let’s make a game *

In March I had the honour to be invited by Anitel (the Italian national association of e-learning tutors) to give this workshop on games, and it was a pleasure for me to meet many other colleagues interested in e-learning and the learning potentiality of virtual worlds.

I can say that in all my second life I’ve been working with games and informal learning, first at Languagelab and then on my own. It was the right occasion for me to think on what I’ve been learning form all these experiences and share with others.

Here you can see the video summarising the workshop (thanks to Richy Ryba for the recording and editing of the video). For those who do not understand Italian, I summarise below the main points.

[Vimeo 10461171]

• The first thing you have to take into consideration when preparing a game is your participants SL skills. Don’t ask them to do something they do not already know how to do or you will spend the first hour explaining technicalities… and who feels like playing a game after that?

• If you are bringing your RL students in SL (and they meet on regular basis in RL) don’t organise games that can be played better in RL. The same kind of games can work pretty well if your students are on an online course (SL adds a socialising element to the game) but are a nonsense in F2F courses

• Use SL to organise something that would be too costly, too complex or too risky in RL.

• There are a lot of ready to play game in SL, mostly the kind of  “sitting around and clicking on a thing”. They can be ok but it’s much better if you make your own game (or you use them as part of a longer and more complex game).

• When preparing a game, keep in mind what make SL unique: social interaction, spatial interaction (it’s a 3D environment, isn’t it?) and visual strength. Ah, ok there is also the suspension of disbelief, but we all know about that. Think of a game that uses space, visuals and social interaction and it will be an hit.

• SL limits are as important as its strength: keep them in mind and exploit them. Sometimes they are more interesting and useful than strength points.

• In order to prepare your own game you do not need to be a builder or a scripter: there are a lot of objects you can use, and scripts that can be useful to prepare a game.

• The SL community is very supportive. If people see that you are working on something interesting and you ask a little favour (for instance, to modify a script that you already have) they will be very happy to lend you an hand. But do not pretend that they “make” the game for you, mostly of them have their projects in SL and are usually very busy.

• In my opinion, what works best in SL are scavenger hunts (clever ones, where you have to solve problems and discover things to finish the game) and games where you have to solve a riddle, answer a question or do something in order to get to the next point.

• And, last point: to collaborate people need to know each other. Don’t organise a game that need collaboration among the group without first allowing them the time (a couple of sessions) to know each other.

A big thanks to Astra Martian and Lisa Tebaldi for giving me the chance to run this workshop and meet their wonderful students.

*The original title of the workshop at Anitel was much better: Facciamo un gioco! that in Italian means both “let’s play a game” and “let’s create a game”.

Workshop in Valencia

This weekend I gave a workshop on SL and language learning for the V Laboratorio di didattica e aggiornamento dell’italiano organised by the Prof-it in Valencia. I survived and discovered that I really do not like to monologue but I trully enjoy to interact with people: answer questions and do things together. That’s when my hands stop trembling and I feel at ease. Can it be because I’m a language teacher and language teachers are not used to “give speaches”?

Of course, I’ve learnt a lot from my (many) mistakes. But that is the interesting part of it, isn’t it. (At least from my point of view he he)

Here are the slides of the introductory monologue (when my hands were trembling and my chest was so contracted that I almost could not breath)

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.

Analysis of hands-on workshop – 1

Muvenation homework: observe 2 different kind of classes in SL.

To help us organise our observation we were given an analysis grid that I will follow here. For my first observation I chose a very simple basic scripting class, since in this way I could focus more on the delivery rather than on the content (following the wise advice of Jennifer Stanigar). In any case I have to admit that I still learned quite a bit. I attended a New Citizens Incorporated class on scripting

Scripting basics - instructor: Protomas Ludwig

Worskshop design: planning and preparation

Spatial design and layout: emulation of RL (but in real life benches would have been a torture!)

NCI class - Caledon Highlands

Instructional design: structured. It states in the event announcement: ” This class will cover all the basics you need to know to get started writing your own scripts or modifying existing ones. tips on where to find useful information on scripting will be given. ”

Organisation of instructions and discourse: pre-prepared.  Instructor used Speakeasy to deliver a pre-prepared text.

Physical organisation of learning material: structured with givers device (red ball) plus boards (two at the sides of the instructor) with textures equipped with red arrow to point at different part of the texture.

Business model: by donation (as most of the classes in SL).

Maturity level / Development version: as I learnt by interviewing the instructor, she has been giving this class for 1,5 years.

Workshop implementation: delivery of instruction

Assessment of prior/required knowledge: informal. In the event advertisement the prerequisites are “none”. However, at the beginning, the instructor said that to be able to follow the class we needed to be able to create a basic prim, and be able to edit it to find the content tab, all of them very basic SL skills, that almost all avatar have.

Pre-Prepared activities to met the knowledge requirements: None, but the instructor gave a short explanation about the Pov (point of view) and how to zoom on objects. This micro-tutorial was part of the notecard she was reading with the Speakeasy.

Prior knowledge: The instructor stated at the beginning.

Preparation of user interface and viewing controls: none (not needed).

Technical preparation of participants (technical advice and information): none (not needed).

Conversation flow: Controlled by a scripted object and integrated by free and improvised chat.

Communication dynamics: mostly tutor -> learner, tutor <->learner in case of doubts, problems etc.

Movement of learners and teachers: teacher was standing and learner were sitting. To have attendees or learner sitting is a sort of standard in many classes/presentation: avatars moving around create confusion and, above all, lag.

Presentation outputs and results: Presented on two boards at the sides of the instructor. The instructor used a very clever little arrow to point at the line of the script she was explaining.

A red arrow to point at lines on the board

Delivery of learning material: at the beginning using automated tools and scripts.

inside the red ball there was all the material (slides, text, scripts) of the class.

Use of media to enhance teaching: basic use of SL text chat and sense of virtual embodiment plus just slides (more would have been distracting and pointless).

Concurrent learner activities: activity exclusively centred within the 3D word. Even the SLS wiki we could check for references were opened inside the SLS web browser.

Personalisation of learning: learners were following the instructions to make their own rotating object and they can ask questions. In many cases, the instructor answered  that we were asking, would have been explained later in the workshop. In this class there were only 3 learners (the time of the day was a bit unusual for SL activities), but I can imagine what could it become with 6-10 learners, each one asking a different question or with a different problem.

Pedagogical approach: focused on rules and procedure and results oriented.

Implementation of the workshop: follow up and evaluation

Provision of guidance, support and feedback: on demand, via main chat or IM.

Monitoring of student progress: very little, mostly through the help and advice requests of the same students. This kind of course, where people drop in/out and sometimes although physically present are not actually “there”, the monitoring of the student progress would be very difficult for the instructor.

Quality of feedback: informative

Assessment model: informal assessment. You saw if you understand and learnt form the result of what you did.

Implementation of the workshop: recall and transfer of learning

Recapitulation: the revision of key concept was done during the class or when the instructor was asked for some explanation/clarification.

After session resources: beside the whole class content that one could get for free from the red ball, the instructor gave plenty of links of wikis and other resources for self learning.

After session activities: none.

I would add a photo of my screen while taking this class. I think we all have to keep in mind that our student screen will be very often like this: crowded with notecard, chat boxes, etc. Only so we will be patient if they do not understand us when we say: come here near me (where the hell is the teacher? I have to close it all), or read the notecard I gave you before )

still life of script, editing window, chat box against SL background. Behind, you could devise the two boards that the instructor is using to make her explanation clearer...

taliking with the teacher-2

This time my interview with the teacher was much shorter, but not less intersting. It was late, there were crash problems, and so I put aside my inborn couriosity and asked only few questions.

Here they are:

the instructor

anna Begonia: Is this course still in beta?
(my impression was that it was not, but I have to ask to fill one of the point of the grid)

Tammy Connolly: Yes it is actually.  This is only the 3rd time we have run it.  I’m still fine tuning it bassed on everyone’s comments and questions trying to make it as clear as possible.  But it is near the end of beta testing.

anna Begonia: well, it does not look like look very well tested. By the way, are you copy /pasting form notecard?

Tammy Connolly: Yes I copy and paste it.  I wrote the lesson about 3 weeks ago and have been fine tuning it since then.  This was officially the last Beta test of this lesson.  It is now ready for other teachers to teach it after I make final revisions to it tonight

anna Begonia: what are the most important aspects of delivering a workshop successfully?

Tammy Connolly: Well my point of view on this comes from my RL experience.  In RL I am a corporate trainer and teach training seminars.  For me the most important part of delivering the lesson is making sure there is interaction and that people get the chance to ask questions during the lesson.  I want my classes to be involved and be a part of it.

anna Begonia: yes, i noticed this in your class, and here in SL it’s not very usual,  many just deliver they content and go home. I really liked it.

Tammy Connolly: yes I know I have sat through many of those lessons here in SL.  here when I teach a lesson I alot for at least 30 minutes of extra time formyself incase I have a class with a lot of questions.
anna Begonia: and my last question: do you have any advice for giving clases in SL

Tammy Connolly: Be Prepared.  If you didn’t write the lesson you are teaching do research on the topic it covers so that you are prepared to answer additional questions outside the scope of the lesson itself.

anna Begonia: like in RL ))

Tammy Connolly: Yes!

Anna Begonia: thank you very much for your time and attention.

Tammy Connolly: you are welcome.