Sloodle Brochure

eLearning for Virtual Worlds

What is SLOODLE? SLOODLE (Simulation Linked Object Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment) is a suite of tools which enhances eLearning support for teaching and learning in Second Life®. SLOODLE is provided as a free plug-in for the popular Open Source web-based virtual learning environment ‘Moodle’ (http://www.moodle.org), and which integrates Moodle and Second Life. Or alternatively... SLOODLE is a free plug-in for the popular 3D virtual world, ‘Second Life’ (http://www.secondlife.com), which enhances the existing support for learning and teaching through integration with the Open Source Moodle learning environment. What does SLOODLE do? Like other learning technologies, it is ultimately up to tutors and students to decide how tools should be used in class – but hopefully a list of some of the key features will give you some idea of the possibilities. •

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Web-intercom. A chat-room that brings Moodle chatroom and Second Life chats together. Students can participate in chats in Second Life using the accessible Moodle chatroom. Discussions can be archived securely in a Moodle database. Registration booth. Identity management for Second Life and Moodle. Link students’ avatars to their Moodle user accounts. Quiz tool and 3D Drop Box. Assess in Second Life – grade in Moodle. Set quizzes or 3D modelling tasks in an engaging 3D environment. Review grades quickly and easily in the standard Moodle gradebook. Choice tool. Allow students to vote (and see results) in Second Life as well as in Moodle. Multi-function SLOODLE Toolbar. Enhances the Second Life user interface. Use a range of classroom gestures, quickly get a list of the Moodle user names of the avatars around or write notes directly into to your Moodle blog from Second Life. Presenter. Quickly author Second Life presentations mixing slides, webpages and video on Moodle. Present in Second Life without having go through lengthy processes to convert or upload images, while enabling web-based access to the same materials via Moodle. A recent user-contribution extends this to enable one-click publishing of PDF documents to Second Life.

... and more. More tools are being prototyped on a regular basis, with rapid and regular feedback from the user community.

Installing and Setting up SLOODLE The SLOODLE plug-in is available at http://www.sloodle.org/, and should be downloaded and installed by your system administrator. The plug-in comprises a number of elements – including a Moodle ‘block’ and a new assignment type for Moodle. Installation on a typical Moodle site should only take a few minutes to complete. To use SLOODLE in Second Life, a course tutor needs to add a ‘SLOODLE Controller’ activity to their Moodle course and use the Second Life in-world ‘SLOODLE Set’. The SLOODLE Set is freely available inside Second Life, from SLOODLE island. A number of online guides and video tutorials are available and can be found via the project home page.

Using SLOODLE SLOODLE is being used by a growing number of educators around the world, teaching a wide variety of subjects. A published case-study details how Chris Surridge (Christopher Flow in Second Life), at KAIST in South Korea, used Moodle, Second Life and SLOODLE to support an international cultural exchange programme with students in Korea and Dubai as part of an ESL (English as a Second Language) course. Chris has since used the model with further classes – and more recently has been using the tools to support the development of virtual quests in Second Life. At Ohio State University, Dr. Sharon Collingwood (Ellie Brewster in Second Life) has been using SLOODLE to support her online Women’s Studies classes held in Second Life. As Dr. Collingwood explains: “SLOODLE fits seamlessly with my own in-house Learning Management System. I was worried that my students would find all this technology confusing, but it's really simplifying things. There's the in-house LMS, which I am required to use, for real names, readings, assessment, then there's SLOODLE, which is for avatar names, group work, blogs… BRAVO guys, this is turning out to be easier than I thought!”

SLOODLE on OpenSim Community members recently began the process of porting SLOODLE to OpenSim – an open source virtual world platform that is compatible with the existing Second Life client viewer. The majority of SLOODLE tools have been ported successfully, and the first classes taught with SLOODLE took place in March 2009. SLOODLE is currently available on the OpenSim OSGrid and ReactionGrid worlds.

SLOODLE Online – http://www.sloodle.org Visit the SLOODLE project homepage. Here you’ll find active forums for users and developers. You’ll also find links to our Wiki (with masses of documentation for educators, students and Moodle administrators) and a number of community produced tutorial videos which can walk you through the process of downloading, installing and getting started with the SLOODLE tools.

SLOODLE Inworld You can also get support for SLOODLE inworld – with regular weekly developer meetings and weekly ‘SLOODLE 101’ classes open to anyone wanting to learn more. Times and locations may vary, please check the web-site for current details.

About Moodle Moodle is used daily by hundreds of thousands of students worldwide, and is the virtual learning environment of choice for many hundreds of schools, colleges, universities and businesses worldwide. Learn more at http://www.moodle.org/

SLOODLE is funded and supported by Eduserv SLOODLE is supported by the San Josė State University School of Library and Information Science

SLOODLE is supported by the University of the West of Scotland

SLOODLE is an Open-Source project, released under GNU Public License. Second Life® and SL™ are trademarks of Linden Research, Inc.