Category Archives: CCTV

Mar 30 0 comments
CCTV, Community, Education, Second Life, Virtual Worlds

Learning a Second Language in Second Life

Teaching SL/RL
(Above: (top) Ms. Chianti Carmichael hangs out at an assessment station on SL English, while (bottom) Ms. Aubree Lawrence instructs an ESOL class for BA&CE, circa 2005)

Second Life is has incredible potential as a learning platform. I was excited to read on Forbes.com that an English language school in Germany has launched an island “Second Life English.” The island is dedicated to offering FREE (yes, you read that right, FREE) resources for learning English, including virtual ESOL lessons. According to the article, Educator (and island owner) Kip Boahn “feels a new medium calls for a new way of teaching language. Even using the game’s English interface gives students a chance to practice what they’ve learned.” I couldn’t agree more! I enjoy his approach:

During workshops, he uses a team of teachers to present students with different linguistic tasks, which could include anything from asking for directions to bargaining to buy a knickknack. To do those tasks, Boahn and his colleagues use “holodecks,” rooms that can flip through as many as 40 different scenes at the mere click of a mouse. Want to practice ordering American fast food? Just switch the holodeck to Dara’s Diner and line up at the counter.

This sort of flexibility means that, as a teacher, you can cover a lot of ground teaching culture, in addition to language, by creating situational enactments that are difficult to do in a classroom. I used to teach ESOL at the Brookline Adult and Community Education Center in classrooms at Brookline High School. I laugh to think of the many ways we rearranged the classroom to mimic check-out lines, banks, cafes, and even a car dealership! I can’t help but think of how much more efficient it would be to change one setting to the next with a simple click. On the other hand, there is a lot to be said for group exercises in imagination, not to mention the language exercised just coordinating the effort! It is truly an interesting example of the sort of gain/compromise tensions that arise when you move real life activities into virtual settings.

Examples like Boahn’s are important as more and more people begin to investigate the potential for education options in Second Life and other virtual worlds. It helps to remind people of the kind of good that can come from a free platform like Second Life, and gets us all thinking about the ramifications of adopting virtual education models. It is certainly useful on the broader scale to consider what SL teaching opportunities might exist for CCTV, and the Cambridge community at-large!

Mar 05 2 comments
CCTV, Second Life

Window Shopping is work!

Chianti Carmichael Power Price Shopper

This week I’ve started assembling a budget for the CCTV in Second Life project. This, of course, meant one of my favorite Second Life activities – shopping!

In Second Life, all of the content is user-created. One cannot help but be impressed with the creativity displayed in the objects for sale. The picture was taken in the Kunst Furniture Store, just one of many places to buy office furniture. There are so many choices in just this one store!

It’s fun to think that there is an “interior design” aspect to the CCTVSL presence. We’re trying to think in terms of “looking back, looking forward,” so a modern look seems to be appropriate. I’m thinking of designing and building the front conference room first. It will be nice to have a space in Second Life where we can meet virtually, when appropriate. Remember the Jetsons? Everything was modern, but the concept of “home” (dinner tables, bedrooms) was still the same. It’s the same philosophy here. CCTV has a certain character that I want to capture, in an updated way. Our signature neon sign is just the kind of thing that needs to be in SL… but I think we’ll go for a slightly more stylish table and chairs. ;)

Putting together a budget is tougher than one might think. There is such a wide variety of options, and seemingly endless range of prices. There are free tables, that are quite a bit less elegant… the fancy one in the foreground of the picture is a whopping $L640! Oh… I should note that that amount is in “Linden Dollars,” Second Life’s currency… That’s about $2.72 in real dollars. But still, why spend $2.72 when there are other options? So, I’ll do some bargain hunting. In the meantime I need an “asset list,” a list of what will be needed to furnish the SL space, and then start plugging in numbers. Excel is my friend, just like Second Life!

Feb 18 3 comments
CCTV, Community, Second Life, Virtual Worlds

CCTV to ‘virtually’ break new ground

As part of its 20th Anniversary celebrations, Cambridge Community Television (CCTV) will be launching it’s presence in Second Life (SL), an online virtual world. The project is an effort to reflect on CCTV’s remarkable history using a medium that will speak to CCTV’s determination to remain a cutting edge leader in cable access programming.

To help get us started, we’ll be looking at other non-profit communities as potential partners who can offer us their experience getting organized in SL, as well as Cambridge community partners who would benefit long term from a SL presence.

Among our immediate development ideas are creating an SL museum to host archives of stills and motion medium from CCTV’s past 20 years. We are also seeking to understand ways to make this an educational venture AND venue, and as such are looking to set up appropriate classroom space in SL. Finally, because we want non-local (in real life) visitors to be able to appreciate the scope of our current work, we would like to create a viewing area where people can come to learn about our community as it is represented in CCTV’s programming. We hope to make this not just a viewing space, but a space for dialog, and are considering ways to foster feedback and asynchronous conversation in the same space as the viewing room.

Finally, as part of CCTV’s overall mission, we intend to make this not just a local experience, but an opportunity to compile and share our knowledge with other cable access stations considering making such an excursion. Although I’m not sure what the format will be precisely, the final product will offer resources, recommendations, and a retelling of the obstacles (and triumphs!) the SL project encounters.
Since I am technically an intern as well as a member, I will also be considering this from an academic perspective, asking “What does ‘local access’ mean in a virtual world?” It’s a question that ties in with Colin Rhinesmith’s Master’s Thesis. Both will have increasing relevance as we move into a world more mediated than at any point in history!

Feb 01 3 comments
CCTV, Second Life

CCTV Internship goals

I chose this internship at Cambridge Community Television because of CCTV’s long-standing commitment to community, education, and being on the cutting edge of exploring ways technology can help empower communities to find expression through media tools.

My learning goals for this internship include:

    Building and planning skills in Second Life
    How to present Second Life in a way that helps others understand its potential.
    Approaches to explaining SL to audiences who are unfamiliar with the platform and/or it’s potential.
    Curriculum writing skills by closely documenting the process so others have a roadmap for launching their own presence in SL

Technology becomes more pervasive by the day. It is here, is staying, and we have an opportunity – actually, a responsibility – to make sure that the technology is developed with not just commercial goals, but civic and educational goals as well. I hope to continue to lead projects that explore ways technology can be used to enhance our lives. This internship will give me my first experience of developing and implementing an entire SL project molded by educational and civic goals.

Success of the internship:
A built out presence of CCTV in SL. A handbook detailing the methodology (and outcomes of the methodology) used.
Lessons are critical – both successes and failures, therefore there will also be a blog that tracking the project
A roadmap or manual of sorts that can act as a resource guide (hopefully an inspiration guide too) for others who are considering pursuing this idea.

My academic goals. I will be working on my Master’s thesis at the same time as this project. My thesis is going to be exploring ideas of embodiment in SL. Every exercise in theory is valuable, and asking the question “what is the role of local access in a virtual world” will be an exercise in posing and answering challenging questions that balance theory with real world practical outcomes.