Teacher's Lounge Transcript 12 April 2006

From SimTeach

Jen Doolittle and The Human Animal course

Speaker's Notes 导热油炉 导热油锅炉 导热油锅炉

Claude Desmoulins, Damn Spatula, Danielle Damone, Doc Flimflam, Eloise Pasteur, Gxeremio Dimsum, Henri Vavoom, Intellagirl Tully, Jen Doolittle, Jeremy Kabumpo, Mari Asturias, Sorcs Nolan, Sorsa Psaltery

The event took place in two parts:

• Campus/150/100: Jen Doolittle gave an overview of her Human Animal

course

• Jiminy/58/88: The group field tripped to Jen's Human Animal campus

Jeremy Kabumpo: OK, hello everyone! Welcome to the second Teacher's Lounge

Jeremy Kabumpo: Our speaker today is Jen Doolitle from Minneapolis, running an art class

Jeremy Kabumpo: please grab a copy of the speaker's notes for all the details

Jeremy Kabumpo: the structure for today is the same as last week

Jeremy Kabumpo: Jen will chat for about 30 mins, then off we go to her classroom!

Jeremy Kabumpo: take it away Jen!

Jen Doolittle: Thanks Jeremy! And thank you for the invite!

Jen Doolittle: Let me begin by telling you a little bit about the class.

Jen Doolittle: If you like, you can open up the notecard here, and that will give you more detail.

Jen Doolittle: I teach a liberal arts course to students in an art college.

Jen Doolittle: The course is called "The Human Animal" and it is an interdisciplinary course...

Jen Doolittle: designed to engage students on questions about the human-animal relation.

Jen Doolittle: I'm using SL as an "experiential" tool.

Jen Doolittle: Students can explore questions of identity, anthropomorphism...

Jen Doolittle: and other abstract concepts.. like Deleuze' "becoming-animal"...

Jen Doolittle: by actually "experiencing" it.

Jen Doolittle: These were the philosophical ideas behind the course.

Jen Doolittle: Of course, I'm primarily a literary critic!

Jen Doolittle: But I'm very interested in teaching/technology and have taught online in the past.

Doolittle: I joined SL in October/November on the recommendation of our Distance Learning/IT staff person, KK Mechanique

Sorsa Psaltery: do your students "become animals" in SL?

Jen Doolittle: Yes, they do!

Jen Doolittle: In fact, we just completed the third assignment in our sequence on "Human-Animal" transformation.

Sorsa Psaltery: do they make their own animal avatars?

Jen Doolittle: About 4 of a group of 24 made their own, using building skills.

Jen Doolittle: The rest created hybrids using some donated avatars and some freebied avatars....

Jeremy Kabumpo: what kind of issues did you have getting the students into the environment - orientation?

Jen Doolittle: One other used the idea of "human-animal" and modified the human to reflect more "animality". (We have been discussing feral children and watched "Greystoke"!

Jen Doolittle: I booked 4 lab times (1 hour per

month.)

Sorsa Psaltery: interesting- do they use SL to behave more animalistically too?

Jen Doolittle: The first meeting in the lab; all students worked through the orientation set by SL.

Jen Doolittle: I also had installed SL on all the computers first.

Claude Desmoulins: Had you run the course before you brought it to SL? If so, what has the SL component changed about your course?

Jen Doolittle: We had a spectrum of responses the first day. Some were intimidated, some jumped right in.

They ended by "joining" the gorup and finding the circus sim.

Sorcs Nolan: pardon?

Sorsa Psaltery: pardon?

Jen Doolittle: Some of the students -- not many -- are exploring SL as animals. But they didn't have to for the assignment.

Sorcs Nolan: never mind, my bad :(

Jen Doolittle: I'm sorry

Sorsa Psaltery: i wondered whether students used the freedom of SL to behave more like animals, not just look like them

Jen Doolittle: Yes! I included animations and gestures too. They had to think about "becoming" as a question of exploring their "own" animal nature.

Jen Doolittle: I'm sorry, i missed Sorc's ?

Sorcs Nolan: no, I miss-read Sorsa as Sorcs, no questions from me yet Sorsa Psaltery: how are the students liking SL?

Jen Doolittle: We have a variety of responses.

Jen Doolittle: Partly, we've had a lot of lag during lab times, and it seems, that is often a concern for students.

Sorsa Psaltery: yes- students do NOT sympathise with lag

Jen Doolittle: I've been working with IT to figure out whether it is bandwidth or CPU that is the issue.

Jen Doolittle: But we can only figure that out during the lab itself!

Jeremy Kabumpo: did you create orientation materials in other forms like websites, paper handouts, etc?

An object named Object owned by Jeremy Kabumpo gave you Jen Doolittle Notes.

Jen Doolittle: Yes, we have a course website

(blackboard) and all assignments are stored there. I started to use paper handouts on the recommendation that it would help with CPU running to stop all other processes.

Jen Doolittle: Also, student create documents (essays with embedded documentation/snapshots)

Jen Doolittle: of their experiences. Each assignment is partly experiential/creative and partly reflective.

Sorsa Psaltery: do students read each others work?

Jen Doolittle: Yes they do! It is all on a public forum on our Blackboard site.

Jen Doolittle: They are also encouraged to share skills etc.

Jeremy Kabumpo: beside the technical details, how would you say your teaching/learning orientation for SL went?

Sorsa Psaltery: Great! that can work really well; I do that a lot now

Jen Doolittle: I am very happy with what students accomplished. I appreciate the learning curve; and I've tried to emphasize that i'm assessign experience and process.

Jen Doolittle: I would work harder on collaboration.

Jen Doolittle: I think that one of the joys of SL is the collaborative benefit.

Sorsa Psaltery: do your students ever go to Sl outside class hours/

Jen Doolittle: Much of their work is completed during off-time. Some are also in SL for fun, but I couldn't say how many.

Jen Doolittle: I get a sense that there are 4-5 who are enjoying it.

Jen Doolittle: The others are using it as they would a tool for education.

Jen Doolittle: And those who are finding it more difficult are having a hard time. I have tried to help by having tutorials on Fridays.

Jen Doolittle: I should say that I had used myself as the model of "student"...

Jen Doolittle: I began SL in October/November, and assumed I was "average".

Sorcs Nolan: is there a common thread/reason for those who find SL difficult?

Jen Doolittle: I might be a little bit on the keen and enthusiastic side!

Jen Doolittle: Thinking....Some suggested more demos

-- that "I" demo more rather than including link to how-tos and tutorials on assignment sheets.

Jen Doolittle: Not to dwell on this, but lag is a big concern. There is a point when students cannot be flexible with time.

Jen Doolittle: They might set aside the time and find it not workable.

Jen Doolittle: I also think that they --as art students -- want to create, rather than using "set" things.

Jen Doolittle: The avatars, for example, could be manipulated using the limits of the set tools.

Jen Doolittle: But many wanted to do more.

Jeremy Kabumpo: I'm itchin' to see the tents! :-)

Jen Doolittle: I'd love to show you all!

Sorsa Psaltery: great! lets go

Jen Doolittle: Okay, see you there!

Jen Doolittle: Did everyone get the teleport link?

Henri Vavoom: where are we going?

Jeremy Kabumpo: no, mind chatting location?

Jen Doolittle: It is embedded on the course notes.

Jeremy Kabumpo: Jiminy 58/88

Jen Doolittle: The Human Animal, Jiminy (58, 88, 105)

Danielle Damone: got it thanks

Jen Doolittle: *going there now*

Jen Doolittle gave you Balloon Giraffe.

Jen Doolittle: No problem! Helps with atmosphere, don't you think?

Doc Flimflam: I could use some cotton candy!

Sorcs Nolan: ballons and tents; not a standard classroom at all! :)

Doc Flimflam: Is this land "borrowed" from SL?

Jen Doolittle: Yes, for the duration of the course.

Doc Flimflam: Do you plan to move it somewhere after the term/semester Claude Desmoulins: Pardon me

Jen Doolittle: Welcome to the Human Animal Circus!

Sorsa Psaltery: this is a great circus

Jen Doolittle: I'd love to. I would like to see if MCAD could support a permanent sim.

Doc Flimflam: Yeah, I've been trying to figure out how to explain SL to my dept. administrator

Sorsa Psaltery: hmmm

Doc Flimflam: thanks for the balloon!

Jen Doolittle: *grin*

Sorsa Psaltery: so jen, what made you decide on a circus theme?

Jen Doolittle: *looks through notes and smiles*

Jen Doolittle: Well, there are two books that describe "utopic" spaces of human-animal interaction.

Jen Doolittle: Both reference the idea of "circus" as a space of possible equality between humans and other animals.

Jen Doolittle: the jury's still out on that one in my class, however.

Jen Doolittle: ;)

Jen Doolittle: So this is a "utopic" circus.

Sorsa Psaltery: a circus where the animals and the people mix?

Jen Doolittle: Exactly; and where the "boundaries" between humans and animals are temporarily "agreed" to be suspended.

Doc Flimflam: How many students are in the class?

Jen Doolittle: Or, using the idea of the "ring" where the boundary is maintained but known to be artificial.

Jen Doolittle: There are 24 now. The course began with 29.

Sorsa Psaltery: a very interesting idea- especially bound up in Sl, which is a very playful space to begin with

Jen Doolittle: You can see that the assignments are contained in "tents."

Doc Flimflam: Do you have much interaction with your non-academic neighbors here?

Jen Doolittle: Not a lot. But the casino that used to be there was very accommodating and turned down the sound eventually. Although it wasn't so bad.

Jen Doolittle: Actually, the campus is "closed" to students. I opened it today and will open it for the final assignment.

Jen Doolittle: It's a difficult line.

Jen Doolittle: I like to keep a campus like a RL campus too.

Doc Flimflam: Meaning they can only be here during class?

Jen Doolittle: no, meaning that it is open only to our group.

Jen Doolittle: they are members of our group.

Group #6 Photo: Touched.

Jen Doolittle: and some others who are friends.

Jen Doolittle: I want to open it up at the end to those who donated/contributed.

Doc Flimflam: ok, I've actually been wondering about what kind of limits to set with my students in SL

Sorsa Psaltery: have your students interacted much with the Furry community?

Jen Doolittle: Tell me! I make them read the research ethics/community ethics AND the MCAD code of Conduct.

They need to stick with those, and it works pretty well.

Jen Doolittle: Yes, they have. I have also. We are exploring a lot of the same ideas, but from different angles.

Jeremy Kabumpo: Jen, you showed me a tent devoted to orienting students, how did that work?

Jen Doolittle: Someone in the furry community donated many of the avatars.

Jen Doolittle: Some of my students have explored the furry worlds.

Jen Doolittle: We had some class discussion about the furry subculture and how this was a community that needed to be respected, and that they might be a good resource.

Sorsa Psaltery: I told my students to think of themselves as "visitors to a functioning community"- no problems so far

Jen Doolittle: Exactly. Their role here is as "students". I always -- if I'm asking questions -- explain that i'm an instructor.

Jen Doolittle: Jeremy, wasn't this the tent I showed you?

Sorsa Psaltery: did you tell yr students about PG/mature zones?

Jen Doolittle: Yes, I did. As part of the "exploration" assignment. I also made sure they knew how to teleport home, and what "assault" is.

Jen Doolittle: Teaching with SL always makes the control-freak part of me nervous.

Jen Doolittle: But this is of course why it is such a space of possibility.

Jeremy Kabumpo: do y'all think we should head back for a summation?

Jeremy Kabumpo: jen, would you like to stay here or head back for a summary?

Jen Doolittle: I don't have a preference, actually.

Doc Flimflam: I'd like to take a look inside the bigtop, ok?

Jen Doolittle: we could go into the tent to be more formal.

Jen Doolittle: There are places to sit there.

Jeremy Kabumpo: yeah, big top is perfect!

Sorsa Psaltery: great- into the big top

Jen Doolittle: You can check out the trampoline.

Danielle Damone: no

Doc Flimflam: by all means

Jen Doolittle: Mind if I take a snapshot?

Jen Doolittle: yay! group photo!

Doc Flimflam: Did you make the chalkboard, that seems like a useful object

Jen Doolittle: I did, but not the script.

Jen Doolittle: It's just a notecard vending script.

Jen Doolittle: But I just add to the note each time I make a change.

Doc Flimflam: Ok, I'm new to this, but that makes sense

Jen Doolittle: It is a good way for me to communicate with students.

Doc Flimflam: Where did you find the script?

Jeremy Kabumpo: Some people gotta scattle now, so I wanna give a quick thanks to Jen

Jeremy Kabumpo: It's up to you Jen when you're done, of course, but I better be off. :-)

Jeremy Kabumpo: THANK YOU!

Sorsa Psaltery: yes, thanks for the tour!