Teaching in the Virtual Theatre Classroom - Teaching through Multi-User Virtual Environments - page 183

Students taking this course will develop useful
skills that people may be called on to use in the
workplace, and the skills will also be useful for
those of us on the Pitt Greensburg campus, train-
ing digital photographers and digital audio and
video editors who can use their new expertise in
theatre productions, or across campus….

inhabiting the digital realm, they often defer to
the pre-digital adage of “to see it is to believe it.”
My course, then, would include creating and
editing digital audio and video and exploring the
virtual world of Second Life. While the digital
media portion resulted in many successful audio
and video projects, that discussion is not germane
to this writing. What is relevant are the methods
I used to introduce the students to SL, the guest
speakers visiting the course, and the assignments
they completed while in the virtual world.

With the course I also intended to address
a conundrum I had observed with the current
student population. Recently, current traditional-
age college students have been dubbed “digital
natives,” a trendy term indicating a generation
that has grown up with cable TV, the Internet/
WWW, iPods and ubiquitous cell phones. They
have been described as being:

eNTeRINg THe VIRTUAL WORLD

Before discussing the arrival of the students in-
world (or in the virtual environment), I would like
to address the idea of classroom setting. There
are many college and university campuses with
a presence in SL, and many of them have spent
time and (real) funds creating either a simulacrum
of their geographical and architectural setting, or
some other utilitarian structures that resemble the
traditional, i.e. real , classroom. This is not without
merit; as SL resident Foster Cosmos has stated,
“If we are doing something for purposes of con-
vention, we should use something conventional”
(personal communication, June 24, 2008). For
example, there is one sim, or simulator, “a square,
named region that makes up part of the Second
Life world” (Rymaszewski et al., 2007, p. 330),
which is dedicated to role-playing the Star Trek
universe. In the required training sessions, uni-
formed Starfleet cadets sit in chairs at tables and
read a text-based lecture provided by a Starfleet
officer. They then click on the desk-like console
in front of them and take a quiz to test what they
have just learned. This convention of schooling
is provided to give newcomers the training they
need for role-playing in future activities within
the sim; the familiar surroundings also clearly
signify that this is school and the cadets should
act and interact within prescribed societal roles.
I have discussed the acceptance of societal role-

Fluent in multimedia environments and have been
exposed to visual, written and auditory input all
their lives. Their visual stimuli have been trained
by television and large screen movies; their writ-
ten stimulus has been informed by e-mail and
instant messaging; and their auditory stimulus
has been instructed by iPods, cellular phones, and
surround-sound systems. (Junglas, 2007, p. 93)

This generation is in fact eminently capable
of sending text messages without looking at their
phones, and can take photos and movies and
rapidly upload them to social networking sites
(such as Facebook). However, this facility leads
us to the above-mentioned conundrum: while
adept at these basic tasks, they are not as skilled
at manipulating digital graphic or video files, nor
are they necessarily aware of how they are being
manipulated by others' uses of Photoshop and
video editing. While they can interact superficially
with digital media, many do not cultivate the skills
needed to go beyond being an “end-user.” The
Facebook photo upload page even says, “Got a
camera phone? Upload photos straight from your
phone.” This state of affairs does not bode well
for an educational system in which we also hope
to inculcate critical thinking in our students; while