Draft Unofficial SLED® FAQ [version 0.12; 24 Sept 2009]Shortened URLs for this page: http://tr.im/sledfaq and http://bit.ly/listfaqIntroductionThis page and wiki are in no way affiliated with Linden Lab (standard disclaimer at foot of page, together with license). SLED is apparently a registered trademark of Linden Lab. Information here is provided in good faith but no liability is accepted for anything factually incorrect or misleading. Any views expressed are my own -- just trying to be helpful :-) .The inclusion of {cits} implies that a fact needs checking and one or more citations to original sources should be included. At this stage there are bound to be errors. Please IM Graham Mills inworld with amendments and (brief!) additions. Avatar: representation of user in virtual world (actual appearance can be customised but is rendered in SL as a plasma cloud due to lag).
Camera: the virtual camera that provides the view, normally over the avatar's shoulder though this can be changed using Alt-Zoom, i.e. leftclick on focal object with Alt key depressed, then move mouse and scroll wheel to pan and zoom. Client: the viewer that has to be downloaded to use SL. Equivalent to a web browser. Grid: shorthand for the 30000 or so sims that make up SL. Lag: performance issues causing slow appearance of objects and movement of avatars. Linden: as avatar surname, employee of Linden Lab; also name of SL currency, Linden dollar (L$) Machinima: digital video of scenes captured in SL and other virtual worlds. Prim (primitive object): fundamental building block of Second Life. May have a variety of shapes and textures.
Rendering: the process by which scenes are generated in SL. Rez: process by which prims are rendered. Sandbox: area for practising building with objects being returned to the user after a fixed time. Sim(ulator): 256x256 m land area in Second Life (SL) stored on a single server. Sims may be isolated islands or joined together. Standard sims contain up to 15000 prims.
Teleport: mechanism used to move within and between sims. Texture: image used to decorate a prim. Other glossaries: Second Life wiki Abbreviations in common useafk: away from keyboard
bfn: bye for now brb: be right back IM: instant message HUD: Heads-Up Display L$: Linden dollar; currency (typically L$250-270 to the US$) LL: Linden Lab, developers of SL and responsible for maintaining the grid lol: laugh out loud (emoticons also used extensively) RL: real life slurl: SL URL that provides web-based access to specific locations in SL TG: Teen Grid (only accessible to ages 13-17 and approved adults) ty: thank-you; also tyvm (thank-you very much) yvw: you're very welcome wb: welcome back, e.g. after a crash Other lists of abbreviationstbd Use Nabble http://n2.nabble.com/SLED-f577505.html
Try https://lists.secondlife.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/educators (be persistent; it does work!). Remember that there are also digest settings and you may be able to use your email application filtering function to save incoming SLED posts to a separate folder.
About 6000. {cits}
Yes. Go to http://www.sl-educationblog.org/ .
Estimates vary as does the size and purpose of the presence. Useful sources of information are Simteach (global) and Virtual World Watch (UK). The latter estimated that in 2008 75% of UK universities had a presence of some kind in SL (90% in 2009). A recent survey (Miller, 2009) identified approximately 60 locations that could apparently be tied to a UK higher education institution though it was unclear in some cases as to the level of involvement, e.g. personal, departmental, faculty, cross-faculty, institution. {cits}
2. How many sims are owned by educational institutions?There are about 2000 sims (out of a total of approximately 30000) owned by education and non-profit entities though many others operate from parts of sims and some own multiple sims. In the survey listed under B.1, the level of involvement ranged from multiple sims, e.g. University of Edinburgh, to small parcels.{cits}3. How many avatars attended the Virtual Worlds Best Practice in Education inworld conference in 2009?More than 4000 in multiple parallel sessions over the course of 3 days. {cits}
4. Are there stats for attendance at the Education Support Faire held in 2009?Yes. Attendance was similar to VWBPE: 3785.
LL provide some data on the overall SL economy. Recent press release (Sept 2009).
Ask local users or support staff. LL provide a generic quickstart guide (pdf), read books, read blogs, watch Torley Linden's video tutorials, Global Kids curriculum (wiki version on Simteach), NCI (Kuula slurl), RezEd, training courses (posted periodically on SLED), resources on Info Island International (slurl). If you have problems, try this basic resource toolbox.
LL provide an education overview, case studies, Twitter feed and blog. There are a number of organisations that specialise in educational/instructional technology with a presence inworld, including NMC and ISTE. They and others run workshops, meetings, conferences, many of which are announced on the SLED list and also have archives if you miss the event itself. There is also much guidance published on the web (e.g. blogs, wikis) and in peer-reviewed journals. The sleducation wiki is a good place to start. Coventry University has a good guide (pdf) to the basics of SL and its use in teaching and learning.
Check to see whether your subject association/learned society already has a presence and can identify experienced teachers. Join relevant inworld groups and ask the question at meetings or using inworld group instant messaging. Search the SLED list archives and ask on the list itself. SaLamander. Science-related places. Info Island International (slurl).
4. How do I find out how to teach students of a particular type (age, ability etc) in SL?Ask those with experience on the SLED list.In addition to the extensive communication support inherent in the SL client, there are also many accessory gadgets that can be obtained inworld from sources such as CAVE, formerly ICT Library (slurl), International Schools (slurl), NMC Learning (mainly buildings; slurl), Clever Zebra (buildings and some gadgets; slurl) or via the web on http://xstreetsl.com/. In general some services and gadgets are free, others you pay for. Bear in mind that there are a number of consultants that specialise in developing for SL. Some are listed on the LL site and others can be identified via contacts or the SLED list.
Virtual Ability provide assistance to disabled people in getting started in SL (slurl). There is also a page on accessibility on the SL wiki which lists projects such as the textsl client (supports screen-readers) and the VHH virtual guidedog project and links to resource collections such as Pathfinder Linden's bookmarks on delicious. This video is inspirational.
To some extent this is a matter of taste. LL, in association with inworld groups, provide direct access to a number of communities that operate orientations for new avatars, underlining the importance of initial networking. Although not aimed at the education community, Virtual Ability has a very good orientation that can also be accessed via its own website. This is an example of use of the so-called regAPI (caution: technical) which is used by some universities as well as groups such as NMC with its large orientation sim (slurl). ISTE provides an orientation targeted specifically at educators with docents closeby to assist during specified hours. You can also direct students to your own sim by giving them an appropriate slurl which should load the client automatically if correctly installed. If you are looking for sims to visit, LL maintains a Showcase that includes an education category.
Many events are announced on SLED but Catherine Dutton maintains a consolidated list at http://www.sledevents.blogspot.com/ (initiated by Bruce Sommerville). There are a number of regular weekly or monthly meetings for educators wanting to share and learn good practice. Networking through such meetings and related social activities can be a significant factor in successful adoption of SL. Examples include: Tuesday sessions run by AJ Kelton on Montclair State CHSS South (slurl; transcripts; Facebook), A Coffee with... Sunday sessions run monthly by Gavin Dudeney on EduNation (registration required); language-learning groups: SLExperiments and EVO VWLL. If you are interested in locating practitioners, e.g. artists and musicians, and training courses (e.g. NCI) then there are also a number of groups on http://eventful.com/.
SLT is broadly the same as US PDT during the summer and PST during the winter (LL HQ is based in San Francisco). Current time; time zone conversion .
These are often announced on the SLED list but there is also a list on RezEd. Many conferences have a mixed reality format with some or all sessions also broadcast inworld. Archives of some conferences are available via the archive maintained by Mal Burns (click On Demand).
5. Are there any groups specialising in pedagogical research?Yes. There is a separate SLED list for researchers as well as groups meeting inworld, e.g. Centre for Social Presence .There have been issues devoted to virtual worlds recently in Educause Review, ALT-J (subscription-only), British Journal of Educational Technology (subscription-only), etc. There are also specialist journals such a Journal of Virtual Worlds Research.
There is a password recovery process. If this fails for some reason and you are unable to use the phone-based service to rectify the problem, try creating an alt account and submitting a support ticket.
Anyone over 18 with a registered avatar; under-18s are presently restricted to the Teen Grid or, under the jurisdiction of the host institution, to the LL behind-the-firewall implementation of SL (codename Nebraska) currently under beta test.
No. There are often sites you can borrow or rent temporarily and you can also take or send students to particular relevant sims or use a quiet sandbox.
While the client is free, certain virtual goods and activities cost money, e.g. uploading images, sounds and forming groups. This is normally in L$ (purchase from LL)
You need to get some IP addresses whitelisted via LL support at least 5 working days in advance. Note that whitelisting will need to be renewed periodically, typically every 6 months. The following was distributed by LL at the Education Support Faire 2009. You may need help from your computer centre in liaising with LL support. In addition to the restriction of 5 accounts "per household", you may only create 2 accounts per 24 hour period. The ticket should be filed at https://support.secondlife.com/ . In practice the 5 business days mentioned may be optimistic (a recent quote for renewal was 2 weeks). However, some publicly available community portal sites using RegAPI seem to bypass these limits, e.g. http://sl.nmc.org/join/ and thus constitute a useful backup strategy.
"Linden Lab limits individual users from creating more than 5 accounts from any one IP address, primarily as a feature to discourage Yes. It depends on the sim and what is being done but the limit is from 40-100. Experience suggests that synchronous use of voice or video tends to fail for some when sims are busy. Four sims can be abutted such that the limit increases to 400 for largescale events.
6. Can I display web pages or video, including live streams, in SL?Yes. Various gadgets can be obtained or purchased that simplify the process. Media is normally set via the About Land tab so requires individual or group land ownership. You can display a web URL or QuickTime-compatible image, or play a video (MP4) or audio stream. A separate audio streaming channel is also available. Web pages at this time do not handle scrolling, forms or have active hyperlinks though these are available via the client browser. SL also cannot manage Flash media directly, e.g. standard YouTube .flv video. Recent reports of problems were resolved by a change in settings.Potential useful Web 2.0 apps that update rapidly include Etherpad (free text), Skrbl (paint-style text and graphics; NB apparently not updated for some recent browsers), Twiddla (whiteboard similar to Skrbl; use external web browser for adding text) and Solvr (problem-solving) though Google Docs has also been used. If you need to reload the web display, simply leave the parcel and return. In principle you may need copyright clearance if you are going to make substantive use of visual works in other sims, e.g. for machinima. In practice most sim owners don't mind snapshots and video being taken for informal use. Text from conversations may only be published with the consent of those involved.
Yes. There are varying levels of support for Moodle (via SLOODLE), ANGEL and Blackboard (who recently purchased ANGEL).
You can ask on the SLED list, join a class to acquire the necessary skills, purchase something or get someone to make or do it for you (there may be a charge).
There are approximately 30000 sims in SL and a significant amount of adult activity located in M (mature) sims although much of this is likely to move in due course to a separate continent (Zindra) and islands designated with the A(dult) rating. The move should have been completed by 15th Sept 2009, after which time access to the ~2000 A-rated sims requires age verification, e.g. credit card details on file, and changing of default settings in the client. The nature and extent of content and activity remaining in M sims remains to be seen (likewise the level of policing). LL guidance.
Note that avatars with underwear painted on their skin layer are available (this is true of the default avatars, for example, and a few others are available inworld). In general students might be cautious of areas with large numbers of avatars on the map although many of these will be clubs or shopping malls (and many of the avatars will, in fact, be software bots or campers). There may be some merit in giving students a list of recommended sims and the LL Showcase can be a useful starting point. Anti-social offensive or disruptive behavior ('griefing') can occur but is quite rare in educational sims. Depending on circumstances, griefers can be reported (AR), ejected (if a sim manager is present), muted and their effects mitigated by controlling the ability to rez or bring objects into an area and switching off particles in the client. ISTE docents [C.7], Alliance Library duty reference librarian on Info Island International (slurl), SL Mentors
Not necessarily. The item would need to have permissions set such that it is copyable. Such items may be more expensive than non-copyable ones for obvious reasons.
Yes. You can admit or exclude individuals or, in the former case, groups and even charge for entrance.
Ask those with experience on the SLED list. Bear in mind issues regarding time zones.
16. What's involved in running meetings in SL?Helpful hints: http://www.scribd.com/doc/16672376/Managing-Meetings-in-Second-Life-The-Protocol-GuideYes. They may include OpenSim-based grids (many SL conventions adopted; ReactionGrid seems to be attracting educators), Edusim, Wonderland, Metaplace (currently 2.5D rather than 3D).
There is limited movement of content possible between SL and OpenSim using a commercial service called Second Inventory. The Meerkat viewer likewise enables the movement of some content. It is a long-term goal to facilitate such movement. Second Life, Teen Second Life, SL, and TSL are trademarks of Linden Research, Inc. The FAQ was originated by Peter Miller [SL: Graham Mills]. It is an unfinished work licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ ) |