Firefox and SLURLs and Troubleshooting

Sometimes it takes a while to solve a technical problem. I just spent about 30 minutes solving a very minor but irritating problem. I thought I'd share the process and the result.

There is a simple microformat called a SLURL, or second life URL, which allows you to share a Second Life location via the Web, and have the user click to launch Second Life and open a map to teleport to that location.

A sample SLURL is http://slurl.com/secondlife/Divergent%20001/221/34/24/ (which is my student learning center in Second Life). The URL takes you to slurl.com where you can then "teleport now" into SL.
Clicking that orange button launches Second Life (if it isn't running already) and then puts a beacon on the map, allowing you to teleport to it.

The first time you click on a SLURL in Firefox, you will get a warning message that looks like this:

Well, if, by accident or on purpose, you don't accept the launching of Second Life when Firefox asks you, then SLURLs won't work any more. They will take you to slurl.com, but when you click on the teleport button, nothing will happen.

And, there is no obvious way to fix this, because NOTHING happens and, after looking through the Firefox options menus, I could find no way to fix it.

So, what did I do?

Go to google.

Of course. I love google. You can usually find the solution to a technical problem in a few minutes. This one took me a little longer. I searched for "slurl firefox problem" and "slurl firefox not working" and "slurl firefox" but couldn't find the solution. I tried "second life firefox" and that didn't work either. There were simply too many pages. I did discover that a SLURL is a "microformat", and learned a bit about the difference between a SLURL and a landmark, but no solution to my problem.

(I'll finish this later..... NOTE: after i posted this with the "Ill finish this later" note, a comment by Alex gave the solution. However, I also wanted to talk about the process....)

One thing I did learn was that a SLURL is somewhat different from what is known as a link with the "secondlife://" protocol prefix. Like other protocol prefixes such as http:// and ftp://, the secondlife:// prefix tells the browser how to handle a link. The secondlife:// prefix says to the browser, when you encounter this link, load secondlife.com (the Second Life client) and set the map to the location indicated in the link. So, for example, you can use the following link to go directly to my student learning center: secondlife://Divergent%20001/221/34/24.
However, that link doesn't work if you don't already have Second Life on your computer. In other words, the primary purpose of a SLURL is to deal with the situation where a person doesn't have Second Life installed on their computer. The SLURL directs the user to the slurl.com web site, which presents the screen mentioned above, with the orange "Teleport Now" button and another blue button that allows the user to get the Second Life client application.

So, the slurl http://slurl.com/secondlife/Divergent%20001/221/34/24/ uses the http:// protocol prefix to send the browser to a page at slurl.com which presents the user with the opportunity to access a link using the secondlife:// protocol prefix (through the "Teleport Now" button). The problem I had encountered earlier wasn't with the SLURL itself, but with the secondlife:// link. Firefox wasn't knowing how to handle the secondlife:// link on the "Teleport Now" button.

Knowing this new piece of information allowed me to refine my search in Google to include "secondlife:// firefox protocol". This brought up the first site on the list, Ryan Eby's blog:

Not dealing directly with Second Life, but with protocols in Firefox, Eby writes:

"By protocol what I mean is the URL prefix such as aim:// mailto:// etc. Usually when you install a program that uses it’s own protocol prefix it will update your browser with the correct information....If you don’t already know you can type about:config into the address bar in Firefox and get advanced settings. This allows you to highly tweak the browser if you wish."

So, when you go into about:config, you can filter by secondlife and see:

network.protocol-handler.external.secondlife with a value of "false".

This is the culprit; basically "false" means Firefox doesn't allow you to use the secondlife:// protocol. So, you right-click (Apple-Click on a Mac) and choose "Reset." Then, try the "Teleport Now" link again, and a new entry is added, which is

network.protocol-handler.warn-external.secondlife with a value of "false," which means that second life is launched without a warning, which is what I wanted in the first place.

So, took a while.

Took some "collateral learning" that i hadn't expected (about protocols, and firefox).

But i solved my problem.

Which is always so satisfying, in the end, and worth the aggravation that sometimes attends the journey.

The coming backlash against one-to-one computing

A New York Times article this week talks about some schools and school districts that have decided to discontinue one-to-one laptop initiatives in which each student is provided their own computer. While there are some questions about the quality of reporting in the article and the real issues involved in at least one district's decision to end giving out laptops (see this blog post), the article offers some cautions to those who believe (with the State of Maine and Apple) that one-to-one initiatives offer the best route to a "major transformation" of K-12 education.

The biggest issues with one-to-one initiatives seem to be the expense, the likelihood that students will use the laptops for nefarious purposes, the need for technical support, the huge professional demands of "transforming" teaching and learning, and the lack of alignment between desired learning outcomes and traditional assessments. A laptop program in one Virginia district cost an additional $1.5 million per year. These costs are sometimes shared with parents, who may resent that their children are using the computers for non-academic purposes. Some laptop programs have suffered from reliability issues with the equipment (see here), and other districts have discovered that the speed of their networks is reduced to a crawl during high-intensity use.

What's more, unless teaching and learning is fundamentally changed to incorporate the ubiquitous presence of technology, the laptops will become extraneous or worse, a distraction:
“The teachers were telling us when there’s a one-to-one relationship between the student and the laptop, the box gets in the way. It’s a distraction to the educational process,” said one district official quoted in the Times article. For example, if students are allowed to use instant messaging during class, they may pay more attention to classroom gossip and planning for the weekend events than to the academic program. Or, search engines may be used to simply find the answers to questions without any actual thinking about the question itself. Whole class or teacher-centered instruction may not employ the laptops at all.

Perhaps most significantly, ubiquitous availability of laptops--even if built into new approaches to teaching and learning--may not lead to noticable gains in student achievement.
“After seven years, there was literally no evidence it had any impact on student achievement — none,” said one school board president. Various studies have shown no increase in student grades or scores on standardized achievement tests. This becomes a huge problem for schools seeking to justify expenditures in an era of increased "accountabiility" to standards.

Of course, it can be argued that the gains supported by one-to-one computing are not easily measured through traditional means. So called "21st Century Skills" such as creativity and teamwork are not typically measured on standardized tests. Such tests tend to focus on subject-matter recall, individual performance on predefined tasks, and other "20th Century" skills, rather than higher-order thinking on open-ended problems--the most effective learning tasks using technology. (See this article on the potentialo disconnect between NCLB requirements and high use of technology.) A student who is used to using a laptop for regular school work may be disadvantaged when prohibited from using that tool during achievement tests. Student grades may not reflect increased learning because grades are typically given on a "curve" that reflect relative performance in a class rather than absolute achievement relative to a fixed standard.

While evidence of increased student learning in technology-rich environments is available, the situation exemplifies a major problem with school reform generally: the demand to redesign the vehicle while it is still traveling down the road. The need to continue to educate students while "retooling" the educational system means that it's impossible to change everything at once: teaching methods, technologies, school infrastructure and support, administrative demands, parental expectations, student habits, assessment systems, and more. So while "progress" may be made on one or more of these fronts, such progress will result in increased tensions or lowered "outcomes" in another part of the system. In a political environment that demands instant results, it is very difficult to sustain reform efforts that may actually produce lower measured achievement or create widespread confusion or dissatisfaction in the short or medium term.

One of the reasons that the American school system is so difficult to "transform" is that it is really multiple systems, with overlapping and often competing levels of governance and constituencies of stakeholders. Without a "national" vision for education (something more robust and engaging than the completely impossible goal of 100% student proficiency on standardized tests by 2014), and without true leadership on a federal level for educational transformation, we are likely to see a continued cycle of limited visions replaced by demands for "back to basics" approaches for a long time to come. This reality--and the commitment to at least try to break that cycle--may be why Bill Gates and Eli Broad
plan to make education a central issue in the 2008 presidential campaign. Their contention is that even though "Education is primarily a state and local responsibility..., this is an American problem that affects us all." My own view is that it is time for an amendment to the US constitution making education a federal responsibility, and for our politicians to get behind the depoliticization of educational reform through creation of a robust and independent educational authority at the federal level. (See the Lonang Commentaries for a radically different view on this issue.)

Real systematic reform--perhaps even a national decision not only to redesign the vehicle but perhaps even to choose a new road--is necessary to overcome the cycle of "transformation" and "back to basics" backlash that will otherwise continue to plague the arena of education, and specifically the technology of education.

Meet Percival Gynoid, Teen Grid

This is Percival Gynoid. He's my alternate avatar on the Teen Grid, the Second Life simulator for kids 12 to 17. No, I'm not that age, but I'm an "approved person" on the Teen Grid, meaning that I passed a criminal background check (whew!) and have been added as an adult on one of the islands on the Teen Grid, Eye4You, which is run by a partnership between the Alliance Library System and the Charlotte-Mecklenburg County Libraries.

The original idea for Eye4You was to create an island in the Teen Grid to promote use of libraries by teens. I'm particpating to work on education there, and have some ideas for how the Teen Grid might be used, which I'll be talkign about more here as time goes by.

Today (April 23), we had a "general meeting" on the Teen Grid to discuss some issues in management and planning.

This is our meeting, in the new Welcome Center, with Saryn Fanwood as our fearless leader. We talked about how to manage buidling on the island (whether to set up groups for different parcels, which would work well but would require Linden Labs employees to send invitations), how to generate discussion on topics among teens, the prim count of the island, and some other topics.

I look forward to participating further in the island's activities, and sent the following notice to the Eye4You group as I left the meeting:

"Percival Gynoid, educational coordinator for Eye4You Island, is putting together an educational steering committee of teens and approved adults to work on educational programming for Eye4You Island. the steering committee would meet weekly for an hour (at first, to get things going) to plan policies for educational events, to schedule classes, to conduct surveys to determine interests and needs, and to ensure good communication between approved adults and teens who are participating in the island. Any interested teens or adults should send an IM to Percival Gynoid in the Teen Grid or to Dewey Jung in the main grid. We will likely have our first meeting the week of Aptil 30. "

Meet Dewey Jung

This photo shows Craig Cunningham, author of this blog, and Dewey Jung, my main second life avatar. I've been spending way too much time in Second Life, but it has been fun and exciting. I am particularly excited about the potential for this platform to influence education, both formal and informal. In the next few posts, I'll be describing in more detail my Second Life activities, including some of the fun I've been having as well as some of the serious work I'm doing and contemplating doing. Stay tuned!

Second Life: A venue for professional development?

Following is a transcript from the National-Louis University, National College of Education Technology Committee, in which I describe the professional development possibilities of Second Life. The participants are me, Stuart Carrier, Xiuwen Wu, Rob Bowe, and Jane Moore.

CraigC: okay, second life

CraigC: before i go any further, and before you go to the web page, does anyone know what secondlife is?

StuartC: not familiar

XiuwenW: No

XiuwenW: Heard of it

XiuwenW: on ChicagoTribute

JanePM: I followed the website earlier--seems weird--a virtual life?

CraigC: okay, let me be maybe the first to say this to you: this technology represents the future of distance education.

CraigC: i am writing a grant with CPS to do prof dev for CPS librarians.

RobertBo: with Gail bush?

CraigC: one of the central library people (head of tech) suggested investigating secondlife as a platform for pd

CraigC: (yes, writing it with gail)

CraigC: i was skeptical, because i had read the tribune piece and saw it mainly as a playground (which it is....there's all kinds of kinky stuff going on there)

CraigC: gail called it "loopy tunes" (but she hasn't seen it as i have)

RobertBo: You know what they say about Librarians.

CraigC: yes

CraigC: anyway

JanePM: That was my first impression as well...what does it offer that Tapped In, for example doesn't?

CraigC: there is a set of "islands" that are devoted to librarians

CraigC: i now have an office there

CraigC: and have met many of the key players

CraigC: (my wife has been wondering if i have a first life)

CraigC: and

CraigC: i have seen the future

CraigC: jane's question is THE question

JanePM: Scary!

CraigC: what's the value-added compared to tappedin?

CraigC: there will be a huge generational thing on this

CraigC: and many "serious" people will reject it

CraigC: but

JanePM: I can't imagine why I'd want to do professional development in a site where I can buy realistic vamp wounds.

CraigC: i think they will be wrong to do so

CraigC: lol

CraigC: jane, you are an object lesson in skeptism

CraigC: bear with me, okay

JanePM: That was on the first page I got to when I searched for you.

CraigC: i'm not given to wild embracing of new tech just because it's new

JanePM: Always glad to oblige.

CraigC: (jane, you're only on the web site, not the world)

CraigC: it's not a web site

CraigC: it's virtual reality

CraigC: interactive virtual reality

JanePM: OK, set us straight.

CraigC: with hundreds of "locations" and "events" and millions of users and growing FAST

CraigC: every person has an avatar

CraigC: (you see the 'scary" ones on the secondlife.com home page)

CraigC: the librarians are mostly more pedestrian in appearance

JanePM smiles

CraigC: (I've been playing with my appearance, as most people do)

JanePM: So, how do we "find" you?

CraigC: okay, i'll cut to the quck, becuase i have to take a phone call at 11

CraigC: my SL name is Dewey Jung

JanePM: Cute

CraigC: you can search for me if you ever get online

CraigC: my office has the NLU logo on it

StuartC: ok Dewey

CraigC: if i'm online i'll bring you to it

CraigC: (I hear the snickers already.)

CraigC: (this is going to be a tough sell, i can tell)

JanePM: So, we have to join to "see" you?

CraigC: anyway, the other day i was wandering around on infoisland, land "owned" by the alliance library system of western illinois

CraigC: yes jane

CraigC: this was before i met all the key players in the alliance's sl presence....they are the ones who gave me my office

CraigC: anyway

CraigC: i was wandering around and noticed a lot of people gathered together on my map, so i went to see what was going on

CraigC: i found

CraigC: a class on how to do animations in sl

CraigC: let me tell you, it was the most profoundly interesting distance education experinece i have ever had

CraigC: about 50 people from around the world gathered for this previously-announced class

CraigC: we all sat around in a comfy "lecture hall"

CraigC: the instructor told us all to click a spot to get the "course materials"

CraigC: we immediately had sample scripts, images, how-to guides, etc. in our inventory

CraigC: he told us where to find the shareware program qavimator.

CraigC: and how to install it

CraigC: he tells us to use the chat for very general comments and questions, but to instant message him wtih specific ones

CraigC: so the class begins

CraigC: there is a whiteboard

CraigC: he's set it up with screenshots of each step in the process

CraigC: we use our inventory to do more complicated stuff

CraigC: he's talking on the chat and some students are talking on the chat

CraigC: he is responding to IM's, almost immediately.

CraigC: my questions are answered immediately

CraigC: there is no need to 'wait your turn" or to try to listen to quiet voices

CraigC: meanwhile, the students are IMing each other, all over the place

CraigC: networking, finding out about cool tricks

CraigC: so we create animations

CraigC: and we TRY THEM OUT on ourselves during the class

CraigC: so you get to SEE immediately ,what people have done

CraigC: you can IM people to ask them how they did it.

CraigC: WIthin 1 hour we had all made animations

CraigC: within 2 hours we had all built complicated gestures with sound, animation, scripting.

CraigC: it was engrossing.

CraigC: okay, i'm done.

JanePM: I'm exhausted :)

XiuwenW: Does this site charge a subscription fee?

CraigC: not for basic membership

StuartC: i see the distance learning implications

CraigC: stu, i hope so

JanePM: Yes, if you can get past the initial impression.

CraigC: i chatted with a 70 yr old chemistry prof in world

RobertBo: It looks like some charge a fee.

CraigC: he beleives that the VR aspect adds a kind of "physical presence" of others that makes the whole experience so much more "real" than a simple chat room.

CraigC: i agree.

CraigC: yes you can spend money, for sure

CraigC: on land

CraigC: events

CraigC: "stuff" like clothing, skins, furniture

CraigC: but a lot of it is free, too

CraigC: and you can build your own stuff

CraigC: i built a sign, a table, decorated my office

CraigC: mark my words, folks, our "online" work is going to change dramatically within the next year or so

RobertBo: 5 cents to visit the doktor

CraigC: and i would bet

JanePM: We heard it here!

CraigC: that don grady is not going to lead the way.

JanePM smiles

RobertBo: Very interesting!

CraigC: i don't expect this committee to do anything right away

XiuwenW: If students can interact with an expert while viewing the solar system video, that'll be neat.

CraigC: i wanted to inform you

CraigC: we're going to write some experiments into our grant

JanePM: Thanks, Craig...it's worth exploring.

StuartC: definitely

CraigC: but we're also going to back it up with a webct presence

CraigC: (just to be safe)

StuartC: yes

CraigC: i recommend going in world

CraigC: look around

CraigC: if you don't find anything interesting, let me know, and i'll be a guide for you

CraigC: Dewey Jung

CraigC: or email me.

CraigC: i have to go

JanePM: Thanks, Craig. I need to go as well. Bye, all. Happy Holidays!