The journey so far...

Ever since seeing Brad Beech at the 2007 E-Dayz presenting the value of a Virtual World environment for education, the Business Administration team at TAFESA South had been enthusiastic to use a virtual world with their students.  We had already been running a Virtual Enterprise for some years and the next natural step seemed, to us, to move to the virtual world and so expand our teaching to people who for what ever reason could not attend the offices set up at the Adelaide, Panorama and Noarlunga campuses. As a first step towards this goal, we applied for and won some project funding from the SA E-Learning and Innovations program of the Australian Flexible Learning Framework.  The project was to look at a range of Virtual Worlds and to take a group of 15 Aboriginal DECS trainees through some of the elements of the Deliver and Monitor a Service to Customers competency using a virtual world as a platform.  

Prior to completing the application for funding, I had written to Sam Ntafilis, the manager of the TAFESA South ICT program and told him what we were intending to do.  I indicated that even if we did not win the funding, we would like to have Second Life cleared for use by a group of the lecturing staff as we wanted to investigate its value for our students. At that stage, we could access the Second Life website from our desktops, but we could not download or use the program.  Sam responded that he would do what he could to assist us.

Shortly after this time, 2 of the lecturing staff found that they no longer had access to the SL website - the Content Keeper message came up each time they tried to get on.  More emails went back and forth and one machine has now been cleared - the other is still blocked.

Once it was clear that we had won the funding Ruth Frazer, Project Manager, Pamela Orr, Education Manager, Sam Ntafilis, ICT Manager, Margaret Granger, SA E-Learning Coordinator and Stephen Donaldson, IT Manager met to seek a solution to the Second Life access problem.  It was indicated at this meeting that there were 2 rooms at the Adelaide Campus that could work outside of the education server (referred to as Red Rooms).  It was decided that Ruth Frazer and I would meet with the ICT team to work out when we could have access to these rooms.

At this meeting, Sam and Andrew Dewis told us that there were actually about 6 "red rooms" but that they were all in use most of the time by the IT program.  It was also stated that the IT program had bought their own server and maintained  this so that their students could have access programs necessary for their awards. I was shocked to realise that the TAFESA South  infrastructure was unable to help us. 

So it was apparent to Ruth and me that we needed to work with the IT program to find out if and when we could access their rooms.  Our constraints were that we needed to find times when the IT program was not using the rooms but also days when our Trainees would be on campus as these days were already pre-determined. We met with John Cocks and Stephen Donaldson and through their flexibility, good humour and generosity, and desire to break down the silos that exist between program groups, they worked with us to provide a room for each of the days that the Trainees would be on campus. However, John and Stephen pointed out that their program area could not support all other programs that may also need "red room" access and asked us to make this clear to the director, Mr Stephen Conway.

We made an appointment to see Stephen Conway and explained how helpful the IT program had been - in particular Stephen Donaldson and John Cocks.  Stephen Conway, who has been a Flexible Learning Leader and who currently has an E-Learning responsibility as part of the Skills Strategy was not surprised to hear about the inadequacy of the TAFESA South ICT infrastructure but was very supportive of our project and pleased with the support offered the project by the IT group.  It was made clear to Stephen Conway that without this support, our project would be jeopadised. He offered to write an email to the IT group thanking them for their support.  He was well aware of the need to drastically update the TAFESA ITC infrastructure to cope with the proposed increase in online training by 2010.

Our first meeting with the whole project team was  at the Noarlunga campus on 11 June. Prior to this full day event, Ruth and I went to check the room and the computers.  We were helped incredibly by Stephen Donaldson and also by Peter Allen.  We found that there was a problem with getting into Second Life, but Stephen Donaldson rang another colleague and within 10 minutes the SL program was downloaded and working really well.  Ruth and I were delighted as for the previous 2 or 3 weeks we had been fighting to get to this point.

On the 11 June, we met and looked at responsibilities and roles and spent some time looking at the environment.  It was fun trying to line up our avatars for a group photo for publicity purposes.  For a few months all of the project team have been meeting on Sundays at 4pm in Second Life.  We have watched each other go from total "noobies" who stagger into the sea or who get caught under bushes to our now more experience avatars who are now expert flyers navigating our way by map or by teleport to various locations.

We are lucky to have Kate Neal as part of the project team.  Kate seems to be more at home in the virtual world than the real world!  She has been really supportive of those of us who are slower to adjust to the virtual world mores.  We are also very lucky to have people on the periphery of our project team who have interest and experience in the SL world and who want to assist.  In particular, I mention Michael Ewer, Principal Lecturer Marketing, who has been a closet SL'er until he "came out" as a result of this project.

We have made contact with Malcolm Jolly from Gippstafe.  Malcolm is one of a group of educators who works with Brad Beech and who has had a lot of experience in working with students in SL.  He has agreed to come to Adelaide on July 1 to work with the project group and to give us an idea of the methodology required for the virtual world environment.  I have also been in contact with Lindy McKeown, Education Consultant and owner of a SL island called Terra Incognita.  Her SL name is Decka Mah.  Ruth Frazer had found this island and she and I thought that this would be a perfect place as a home base for our Trainees.  For $50 a month we can have access to the island, and to Lindy as a mentor for us.  She has offered to build small things for us such as a filing cabinet for our Trainees to put notecards etc. 

Both Lindy and Malcolm have said that it is important not to waste the immersive quality of the virtual world environment.  Malcolm has warned against being too prescriptive and I think that it is this aspect of working in a virtual world that I need to learn the most.  I took an hour out one Sunday to watch a youtube presentation -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueAcz7ZyFpM&feature=related – long but great video on creating authentic learning communities on SL.  Sarah Robbins, doctoral candidate at the University of Indiana, aka Intelligirl, talks about her experiences using Second Life in her classrooms.

 Sarah Robbina also talks about the unexpected educational experience of the virtual world.  She gives examples of what she is doing with her students and how sometimes what looks like a failed activity actually has more value than you think.

Our project group are looking forward to meeting with Malcolm Jolly and of working towards making the learning experience for our Trainees a really valuable and worthwhile one.

Tags: second life customer service trainees ict vata
Posted at 02:20PM Jun 17, 2008 by Jacinta Ryan  |