![]() |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
The Educators Coop Experience in Second Life: A Model for Collaboration
by
Leslie Jarmon and Joe Sanchez
The Educators Coop Experience in Second Life: A Model for Collaboration
Leslie Jarmon
Joe Sanchez Abstract The use of 3-D virtual world communities as collaboration platforms warrants further research. This paper examines collaboration among educators and the research design experience in Second Life (SL) based on one model case, the Educators Coop Residential Community, whose goal is to provide educators and researchers from multiple academic disciplines with a unique virtual residential environment from which to begin exploring, collaborating, teaching, and conducting research more productively. Early results suggest that the residents have begun to collaborate effectively and rapidly. The model being tested here and the lessons learned from the Educators Coop could be relevant for other new and existing organizations as they enter and try to cultivate learning communities in 3-D virtual worlds. As virtual worlds become more mainstream and as the underlying technology becomes more transparent, the allure of connecting geospatially-distant learners and teachers will attract organizations across sectors including educational, corporate, public, and nonprofit institutions. In-depth long-term research is needed to understand how educators and institutions navigate the transition into virtual worlds and how individuals and groups come together to form virtual learning communities. Introduction The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, we examine collaboration among educators using a virtual community model in Second Life (SL) based on an on-going case study, the Educators Coop Residential Community. Second, the paper provides a brief review of the literature on knowledge management and on experiential learning in relation to their application in virtual worlds. The goal of the virtual Educators Coop Residential Community is to provide educators and researchers from multiple academic disciplines with a unique residential environment from which to begin exploring, collaborating, teaching, and conducting research more easily and seamlessly (Figure 1). All 42 residents of the Educators Coop Island are participants in the research project to apply, test, and adapt this virtual collaboration model.
Our model involves an emerging, self-generating community of learning. The Educators Coop research project extends previous work on shared virtual environments in that it focuses on a large group of residential members for a one-year period within a virtual space that has over 12 million registered users at the time of this paper. With a focus on “residential,” we are exploring the impact of long-term proximity of the participants on their degree of collaboration. We have hypothesized that by “living” next door to one another as neighbors in a virtual community area (the Educators Coop Residential Community Island), and through their participation in community events and day-to-day neighborhood activities, the members will experience an increasing level of productive collaboration over time. At this early stage in the study, our four broadly defined research questions are: 1. Can a shared virtual environment enable the creation of a community of practice? 2. How do members of a virtual community describe their experience? 3. In a shared virtual environment, what is the relationship between information architecture and the interactions of a community, if any? 4. Can virtual world collaborations extend beyond the virtual world and lead to real life collaborations? It is probable that other related questions will arise as our observations of the community are compiled throughout the year and as we analyze the growing data set. Early results support the hypothesis that proximity and being community neighbors can increase levels of collaboration among educators in a virtual community. We first briefly review some of the literature on knowledge management and experiential learning in relation to their application or potential in virtual world environments. Second, we describe the design of the information architecture of the Educators Coop model. Third, we report some early results with concrete illustrations of the kinds of collaboration in which the residents of the community have already engaged. Finally, we conclude with observations about application and further research in educational and non-educational sectors. Background Knowledge management in relation to its application in virtual worlds Previous research in shared virtual environments has been limited to somewhat smaller groups of participants (Sonnenwald, 2006), timed and coordinated events (Nilsson et al, 2001), and isolated group environments (Spante et al, 2006). Nilsson et al (2001) generated a study of scientific collaboration in a shared virtual environment, but because of the technological limitations of the time the data collected focused on the coordination of people and tasks. Activities within the Nilsson et al study were eventually limited to the coordination of groups of two, whereas this study follows the virtual activity of 42 residents. In virtual worlds such as Second Life, the core of the user experience does not include a game. Instead, the virtual world is typically a large social space where people network, build, play, buy and sell products, and work. In this sense, Second Life is not a game; it is an experience, an inherently social experience. Second Life has a tacit set of general community standards and new users are socialized into the system over time. For example, avatars can purchase and use weapons in many parts of Second Life, but if a weapon is used in a public area not specifically designed for weaponry, the offending behavior may be considered rude and the user may be labeled as a griefer (i.e., one causing grief to others). These kinds of conventional community standards have evolved over the past five years for general users of Second Life. An underlying question for our research is whether or not community standards differ when created over time by a community of educators who share similar real life interests in teaching and research. The Educators Coop model was designed with an intention to help new residents adjust to the overall community standards more seamlessly and to develop new conventions for collaboration extending beyond the virtual and into their real lives. The Educators Coop consists of both a social and technical system. The overall social system includes the entire Second Life community as well as the residents and the island managers of the Educators Coop. The technical system includes the Second Life software, each user’s individual computer and Internet connection, and, most specifically here, the Educators Coop Island simulation. The theoretical framework for the unique social system in the Educators Coop community model is grounded in the work of Wenger’s communities of practice (1998), whereas the technical system’s design is based on Nonaka and Takechi’s (1995) spiral of knowledge, wherein the residents have opportunities to participate in a spiral of sharing explicit and tacit knowledge. Residents join the Educators Coop community with a variety of skill sets, ranging from beginner to advanced in terms of Second Life experience. A beginner’s skill set includes being able to navigate an avatar (the virtual figure representing the user) through the virtual world (Figure 2), change one’s appearance, teleport from region to region, manage instant messages, build simple objects, and operate the view controls. Advanced skills include writing animation scripts for objects, building houses, altering the terrain, and effortlessly switching between regions.
The Educators Coop collaborative model has been designed to become a learning organization (Senge, 1990), and, following Senge, whether or not the model capitalizes on the internal drives and motivations of the residents will somewhat determine its success as a learning community (Senge, 1990). The model’s design intends that residents will feel a sense of ownership in the community and invest time and effort to see it succeed as a productive educational community. Because it has been designed for collaboration, the model has a somewhat reciprocal relationship with the residents: if the Educators Coop design succeeds, then individual residents will have some success, and if the residents succeed, then the collaboration aspects of the Educators Coop community will have been successful. Recent research in Second Life involving a mid-sized group over a nine-month period uncovered the need to create social spaces and activities that are social in nature (Sanchez, 2007a). Events such as group gatherings, building challenges, and games can encourage the exchange of information and create opportunities for the transfer of tacit and explicit knowledge (Sanchez, 2007a). An earlier study (Sanchez, 2007b) found that restricting users to one island was counter-productive, and that in order to take advantage of the vast virtual content created by other residents across Second Life, users must be able to access the entire virtual metaverse. The Educators Coop model incorporates the findings of both studies. Furthermore, Choo (1997) discusses the need for the members of organizations to practice environmental scanning to prevent stagnation within the organization; that is, members must have access to new information from the peripheral environment to maintain the organization’s relevance. Following Choo, part of the success of the Educators Coop model depends upon the opportunity for its members to be able to regularly interact with other educational groups and with the Second Life community at large. While the model does not control the individual activity of the residents, the model provides for periodic public events, educational gatherings, and regular announcements of events elsewhere in Second Life to help residents maintain their connection with the greater virtual community (Figure 3). As discussed later, early indications are that the residents are, in fact, very active in other areas such as other educational and research sites in Second Life.
Experiential learning in relation to its application in virtual worlds This long term study examines the communication patterns of the residents in the Educators Coop, how they negotiate meaning, how participation and boundaries are defined, how their shared history is created, and how they generate a dynamic learning community, i.e. what Wenger has called a community of practice (1998). Early findings, discussed later in the paper, suggest that through their experiential learning, the residents are building on their past knowledge and expertise and are improvising a new community of practice in Second Life. The performative elements of experiential learning (narrative, mimetic, and improvisational forms) have been used to inform the ways citizens engage difficult social challenges, live in relation to one another, and explore different perspectives (Freire, 1978; Spratt, Houston, & Magill, 2000). In the virtual world environment, the ways for interacting and engaging with one another provide residents with opportunities to experience and understand issues that may be difficult to comprehend without living through the experience in real life (Winham, 1991). According to Goffman: “Scripts even in the hands of unpracticed players can come to life because life itself is a dramatically enacted thing…. In short, we all act better than we know how” (1956, p. 74). Research has suggested that improvising in new contexts and role playing can have a direct relationship to challenges met outside of the role-play itself (see Miller & Mansilla, 2004). It is anticipated that the experiences in avatar-to-avatar interactions in an immersive virtual world can have a direct connection to activities and relationships outside of the virtual world itself, evidence of experiential learning grounded in the virtual environment. For residents of the Educators Coop, their experiential learning is situated in the emerging particularities of the virtual world community and within its practices that the residents themselves are constructing (Lave & Wenger, 1991; see Figure 4). Our early findings suggest that they are building their own learning environment – together.
As Latour (1990) noted, “[I]f you want to understand what draws things together, then look at what draws things together “ (60; original emphasis). The Second Life simulation “draws things together” in experiential ways. In Second Life, residents can quickly access and interact with educators and researchers from multiple disciplines and countries, without traveling. While we are not suggesting that participants in the Educators Coop are “playing roles” as in a game scenario, there is a ludic quality to the interaction in the virtual world environment due to its newness as a medium. Through experiential learning, residents are still discovering nuances for negotiating the geospatial environment effectively (e.g., teleporting, flying, building). Information Design of the Educators Coop Model Creating the Physical Community in the Second Life Virtual World Environment The Educators Coop model was designed to encourage social exchange, facilitate navigation across the simulation, provide easy access to community information, and support group collaboration. Thus, the Educators Coop island in Second Life is comprised of sixteen virtual acres of land divided into a central Mesa (see Figure 1 above) and sixty 1,024 square meter parcels for the residents’ homes. Each quadrant of the island is marked with a large colored flag (red, yellow, blue, and green), and at the base of each flag is a small gathering space featuring benches and landscaping for that neighborhood (Figure 5).
Prior to the residents occupying their parcels, a sense of place was intentionally created by building a clearly visual navigation system (sidewalks), social spaces (neighborhood gathering points), and an information hub (the Mesa), all surrounded by trees and landscaping. A 6-meter wide waterway surrounds the island and connects the island to neighboring islands in the Library Alliance archipelago. The heart of the island is the Mesa and it features a community sandbox, a large group discussion area, a community calendar, a bulletin board, and a small group discussion area. The sandbox is a collaborative building space where residents can create and test objects. Land in Second Life where users are allowed to build is relatively expensive to purchase, and the community sandbox for residents is a valuable commodity. The model anticipates that the sandbox will become a main area where knowledge sharing takes place. When residents join the Educators Coop they are asked to choose from a variety of seven houses to place on their land, although they are not required to use the house. So far, our observations suggest a trend where expert users choose to build their own homes while beginners choose to modify a model home. Additionally, the types of objects members add to their parcels serve as visual indicators of expert and beginner users. Thus, the types of houses themselves can serve as visual cues for assessing probable level of expertise in Second Life and so become part of the emerging information embedded in the community. An exception to this trend occurred when one resident contracted an outside expert builder to construct her home on her parcel; this action revealed a level of expertise, not in building, but in navigating the social information economy of Second Life. Although the Educators Coop is a virtual world community, much of the textual information about the Educators Coop is available on its website, including the goals, mission statement, terms of service, application instructions, and information about the island managers. The website also features a blog, an area for collaborative work such as white papers and course syllabi, and a photo album for the residents. Once applicants become residents, the communication tools within Second Life can begin to play a larger role in their communicative behavior with one another: Instant Messaging, the Second Life Group notification functions, the Group Proposals function, Voice, and so forth. A more detailed discussion of collaboration-to-date appears in the next section. Research Design There are four initial research questions:
The participants in the current study are all members of the Educators Coop and are research subjects in the surveys, focus groups, and individual interviews. The participants are self-selected users within Second Life who have chosen to participate in a research study about collaboration in virtual worlds. The study has a sequential program of research protocols. First, three times during the year, participants were asked to complete an online questionnaire (using Survey Monkey) consisting of Likert-type scale questions about collaboration, community, design of the virtual environment, and amount of time spent online. The first administration of the questionnaire occurred after residents were somewhat acclimated to the virtual environment, September 2007, and took less than 20 minutes to complete. The second administration of the questionnaire was in February 2008 and measures trends in collaboration and overall activity. The third questionnaire was administered in March 2008 and examines changes in collaboration and activity level. Second, an open-ended question survey was administered in May 2008 to elicit more in-depth feedback from the participants pertaining to their overall impressions and insights regarding their collaborative experiences in the Educators Coop. Additionally, the open-ended questions invited the residents to articulate any “lessons learned” from their experiences. Third, unstructured interviews with Educators Coop volunteer participants were conducted once during each semester in Second Life using text chat (see Figure 6). Both researchers participated in the interviews. For the approximately 1-hour interview, we posed these basic 5 open-ended questions presented to all interviewees:
Finally, three focus groups of 8-10 volunteer participants were conducted, once inJanuary 2008 and once during the Spring of 2008, also using text chat. Because of time zone differences, the same focus group format was used for the 3 sessions. Both researchers were present, and participants were selected on a first-come, first-serve basis, not exceeding 10 per session. The focus group question protocol included five initial questions with follow-up questions (Table 1). Table 1: Five Questions for Focus Groups - January 2008
Like other social and educational events that brought together the residents of the island, the initial rounds of focus groups themselves served as community-building events (Figure 7).
The last research protocol included naturalistic observations (field notes) of the participants’ activities in the Educators Coop and these were recorded throughout the study. Early Results: Rapid Collaboration Platform We hypothesized that by “living” next door to one another as neighbors in a virtual community area (proximity), and through their participation in community events and day-to-day neighborhood activities, the members of the Educators Coop would experience an increasing level of productive collaboration over time. Analysis of early results supports the hypothesis that proximity and being community neighbors can increase levels of collaboration among educators in a virtual community. Preliminary findings are presented here as samples of the early data pertaining to each of our four research questions. 1. Can a shared virtual environment enable the creation of a community of practice? Residents of the Educators Coop have begun to collaborate and share their knowledge with each other in several very concrete (albeit virtual) ways. Both the visual and textual nature of Second Life’s 3-D environment makes it possible to empirically observe and record some of the collaborations and products of knowledge sharing as they unfold. We illustrate some initial steps in what appears to be an emerging community of practice by discussing how members are co-creating designs and objects together. Four examples are (1) the initial interactions at the official opening of the island, (2) the use of waterfalls with animation scripts (to make them “flow”), (3) a tool known as the Mysti HUD, and (4) actions initiated at the monthly Residents Meeting. Initially, once the island was ready, an official opening was scheduled, and potential residents immediately began interacting, inquiring about resident policies, and sharing their views about the concept of the Educators Coop. The attendees at the opening included librarians, faculty, researchers, and K-12 educators (Figure 8).
Ten days after the launch, a resident who happened to be an expert writer of script for animating objects in Second Life was practicing building a waterfall in the community sandbox on the Mesa. The resident left the work-in-progress in the sandbox, and many other residents viewed the waterfall and were inspired to build one of their own. Within a few days, several waterfalls and other virtual objects created with the same animation script could be seen throughout the community. When asked about the new scripted creations, residents recalled being taught how to use the script by asking other residents. In this second example of collaboration, the original user of the script initially shared it with one resident, who then passed it along and taught other members how to use it. A third example of how Educators Coop members have begun to collaborate in creating and designing together elements of a community of practice, is their use of a HUD (Heads-Up Display) called the Mysti HUD. The Mysti HUD is a tool worn by an avatar that creates extended interface options for the user. In other words, the tool gives the wearer added capabilities, including flying higher than standard limits and a radar system to track others. This powerful tool was introduced to the Educators Coop community by one resident who learned about it while attending a social event in Second Life at the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) Island. Within a few days, most members had acquired and were using the new tool. Finally, and importantly, at the first scheduled monthly Residents Meeting (August 10, 2007) held on the Mesa, members generated numerous agenda items that lay the groundwork for their emerging community of practice (see Figure 9):
2. How do members of a virtual community describe their experience? The research study predicted that members of the Educators Coop would experience an increasing level of productive collaboration over time. The first online research survey posed open-ended questions designed to elicit members’ descriptions of their experiences. Some specific examples of their descriptions from Survey 1 support the hypothesis of collaboration:
Additionally, a sample from one of the regular Tuesday community discussions on teaching and learning (from the group chat on the Mesa) illustrates the kind of specific sharing of information and collaboration reported by members in the Educators Coop (see Figure 10). In this chat sample, for example, members are sharing information and strategies about their students and how they were managing Second Life’s official orientation island experience for new users and new account problems:
3. In a shared virtual environment, what is the relationship between information architecture and the interactions of a community, if any? Analysis of the preliminary data provides some support for the hypothesis that proximity and being community neighbors can increase levels of collaboration among educators in a virtual community. Participation in the on-island community activities was fairly consistent in numbers, and the centrally located Mesa area was used for posting community notices, information, and free objects/gifts for members. Some specific examples from Survey 1 illustrate how the physical layout of the island and the proximity of the members’ home parcels affected some of their interactions:
4. Can virtual world collaborations extend beyond the virtual world and lead to real life collaborations? Educators Coop members reported extending their own professional networks and making concrete connections between some of their virtual activities on the island with other members and their activities in the real world. Three kinds of specific data provide initial indications that their virtual collaborations can extend more fully into their real lives and work: (1) some sample observations from their first in-depth interviews, (2) a sample conversation about teaching physics from the regular Tuesday community discussion on teaching and learning (from group chat on the Mesa), and (3) a brief video documenting a high-collaboration project with the Educators coop and a non-profit organization in the real world. Interview participants said:
In the next sample from a Tuesday community discussion, we see members discussing actual pedagogical strategies for real students in physics classes in real life:
As a final example of collaborative activity on the Educators Coop at this early stage, several community members, including expert builders, teamed up with a real life graduate-level communication class in a highly collaborative effort on the Educators Coop island to create the Alley Flats Project (a short video documenting the project can be viewed on the web). Rapid Collaboration Platform Additionally, observations suggest that residents are rapidly expanding their networking activity and using the community as a way to link to other networks (SL-Net, Teachers Network Connection, SLoodle). At the first monthly residents meeting, members suggested creating an Educators Coop Google group and using Google’s social software, including joint documents and calendars. The residents also decided to change the community’s current website into one that could manage more extended communication and information sharing including, for example, contributing to a Residents’ blog, uploading avatars’ pictures and profiles, more calendar functions, announcements, and publishing residents’ white papers. A member recommended that the chat history of the first residents meeting be distributed to the entire community, much in the way “minutes” might have been taken and then circulated at an analogous meeting not held in a virtual world environment. A weekly “Residents Chat” series was initiated to exchange ideas and experiences about teaching and learning in Second Life. Finally, when asked, “Did anyone hear any function or group that you might be interested in heading up for now, just to get started?”, the residents generated the list of projects shown in Table 2 and individual residents volunteered to lead the projects. Table 2: Rapid Collaboration
Conclusion At the preliminary stage of this long-term research effort, our findings suggest that the residents of the Educators Coop appear to be actively and rapidly forming a community of practice. The incidents of collaboration among the residents generated by this community model in Second Life include, thus far, helping each other with building, offering free scripts and items, creating discussions, inviting each other to events in Second Life, and the numerous community-building activities discussed above. Interview data provide early indications that the residents also enjoy one another’s company. Each resident has an academic background and is interested in teaching and conducting research in Second Life, and given their residential proximity to one another in the Educators Coop, frequent conversations can relatively quickly turn from casual conversation to information sharing or brainstorming. In conversations on the Mesa, it is not uncommon, even at this early stage, to hear vocabulary such as “student-centered learning,” “pedagogy,” “Foucault,” or “embodiment.” Conversations may be occurring while residents are simultaneously building their structures or landscaping their parcels. The kinds of fairly intensive collaborative activity described in this paper have emerged in the earliest stages of the full year-long study. The use of virtual world communities as collaboration and knowledge management platforms warrants further research. The Educators Coop model being tested here and the lessons learned could be useful to other existing institutions as they try to cultivate working communities in virtual world environments. As virtual worlds become more mainstream and as the underlying technology becomes more transparent, the allure of connecting geospatially-distant learners and teachers (and others) will attract organizations across sectors including educational, corporate, public, and nonprofit institutions. Additional in-depth and long-term research is needed to understand how the various sectors navigate the transition into virtual world environments and how individuals and groups come together to form learning communities. References Choo, C. W. (1998). The Knowing organization: How organizations use information to construct meaning, create knowledge, and make decisions . New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Goffman, E. (1956). The presentation of self in everyday life. New York: Doubleday. Latour, B. (1990). Drawing things together. In Representation in Scientific Practice, edited by M. Lynch and S. Woolgar. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 19-68. Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Miller, M., & Mansilla, V. (2004). Thinking across perspectives and disciplines. In J. Solomon (Ed.), Goodwork project report series. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Project Zero. Number 27. Retrieved August 10, 2007 from https://pzweb.harvard.edu/eBookstore/detail.cfm?pub_id=154. Nilsson, A., Heldal, I., Schroeder, R. and Axelsson, A. (2001). In The Social Life of Avatars: Presence and interaction in Shared Virtual Environments. (Eds, Schroeder, R.), Springer-Verlag, London, pp. 112-126. Nonaka, I., & Takeuchi, H. (1995). The knowledge-creating company: How Japanese companies create the dynamics of innovation. New York: Oxford University Press. Proceedings of Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education International Conference 2007 (pp. 1240-1243). Chesapeake, VA: AACE. https://research.educatorscoop.org/SL.IQA.site.final.pdf Sanchez, J. (2007a). A sociotechnical systems analysis of Second Life in an undergraduate English course. In Proceedings of World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications 2007 (pp. 4254-4258). Chesapeake, VA: AACE. Sanchez, J. (2007b). Second Life: An Interactive Qualitative Analysis. In C. Crawford, D.A. Willis, R. Carlsen, I. Gibson, K. McFerrin, J. Price, and R. Weber R. (Eds.), Senge, P. (1990). The fifth discipline: The art and practice of a learning organization. Brooklyn, New York. Doubleday Publishers. Sonnenwald, D. (2006). In Avatars at Work and Play Activities in Shared Virtual Environments (Eds, Schroeder, R. and Axelsson, A.) Springer-Verlag, London, pp. 63-96. Spante, M., Axelsson, A. and Schroeder, R. (2006). In Avatars at Work and Play. Activities in Shared Virtual Environments(Eds, Schroeder, R. and Axelsson, S.), pp. 151-166. Spratt, T., Houston, S., & Magill, T. (2000). Imaging the future: Theatre and change within the child protection system. Child & Family Social Work, 5(2), 117-127. SurveyMonkey. https://www.surveymonkey.com/. Last accessed August 14, 2007. Wenger, Etienne. (1998). Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Winham, G. (1991). Simulation for teaching and analysis. In V. Kremenyuk (Ed.), International Negotiation (pp. 409-423). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
Copyright 2003-2008. https://www.rcet.org |