Teaching in the Virtual Theatre Classroom - Teaching through Multi-User Virtual Environments - page 185

instant messaging, or IM, and how to emote—that
is, to use text to represent an action rather than
dialogue (such as “Phorkyad waves hello!”). I
then provided them with some landmarks (such
as repositories of freebies, or free items) and sent
them off to learn the basics of finding their ways
in this new world. While kicking them out of the
nest and requiring them (literally) to fly, I also
kept in constant contact with them, both verbally
within the classroom and through chat and IM,
so they always had a touchstone to return to for
help or advice. This was a constant within all of
our SL-centered sessions.
In order to familiarize the students with many
of the features of (and possibilities within) Sec-
ond Life, I created a goal-oriented exploration
assignment—namely, a scavenger hunt. I created
my own list, and later found the same assignment
suggested by Conklin (2007, p. 11). For my ver-
sion, I provided the students with a list of places to
visit, objects to examine, and actions to perform.
They had 75 minutes (one class session) to do
tasks that would provide them practice time with
maps, navigating and camera controls. Some of the
tasks seemed innocuous (find a dance club, dance,
and take a photo of yourself), but the completion
of that series of actions familiarized the students
with a variety of SL activities: how to use the in-
world search function, to teleport within the search
window, to interact with an animating object (a
dance ball, that would cause their avatar to per-
form dance moves), to take photos of oneself in
SL, and to send those photos as “postcards” from
SL by email to the instructor in RL. (I created a
webpage to display their in-world dance photos;
see the References for the URL).
I urged the students to work together, if they
wished. In general, the assignment followed Vil-
lano's advice to “make it fun (2008, p. 43), and
Carter's specific advice to:

them to collaborate and share their knowledge,
as each student brings a different skill set to the
environment. (2006, p. 2)

Peer teaching often resurfaced within the
course. Some of the students found their way
quickly with the technology while others took
longer, whether from inexperience with comput-
ers or with the virtual environment, or perhaps
from not listening to directions. Also, there are
often times in almost any classroom when stu-
dents prefer not to appear lacking in knowledge
or ability in front of an instructor, and feel more
comfortable asking for the help of a peer. Since
they could easily (physically) turn to each other
in the computer classroom, or—as they added
each other as friends, could easily IM each other
in-world—they often sought out each other's
advice, unbidden by me.
During this time, many of them found them-
selves interacting with other SL residents. Perhaps
not surprisingly, they did not ask for help or di-
rections from other residents when encountering
them, uncertain as to whom the people might be
behind the avatar mask. Early on (in the syllabus),
I had alerted them to the fact that there are no
“non-player characters” in Second Life (unlike
the generic monsters found in World of Warcraft),
and that “Second Life is a community of people;
the avatars you will encounter are operated by
thinking and feeling humans, as you yourself are
a thinking/feeling person…. Therefore, you are
expected to behave in a polite manner to those
you will encounter in-world.” I did this in order
to insure that the students would remain civil to
those they would encounter, although the warning
may also have distanced them from communicat-
ing with other, unknown avatars in-world.
While they also did not engage in much role-
playing, and usually announced that they were
there as part of a class, they quickly discovered the
social nature of SL and the role-playing inherent
in the world. Two students traveling together met
a female avatar who invited them to her singles

Have…students work in groups of 2 or 3 [as] it
will help them to practice their basic skills such
as walking and chatting. It will also encourage