Teaching in the Virtual Theatre Classroom - Teaching through Multi-User Virtual Environments - page 190

he adapted quickly to Second Life, and produced
the best final project, an action-packed and humor-
ous Machinima created within the Electronic Arts
game Battlefield 2 . If an instructor can infuse that
sort of active and fun aesthetic to assignments,
it is likely that students would acclimate more
quickly and invest more time and interest in the
virtual world.
A second recommendation is always to keep in
mind that the virtual world is not real. This may
also seem obvious. However, too often, content
creators in virtual worlds follow the conventions
of the real world too closely, and unnecessarily.
Would those shopping in a virtual store need to look
at racks of clothing, as American Apparel used for
display in its SL store (Nesson & Nesson, 2008, p.
275)? The closeness of the racks interfered with
the SL convention of scanning inventory, usually
with photos of objects lined up on a flat vertical
surface. For class meetings, then, do students
need to sit in desks or chairs inside a rectangular
classroom? Corporate businesspeople using a vir-
tual world such as SL for videoconferencing and
virtual meetings may create a board room with a
meeting table and chairs for the sake of familiarity
and to impose order, but are these necessary when
we are trying to stimulate the imagination of the
students in order for them to interact appropriately
with the virtual environment?
The third recommendation is the opposite of
the second: to keep in mind that teaching in the
virtual world still has many similarities to teaching
in the real world. As we would not take students on
a field trip, and then go off and have a beer as the
students wander aimlessly under our assumption
that they will naturally appreciate their surround-
ings, the same is true of taking students into a
virtual world. We need to be present—physically
in the classroom and virtually in the MUVE—in
order to render assistance and guidance as needed.
This may take some practice, as being present both
in the real and the virtual worlds at the same time
requires a high order of multitasking—though
theatre people experienced with tech rehearsal

weekends, merging actors and all the production
elements, will feel right at home. Still, even an
experienced multi-tasker may be overtaxed; at
times, while answering desperate cries for help
over IM in SL, I failed to notice a student sitting
inert in RL, with his hand raised for aid. Of course,
this is where peer teaching, another real world
application, can be most helpful. Additionally,
incorporating the above recommendations can
minimize the desperation of the students and add
to the success of the use of MUVEs.

FUTURe ReSeARCH DIReCTIONS

We, as instructors, have entered the virtual world
willingly, whatever our motivations, and have
decided that multi-user virtual environments are
potentially a promising pedagogical tool in our
arsenal. Likely, we have also become quite familiar
with the environment, prior to bringing students
into it. However, with the digital natives' lack of
a more than superficial knowledge of technology,
they sometimes find it harder to adapt.
Yet: when I began using email in my courses
(in 1993), I found I had to meet with the students
outside of class and train them how to use the
email system and the software they would be
using for their assignments. Now, the students of
the 21 st Century use email with ease. For my first
Playwrighting course session, I ask the students
to write a five-minute play and email it to me by
the end of the class meeting. My current students,
without fail, turn to their monitors and keyboards,
and begin working immediately without further
instruction, submitting the final product to my
email address by the end of the class meeting.
There is no reason to believe that progress
won't continue on this front. Students raised
on online multiplayer games and the Wii (with
their identification with their on-screen avatar or
“Mii”) are already being trained to think in terms
of avatars and online communication, making the
experiences of telepresence and co-presence (if