You may (or may not) have heard that last Wednesday was the official opening of the PSU World Campus island in the virtual world of Second Life. We’re using this space to give our online students their own ‘campus experience’ just like students on Penn State’s other campuses. If you ask undergraduate students the one thing they’ll always remember about Penn State, you’d have trouble finding a student on a physical campus that would mention anything at all about their courses, classwork, or ANGEL. They all mention things like The Diner, the creamery, and football games. The things they take with them from Penn State, are the social/outside the classroom things where they connect and meet other students. Using a virtual space like Second Life gives us a way to provide those sort of experiences for our students, too.
On Wednesday we spent a little over 12 hours meeting with students, colleagues and co-workers in Second Life. There were students from the US, Spain, and France, all ‘meeting’ each other for the first time. Two of our students actually learned that they live very close to each other in Virginia and had no idea! It was a wonderful time and really helped the students feel like a part of World Campus and a part of Penn State. They said things like, “It is incredible the way a student can be involved with this university”, “I think it is an incredible environment ..I can interact with many people that live hundred of kilometers away from me”, and “I’ve been to several colleges over the years (including another major university in Ga Tech) and they always made me feel like just a number even when I was actually living on campus…Penn State feels more like a big extended family”.
The Penn State World Campus space in Second Life is a space for all of us – not just our students. If we think about our co-workers in extension, located all over the state, or our telecommuters working outside the Outreach Building, or colleagues located all over campus, meeting in Second Life is an incredibly convenient, inexpensive way to connect with each other. Having a community of Outreach employees, students, and even Penn State alumni having conversations and learning about each other starts to build a community of people that truly care about their experience and about Penn State.
Many huge thanks to Nate Tobey and the great folks at WPSU here at Penn State for taking some video and audio footage I captured and turning it into this great video about our Virtual THON that was held at Penn State and in Second Life in February.
There were some URLs posted recently on the Second Life Educator’s mailing list and I found one of them especially good. This article talks about the use of Second Life in a business curriculum and the opportunities there. Here are some excepts from the article at FT.com Financial Times:
“Some business school enthusiasts for the virtual world have taken a little convincing. “My initial reaction was that it was ridiculous,” says Steve Mahaley, director of learning technology at Duke CE. “How could anyone take seriously a cartoon world in which I am driving around an avatar that doesn’t look anything like me?”
However, since early last year, Mr Mahaley – known as Ace Carson in Second Life – has been exploring the educational possibilities of this and other virtual worlds, and says: “Over time, I have come to realise there is much more to it and much more is possible, especially when we start looking at the generation of young managers who have grown up with these kinds of spaces as part of their experience. It behoves us to give it a close look.“
After reading Jim Collins’ “Good to Great” and working in an organization that encourages innovation, one would think that people would be open and excited about learning and exploring new opportunities like Second Life. It seems, however, that even in a culture promoting innovation that at times it’s difficult for people to be willing to take the step to some ‘outside the box’ thinking. I’m not sure if it’s unfamiliarity with the environment, or fear (of failure or success?) that keeps some people from being excited about these things, but it really is important that we at least experiment with new technologies.
“At present, the consensus is that Second Life and other virtual worlds will be complementary to existing teaching methods for some time.
“There is nothing in our activities that we could not do on Second Life,” says Prof Sarvary. “[However], the idea is not to replace faceto-face meetings and classroom experiences but to make sure that we can extend the experience that our regular students are having.“
I think this really sort of ‘wraps-up’ what we’re trying to do for our World Campus students here at Penn State. Students at every other campus have the “on campus” college experience of walking to class, hanging out and meeting other students, and feeling like they have a place where they ‘belong’. Our World Campus students do not have that experience right now, but a virtual environment like Second Life can give that to them. By giving our students a space where they belong, we can provide them with an ‘on campus’ experience, even in a virtual space. That’s value-added learning, and we owe it to them.
Relative to my earlier post and our meeting discussion about finding some statistics on how successful other institutions have been in using Second Life, I posted a request to the Second Life Educator’s mailing list asking for input from the hundreds of members of that community.
One response turned up some great information on Ohio U and what they’re doing. I was psyched to get this info because Ohio U really does have some significant time and money invested in SL and I was hoping to discuss SL with them. Here’s the link to the info:
What I find especially valuable from this site is the paragraph that discusses the future of Ohio U in SL. To quote:
“In a meeting with Ken Sampson, Associate Dean of Technology in the Russ College of Engineering and Technology, Dr. Liu received additional support for SL. Sampson had not heard of SL before their meeting, but knew that Dr. Liu was on to something remarkable, “I immediately saw SL’s potential instructional value,” he says. Beyond that, Sampson recognized that 3D virtual worlds could be the future of computer interactions and wanted Ohio University to be an active participant along the way, “Our involvement in Second Life is an opportunity for OU to be on the leading edge of new technology,” he adds. Sampson’s support would be a vital component of the development of a virtual Stocker Center.
Bill Sams describes SL as “a laboratory for the social sciences.” He is encouraged by SL’s potential to deliver and create knowledge among people and cultures. His professional experience in SL at OU has a different focus– making money. He hopes to generate income for the university by reaching out to the corporate world and offering educational opportunities to the workforce. Sams believes that on a grand scale, SL has the potential to “merge the culture of this region to the technology of Silicon Valley.”
The learning community still meets on a regular basis to discuss and share ideas. The have been tremendously beneficial for the participants and the project. Thanks to two grants from the Ohio Learning Network (OLN), the informal learning community is now a formal learning community and participating members receive a stipend. This allows the group to meet more often and share more ideas. Each member of the learning community has an interpretation of how SL will benefit the university in the future, but all agree that SL has a potential to change the way we live and learn.”
I’m in the process of pulling together live musicians for our virtual THON benefit. For those that aren’t familiar with Second Life or how live music works in this virtual environment let me explain. With the use of software like SAM broadcaster, Nicecast, Simplecast, etc.. a live musician can perform in their living room, basement, kitchen, bathroom (don’t laugh, it’s been done) and broadcast that music live into Second Life via a Shoutcast or icecast stream that’s hosted on a server somewhere. So, a person in Second Life could wander into a coffee shop, for example, and sit down to have a cup of virtual coffee while listening to an amazing acoustic guitar player and vocalist.
I actually sing in Second Life. I’ve done this, and I’ve seen how much people enjoy this. So, just like at the real THON, we’ll be having live music and live performers at the virtual THON as well. I’ve booked two of Second Life’s most popular and talented live musicians and I’m working on booking about 5 more.
I received two emails yesterday from the THON Technology overall chair today, and I just want to say how impressed and pleased I am to be working with her. She is really on top of things and is very excited about the virtual THON/Second Life project this year. It’s a good thing.
Starting this weekend I’ll be working on setting up the actual area where THON will be held in Second Life and finishing the booking of performers. At that point we’ll start getting the word out and gearing up for the event.
In our discussion from Second Life meeting #1 we decided to check in with some ‘experts’ in the educational areas of Second Life and ask them about their success with their Second Life presence and how exactly they’re measuring that success.
I sent an email to Larry Johnson, CEO of the New Media Consortium to ask for his advice. I met Larry at the Digital Media Conference in Boston a few weeks ago and have talked to him a few times in Second Life. With as involved as the NMC is in Second Life and education, I was sure Larry would have some data, research, or resources for me. I got an email back from Larry today that basically said he’s not sure much actual research on that exists at this point, and he feels that the past year or two has really been spent having educational institutions figure out what they *CAN* do in Second Life, and he thinks the next logical step would be to start measuring what’s going on. So, I guess at this point they’ve got nothing.
My next plan is to find the contact for the Second Life work being done by Ohio University and talk with them. They have a very significant presence and probably have at least some advice or input and hopefully some data or statistics.
I completely understand the need to have ‘numbers’ to support what we’re trying to do in Second Life. It makes the administration happy to feel like we have data to validate what we want to do. I, however, tend to not think in those terms. Success in a virtual world for me builds slowly. It’s not about how many people click through to your website from a given area. It’s not about how many students end up enrolled and choose “Second Life” from a drop-down menu in response to a question like “How did you learn about us?”.
We will be successful in Second Life because we’re providing students with something special. We’re giving online students a ‘campus’ to go to. We’re providing them with ways to connect, and network. We’re giving them a meeting space for their group projects. We’re giving them a place to hang out with classmates and watch streaming video from WPSU. We’re giving them something amazing. Something different, and unique, and something that will give them new ways to interact and become engaged in their education and time at Penn State. I can’t wait.
I met today with a colleague from WPSU to talk about ways they could use social networking. Great guy, great conversation and it led to some great ideas for collaboration.
WPSU will develop a short video about THON and Virtual THON. We’ll be able to post the video on YouTube, link it on the World Campus website and post it on Facebook as well. I’ll be using my avatar to talk about what Second Life is, what the ‘Virtual THON’ is and why Second Life is good for communities and collaboration.
We also talked about ways to incorporate WPSU’s content into Second Life and I think that’ll lead to some exciting ways to educate and inform not only our World Campus students, but the public as well. Sweet.
I met yesterday with the technology captain for THON as well as with Brett Bixler from Penn State ITS to discuss this year’s virtual THON in Second Life.
Last year was the first time virtual THON was held in Second Life and it took place on my island of Mill Pond, but with ITS help this year we’ll be having it on the Penn State Isle which is a better choice and makes more sense.
We’ll have the virtual THON event on Friday, February 22 from 6PM – midnight EST. I will be working to coordinate the talent and overall running of the event. In the meeting with the THON captains, they promised they would work on the PR for the event and sending notices to listservs, etc. I’m hopeful that we’ll get more PR than we did last year and we’ll have an even more successful event.
I also plan to capture some video footage of THON both in and outside of Second Life that we can then use to create a short video clip about THON and Second Life to display on YouTube and promote to our World Campus students.
I’m also really excited about the implications for World Campus students and Second Life participation in THON for next year. It has potential to be a really wonderful experience.
First post, so we’ve got some background to cover and some catching up to do.
I started using ’social networking’ in 1995 when I got my first personal computer and logged into AOL. I was immediately amazed and thrilled at the idea that I could sit in my living room and meet and connect with people from all over. My best friend then started her own BBS and encouraged me to join. I did, and was soon playing L.O.R.D. with people from my local area and loving every minute of it. Then it happened – our little town got a real, actual, honest-t0-goodness internet service provider. I was hooked. My ‘hangout’ was the dal.net network on IRC. The people I met in those chatrooms quickly became incredibly close friends and over the course of several years I met many of them offline and developed very close personal relationships. I completely understood the power of networking and making connections. I met my current husband online, and after chatting with him for several years and becoming close friends, he sold his truck and all his belongings, quit his job and moved here to live with me. My kids fell in love with him immediately and it was as though I’d known him forever. It’s the best relationship I’ve ever been in and I’m so thankful every day that I was able to make that connection. Online connections are real, important and life-changing.
I started working at Penn State in the Materials Science and Engineering department in the spring of 2000. I actually worked there as a ‘temp’ placed by a temp agency in State College. I worked for one professor specifically in the “Center for Electrochemical Science and Technology”. Just me and him. Great guy – dull job.
One day the department head came into my office and said they were going to move me into the Undergraduate Administrative office in the department and move the girl that was in that job up to my job. He said it was a ‘better fit’. I was fairly psyched to change and do something different (and by different I really just mean SOMETHING) so I said that would be great.
I worked in the Undergraduate Studies office in MATSE until October of 2002 at which point I took a job with Penn State Undergraduate Admissions as an Admissions Counselor. I worked there for almost exactly five years evaluating applications, giving presentations about Penn State to prospective students and their parents, and I really enjoyed my job. The only problem was that there was no room for creativity or advancement and I kind of needed that.
I joined World Campus full-time in January of 2008 and I’m excited to be here, and really looking forward to the opportunities this position presents me. Penn State Outreach is an amazing, passionate, creative place to work and I feel incredibly thankful to be here and to have this position.
My job here consists of using social networking technologies to bring together students, faculty and staff. Using tools like Facebook, MySpace, Second Life, YouTube, twitter, Flickr, etc. we can connect students with Penn State, and with each other – and I think that’s “where the magic happens”.
I am also doing a small bit of academic advising with our veteran military students. My work in admissions had me working extensively with military students and adult learners, so this role is a good fit and gives me new experience as well.
