Proceedings of the SLACTIONS 2010 International Conference Life, imagination, and work using metaverse platforms

Design Education Towards the Second Life Platform

Newman Lau
Motion and Interactivity Lab, Multimedia Innovation Centre, School of Design, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong. Email: newman.lau@polyu.edu.hk

Mickey Zhang
Motion and Interactivity Lab, Multimedia Innovation Centre, School of Design, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong. Email: mar2005fall@hotmail.com a Learning Management Systems (LMS). LMS was a software application for administration, documentation, content management, tracking, reporting of training progress, e-learning programs, classroom and online events. A robust LMS should be able to centralize and automate administration, allow usage of self-service and self-guided services, assemble and deliver learning content rapidly, consolidate training initiatives on a scalable web-based platform, support portability and standards, personalize content and enable knowledge reuse. LMSs ranged from systems for managing training and educational records, to software for distributing courses over the Internet with features for online collaboration. The main function of it was to provide online services for sharing course materials and carrying out assessments, as well as offering basic interaction services like email, discussion broad and chat room, but they were commonly just used as document repositories. However, lack of multimedia and social content stopped the system from enhancing learning initiation, motivation and lack of situation in LMS also depressed educators who intended to integrate e-learning with situated learning. Multi-Virtual User Environment (MUVE) on the other hand had the advantages of easy to use, easy to access, systematic resources management and one paramount benefit of interaction. When many users logged into the environment, it activated the capability to communicate, interact and exchange information and this would go on by itself. In Dieterle Clarke's research at Harvard University, he said that they enabled users to access virtual contexts, interact with digital artifacts, use avatars to represent themselves, communicate with other avatars, and to participate in situations that replicate the situations from experiences in the real world. (Jody Clarke, Chris Dedeand Ed Dieterle Harvard Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, MA, USA.) What educators needed were to use the tools provided by MUVE developer and to design their courses or to create their teaching materials, but without much 87

Distinguished from traditional unilateral learning methods, e-learning was procedural in itself and aimed to construct knowledge with reference to individual experience, practice and background of learners. It comprised all forms of electronically supported learning and teaching which enabled information and communication systems to serve various types of media in order to complement a learning process. While outcomes of case studies and researches were often conducted in this area, holistic process in developing the student from the very beginning until having the higher level of understanding on design project via the online platform was seldomly carried out. This paper proposed and illustrated a teaching and learning process in a series of design classes held in Second Life (SL), one of the most influential virtual platform implemented worldwide.

Introduction
E-learning as a method of transferring skills and knowledge through computer and network became generally a must in tertiary education. Thanks to the advancement of technology, a class of students could communicate with other classes of students, without boundary of geographical limitation, sitting in a same virtual classroom simultaneously under the same educational domain. More and more academic institutions and departments proposed to develop central strategies for e-learning (OECD, 2005). On-line courses, seminars and conferences increased learning flexibility and offered more content to raise the motivation of students. E-learning covered wide range of disciplines and students could access it with great ease by means of individual account for conducting most types of learning activities online. E-learning was commonly adopted in postgraduate level education (OECD, 2005). Due to the investment on development and consistency of e-learning services in an institution, large portion of the services was provided by

Proceedings of the SLACTIONS 2010 International Conference Life, imagination, and work using metaverse platforms

concerns on system support, update and hosting. This greatly reduced the replication of development, building cost of new learning system and the time to create ecourses. The open-ended content creation and global community also attracted educators to choose MUVEs as new e-learning platform. In order to gain advantages from both traditional LMS and MUVEs, recent approaches tried to combine the both. Application includes Active Worlds, Croquet Project, Edusim, Active Worlds, Croquet Project, Neverwinter Nights, OpenSimulator, Project Wonderland, Quest Atlantis, Second Life, etc.

Target Group
The study in this paper focused on curriculum development in experimenting and analyzing the effects of learning towards design education in virtual environment for a specific group of students studying under a programme of high diploma in the Multimedia Design and Technology under the School of Design, Hong Kong Polytechnic University. The programme focused on core knowledge and practical skills in multimedia production. Students were expected to have creativity within design disciplines, develop awareness of multimedia technology practices and acquire techniques in identifying, analyzing and solving multimedia design problems. Particularly in the subject of Digital Media, students were required to acquire various computer skills in media representation, identify the implication of multimedia work in design and technical aspects, apply technical knowledge in criteriabased projects, and compose pieces of multimedia work by organizing and manipulating media elements.

Second Life
Second Life (SL) was a virtual world developed by Linden Lab that launched on 23 June 2003. It was accessible over the Internet. One of the most excellent features in the Second Life was that it enabled users, called Residents, to interact with each other through avatars. Residents could explore, meet other residents, socialize, participate in individual and group activities, create and trade virtual properties, or travel around the virtual world. Users could also buy virtual region (island) from Linden Lab and had full control of their islands. In Massively Multiplayer Online Gaming (MMOGaming), players accessed to virtual world by proprietary client that allowed interactions with virtual contents. In most cases, players were allowed to create and customize their own avatar, design their own appearance, launch businesses, collaborate and perform entertainment activities. Unlike thematic games, such as World of Warcraft, SL users were completely free to create their own objects, mount interactions to the environment, and establish rules on their own lands. The outstanding features of the Second Life had attracted various kinds of users from all parts of the world. While it was not limited only to general game players, but also extended to companies, businessmen and educators. More enchanting possibilities in the virtual world were still being discovered by those SL residents. For instance, IBM held a Virtual World Conference and Annual Meeting in the SL, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) used SL as a marketing channel to reach new audiences, and many global organizations like Walt Disney, Intel, World Bank had their own island or shop in the SL. On educational side, the New Media Consortium (NMC), a non-profit consortium of learning, launched one of the largest education projects in the SL to encourage the use of technologies in supporting teaching, learning, research and creative expressions, while over 150 institutions, including MIT, Harvard and Yale Princeton, built their virtual campus or held virtual class in the SL to promote their school and provided opportunity for distance learning (Linden Lab, 2003).

Approaches
In order to achieve the aim of facilitating education on top of the SL platform, structure on material preparation was divided into several level of complexity. This would benefit both the students and teachers in devoting their efforts under a smooth transition between traditional teaching and learning methodology and multi-user virtual environment. Their capabilities were structured into different stages: Control, Customization, Integration, Manipulation and Production. Each of which had their own learning objectives and marking criteria. Tasks offered at each stage were based on situated learning concept in SL session. They aimed to teach several artistic representation skills by making use of environment and resources provided by the HKPolyU Campus and elsewhere in a way of giving situations for their participation and practice. One hundred and thirty five students were divided into two groups. Within a two week period, each student needed to complete two out of the four tasks inside of the virtual campus of Hong Kong Polytechnic University developed and deployed. Each of the tasks was structured as a three hour session. Assignment results and student comments were collected for qualitative analysis. Later in the subsequence semester, there was another subject named Summer Project that allowed students to have in-depth production experience based on defined project scope under the SL platform.

Control
The objectives of the control stage required students to be familiar with SL interfaces by navigation and exploration in the world of SL. Handouts of guidance and brief instructions were prepared and provided for this phase of work. Since this was one of the very first tasks they performed under the environment of SL, the students were expected to get themselves familiar with the interfaces and 88

Proceedings of the SLACTIONS 2010 International Conference Life, imagination, and work using metaverse platforms

navigate around the space to explore different virtual elements. Tasks like, travelling inside SL, going across islands, and knowing how to use map and search for new and unknown islands, were introduced. Manipulation of avatar in order to move, fly or land was covered. Personalization and modification on the appearance of avatar was guided to develop a sense of belonging and immersion in SL. Using camera in third person view (behind and above your avatar), including zoom / focus view, and other combination of mouse and keyboard control allowed designated angles to be prepared, for taking snapshots and storing them. Purchasing, going shopping, buying or getting clothes, accessories, toys etc. were also be taught.

frame to setup the mood and atmosphere together with taking certain photographic angle to accomplish their theme. Particularly, students also made use of the environmental control function in creating the scene, which could extend the possibility of scenario design.

Customization
The learning objectives of the customization stage were to experiment costume design through built-in design elements and mix-n-match character outfit inside the virtual world. Figure 2: Students and Editing task work from Photography

Integration
The objectives of the integration stage were to acquire footages on topic, and then retouch and manipulate in other graphics software. Students were asked to design posters based on a selected SL gallery. They were expected to practice on post-editing skills in other multimedia software, such as Photoshop, Illustrator, etc. Then they needed to arrange the footages to create a design showcasing the selected gallery and art pieces inside. Students needed to possess the ability of post-editing skills, figure out the concept in arranging graphical elements and the set of skills of design presentation.

Figure 1: Students work from Outfit Design task Students were asked to design their avatars with a theme they came up. References for free items were provided to assist students in locating external resources in customizing their avatars. Finally, the students needed to setup a few camera angles to take snapshots on the avatars showcasing their outfit design. The expected outcomes of this task were to allow students to experiment the basic object interactions and to manipulate two dimensional media graphics in design. One of their outputs is shown in Figure 1. They demonstrated their ability in manipulating multimedia elements successfully under the virtual environment, of which the students had just learnt to use this interface for a very short period of time. Another task setup at this stage was about framing and photography. Students needed to try out the camera control inside virtual world, together with practices on post-editing skills in other multimedia software. Part of the results from this task was shown in Figure 2. From the results, students showed their techniques in constructing a 89

Figure 3: Students on SL Gallery task

work

from

Poster

Design

Proceedings of the SLACTIONS 2010 International Conference Life, imagination, and work using metaverse platforms

Manipulation
The learning objectives of the manipulation stage were to design and build students own components in SL and manipulate controls of virtual setup. The 3D character construction task was prepared to experiment monster or character design by using basic primitives in another way of manipulation in modeling control. By working on this task, the students were expected to apply their skills and knowledge in tackling design problems under a different three dimensional virtual space. The final design was assessed by creativity of the idea, manipulation in 3D and consistency of overall theme. Figure 4 showed one of the students works. Students also showed their creativity on setting basic color and texture to create and match their own combination of forms for designing their character models.

Figure 5: Design task

Students work from Visual Effects

Production
The learning objectives of this production stage were to design and produce project in multimedia and to experiment through production process from idea and research analysis to creative solution and execution. Students were expected to apply their multimedia knowledge and to make the final prototype based on one of the two defined topics: dream library design and virtual hospital design.

Figure 4: Students work from 3D Character Design task On the other hand, a virtual studio was prepared for this stage. Students were asked to design and create mood and atmosphere for shooting an object with desirable photographic framing. The studio was built to further enhance their skills and techniques in taking control of interactive objects. The final design was assessed by the use of visual effects in creating the mood and atmosphere together with the framing of snapshots. Figure 5 demonstrated the stage settings by students working in this task. It showed the skills student learnt in combining various visual effects, and integrating different lighting with character motion set for taking photo at desired angles.

Figure 5: Students work from Dream Library Design project

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Proceedings of the SLACTIONS 2010 International Conference Life, imagination, and work using metaverse platforms

Conclusions and Improvements

The original goal of the class was to teach students how to represent concepts and ideas through artistic skills and leverage virtual multimedia resources to assist their design. SL was a situation for their participation, exploration, experiment and practice. The case study proved that using virtual environment of SL on a group of students under multimedia discipline was an innovative, stimulating and effective idea. After observation, we found that virtual world provided advantages and special attractiveness to the group of students. Furthermore, interactive learning platform could help students to conduct multimedia experiment and exploration in obtaining experience of design manipulation. The assessment was not only a means of measuring the works of students, but it should also provide them a learning opportunity to make sure the focus of different stages could be achieved. Each stage was equally weighted with point scale which could be added up to reflect the performance according to the assessment criteria and marking schemes. Task outcomes and feedback showed that students made improvements.

Figure 6: Students Hospital Design project

work

from

Virtual

In conclusion, the works handed by students demonstrate satisfactory quality. Students showed their ability in learning the manipulation and control of objects and interaction under the virtual environment. Although the time was limited, they demonstrated the skills through their final design. Everything happened and finished just within a short period of time. At the same time, they showed positive attitude, enjoyable experience and active exploration in using SL as a learning environment.

Customization

Manipulation

Regarding the feedback, students showed great interests in the learning process under SL. They commonly enjoyed it and appreciated that the works they did could be showed around the world. SL was definitely a good environment for conducting design experiments and training technical skills on multimedia manipulation. As a learning platform, it was important to have features that motivated students to learn, to experience, to experiment, and to explore further. SL had some kinds of features that were comparable to the students gaming experience. This was definitely a plus for the student to get actively participated and motivated in this learning process by adapting to the new environment in a much quicker way. Some students expressed that I can go somewhere that really exists in reality and I can take photos with my friends. They commonly felt that the world of SL was attractive in turning them to explore some new places. While SL had its own disadvantages and limitations, some students felt that there were difficulties in searching for free stuff to dress up the avatars. Some also expressed that the user interface was too complicated and they often needed a long time to search for a certain function button. The most frustrating experience was the relatively slow response on SL, which was also pointed out by other studies like James & Mark (2007), Stenio et al. (2007) and Varvello et al. (2008) that SL produced much larger network traffic compared to other common Networked Virtual Environment (NVE), especially in area where there was high density of avatars and objects. 91

Articulate computer skills in media representation Manipulate the implication on multimedia work Apply technical knowledge in tasks Compose multimedia works by organizing and arranging media elements Conceptualize design ideas and provide visualizations Identify and analyze the needs and desires of project Formulate a set of creative solutions to address the requirements identified Execute a project professional manner in a

Control

Discussion and Analysis

The Assessment of Outcomes Based on Different Stages

Present design concepts and convince the audience

The result showed that multimedia students felt more confident in using the game-like environment on learning after the courses. Distraction from conducting the required task cannot be observed. In conclusion, SL could be said to be an effective and efficient learning system with respect to our target students in this case study. At this moment, we could only conclude the fact

Production

Integration

Proceedings of the SLACTIONS 2010 International Conference Life, imagination, and work using metaverse platforms

that teaching and learning under our designated stages is effective and efficient to students of design discipline. The study presented might further extend to draw a relationship between students from different disciplines and how favorable was learning in virtual environment like SL by performing more comparative case studies under the perspective of effectiveness and efficiency analysis. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The current research work is a part of a collaboration project across different departments as a whole supported by a grant from the e-Learning Development and Support Section under the university. The authors gratefully acknowledge all the research project team members for supporting the said teaching and learning activities in using SL as the platform. Acknowledgement should also be given to teaching staff and students of the subject Digital Media and Summer Project in participating the teaching and learning process. REFERENCES
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Johnson, H.M., & Johnson, M.M. (2006). Multidisciplinary experimental education in Second Life: A global approach. Proceedings of the Second Life Education Workshop at the Second Life Community Convention (pp. 30-34). UK: The University of Paisley. Kemp, J., & Livingstone, D. (2006). Putting a Second Life Metaverse skin on learning management systems. Proceedings of the Second Life Education Workshop at the Second Life Community Convention (pp. 13-18). UK: The University of Paisley. Laurillard, D. (1997). Learning formal representations through multimedia. In F. Marton, D. Hounsell & N. Entwistle (Eds), Experience of Learning (2nd Edition). Scottish Academic Press. Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated Learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. New York: Cambridge University Press. Linden Lab. (2003). Second Life. http://secondlife.com, http://www.secondlifegrid.net/casestudies (Accessed August, 2010) Organisation For Economic Co-Operation And Development (OECD). (2005). E-learning in tertiary education. Retrieved August, 2010 from http://www.oecd.org/. Rex, F. (1997). LambdaMOO: An introduction. http://www.lambdamoo.info (Accessed March, 2009) Steinkuehler, C.A. (2004). Learning in massively multiplayer online games. Paper presented at the International Conference of the Learning Sciences, Santa Monica, CA. Stenio, F., Carlos, K., Djamel, S., Josilene, M., & Rafael, A. (2007). Traffic analysis beyond this world: the case of Second Life. In Proc. of Nossdav, Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA. Varvello, M., Picconi, F., Diot, C., & Biersack, E. (2008). Is there life in Second Life?. Technical Report. Retrieved March, 2009 from Paris Research Lab (http://www.thlab.net/Publications%20&%20Reports/). Wah, C.G.S., & Gwee, J.Y.Y. (2008). The secret second life of education - a case study. Distance Learning and the Internet Conference (pp. 139-142). Wright, M. (2007). Virtual Worlds Project. http://otis.edu/life_otis/faculty_life/faculty_development/gran tee_reports/michaelwright_virtual_worlds.html (Accessed August, 2010)

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