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Sloodle as understood by Salahzar :)
I'm saying I'm heretic... Sloodle has been created by various Universities for educational purposes..
but in my opinion and others we think it has an extraordinary power we can use for many other targets.
It seems a complex thing, but it is extremely useful
and it can be very easy to use
What is sloodle. Sloodle is an acronym for something complex. You can inform on google
simply put it is strictly bound to virtual teaching and learning experiences
but what is of interest to me in this movie is the core concept
it binds the experience of a web educational course with secondlife experience
Web course is built with MOODLE, which is an opensource GPL system
while SLOODLE is even more opensource... We are collecting the various experiences made in last 10 years
with the incredible 3D experience we find in secondlife
We use it to build up "experiences", i.e. real life moments
this is typical in secondlife, and it is very useful for teaching, but
I see many other possibilities. We agreed with SL creators: to do also conferences, talks
exhibitions, virtual museums, shared experiences creation, collective blogs
we can do virtually whatever we can think, in short, it is a system for sharing the knowledge
which is using the best of the web AND of the 3D experience
What do we find in this tool?
Sloodle tool, just to say it in two words. Let's explain what are the components
we are saying what is in in July 2009, there are other things, but I'd love to show you the most important...
We have a shared "cat" with secondlife
From secondlife it is possible to chat and share the chat with the moodle website
now we can also share with skype, thanks to the work mad by Italian community and mainly by Junta Kohime
With that there is this socalled web-intercom. Who chats will be relayed
on secondlife, on the web AND on skype
this is very important: we can store experience in predefined places
Then we have the "presenter". This is a system that allows to collect slides and YouTube movies
We have a "dispenser" to give the class material... It gives automatically to participating people (when they touch it)
We can do visual "polls", we can do "quiz"
This part on "quiz", for the experience we hava had recently is extremely important because allows people to "play"
People likes to play a game (this is the perception)
and competition, and videogame
but mainly is a way to self-evaluate and to build a collective knowledge path
Knowledge is not perceived like something boring, but something interesting...
It's possible to handle "assignments" homeworks left for students...
This (enrolment) is at the end, but from the Point of Vied of moodle it is of utter importance
It is very important to understand WHO participated at the class
We must record people participating
this is also useful to understand how the students are self-learning
Then we have the glossary. Here we can define the terms we are using
This is quite interesting: auxiliary tools allowing you to use facial expressions
like I'm bored, I'm interested, raise the hand to put a question
Then we have many tools allowing to share and publish the information
Freemail allows the publishing of posts with photo on the blog
SloodleTool allows the publishing of textual information on the blog chatting on the HUD
We have then some tools useful to explore the environment
Clicking on the objects each student can see their description
We will see them one by one...
One really important thing is to understand the ROLES of people in sloodle. This evening we will see just the student (participants) side.
We call students participants. They should participate to the class with the least burocracy and knowledge possible
The participate to the class, contribute to the blogs and answer quizzes
They can register to moodle site... But some classes can be even free for all, without any burocratic overhead
We will see this evening mostly the participant part, but here we look at a preview for other roles
(( In my opinion the fact sloodle accepts unregistered users is VERY notable ))
To open up access to everybody is one of the most important aspects of knowledge
Apart from the student role, we have the Teacher / Organizer role
I've organized a 102 class where all needed for the teacher is will be said
Teacher will create the courses, rez the objects in sl...
Hold lessons, create quizzes...
Manage blogs and the forums...
Then we have anothe role: the Sloodle web site administrator
She is the person who manage the website and maintains technical updates. It's not trivial
The sys-admin activity is normally quite complex.. This burden usually is not associated to teachers
Especially if they haven't deeper computer knowledge
And then we have the "hardcore" part in sloodle: the developers... They are those people
who know very well all the computer subtleties and can fix program errors and produce new tools
In Italy there are people like me or Junta.. Internationally Fire Centaur
But let's come back to 101.... :) What do the students see?
This is the very first approach
What will see participants and guests
There will be a 102 explaining what teachers are to do
a 103 for the system administrators
and a 104 for developers
101 in English means a very basic class on a specific topic
Let's start from the first tool
Probably what you will see in a sloodle class (if the teacher has decided to have it) is the enrolment booth
(( if we want to do things seriously people should register in moodle ))
This means... When the class starts, teacher will tell you to "register" and you must click on this sign in the booth
You will see a window opening and there you will find the moodle site
Where you register or login with your identity
There are classes not using this procedure (free classes)
Then we wee one of the most useful tool: the presenter
This tools allows for showing slides
These slides will be shown using the multimedia system available in secondlife
This system, like many other things in secondlife sometimes doesn't work
The interesting thing is that if you cannot see the slides in SL, you can still access the presentation in the moodle web
There you can see the slides, the YouTube video etc
Presenter allows the teacher to show the slides in secondlife without paying money to Linden
Here we have the web-intercom
Yes, it is this box
This box is connected to the moodle website
Click it to authorize it to record what you say in chat
Voice will NOT be recorded
Chat will be relayed to moodle website
So that a history remains
We are compliant with privacy low... Starting from May 31st 2009
Junta Kohime did an extension to this web intercom
This extension allows to relay the chat also on Skype chat system
Skype is widely used
Here is one of the most cute thing to see visually
Teacher can create a real time poll or question
In secondlife you will see a "notebook" like this
a 3D noteboodk with a legend for all the choices
Here for example some old parties in italy in the 1980
People can click on the colored boxes and the tool will show in real time the choices made by all participants
You can use this in various ways: to check if people get bored, or to check how many knows a topic, to adapt your classes
It can be a valuable tool for adapting to the class
Now you can give to all participants this HUD
A HUD is something staying on the screen. Students can click a button for instance to raise up their hand
They can "wave" to attract attention
They can clap if they love what you are saying
HUH... If they are getting confused
YES, I've understood
NO => I didn't understand
GOT IT => understand completely
NOD if they agree
Clicking on the hud the corresponding gestures will be applied to each avatar
This might give a realism feeling to the class
You can create some interactive and fun situations.. Some people don't love these because they are distracting
Next: We can create travel blogs
With sloodle tool. The same tool of before if you clicked
on the "blog" part (not the class gestures)
clicking on the blog you can post on your moodle blog
You must be registered on moodle
Post is written directly on the chat: "we are here and we are attending this class". At bottom you see
how many characters are left
When finished, click on "save changes" and post is submitted to website
With this tool, you can also see which avatar are close to you and their real identity
Somebody told me this can be useful
When you have posted you can go on your blog on moodle. Here what you will see
Each registered avatar gets automatically a blog where people can write
I'm the administrator, and here's my blog
See: information I wrote with HUD now are here
This is what appears on the web
Using this HUD we can write information on the web
FreeMail is another thing: I call it "travel blog"
We use a standard feature of the secondlife viewer. You can send a snapshot to friends via email
We send the snapshot to a well known address
in our case: sloodleit@gmail.com
I put my starting email
in subject I must put the user and password I have on the moodle website
A snapshot is sent from the location where I am and I can add a comment
clicking on enter the email is sent and I can go and check it
On the website you will see the snapshot, the comment and the slurl
You can see this on the website only after 5 minutes. There is on sloodle.it a precess that collects emails every 5 minutes
Another important thing: assignment evaluation
Teacher can assign "homeworks" or assignments to students. Students must touch this object
Once touched this object it will show "Waiting for submission from " avatar ...
You should ctrl-drag the object you want to submit into the box. In this way teacher
will see what you have put and evaluate it
What you are dragging must be full permissions and creator must be the same as the owner
Otherwise this tools will not work, and giving an error
Once put the assignments, the teacher will check them from the website. There we can see which object have been put
We can check who when and what had put in the object
Next... Quiz chair is the top tool in sloodle :)
I use it always when I want to explain how much funny and interesting can be sloodle
This is our quiz chair
It's very simple, just sit on it.. The chair will acknowledge you and ask you some quizzes
Will ask a question and give you the possibility of answering. If you answer correctly the chair will raise one step
If you answered incorrectly it remains there
If you are doing it with many people you can see visually who's the best
There is a competition, but it is really the fun part which is noted
Course creator can go on the moodle site and check who answered and how much they took and the results
Here we have two people who answered correctly
And a person who missed some questions
We know exactly day and time and how much time they took in doing the exercise
Quizzes can also be done with this kind of "log" or tile them up
Question is rezzed in front of everybody and it is possible to answer in public
Everybody can see which is the correct answer
This can be a way to discuss quiz after played with it or before
Quiz Hud is something lateral
I marked it as an exploration tool, for instance in museums
It is practically a HUD you wear
When you explore the environment and click on an object on the HUD you will
see a kind of web minipage where there is a picture
a title and a description so you can learn more on that object
This is called quiz hud because apart from exploration there is also a quiz section
Clicking on "quiz" you will be shown some questions and possible answers marked from A to F
Students can then click on the tabs on the right and choose the right answer
This is the page where manager can set up the mini webpages for the exploration
Here you can put the text, picture that must appear etc
This is for the organizers
This is an example of a quiz with three possible answers
clicking on an answer the hud will tell if you answered correctly and will give you a score
As usual the teacher can see who answered and how
Quiz Hud is NOT integrated in sloodle, but it is clever :)
Here we have the metagloss, that allows us to define a glossary
It is a box... People can ask the box to define some concepts
or even searching for part of the words
For instance here I did a glossary speaking about "frame". Typing /def f glossary will search all words containing the "f" and will explain the meaning
In this way people participating at the course will know the concepts we are using
Then we have the "dispenser".. It is a way for give the class material
(I call it also a "fridge") if you click it we have a menu where we can choose what we wish to have given
We can distribute notecards or class materials
Most notably, this dispenser can be inquired directly on the website
Teacher or participants can go on the website and manage to have a copy ofr the class material or notecards just clicking on a button
This is very similar to how xstreet is working
Who wants an object can go on the website and click on a button even without reaching a dispenser in sl
Here we have some further add-ons
When we enter the moodle site, for instance in sloodle.it we have always a forum set up. Who participates to the class should also participate to the forum
To understand how to go on, criticize and so on
In the forum it is possible to deepen any concept, add files
and also start organic discussions
in moodle we have also the possibility of building up a wiki
to grow a collective knowledge
Wikis are very well known (after wikipedia) and so I'm not going to explain them now
We can define additional pages in a very simple way
For example, writing "go to [***]" *** will become a link to the page "***"
This is the end. Good bye and see you soon for the organizer 102 class
Who is only "using" sloodle as participant should be ok with this
(or almost) :)
While organizers must get bored with my other slides :)
Good bye to everybody