We had seven students present, and were joined by one of the US buddies later on in the session. The lesson plan is out on the course web site (Meeting 2 link), together with a couple of pages about the different activities we completed.
We started in Peer Gynt with a run-through of the evening's activities: Picking out the Porkies, practice presentations & a practice role play. I also took the students through the marking criteria for Assessments 1 & 2 (take a look at the Business Pages section of the course web site) as a preparation for the evening's activities.
Then we moved over to the campfire, where I told them tall stories of my experience as a teacher, slipping in one outright lie. The actual task for the students was to practise interjecting comments and questions of their own, but they also had fun trying to work out which one was the lie (they failed miserably!). You can read which stories I told in the Meeting 2 section of the course web site.
The next activity was for the students to present their experiences on SL to each other (in one group of 3 and another of 4). Then they had to produce a summary to present at plenary session. One group stayed around the campfire, whilst the other moved to Yggrasil, where they could sit around a table (I haven't worked out how to send the tables up into the air yet!). That way, they didn't disturb each other whilst they spoke … but they were sufficiently close to each other not to waste time when they met up again.
I learned a new technique for monitoring: at the campfire I hovered in the air above them, and was thus able to hear, without being an obtrusive presence; at Yggrasil it was even more fun, since I could stand on the canopy and hear without being seen at all! In general the technology worked even better this time - no-one had any technical problems, and we're working out an etiquette of turning off your mike when you're not actually talking (so we hear less about the domestic arrangements of the students as we work!).
The last activity was the first practice role play: Poisoning the pigeons in the park (thanks to Tom Lehrer!). You can read about the situation on the course web site. Once again, they worked in two groups. I briefed everyone in Peer Gynt before we got going and allocated people to roles.
We used Yggrasil again, and I sent the first group off there first to get themselves sat down and prepare for the activity. Derek had turned up by this time and followed what we did with great interest. We used the convention that the active participants sat down, whilst the observers remained standing, and concentrated their attention on the inputs of the person who was playing the same role as themselves.
The first group were very combative and communicative - but not so good at using the right kind of social discourse language. Derek gave his feedback too about how he experienced the tone of their conversation - and he said all the right things about needing more 'lubrication' to avoid insulting people. I gave the observers (students) the opportunity to give feedback first and then I gave my overall feedback.
The second group was then very subdued, and incredibly polite and careful with each other! Perfect! It gave me the opportunity to talk about calibrating your language properly (we're going to need a session about this next time).
After I signed off, some of the students carried on with individual sessions with their US buddies. I recorded the podcast, made an electronic copy of 'what you said …' and amended the web pages (which I'd managed to put on line only just before Meeting 2).
Things get a bit more relaxing now, so I'm hoping that everything will be up to date in good time for next time (when I'm actually going to be allocating marks to Assessment 1 and giving feedback …).
Friday 29 February 2008
What's been going on since Course Meeting 1
The brief answer is: I've been busy! However, the Oral Production course has also been fairly quiet, as the students have been busy getting together with their US counterparts, and exploring SL.
The student in Estonia has run into a common problem: her working schedule has changed and Thursday evenings are now difficult to impossible for her. The question, then, was: can I still study the course? My answer was 'yes' - it'll cause me a little bit of inconvenience, but I'm sure I can rustle up a small group of students who can converse with her at other times than the ones in the schedule.
Two people had problems getting in touch with their buddies, but I managed to liaise with Bryan about this and put people into contact with each other.
I've also been booked to present 'cross-cultural communication' on the OP course at a conference in London on 15th March. I'm going to use Adobe Connect (since I haven't got time to go over to London for the weekend), and I've booked Luisa Panichi (Pisa) and Bryan Carter (Missouri) for an iChat AV three-way recorded video chat about how their students have experienced the various contacts. This'll be available as a Quicktime movie file, if anyone's interested.
My next post will be all about Course Meeting 2.
The student in Estonia has run into a common problem: her working schedule has changed and Thursday evenings are now difficult to impossible for her. The question, then, was: can I still study the course? My answer was 'yes' - it'll cause me a little bit of inconvenience, but I'm sure I can rustle up a small group of students who can converse with her at other times than the ones in the schedule.
Two people had problems getting in touch with their buddies, but I managed to liaise with Bryan about this and put people into contact with each other.
I've also been booked to present 'cross-cultural communication' on the OP course at a conference in London on 15th March. I'm going to use Adobe Connect (since I haven't got time to go over to London for the weekend), and I've booked Luisa Panichi (Pisa) and Bryan Carter (Missouri) for an iChat AV three-way recorded video chat about how their students have experienced the various contacts. This'll be available as a Quicktime movie file, if anyone's interested.
My next post will be all about Course Meeting 2.
Friday 15 February 2008
Lessons learned from Course Meeting 1
• Course information needs to be both more and less specific. I don't think that many students have read (and/or remembered) either the Welcome letter or the Business Pages on the course web site. This doesn't mean 'abandon them', but rather 'take steps to ensure that the right information gets to the students at the right time'. Too much info too soon is a waste of time, but it's difficult to know in advance how much 'too much' is.
• I need to be both clearer in my instructions about 'micro-level' tasks, and more disciplined about timing and outcomes. There seemed to be very little 'what does he want us to do?' yesterday, but I want there to be none. This is a disruptive environment for instruction-giving (which is why it's so useful for its present purpose), so that requires me to be absolutely tight in my planning and execution … paradoxically, that's the only way I can retain the chance to be flexible!
• I need to explore the group room area on Kamimo. I don't actually know how it works right now - but I'll learn before next session on 28th February. This may well remove the problem that students don't move sufficiently far away from each other when they break up into small groups, so they disturb each other's discussions. I'll get on to Judith today to book a time when she can teach me.
• The environment really came alive last night. Several people mentioned spontaneously how much more fun Kamimo is than most of the other places they've visited in world. I suspect that one major factor is Design Container's and the Kamimo team's (but not my!) sterling work in designing the environment. Another is probably the 'magic' of being able to just talk to people in a natural way, despite their being in completely different geographical locations.
• I started addressing people by their avatar names, rather than their real names yesterday …
• Keynote is a great programme for making visuals to go on the whiteboard. I exported my presentation as .jpg (having first learned not to fill the screen too much, since the Kamimo whiteboard is both narrow and shorter than a Keynote screen), and then uploaded them to my Textures folder. This costs L$10 per .jpg.
• I need to be both clearer in my instructions about 'micro-level' tasks, and more disciplined about timing and outcomes. There seemed to be very little 'what does he want us to do?' yesterday, but I want there to be none. This is a disruptive environment for instruction-giving (which is why it's so useful for its present purpose), so that requires me to be absolutely tight in my planning and execution … paradoxically, that's the only way I can retain the chance to be flexible!
• I need to explore the group room area on Kamimo. I don't actually know how it works right now - but I'll learn before next session on 28th February. This may well remove the problem that students don't move sufficiently far away from each other when they break up into small groups, so they disturb each other's discussions. I'll get on to Judith today to book a time when she can teach me.
• The environment really came alive last night. Several people mentioned spontaneously how much more fun Kamimo is than most of the other places they've visited in world. I suspect that one major factor is Design Container's and the Kamimo team's (but not my!) sterling work in designing the environment. Another is probably the 'magic' of being able to just talk to people in a natural way, despite their being in completely different geographical locations.
• I started addressing people by their avatar names, rather than their real names yesterday …
• Keynote is a great programme for making visuals to go on the whiteboard. I exported my presentation as .jpg (having first learned not to fill the screen too much, since the Kamimo whiteboard is both narrow and shorter than a Keynote screen), and then uploaded them to my Textures folder. This costs L$10 per .jpg.
Course Meeting 1
Dr Samuel Johnson once used this simile of a dog walking on its hind legs (to illustrate some sexist point or other):"… It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all." I didn't feel that my teaching was at its best yesterday evening when we had our first proper teaching session on Kamimo … but I think the students got by very well.
There are still uncertainties in the exact class list. One student popped up out of nowhere at about 4.00 pm yesterday (there have clearly been some problems with the on-line application procedure) and turned up quite out of the blue about halfway through the lesson. Another student appeared late too, with the voices of his kids coming across loud and clear! However, this is about par for the course with an ICT-based distance course - the administrative procedures surrounding them are still back in the dark ages.
I can see, though, that students are going to need a touch more specific instruction about setting sound levels, etc. Not much, but some. I gave two of the participants last night on-the-hoof instructions about how to get voice chat going, and it worked fine, but I could equally well have directed them to a web page in advance with the same instructions on it.
We followed the lesson planning more or less exactly. There were just two activities which switched places (breaking in and active listening). I also demanded less of the students when it came to making their own presentations, but concentrated instead on getting them used to the environment, and getting used to the idea that there is a different pattern of social interaction in English when it comes to listening and speaking in more informal groups.
The video recording worked fairly well. SnapzPro also behaved itself, but I restricted each recording to just over 10 minutes to create smaller file sizes. Then it took at least 10 minutes for each Quicktime movie to be processed and saved. The net result was that I managed to make four files of about 12 minutes each during a 120-minute lesson (i.e. not quite half). I'll experiment with SnapzPro when I'm off line to see what happens when you make a two-hour recording (I suspect that it's not going to work, since 12 minutes = 1.2GB).
I used my 'on-line lessons' kitchen timer to make sure I kept to my times too - it's very easy to lose track of time when you're on line.
I'll make another post about lessons learned.
There are still uncertainties in the exact class list. One student popped up out of nowhere at about 4.00 pm yesterday (there have clearly been some problems with the on-line application procedure) and turned up quite out of the blue about halfway through the lesson. Another student appeared late too, with the voices of his kids coming across loud and clear! However, this is about par for the course with an ICT-based distance course - the administrative procedures surrounding them are still back in the dark ages.
I can see, though, that students are going to need a touch more specific instruction about setting sound levels, etc. Not much, but some. I gave two of the participants last night on-the-hoof instructions about how to get voice chat going, and it worked fine, but I could equally well have directed them to a web page in advance with the same instructions on it.
We followed the lesson planning more or less exactly. There were just two activities which switched places (breaking in and active listening). I also demanded less of the students when it came to making their own presentations, but concentrated instead on getting them used to the environment, and getting used to the idea that there is a different pattern of social interaction in English when it comes to listening and speaking in more informal groups.
The video recording worked fairly well. SnapzPro also behaved itself, but I restricted each recording to just over 10 minutes to create smaller file sizes. Then it took at least 10 minutes for each Quicktime movie to be processed and saved. The net result was that I managed to make four files of about 12 minutes each during a 120-minute lesson (i.e. not quite half). I'll experiment with SnapzPro when I'm off line to see what happens when you make a two-hour recording (I suspect that it's not going to work, since 12 minutes = 1.2GB).
I used my 'on-line lessons' kitchen timer to make sure I kept to my times too - it's very easy to lose track of time when you're on line.
I'll make another post about lessons learned.
Wednesday 13 February 2008
Course Launch Mark 2
Students from Partille and Molde turned up (but not my student from Lund). The Snapz Pro recording seemed to work this time, and both students managed to get their audio chat to work in the end.
Then there was an interesting diversion: a Canadian from Montreal turned up, who only spoke French! I ended up putting her in the dragonfly, so that she could take a look around … This is one of those 'etiquette' problems we'll have to deal with …
Then there was an interesting diversion: a Canadian from Montreal turned up, who only spoke French! I ended up putting her in the dragonfly, so that she could take a look around … This is one of those 'etiquette' problems we'll have to deal with …
Today's (and yesterday's) contacts
Yesterday I had a call from one of the students. She lives in Lund, and has actually already studied 37.5hp with me - without me every having met her! She was having problems accessing SL, so we went through the possible problems: has she downloaded the program; has she installed it; are the preferences correctly set? We tried to meet on Kamimo, but failed. (She actually got the message twisted - we were supposed to meet today, not yesterday). The program crashed when she tried to open it … which is an indication that she might not be using the right computer! I referred her to Bryan's slide show (on the podcasts site) and gave her a bit of advice about limiting the use of her RAM. Sounds like she's going to have terminal problems … but this afternoon will tell all!
Alexandra dropped by with some video tapes and we managed to get her reimbursed in cash!
Alexandra dropped by with some video tapes and we managed to get her reimbursed in cash!
Monday 11 February 2008
What happened on Course Launch Day
Starting a new course is always a stressful experience - and this one even more so. Ole Victor and Alexandra came by to set up the video camera, and I'd downloaded and tested SnapzPro for recording screenshots.
The students were to arrive in three groups, which were coordinated to arrive when the US students were free. Bryan had a group which finished at 9.15 am, so the first group came along at 4.00 pm CET (9.00 am CST). I was in world at 3.35 pm, and met up with the early-birds at about 3.45. When people turned up, everything worked fine. Ingrid Linnas came along from Estonia, and had a couple of problems with the first computer she tried. However, I did a workshop at her university in March, so I was able to direct her to the technician she needed to solve her problem! Ingrid's going to cause me a few administrative problems too, since the on-line application procedure hasn't worked for her. The other participants were Swedes and I asked my check questions (e.g. what's the name of the unit at Kalmar you work in, what's your post-code, etc). I quickly gave the first group a tour of the facilities, made sure they knew what they had to do before next time … and matched them up with Americans.
Then we had a break until the next group turned up at 4.45 pm our time (9.45 CST). I had a couple of technical jobs to do: change the video tape in the camera, and save the SnapzPro file. The first one went fine … but the last proved to be a major problem. The conversion to a QuickTime movie was a really big job, and it wasn't anywhere near finished by the time the next group turned up. The save process slowed my computer down considerably, so I got as far as the introduction to the island, and then I had to restart my computer and come back … Fortunately, Bryan was around and he took over, matching Europeans to Americans. By the time I got back, the interaction was fully underway, so I flitted from pair to pair, making sure that everyone knew what they were going to do.
The third group were scheduled to come at 5.15, but the students weren't following the schedule … and most of them had already turned up! There was only Birgithe from Molde who turned up, and she studied the pilot course in the autumn, so she didn't need a tour of the island. Her buddies were both the people who'd had technical problems, so I matched Birgithe up with a US counterpart and made an arrangement for us to do this again on Wednesday, 13th.
My overall impression was that things went well. Students now seem to know what they're doing, and to have gained a familiarity with the basic tools and functions. I've mailed them all and turned Bryan's technical tips into a video podcast which was published on Friday. Today I'm theoretically free, so I'll update the Course Blog, fill up the web site, and make a Course Launch podcast tomorrow when I get back to the office.
The students were to arrive in three groups, which were coordinated to arrive when the US students were free. Bryan had a group which finished at 9.15 am, so the first group came along at 4.00 pm CET (9.00 am CST). I was in world at 3.35 pm, and met up with the early-birds at about 3.45. When people turned up, everything worked fine. Ingrid Linnas came along from Estonia, and had a couple of problems with the first computer she tried. However, I did a workshop at her university in March, so I was able to direct her to the technician she needed to solve her problem! Ingrid's going to cause me a few administrative problems too, since the on-line application procedure hasn't worked for her. The other participants were Swedes and I asked my check questions (e.g. what's the name of the unit at Kalmar you work in, what's your post-code, etc). I quickly gave the first group a tour of the facilities, made sure they knew what they had to do before next time … and matched them up with Americans.
Then we had a break until the next group turned up at 4.45 pm our time (9.45 CST). I had a couple of technical jobs to do: change the video tape in the camera, and save the SnapzPro file. The first one went fine … but the last proved to be a major problem. The conversion to a QuickTime movie was a really big job, and it wasn't anywhere near finished by the time the next group turned up. The save process slowed my computer down considerably, so I got as far as the introduction to the island, and then I had to restart my computer and come back … Fortunately, Bryan was around and he took over, matching Europeans to Americans. By the time I got back, the interaction was fully underway, so I flitted from pair to pair, making sure that everyone knew what they were going to do.
The third group were scheduled to come at 5.15, but the students weren't following the schedule … and most of them had already turned up! There was only Birgithe from Molde who turned up, and she studied the pilot course in the autumn, so she didn't need a tour of the island. Her buddies were both the people who'd had technical problems, so I matched Birgithe up with a US counterpart and made an arrangement for us to do this again on Wednesday, 13th.
My overall impression was that things went well. Students now seem to know what they're doing, and to have gained a familiarity with the basic tools and functions. I've mailed them all and turned Bryan's technical tips into a video podcast which was published on Friday. Today I'm theoretically free, so I'll update the Course Blog, fill up the web site, and make a Course Launch podcast tomorrow when I get back to the office.
The more 'technical' post about the course design
It's a sign of generally busy an 'adjunkt' is that it's taken me until this day off to get round to writing about last Thursday's Course Launch in more detail. Since the launch of Oral Production, I've used Adobe Connect live for the first time, and started two new courses, each with 30+ students on it, one via Marratech from Kalmar and one in Sävsjö.
Back to OP … The first thing to do was to get the web site updated. As usual, it was the administrative side that needed doing first, so I defined the three course assignments in great detail. This covers both what the students have to do, and the number of marks they can achieve for each assignment, and for each aspect of each assignment. This is probably the most difficult and the most important aspect of designing an on-line course. You have a number of different factors to take into account, such as what the syllabus says, what the student work-load looks like, and the dynamic quality of the course. What this last factor involves is trying to keep the students excited to continue! And making sure that the rewards they get for continuing are proportionate to the amount of work they have to do.
Once you know what you expect of them, it's then relatively straightforward to design the actual lessons and supporting course materials. You've got the actual goals of the course clearly set, so working out how to get there is a lot easier. On this course there's an added complication in that I've never worked in this environment before, so I'm not quite sure yet how much ground we can cover at each meeting. Thus, I'm not designing more than one meeting at a time (although the fact that I need to give the students their assignments for next time too defines at least part of the following meeting).
The first meeting is going to be about polite language, the language of interaction, and a chance to practise presentation skills. I wrote a detailed lesson plan, breaking down the lesson into 10 and 15 minute sections. This lesson plan is now out on the course web site too, and I've invited the students to take a look at it before we have our next meeting. In one respect, this is a little foolhardy, since I have no real means of knowing whether the lesson plan is going to work. In another, though, it's a sensible course of action, since, if I involve my students in the entire work on the course, there's a much better chance that a) they'll understand why they need to do the 'inter-meeting' work I'm asking them to do and b) that they'll be tolerant of minor over-runs and glitches.
The intellectual model I'm using for creating course materials is, of course, my experiences of face-to-face (f2f) sessions. At the moment, I'm regarding SL as just another environment for f2f teaching. When we meet this Thursday, the main student-directed activity is going to be the report back from their experiences with the US students and on their own in SL. My plan is to run this like a kind of marketplace, where students set up 'stalls' from which they tell small groups of other students about what they've experienced. I'll be going from group to group to help out (and see if there are any interesting language points to take up).
Back to OP … The first thing to do was to get the web site updated. As usual, it was the administrative side that needed doing first, so I defined the three course assignments in great detail. This covers both what the students have to do, and the number of marks they can achieve for each assignment, and for each aspect of each assignment. This is probably the most difficult and the most important aspect of designing an on-line course. You have a number of different factors to take into account, such as what the syllabus says, what the student work-load looks like, and the dynamic quality of the course. What this last factor involves is trying to keep the students excited to continue! And making sure that the rewards they get for continuing are proportionate to the amount of work they have to do.
Once you know what you expect of them, it's then relatively straightforward to design the actual lessons and supporting course materials. You've got the actual goals of the course clearly set, so working out how to get there is a lot easier. On this course there's an added complication in that I've never worked in this environment before, so I'm not quite sure yet how much ground we can cover at each meeting. Thus, I'm not designing more than one meeting at a time (although the fact that I need to give the students their assignments for next time too defines at least part of the following meeting).
The first meeting is going to be about polite language, the language of interaction, and a chance to practise presentation skills. I wrote a detailed lesson plan, breaking down the lesson into 10 and 15 minute sections. This lesson plan is now out on the course web site too, and I've invited the students to take a look at it before we have our next meeting. In one respect, this is a little foolhardy, since I have no real means of knowing whether the lesson plan is going to work. In another, though, it's a sensible course of action, since, if I involve my students in the entire work on the course, there's a much better chance that a) they'll understand why they need to do the 'inter-meeting' work I'm asking them to do and b) that they'll be tolerant of minor over-runs and glitches.
The intellectual model I'm using for creating course materials is, of course, my experiences of face-to-face (f2f) sessions. At the moment, I'm regarding SL as just another environment for f2f teaching. When we meet this Thursday, the main student-directed activity is going to be the report back from their experiences with the US students and on their own in SL. My plan is to run this like a kind of marketplace, where students set up 'stalls' from which they tell small groups of other students about what they've experienced. I'll be going from group to group to help out (and see if there are any interesting language points to take up).
Friday 8 February 2008
Course Launch: sense impressions
Good grief! (OK, I've got it out now!)
I'm going to record my subjective impressions here, and then post again later with a more 'technical' post about how things went.
Well … being a teacher was like playing a complicated piece on a church organ, whilst baking a cake and working out a chess problem in your head! It was fun, though.
Firstly, a big 'thank you' to Dr Bryan Carter and his students from Missouri. My computer started playing up as the second group of students arrived, but Bryan took over smoothly and assigned his students to my students.
It was like being at a large and noisy cocktail party at times, but I knew that my teaching style would have to be very direct and clear in this environment (at least when I'm actually teaching). It made me think of the greater discipline an abstract painter needs, compared with someone who paints conventionally and has all the forms and rules to lean on. I like abstract better myself, though I can imagine how disruptive and frightening this environment could feel like for a teacher who's used to leaning on a lectern and just lecturing.
I *think* that everyone got on OK, though I've got a couple of 'reassuring' mails to write today to people who had different degrees of technical difficulties. What I felt happened was that people became very quickly at ease in the environment - and started hanging out with each other, just as they do in RL. It'll be interesting to see how this develops.
OK, breakfast time now - and another busy day.
I'm going to record my subjective impressions here, and then post again later with a more 'technical' post about how things went.
Well … being a teacher was like playing a complicated piece on a church organ, whilst baking a cake and working out a chess problem in your head! It was fun, though.
Firstly, a big 'thank you' to Dr Bryan Carter and his students from Missouri. My computer started playing up as the second group of students arrived, but Bryan took over smoothly and assigned his students to my students.
It was like being at a large and noisy cocktail party at times, but I knew that my teaching style would have to be very direct and clear in this environment (at least when I'm actually teaching). It made me think of the greater discipline an abstract painter needs, compared with someone who paints conventionally and has all the forms and rules to lean on. I like abstract better myself, though I can imagine how disruptive and frightening this environment could feel like for a teacher who's used to leaning on a lectern and just lecturing.
I *think* that everyone got on OK, though I've got a couple of 'reassuring' mails to write today to people who had different degrees of technical difficulties. What I felt happened was that people became very quickly at ease in the environment - and started hanging out with each other, just as they do in RL. It'll be interesting to see how this develops.
OK, breakfast time now - and another busy day.
Catching up on the news
Yesterday was Course Launch day, and I'll make a more detailed post about that later. Right now, I'll just record what's happened since I last posted.
There's been another drop-out (the student in question is already studying 15hp with me on other courses, and she feels she doesn't have time for this too). It's cut one of the time zones out, though!
I've also had a couple of interesting conversations with colleagues about the course (some of whom are actually on the course), mostly about the affective aspects of what we're doing. I'm really going out on a limb with this course on a personal level too. We teachers almost never do our work in the presence of other experts (i.e. other teachers), unlike just about every other job and profession there is. We can sit at meetings and pontificate, but it's a whole other experience having your colleagues seeing you through the eyes of a student! Their feedback is going to be very interesting - and very important. It extends the Johari window of personal development into the area of things I don't know about myself, but others do.
This is undoubtedly going to put extra stress on me as a teacher … but I think I can cope!
Apart from that, this is the week from Hell. I started 54 students on an on-line course the day before, and rushed almost straight from this Course Launch into my first live session with Adobe Connect. Still, things will calm down soon, and I'll be able to get on with the more relaxed contact with students next week.
There's been another drop-out (the student in question is already studying 15hp with me on other courses, and she feels she doesn't have time for this too). It's cut one of the time zones out, though!
I've also had a couple of interesting conversations with colleagues about the course (some of whom are actually on the course), mostly about the affective aspects of what we're doing. I'm really going out on a limb with this course on a personal level too. We teachers almost never do our work in the presence of other experts (i.e. other teachers), unlike just about every other job and profession there is. We can sit at meetings and pontificate, but it's a whole other experience having your colleagues seeing you through the eyes of a student! Their feedback is going to be very interesting - and very important. It extends the Johari window of personal development into the area of things I don't know about myself, but others do.
This is undoubtedly going to put extra stress on me as a teacher … but I think I can cope!
Apart from that, this is the week from Hell. I started 54 students on an on-line course the day before, and rushed almost straight from this Course Launch into my first live session with Adobe Connect. Still, things will calm down soon, and I'll be able to get on with the more relaxed contact with students next week.
Wednesday 6 February 2008
Pre-course start mail to students
I've just mailed the students to remind them about what happens at course start and to introduce them to the researchers.
Had an interesting conversation with Peter Carlsson at lunchtime. Peter's advice was to make it clear that this is an experimental course - he felt that students would be more tolerant of minor problems that way. I was going to mail people today anyway, but I incorporated his suggestions into the 'final' mail before course start:
Dear All,
We're getting the course underway tomorrow, starting at 4 pm. If you don't know exactly what time you're due on Kamimo Island, just get in touch.
I'm quite excited about the course start - so far as we know, no university in Sweden has ever run an entire 'conventional' course in Second Life before (those few places that have worked in Second Life so far have tended to run certain exercises in world, but not whole courses).
However, ground-breaking does have certain risks associated with it! One factor we know little about is how *your* computers are going to cope with SL, for example. So, bear with me as we start working on the course. If things go wrong (like the program freezing or you getting lost!), just re-start and re-join us. I'll be on Kamimo Island more or less the whole course.
Here are a couple of things you can do to 'find yourself' again:
1. When you arrive on Kamimo Island for the first time (via the course web site?), go to Create Landmark Here (World menu at the top of the screen).
2. If you get lost, open your Inventory (blue button in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen) and open your Landmarks folder. You should see the link to Kamimo. If you double-click it, a box opens which invites you to teleport there.
3. Click on the Search button (blue - about in the middle of the screen). Click on the People tab and type my avatar's name in (Davric Rinkitink). You'll then be able to send me a message (IM) from wherever you are, and I can send you an invitation to teleport over to Kamimo.
-------
This is what's going to happen tomorrow (a reminder, just in case my other mails had disappeared!):
1. You turn up at the time stated against your name on the Course Launch Schedule.
2. I'll be taking the first three people to arrive for a quick tour of the facilities, during which time I'll check you off against my list of students. I'll also make sure that you know what you have to do before Course Meeting 1 on 14th February.
3. One (or perhaps more) of the American students will be there, and he or she will take over after I've finished. They will either take you directly to one of their favourite spots in world, or will fix a time with you when you can all go together. They have some questions to ask you about the place(s) you visit, and you'll be preparing a presentation about it(them) to be delivered at Course Meeting 1.
4. Then I'll take the next two or three people through the same procedure as the first group!
-------
The novelty of this course has also attracted the attention of some researchers into the whole phenomenon of education in SL. Alexandra Petrakou is a doctoral student here in Kalmar (at the department called IKD in Swedish) and she has a number of requests to make of you during the course (none of which are going to take an enormous amount of your time …). Luisa Panichi is a teacher and researcher at the University of Pisa in Italy, and she'd also like to hear about your experiences. Finally, you might even hear from a researcher in Missouri called Naomi Baldwin.
The researchers realise, of course, that you're only studying part-time (i.e. that you've got lives as well!), but they'll be very grateful indeed for any feedback you can give.
I'll send you another mail tomorrow detailing the specific requests the researchers are making. The documents they have produced will also be downloadable from the Business Pages section of the course web site.
-------
That's all for now - see you on Kamimo tomorrow afternoon.
Had an interesting conversation with Peter Carlsson at lunchtime. Peter's advice was to make it clear that this is an experimental course - he felt that students would be more tolerant of minor problems that way. I was going to mail people today anyway, but I incorporated his suggestions into the 'final' mail before course start:
Dear All,
We're getting the course underway tomorrow, starting at 4 pm. If you don't know exactly what time you're due on Kamimo Island, just get in touch.
I'm quite excited about the course start - so far as we know, no university in Sweden has ever run an entire 'conventional' course in Second Life before (those few places that have worked in Second Life so far have tended to run certain exercises in world, but not whole courses).
However, ground-breaking does have certain risks associated with it! One factor we know little about is how *your* computers are going to cope with SL, for example. So, bear with me as we start working on the course. If things go wrong (like the program freezing or you getting lost!), just re-start and re-join us. I'll be on Kamimo Island more or less the whole course.
Here are a couple of things you can do to 'find yourself' again:
1. When you arrive on Kamimo Island for the first time (via the course web site?), go to Create Landmark Here (World menu at the top of the screen).
2. If you get lost, open your Inventory (blue button in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen) and open your Landmarks folder. You should see the link to Kamimo. If you double-click it, a box opens which invites you to teleport there.
3. Click on the Search button (blue - about in the middle of the screen). Click on the People tab and type my avatar's name in (Davric Rinkitink). You'll then be able to send me a message (IM) from wherever you are, and I can send you an invitation to teleport over to Kamimo.
-------
This is what's going to happen tomorrow (a reminder, just in case my other mails had disappeared!):
1. You turn up at the time stated against your name on the Course Launch Schedule.
2. I'll be taking the first three people to arrive for a quick tour of the facilities, during which time I'll check you off against my list of students. I'll also make sure that you know what you have to do before Course Meeting 1 on 14th February.
3. One (or perhaps more) of the American students will be there, and he or she will take over after I've finished. They will either take you directly to one of their favourite spots in world, or will fix a time with you when you can all go together. They have some questions to ask you about the place(s) you visit, and you'll be preparing a presentation about it(them) to be delivered at Course Meeting 1.
4. Then I'll take the next two or three people through the same procedure as the first group!
-------
The novelty of this course has also attracted the attention of some researchers into the whole phenomenon of education in SL. Alexandra Petrakou is a doctoral student here in Kalmar (at the department called IKD in Swedish) and she has a number of requests to make of you during the course (none of which are going to take an enormous amount of your time …). Luisa Panichi is a teacher and researcher at the University of Pisa in Italy, and she'd also like to hear about your experiences. Finally, you might even hear from a researcher in Missouri called Naomi Baldwin.
The researchers realise, of course, that you're only studying part-time (i.e. that you've got lives as well!), but they'll be very grateful indeed for any feedback you can give.
I'll send you another mail tomorrow detailing the specific requests the researchers are making. The documents they have produced will also be downloadable from the Business Pages section of the course web site.
-------
That's all for now - see you on Kamimo tomorrow afternoon.
Tuesday 5 February 2008
And a bit more …
It's a hectic day today. I've got four course starts in four days …
We had to change the time for the first group on Thursday to make sure that Bryan's first group could make it. Bryan was on-line early (his) morning, and we sorted the exact details in a Skype call. Actually what we did was to share a common picture of what would happen on Thursday, so I'll be in world at about 3.30 pm our time and meet up with him just before we start (he'll be running a set of group sessions for his students that morning/afternoon (four time zones for the course really make life interesting).
Then a new student turned up! He'd applied through studera.nu, but the information hadn't filtered through to me yet. This is just one of those problems you have to deal with on on-line courses: we have an administrative system which is still geared to the rather slower world we had before we started using computers. Fortunately, I heard about him before I sent out the revised schedule for Thursday, so I could include his details on that.
Then one of the students contacted me by phone to check on some details of using Second Life. It was the exact way you set a landmark, and the details of connecting up her audio chat. I went into SL and on to Kamimo and sent her a teleport invitation. When she appeared, we checked that she knew how to Landmark the site and how to find the landmark again. We also checked the audio - which worked fine.
We had to change the time for the first group on Thursday to make sure that Bryan's first group could make it. Bryan was on-line early (his) morning, and we sorted the exact details in a Skype call. Actually what we did was to share a common picture of what would happen on Thursday, so I'll be in world at about 3.30 pm our time and meet up with him just before we start (he'll be running a set of group sessions for his students that morning/afternoon (four time zones for the course really make life interesting).
Then a new student turned up! He'd applied through studera.nu, but the information hadn't filtered through to me yet. This is just one of those problems you have to deal with on on-line courses: we have an administrative system which is still geared to the rather slower world we had before we started using computers. Fortunately, I heard about him before I sent out the revised schedule for Thursday, so I could include his details on that.
Then one of the students contacted me by phone to check on some details of using Second Life. It was the exact way you set a landmark, and the details of connecting up her audio chat. I went into SL and on to Kamimo and sent her a teleport invitation. When she appeared, we checked that she knew how to Landmark the site and how to find the landmark again. We also checked the audio - which worked fine.
News from the front
I was starting another course in Västervik on Saturday, so I took Monday off. Here's an update on progress on the course so far.
I've had a couple of confirmations from students on my list and two withdrawals. The people who've withdrawn have done so because the timetable doesn't suit (they're both late entrants and so didn't have the chance to check on this in advance). Now we're down to 15 and we could lose one or two more before we get going.
I've just created a Course Launch attendance schedule and sent it out to the group of students. I'm hoping that Bryan will get it in time to show it to his students today. It had to wait until today, since the composition of the group is still fluid.
The plan is to greet two groups of students at the same time, but ask one of them to wait a while, whilst I work with the one of the groups. This is a bit awkward, but I can't be sure how many people are actually going to turn up, so I'm holding off on actually announcing which group each person is in until they actually turn up. That way, I'll have a better chance of creating a viable group. It makes it look like I might know what I'm doing too!
Time zones are going to be interesting too: we've got people who live in four different time zones on the course, so I'm trying to be extra-clear about which time we're talking about.
Here's the text of the e-mail that went out today:
I'm attaching a list of times when I'll be expecting you on Kamimo Island this Thursday (7th February). Dr Carter at the University of Central Missouri, will be asking some of his students to join you, but I won't know exactly who's coming to which group until Thursday.
I've also left out your avatar names, because I don't have them all yet. I'll make a list available as soon as we get going.
If you know of anyone who's expecting a time, but who isn't on the list, let me know, or ask them to get in touch, and I'll include them on the schedule.
A note about time zones: we've got participants in four different time zones, so the times are at least duplicated, if not tripled! However, they're all the same time in real time. GMT means Greenwich Mean Time, which is the time zone the UK is in. CET means Central European Time, which is the time zone Sweden and Norway are in. EET means Eastern European Time, which is the time zone for Estonia. CST means Central Standard Time and it's the time zone for our colleagues in Missouri. Thus 15.15 GMT, 16.15 CET and 17.15 EET are actually the same time.
I'm looking forward to meeting you on Thursday.
I've had a couple of confirmations from students on my list and two withdrawals. The people who've withdrawn have done so because the timetable doesn't suit (they're both late entrants and so didn't have the chance to check on this in advance). Now we're down to 15 and we could lose one or two more before we get going.
I've just created a Course Launch attendance schedule and sent it out to the group of students. I'm hoping that Bryan will get it in time to show it to his students today. It had to wait until today, since the composition of the group is still fluid.
The plan is to greet two groups of students at the same time, but ask one of them to wait a while, whilst I work with the one of the groups. This is a bit awkward, but I can't be sure how many people are actually going to turn up, so I'm holding off on actually announcing which group each person is in until they actually turn up. That way, I'll have a better chance of creating a viable group. It makes it look like I might know what I'm doing too!
Time zones are going to be interesting too: we've got people who live in four different time zones on the course, so I'm trying to be extra-clear about which time we're talking about.
Here's the text of the e-mail that went out today:
I'm attaching a list of times when I'll be expecting you on Kamimo Island this Thursday (7th February). Dr Carter at the University of Central Missouri, will be asking some of his students to join you, but I won't know exactly who's coming to which group until Thursday.
I've also left out your avatar names, because I don't have them all yet. I'll make a list available as soon as we get going.
If you know of anyone who's expecting a time, but who isn't on the list, let me know, or ask them to get in touch, and I'll include them on the schedule.
A note about time zones: we've got participants in four different time zones, so the times are at least duplicated, if not tripled! However, they're all the same time in real time. GMT means Greenwich Mean Time, which is the time zone the UK is in. CET means Central European Time, which is the time zone Sweden and Norway are in. EET means Eastern European Time, which is the time zone for Estonia. CST means Central Standard Time and it's the time zone for our colleagues in Missouri. Thus 15.15 GMT, 16.15 CET and 17.15 EET are actually the same time.
I'm looking forward to meeting you on Thursday.
Friday 1 February 2008
Another mail from today's drop-out
The student who contacted me this morning has just replied that she's considering applying for the course when we offer it in the autumn.
Problems with an old password
Just got a phone call from one of our 'in-house' students. She created her account a long time ago (before Linden Labs changed all the passwords after a hacker attack), and her old ID doesn't work.
She's solving the problem by just creating a whole new avatar, but I've got to remember to find out how you change your password. I used to know, because I did it once …
She's solving the problem by just creating a whole new avatar, but I've got to remember to find out how you change your password. I used to know, because I did it once …
Another drop-out
Another potential student has contacted me and said that she doesn't have time to study the course this spring. She was one of the 7 unknown quantities, so we're now at 17 students.
This is fairly typical of this kind of on-line flexible course, by the way. The group won't be stabilised until after about the second meeting in world.
This is fairly typical of this kind of on-line flexible course, by the way. The group won't be stabilised until after about the second meeting in world.
Another Course Information Sheet returned
Today's post brought another Course Information Sheet. I'll make a summary of the information received via these Course Information Sheets after the course has got underway.
A link to the Course Blog
Mats Deutschmann from Mid-Sweden University is running another course on Kamimo - a kind of re-run of the pilot course we ran in the autumn. The pilot course was largely designed for us to practise our skills in the environment, but Mats is running a more organised research project around doctoral students. The difference between his course and mine is that I'm trying to be a lot more 'ordinary' - i.e. I'm trying to run a course under exactly the same conditions as a 'normal' course, whilst Mats' students are a little more carefully selected. Mats is also asking slightly different research questions.
Click here to read Mats' blog: Mat's Blog
SnapzPro
Alexandra needs the SL sessions recorded for her research. Since I use a Mac, neither Screencorder nor Camtasia are viable options, since they're PC programs (though I do have Parallels on this Mac, I hardly ever use it - why would you want to?!).
We've found a promising-looking program called SnapzProX. Our IT-technician/pedagogue, Peter Carlsson (who's also a student on the course) has downloaded it and it seems to work. I hope to get it installed some time at the beginning of next week, so we'll see how it goes. I can envisage, though, that I'm going to have to be fast on my feet during lessons, since these recordings result in very large data files. I'll probably try to remember to record, say, about 10 minutes at a time (which is about the length of the 'teacher talking time' during each segment of my lessons). Must remember to include a reminder about this in my detailed lesson planning.
We've found a promising-looking program called SnapzProX. Our IT-technician/pedagogue, Peter Carlsson (who's also a student on the course) has downloaded it and it seems to work. I hope to get it installed some time at the beginning of next week, so we'll see how it goes. I can envisage, though, that I'm going to have to be fast on my feet during lessons, since these recordings result in very large data files. I'll probably try to remember to record, say, about 10 minutes at a time (which is about the length of the 'teacher talking time' during each segment of my lessons). Must remember to include a reminder about this in my detailed lesson planning.
I've got a top-of-the-range iMac with a 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor (OK, I admit, I'm copying from the screen!) and memory that's called 2 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRam (if that means anything to you!). It's also got 256 MB of VRAM. I don't understand all this, but I liaised with Bryan (who does) when we were ordering this machine, so that I'd get the best machine I could for use with SL. One of the interesting lessons I'm expecting to learn is what happens when the different machines different students use start interacting with each other.
Coordinating with the US
I've just sent this mail to Bryan Carter. He skyped me yesterday evening (after I'd gone home) to let me know that he's got 15 enthusiastic students who're waiting to work with the Swedes - at least at the Course Launch.
As you can see, the details of the course are coalescing, but it's rarely possible to be definite at this stage of a completely new course. In my spare time I'm starting 5 courses altogether in the next couple of weeks, several of which need extensive web page and podcast production, travelling, coordinating with other agents, etc. However, one of the points of this course as a research project is to see what happens when a teacher tries to work this way in 'real life' (i.e. with very little time and very few resources to work with!).
The mail:
Dear Bryan,
Great to hear about the 15 interested students. The mail I sent out yesterday went out to 19 potential students from here (including a few people on the staff here). I'm waiting for them to disappear (or appear) over the weekend. Out of those 19, I regard about 12 of them as definites, and the others are somewhat of an unknown quantity.
My plan is to invite *two* buddy groups at a time at 45 minutes intervals, starting at 9.00 am your time. That way, we can 'fill the groups up' with people from the second group, if some of them don't turn up. Kamimo isn't such a boring place to be, so I don't feel that it's imposing too much to ask the second group to hang around (and, for example, talk to your US students).
I'll still only be handling one of my buddy groups at a time. What I have to do is do an ID check, so that I can register them, and then take them to Peer Gynt, so they know *exactly* where they need to be at Course Meeting 1. I'll also be checking that they've cracked the audio chat settings (by talking to them!) and that they know what they're to do with your students that day.
Are your lot prepared to work with my lot on a longer-term basis throughout the course (in their own time)? The assignments on my course are:
1. a short individual presentation on an SL-related theme (at Course Meeting 3 on Thursday, 27th March)
2. a role-play exam (at Course Meeting 4 on Thursday, 3rd April)
3. a joint presentation with the members of their buddy group on a theme of their choice (at Course Meeting 5 on Thursday, 10th April).
There's a lot of room for collaboration with your lot during this process, but I don't feel I have the right to make demands on them. We'll be practising presentations at Course Meetings 1 and 2, and there'll be some related materials on the course web site in due course. I'm aiming for the Course Launch and Course Meeting 1 sections of the site to be filled by this coming Wednesday. At the moment, I'm a bit reluctant to go further than that, since I'm not sure of my student group yet. It's a question of letting the course materials grow organically this time around.
I'll send you a more detailed sign-up sheet at the beginning of next week, and I'll keep an eye open for you on line today and on Monday.
Take care,
David
As you can see, the details of the course are coalescing, but it's rarely possible to be definite at this stage of a completely new course. In my spare time I'm starting 5 courses altogether in the next couple of weeks, several of which need extensive web page and podcast production, travelling, coordinating with other agents, etc. However, one of the points of this course as a research project is to see what happens when a teacher tries to work this way in 'real life' (i.e. with very little time and very few resources to work with!).
The mail:
Dear Bryan,
Great to hear about the 15 interested students. The mail I sent out yesterday went out to 19 potential students from here (including a few people on the staff here). I'm waiting for them to disappear (or appear) over the weekend. Out of those 19, I regard about 12 of them as definites, and the others are somewhat of an unknown quantity.
My plan is to invite *two* buddy groups at a time at 45 minutes intervals, starting at 9.00 am your time. That way, we can 'fill the groups up' with people from the second group, if some of them don't turn up. Kamimo isn't such a boring place to be, so I don't feel that it's imposing too much to ask the second group to hang around (and, for example, talk to your US students).
I'll still only be handling one of my buddy groups at a time. What I have to do is do an ID check, so that I can register them, and then take them to Peer Gynt, so they know *exactly* where they need to be at Course Meeting 1. I'll also be checking that they've cracked the audio chat settings (by talking to them!) and that they know what they're to do with your students that day.
Are your lot prepared to work with my lot on a longer-term basis throughout the course (in their own time)? The assignments on my course are:
1. a short individual presentation on an SL-related theme (at Course Meeting 3 on Thursday, 27th March)
2. a role-play exam (at Course Meeting 4 on Thursday, 3rd April)
3. a joint presentation with the members of their buddy group on a theme of their choice (at Course Meeting 5 on Thursday, 10th April).
There's a lot of room for collaboration with your lot during this process, but I don't feel I have the right to make demands on them. We'll be practising presentations at Course Meetings 1 and 2, and there'll be some related materials on the course web site in due course. I'm aiming for the Course Launch and Course Meeting 1 sections of the site to be filled by this coming Wednesday. At the moment, I'm a bit reluctant to go further than that, since I'm not sure of my student group yet. It's a question of letting the course materials grow organically this time around.
I'll send you a more detailed sign-up sheet at the beginning of next week, and I'll keep an eye open for you on line today and on Monday.
Take care,
David
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
