ReLive Abstract submitted by Ian Truelove and Graham Hibbert

Learning to walk before you know your name.
Pre-Second Life scaffolding for noobs.

Induction into Second Life is often a traumatic and bewildering experience for new users.
Through the course of many inductions over the last two years, we have observed the
difficulties that our students have experienced when asked to simultaneously take on board
issues of identity, appearance, role play, technical skills, forced communication with complete
strangers, economics and etiquette, to name a few. As part of the JISC funded Open Habitat
project, we have piloted an alternative approach to inductions into Second Life, with the
overall aim of providing pre-Second Life scaffolding through real life workshop activities and
the use of OpenSim.
OpenSim is an open source, reverse engineered implementation of the server software that
provides the land for the Second Life client to access. The standalone version of OpenSim
provides the opportunity for educators to give each of their students their own private island
to play on before signing up to Second Life. OpenSim allows educators to delay the inevitable
focus on identity forced by name choosing when signing up to Second Life, and to draw
students' attention to more fundamental competencies such as walking and, in the case of
our art and design students, building. The initial outcomes from our first pilot study indicate
that OpenSim inducted students subsequently engage more meaningfully and effectively with
Second Life.
This paper also reviews other challenges and opportunities that were examined in our first
pilot study, including a 'quest' based learning approach drawn from previous research into
World of Warcraft, the blended approach to learning in virtual worlds, identity scaffolding,
collaborative working and the concept of the virtual art studio.