When I’m stressed out I find it relaxing to put my spices in alphabetical order. Knowing this you may understand why I am rather captivated by GuideVue, the technology introduced recently in my Emerging Tech class. It has flow charts! And multiple A-V stuff. And it’s easier to use than it appears - so it makes me look smart. Girl geek heaven.
GuideVue is a mobile teaching application that allows users to access step-by-step instructions from experts. Any combination of text, still photos, slides with charts or diagrams, spoken narration, sounds or video can be used to support teaching based on a structured workflow skeleton.
I had a class assignment to author a GuideVue. I asked my husband for a suggestion for a topic. Bob is an avid do-it-yourself enthusiast. He is convinced dry wall finishing is a skill everyone needs. Before I knew it we were drawn into a multi-night family project on dry walling. It did turn out to be time consuming. To draft and revise a flow chart for even a simple project like taping a dry wall seam took the better part of two evenings. The script was partly a product of the flow chart and took about an additional hour. Gathering the materials and shooting the still photos while finishing two dry wall seams was another full evening. There was another hour involved for the shots of sanding the dry work the next day.
I spent an afternoon editing the still photos. (But I tend to get carried away photoediting so many folks would save time there.) This was the first time I had used the GuideVue authoring program. It’s pretty clear with a simple, uncluttered interface. The help section appears to be a work-in-progress so there was a bit of trial and error involved. A GuideVue on authoring GuideVues would be helpful. I set aside a whole Saturday to build the skeleton, add the photos and add the sound. It actually spilled over to a second day. I used Audacity to generate MP3's of the narration and bring them over to the author. It turned out to be a labor-intense but enjoyable family project.
I was particularly impressed by the ability to separate out the audio giving the possibility of making multiple versions with different soundtracks. The potential to customize the narration by gender, accent or jargon is powerful enhancement to social learning. The model could “sound so much like me.” I wanted to potentiate dual coding. Also I wanted to consider the needs of the hard of hearing and those with limited English. So I treated the text like captioning and matched the narration to the text. I could easily make another version following Bob’s suggestion to use the spoken narration to provide helpful hints and more advanced material.
Another advantage I found was the use of short segments. Producing good-quality long videos is not an easy task. However, many people can manage quite acceptable short segments. With GuideVue an author doesn’t need advanced filming, recording or editing skills.
GuideVue is still in development with a few glitches yet to be worked out. I think it has tremendous potential for community educators - religious and cultural school teachers, craft instructors, sports and recreation teachers. Just think of having an effective way to share a skill - donning kimono, braiding challah, tying a bowline knot - with a student miles away. GuideVue is grounded in educational theory. Creating the flow chart for the skeleton forces the organization that is a challenge for many community educators. The possibility of customizing for local needs is especially appealing. Preparing a GuideVue is somewhat time-consuming. I think many dedicated community educators will see this as a labor of love and well worth the effort. GuideVue authoring and viewing are already fairly easy to use. When the last bugs are cleaned up and the help section is completed, this will be a very useful tool for community educators.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Week 7
As part of this week’s lesson I built a park bench, was entertained by a hoochie-coochie dancer and was blown up by a sandbox bully - all without leaving the comfort of my favorite chair. Initially, I had some reservations about taking part in Second Life. At best, I knew it as the butt of jokes. At worst, I associated it with the seamier side of the internet. After being assured by the only person I know who would admit to using Linden Labs’ virtual world that it was “creepy but harmless,” I decided to give it a try. A quick search of the internet showed that Linden is making an effort to mainstream Second Life and a number of institutions are using Second Life for teaching and research. I was actually very enthusiastic about the possibility of trying three locations - a mining museum; a tensile tester simulation and computer hardware activity; and a recreation of crucial moments in the civil rights movement. I had heard that some of my old student hangouts in the real world were still popular with international students trying to practice English. I was looking forward to revisiting them in the virtual world.
But my enthusiasm was soon beaten down. I found Second Life to be the most frustrating application I’ve ever tried to use. I had no trouble downloading the viewer to my PC but had persistent error messages when I try to open the viewer. I borrowed a Macbook Pro and successfully downloaded the viewer and opened Second Life. The tutorial in the welcome area was sufficient to get me started walking, running, flying and chatting. But I found the play lumbering. Even on the Mac, the graphics are slow to redraw and the play is slow to the helm. The keyboard locks up frequently. Not only does the game crash frequently but it takes time to completely shut down leaving the computer unusable for up to ten minutes. I found the search feature almost useless. “Teleport” is unreliable, reporting that my desired location was unavailable about one time in four. A simple change of outfits from the existing inventory was easily accomplished. A half hours’ work enabled me to make some changes in my avatar but I estimate it would take many hours to craft an avatar I would be happy to represent me.
Beyond the technical issues, I was disappointed with the interaction. I spent most of the time wondering empty streets. I found that if a scene has too many residents, the computer usually slowed to unplayable speed. It was rare to find a location with just the two to five residents that made interaction possible. From wiki.secondlife and videos on YouTube I got useful advice on navigating and on creating objects. I found my way back to the Genome Island. I attended a music event with disappointing sound quality. I managed to locate and enter two of the locations that had originally interested me - a museum and an outdoor mall with café, shops and an art gallery. In only one did I interact with another resident. I did come away with several nice t-shirts, a miner’s helmet and a cup of coffee. I found a public sandbox and was making good progress on building a bench. Next thing I know my bench was blown up and I was being tossed about. And then there is the matter of the dancer...
An article retrieved from this January’s scincemag.org described NSF grant evaluation panels meeting in Second Life. The article states “Not everyone liked it ‘But the work got done.’” What made this experience successful? This short piece did not provide answers but it does suggest some direction for questions I might like to pursue. I would think that this panel had access to the most advanced graphics processing and internet connections. Would this improved technology make SL less aggravating by improving the speed of play and reducing the number of crashes? Would the fact that the panel would likely proceed directly to the meeting location alleviate the frustration associated with searching for and transporting to locations? By directly entering the controlled meeting island, the panel would avoid griefers and touts for mature islands. The participants were able purchase “a decent set of virtual clothes.” It would seem that this would be less taxing than trying to learn to customize an avatar while learning all the other aspects of the simulation. I think this would make the process of identifying with one’s avatar and benefitting from the advantages of presence move along quicker.
It appears to me that Second life elicits mixed reviews. I believe that in order to capitalize on its strengths, professional users must address its shortcomings, both real and perceived.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOFU9oUF2HA&feature=related
Educational Uses of Second Life
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6jrxxpmzEY
RIT island video
http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/01/19/students-recreate-the-civil-rights-movement-in-second-life/
civil rights recreation review
But my enthusiasm was soon beaten down. I found Second Life to be the most frustrating application I’ve ever tried to use. I had no trouble downloading the viewer to my PC but had persistent error messages when I try to open the viewer. I borrowed a Macbook Pro and successfully downloaded the viewer and opened Second Life. The tutorial in the welcome area was sufficient to get me started walking, running, flying and chatting. But I found the play lumbering. Even on the Mac, the graphics are slow to redraw and the play is slow to the helm. The keyboard locks up frequently. Not only does the game crash frequently but it takes time to completely shut down leaving the computer unusable for up to ten minutes. I found the search feature almost useless. “Teleport” is unreliable, reporting that my desired location was unavailable about one time in four. A simple change of outfits from the existing inventory was easily accomplished. A half hours’ work enabled me to make some changes in my avatar but I estimate it would take many hours to craft an avatar I would be happy to represent me.
Beyond the technical issues, I was disappointed with the interaction. I spent most of the time wondering empty streets. I found that if a scene has too many residents, the computer usually slowed to unplayable speed. It was rare to find a location with just the two to five residents that made interaction possible. From wiki.secondlife and videos on YouTube I got useful advice on navigating and on creating objects. I found my way back to the Genome Island. I attended a music event with disappointing sound quality. I managed to locate and enter two of the locations that had originally interested me - a museum and an outdoor mall with café, shops and an art gallery. In only one did I interact with another resident. I did come away with several nice t-shirts, a miner’s helmet and a cup of coffee. I found a public sandbox and was making good progress on building a bench. Next thing I know my bench was blown up and I was being tossed about. And then there is the matter of the dancer...
An article retrieved from this January’s scincemag.org described NSF grant evaluation panels meeting in Second Life. The article states “Not everyone liked it ‘But the work got done.’” What made this experience successful? This short piece did not provide answers but it does suggest some direction for questions I might like to pursue. I would think that this panel had access to the most advanced graphics processing and internet connections. Would this improved technology make SL less aggravating by improving the speed of play and reducing the number of crashes? Would the fact that the panel would likely proceed directly to the meeting location alleviate the frustration associated with searching for and transporting to locations? By directly entering the controlled meeting island, the panel would avoid griefers and touts for mature islands. The participants were able purchase “a decent set of virtual clothes.” It would seem that this would be less taxing than trying to learn to customize an avatar while learning all the other aspects of the simulation. I think this would make the process of identifying with one’s avatar and benefitting from the advantages of presence move along quicker.
It appears to me that Second life elicits mixed reviews. I believe that in order to capitalize on its strengths, professional users must address its shortcomings, both real and perceived.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOFU9oUF2HA&feature=related
Educational Uses of Second Life
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6jrxxpmzEY
RIT island video
http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/01/19/students-recreate-the-civil-rights-movement-in-second-life/
civil rights recreation review
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