Benefits and challenges of online learning in a virtual world: the UPOU setting Al Francis D. Librero Assistant Professor Faculty of Information and Communication Studies University of the Philippines Open University http://www.upou.edu.ph http://www.allibrero.com alfrancis.librero@upou.edu.ph

University of the Philippines Open University

• Virtual campus in the University of the Philippines system typically with 2,000-3,000 enrolled students in a given semester.

• All courses are deployed online via Learning Management System (Moodle).

• Caters to students scattered across and beyond the Philippines .

Multimedia Studies 173: Photography in Multimedia

• Photography course taught in online/blended mode within a 12-week trimestral schedule.

• Covers photographic composition, exposure, editing and publishing

• Use of Second Life incorporated as an optional activity (bonus work)

Why a Virtual World? • Take the camera out of the equation, at least at

the beginning • Picque interest of gamers not into photography • Possible alternate learning tool for students with

disabilities

Why Second Life? • Free to play • Within a middle ground, but with a high degree

of scalability in terms of system requirements • Several virtual locations to visit • Allows for nearly unrestricted camera movement

and screenshots

Second Life

The Activity

The Activity

The Good • It is useful.

• “You're right about how it teaches a person to focus on composition. Its a great training tool.”

• “Even though some shots in SL would be impossible in real life, it still brought a venue for me to experience the freedom and the fun to wander around and take photos.”

• “Second life experience is something I wanted to share among my peers at work. It's like a game and at the same time a learning ground for photography. ”

• “I attempted to do this activity and I can say that this is really a good tool develop our "eye" for visual composition.”

Second Life : Virtual Photography Exercise

Second Life : Virtual Photography Exercise

The Good •Grade booster

•Non-participants = 2.11 •Participants

• Counting extra credit = 1.78 • Not counting extra credit = 2.03

The Bad: Learning Curve • I downloaded it early on but am still

trying to figure out how it works. It’s not as intuitive as I imagined it to be…

• I struggled with the controls. They weren't as accurate as I wanted them to be.

The Bad: Inadequate hardware and bandwidth • It takes a lot of time loading a scene. I

really wanted to take photos of players in the game but I can't since it takes almost 15 minutes for it to load completely.

• I did give up after a couple of tries as I wasn’t able to see all the objects render.

Wala sa pana yan. Nasa Indyan yan.

Wala sa pana yan. Nasa Indyan yan.

The Bad: Stability and performance • I noticed SL viewer crashes from

disconnections that appear to be coming from the SL server itself. I'm not sure if is because the server automatically severs connection that are slow or problematic, it just doesn't seem to have a persistent connection at all.

The Bad: Cybersickness

• Unfortunately for me I really couldn't handle the motion sickness only after a few minutes of walking or floating around and I would be sick to my stomach for hours.

• I got dizzy and my blood pressure went up when I first played the game prompting me to stop for a while.

The Verdict • Performing the activity = Higher grades

• There is evidence, but may just be circumstantial.

• Requires further study to say definitively • Clear value of the activity, based on student

feedback • Issues must be properly addressed before the

activity can transition into a course requirement.

Thank you! Feel free to contact me: alfrancis.librero@upou.edu.ph http://www.allibrero.com http://www.facebook.com/al.librero http://ph.linkedin.com/pub/al-librero/3/922/8a/