Staging Second Life in Real and Virtual Spaces - Teaching through Multi-User Virtual Environments - page 230

Table 4. Adequacy of preparation and supports available in Second Life

Statement (1=strongly disagree to 5=strongly agree) Mean

Technical support was available when I needed it in Second Life 3.27

The introductory explanations on how to use Second Life were clear 3.57

The activity in Second Life was well-organized 2.50

The instructions for Second Life were clear 3.14

The goals in Second Life were clearly defined 3.08

I understood what was expected of me in Second Life 3.33

Average for all criteria 3.15

future offerings of the course. It was apparent that
students need more time to become familiarised
with the 3D virtual world environment; one should
not assume that students have any prior experience
using such environments. Students also need more
time to rehearse their performances and as one
student noted, to also watch recordings of their
rehearsals to be able to better reflect on changes
they need to make in the final live performance.
Many of the technical problems staff and students
experienced in combining the virtual with live
performance have been identified and strategies
for addressing these limitations identified through
a process of trial-and-error undertaken during the
course. While this trial-and-error process reflects
the nature of a research laboratory, not all students
were resilient enough to cope with the technical
frustrations they experienced. A better balance
between engaging students in problem-solving
and collaborative activities, and the challenges
that arise in such an experimental laboratory can
be achieved in future offerings now that many of
the unexpected technical difficulties have been
identified and addressed.

between these two media in turn becoming inter-
medialists. Within the hypermedium of the theatre
they were able to remediate the conventions of
Second Life via their bodies and manipulation of
objects. This experience reflects a growing trend
in performance pedagogy where technology and
new ways of thinking about its applications are
increasingly integrated into the curriculum.
The next offering of this course will occur as
a combined workshop with UniSA and Coventry
University in 2009. The issues identified from this
first trial of the course incorporating intermedial
performance are being addressed in this next
offering. This planned learning opportunity will
enable students to experience another important
dimension of mediatised performance, which as
Giannachi (2004) suggests, 'challenges notions of
locality and regionality as well as globality, and
even renders the idea of art being in and about a
location somewhat redundant' (p. 11). There is
little doubt that the added technical demands as-
sociated with staging Second Life in two physical
locations as well as the virtual will also expose
new challenges for staff and students. However,
such challenges also provide students with the op-
portunity to engage in problem solving and critical
reflection as they undertake research through the
practice of performance. As Henk Havens a col-
league of Kattenbelt notes in a recent collaboration
between the University of Utrecht and the Theatre
Academy of Masstricht in Holland:

CONCLUSION

The staging of Second Life gave the students an
opportunity to transpose a virtual world into a
theatrical setting. The students actively played