Communication Tools in SecondLife

Transcription

1 4/14/10 Communication Tools in SecondLife presented by: Alice Bedard-Voorhees (Colorado Mountain College), Cheryl Comstock (Colorado Community Colleges Online), and Rhonda Dove (Otero Junior College) From Colorado EduIsland in SecondLife Communication Tools in Second life After you have your avatar set up you will want to communicate with others near you and even at a distance. You don t have to have a mic/headset, but doing so can allow you to conduct more effective and efficient conversations Accessing communication tools the basic Communication tools are included as part of the buttons in the lower portion of the screen Communicate is one, and Local Chat is second. Communicate Button The Communicate button allows for local chat just as if you were chatting in most other programs. Provides a text dialog of what everyone in the local area is discussing through text. Select the Communicate button and the box will open, showing the dialog box and two tabs. 1

2 Using the Chat Dialog Box The local chat button is located at the bottom of the communication palette. Local Chat identifies communication between users in the area, apx., 300 meters from your avatar. This is also where you are updated on the coming and goings with friends and / or groups that you associate with regularly. To Chat you would start typing text in the gray Click here to chat field, click the Say button when you are done typing your conversation. Type in smaller bytes of text; type or speak in one-sentence segments at a time allowing users to keep up with the conversation. Contacts Tab When selecting the Contacts tab, you will see all the people that you have become friends or associate with in SL. From this area you can see the list of friends and also some other avatar visibility properties. IM/Call Feature IM - This will send the person you want to connect with a message on or offline. You can send short messages or IM s, which will be sent to them directly online, or stored in an and sent to them offline. The Call feature allows you to call (VoIP, like SKYPE) and have a private conversation with the chosen user. Select the users name and click IM/Call or any of the other buttons to do pretty much what they are named. 2

3 is also possible in SL. Your initial account set-up automates to your avatar, and from your avatar to anyone else you want to communicate with. Anytime you IM someone, if they are not online, your message will be sent to them later in an . Note Cards 1. To create a Note Card open Inventory 2. Locate Notecards Folder and Right click on the folder 3. Select Create new note 4. Copy and paste any information from your text document (e.g. Word.doc or.rtf) 5. Additionally, you can add landmarks to notecards for archiving special events such as educational tours 6. Highlight the current description of the note card (very generic with a time stamp) and type in the user name and date 7. Now click the Save button on the note card and then look for it in your inventory. Once found highlight the name field to make sure you can find it in the future. 8. Note: It is very important to Name and save the note card. If you have issues finding a notecard look in recent inventory tab to find the new note card. Tweet Huds Tweeting can be accomplished by downloading this inexpensive Tweet HUD, once your account is registered you can Tweet inworld to your account. This can also be cross-posted to your Blog, which we have done, so people can see the archive of tweets from an event held in SL. 3

4 Blog Huds Blog HUDs are is a 'heads-up' device for Second Life, which allows the owner to easily post an entry to bloghud.com in the form of a blog. Your avatar wears HUD device to present text in the communication box during a presentation. Preload text, so that related content can be sent out during the presentation. Many people will use this when presenting slides, so that there is a full archive of the presentation. This also facilitates those who may not have VoIP enabled or may have a special need to have this read to them later; in other words, this can be an ADA compliant tool. Cross Posting - If you use a Web Feed Aggregator which supports RSS [Really Simple Syndication], you can use the RSS links on the website to stay up to date with all your favorite bloghuders and Second Life locations automatically! Media Players Media players have matured dramatically since their first conception in SL, they are much more embellished now. Originally set up to rotate pictures or textures, they now stream media, audio and video, YouTube, radio and do much more. Because of the Internet capabilities, they can be set to open a specific web page and also launch an interactive page so you can enter information, such as registering your Twitter account. Calendars Google s calendar is accessible to be set up to post current and future events. Google docs will soon be available to work within SL 4

5 Presenters Alice Bedard-Voorhees, PhD, came to Second Life as MustangQuimby Messmerto explore it's potential as a Teaching and Learning Environment. She sees its capacity for bringing learners together with rich interactivity. She would never believed how immersive activity could add so much to the learning experience. She has trained and presented to faculty in the US, South Africa, the Unite Emirates, and Oman. This year she will host a celebration of National Poetry month in Second Life during the E-Learning Consortium of Colorado (ELCC) and the worldwide Technology Colleges and Community(TCC)Conferences. She currently serves as Director of Innovations for Teaching and Learning at Colorado Mountain College. Cheryl Comstock has served in instructional design and online program development with Colorado Community College System at CCCOnline (CCCO) since Now, as the director of Online Program Development, she is focused on using technology to close the gap between students and education. An active practitioner in Constructivist and Social- Behavioral theories, Comstock is using Virtual World technology as a medium for educational research at CCCO. She teaches online for CCCOnline and MSCD in Denver. Chery holds an MS, Technical Education from Boise State University and a BA in Technical Communication and Art from Metro State College of Denver (MSCD). Rhonda Dove s is Colorado EduIsand s land manager. Rhonda is an IT Technician/ Webmaster for Otero Junior College. She is a Microsoft Certified Professional and Cisco Certified Network Associate with experience in ASP.NET programming, LSL scripting, and Second Life Building. 5