Preserving virtual worlds educational events using social media v2
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This document discusses preserving educational experiences from virtual world courses. It describes courses run at San Jose State University in virtual worlds like Second Life reflecting historical time periods. Large amounts of student data are generated across social networks but are at risk without preservation. Options discussed include using the school blog and YouTube to archive videos. Amazon Glacier and Google Cloud storage are affordable archiving solutions that could help systematically preserve the scattered student works and documentation.
Preserving virtual worlds educational events using social media v2
- 1. Preserving Virtual Worlds Educational Events using Social Media Networks and Cloud Storage Services Patricia C. Franks & A. Marie Vans San José State University San José, CA, U.S.A.
- 2. Agenda 1. What are Virtual Worlds? 2. Why Preserve Virtual World Experiences? 3. How do others preserve them? 4. iSchool Virtual World Courses 5. Student Expectations 6. Student Generated Data 7. Using Social Media Networks 8. Archiving & Documenting Virtual Worlds Experiences 9. Conclusions
- 3. What is a Virtual World? • A virtual world is “an interactive simulated environment accessed by multiple users through an online interface.” • Six essential features are prescribed: – shared space (multiple users), – a graphical user interface, immediacy (“interaction takes place in real time”) – interactivity (“the world allows users to alter, develop, build, or submit customized content”) – persistence (“the world's existence continues regardless of whether individual users are logged in”) – socialization, or a sense of community. --- Virtual Worlds Review
- 4. Why Preserve Virtual World Experiences? At the San José State University, School of information, several 16-week, graduate-level courses have been run entirely in virtual worlds. These worlds are created to reflect a specific historical time period. A large amount of data is generated that should be preserved for reuse in future distance courses. Artifacts connect past educational experience with future design of educational material for distance education in Virtual Worlds.
- 5. Why Preserve Virtual World Experiences? • Historical time periods change when new course starts. • Older worlds are “history”: they disappear once a new world is created in the same space. • These worlds are used as classrooms – They have a history of their own in terms of events and activities that occur within them. – Some record should be preserved to help creators & instructors learn to develop their own courses from prior experiences. “Virtual Worlds are History,” (Henry Lowood, 2011)
- 6. How do others preserve VWs? • Virtual worlds are frequently compared to games – Use preservation practices when preserving virtual worlds • Archival Information Packages (OAIS) • Preserving game objects for well-defined games with expected interaction between players – Major drawback: investment in time and cost • Ideas from digital curation of 3D CAD models – Challenges similar to those for virtual world objects • We need to document experiences AND in-world objects
- 7. Virtual World Courses • “Living in Tudor Times: Traveling through Time and Space” • Second Life (secondlife.com), fall 2013 for 16 weeks • First time such a course was offered at San José State University, School of Information • The goal was to teach using: • Principles of Instructional Design using Discovery Learning • Constructivism • Social Development Theory • Communities of Practice • Utilizing a virtual world distance-learning platform. • Realized through series of in-world projects, events, presentations, and the use of social networking sites for student assignments.
- 8. Virtual World Student Expectations • Students are required to: • Assume a character from the Tudor Time Period • Create a living space in accordance with their societal station • Provide tours of their homes • Attend in-world lectures • Present on various aspects of life • Attend special events where required to appear “in character” • Attend field trips to similar sites within Second Life Tudor Times
- 9. Virtual World Student Expectations • Complete a machinima • Document information about character • Provide tour of home and a discussion of important aspects of culture. • Create an in-world exhibit based on in- depth research into aspect of life during the time period. • Present research during a Renaissance Faire event. • Submit papers and discussion assignments using Ning (ning.com) or Spruz (spruz.com). Renaissance Italy
- 10. Student Data • Each student creates machinima & uploads to own social website. • Provides link in fulfillment of assignment • Student videos spread across the Internet • No control over preservation. • Links can disappear at any time • Social Media class sites disappear at end of semester • Cost too prohibitive to keep up • Images stored on student computer drives/accounts • Objects created in-world by students owned by students. Prerevolutionary France
- 11. Data Woes A vast amount of data, both textual and visual, was being generated and it was spread across the Internet. What is needed is an implementation plan for archiving this data for future use 6th Annual VCARA Conference
- 12. Social Media Archiving • Goal: to manage content in several different social networks and other data as cohesive package • Documentation & preservation scaffold: • a school- sponsored blog • centralized social media o YouTube o Google o Pinterest o WordPress o Twitter • Server storage space 6th Annual VCARA Conference
- 13. Using Social Networks - YouTube VCARA Videos: www.youtube.com/channel/UCe3kkz yWCmzLGBXulzn3mzg • No limit on number of videos • Size limit :128GB • Maximum duration: 11 hours • Ideal for public access to the videos • Allows others to learn how our course was delivered • Students can provide videos for upload • Drawback: • YouTube can change limits/disappear
- 14. Using Social Networks - WordPress & Pinterest VCARA Blog: WordPress (ischoolapps.sjsu.edu/blogs/wp/vcara/ • Documents upcoming and past events & acts as our Website • Space very limited – 10 MB • Old posts saved as HTML files and uploaded to storage server or Google Drive • Very few images due to space Pinterest Boards https://www.pinterest.com/mnemosynesemina/ • Boards contain images documenting events • Pinned from Google Drive • Limit on number of images uploaded • License grants them full use of your content
- 15. Using Social Networks - Google+ & Twitter G+ : M. Mnemosyne Seminario https://plus.google.com/u/0/105118653646237279676/posts • Newest addition (added in March) • Tied to Gmail • Advertising for events, blog postings, new Pinterest boards, YouTube videos. • No formal documentation/archiving process at this time Twitter: @Mnemosyne_SL • Used to announce events, blog postings, new Pinterest boards, YouTube Videos • No formal documentation/archiving process at this time
- 16. Archiving VW Educational Data Current Situation: • Some data frequently backed up to space available on school’s servers • YouTube videos • VCARA Conference Keynote & Student presentation materials • Slides & audio from 2010 - 2015 • Some images • Saved blog pages in HTML • Maximum allowed space limit has been reached • Starting to utilize Google Drive for much of the data
- 17. Archiving VW Educational Data Archiving Options - Amazon Glacier Services (AWS) • Cost of Service: $0.01 per gigabyte of data stored per month. • Terabyte : ~ $10.00 per month. • Exact cost depends on number of times the data is accessed (uploaded or downloaded) and the number of bytes. • Cost effective for us: • Will upload data a few times per year, accessed infrequently • Data transferred using SSL • Automatically encrypts data for security • Data redundantly backed up on more than one system • Drawbacks: • Archival standards /procedures have to be developed locally • Retrieval time: can be as long as several hours
- 18. Archiving VW Educational Data Archiving Options - Preservica • Archiving system supports OAIS-compliant workflows • Can run on top of Amazon Glacier Services • Addresses issues inherent in archiving digital assets • Migration of obsolete media and file formats • User-friendly data management • Automated data ingestion • Customizable interface for use by internal and external users • Most cost effective product: $3,950.00 per year for 100 gigabyte • 250 gigabytes: $6,950 • Not as cost effective for us • Most data is video: our videos from three semesters consume 332 gigabytes
- 19. Archiving VW Educational Data Archiving Options - Google Cloud Storage Nearline • Recently announced • Matches cost of Amazon Glacier Services • $0.01 per gigabyte of data storage per month • Nearline promises to respond within 3 seconds • AWS much slower by comparison • Redundant storage at multiple physical locations • Fully integrated with other Google Cloud Storage services • Designed for data not frequently accessed • Leaning towards this option for near term
- 20. Conclusions • Social media popular & easy to use • Now possible for instructors to conduct distant learning courses using technology students already know • Issue is course material & student-generated data spread across Internet and not very stable • It becomes feasible to use social networking systems for learning and they contain data for archiving • Price of cloud storage services is economical and removes the need to maintain computer equipment and manage updates • Procedure for periodically archiving data is straightforward and could be automated using web automation software.
- 21. Thank you for your Kind Attention Patricia C. Franks patricia.franks@sjsu.edu Marie Vans marie.vans@hp.com VCARA Blog URL: http://ischoolapps.sjsu.edu/blogs/wp/vcara/
Editor's Notes
- #3: Note 1: #2 Virtual World is singular and “them” is plural. Maybe What are Virtual Worlds and how do others preserve them? Note 2: I wonder if we should explain what is a virtual world first – then why preserve them – then how others preserve them?
- #4: Note #1: Changed “an” to “is” in the first bullet “A virtual world is “an …” Note #2: Formatted a bit. The smallest is still 20, so it should be visible without any problem.
- #5: Note #1 – see comment. We are the “School of Information.” True iSchools would question our use of this term. Note #2 – I made the content font 20 in order to put a space between the statements. We could also use bullets instead but this looks good I think.
- #6: Note #1: Both 2 and 3 seemed to be saying the same thing. I removed the 2nd bullet. Note #2: Just reformatted a little.
- #7: Note #1 – changed first and second items under first bullet to make more space and require less reading.
- #8: Note #1 – see added word “using” by comment. Note #2 – Principles and not Principals.
- #9: Note #1: Added words “time period” after Assume a character from the … Note #2: Got rid of period after bullet stating “Provide tours of their homes”
- #10: Changed in a Renaissance Faire event to “During”
- #12: Note #1: Added comma after textual and visual,
- #13: Note #1 – first bullet, I added “content in” before several different social networks but not sure that makes sense. Note #2 – changed font size to 24 for last item “Server storage space” and got rid of period since not used elsewhere on this slide.
- #14: Note #1: Added “learn” to 3rd bullet. Word was missing. Removed period since not used elsewhere.
- #16: Note #1: Added blank line after G+ link since there was one after @MS below that.
- #17: Note #1: Made “current situation” bold to match other slices Note #2: Added word “to” to first bullet “backed up to space” – got rid of hyphen in backed up.
- #18: Moved Amazon Glacier Services to first line to make it less busy.
- #19: Note #1: Moved Preservica to first line to make less busy. Note #2: The 2nd bullet under Preservica – not really built on top I don’t think Is that the correct terminology? Can also use Amazon S3 or a combination of both.
- #21: Added “they” to third primary bullet list “and they contain…”
- #22: Do you want to add contact information here? Your name? Email address? Both of ours? Maybe SLURL for VCARA?