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nd since the outside content doesn't pass through Linden Lab's servers, it won't necessarily appear exactly the same way and at exactly the same time to all viewers. The company is currently working on allowing people to associate live Web content with so-called prims, the geometric building blocks that Second Life denizens use when creating virtual objects. Web content could then be stored on a portable object that a user's avatar can carry anywhere in the virtual world. "You can take it out and show it to someone without that land having to be yours," Miller says.

A virtual whiteboard, for example, might display a document, which two users could work on at the same time. In addition, he says, the company is building a programming interface that will allow other developers to import different types of media--Flash, for example--into Second Life without any change to the virtual world's underlying code. Miller says that companies or individuals will then have much more flexibility to use the types of media that suit their purposes within the world.

However, Rivers Run Red's Bovington says that Second Life tends to be the cheapest, most versatile way for a company or individual to try out Web integration. Although it has fewer security features, he says, it requires a smaller initial investment.

Update 11:11am PST: Lestat figured this out and shared. You just double-click on the seat cushion to sit in the chairs

In its current state, Lively is like IRC in 3D. You can meet your friends in a room and chat with bubbles over your head. I’ve seen many attempts to do this type of thing over the years but the only one that comes to mind as being a big success is Habbo Hotel.

When there is an ability to actually create something original objects (can’t do yet), stream audio and video (can’t do yet), interact with objects (how can you do this?),

Online gaming can help students develop many of the skills they'll be required to use upon leaving school, such as critical thinking, problem solving, and creativity, agreed educators who spoke during an April 16 webinar on gaming in education.

gaming and simulations are highly interactive, allow for instant feedback, immerse students in collaborative environments, and allow for rapid decision-making

repeated exposure to video games reinforces the ability to create mental maps, inductive discovery such as formulating hypotheses, and the ability to focus on several things at once and respond faster to unexpected stimuli.

The NMC Campus is an experimental effort developed to inform the New Media Consortium’s work in educational gaming.

Now fully operational, the NMC Campus has been carefully constructed to provide researchers and students dozens of prebuilt settings for experiments in social interaction in 3-D space. Expressly designed to encourage explorations both formal and informal, traditional and nontraditional, real and surreal, and serious and playlike, the spaces are flexible and will lend themselves to additional uses, yet to be defined. The campus has a variety of places for these interactions, from the serious to the fanciful, each designed to support an optimal group size; these range from 2 to more than 75. The campus also supports a wide variety of traditional media, including posters, PowerPoint slides, photographs, charts/graphs, videos, and weblinks, and these resources continue to be added on a regular basis as a core component of the project. All of these resources are available to NMC members who may wish to bring classes to the campus for a visit, as part of a research project, or for a full term. Complete details on using the campus are available on the NMC Campus wiki. Also available is the complete Second Life toolset of sophisticated building tools and the LSL scripting language, with which all of the NMC Campus and Second Life has been created. These allow the creation of virtually any simulated situation, process, or environment, and the incorporation of sophisticated interactivity. For the latest information on the project, see the main pages in this blog,

[SL] Best Practices For Education in Second Life The following best practices were developed by Global Kids, Inc. through the summer 2006 Camp GK in the teen grid of Second Life. Over four weeks, 15 teens spent three hours a day, five days a week, participating in interactive, experiential workshops about pressing global issues. Over the course of the program the teens picked a topic of concern -- child sex trafficking -- and built a maze to educate their online community and inspire them to take action. In its first eight weeks, the content-rich maze was visited by 2,500 teens, amongst whom over 450 donated money to an international organization committed to eradicating this global crime against children. Below is a review of general concepts. For more details download the pdf. Best practices for working in TSL 1. What happens in the teen grid stays in the teen grid. 2. Create multiple places of meaning. 3. If you build it, they will come. 4. Go beyond TSL. Best practices for bringing a youth development model into TSL 1. Build, build, build! 2. Don’t just build; design and manipulate avatars. 3. Think globally, act locally. 4. Know when teens know best. Best practices in workshop design and facilitation in TSL 1. Use real world content when addressing real world issues. 2. Don’t wait until someone has the floor to start typing. 3. Don’t fear multiple communication channels. 4. Incorporate processing into the activity, not just as a final step. Best practices in program design for TSL 1. Employ effective, rigorous, targeted recruitment. 2. Replace the dominant TSL culture with the GK Island culture. 3. Carefully design and build the tools required. 4. Ensure the program is designed for the recruited participants

We’re excited to be able to offer and host a new workshop that will take place in Second Life. Dan Undertone, a.k.a Dan Zellner in real life (Northwestern University), will lead this 8 session workshop that will use the new theater and studio on NMC Campus, the Machinima Building on the Learning sim. We had a small taste of this last October, when Dan led an activity that was part of the Symposium on Digital Media. Participants in a movement activity led by Dan Undertone, October 2006 Here is the information for the new workshop Dan is offering. Description This workshop will focus on using improvisational theatre games and other drama techniques to familiarize users with Second Life and its creative possibilities. Participants will plays the roles of author, actor and audience as various games are played and scenarios created.