You are here
An Educator’s Journey into Teaching on Virtual Platforms
With the launch of Facebook’s “Meta” rebrand, the voices of educators globally who have long experimented with creating digital twin campuses or 3D virtual environments have come to the fore. Back in 2010 Linden Labs, creators of Second Life, reported over 300 universities teaching in the virtual world. This yielded a rich literature on the creative advantages and limits of using virtual worlds as an education tool from its use to teaching anatomical sciences to engagement with people with disabilities. However, for those who did not experiment with virtual worlds in the last 20 years and who might be curious as to what it might be like to design and attempt teaching in a virtual world, then this is for you.
Lesson 1: Learning to Walk Again
I love that feeling when I walk into a lecture theatre ready to give a lecture. That dramatic moment, when you confidently walk to your computer station, power up your slides, set out your notes, your water bottle, ready to share your wisdom, humour and passion. Granted there are those days when you have finished your slides 5 minutes beforehand, you race in whilst spilling coffee on your coat, and even that day when my heel broke off my shoe and I had to deliver it barefoot to avoid a lopsided gait. And whilst I had been lucky enough to deliver some lectures synchronously during the 2020-2021 academic year, putting on my heels to walk across the living room just did not quite have the same impact.
In the haze of Zoom teaching midway through the first term and the begrudging realisation that my International Negotiation course (that I had tried to switch to the second term in the hope of face-to-face teaching) would also be online, I was wracking my brains to alternatives to inject life into a highly interactive simulation-based course online. It seemed almost fate that the same week I was introduced by IDOVirtual into the possibilities of a virtual campus in VIRbela’s immersive virtual world.
Now I have never been much of a gamer. Beyond a mild addiction to Tetris on a Gameboy in my late teens and some forays into Just Dance on my daughters’ Nintendo Switch to try to stave off the lockdown pounds, gaming had never held much appeal. Suddenly, I discovered a brave new world. A world in which I can rearrange my office furniture at the click of a button. A world in which I could visualise my student avatars navigating themselves between break out rooms to caucus during simulations rather than me manically reconfiguring breakout rooms.
And so, with the generous help of my departmental research allocation and a Dean’s Strategic Grant 29 TaVIRstock Square, UCL’s first virtual Department of Political Science was born. A world in which Icould overcome COVID’s restrictions and host movie evenings in a cinema setting, provide a more flexible setting for my negotiation course in which students can move between groups and rooms, a setting for students to mingle and chat, and a place to bring together alumni and current students seamlessly. A world in which my avatar can stride across a virtual lecture theatre once more.
Or so I thought….
(I appreciate that those of you who are experienced Second Lifers are likely laughing at my naïve optimism right now).
It started gloriously. Practically at the click of my fingers (and the helpful elves at IDOVirtual), I had a suite decorated with UCL logos and a huge picture of myself in my office.
Finding the right hairstyle for my avatar, took a little longer (I now know I don’t feel comfortable with short hair even as an avatar).
The clothes choosing process took me back to that scene in the movie “Clueless” when Alicia Silverstone’s character uses the computer to pull out matching combinations from her wardrobe. But finally, dressed and ready to go, I prepared myself for my “onboarding” session to learn all the tricks of using the platform. As I wait for my onboarding instructor, I try to some simple activities as recommended by Baker, Wentz & Woods in their work on Second Life. Possibly I should have waited for the instructor! I suddenly find myself going in all sorts of unintended directions, bumping into virtual furniture, encroaching on strangers’ virtual personal space – at times possibly a little inappropriately close (are there norms for social distancing as an avatar? )-- and walking head on into virtual glass windows. My vision of confidently strutting across a virtual stage fast dissipating.
Whilst I try to make my avatar appear cool or at least half-way to normal, I listen to the various conversations going on around me, which is a little surreal, almost like being a radio not quite tuned to any station, but I am surprised by the energy that you feel that is vastly different from waiting for a Zoom meeting with the circle spinning telling me that that I am waiting for the host to let me in. It does feel like you are sitting in the reception of a large office building watching the world go by and eavesdropping into conversations.
As I try to manoeuvre my head around, I spot Annaliese – my onboarding instructor. She moves effortlessly towards me. A sleek, blonde avatar, in great heeled boots (why didn’t I find those in the avatar wardrobe room?), confident and friendly and ready to show me round the world.
The session with Annaliese was extraordinary and vital to really understand the functionality and potential of the platform. Beyond teaching me how to “climb” into my virtual office if I have accidentally locked myself out, she was an incredible resource on everything from the best programmes to use to share slides, how to teleport effectively between locations, to how to lock presentation screens so that participants can’t interfere, but most importantly how to “onboard” my own participants to troubleshoot the occasional problems commonly sound connection problems.
Once the session finished, I felt both excited and slightly overwhelmed for the next stage of running a movie evening, giving my first lecture and running a day of negotiation simulations on the platform. My imagination definitely larger than the reality of what I might be able to manage technically!
So, I practiced walking around the virtual classroom several times whilst playing with the furniture to find the layout that will minimise my virtual bumping and ensure my dramatic entrance. So I followed Baker, Wentz & Woods’ advice to spend some time I the world to perfect my style and visited the virtual beach and virtual night club. It definitely helped! All I needed now was to go back to wardrobe to find those great heeled boots that Annaliese was wearing.
Join me next month, when I host my first virtual movie night for students. It didn’t quite go to plan!