Met this morning with Dale and Daniel from VU Construction. Important points to note:
- following the dev team's successful trial in Unity on Monday we will be moving from OpenSim to Unity for the construction and subsequent projects. All trade development from here to be undertaken under the umbrella of 'Tradesim': http://www.tradesim.com.au/. Looking to work with Mark O'Rourke on his games stuff in Unity in future. There are a number of pros and cons with Unity but it looks overwhelmingly positive in the final analysis, especially easier deployment on the ground (web browser-based delivery, also works with USB 1&2 as no need to have on-board web server on data stick as per OpenSim). Dale is compiling full list of pros and cons.
- PushLMS will be transformed from a standalone product to a plugin for Moodle.
- Unity version of construction world will be ready for this year's construction trial. Dale met with Mark (teacher) yesterday to finalise in-world details and to revise delivery plans. A few small changes - the 'points' system will change to money...sts can earn or lose money. Brings element of competition into doing the exercise.
- we will trial 1-2 groups (of 12-15 sts each) in last week of term before holidays (September 26 - 30). if this works out smoothly, will deliver on wider scale to other groups in first week back (October 10 - 14). Possibility of us not being involved in second delivery - hands off, may just run by itself so only construction teachers needed hopefully.
- discussed wider distribution and promotion of Tradesim. Will be based on partnership with Oztron, which ownd Tradesim. Managed by WERC. We will invite other institutions' trades programs to be involved and will work out licensing model to keep it sustainable.
Showing posts with label OpenSim. Show all posts
Showing posts with label OpenSim. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Download the construction simulator
PLEASE NOTE - THIS PROJECT IS NOW OUTDATED. VISIT WHITECARDGAME.COM.AU TO DOWNLOAD OUR LATEST OH&S GAME FOR FREE.
Here is a downloadable version of our construction sim.
Here is a downloadable version of our construction sim.
To get this working;
- Download and unzip the opensim files. This is the world.
- Download and install the Imprudence viewer. This is the software you use to look at the world.
- In the opensim>bin directory, run the file Opensim.32bitlaunch.exe. Let this load for a couple of minutes until the console window stops moving.
- Load the Imprudence viewer. Log in using the username 'test user.' Leave the password field blank. Set the Grid to 'localhost.'
- You should now be in the Isle of VU.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Virtual world construction project - teacher development, Feb 2011
We've had three very productive days at Newport campus. Justin, Jason (who has been able to join us for the full three days) and Mark have been brainstorming, with input from Craig, James and me, their ideas for developing the virtual world activities and assessment for the three competencies we're targeting for the Cert II Pre-apps:
- VBQM697: Workplace Safety and Industry Induction
- VBQM698: Workplace Procedures for Environmental Sustainability
- VBQM708: Workplace Documents and Plans
This is where we've got to:
- we will take a hybrid, 'mix and match' virtual world and paper-based approach to these competencies
- activities will be delivered to students in their first couple of weeks at VU. They will have largely arrived straight from school etc with little introduction to the construction industry or its practices. So this will form a kind of introduction to how things work in the industry.
- all three units will be integrated into one in-world sequence of activities supplemented by one paper-based workbook covering all three units. Students will use the workbook to progress through (as before) - but particular sections will refer students to the virtual world to undertake specific activities and assessments, which will cover some but not all aspects of the units' learning objects (ie those aspects where the virtual world can add value to the learning and be relevant to the learning outcomes). This currently already happens in the Sustainability unit where students are referred to the online EPA Carbon Footprint calculator.
- the rationale here is for students to become familiar with what they will see in the real world including paper-based audits, safe work documents and building/site plans, yet benefit from the use of virtual in an integrated way (eg using paper-based audit documents to do safety audits of the virtual building site).
- Justin will spend the second week of his non-teaching time developing the resource workbook.
What the guys are working on now is the details of the activities. The story here is this:
- students arrive as builders' labourers
- they have to undertake an OH&S audit of the virtual building site to be promoted to supervisors
- once promoted, they enter the virtual building site office, complete an offline safe work statement, and are directed to their own empty site (each student has their own) as well as their paper site plans in the workbook
- they then go through a series of stages of setting up the site with OH&S and sustainability considerations as part of this (based on in-world multiple choice questions). This will end the OH&s and sustainability part of the exercise
- they then start 'building their house' on the site, which will involve the Workplace Documents and Plans unit - interpreting the 2D plans, orienting themselves, and understanding the symbols etc
Students will enter the world with 100 points that they have to keep. Every time they choose a wrong answer to a multiple choice question, they lose a point. This method is to ensure that they take care in considering answers (not just click at random until they get a right answer), which they can research through the information in their workbooks.
Above is a copy of the flowchart for the project todate, based on the brainstorming on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
Monday, December 13, 2010
Server requirements for Opensim - an email from Will to Nick, Monash IT
OpenSim is alpha (or pre-alpha depending on who you ask) software, so reliability and performance is not particularly easy to achieve. Getting it to perform well means getting better hardware than is generally required for other server applications.
The core of OpenSim is a MySQL database, which can get quite large. This means that the server needs to have plenty of RAM and fast disks in order to keep the queries running quickly. Of course, the larger the database becomes as more objects are created, and textures uploaded, the MySQL server will chew through more and more RAM, so it is important to have an excess from the very start.
OpenSim is also a physics simulator, and runs scripts that perform certain actions inside the world. This is done with the CPU, and in quite a highly threaded fashion. Given the option, it may be wiser to choose a CPU (or CPUs) that have more processing threads over the clock speed.
Having said all of this, the RAM and disks are the most important, as the MySQL database is essentially what drives the server. CPU power is also important to have so that the whole thing doesn't die when physics are being simulated.
I am of the understanding that the server might also be used for other purposes, your budget is about $4000-$5000, and your regular server is the R710. So:
CPU:
It appears that the R710 comes with 2 processors (I'm not too sure), so I would say that 2 Quad Core Xeons would suffice. The clock speed should probably be more than 2.2ghz or so.
Operating System:
I forgot to mention this before, but OpenSim is written in C# (.NET) so it can run on both Windows and Linux. .NET is native to Windows of course, so there is added reliability and stability there. We used to run OpenSim on Linux, and it often had problems. I would advise running Windows.
RAM:
As I said before, RAM is important considering that OpenSim relies heavily on a MySQL database. Not only this, but OpenSim caches most things in memory, so memory is used quite a lot. I would recommend a minimum of 8GB, but the more you have, the more room there is for MySQL.
Hard Drives:
The drives need to be fast, but massive amounts of space is not required. I would recommend using 15K drives, and RAID is obviously preferable to keep redundancy and perhaps more speed. Our OpenSim database is about 1.8gb with about 200,000 rows in total, so disk space will be used quite slowly. Even a 146GB 15K drive would probably be fine for quite some time.
Having said all of this, if you can get better parts, definitely go for it, especially in the CPU and Disks. I wouldn't think any more than 12GB of RAM is required, so any extra money should be spent on getting a faster CPU or faster disks.
If you want some more information on OpenSim, there is extensive information on their wiki at http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Main_Page
Will.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Week 2, Group 2
5 students in this group.
Once again, students noted in the short focus group at the end how much they enjoyed the virtual world activities and that it had helped them learn OH&S.
First pair v adept in OH&S. Lots of conversation to answer questions correctly.
Not though for following pair - took ages to do quiz, quite noteworthy lack of knowledge about asbestos and its effects and handling procedures.
Once again, students noted in the short focus group at the end how much they enjoyed the virtual world activities and that it had helped them learn OH&S.
First pair v adept in OH&S. Lots of conversation to answer questions correctly.
Not though for following pair - took ages to do quiz, quite noteworthy lack of knowledge about asbestos and its effects and handling procedures.
Construction trial, Week 2, Group 1
Very interesting session.
Trialed OH&S exploratory and door quiz exercises with 5 students. (one/two at a time, with others continuing to work on their buildings)
First one solo. Realised he was asking us and other sts about the questions throughout, gaining knowledge. We then decided to continue the trial in pairs, which worked well - sts bouncing off one another to answer the questions and find the unsafe practices.
Gave them same paper test as last week - initial impression is that they have been filled in to a much greater level of detail, will be interesting to see marked results.
Also noted need to develop exercises in tandem with students. Throughout they were pointing out things we had missed in-world (as construction luddites) such as other unsafe practices eg planks of wood lying on ground. This will help us greatly. We will also need to add more unsafe examples in the exploratory exercise, as well as examples that ARE safe.
One interesting thing that came up is the issue of prompts in relation to the exploratory exercise. Our team was prompting students at times to look for more examples ("you got 2 to go" etc). Should we prompt? Our conclusion is:
- yes - if we want DEVELOP knowledge, to facilitate the most amount of knowledge gain
- no - if we want to TEST knowledge (want to replicate real life, where workers need to be alert to unsafe practices)
General impression is that, if familiar with virtual worlds, sts don't need much in the way of guidance to do the tasks except for something at the beginning of the structured door quiz to give them some context
Focus group at end - univerally positive, want to keep doing it, see it as fun and that they've learned more about OH&S
Issue of trees - pranking:putting trees into others' buildings etc. Big 'No Trees' message on whiteboard
Trialed OH&S exploratory and door quiz exercises with 5 students. (one/two at a time, with others continuing to work on their buildings)
First one solo. Realised he was asking us and other sts about the questions throughout, gaining knowledge. We then decided to continue the trial in pairs, which worked well - sts bouncing off one another to answer the questions and find the unsafe practices.
Gave them same paper test as last week - initial impression is that they have been filled in to a much greater level of detail, will be interesting to see marked results.
Also noted need to develop exercises in tandem with students. Throughout they were pointing out things we had missed in-world (as construction luddites) such as other unsafe practices eg planks of wood lying on ground. This will help us greatly. We will also need to add more unsafe examples in the exploratory exercise, as well as examples that ARE safe.
One interesting thing that came up is the issue of prompts in relation to the exploratory exercise. Our team was prompting students at times to look for more examples ("you got 2 to go" etc). Should we prompt? Our conclusion is:
- yes - if we want DEVELOP knowledge, to facilitate the most amount of knowledge gain
- no - if we want to TEST knowledge (want to replicate real life, where workers need to be alert to unsafe practices)
General impression is that, if familiar with virtual worlds, sts don't need much in the way of guidance to do the tasks except for something at the beginning of the structured door quiz to give them some context
Focus group at end - univerally positive, want to keep doing it, see it as fun and that they've learned more about OH&S
Issue of trees - pranking:putting trees into others' buildings etc. Big 'No Trees' message on whiteboard
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
3rd construction group, week 1
Again, immediately engaged by virtual world.
Excited about building avatars, even joke ones.
Totally not listening to Dale when he explains how to do stuff from the front, with projected screen. He needs to go to every student group, show them how to do it. But once he does, they are engrossed.
End of session:
Asked the six students if they played games. All bar one did. Interestingly, the one who didn't was the only one who said the virtual world work was, quote, 'shit' and didn't want to do more next week. The others said they enjoyed it and were keen to do more.
Excited about building avatars, even joke ones.
Totally not listening to Dale when he explains how to do stuff from the front, with projected screen. He needs to go to every student group, show them how to do it. But once he does, they are engrossed.
End of session:
Asked the six students if they played games. All bar one did. Interestingly, the one who didn't was the only one who said the virtual world work was, quote, 'shit' and didn't want to do more next week. The others said they enjoyed it and were keen to do more.
Plan for 2011
After talking to Justin, Mark and Dale, and learning from our 2010 activities, here's a revised plan for delivery for 2011:
Beginning-mid February 2011:
- organise 2 weeks of backfill for Justin and any necessary backfill for Mark if needed - we will pay for this. Justin is teaching as of Jan 30 and Mark at end of Feb.
- Stefan, Craig, Justin and Mark to work together to develop immersive activities (keeping Dale in the loop too - Dale will be busy on other projects at that time)
- Activities developed will depend on availability of web in prim feature within OpenSim. If it's not ready, we will have to adjust activities a little.
- Focus on developing in-world activities *and assessment* for three subjects previously targeted: OH&S, Sustainability and Building Docs and Plans.
- Activities to be immersive, where students do or make stuff ,and where there is a sequence of events with consequences for doing (or not) things right
- Assessment to take the form of in-world question-answer tests, to be collected by PushLMS (basically in-world versions of current paper tests)
- USB Stick functionality to be incorporated into project as a subset of activities in trial form eg some activities could be delivered by USB and undertaken individually by students in their own time or in lab. Possibly also some assessment could take place via USB if results can be fed back into PushLMS. But will see how this pans out.
- Plan of delivery worked out in consultation with Daniel
After Feb 2011:
- follow-up week of tweaking/redevelopment undertaken with the team. May involve more backfill
Beginning-mid February 2011:
- organise 2 weeks of backfill for Justin and any necessary backfill for Mark if needed - we will pay for this. Justin is teaching as of Jan 30 and Mark at end of Feb.
- Stefan, Craig, Justin and Mark to work together to develop immersive activities (keeping Dale in the loop too - Dale will be busy on other projects at that time)
- Activities developed will depend on availability of web in prim feature within OpenSim. If it's not ready, we will have to adjust activities a little.
- Focus on developing in-world activities *and assessment* for three subjects previously targeted: OH&S, Sustainability and Building Docs and Plans.
- Activities to be immersive, where students do or make stuff ,and where there is a sequence of events with consequences for doing (or not) things right
- Assessment to take the form of in-world question-answer tests, to be collected by PushLMS (basically in-world versions of current paper tests)
- USB Stick functionality to be incorporated into project as a subset of activities in trial form eg some activities could be delivered by USB and undertaken individually by students in their own time or in lab. Possibly also some assessment could take place via USB if results can be fed back into PushLMS. But will see how this pans out.
- Plan of delivery worked out in consultation with Daniel
After Feb 2011:
- follow-up week of tweaking/redevelopment undertaken with the team. May involve more backfill
Today - first day of Construction trial
Hello from Newport campus.
First group of 6 pre-app students is busy building their houses. All v engaged, chose not to take smoko like last time.
Six boys, 16-17 yo. Nobody's a gamer. (Two staff are!) Don't do 3D, just Facebook etc. But all seemed to take to OpenSim - flying, walking, avatar creation straight away.
As far as building goes, ability varies. One guy is a whiz, the guy next to him much slower. Being helped by his neighbour. But by now (10.15 am, about 90 mins after starting) all are building houses on plans - not many questions being asked at all, getting on with it.
Should note that helping Dale today are Craig and James. Going smoothly for this reason - Dale not running around trying to snswer all manner of requests.
Teachers: Daniel wants to embed with all students next year. Justin and Mark (staff) v keen. Mark here too. Will be running new 'TradeApps' pre App program next year. Advantage - will know students, will have been working with them. Also working with Trade Colleges (TTCs), delivering at Keilor Downs (?)
Issues that have come up:
- Justin: not enough time to really work on this idea properly. Too much on.
- Dale: technology issues, getting system to work - only just really working properly this week. Has limited scope to do activities planned. Lesson: don't be too ambitious about scope.
- logistics: Hayden (teacher) quit half way through, delays meant not being able to deliver to previously planned groups (ie now preapps only) at end of year, so had to squeeze sessions into 2 hour blocks (students finish in 2 weeks). Also meant that not working with groups that Justin teaches, doesn't know students, what they've learned/been assessed for and when
- web in prim feature (putting webpages within OpenSim) still not available. So we're still using previous version of PushLMS (dialogue box). Web in prim has been promised by OpenSim OS developers by Xmas. This has menat we haven't been able to deliver everything we had planned in terms of activities.
- testing: after discussing activities in place, we have decided to only test for understanding of OH&S rather than Sustainability and Blg Docs and Plans as well, because the latter two activities are underdeveloped (other option is question/answer exercises, but this isn't really too meaningful since they do this on paper already...is basically sugar coating rather than truly new learning). SO giving all students OH&S question sheet at end of first general session (don't want to hit them with paper sheet as they arrive, [possibility of negatively influencing engagement), and then after OH&S session in Week 2.
First group of 6 pre-app students is busy building their houses. All v engaged, chose not to take smoko like last time.
Six boys, 16-17 yo. Nobody's a gamer. (Two staff are!) Don't do 3D, just Facebook etc. But all seemed to take to OpenSim - flying, walking, avatar creation straight away.
As far as building goes, ability varies. One guy is a whiz, the guy next to him much slower. Being helped by his neighbour. But by now (10.15 am, about 90 mins after starting) all are building houses on plans - not many questions being asked at all, getting on with it.
Should note that helping Dale today are Craig and James. Going smoothly for this reason - Dale not running around trying to snswer all manner of requests.
Teachers: Daniel wants to embed with all students next year. Justin and Mark (staff) v keen. Mark here too. Will be running new 'TradeApps' pre App program next year. Advantage - will know students, will have been working with them. Also working with Trade Colleges (TTCs), delivering at Keilor Downs (?)
Issues that have come up:
- Justin: not enough time to really work on this idea properly. Too much on.
- Dale: technology issues, getting system to work - only just really working properly this week. Has limited scope to do activities planned. Lesson: don't be too ambitious about scope.
- logistics: Hayden (teacher) quit half way through, delays meant not being able to deliver to previously planned groups (ie now preapps only) at end of year, so had to squeeze sessions into 2 hour blocks (students finish in 2 weeks). Also meant that not working with groups that Justin teaches, doesn't know students, what they've learned/been assessed for and when
- web in prim feature (putting webpages within OpenSim) still not available. So we're still using previous version of PushLMS (dialogue box). Web in prim has been promised by OpenSim OS developers by Xmas. This has menat we haven't been able to deliver everything we had planned in terms of activities.
- testing: after discussing activities in place, we have decided to only test for understanding of OH&S rather than Sustainability and Blg Docs and Plans as well, because the latter two activities are underdeveloped (other option is question/answer exercises, but this isn't really too meaningful since they do this on paper already...is basically sugar coating rather than truly new learning). SO giving all students OH&S question sheet at end of first general session (don't want to hit them with paper sheet as they arrive, [possibility of negatively influencing engagement), and then after OH&S session in Week 2.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Today's Building Design trial
Dale and I have started the building design trial today in the computer lab at Newport. To note initially:
- only 3 students have come in. (It's a beautiful day outside and the end of the year, and this is an optional activity)
- James H from Melbourne Grammar School is also here to provide technical server support.
- the students are two females and one male. The two females are mothers - and apparently the leaders of the class, which has 3 females and 20 males.
- after some concern about the internet speed, it is now apparent that the Newport lab speed is now excellent (see previous post) so we're using the lab machines instead of the laptops and modems. One of those unpredictable variables...
- the 'web in prim' function in OpenSim is not ready yet - the open source developers have not completed this function, which is up in Second Life. One of the issues with working with Open Source...deadlines are sometimes unpredictable. Instead, Dale has gone back to the previous version of the PushLMS, and the questions provided by Sue in the in-world assessment exercise (to happen after lunch) appear in a dialog box rather than on the clipboard. You need to be nimble, adaptable and able to probelm-solve on the spot in this space (which may make some more risk-adverse educators nervous)
- so far, two of the students seem to be very engaged in OpenSim - Dale is currently showing them the ropes. The third, the male, came in later after a dental appointment and after some cajoling by the other two students.
- the morning session happening now is the virtual world intro...Dale is going through avatar modification and building
- before we started this morning, a couple of unrelated students were in the lab and a teacher. One of the students (male) was immediately drawn to the virtual world and wanted to try it out - no prompting involved.
- both female students were familiar with computers, Autocad etc. Male student also (inc social networking)....he'd also done a multimedia course and knows 3d software such as 3d studio max. One female used to work in advertising. None of the students play computer games for recreation. Male said Second Life 'isn't really his thing'.
- only 3 students have come in. (It's a beautiful day outside and the end of the year, and this is an optional activity)
- James H from Melbourne Grammar School is also here to provide technical server support.
- the students are two females and one male. The two females are mothers - and apparently the leaders of the class, which has 3 females and 20 males.
- after some concern about the internet speed, it is now apparent that the Newport lab speed is now excellent (see previous post) so we're using the lab machines instead of the laptops and modems. One of those unpredictable variables...
- the 'web in prim' function in OpenSim is not ready yet - the open source developers have not completed this function, which is up in Second Life. One of the issues with working with Open Source...deadlines are sometimes unpredictable. Instead, Dale has gone back to the previous version of the PushLMS, and the questions provided by Sue in the in-world assessment exercise (to happen after lunch) appear in a dialog box rather than on the clipboard. You need to be nimble, adaptable and able to probelm-solve on the spot in this space (which may make some more risk-adverse educators nervous)
- so far, two of the students seem to be very engaged in OpenSim - Dale is currently showing them the ropes. The third, the male, came in later after a dental appointment and after some cajoling by the other two students.
- the morning session happening now is the virtual world intro...Dale is going through avatar modification and building
- before we started this morning, a couple of unrelated students were in the lab and a teacher. One of the students (male) was immediately drawn to the virtual world and wanted to try it out - no prompting involved.
- both female students were familiar with computers, Autocad etc. Male student also (inc social networking)....he'd also done a multimedia course and knows 3d software such as 3d studio max. One female used to work in advertising. None of the students play computer games for recreation. Male said Second Life 'isn't really his thing'.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
message from Patrick - proposed change is fine with Dale and Stefan
message from Patrick last Thursday 28 October:
Hi Team,
I had a chat to our prospective participants yesterday.
After much negotiating (which included the offer of pizzas for lunch) they have agreed to do one long session on the 17th Nov.
The session on the 10th was at a critical point in their assignment/test program.
I am proposing that we now have them for 4-5 hours so that we can give them the initial orientation, a break and the then institute the formal process to facilitate the review.
Proposed hours are 10-12 and then 1-4.
Can you please indicate if this can be accommodated.
Cheers
Patrick
Patrick White
Program Manager
Advanced Building Studies
Hi Team,
I had a chat to our prospective participants yesterday.
After much negotiating (which included the offer of pizzas for lunch) they have agreed to do one long session on the 17th Nov.
The session on the 10th was at a critical point in their assignment/test program.
I am proposing that we now have them for 4-5 hours so that we can give them the initial orientation, a break and the then institute the formal process to facilitate the review.
Proposed hours are 10-12 and then 1-4.
Can you please indicate if this can be accommodated.
Cheers
Patrick
Patrick White
Program Manager
Advanced Building Studies
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Discussions with Patrick and Justin on Construction/Blg Design Project
Had a chat with Patrick yesterday.
We worked out that:
- 6-10 building design student volunteers would do two virtual world sessions of two hours over consecutive weeks: Weds Nov 10 and 17.
- they will focus on the OH&S stuff in the first, and the house building/design in the second.
- this won't involve any assessment since they have already been assessed on OH&S earlier in the year, plus it's getting to exam time then (too late in the year, too much else on). As a result we will have to treat the Building Design activity as a kind of feeler or tester, as we did with Construction last year. We will just look at if it increases engagement levels or not. It's not ideal for reporting, research etc, but is the best we can do at this stage.
Patrick would like to roll this out as an assessable activity in 2011. But this depends on if we can get it funded, since the current project funding runs out this year.
Also spoke with Justin. We will use the existing assessment tests given to the construction guys for our pre and post tests for OH&S and workplace docs. For sustainability, Justin will compile a short test this week based on his longer assessment task.
We worked out that:
- 6-10 building design student volunteers would do two virtual world sessions of two hours over consecutive weeks: Weds Nov 10 and 17.
- they will focus on the OH&S stuff in the first, and the house building/design in the second.
- this won't involve any assessment since they have already been assessed on OH&S earlier in the year, plus it's getting to exam time then (too late in the year, too much else on). As a result we will have to treat the Building Design activity as a kind of feeler or tester, as we did with Construction last year. We will just look at if it increases engagement levels or not. It's not ideal for reporting, research etc, but is the best we can do at this stage.
Patrick would like to roll this out as an assessable activity in 2011. But this depends on if we can get it funded, since the current project funding runs out this year.
Also spoke with Justin. We will use the existing assessment tests given to the construction guys for our pre and post tests for OH&S and workplace docs. For sustainability, Justin will compile a short test this week based on his longer assessment task.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Latest on construction/building design OpenSim project
Summary of latest meetings and technical developments:
- Construction trial now to take place over 2 weeks: weeks of November 29 and December 6:
- Construction trial now to take place over 2 weeks: weeks of November 29 and December 6:
- 3 groups of 5/6 students each from the Cert II in General Construction Pre-Apprenticeship program
- each group undertakes one on the three virtual world-based activity sets from the three competencies: OH&S/sustainability/workplace documents
- For pre-test, use existing theory assessment exercises. Give it to all sts before they do the study (to get baseline knowledge), then again at end (Note: only some pre-App sts do this as part of their training, some are assessed in integrated way, building houses etc...it depends on the circumstances - but in this case they will all get the sheets)
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Today's meeting with Construction teachers and Dale on delivery of virtual world workshops
Lots has come out of today's meeting:
Delivery;
- Push LMS system still being developed. Some issues with staffing (Will has bowed out, Craig has taken over, has meant some delays)
- also some issues with OpenSim viewers (Hippo) not displaying some OpenSim textures etc, now using Kirsten's Viewer)
- looking at delivering to the Cert II Construction pre-apps only (VET in Schools students leave next week, so have missed chance to work with them, but pre-apps still around until mid-December)
- Justin away for first 3 weeks of November, so looking at doing workshops weeks of Nov 29 and Dec 6 (Daniel to confirm)
- computers in Newport labs: graphics cards aren't up to displaying some OpenSim content (eg gum trees, figures). May need to upgrade cards to 512k (as initially listed in specs!)
- need to work out revised time for delivery with Building Design guys
- process of developing software is, in Dale's words, 'predictably unpredictable'...never really know if plans will translate into reality, especially in areas like this that nobody has done before
Assessment and research:
Chatted at length to Justin and Jason today. Notes:
- Workplace safety and env. sust. (OHS)/Workplace procedures for env. sust (Sust.): these competencies are delivered and assessed throughout course, not standalone (embedded in other subjets). Not formally assessed at Cert II level, more observational etc throughout year. Similar for Cert II and Cert III...can be applied across both (though Cert II is more practical and Cert II Ihas more design elements)
- Workplace documents: this one is assessed 'stand-alone'
- OH&S: OpenSim activities based closely on A3 sheet given to students to break up day of theory connected with assessment for 'white card':
- Daniel: refer to 'scenario based delivery'
- suggestion from Shelley re research: work within one group. Do OH&S baseline test pre-day, then again afterwards. Some sts to use A3 sheets, others OpenSim. (former have option of using OpenSim too if they want, to be ethical)
Delivery;
- Push LMS system still being developed. Some issues with staffing (Will has bowed out, Craig has taken over, has meant some delays)
- also some issues with OpenSim viewers (Hippo) not displaying some OpenSim textures etc, now using Kirsten's Viewer)
- looking at delivering to the Cert II Construction pre-apps only (VET in Schools students leave next week, so have missed chance to work with them, but pre-apps still around until mid-December)
- Justin away for first 3 weeks of November, so looking at doing workshops weeks of Nov 29 and Dec 6 (Daniel to confirm)
- computers in Newport labs: graphics cards aren't up to displaying some OpenSim content (eg gum trees, figures). May need to upgrade cards to 512k (as initially listed in specs!)
- need to work out revised time for delivery with Building Design guys
- process of developing software is, in Dale's words, 'predictably unpredictable'...never really know if plans will translate into reality, especially in areas like this that nobody has done before
Assessment and research:
Chatted at length to Justin and Jason today. Notes:
- Workplace safety and env. sust. (OHS)/Workplace procedures for env. sust (Sust.): these competencies are delivered and assessed throughout course, not standalone (embedded in other subjets). Not formally assessed at Cert II level, more observational etc throughout year. Similar for Cert II and Cert III...can be applied across both (though Cert II is more practical and Cert II Ihas more design elements)
- Workplace documents: this one is assessed 'stand-alone'
- OH&S: OpenSim activities based closely on A3 sheet given to students to break up day of theory connected with assessment for 'white card':
- Daniel: refer to 'scenario based delivery'
- suggestion from Shelley re research: work within one group. Do OH&S baseline test pre-day, then again afterwards. Some sts to use A3 sheets, others OpenSim. (former have option of using OpenSim too if they want, to be ethical)
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Illuminating day today at Newport campus teacher training day
Had a great day today with Dale and the teachers from Building Design (Sue, Patrick) and construction (Justin, Mark...Hayden can't make it anymore, hence replaced by Mark, and Jason is on leave) plus Daniel (coordinator). Howard from E-works visited too.
The day has been a mix of brainstorming activities, demonstration of what we've done for Howard, planning and training the teachers in the OpenSim virtual world. The enthusiasm of the teachers is evident. Mark (new guy) had some great ideas on sustainability activities in the construction area. He is a gamer and keen.
Building Design (the simpler of the two planned suite of activities):
- On track to do training with Sue and students from weeks 2 -4 of term 4 (September). Will involve building houses from plans
- Idea emerged of using PushLMS to do a mobile GPS-based project on building styles in the Adv Dip of Blg Design, and to apply for this in the next round of AFLF funding (due September 20)
Construction (more complex):
- buildings and areas of Isle of VU to be completed in next few weeks (over holidays)
- Daniel's input: we will aim for having the system ready for delivery to ALL VET in Schools Cert II students (170) by early 2011, assuming that pilot is all OK, and then all pre-App Cert II students in 2012.
- 2010 pilot: we can either do it in next 6 weeks (Daniel's current lot of VET in Schools students, 1 day a week) or wait until November for next group. Flexible, can do teacher swap for the day so that Mark and Justin can do the training whenever suits. Fine to work the same way as last year: 3-4 hour sessions weekly with 6 students at a time. This seemed to work well.
- Dale and Mark/Justin currently planning new activities to include in their activities.
The day has been a mix of brainstorming activities, demonstration of what we've done for Howard, planning and training the teachers in the OpenSim virtual world. The enthusiasm of the teachers is evident. Mark (new guy) had some great ideas on sustainability activities in the construction area. He is a gamer and keen.
Building Design (the simpler of the two planned suite of activities):
- On track to do training with Sue and students from weeks 2 -4 of term 4 (September). Will involve building houses from plans
- Idea emerged of using PushLMS to do a mobile GPS-based project on building styles in the Adv Dip of Blg Design, and to apply for this in the next round of AFLF funding (due September 20)
Construction (more complex):
- buildings and areas of Isle of VU to be completed in next few weeks (over holidays)
- Daniel's input: we will aim for having the system ready for delivery to ALL VET in Schools Cert II students (170) by early 2011, assuming that pilot is all OK, and then all pre-App Cert II students in 2012.
- 2010 pilot: we can either do it in next 6 weeks (Daniel's current lot of VET in Schools students, 1 day a week) or wait until November for next group. Flexible, can do teacher swap for the day so that Mark and Justin can do the training whenever suits. Fine to work the same way as last year: 3-4 hour sessions weekly with 6 students at a time. This seemed to work well.
- Dale and Mark/Justin currently planning new activities to include in their activities.
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Merle in opensim
Using what we already did here in opensim, the plan at the moment is to run a virtual avatar starting with this.
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