October 16, 2009 11:25 Age: 4 yrs
Visiting ‘avatar’
John Green in real life (Left) and Silel Volitant
(Right), John Green’s avatar, in Second Life
Visiting Senior Lecturer, John Green, from the Open Polytechnic of New Zealand is currently delivering a series of presentations on several aspects of online learning and teaching to the CFDL staff from 8th – 22nd October, 2009. Of particular interest was the presentation on ‘Second Life’ (SL), a ‘first’ for USP which was attended by the Course Design & Development (CDD) team and the SLS team leader.
During the presentation, CFDL staff members observed with spell-bound interest as John Green’s and Dhiraj Bhartu’s avatars met and talked to avatars from Texas and Saudi Arabia synchronously. Mr. Green explained the avatar concept as a 3D persona (similar to an alter-ego of the person who creates the avatar) and gave real-time demonstrations of how other avatars manoeuvre and interact in SL. In New Zealand, the government has funded the Second Life Education New Zealand (SLENZ) project which commenced in August 2008. Specific examples of how SL supports education were illustrated by midwifery and foundation courses at the Open Polytechnic. At USP special permission was obtained from ITS to allow the accommodation of the Second Life Multiuser Virtual Environment (SL) in which Second Life avatars live and interact.
Other particularly relevant areas to USP’s learning and teaching community include Mr. Green’s presentations on:
* time released announcements; and
* automated marking and return of marked assessments.
Mr. Green also stated that these online learning enhancements drastically improved his student retention rates and his teaching workload has been reduced significantly over the years that he has been engaged in eLearning.
Mr. Green has over 10 years of experience in online distance learning, in particular, using technology- based learning management systems including Blackboard and Moodle. His presentations are based on his research interests that include student retention, social presence and student interaction, online pedagogy, clanning, second life and mobile learning via Moodle.
