions!

Following instructions she started to explore the wide territory she was living in, also called The Metaverso, looking for Workshops: she had to understand what was a workshop to be able to deliver one.

In her wandering she learnt that:

1)workshops are something where sometimes a person called “instructor” does not show up,

2)that they can be cancelled at the last moment with strange excuses,

3) that they can be places where everybody is sitting down and one person is standing in front.

She also noticed that usually your view is blurred by a huge amount of green text, able to hide half of your screen in few seconds and that sometimes, for some mysterious reasons, avatars sitting around are popping out. This phenomenon increases with time and with the difficulty of the workshop.

Now, after much observing, she was ready to carry out her mission: to organise a workshop herself.

She had to admit to herself that the task the fairy-avatar gave her was not an easy one and that she needed to reflect and look inside her pixelmind to find out what she wanted to do and what, of what she knew, she could pass on to others.

To do so she retired on a very high, isolated and bare square: her skybox. There she searched, she searched deep inside herselfand, why should she deny it, also in her inventory.

After many hesitations and change of mind she decided that she was going to lead a group of adventurous Muvenatoners on the path of “Texturise-Link-add-Script”, a path she was familiar with and found very useful indeed. Along it she had organised more than one activity or event. In addition, to her it seemed an easy walk for all ages : there was no prim twisting or script climbing and she was quite confident that she could lead all the fellow avatars of the Educators Guild without too much danger.

But as we all know, if youngster avatar think the know all when they know nothing, half experienced avatars, as Anna was, think that all they do is pretty easy and that everybody can do the same.

We will see later the consequences of her ill judgement. Let’s focus now what actions she took to prepare for this perilous trip.

First of all she thought on the disposition of things and people: what was the right distance to avoid avatars stepping on each other feet and at the same time keep the group unite; how to be sure that everybody could see what she did in the difficult parts and follow her example.

Then she turned to some magic, usually known as scripts,to prepare an enchanted rope of green words able to lead everybody on the same direction and some large projecting images to give visual instructions and aid to those who were less used to walk on uneven surfaces.

She went along the path infinite times to be sure to remembered all the twists and turns of it and that no dangers or wild animal was waiting for them hidden inside the prim-forest.

At last the big day arrived and she thought she was ready.

Avatars start appearing: greetings, chit-chatting, the usual. She send out a last telepatIM, and then they started. Everybody positioned in its place, ready to listen to instructions. Anna wasn’t very nervous. She had prepared but she knew by experience that the result will not be as she had planned. It never is.

She began pressing the magic green words producer and the Muvenationers started to follow the thread. Yet very she noticed some flairs in the words thread and she tried to stick here and there some blue words to keep it flowing.

In addition the path, that when alone seemed easy and even, revealed all its difficulties. More than once the group had to stop to wait for those who could not keep the pace. The better trained were getting nervous while those who hadn’t much practice in the healthy sport of building looked sweaty, tired and confused.

Time was passing. She knew she had to hurry up: the worst enemy of all Metaverse residents, Real Life, was outside there, hidden in the woods, ready to strike.

She could already hear her whisper: “Stop struggling with edit windows and textures tabs! What for? You can be free: just pretend to crash. Come, come back to me. Crash and you will be free.”

She had to go on, uncaring of those who were every time further behind. As she pressed the pace she saw them falling, leaving around heaps prims and shattered textures dripping unused scripts.

Now the party was formed by only a few brave Educators, some deeply wounded, with only half the prims needed, others tired but in better conditions. But only one, it was evident now, would been able to fulfil the task.

… * …

Anna Begonia asked me for feedback and my opinion, and here I’m, reflecting on what I observed from the other side of the screen. Ah! I always forget to introduce myself: I’m the other half of Anna’s brain, or soul, call it as you want.

First of all I have to reassure you: Anna is ok, this little defeat is nothing compared to some other big Waterloos she went through.

The mistake, both in past occasions and now again, is always the same: expect that everybody knows what one knows and don’t obey to the first law of wise organisation: keep it simple.

The trail she choose was not a Sunday walk, there were too many different skills involved, each of which is an occasion for someone to get stuck.

The mistake/s in the Speakeasy notecard helped as well. She’s still wondering how it could have happened: she read it many times but one can never check too much instructions.

In any case, let’s be positive! One avatar managed to do it and we are satisfied with that by now.

British Council Isle on the main grid

I was invited by Graham Stanley to the pre-opening of the British Council Isle on the main grid. I’ve been waiting to be able to see the British Council Island it since they started working on it in the Teen Grid and now I was going to visit it! I was so excited! So on Saturday evening I set my alarm clock on 8.00 am CET be sure to be well awake by 9.00 am and be the first to be there and…. I overslept!!!!

Room with a view

Luckily enough the island was open to visitors for the whole day, so I could visit it on my own. It’s really nice: one can really smell Britain there (yes, believe it or not all countries have their particular smell). There is a little English village with shops and a hotel, a big and scary mystery house, Dover cliff, a castle and many other things to discover on the way. What I liked most is the Marian scavenger hunt. I even manage to find some of the clue and so enjoy the original and witty text that leads participants toward the rescue of Marion. But my favourite is with no doubt Nessie. What would you say of a tour lead by a lake monster that greats you so: Nessie whispers: Sit on ma back fer a tour! Nessie whispers: Come along now, laddies and lassies, I’ll start a’swimming in aboot 20 seconds. Nessie whispers: Clamber right up on ma back and hae a seat. Nessie whispers: What’s the matter with ye? Dae ye think I’d eat such a wee bitty thing as yer avatar? I loved it! And it’s very useful, since she gives you quite a bit of information and hints. I will go back in a week or so, when the British Council Island will be officially opened to finish the scavenger hunt and get informed of possible activities they will be offering.

Nessie!

summarising my workshop

many dead avatars on my soul! Well, thanks everybody for being my laboratory animal for a while. You showed endurance, patience, strengh and skills.

I’m trully sorry that so many were lost on the sandbox field, and I feel deeply responsible for it. ;o)

You can take your revenge on me whenever you want!

The workshop from the point of view of the instructor