Eco feet…
Each journey starts with a single step
So, when visualizing a learning opportunity, I like to see it as a series of “stations” or activities, a journey if you like through the course material that hopefully provides a structured and developmental approach to the unfamiliar, one step at a time.
trail of breadcrumbs
So, we are getting students to investigate their ecological impact on the planet. To do this, they explore an “ecological footprint” – so it seems natural they walk along a previously established path of green footprints.
I like the visual metaphor of the trail of breadcrumbs – it is a universal “follow me” beacon. Students proceed from the rally point to investigate, down a labyrinthal corridor to room 2.3.
I have set up a room for this activity, and had to decide how to lead students in a linear way through a developmental sequence without tying them down so strictly they cannot investigate in an order that also suits their own style. Fortunately I had a lesson plan (thanks Deb) and so sort of used that as the skeleton for the area.
So, just inside the door of the room, we take students through what amounts to a rationale of what we are going to do and why that is a valid thing to do. I want to believe that students will read this but hope that their teachers have also done some of the ground work prior to the in-world experience; seeing this cold would be hard work for younger punters I suspect.
I used a “power point” metaphor here, but presented each slide on a separate screen – an information walk of types – the red foot trail emphasizing the start here and walk to here – I think it is clear.
some formal reference material
We then dive out to some robust reference material – each of these screens spawns a webpage in the in-world browser – one is a reference site on ecological impact that contains a fair bit of reading and some snarly vocab – the other is our glossary from our Wiki (a work in progress) which I think will help de-goddldeygook the references. The aim here is to allow them to become informed about issues and measures – with real classroom intervention this has the potential be a rich experience.
now for some personal calculation
Punters now calculate their personal eco foot print – the site linked here is a neato flash learning object that delivers, via a series of point and click survey questions, the number of hectares their personal ecological footprint measures. They need this information, and it is nice and accessible, the language and visuals guide you in well thought out stages.
go green, care and share
On their journey, they have formed opinions and got ideas on what are ecologically sustainable practices, good green things to do … so we ask them to post a “top tip” to a database-managed collection and then explore other contributions.
Next we ask them to use a little value judgement, and place their own personal eco footprint somewhere on a coloured continua (low impact .. high impact) – this necessitates a world-skill, that of making positioning and describing a new object.
how to recipe
Rather than just presume punters would know how, I thought making the process explicit was a good idea – we have seen some random, clumsy and inexpert spawning of response objects so far, so a little world-skill building is a good idea.
rainbow graph
The visual metaphor of “cold” to “hot” I thought would resonate, and asking them to place it in a non-quantitative way should also get them thinking in comparative ways, at least that is the aim.
We have cybernauts in here next week, guess the proof of the design will be in the successful completion, and abundance quality discussion, idea sharing and (dare I hope) learning.
What do you think?
Sittin’ on the dock of the bay…
…now it occurred to me that people would want to sit around and discuss things in world. Whether it is at a table, bus stop, campfire circle or octopusses garden, in the shade.
This sort of thing is almost trivial in Secondlife so I assumed it would be equally common in Activeworlds. Oddly, in searching, I found nearly NO information about making seats – this perplexed me as I assumed it was something people would routinely want to do with their avatars – in meetings, say…
Sitting animations, gender assorted
…so I got me thinking – a “mover”object lets a character attach themselves to it – now this is usually used for vehicles and so on, and often the avatar is hidden whilst on a mover as all the documentation suggests making posture sequences for avatars so they look like they are sitting “in” the vehicle were more trouble than they were worth (again, not a good sign, nor very encouraging).
The trouble with movers, is, well … they move – lol. Yes, I know that sounds obvious, but the last thing you want a chair to do when you are sitting in it is to let you then steer it around the room like some feral “baby walker”.
Hidden away in the sequence files for avatars were sequences with esoteric names like “qsitmale” and “qsitfem2” [only 4 from hundreds of preloaded sequences] – no wonder I missed them. A mover can be “disabled” making it stationary, you can tell the mover to grab the avatar and place them in a particular place, orientation and displacement to the centre of the object you have chose as the mover when the person clicks on the seat object – all very neat and just a little bit fiddly to work out what directions were which initially – sometimes it is absolute world coordinates, other times relative the the object, other times relative to the avatar’s aspect, sometimes relative to the direction the person’s camera is currently pointing … grrrr.
There are literally hundreds of sequences for all sorts of gestures and actions, from nodding, to performing the “macarena” but oddly nearly NONE for sitting. I think I can see why – avatars have jointed bodies, the distances from ankle to knee, knee to hip all vary avatar to avatar. Having an avatar sitting convincingly, depends on their body geometry. What looks good as a sitting position for a short character, has a tall avatar floating oddly above the seat, or visa-versa one that looks good for a tall avatar has a short avatar sunk oddly into their seat.
Some tweaking and I have some acceptable sitting attitude parameters that I can now apply to chairs, stools, bean bags, hollow logs and campfire circle stones which is ok if the seat is elevated off the ground a little. I have yet to find anything that looks remotely like sitting with cross legs (on a picnic blanket, say), but that is for another search [unless any of my devoted readers have a solution they would be prepared to share … is there anyone actually reading this?].
Progress is progress I guess.
Mover parameters expanded
