Hi everyone,

As some of you may now, I have been following Virtual Worlds for some time now.  In 2006, I was an educator in Seoul, South Korea.  At the same time, I started investigating how I could use Second Life as an educational tool. Due to my Computer Science background, I took an immediate interest to their scripting language.  The main power behind Second Life lies in the fact that it allows its players, or ‘residents’, to create content, 3d objects, and attach scripts to those contents so that they can interact with the virtual world.  In order to script efficiently however, it is best if you have a good development environment.  As with every trade, one needs a good workshop!  One of the tools I have in my ‘workshop’ is Aptana Studio 3.0.  Once installed and configured, coding in LSL (the Linden Scripting Language) becomes a lot easier.  You see, as a programmer, you are constantly using functions to create code.  Each function can do a particular thing.  If for example you want your 3d object to output text in the Virtual World, you use the following in your code:  llSay(0,”Hello World!”);

Each function will have whats called a parameter list.  In the llSay function, there are two parameters – and the values I entered for those parameters were zero, and “Hello World!”.  The first parameter for this function indicates the “channel” you want to output the text on.  In this case, I am outputing to channel zero – that means everyone in the world will see it appear on the chat line (as long as they are within 10 meters of my 3d object.  If I was to output Hello World on channel 1, then it would still be output, but no avatar would see it!  However, other objects in the world, that are listening on channel 1, would hear it!  This is important if you are doing object to object communications! Using your imagination, you can see, that llSay can be quite a powerful little function!

Now, back to Aptana studio!  The reason why it is so useful and powerful as a programming tool, is that, once installed and configured, it will remember all of the parameter lists for you!  This means your coding is greatly sped up – instead of you having to lookup every single parameter list for every single function, you can just type the first few letters of the function name, and press “control-space” and a drop down will list all of the functions available, and their parameter lists!

In the video below, I explain how to set up and configure Aptana!  Hope you enjoy it!

Hi everyone,

As some of you may now, I have been following Virtual Worlds for some time now. In 2006, I was an educator in Seoul, South Korea. At the same time, I started investigating how I could use Second Life as an educational tool. Due to my Computer Science background, I took an immediate interest to their scripting language. The main power behind Second Life lies in the fact that it allows its players, or ‘residents’, to create content, 3d objects, and attach scripts to those contents so that they can interact with the virtual world. In order to script efficiently however, it is best if you have a good development environment. As with every trade, one needs a good workshop! One of the tools I have in my ‘workshop’ is Aptana Studio 3.0. Once installed and configured, coding in LSL (the Linden Scripting Language) becomes a lot easier. You see, as a programmer, you are constantly using functions to create code. Each function can do a particular thing. If for example you want your 3d object to output text in the Virtual World, you use the following in your code: llSay(0,”Hello World!”);

Each function will have whats called a parameter list. In the llSay function, there are two parameters – and the values I entered for those parameters were zero, and “Hello World!”. The first parameter for this function indicates the “channel” you want to output the text on. In this case, I am outputing to channel zero – that means everyone in the world will see it appear on the chat line (as long as they are within 10 meters of my 3d object. If I was to output Hello World on channel 1, then it would still be output, but no avatar would see it! However, other objects in the world, that are listening on channel 1, would hear it! This is important if you are doing object to object communications! Using your imagination, you can see, that llSay can be quite a powerful little function!

Now, back to Aptana studio! The reason why it is so useful and powerful as a programming tool, is that, once installed and configured, it will remember all of the parameter lists for you! This means your coding is greatly sped up – instead of you having to lookup every single parameter list for every single function, you can just type the first few letters of the function name, and press “control-space” and a drop down will list all of the functions available, and their parameter lists!

In the video below, I explain how to set up and configure Aptana! Hope you enjoy it!

Power-up your scripting!

If you like this video, you can subscribe to my Youtube channel!

Hi everyone! Today, I read a post on New World Notes about Project LR Which premium members can teleport to here: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Nysray/11/6/55
Basically, Jeremy Linden, Boston Linden, and Rand Linden, have come together to test out a new feature set soon to be rolled out in Second Life. As soon as I read New World Notes blog post, I teleported in! The game which was programmed is a monster-dodging pacman like game where you have to collect crystals, and complete tasks. Once you’ve collected enough crystals, you need to find the color coded cannons to launch a flare. New features which have been added to SL, of note are:

• Objects which teleport you automatically if you touch them – or run into them! This is great for gaming, because lava pools, rock monsters can be coded where, on collision, you get teleported back to a start location
• Another neat feature was the automatic attaching of a game hud, upon arrival at a sim!  When I arrived, I instantly had a crystal counter attached to my avatar so I could stay on task
• Also, tasks were displayed also automatically on my hud, to direct game play.

I think this is a massive step forward for educators and game developers in Second Life!  The whole feel of the game was rather Super Mario-esque.  And was rather enjoyable!  The cool thing about this potential, is, by nature, Second Life is massively multiplayer – so as you are playing, other players can join in too!

This development, is much along the lines of what Chris Surridge and I were trying to create with the Devil Island Mystery. Chris’s dream is becoming a reality!

watch?v=ytvMAzQs0zU

 

 

Hi everyone! A while back, I created an Oil Spill Simulation game to raise awareness about the Gulf Oil Spill. I now have it on the marketplace for educators. It can be a fun activity for your students in Second Life. I made a fun video explaining how it works here:

If you like it, please tweet my video out, or Facebook like it! Cheers!

See it inworld here: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/English%20Village/96/83/27

Hi everyone!

I Just  released a puzzle game on the Marketplace today which I think,  is great for educators or anyone who owns an island. It is for the Virtual World of Second Life, and when “rezzed” in world, allows characters to collaborate with each other to complete a Puzzle!

This game will soon also be offered with the Avatar Classroom distribution.  For now, you can purchase it on the marketplace here: http://bit.ly/puzzlefunsl

To play the game, the owner just need to open the control panel by pressing the Settings button (A Cog icon” Then, press “Reset”. The Puzzle will then rezz 25 puzzle pieces.

When finished rezzing, the owner  presses “Scatter” and the puzzle pieces will scatter themselves within 10 meters of the puzzle. Visitors then just click the puzzle pieces and then the board to place a puzzle piece, and it will zoom into place. If correct, the piece will lock into position, otherwise it will bounce out!

I’ve designed this game to be a collaborative or single user activity. Its super easy to use and fun!

For educators, I think there are many uses. Put a texture of a sample sentence, or special image that is relevant to your topic of the day!

The owner can also press a “Show Names” Button to display who correctly placed each piece on the puzzle. This is great for interactive scoring!

Have fun with this! For the month of October, I will be donating 500L of each purchase to The Schizophrenia Society of Alberta in their fight against mental illness.
You can visit them here – they are a great charity to donate to: http://www.schizophrenia.ab.ca/

Thanks again and Happy Halloween!

Hi Everyone! A few weeks ago, I toured vAcademia, a very interesting prospect for Virtual World education.  Despite it taking me awhile to get my mind around the controls, I thought it has some pretty neat features for educators.  One of the most exciting features was the ability to RECORD a session AND play it back!   When you play back a recorded session, ALL of the avatars that were taking part in the presentation suddenly appear all around you! It’s as if you are going back in time.  In this video I have teleported BACK to a session I recorded when I was talking to one of the developers…. so there are two “me’s” in it!  Strange!  I guess if I recorded again, there would be three?  Will have to try it out.

There were some other neat features as well that I think educators will like – including, built in laser pointers, that every avatar has.  This makes drawing attention to things in the Virtual World a piece of cake.  Also, avatars have an inventory of useful items for teaching – such as a whiteboard, where they can easily drag media onto – such as video and images, AND I think you can even stream your web cam onto it.

It’s nice to see that other virtual world vendors are creating platforms SPECIFICALLY for education.  One thing this platform doesn’t seam to have though, is the ability for users to create their OWN content outside of the educational tools found in their inventories.

Anyhow, its a great step forward for education.  Cheers! Enjoy the video!

Hello everyone!

We have been making great progress on a particularly cool new feature in Sloodle 2.0, and the Avatarclassroom which will bring real quest based roleplaying mechanics for educators to the Virtual World of Second Life. It’s called, The Sloodle Backpack, and acts as a virtual inventory for each user interacting in roleplays and quest based learning adventures.

To explain how the Sloodle Backpack works, Edmund Edgar and I have developed a prototype “Magic Plant” which uses the backpack technology. The mechanics of the magic plant can be understood simply as a roleplay “pattern”, which, when abstracted, can be applied to other quest based situations.

The magic plant, when rezzed in-world and touched, first checks, behind the scenes, if a user’s backpack contains any water. If not, it complains to the user that it needs water, so they better go and collect some… The user in Second life therefore, has to wonder around the sim, to find water units, which also interact with the backpack inventory system. When a water unit is found (which could be a waterfall for example) the user touches it.  The script inside the waterfall then adds a water unit to the users backpack inventory. When the user returns to the plant and touches the plant, the user will receive a response that the plant has been watered!  (And the userbackpack inventory will be updated.  Currently, the contents of a users backpack inventory can be viewed once logged in to the connected Moodle website.  In the very near future however, we will be providing a Shared Media HUD which each user can wear in order to see their backpack contents.

 

Upon watering the plant five times, the plant will offer a magical flower to the user, which also gets added to the users’ backpack inventory . The user can then use the flower to do additional tasks in the roleplay.

This prototype was developed to specifically outline the type of gaming mechanisms or “patterns” that can now be constructed and used Second Life with Sloodle 2.0 technology.

I have outlined it in detail below:

 

Example Magic Plant Pattern
Input: 5 touches
Output: Give Magic Flower
Condition: User must have 1 water unit for each touch
Slurl: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/English%20Village/104/208/152

 

MORE ADVANCED PATTERNS

Inputs
Object X receives input from the user. The input can set accept one of the following inputs from the user:

• A touch
• A sentence
• An answer to a question
• Walking within Y meters of the object
• Walking through the object

Outputs

The object then can be configured to react to the above input. The reactions can be: 
• Award X items to the user’s backpack as a result of an input
• Say something on chat
• Play a sound (must be less than 10 seconds)
• Open a webpage
• Change color
• Give something to the user
• move to another location
• give a notecard
• give a landmark
• do a particle effect

Conditions
The following conditions can also be added to this item:

Only do the above output IF the user has Y currency in their backpack

Only do the above output after it has received N inputs from the user

Only do the above output if it has received an input between a specific time

Only do the above output once per user

Only do the above output once per user per day

I think a great exercise for students who want to learn how to build quest based simulations, or for an educator wanting to build a quest based simulation using patterns, would be to participate first,  in a simple roleplay in Second Life which has already has these gaming mechanics set up as an example.   I will work hard to set this up for you at English Village.  After a quest has been attempted, the next step for the educator, would be to design their own quest based roleplay using their own patterns.

An easy way to do this would be to create a storyboard using forms to clearly specify which patterns are to be used, and how they fit into the story.

Try to design a roleplay with  3 separate tasks your players must complete to reach a goal.   Possible deliverables for this assignment could be:

Student Assignment

1) A Background story
2) A description of tasks players are to complete
3) A list of Patterns that will be used to support the quest

Example Background Story
After many years, the students who were once trapped on Devil Island decided that they should have a reunion and meet for a weekend to reminisce of their adventure on Devil Island. So they decide to go on a camping trip which would last the weekend. One night however, when they are all gathered around the campfire, a huge vortex materializes in front of them, just above the fire. It is a vortex BACK to devil island. One by one, each student is PULLED into the vortex, and once again – they find themselves TRAPPED on devil island.

This time however, Devil island has CHANGED! It seams that Dr. Mo’s scientific experiments have caused a great disturbance to the island – GRAVITY has been affected! Huge chunks of rock have formed together, and have created FLOATING islands in the sky! The strange thing that is learned very quickly by the students, is that SOMEONE has already been there. Strange Zip lines have been built, connecting each island for travel. WHO was here? Why have they been brought back once again to Devil Island?  How will the students return home?

Collaborative TASK 1:
At the top of the first floating island, students find a broken map, and a diary. They must read the diary, put the map together to see what it displays. The map has six X’s marked on it.
Location of plant 1
Location of plant 2
Location of plant 3
Location of Cauldron
Location of scuba gear
Location of underwater chamber
(These marks will not be labeled, but will be ordered to add fun, excitement, and mystery to the game)

They must now go to the first plant!

Collaborative TASK 2: Get a flower from Plant 1, Plant 2, Plant 3
When the students find the first plant, they learn that it needs water. To water the plant, water must first be collected. (Water units are Avatar Classroom scene objects which are placed around the island, that when touched,  place 1 unit of water in the users backpack inventory.  The students must therefore find the water units and water the plants. Once a plant has been watered 5 times, it will produce a flower. The flower will be added  to the users backpack inventory. Once all plants have been visited, and flowers have been obtained, the students must find the cauldron at the next point on the map.

Collaborative TASK 3: Locate the cauldon, and place the plants inside in the correct order.
When they find the cauldron, the students also find a recipe book, which explains that the flowers can be combined to produce a magic oil. The students must however, place the plants in the magic cauldron in the correct order. The order is listed in the recipe book… unfortunately, it can not be read though,  because the diary is in poor condition. If the oil is made incorrectly, it will not be powerful enough to for the next collaborative task which is…. EVADING HUNGRY SHARKS and DEADLY Octopus.

 

Collaborative TASK 4: Put the oil on the diving suits.

In the recipe book is also a note which explains that there exists an underwater chamber which houses a teleporter that will allow them to escape the island and complete their mission.

In order to get to the chamber, they will need to acquire diving suits which are located in a lighthouse on the island.  Once the diving suits are found,  oil must be applied to the suits so that when swimming, they can evade  killer sharks and killer octopus which guard the chamber.  The order in which the students placed the flowers in the cauldron in the previous task, will determin how many times they get attacked underwater!

 

Collaborative TASK 5: find the chamber key, Swim to the chamber, and open the chamber door

Once the diving suits have been obtained, the students must follow the map to the chamber. When the students find the chamber, they will learn that they need a key to get in! A sign at the door will say: “Did you forget the key? Its inside Dr. Mo’s pocket in the lighthouse! So the students wil have to go back to the lighthouse and try again!

Collaborative TASK 6: Once inside the chamber, activate the teleporter
Once the users have finally made it inside the chamber, they can teleport off the island and complete the mission!

Feedback

I hope this example helps to illustrate how quest based roleplays can be created in Second Life using simple gaming patterns which the new Sloodle 2.0 tools now provide. Sloodle 2.0 is currently in alpha mode right now, so please note that we are not completely bug free yet.  To download Sloodle 2.0, please visit http://sloodle.org.   If you would like to set up a roleplay as described, but don’t want the hassle of installing and configuring Sloodle or Moodle on your webhost, you might consider trying out our Avatar Classroom – at http://avatarclassroom.com – its a TURN KEY Moodle / Sloodle Solution.  Once you rez the Avatar Classroom on your island, our servers will AUTOMATICALLY GENERATE  AND  HOST a Moodle website at the subdomain of your choosing at http://yoursubdmain.avatarclassroom.com, as well as AUTOMATICALLY CONNECT the classroom in Second Life to your Moodle Website.  We’ve created the turn key solution specifically for educators that want to get up an running quickly!

Thanks for reading my post!  Please let me know what kind of  Quest based adventures you come up with to intrinsically motivate students!

Hi everyone,

Just wanted to post a video of a not-for-profit project I worked on with the Women’s Learning Partnership. Abdul Khan, WLP’s director of technology, approached me a few months back, and discussed his organizations desire to use virtual world platforms such as Second Life as a potential framework for distance learning in 3d. Together, we designed and built an environment (currently hosted on my Virtual Island English Village) where his organizations students can meet, collaborate and take part in roleplay scenarios.

“The Women’s Learning Partnership (WLP) is dedicated to women’s leadership and empowerment. At its essence, WLP is a builder of networks, working with 20 autonomous and independent partner organizations in the Global South, particularly in Muslim-majority societies, to empower women to transform their families, communities, and societies.
We strongly believe that women, working in partnership, will learn the skills and implement the strategies needed to secure human rights, contribute to the development of their communities, and ultimately create a more peaceful world.
Our primary objectives are to increase the number of women taking on leadership and decision-making roles at family, community, and national levels, and to improve the effectiveness of feminist movements in Muslim-majority societies and globally by strengthening the capacity of our partner organizations.”

I am very thankful Abdul approached me to contribute to this great project. Thanks Abdul!

Below is a video we made together advertising the learning environment.

I used a combination of programs to produce the video – namely Techsmith’s GREAT screen capture program: camtasia, Adobe Photoshop (of course), Second Life, and a wicked cool 6 degree of freedom mouse called the 3D Connexions Space Navigator

Hi everyone,

Recently, I have been collaborating with Bryan Stoakley, a multimedia CALL instructor at KNUE on a Virtual Worlds class he is teaching his students this semester.  This past week, I worked with him to teach his students how to create content in Second Life.  During the lesson, I quickly encountered several roadblocks that I am sure most of you have also experienced while teaching in a virtual world.  Ie:  How the heck can we organize a large group of new students who are using avatars in the virtual world?   Well, during my lesson, I found a technique that seamed to work.

The video below describes the process I used to accomplish this.  I hope it proves useful to your distance education, blended learning, and remote instruction initiatives!

Cheers educators!

Hi everyone!  Fire Centaur here.  This past Sunday, I was invited to give a presentation at SL Languages 2011 organized by Heiki Philips and the Avalon Project. My presentation was on Sloodle 2.0 and our upcoming Avatar Classroom

The event was hosted by Baldric Commons, the initial person who inspired me to join Second Life back in 2006.  Helen Myers stood by to transcribe my audio for those who didn’t have audio capabilities. Thanks Helen and Baldric! Overall, the presentation went really well.  I began by showing a brief 10 slide introduction of Edmund Edgar’s and my progress on Sloodle 2.0, then I took everyone over to a sandbox area, and rezzed the Avatar Classroom ( a turn key commercial version of Sloodle 2.0)  There are many exciting new features in Sloodle 2.0.  Namely, all configuration is now done using a Shared Media Rezzer inside Second Life.  This means, users no longer have to deal with complicated notecards!  A GREAT improvement!  Having taught Sloodle to educators for 10 months in 2009, it became blatently clear, that using Sloodle to connect Moodle to Second Life was quite cumbersome.

The new Shared media rezzer solves this problem!  Edmund and I have also added the ability to create “Scenes” in Sloodle.  This is a MAJOR step forward for educators.  Now, using the Rezzer, educators can create a scene, and add various Sloodle elements to the scene.  Once a Sloodle Object has been added to the scene on the shared media screen, the teacher can then click on the individual tools, and configure them.  Then, when ready, the educator can press “Rezz All” and the entire scene will be rezzed in Second Life!  Now here comes the fun part.  The educator can then position the tools where they like within their virtual environment.  When finished positioning, the educator can then press “Freeze”, and have all their tools positions saved within their scene!  This ability will enable educators to easily create useful scenes for their virtual classes, and rez and derez them at will!  The best part?  These are Moodle Connected (Sloodle) items, which are connected to your LMS!!!!

The next goodies Edmund and I have packaged in with the new Sloodle 2.0, is a shared media scoreboard!  Using the scoreboard, educators can award their students points for completing activities in Second Life, or by answering questions correctly on a Sloodle Quiz Chair.  The scoreboard can be a really fun tool to motivate your students in competitive quiz matches.  And just for fun, to motivate your students to take the quizzes, we’ve added a pool full of flesh eating, bone crunching sharks below the quiz chairs in our turn key Avatar Classroom!  Yes! They actually attack ANYONE who is foolish enough to fall in the pool, or answer a question incorrectly!

 

We have also incorporated the Sloodle Tracker, released by the University of Ulster.  This is a great tool educators can use to track what activities their students have completed in Second Life.

 

Lastly, another feature we are VERY excited about, are the Sloodle Backpacks.  The Sloodle Backpack system is geared for Quest based Roleplays in Second Life.  Using your Moodle LMS, we’ve added the ability for educators to create their own “currencies”.  Ie: Gold Coins, Silver Coins, Magic Leafs, Secret Keys etc.  Currently, these currencies can be awarded to students using a scoreboard.  A students full contents of their backpack can be viewed on Moodle using an included Moodle block (Widget).    In the future though, we will be creating an inworld tool so students can see the contents of their backpacks inworld.  We will also be adding the ability for students to collect contents in world, and have other objects react accordingly based on how many of X items they have collected.

If you would like to see a video of the New Sloodle Rezzer – check out this link:

Sloodle 2.0mething very hungry is swimming in the pool!

 

Thanks for reading my blog!