nick speller, e safety training for teachers in second life
TRANSCRIPT
e-Safety Training for Teachers in Second Life
Nick SpellerPrimary Learning Consultant
for Oxfordshire County Council
(Nic Byron in SL)
Me/Us
• This is about a project that has involved myself (Nick Speller) and Carol Rainbow.
• We are both Primary Learning Consultants for Oxfordshire County Council’s Raising Achievement Service.
• We are both CEOP trained Ambassadors
Why?
• We wanted to offer free e-Safety courses for Oxfordshire teachers
• We felt that e-Safety was still largely a neglected area of ICT teaching in Primary Schools
• We also felt that our remit was wider than CEOPs but would embrace their work
Why Second Life?
• We have had “offices” in Second Life (a 3D virtual world) for several years
• Carol and I had attended seminars, meetings and training sessions lead by other people in Second Life
• Second Life is FREE to use and not too technical
Why Second Life?
• Second Life is a very immersive experience
• Our “offices” are now on the EduNation islands – we had free use of some of the island facilities
• Carol and I often work from home “through” Second Life already so we were keen to exploit its strengths
Why Second Life?
• We knew the flexibility for Second Life allowed us to communicate in lots of different ways:– Voice – presentations and group discussions– Text chat (directly and as a sub-text)– Presentations as images from our existing
Power Point presentations– Video from You Tube directly into SL– Sharing note cards of information
• Delivered over four weeks
• 1.5 hours a week
• Delivered in the evenings as Second Life is blocked within the schools network
• Delivered to Police Checked educators only
• Delivered as a Pilot initially to elicit feedback
The Course:
The Course:
• Featured statistics and information provided to us by CEOP during our training
• Used films freely available on You Tube• Included audio presentation using SL
voice
Group Discussions:
• Focussed discussions were led in small groups using “pods”
• Meaning small groups are sent into separate areas where voice discussions don’t interfere with each other
Gathering thoughts:
• Note cards were created during discussions by participants so we recorded our thoughts
• These were collated by Carol and brought back for further discussion
Feedback“Before starting any course a learner wonders what the experience will be like and how valuable it will be. These feelings are somewhat greater if you are starting a course in Second Life and haven’t ventured into this virtual world before. The most engaging aspect of the experience was the ability to gather together a geographically disparate group of learners (who could also be eating their evening meal and popping off to look after their children at the same time).”
More feedback
“There were fantastic opportunities to chat with other avatars about the course content, view videos and PowerPoint presentations. One of the really unique features to taking a course in Second Life was the ability to facilitate small group work. At points during the course we were sent away to another level in the sky to work collaboratively on a task before feeding back to the rest of the group.”
Yet more feedback
“I attended this course and was extremely impressed by the use of Second Life for a serious educational purpose. In my own case, I was already a user of Second Life and I was aware that an increasing number of organisations worldwide are using it for educational purposes.”
And finally…
“I am grateful for the opportunity to take part in this course for two reasons. Firstly, it has been a most valuable opportunity to use Second Life for a serious educational purpose. In that, it has been extremely successful. Secondly because I have greatly improved my knowledge and understanding of e-safety as a result of attending the presentations, videos and discussions with colleagues that the course involved – and this is despite my already fairly complete knowledge of the subject.”
Our experiences:
• Second Life worked well• Reliability is sometimes questionable but
we managed our sessions with little other than a few people’s SL clients crashing
• Video was slightly erratic though we got around that by using You Tube website directly
• All participants found it a truly immersive experience and found it valuable
