SLEDcc Working Group: Feedback to Linden Lab from Educators

[Fleep Tuque]

This SLEDcc Working Group will take feedback from the educational community about what kinds of changes and/or services would help make Second Life easier or better to use for the educational community. If you've ever wanted to talk to Linden Lab and give them feedback about your experience as a teacher in Second Life - now's your chance! Following SLEDcc, the suggestions and feedback gathered from this session will be submitted to Linden Lab as a formal document.

What feedback would YOU like to give to Linden Lab? (Constructively, please!)

[Phelan Corrimal]

Tonight's top 10 list from the home office, things that Linden Labs could do better to help education in Second Life

Number 10) Allow more than 5 edits a day in the SL-Events Set-up for educators

Number 9) Better search capabilities for discussions and forums (i.e. searching the whole title and/or description not just the first few letters of the event title)

Number 8) Increase the number of Groups you can subscribe to from 25 to something a bit more practical (like 64 or 128)

Number 7) Better Group Management Tools. So for example expanding LSL to include functions for adding and removing people from groups

Number 6) Better inventory management (specifically the filing system, moving around the system, not being randomly dumped in some location that you don't want to be after finally finding the directory you were looking for, and this constant re-opening of directories after you have explicitly closed them to just name a few of the more annoying 'features')

Number 5) Better inventory search capabilities (by date, by creator, by description, the ability to search text within a notecard or landmark)

Number 4) Allow Estate Managers to have full access to the Estate / Region tools including Upload and Download Terrain of terrain Files

Number 3) Provide for a global ban black-list so that griefers which attack one University or edcation facility can be automatically banned from all estates regardless of ownership

Number 2) Allow for Estate Owners to back up and restore multiple versions of their sims complete with all objects contained on the land (so for example a school could reconfigure the entire island for multiple uses simply by recalling a pre-determined backup date) Note: This would be the one exception to someone having control to recreate objects they don't own. There is no point in doing a full backup and restore if you have to worry about whether you personally own every single item.

And the number one thing that Linden Labs can do to help make Second Life easier for educational use:

Get us that 2nd '9' in terms of system availability - specifically the one to the left of the decimal place, not the one to the right (although one or more 9s to the right would be good too).

Pc

[Phelan Corrimal]

Actually let me expand on that a bit more as I was thinking on this more over the previous evening.

The issue could probably be encompassed by three overriding concerns:

1) The stability of the platform which, as we have all experienced, is not exactly stable although it is markedly improved since Philip’s ‘One 9’ speech at the SLCC in Chicago last year.

2) The availability of in-world tools and features which are beyond the purview of Second Life residents to address or resolve. I gave several examples of this yesterday as part of my top ten list. The more concerning issue is that there are just some things that relying on Second Life residents to develop workarounds for, rather than fixing the root cause of the problem, will eventually cause more harm than good. This is despite the fact that many innovations within Second Life have come about as a result of these limitations.

3) The third item is there now appears to be a disconnect between what Linden Labs is currently focused on and what has made the platform innovative. Linden Labs needs to devote some resources back to those areas of development if it wishes to continue to be relevant down the road. People will likely disagree with me on this but right now Second Life, despite its obvious advantages, is in danger of allowing other competitors to supersede it if it does not get a larger proportion of its development staff back to being a ‘lab’ as Philip outlined last year.

My argument is this: The real innovation of Second Life is not the technology. The technology is simply and enablement device and if you pull apart Second Life from a technological standpoint there are only a couple of things that Linden Labs is doing which is really on the cutting edge of network / software interoperability. Primary among those is the connections between the asset server, the agent, and simulator. Beyond this however almost everything else is borrowed technology. There is nothing innovative about the graphics engine, instant messaging, video streaming, audio streaming, voice over ip. This is all standard stuff that in some cases is actually done much better outside of Second Life rather than in.

The true innovation of the Second Life Grid is the convergence of all of these technologies into a comprehensive platform that is easily accessible to the average person.

The issue however is that those types of convergences seem to have come to a standstill leaving the job half done. When we talk about “what kinds of changes and/or services would help make Second Life easier or better to use for the educational community” what we are really talking about is what makes Second Life easier or better for the use of collaborations in general. The same tools required by educators are the same tools required by business, governments, NGOs, social groups, and volunteer organizations – albeit the emphasis may be on some tools more than others.

I would suggest that the following information communication technologies (ICTs) are where Linden Labs needs to focus more resources even at the expense of the stability of the platform. We all know this is beta and we all know that in order for the platform to become ubiquitous, PC technology and broadband internet access is still 5 years behind where Second Life is right now. So we have time – time Linden Labs won’t have 5 years from now if they don’t get a groove on these things today.

Aside: One of the beauties of Second Life is that, for all its complexities, Linden Labs has managed to take very complicated content and ICT developments and brought them down to a level which is within the grasps of people in the center of the technological savy distribution curve. You don’t need to be in the 80th percentile or higher to do amazing things in this environment.

(contined in part II below I think - everything looks to be out of order now)

[Phelan Corrimal]

(Part II Continued from above)

So under this third category what where is it that the ball has been dropped?

1) Web on a prim: including full integration of interactive support for things such as plug-ins and cookies. When we can start browsing You-tube on one prim while accessing Zoho on another and moodle on a third, I think we will be close :-)

2) Peer-to-peer file sharing: What good is a classroom if you are constantly trying to find work arounds for student submissions in real-time. Yes there is moodle and blackboards and all of that stuff. But in a real-life classroom, or more commonly in presentations, conferences, and forums, the presenter needs to be in a position to accept and distribute documentation in real-time.

3) LDAP Support: As a follow-on to that, LDAP support is also a must have for accessing and working with files in real-time from a common central server or ftp site. This should be obviously in considering the peer-to-peer requirement.

4) Desktop streaming: One of the major limiting factors in Second Life is that it is nearly impossible to stream your windows desktop into Second Life without incurring major expense and an extremely steep learning curve.

5) Webcam Streaming: Again this is a logical extension of peer-to-peer and desktop steaming technologies. While I’m sure the sex trades in Second Life would love this, it would also go a long way towards establishing identity in the classroom. One of those subjects that come up from time to time when people ask “how can you tell if John Smith is really the one writing the test and not some John Doe who is renting out their services as an exam taker”.

6) Application Sharing: I’m thinking in terms of Zoho applications here. The unfortunate part is between Zoho, Central Desktop, and Google groups there is the makings of a really good collaborative system for virtual teams but everyone seems to keep missing the mark. Not withstanding Zoho has done a really good job of allowing people to be able to work collaboratively on applications and documents although it would be nice if they incorporated some of Google’s and CD’s features along with it. Ah well – the point here though is that we can’t work collaboratively on a spreadsheet, powerpoint presentation, visio diagram, or anything else inside Second Life.

7) Secure Channel: Call it what you will but the upshot is that there are times when you need a secure channel (VPN, firewalled land parcel / sim) in order to talk to a student, or to a team, about issues that legally cannot be discussed over a ‘public’ channel. 128-bit encrypted communications would be one way to go about this but recently I’ve been hearing of a number of Universities that require a VPN connection in order to ensure confidentiality of communications. This requirement is in place for various businesses and governments as well. What is more disturbing however is that even with a VPN connection, if you are communicating with some organizational entities outside the US there are laws in place that state it is illegal to transmit confidential documents or other communications (vis-a-vi VOIP communications) unencrypted due to the US’s move just after 9/11 that allowed for the interception of electronic communications that originate or terminate in a foreign country without a court order. Countries like Canada and Great Britain both have laws which govern these types of cross-board digital exchanges (albeit this is usually rigorously enforced in the case of official government documents rather than student records . . . still . . . ).

(Cont ... in part III - sorry for the length)

[Phelan Corrimal]

(Part III - Continuted from Part II)

Obviously there are a ton of things that can be improved in Second Life. But above and beyond anything else I think Linden Labs original drive to converge ICTs combined with their technological development of the scalability issues are really where the focus needs to be. Unfortunately I see too much emphasis being place on scalability and stability issues. It is like we went from one extreme vision of what Linden Labs’ direction should be and immediately went to the other extreme without stopping to consider that maybe there needed to be a more balanced approach.

Or at least this is my perception – I could be wrong (it happened once that I can recall). And to that I’m really looking forward to what Philip and M have to say this year at the SLCC as this will likely set the tone for what we can expect over the next year.

[Pelham Mead]

From a Higher education Professor's viewpoint I would like to see a special Jump Start Approach for Faculty in Second Life.

*Sample Educational sites in Second Life that can be downloaded for educators to use.
*Indexing of second life sites by Academic courses to make a search easy to find these sites.
*Great marketing to faculty and teachers in the positive aspects of virtual education.

thanks,
Dr. Pelham Mead

[Daniel Livingstone]

(Better) Systems for the bulk registration of avatars, and terms of service that more explicitly allow the creation of transferable avatars might be nice.

For workshops the ability to have 20 or 30 demo avatar credentials to give out - allowing you to skip significant parts of the getting started process - would be very useful.

[Phelan Corrimal]

As a side note: we just created 6 avatars for demo purposes for exactly this reason. You are only allowed 6 AVs per account normally and Linden Labs is tracking this not just by email address but also by IP. However, if you need to create more than 6 avatars they can provide you an allowance to create more if you phone the conceirge services desk and explain what it is you are trying to do.

Also I have the API kit for new orientations. I was thinking of not installing it because we decided not to do a general orientation island but I'll see what it takes to get it up and running as I think this might address the concern. I'll see what I can do to have this running before the SLCC and provide feedback on whether this is a viable solution to the problem or not.

[Michael Lange]

Hello,

here is my very special perspektive as a german teen educator:

1. Ban porn and not teens from the maingrid! Until now, I guess there are more teens in the main grid, than in the teengrid, because the MG is much more attractive for them. But that mean that I as an educator are sometime really lonely in the teengrid;-) Espeacially because teen from outside the US only have the chance to get teengrid accounts with their parents Paypal-Account. What would you do? Ask your parents for their Paypal-account or cheat with your age?

I think, better than having a teengrid is to have an adult grid, where adults have to do a serious age veryfication.

(2. and 3. is only in case the Lindens don't want to merge both grids;-))

2. Let teens from outside the US register accounts with SMS verification as well! SL could be a great tool for intercultural education, but now there are 95% of the teens from the States.

3. Clear all this limitation for educators in the teengrid. You have to do a backgroundcheck and be related to an educational organization, but that is not enough to be trustworthy to exchange objects or L$ with teens??? Educators also can't be together with teens in groups or dedicate land to teen groups, which makes groupwork really difficult.

Thanks
Michael

[Paula Christopher]

I have finally convinced our technicians to install Second Life on the computers in the classrooms and labs. They have one request:

Is there anyway they (Linden Lab) could make their installer into an MSI (Microsoft's standard for Software Installation)? This would make installation SOOOOO much easier.

Such a change may help other institutions, too. If SL is easier to install, the techs may be more likely to do it for you.

[Daniel Livingstone]

For information, the letter to the Lindens that was written during the feedback session is now on the SLEDcc wiki - but seeing as it is integral to this debate, I'll copy it out in full here!


Dear Lindens,

Hi, how are you? We’re doing great, the kids are well. Having a blast with Second Life.
We’ve really enjoyed the better support over the past few months. Second Life is really the great for debating with small groups of students in depth – the Socratic model lives and is embodied in Second Life. The cost is fantastic! Open source too. :-)
We love telling all our friends about how great Second Life is, telling them about the wonders of exploration and experience that go on there.

However…

We are struggling to get large number of our friends registered at a time.
Once we have our friends in Second Life, we have soooo many that it’s kind of hard to keep track of our contacts and organise them. If we could somehow tag our friends, that would be neat.
Application sharing would really just be the neatest – we’ve seen some other guys do thast, and wish you could too. Integrating them locally, where we live would be sooo useful.
We got that letter from your lawyer – is that really necessary? We have to be able to work together without worrying about this stuff.
And why do our friends have to pretend to be other people? Sometimes it would be easier if we were able to use our real names.
Some more tools to make things easier for educators.
Our friends kids can’t come and visit. If there was a way we could get passes for the kids to come visit us where we live – even for a limited time, or limited locations. Being able to communicate effectively with the teens across the grid we also need.
And getting content to the teen grid! Man, that sucks. You really need to work on that, it is holding us back and causing us a world of pain.
I’m not sure how you can help here, but having my private space for the kids (which my supervisor demands) is restricting.
When we have a bunch of kids – even 40 or 50 – managing that is difficult. It needs to be easy for when we have a big event or want to invite the whole neighbourhood over.
And when the kids have their 18th! Oy, this transition is awkward. Sometimes it happens in the middle of a class even – really awkward.
Remember that cool thing I scripted? Dude, you updated the server and it broke. At least give us tools to manage unit testing or something.
Is someone keeping track of the successful grants that people have got? That would be handy.
Can we have invoices when we need them? Sometimes we have deadline to spend money or it just goes – if we can’t get an invoice, we lose the money then we can’t pay you and we lose our house here.
On the other hand, easily booked short term sim rentals would help us put big events on. We don’t need ten sims for the year, but for cousin Ted’s wedding we want lots of guests over.

You know us. We are your best advocates. But there are other people out there making overtures, looking for our business. There are some things in our relationship that we/you need to work on. We need to be able to talk more friendly like, and lose the attitude.
Our kids are our most important focus. It’s why we are here – to help our kids. Whether it’s practical issues or legal hiccups, we need support not barriers.

But you know, thanks for listening to our gripes. Thanks for coming over, we really do appreciate it. To hear you say that meeting us is the highpoint of your year despite all the kvetching is super.
Yours sincerely,

The Educators
Tampa
September 7, 2008

[Barry Joseph]

Nice! Please let us know here when there is a response.

[Suzan Bill]

Nice post i like it !!!
Blogs are so interactive where we get lots of informative on any topics nice job keep it up !!

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