1. The use of New Technologies in Education: some proposals on
designing an entrepreneurship course using Second Life®
University of Coimbra
Pedro Nunes' Institute
Paula Simões, J.R. De Carvalho, M.Z. Rela
IASK – Teaching and Learning 2008
http://flickr.com/photos/ferranrodenas/398064052/

2. Summary
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Changes and new students' profile;
●
Second Life examples;
●
Entrepreneurship in Second Life;
●
The entrepreneurship course;
●
The use of technology in each step of the course;
●
The actors
●
Conclusion

3. Children Keyboard
http://flickr.com/photos/spullara/501715356/

4. “Always on the phone”
“She's got a blinged out red phone with a camera, internet, and everything.
My own phone isn't even 10% as pimp as this. ”
http://flickr.com/photos/tavallai/2084954580/

5. A Student's Backpak: “my laptop, what would I do without it?
I really take it almost everywhere, I use it as mp3 player, movie player,
mobile phone, note pad, address book...”
http://flickr.com/photos/gabork/9336784/

6. “The “shape”of the average student is changing, too;
more students are working and commuting than ever
before, and the residential, full­time student is not
necessarily the model for today’s typical student. Higher
education faces competition from the for­profit
educational sector and an increasing demand by
students for instant access and interactive experiences.”
In
The Horizon Report – 2007 Edition p. 3, available at
http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2007_Horizon_Report.pdf

7. Second Life
●
3D Virtual World;
●
Free account / paid account;
●
Avatar(s);
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Residents can own land;
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Residents can build everything they want;
●
Linden Dollar based economy.

8. Second Life is about experimentation
Using the building and scripting tools in Second Life, she has
created laboratories where students can take part in virtual
experiments that produce analyzable data.
In http://flickr.com/photos/jokay/838472666/

9. Second Life is about imersive replicas of
ancient and historical places
in http://www.flickr.com/photos/jokay/1158839854/

10. Second Life is about Training
“Participants visit six patients, listen to their heart rhythms and make
a diagnosis.”
In http://www.flickr.com/photos/jokay/477434313/

11. Second Life is about Visualization
“Matt Biddulph was recently contracted by the scientific journal
Nature.com to render gigantic island­sized bacteria so that
scientists can walk around on their own cellular models.”
In http://www.flickr.com/photos/jokay/836723731/

12. Second Life is about learning
In http://www.flickr.com/photos/jokay/566191221

13. Entrepreneurship in Second Life
●
Several examples of people starting their
business in Second Life;
●
Contests about the best Business Plan (The
Electric Sheep Company and Eldman);
●
Books about the subject (The
Entrepreneurship's Guide to Second Life by
Daniel Terdiman).

14. The Entrepreneurship Course ­
General Structure
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Idea;
●
Team;
●
Ethic and Legal Issues;
●
Investment;
●
Market;
●
Business Plan;
●
Evaluation.

15. Technologies used
●
Second Life – 3D Virtual World;
●
Moodle – Learning Management System;
●
Sloodle – Communication between Second
Life and Moodle.

16. The Entrepreneurship Course ­
Structure
●
Information/Presentation;
●
Information;
●
Idea;
●
Team;
●
Ethic and Legal Issues;
●
Investment;
●
Market;
●
Business Plan;
●
Business Creation;
●
Evaluation.

17. The course will be designed in
Moodle. Students will have a overall
image of the course.

18. Uses of the chosen technology
●
Information/Presentation (Moodle):
– Learning Outcome: Information about the course
– News forum – students can be notified about meetings in SL and
changes during the course ;
– Real time chat (General);
– Information about the course – Time structure; learning outcomes;
information about institutions and teachers;
●
Introduction (Moodle and Second Life):
– Learning Outcome: To Know the technology and
fellow students
– Simple tasks to promote knowledge about technology and
socialization – creation of an avatar in SL, profile in Moodle;
presentation in SL and discussion about motivations and
expectations about the course;

19. “The first task of the e­Learning teacher is to develop a
sense of trust and safety within the electronic
community. In the absence of this trust, learners will feel
uncomfortable and constrained in posting their thoughts
and comments.”
In Anderson, T., “Teaching in an Online Learning Context”. Theory and Practice of Online
Learning, ed. Terry Anderson & Fathi Elloumi. Athabasca University, 2004. p. 280
“Having a physical representation of their quot;selvesquot;
through their avatars, whether it looked like them or
looked like something completely different, was quite
important in having them establish relationships with
each other.”
In http://ilamont.blogspot.com/2007/05/interview­harvards­rebecca­nesson.html

20. Uses of the chosen technology
●
Idea (Second Life, Sloodle and Moodle):
– Learning Outcome: To create a business idea
– SL: Meetings of brainstorming activity, in context;
– Sloodle: export the discussion to Moodle;
– Moodle: review of discussions.
“In Second Life, that problem of students not participating in class
discussions just totally disappeared. (...) On the flip side, we didn't
have any trouble with students who dominate the discussion.“
In http://ilamont.blogspot.com/2007/05/interview­harvards­rebecca­nesson.html

21. “But as we progressed in the class, it became clear
that running the class in a text­
based environment has a whole
lot of advantages over the face­to­face environment
that I just hadn't anticipated.
(...)
So for me the idea that I would actually end up
almost preferring to run a class
in a text­based environment to a
voice­based environment, that was a huge surprise.”
Rebecca Nesson, professor at Harvard Extension School in
http://ilamont.blogspot.com/2007/05/interview­harvards­rebecca­nesson.html

22. Uses of the chosen technology
●
Team (Second Life):
– Learning Outcome: how to develop a good
team
– SL: Students meetings in order to create their work
teams
●
Ethic and Legal Issues (Moodle):
– Learning Outcome: to know legal aspects of
creation of a business
– Differences between a virtual and a real business

23. Uses of the chosen technology
●
Investment (Second Life and Moodle):
– Learning Outcome: to learn about types of
investment and investors
– SL: Role­play activities – Training of communication of
students ideas to a potential investor
●
Market (Second Life):
Learning Outcome: identification of market
–
opportunities, marketing strategies
– Access to market studies in SL
– Students will be able to run their own market studies in
world

24. Uses of the chosen technology
●
Business Plan (Moodle and Second Life):
– Learning Outcome: to write the final business
plan
– Moodle – Wiki: collaborative writing;
– SL: Presentation of the business plan in Second Life to
experts in order to receive feedback;

25. It is easier to bring experts to the classroom
http://flickr.com/photos/ialja/495067087/

26. Uses of the chosen technology
●
Business Creation (Second Life):
– Learning Outcome: create and run a business
– Students will create their business in Second Life;
– They will have a small grant of Linden Dollars to begin
with;
– They can sell and buy objects or services to other
residents or fellow student;
– Students will apply the techniques learned in the
course.

27. Uses of the chosen technology
●
Evaluation (Moodle):
– Final evaluation of the students' work;
– Evaluation of the course by the students, by
questionnaire.

28. The actors
●
Students;
●
Teachers;
●
Software Engineer;
●
Instructional Designer / Tutor.

29. Conclusion
●
This course is designed according to the new profiles of students that
are emerging, due to the use of technologies;
●
Second Life, Moodle and Sloodle are used as tools in specific steps of
the course;
●
Second Life is used for discussions, role­play activities and the creation
of the business;
●
The use of technology is mandatory: it would not be possible to
benefit from the motivation and practice of creating a business in real
life;
●
Moodle is mainly used for documentation and review of the sessions;
●
The technology is used according with the learning outcomes
students much achieve.

30. Thank you very much!
Ideas? Sugestions? Questions?
Paula Simões, J.R. De Carvalho, M.Z. Rela
paulasimoes@gmail.com
This presentation was made with
OpenOffice Impress (http://www.openoffice.org)
and Gimp (http://www.gimp.org).
Images are licensed with
Creative Commons (http://search.creativecommons.org).
Second Life and Linden Dollars are trademarks of Linden Research, Inc.