Into theThird Dimension

withSLOODLE

Daniel Livingstone

Daniel Livingstone

Teaching & Learning with Moodle

• Document dissemination• Coursework submissions• Management tools/tracking

– Gradebooks

• Learning object integration• Asynchronous & synchronous

discussion• Online Assessments• Collaborative learning activities

From Space

To Place

Learning in 3D MUVE

• Informal Learning in MMOGs– Social interaction and coordination– Planning, problem solving

• Various MUVEs– Shared ‘Presence’

• Exploration, discovery– Synchronous work

• Shared experiences, discussion– Identity exploration

• Playful learning, shifting roles

• Second Life (and a few others…)– User generated content

A Virtual World is a

Place… for

education?

Teaching in SL: My first experience• Virtual world too

open-ended, lack of obvious goals, rich social & technical environment

• Students needed support for working towards goals and reflecting on experiences– Second Life can be

distracting, confusing, hard to navigate

SLOODLE Concept Diagram

In the beginning…

Oct ‘06: Original SLOODLE concept by Jeremy KempSLOODLE chat-logger by Paul Andrews & Daniel Livingstone

Three Views of SLOODLE

• Product• Community

• Research

Product• Web-intercom• Registration booth• Quiz Chair• Virtual Drop Box• Choice • Toolbar• Presenter

Community

• sloodle.org– Forums, resources, links

• Sloodlers– In-world group in Second Life

• SLOODLE Island in Second Life– Meeting, chat, learning zones,

classrooms for community use• Weekly meetings

– Community Meetings (Weds)– SLOODLE 101 (Tue)

ALT-J SLOODLE Paper

Approaches to integration

• The 3D classroom– Original conception

• UI integration– SLOODLE toolbar

• Individual tools– Set of utilities used as required

• Rich 3D learning landscapes– The goal?

SLOODLE Architecture

MoodleDB

MoodlePhp

SLOODLEPhp

HTTP

Web Browser

Second Life

LSLObject

Moodle/SLOODLEWeb-server

Peter will be talking about the architecture later… we hope you can come along!

Virtual Dropbox• Gradebook

Integration

Presenter• Multi-media

presentations inside SL

Web-Intercom

Quiz ChairRegistration

boothChoice

Blogs and Postcards

• Toolbar allows blogging to Moodle from SL– Creates hyperlink SLurl to location

in SL– Manually add images later

• Freemail plug-in for Moodle allows users to email blog posts – including images– Second Life lets users send email

‘postcards’– Some dependencies

‘Skinnable’ tools in Second Life

Setting up a SLOODLE class

• Add ‘SLOODLE controller’ activity to Moodle course

• Get the SLOODLE ‘Set’ in Second Life– Create an instance of the set

• Click on it to configure– Enter Moodle URL– Follow dialog link to log in to Moodle– Click again in SL to download config

data

Setting up Various Tools• Click on Set to ‘rez’ the tool (menu

driven)• Click on tool to configure

– Again prompted to login to Moodle to authorize & configure

– We don’t trust Second Life objects without this!

• Click on tool again to download configuration

• Alternatively…– This can be ‘notecard’ driven– Use dialogs in Moodle to generate

configuration data to drop in

Who’s using SLOODLE?

• To an extent we don’t really know…– Need to develop registration ‘nags’– Many hundreds of tutors have been

‘trying out’– Unknown number actually using– Many international community members

• Some tutors have reported back and/or completed surveys– Survey responses positive– Range of subject areas

Today…

• SLOODLE 0.4– Roadmap to SLOODLE 1.0

• SLOODLE is in active use supporting classes around the world

• Growing community– Since January significant growth in

activity in forums– Increasing amounts of

contributions

Subject Areas

• ESL• English• Education• Ethics• Fashion• HCI

• Second Life skills

• Programming• Women’s

studies

… class sizes from 6 to 120+

SLOODLE Island

Christopher FlowReactionGrid

BlueWall SladeOSGrid

Michael Callaghan & Kerri McCuskerIntelligent Systems Research Centre

University of Ulster

3rd Party Contribs: Practical

SLOODLE for Moodle 2.0

• Major re-write• Web APIs for Moodle 2.0 might

simplify a lot of our development work

• Limitations of Second Life http functions will likely still force a lot of custom engineering (or hacking)

Observations• Making SLOODLE easier to install, to

set-up, to use – version 1.0 is coming• Moodle integration lends legitimacy to

virtual worlds in education– And yet many educators in SL are

unaware of LMS/VLE platforms

• 3rd Party Hosting available– Free and commercial

• International Users & Support– Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese,

German

The Future• SLOODLE Roadmap

– 1.0 Due August 2009

• Long term?– Many institutions are only now really

coming to terms with VLEs– Virtual worlds are some way behind

• VirtualWorldWatch.net

A Virtual World is a Place

If students came to your class when you were not there, what would they learn?

What would they do?

Thank you!

http://www.sloodle.org/daniel.livingstone@gmail.com