SLOODLE

Kickaha Wolfenhaut tells us about the next big thing.

The Open Life regions are witnessing a quiet revolution. After months of planning and technical jiggery-pokery by the computer boffins at Walton Hall, we finally took SLOODLE out of its box this morning. Over the coming weeks and months it will be tested with the help of an elite band of OU volunteers.

SLOODLE stands for Simulation Linked Object Oriented Learning Environment. No, I didn’t have a clue either, but let’s just say that while it might stand for Simulation Blah-de-blah-blah, what it actually means is this: Cool stuff in Second Life. SLOODLE is a set of tools and web based widgets that together enable us to do something hitherto impossible: Link the Second Life avatar you use around the OU islands to the “real” you – the one that logs onto http://www.open.ac.uk/ to submit TMAs and read course materials. For example, a quiz created by course staff on the website can be taken in Second Life and its results then fed straight back into your student record. And that’s just the beginning.

I foresee a time when virtual worlds will form a mainstream part of many Open University courses. I won’t rake over the case for virtual proximity, or start quoting from the massive amount of published research – chances are, if you are reading this, that I’d be preaching to the choir. Open Life has already hosted exploratory building tutorials for an engineering subject and unless you are a complete SL Muggle, it doesn’t take much effort to imagine an assignment in, say, an art & design course which is set, created and submitted within Second Life. SLOODLE’s Prim Drop tool makes the administrative side of such a proposition far easier and more scalable.
On the next page of this article you’ll find a list of the main SLOODLE tools and short descriptions, but I’d just like to give a special mention to one. Once you take rank paranoia and media hype out of the equation, the single biggest (and only really compelling) objection to the mainstreaming of virtual worlds in education is accessibility. Or rather, the lack of it. I’m not just talking about those with visual disabilities, for whom Second Life must seem at best a pain in the backside and at worst an unattainable Shangri-La, but also the technically impoverished – those for whom a high-specification computer and high-speed Internet connection are geographically impossible or just plain unaffordable. When defending Second Life and its peers in the face of jeering Luddites (did I say that?!!) the one statement which stops me in my tracks is this: “I can’t run Second Life.” There’s no objection in that. It’s just a bald fact. Enter WebIntercom, my favourite SLOODLE tool. WebIntercom allows those without Second Life to participate in live text chat with a group of in-world classmates. And what’s more, it’ll do it on a machine which would likely melt if its owner attempted to run Second Life. OK, so WebIntercom doesn’t allow non-SL users to build in-world. OK, so the interface looks like the north end of a southbound cow. But the biggest obstacle to mainstream SL has definitely begun to evaporate before our very eyes.

SLOODLE Website: http://www.sloodle.org/

YouTube videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/Sloodle

SLOODLE on Twitter: http://twitter.com/SLOODLE_News

SLOODLE on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2396239341&ref=search


Some other SLOODLE tools

SLOODLE Presenter* - Create media presentations mixing images, video and web-pages, without having to upload images into Second Life.

Sloodle WebIntercom - Synchronizes chat (live!) between a course chat and Second Life.

Sloodle Toolbar - Wearable toolbar/HUD for blogging, classroom gestures and more. A SLURL for the user’s position and a snapshot of the location may be automatically included with a blog entry. Note that at this time the OU’s preferred blog system is a non-standard one and is therefore not compatible with SLOODLE. We may be able to recode the SLOODLE side in the future.

Sloodle Quiz Chair - Fetches questions from the course Quiz module and gives students the quiz in-world.

Sloodle Pile On Quiz - A multi-user quiz to involve a whole class.

Sloodle Prim Drop - Accepts Second Life objects and logs transactions in a Web database. A great way for students to hand in assignments in-world!

Sloodle MetaGloss - Lets you access a course glossary in-world

Sloodle Choice - Lets students respond to a course Choice in-world

Sloodle Vending Machine - Allows web-controlled and in-world distribution of objects for courses, tutorials and other activities.

Sloodle Awards System - Enables points to be awarded to students in Second Life, and also connects with the course grade book.