Second Life (SL) seems to be getting talked about more and more recently, and I’ve been on the lookout for opportunities to take part in Second Life experiences that would be relevant to my work. Last week was declared ”Information Literacy week” in SL, so I jumped at the chance to enrol in an orientation session, billed as “an introduction to SL with an IL spin”, led by the Dept of Information Studies at Sheffield University which, together with CILASS (Centre for Inquiry-Based Learning), has done much to establish a presence in SL and develop its use as a teaching tool.

The point of joining in the session was to brush up my SL skills, find out how an academic department is using a virtual world, and see what techniques could be used to make newcomers feel comfortable in this new environment. I hope my experience may encourage you to have a go if you are curious!

As I had Second Life installed on my laptop and my avatar Briony Braveheart already set up, all I needed to do was ask to be invited to the orientation session and, at the appointed time, open SL. A facilitator, who had already contacted me by email to explain the process, made sure a link was waiting for me to click on, and I was quickly teleported over to InfoLit iSchool island, belonging to Sheffield University Dept of Information Studies and School of Education. There were about a dozen of us present (all avatars looking reassuringly normal) and we were invited to use the chat tool to say a bit about ourselves in real life. This was great as it gave a sense of being in a like-minded group, and I discovered that the group came from a variety of countries and professions. Sheila and Kitty the facilitators gave us notecards explaining what we were going to do, and we could ask them questions anytime we wanted.

After introductions we were encouraged to start moving around our space, which looked rather like Teletubby Land except that it had lots of screens explaining basic SL features like how to sit down and how to sort out your outfit. We had a chance to buy and unpack a chest of goodies such as free t-shirts, which gave us practice in building up our inventory, tweaking our appearance and generally trying things out.

Another important aspect was simply practising moving around and getting comfortable in what, at first, can seem a very alien place. A number of objects had been set up so that when you moved onto them, you had a choice of things you could do. I had go at sunbathing and hanging upside down from a large plant (not at the same time) both of which I don’t get much chance to do in real life.

Finally, for a grand finale, we were able to jump into ‘flying chairs’ for an aerial tour of the island, seeing the different spaces that Sheffield University students can use for their classes, ending up with a hot air balloon flight over the treetops and across the blue ocean. I have to say on a wet overcast afternoon it was incredibly relaxing and gave me a chance to take time out and reflect on the hour or so I had spent in SL (and prepare to write this blog!)

All too soon it was back to earth and we gathered on ground level for the final part of the session. I’m afraid, at that point, I had some technical difficulties which brought the session to a slightly premature end. That was a bit disappointing, but even so I decided it had been time well spent. On my first few forays into SL I had found it rather uninviting, even a bit alienating. This time, I felt that I had started to get some insight into the attractions of a virtual world: the chance to move outside of roles or modes of behaviour that you would normally adopt, the chance to learn something from an expert that you would not have easy access to, and the chance to explore an unfamiliar topic in a safe and supported way.

Some of the things that I think made the experience a rewarding one were:

- the quality of the environment: it was beautiful to look at, full of colour and inviting exploration;

- there were some well-defined activities, the session was generally well-paced, and there was a good balance between free exploration and guided tasks. It could perhaps have been a bit shorter, as after an hour I was feeling in need of a break;

- the group felt friendly with no aggression or disruption (apart from one poor person who inadvertently walked on everyone’s heads, but she was wearing gorgeous angel wings so we easily forgave her). It helped that we all had a common professional reason for being there.

- the facilitation throughout was exemplary. If we looked as though we were in difficulties with a task, one of them would check if we needed help and give us prompts to find the answer (with lots of much needed encouragement when we got it right).

I would recommend trying a session like this one to see what all the fuss is about, get a glimpse into the kind of virtual environment that students may be used to operating in, and take the opportunity to consider whether such a world could have anything to offer your subject. 

There’s a Ning social networking site dedicated to the week’s activities in SL, and anyone can view the site, though you’ll need to register if you want to comment. Other sites that may be of interest include a wiki about the InfoLit iSchool and Sheila Webber’s information literacy blog.

See some snapshots of my SL exploration here.

The third week in October was ”open access week” so it seemed a good time for me to visit University of the West of England for an update on JORUM, the UK repository of open access learning and teaching materials for FE and HE. JORUM’s actually been around for some 6-7 years now. It’s served as a repository for, among other things, the resources created by JISC development projects, but it’s now in transition to a new phase with the advent of JorumOpen, a new licensing scheme for sharing of materials based on Creative Commons.  Just now, much of JORUM’s development is to with the HEFCE-funded Open Educational Resources programme: in the Spring, OER projects will be using the new JorumOpen system to make their materials available.

Here were some key points from the day:

• the new licensing model will be more flexible than the old one, allowing A) an Open Access model based on Creative Commons (anyone can share); B) JorumEducationUK, open to UK FE/HE only; and C) JorumPlus, a restricted option for special cases, eg where third party licensing is involved
• The Open Access content will be discoverable via Google searches, and Jorum will have better search facilities
• the old Jorum used Intrallect repository software, which proved cumbersome, so new options are being tested
• new types of content will be possible e.g. entire courses
• it was stressed that Jorum is part of a much wider landscape of repository development, but it has a distinctive focus, i.e. teaching and learning materials across a wide spectrum of subjects (FE and HE)
• We had a chance to try out the interim OER Deposit Tool currently being used to get material quickly into Jorum. It’s based on the MrCute repository software and only offers limited functionality.
• We experienced the processes of depositing a learning object into Jorum using the existing repository, then creating a simple learning object using a content-authoring tool eXe and uploading it via the OER Deposit Tool.
• It seems that some of the issues that were around a few years ago have still not gone away, for example how much metadata does a learning object require in order to be share-able, and who should provide that metadata.
• One of the new features of Jorum is the Community Bay to exchange experience, questions and ideas around the topic of learning materials repositories. It is Moodle-based and looks useful for getting an orientation to Jorum and repositories in general.
• Some of the key issues for academics considering putting their resources in a repository are: rights clearance; format/presentation; accessibility and useability; shelflife and versioning; futureproofing. It is important to think about these things at the start, as it’s much harder to resolve these things once material is already created!

We had a chance to look at the Jorum resources which were winners or commended at this year’s ALT-C, including University of Glamorgan’s Virtual Pain Manager learning object. If you’re interested in depositing a learning object in Jorum and entering for next year’s prizes (up to £300) then watch out for publicity in the Spring!

Thanks to Matt and Nicola of JORUM for a good day, and commendations to Matt for a nice non-tecky explanation of learning content standards (using Lego) and why interoperability is important (so as not to be like Easter Island statues – beautiful but isolated monoliths).

Jorum will be preparing to do lots of promotion of JorumOpen in the new year, and there was mention of an online toolkit about Open Educational Resources coming in the New Year too. Keep an eye on www.jorum.ac.uk for more details.