"Only connect! . . .Live in fragments no longer.” E. M. Forster, Howards End (1910), ch. 22
‘One
day when I was twenty-three or twenty-four this sentence seemed to form
in my head, without my willing it, much as sentences form when we are
half-asleep, ‘Hammer your thoughts into unity’.
For days I could think of nothing else and for years I tested all I did
by that sentence [...]” William Butler Yeats (cited in Frank Tuohy, Yeats,
1976, p.51 )
Student Projects in Second Life
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PROJECTS
--------------------------------------------------------
SUBJECTS, TOPICS
This year we have an opportunity to be on the cutting edge of the new reading and writing. You will be working together to some extent, contributing part if not all of your projects to a joint project, rather like builders of the great monuments of the past: pyramids, temples, cathedrals, and centers of government. (Hence the extra relevance of one of our unifying symbols, the carpenter's hammer.) Unlike cathedral builders, however, each contributor will be named. You will have a chance for not only personal "immortality," therefore, but also that kind of awesome collective "immortality" embodied in the great monuments of the past.
We will be working with Michael Mayrath (Ed Psych grad student helping us -- mmayrath@mail.utexas.edu); Alex Games (Ed Psych., now at U of Wisconsin); Joe Sanchez (Information Studies grad student); and our Wizard: Kyung Huh (DIIA systems analyst). DIAA = Division of Instructional Innovation and Aassessment. Our Second Life experiment will be evaluated by Dr. Tomoko Traphagan (Ed. Psych. grad student); Avani Trivedi (Ed. Admin. grad student); Dr. Joel Heikes (DIIA Assessment); and Shan Evans (Assoc. Director DIIA).
On Oct. 3 your first project is due by 11 A.M. It is to be an argument for the style of building and campus master plan you feel is best suited for this campus. This project is to be presented in Second Life at least by the picture-link system used in my Waller Creek example.
In other words, you can use Word, if you like, to create the project, including pictures, and then save it as a web page project, and then upload that and all related picture files in their directory to your webspace. See directions for uploading to webspace in your anthology and these directions:
*Here are the relevant directions for what do after choosing "saving as a web page" in Word and looking at the files that resulted.
"The one you're looking for is "(filename).htm," so if your file is called "project1," the file you want is called "project1.htm." When this file is uploaded, you will have uploaded the written part of the project, but not the pictures.
When you saved the project in ".htm" format, Word also created a folder with the same name as your project to hold the multimedia files (read "pictures"). The default name of this folder is "(filename)_files"; (using the previous example it would be "project1_files").
1. Go to http://webspace.utexas.edu and log in to your personal page.
2. To make it easier, make a separate folder cjust for my project.
3. "Share" the folder that will contain your project (instructions in the course packet concerning uploading to webspace).
4. Now go into the new folder. Click the "Upload" button in the tool bar. Find the file (not the folder) that your project is saved under. This will most likely be in your "My Documents" folder in Windows. The one you're looking for is "(filename).htm," so if your file is called "project1," the file you want is called "project1.htm." When this file is uploaded, you will have uploaded the written part of the project, but not the pictures.
5. In the same directory as your "project1.htm" file in webspace, create a folder with the same name as the one that Word created for you. You have to do this usually because Internet Explorer will not let you upload the entire folder. To do this, click "New Directory" in the webspace toolbar and type in the exact name of the folder that word created. Make sure that all spaces and underscores are there, and all words are spelled correctly, because the name of this folder is going to be "sensitive."
6. After you have created a folder called "project1_files" (just an example), click on this folder to open it. NOW, you can upload all of the files that are in the folder Word created. Make sure to upload every file that is in your Word folder. In other words, click the "Upload" button in the toolbar, and then upload each individual file from the "project1_files" directory on your computer.
Now select your
webspace "project1.htm" and see if it comes up and looks the way you want
it in your browser. If it doesn't, make
sure all files related to the project have their permissions
set to "share" in Webspace.
Make
sure to check permission to "share" for each file
for both account users and the public. If you have trouble
with webspace select "Help" in the lower left. If
you still have trouble with webspace, uploading, Blackboard,
etc., either email, use chat, or go to the ITS
Help Desk in FAC 200-B.
Also you can email Michael: mmayrath@mail.utexas.edu
----------------------------------------------------
If it works, then you need to make sure they all work together properly by accessing them on a different computer and checking the results. If you use a PC check your webspace file on an internet-accessed Mac or vice versa. This is the only effective way to make sure your site is working properly.
If it is working, select all of the URL that appears in the browser at the top and copy it. That URL is the one you put the webloader script in the Contents of a picture-object in SL, of course. That is the minimum involvement in SL for the writing of the project.
10. To post projects, for others to see and comment on, go to Blackboard (courses.utexas.edu) and choose our course. Choose Discussion Board and then Project One . Then put in the directions for how to find your picture-object in SL.
If you cannot get your SL object to work properly, at least paste the webspace URL of your webspace project in proper HTML format so that the respondent need only click on or select your project title and the project pops up without the respondent being required to type in your whole URL into a separate window. In other words, type in actual HTML code like this:
<a href="http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~bump/E603B/index.html">Return to Course Page</a>
Of course, you will subtitute the correct webpace URL for "www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~bump/E603B/index.html" and your own project name for "Return to Course Page."
Then check "HTML" below the box before you select "Submit" and then send it.
-------------------------------------------
If, for whatever reason, you can not even get a webspace version to work, at least make sure you input the text of your project into the Project One Discussion Board for others to read and respond. Hopefully, you will also be able to put in your pictures. You insert the pictures into the text in the Blackboard input box where they belong as follows. Wherever a picture is to appear you put in the following HTML code. Example:
<img src="http://www.jahsonic.com/Gargoyle.gif">
You simply change this by putting the URL of your own picture between the quotation marks. [keep everything else the same including the quotation marks and the < and >] Your URL, of course, can refer to a file on your webspace account or in the Blackboard Content system: just call up your image on your browser and copy and paste the resulting URL into this code.
When you have done this with all your pictures, you are ready to submit the essay AFTER CHECKING "HTML" BELOW THE TEXT BOX TO THE RIGHT
-------------------------------------------
However, even if you do this, you will have to return to SL for the reading and critiquing of the projects of others, for you are to do so by writing Notes in SL and sending them to the creators of the Projects.
Later, after you gather together the Notes sent to you by others, you revise your project, put the revised version in SL in the same way, and print out a hard copy of the text and pictures to be handed in to me in class on Oct. 12.
When you get that back from me you will revise your project again, adding at least 350 new words; put the revision, P1B, in SL; and turn in the hard copy to me on Oct. 26.
(Then y'all will check out all the revised projects and get together on Oct. 31 in class to select five? Master Plan options, based on the P1B projects in SL. On Nov. 30 and Dec. 5 there will be team presentations of the competing master plans. On Dec. 7 y'all will vote for the Master Plan that best fits the collective vision of the class.)
---------------------------------------------------
GOALS: A PRIMARY GOAL IS TO BE A PIONEER IN THE NEW LITERACY, TO COMMUNICATE WITH A COMBINATION OF VERBAL AND VISUAL RHETORIC THAT TAPS THE POSSIBILITIES OF THE 3D, ANIMATED, INTERACTIVE WORLD THAT IS SECOND LIFE.
YOU CAN SEE THE GOAL IN THE GRADING CRITERIA FOR YOUR PROJECT:
GRADING
Holistic Grading
Visual-Verbal Rhetoric Grading Rubrics for Projects
A: Exceptional |
B: Good |
C: Minimally acceptable |
D/F: Unacceptable |
|
Visual Rhetoric 20% |
|
|
|
|
Verbal Rhetoric 50% |
|
|
|
|
Integration of Visual and Verbal Rhetoric 30% |
Visual and verbal components are completely blended and augment each other. Visual and verbal pieces are tightly unified and no additional pieces are necessary. Verbal and visual pieces are not redundant. |
Visual and verbal components are well blended. Visual and verbal pieces are unified but in some places more verbal or visual information is necessary, or verbal or visual information is redundant. |
Visual and verbal components are minimally blended. Some visual and verbal pieces are unified but in more than half the product, more verbal or visual information is necessary, or verbal or visual information is redundant. |
Visual and verbal components are not blended well. Visual and verbal pieces are not unified and in most of the product, more verbal or visual information is necessary, or verbal or visual information is redundant. |
It is possible to get an A on this assignment by simply using my Waller Creek picture-link model in SL and putting all your new literacy work into the website of your project. However, as in the case of the Road Maps, considerable extra credit can be earned by going beyond the minimum use of SL, tapping into its 3D, animated, interactive options.
We already have some examples of how to do this in our Road Maps in SL. In these cases we have to right-click the objects, go to Edit, and open up Contents.
Student3 started with a traditional print billboard but directed us to four apparently 3-D objects that had notes embedded in them. He forgot to click on each Note, however, and right click on Properties and set them up to Share with the rest of us. Now, presumably we will all do this in the future so that our Notes can be read by others.
Student17 started with a picture of herself with a fan over it which turned out to be an object with messages embedded in it. Her initial Note has been set to Share and thus we can all read it. Her primary messages, however, go beyond mere print Notes to combinations of pictures and words and thus are a good model for the rest of us.
Student 1 used the basic link model but very extensively. His creativity is most evident in his use of planks to connect his linked pictures. Whether intended or not, this suggested the game "walk the plank." If we try to do so, we fall off, showing how difficult it is to follow in his footsteps? We have no indication the planks were meant to fit his meanings in this way, but it would be an innovative use of SL to do so. In other words, perhaps someone could create an interactive game dimension for their project.
Other Road Maps suggest other innovations, but these examples are sufficient to suggest some possibilities.
Our other goals include
- Developing the ability of students to write about space, place, and personality.
- Increasing the students' knowledge of and connections to this campus and this town -- their own place, their second home, their alma mater.
- Developing the students' historical imaginations,
freeing them to explore other places, other times.
center of U. T. Second Life campus
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
