Joe Sanchez - Virtual World Researcher

Joe Sanchez
Doctoral Candidate
Assistant Instructor
Office: FAC 306
(512) 471-3821
joesanchez@mail.utexas.edu
blog
Second Life: North Lamar

Curriculum Vitae | Research Publications

Read about Joe Sanchez's recent Service Learning in Virtual Worlds grant with the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Foundation

Read about Joe Sanchez's project the Educators Coop (Co-op) in Second Life from Texas Technology Magazine

Read Joe Sanchez's interview in the Chornicle of Higher Education. Young Librarians, Talkin' 'Bout Their Generation

Read Joe Sanchez describing his use of Second Life in his Social Issues in a Networked Society course in USA Today.

Read a feature story from On Campus at UT-Austin covering Joe Sanchez's dissertation topic, The Educators Coop

RESEARCH

The Student User Experience in Second Life

avatrs in Second Life sitting at a camp fire

My first research project in Second Life involved a World Literature course taught by Jerome Bump in the English department at The University of Texas at Austin during the Fall of 2006. Twenty-two students participated in a mixed-methods research study that included two surveys, a focus group, and individual interviews. The survey data was primarily used to collect pre and post Second Life activity data to measure efficacy and motivation. The focus group was conducted using Interactive Qualitative Analysis and began with one question "Tell me about your experiences as a learner in Second Life". Students produced 212 notecards and created a systems diagram of the user experience. The IQA paper is available here, and the motivation paper is available here. A third paper featuring a sociotechnical analysis is avilable here

Collaboration in Virtual Worlds - The Educators Coop

avatrs being greeted in an outdoor setting

The Educators Coop, pronounced co-op, is a virtual community I co-created with Leslie Jarmon (Bluewave Ogee) in Second Life. The Educators Coop is an interdisciplinary group of 42 researchers, K-12 teachers, librarians and graduate students who are actively researching or creating learning environments in Second Life. Since July 2007 we have been collecting ethnographic data, recording field notes, and holding interviews and focus groups in order to understand how groups of people use virtual worlds to collaborate, what forms or shapes collaboration takes in virtual worlds, and how groups of people use the affordances of Second Life to collaborate when geospatially distant. Initial findings will be presented at ASIS&T in November 2008. A paper discussing the research methods and theory supporting the Educators Coop was recently published.

Avatar Priming and Social Stereotypes

A main goal of the project is to establish whether activating social stereotypes in virtual environments affects users’ cognition and behavior, as represented by test performance, language use, and perceptions about embodiment. The experiment consists of a 2 x 2 factorial design (avatar appearance: professor, supermodel) x (avatar role label: “professor” and “supermodel” labels, no labels) x 2 (participants’ gender: male, female). As of July 2008 we have had 76 participants successfully complete the experiment. The experiment is continuing through the Fall 2008 semester. This interdisciplinary project includes researchers from the School of Information, Organizational Communication, Interaction Analysis, and Interpersonal Communication.

PUBLICATIONS

Jarmon, L. & Sanchez, J. (2009 forthcoming). “The Educators Coop: A Model for Collaboration and LSI Communication Research in the Virtual World,” Electronic Journal of Communication. CIOS.

Sanchez, J. (2009 in press) Virtual Worlds: New Spaces for Service Learning. In Service Learning: Linking Library Education and Practice. Edited by Loriene Roy and Alex Hershey. ALA Editions. American Library Association

Jarmon, L., & Sanchez, J. (2008 in Press) The Educators Coop: A Virtual World Model for Real World Collaboration. Proceedings of the American Society for Information Science and Technology.

Jarmon, Leslie & Sanchez, Joe. (2008). “The Educators Coop Experience in Second Life: A Model for Collaboration,” Journal of the Research Center for Educational Technology, Vol. 4(2). (html)

Sanchez, J. (2007). Second Life: An Interactive Qualitative Analysis. In C. Crawford et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education International Conference 2007 (pp. 1240-1243). Chesapeake, VA: AACE. (pdf) (html)

Sanchez, J. (2007). A Sociotechnical Systems Analysis of Second Life in an Undergraduate English Course. In Proceedings of World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications 2007 (pp. 4254-4258). Chesapeake, VA: AACE. (pdf) (html)

Mayrath, M., Sanchez, J., Traphagan, T., Heikes, J. & Trivedi, A. (2007). Using Second Life in an English course: Designing class activities to address learning objectives. In Proceedings of World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications 2007 (pp. 4219-4224).
Chesapeake, VA: AACE. (pdf)

Sanchez, J., Svinicki, M., McGregor, A. & Kim, M. (2005). Creating Online Faculty Development Resources Through IRIS: Information Resources with Instructional Strategies. In C. Crawford et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education International Conference 2005 (pp. 1224-1226). Chesapeake, VA: AACE.

Rhodes, S. & Sanchez, J. (2002). Assessing out-of-the-box thinkers: Professional development for IT support staff. In Proceedings of World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications 2002 (pp. 1637-1639). Chesapeake, VA: AACE

Sanchez, J. & Deloca, D.(2003). Web Video as an Administrative Solution. In C. Crawford et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education International Conference 2003 (pp. 1548-1549). Chesapeake, VA: AACE.
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Upcoming Presentations:

- 5th ALA Forum on Education. The Service Learning Connecion. 6-27-08 2008 American Library Association Annual Conference

- Panel on Doctoral Education. 6-28-08. 2008 American Library Association Annual Conference

- Storytelling in Virtual Environments. Center for Digital Storytelling 5-17-2008

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Recent Speaking Engagements:

- Experiential Learning in Virtual Environments : Internet Public Library, Second Life, and Web 2.0. Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE). January 2008

- The Service Connection: Library and Information Science Education and Service to Communities. Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE). January 2008

- 4th ALA Forum on Education - The Ph.D. Experience: Research into Practice. American Library Association Mid-Winter Conference January 2008

- The Current State and the Future of Education and Music Education in Second Life. National Symposium for Music Instruction Technology
October 2007

- Developing a Community of Practice in the Shared Virtual Environment of Second Life. Learning and Research in Second Life Workshop @ Association of Internet Researchers 8. Vancouver, Canada. October 2007

- The Educators Coop Experience in Second Life. The Sociological Significance of Virtual Worlds Supplanting Cyberspace. American Sociological Association August, 2007

- Creating Transitional Spaces in Virtual Places: Learning in Second Life. Association of Internet Researchers 8. Vancouver, Canada. October 2007

- Evolving Marketing into Virtual Worlds : Austin Technology Council. July 18, 2007.

- Virtual Worlds: Connecting people, places, and spaces. Austin Technology Forum sponsored by Texas Advanced Computing Center May 3, 2007

- Learning 2.0 . Third Annual Texas Blackboard User Group Conference , Fall 2006

- Second Life: People, places, and spaces. The University of Texas at Austin Faculty Development Workshop, 2007

- Information Architecture in Virtual Worlds. School of Information April, 2007.