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Eloise Pasteur

Gwyn's Home » Not So Lively: Chronicles of Day One on Google's Virtual World - 0 views

gwynethllewelyn.net/...y-one-on-googles-virtual-world

analysis comment gwyneth llewlyn lively second life

shared by Eloise Pasteur on 09 Jul 08 - Cached
  • (no new virtual world supports the Mac these days, in spite of the “promises” done to “support it soon” — with “only” 8% of market share and growing, the Mac is simply not interesting for developers to focus on)
    • Eloise Pasteur
      Eloise Pasteur on 09 Jul 08
       
      Not true, Small Worlds does
  • Being — like all Google products! — a Beta version, there are perhaps 40 or 50 available options (not the “millions” announced by Google reps) and they can be somewhat configured, but the choices are confusing and very, very limited.
  • “Linden Lab” room a close second. Figuring out that here I would already find a few familiar faces from Second Life®, I went for that one. The choice was certainly correct — Dusan Writer, Grace McDunnough, Jurin Juran, and likely a few others (sometimes it’s not easy to figure out who’s who!) were around in the room, testing the cumbersome interface. And cumbersome it is!
  • ...21 more annotations...
  • Then again, it looked like most of the crowd was complaining about the excruciatingly painful lag.
  • Combine that with a confusing little interface and it was clearly anything but a “fun” experience. And remember that we were all cheating. Everybody on the “Linden Lab” room at that time was a veteran Second Life resident; we’re not exactly newbies with virtual worlds. We have tried several, and in some cases, use different VWs regularly and every day. We’re used to lag, to semi-functional software, to application crashes (several people crashed during the few hours I was online), to things not loading, to silly mistakes that everybody does. We’re also used to the insanely complex (but virtually rich) interface of Second Life, and use computers and their complex applications to accomplish tasks every day. And, of course, we all are very open minded and eager to try new things out.
  • Lively was anything but Lively — except for the fact that you were in a visually unappealing chatroom with a lot of friends or at least acquaintances from one’s journey across the Metaverse. Like I usually say, most virtual worlds I’ve tried only capture my attention for about 15 minutes, and it’s up to the developers to make sure that I enjoy the first 15 minutes
  • The “cartoonish” look (which is so great for rendering things quickly) is also something that baffles me. I can’t believe that Google is targeting the teen population.
  • After all, Mike Elgan from ComputerWorld claims: What that means is that companies will be able to re-create their office and meeting space, and events companies can create or re-create entire conferencing facilities. Your avatar can wander around, see the “booths,” check out the conferences or interface with other “attendees” — all in virtual space.  Really, Mike?… They might do that, but definitely not on Lively.
  • Even a MoU representative (who, as said, did create a room for a client in Lively already) considers that opinion an “interesting hypothesis”. Put into other words, not even MoU seriously believes that article, and it’s just one of a series — which, if I didn’t know the reputation of the magazines writing them, I’d just believe they were infodumps straight out of Google’s marketing department. The claims are just ludicrous.
  • If Google has more plans for Lively, they’re not telling — and instead are offering a terrible product, way below their usual offerings.
  • So why are people so enthusiastic about Google Lively? I have only one explanation: it has the brand “Google” behind it.
  • As a 3D-chatroom-embedded-on-the-web, it falls behind almost every other product and application I have tried in the past 4 years, no matter where you wish to find something good. The animations are goofy and cartoonish, to the point of extreme irritability.
  • The interface is not obvious, but then again, SL suffers from the same problem, and it’s just a question of getting used to it.
  • There is no content creation at all; no way to integrate it with anything; no programming/scripting; no chat tools (even GTalk, known to have the least features just after SL’s chat system, has far more!).
  • And, more important: no support, a terrible forum system (I can’t answer on half the threads), no helpful people around… if you bump into a Google Developer, they’re very likely very friendly (or so everybody who met them claims), but that’s all you get.
  • Google’s webpage for Lively is even more minimalistic than anything else they’ve launched before
  • And there is nothing on the Google developers’ sites either.
  • Searching for the “most popular” rooms leads to the inevitable: the most rated one was a dance club (since you can stream music) and on the top ten list you had a lot of sex-related rooms as well.
  • This was a terrible disappointment. I admit to being very naive. I was expecting something with at least the quality of Vivaty which at least has pretty decent avatars
  • but using SketchUp to import at least crude models. Even importing plywood cubes would be nice! Instead, we have to rely on the “Catalog”, created by a limited group of Google developers.
  • Some SL residents managed to talk to the Google Developers, and these said that there was a 3D Max plugin to allow the creation of content into Lively. The plugin works 90% of the time but it can only improve. There is no idea or plan or announcement on if that plugin will be released to the public.
  • Google is known to be “the company that does no evil”. But looking from my point of view — an enthusiast of the 3D Social Web — I feel cheated. We were doing great in opening the minds to millions of users to look at the Metaverse as Second Life defines it as the next human-machine interface for all our tasks. Granted, we all know it’ll take ages — another decade at least — but we all are here for the long term. Instead, what we get from one of the industry giants is that “3D is bad, embedding cartoons on Web pages is good”. Why? Well, it should be obvious. Google is the market leader in (2D) web search content — both text and images (and soon video). While there is an HTML-based World-Wide Web, Google will be a major player in it — always.
  • I don’t think there are coincidences. In about 24 hours (not in the same day for the timezone-impaired), Sun’s Wonderland gets slashdotted, Linden Lab announces the massive growth of Second Life and demonstrates the interoperability between their main grid and IBM’s OpenSim-based grid, and Google launches their own virtual world, Lively. July 8th was definitely the Day of the Metaverse!
  • So, like probably billions of people around the world, I tried to join in to Lively and see what’s all about. Not to be turned down by the lack of Mac support
  • Eloise Pasteur on 09 Jul 08
     
    More on Lively. Google is missing the mark
Eloise Pasteur

The Otherland Group - Blog: Second Life at a Cross Roads? - 0 views

otherland.blogs.com/...second-life-at.html

3dinternet analysis blog future life plans second

shared by Eloise Pasteur on 31 Jul 08 - Cached
  • For many people outside of the "virtual worlds industry" the terms "virtual world" and "Second Life" are still more or less synonyms. This is especially funny, as many people in the industry seem to have written off Second Life because of many disappointing developments in 2007 and the big negative hype in the press.
  • It is not a secret, though, that Linden Lab's management and investors still believe that the Second Life technology will be the (or a least "a") corner stone of the future Web3D. Is this totally unrealistic? And would would Linden Lab have to do, to make this come true if it isn't? Making the platform more stable is a simple answer - and certainly a pre-requesite. But what about other decisions? More control? Or less? More openness? Or a tightly controlled product? And a product for which target groups? Based on what business model?
  • Both will tell you, that Linden Lab indeed has a rather profitable business model, is expecting significant growth and is targeting markets way outside the current user base (actually alienating large groups in the current user base).
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • Actually - and for some of my readers maybe surprisingly - I think that Linden Lab has a strategy for the coming years and Second Life's place in the Metaverse.
  • In parallel, it is interesting to see, that Linden Lab created a "Department of Public Works" earlier this year, which is responsible for "beautifying Second Life" - after a long long time, where the company just flooded the market with more and more "land" (servers) which quickly were converted into huge trailer parks.
  • The problem for Linden Lab is, that they target so many dfferent audiences. And it is impossible, to offer all of these audiences ONE single product, a product that will make all of them happy.
  • I believe, that they are all part of a unified strategy to position Second Life as a standard tool for creating and accessing the future Web 3D as well as to position Linden Lab as one - but not the only - important service provider.
  • ut, comparing SL to "The West" (as Mitch Kapor did it in his birthday speech), please consider: not all of the important groups and personalities in the American West of the 1840s or so would be well respected citizens in the California of 2008
  • a second important audience, Linden Lab is targeting, too, is the corporate audience, the educational institutions, etc. Despite Linden Lab's propaganda, this is a very small market today (the majority of earnings comes from consumers) but it is growing. This audience needs more "control & security". If Linden Lab wants to succeed in these markets, they have to provide that - not only on seperate estates, because the vast society of Second Life CAN be an interesting aspect for some of these projects, too :) Not all of them work best in a walled garden.
  • For those who want a walled garden, I am sure, that Linden Lab will soon offer some options which go well beyond what is possible on private estates. It will be possible to host closed sub-grids in Linden Lab's data centers in 2009. I am very certain of that.
  • Linden Lab will offer one. Others will do that, too. There will be "adult grids" (they are already being built). There will be grids for many, many sub-cultures and those will certainly not have the same set of rules like Linden Labs SL has (now or then). And there will be corporate "Intraworlds", educational and marketing grids, tightly controlled and partly or fully closed off to the public.
  • Eloise Pasteur on 31 Jul 08
     
    Thoughts on the future of Second Life in the development of the 3D metaverse
James OReilly

Versatile, Immersive, Creative and Dynamic Virtual 3-D Healthcare Learning Environments... - 0 views

www.jmir.org/e26

shared by James OReilly on 13 Dec 08 - Cached
  • Virtual 3-D Healthcare Learning Environments
  • The author provides a critical overview of three-dimensional (3-D) virtual worlds and “serious gaming” that are currently being developed and used in healthcare professional education and medicine.
  • Roger’s Diffusion of Innovations Theory
  • ...32 more annotations...
  • Siemens’ Connectivism Theory
  • accelerating momentum
  • The term “avatar” is an old Sanskrit word portraying a deity which takes on a human shape
  • it is beneficial to address while the race to adopt and implement highly engaging Web 3-D virtual worlds is watched in healthcare professional education
  • Therefore, Roger’s Diffusion of Innovations Theory [5] and Siemens’ Connectivism Theory [6] for today’s learners will serve as theoretical frameworks for this paper.
  • A 3-D virtual world, also known as a Massively Multiplayer Virtual World (MMVW), is an example of a Web 2.0/Web 3-D dynamic computer-based application.
  • applications that enable social publishing, such as blogs and wikis
  • the most popular virtual world used by the general public is Linden Lab’s Second Life (SL)
  • health information island
  • US agencies, such as the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health conduct meetings in SL to discuss the educational potential of SL
  • virtual medical universities exist all over the world
  • there are some fundamental questions which remain unanswered.
  • Trauma Center
  • Virtual worlds are currently being used as educational spaces [1] and continue to grow in popularity on campuses and businesses worldwide. Furthermore, access to versions of virtual worlds on the Web, such as “Croquet,” “Uni-Verse,” and “Multiverse” are predicted within two to three years to be mainstream in education
  • Some educators may balk at adopting this technology because there is a learning curve associated with the use of 3-D virtual worlds.
  • By allowing students time to interact with other avatars (eg, patients, staff members, and other healthcare professionals) in a safe, simulated environment, a decrease in student anxiety, an increase in competency in learning a new skill, and encouragement to cooperate and collaborate, as well as resolve conflicts, is possible.
  • High quality 3-D entertainment that is freely accessible via Web browsing facilitates engagement opportunities with individuals or groups of people in an authentic manner that illustrates collective intelligence
  • Advanced Learning and Immersive Virtual Environment (ALIVE) at the University of Southern Queensland
  • Who would imagine attending medical school in a virtual world?
  • Problem-based learning groups enrolled in a clinical management course at Coventry University meet in SL and are employed to build learning facilities for the next semester of SL students. This management course teaches students to manage healthcare facilities and is reported to be the first healthcare-related class to use SL as a learning environment.
  • Another example of a medical school using SL is St. George’s Medical School in London.
  • Stanford University medical school
  • Another virtual world project developed by staff at the Imperial College in London, in collaboration with the National Physical Lab in the United Kingdom, is the Second Health Project
  • Mesko [35] presents the top 10 virtual medical sites in SL.
  • The development and use of 3-D virtual worlds in nursing education is increasing.
  • there are reported advantages to having students engage in these emerging technologies
  • Let’s have fun, explore these fascinating worlds and games, and network with others while respecting diverse ways of life-long learning and current researchers’ findings.
  • there is an underlying push in higher education to adopt these collaborative tools and shift the paradigm from a traditional Socratic method of education to one possessing a more active and interactive nature
  • One may view online virtual worlds and serious gaming as a threat to the adoption and purchase of high-fidelity computerized patient-simulation mannequins that are currently purchased for healthcare-profession training. For example, nurses may login into SL and learn Advanced Cardiac Life Support at their convenience, and it costs virtually nothing for the nurse and perhaps a nominal fee for the developer.
  • The educational opportunity in SL may not be a replacement for the doctor- or nurse-patient interaction or relationship, but SL may serve as an adjunct or pre- or post-learning tool.
  • one recalls when critics questioned the validity and reliability of the stethoscope invented by Laennec in 1816 and how today it is second nature to use this assessment tool.
  • 2006 health fair
Eloise Pasteur

Look Lively! - Massively - 0 views

www.massively.com/...look-lively

comment lively massively opinion second life tateru nino

shared by Eloise Pasteur on 09 Jul 08 - Cached
  • The Massively crew has spent a little more time hammering away at Google's new virtual artifice, Lively. By now, you've probably seen all sorts of news reports calling it a rival and competitor to Linden Lab's virtual world, Second Life. Technically, that's what we call bollocks
  • Describing Lively as a rival to Second Life is like calling a conference center a rival to a library. They're just not servicing the same needs, and the comparison is fundamentally nonsensical. Lively is tightly focused, and fails to intrude on the bulk of virtual worlds space.
  • Movement is accomplished by double-clicking on a spot to teleport your avatar there, or clicking and dragging the avatar with the left mouse button to walk your avatar. Don't try to drag your avatar past the border of the camera view without repositioning your camera first, or you will get unsettling jumps and find your avatar in strange places.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Lively keeps things simple and does those simple things well. The television in our sample room is playing the trailer for Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. A few clicks is all that is required to link a YouTube video to a television object -- but as far as we know, no other embedded video formats are supported.
  • All content that is currently in Lively is made by Google-approved developers, and is presently free -- though it looks very much like the majority of content in Lively will be pay-for before long.
  • If you want to interact with an object (sitting down, for example), single left click on the object. If you want to play an animation, single left click on your avatar, and select an item from the animations tab (different lists of animations are available depending on whether you are sitting or standing). And ... that's actually about it. Lively is simple, and straightforward, and focuses on doing one thing well: The furnishable 3D chatroom. It can be embedded on a webpage and your avatar can be in multiple rooms at once via different browser windows or tabs. If you've got a group of up to 20 people (who all have Google accounts and are running Windows), and want to share a Youtube video or sit around and shoot the breeze in a lightweight space, and having your own content isn't for you, then Lively is for you.
  • But a rival to Second Life? No more so than corn syrup is a rival for sea salt.
  • Eloise Pasteur on 09 Jul 08
     
    More on Lively, from the Massively crew
Ole C Brudvik

Teachers Buzz 03 Apr 16 Transcript - NMC-Campus - 0 views

sl.nmc.org/...hers_Buzz_03_Apr_16_Transcript

secondlife teaching

shared by Ole C Brudvik on 22 Apr 07 - Cached
  • one idea for a gateway activity might be a show-and-tell for clothing and avatars, so people see what is possible
  • the personal communication really teaches more than signs and object chat [9:24] CDB Barkley: What do you think will be the impact of the voice capability? Have you tried the beta? [9:25] Ravenelle Zugzwang: so as Teachers leading your students into SL, you can relieve some of the new enviroment anxiety by familiarizing yourself and being there as a connection for you students when they come in? [9:25] Ilene Pratt: Voice is going to be very interesting! It works remarkably well! It'll be like an Elluminate session but you'll really BE there with others!
  • [9:25] CDB Barkley: If you had to share 1 or 2 top places with a colleague new to Sl, where would you send them? [9:26] Lizzy Saintlouis: Edu Island and Info Island [9:26] Ravenelle Zugzwang: I think people will be nicer to one another when they can hear the others intentions through voice inflection, or not but more opt to be polite. Text is really misread often [9:26] Robins Hermano: NMC, NOAA, Terra Incognita [9:26] Ilene Pratt: The International Spaceport Museum is great! [9:26] CDB Barkley: But text is so much more information dense
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • [9:26] Enjay Ellison: Svarga, Leo Burnett [9:26] CDB Barkley: What is Svarga? [9:26] Enjay Ellison: Better World [9:26] Ravenelle Zugzwang: a fantasy build
  • I'm not quite as familiar with the Dreams Community, but have been excited we were asked to come... can someone tell me more about their connection with education? [9:35] SamBivalent Spork: hmm... one interesting thing about people's conceptions of what is possible in sl - is that sl can be used as some magic pill that will transform the structure of community/learning/teaching [9:35] SamBivalent Spork: but it's more subtle than all that
  • SL stimulates the need to communicate...that is the most basic driver for learning [9:44] CDB Barkley: Much to to with role play... [9:44] CDB Barkley: historical re-enactment [9:45] SamBivalent Spork: it seems now, that one learns by tp'ing around and looking, occasionally chatting [9:45] Robins Hermano: I'll be using it to allow students to interact with things that are otherwise intangible [9:45] CDB Barkley: We have a theater faculty at Northwestern who is planning to teach stage design, and production in SL [9:45] CDB Barkley: We have a new facility that can sintantly change out a theater into about 9 different configurations... so it is a fluid lab
Fred Delventhal

EDUCAUSE Review Magazine, Volume 43, Number 5, September/October 2008 | EDUCAUSE CONNECT - 0 views

connect.educause.edu/...47218

education learning magazine secondlife sl teaching virtualworlds

shared by Fred Delventhal on 22 Sep 08 - Cached
  • Fred Delventhal on 22 Sep 08
     
    Virtual Worlds? "Outlook Good" AJ Kelton ("AJ Brooks") Whether it is Second Life or another virtual world, this foundational movement is not going away. The question to be addressed in the coming months and years is how higher education and, subsequently, individual institutions will determine the best way to continue to move forward with virtual worlds. Higher Education as Virtual Conversation Sarah Robbins-Bell ("Intellagirl Tully") Virtual worlds can become an important tool in an educator's arsenal. But using this tool requires a shift in thinking and an adjustment in pedagogical methods that will embrace the community, the fluid identity, and the participation-indeed, the increased conversation-that virtual spaces can provide. Educational Frontiers: Learning in a Virtual World Cynthia M. Calongne ("Lyr Lobo") The use of virtual worlds expands on the campus-based and online classrooms, enhancing learning experiences. Classes in virtual worlds offer opportunities for visualization, simulation, enhanced social networks, and shared learning experiences. Looking to the Future: Higher Education in the Metaverse Chris Collins ("Fleep Tuque") Beyond the capabilities that virtual worlds offer us at the moment, it is the possibilities that we can imagine for the future that may be the most compelling. Virtual worlds technology, like the Internet in general, is changing the way we access and experience information and the way we can access and connect with each other. Drawing a Roadmap: Barriers and Challenges to Designing the Ideal Virtual World for Higher Education Chris Johnson ("ScubaChris Wollongong") When using a roadmap, one can take many different paths to reach a desired destination. Similarly, institutions can take many different turns along the road to implementing an ideal virtual world for higher education.
Eloise Pasteur

Accounting for Second Life - 0 views

www.aicpa.org/...second_life.htm

accounting business cpa cpd economy education professional recruitment second life virtual world

shared by Eloise Pasteur on 07 Jul 08 - Cached
  • Second what? Second Life is a virtual 3-D world on the Internet. Think of it as the marriage of online video game technology and social networking tools, like MySpace and Facebook, with e-commerce potential. It is not really a game and isn’t intended for children.
  • Public accounting’s presence in Second Life is called CPA Island. CPA Island may be a way to attract the next generation of young professionals to careers in public accounting.
  • Videos more easily capture the look and feel of Second Life. YouTube (www.youtube.com) has a good introductory overview video of Second Life (search “Second Life Text100”) as well as a video that illustrates its communication, education and collaboration possibilities (search “Second Life Ohio University”).
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Second Life is a global phenomenon. Reuters estimates that only 31.2% of active Second Life users are U.S. residents. The majority of active users (more than 54%) are from Europe. Second Life usage is so pervasive in Korea, for example, that it is beginning to impact the country’s social agenda, according to virtual world expert Edward Castronova.
  • In a recent interview for National Public Radio Weekend Edition (www.npr.org, Feb. 9, 08), Bloomfield described the basics of the Second Life economy and the real financial losses from the recent Second Life banking crisis. (The currency used for economic transactions in Second Life is called Linden Dollars. Linden Dollars can be exchanged for real U.S. dollars at a rate of approximately 260-to-1. Last year, Linden Lab banned online gambling operations that had become popular in Second Life. Early this year, Linden Lab banned unregulated banking operations in Second Life because several banks were reneging on unsustainable high interest rates on deposits.) Bloomfield attributes his initial interest in Second Life to its potential use as an economic simulator in which reactions to new financial regulations could be studied by FASB.
  • Professor Steven Hornik, of the University of Central Florida, is another accounting professor exploring accounting education applications. He created a Second Life location called Really Engaging Accounting and maintains a blog about his efforts at www.mydebitcredit.com. In his financial accounting course, he uses the social networking capabilities of Second Life and interactive 3-D objects that he creates. The objects demonstrate basic accounting principles. One simulates the effect of transactions on the basic accounting equation. Another simulates the use of T-accounts to record changes to account balances. Students use their avatars to manipulate the models. Videos of his Second Life creations are available on YouTube (search “second life accounting”).
  • SUMMARY Second Life is an immersive and engaging 3-D virtual world with economic implications and opportunities for the real world. CPA Island is the current center of the public accounting profession in Second Life, but this won’t be the case for long as other CPA firms choose to use it as a tool for meeting, connecting, sharing and collaborating with others. Where business activity goes, it seems certain that CPAs will follow.
Kerry J

Developing for SecondLife / OpenSim | drupal.org - 1 views

drupal.org/350618

virtualworlds opensim drupal

shared by Kerry J on 27 Oct 09 - Cached
  • Kerry J on 27 Oct 09
     
    Second Life objects are written in a language called Linden Scripting Language (LSL). For more on how to use this language, refer to this wiki http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/LSL_Portal. A good tutorial on LSL can be found in this Dr Dobbs Journal article using the Linden Scripting Language. The Second Life framework Drupal module interfaces with Second Life using the llHTTPRequest() function. See details here for llHTTPRequest. In order to write a Drupal application that interfaces with Second Life, you need to create a new module. See the sltest module in the samples directory for an example. The app is the application name, and is also the module name. The cmd is a command that your module/app must handle. The args vary from one cmd to the other. The $sl object contains the Second Life info you need to know, such as region, location in the grid, user name, user key, ...etc. The $args is an array that is passed from the LSL script to you.
Eloise Pasteur

Second Life offers healing, therapeutic options for users - 0 views

www.sfgate.com/...article.cgi

healing second life support therapy

shared by Eloise Pasteur on 13 Jul 08 - Cached
  • poured out my heart from a place of loneliness and grief. Click click went the computer keys, like the staccato beat of my heart. Clack clack went their replies, their empathy and their own tales of triumph and woe. Via my avatar - the persona I'd created to engage here - I was participating in an "anxiety support group" in the free, virtual world of Second Life.
  • As I write those words, I can hear the scoffing. Pathetic! Escapist! Are you addicted to computer games? Do you have no friends? Second Life? That place is just about weird sex fantasies!
  • No wonder analysts at Gartner, a leading technology research company, predict that three years from now 8 in 10 Internet users will work or play in virtual spaces.
  • ...18 more annotations...
  • more attention to elaborate hairdos than Cher in her heyday
  • It has, in short, all the trauma and pain of real life, and some cautions are in order when it comes to seeking psychological support.
  • But maybe because it's a dream realm, hopefulness abounds. Nowhere is that truer than in Second Life's support groups, which help people cope with everything from cancer, depression, bipolar disorder and autism, to caretaker stress. There are more than 70 such groups, according to Second Life's Health Support Coalition. Most are secular. While a few groups are facilitated by associations such as the American Cancer Society, peers run most.
  • As expressed on the Web site, www.supportforhealing.com, associated with Second Life's Support for Healing Island, "we are NOT and never will replace the help of professionals ... but purely hold a safe place for people to come when they need a shoulder."
  • A year ago, before I had explored Second Life, I would have laughed at the idea of virtual shoulders. How can a person possibly be "real" via an avatar anyway - much less have a meaningful conversation with a puppy dog, barmaid, elf, or wilder avatar appearance such as a blob or a tree? It's hard enough to trust someone in real life, much less "second life." Then again, what better place to connect our yearning selves with other yearning selves than in a space of mutual creation - a place where those very selves can be one's unconscious made manifest? Indeed, avatar, in its original Sanskrit, refers to the descent of the soul in human form. Click, clack: When I rose from my hourlong anxiety group meeting, I felt seen and heard in the deepest part of me - more so, in fact, than in some "real life" interactions, where we often put up fronts.
  • The anonymity of Second Life can make all the difference in opening up to share within a support group. Somewhere in small-town America, a wife and mother of about 40 - she could be your neighbor or relative - suffers from serious depression. She loves animals, so within Second Life, as Fionella Flanagan, she's a big gray dog with a shaggy white mane. She attends the depression support group. Why does she do it? "I don't have to worry about what I say in the group coming back to bite me in my home town."
  • She also suffers from fibromyalgia, one of those crippling, invisible diseases that some doctors say is "all in your head." In Second Life, Fionella doesn't "have to overcome real life prejudice when I say I'm sick. There's none of that, 'but you look so good' junk."
  • When anxiety support group avatars were asked whether they were more honest as avatars than in real life, a wild-haired blonde, Galvana Gustafson (in real life an American, dancer and bassoonist with a master's degree in psychotherapy), put it this way: "My avatar is more honest than myself because the rejection won't hurt as much."
  • "All of Second Life is my support group," she reported.
  • Morgana later discovered the Support for Healing Island "because I was going through a major relapse with my bipolar and needed help from people who understood. I personally like to be in groups that are survivors, sufferers, and caretakers and loved ones, supporting one another. The best help and advice I have ever gotten are from people who have experienced firsthand."
  • People with autism or Asperger's especially seem to appreciate Second Life.
  • Researchers of autism use Second Life as a laboratory and tool. At the in-world SL-Labs and Teaching and Research facility, at the University of Derby in England, Simon Bignell, a lecturer in psychology, studies how Second Life can "enhance first life social-communication skills in people" with autistic spectrum disorders. The Center for Brain Health at the University of Texas, Dallas, offers a therapy in Second Life for people with Asperger's that helps them practice interviewing for jobs.
  • Second Life's Health Support Coalition (a collaboration between Soj, the avatar Gentle Heron and Carolina Keats, who in real life is a medical librarian) has won a grant from the Annenberg Foundation to create an Ability Commons, for 40-plus smaller health and support groups. "Imagine a paralyzed 23-year-old lying in his family's back bedroom," the coalition wrote, "yearning for contact with age peers in similar situations. Second Life offers people with serious physical and cognitive disabilities opportunities to socialize and get information."
  • opens each meeting with disclaimers: "Please do not let these meetings take the place of professional help," he typed to us.
  • One in-world psychologist, Dr. Craig Kerley from Georgia, who was profiled on CBS's "Early Show," has hung his shingle for "cybertherapy" at $90 per hour. This work, he says, "can be valuable for those who have limited choices in their geographical region, have limited time to drive to regular in-person appointments, have limited mobility, and have limitations in their lifestyle that make traveling to a brick and mortar office difficult."
  • Still, Dr. Peter Yellowlees, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at UC Davis and a specialist in virtual worlds, cautions about therapy in Second Life, even with professionals. He advises using it only as "a potential adjunct to face-to-face therapy," and to "use passwords or other cues in Second Life to make sure you're talking to the right person" - the real therapist, not scammers posing as one.
  • Yellowlees uses Second Life as a teaching tool, not for therapy. His Virtual Hallucinations sim gives "the lived experience of schizophrenia - to hear voices and see visions" so his students (and the rest of us) can "get inside the head, just a bit, of someone who's psychotic." It certainly sparked empathy in me, much more richly than a mere clinical description of the disorder would have done.
  • Empathy: There's that word again, an odd one to associate with impersonal bytes and modems, but the right one. Second Life is a hot, humming thing of wire and light, a "server" - spiritual teachers would like the metaphor - that can carry community and genuine human sympathy.
  • Eloise Pasteur on 13 Jul 08
     
    Personal anecdote of seeking support in Second Life. It is written by a journalist and addresses a lot of the issues from several sides - including advice from various mental health practitioners and comments from volunteers as well as some real insight into the world of SL and relating it to the public.
Dr. Fridemar Pache

SLEDucating » SecondLife Blogging Script - 0 views

www.sleducating.com/...secondlife-blogging-script

blogging opensource script sl

shared by Dr. Fridemar Pache on 20 Mar 07 - Cached
  • Dr. Fridemar Pache on 20 Mar 07
     
    SecondLife Blogging Script Writing by admin on Tuesday, 20 of March , 2007 at 1:42 pm Lots of people have been asking for a blogging solution, a way of being able to blog from "in-world" either a text or notecard directly to their personal blog. The following two scripts when placed in a prim will do exactly that. You can change the subject title, the blog address, the email, and choose between blogging the text chat, or a notecard. You call this script "blogger". The basic premise is that the script sends an e-mail, so you need your blog software set up to process an email, which is fairly simple on most blog apps. // This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
    // it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
    // the Free Software Foundation; version 2 of the License.
    //
    // This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
    // but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
    // MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
    // GNU General Public License for more details. // Written by Gypsy Paz
    // Version Beta 0.3 string blog_email;
    string blog_url = "http://blogger.com";
    string blog_msg = "Visit my Blog";
    string blog_subj = "Post from SecondLife";
    integer isadmin;
    integer on = FALSE; string dcapt;
    list dbutt;
    integer dchan;
    key duser = NULL_KEY; integer i; integer dlistener;
    bluemenu(){
    llDialog(duser,dcapt,dbutt,dchan);
    dlistener = llListen(dchan,"",duser,"");
    llSetTimerEvent(60);
    } integer clistener;
    string listenfor; unlisten(){
    llListenRemove(dlistener);
    llListenRemove(clistener);
    listenfor = "";<
  • Dr. Fridemar Pache on 20 Mar 07
     
    The reason for copying this freeware is:

     for commenting it inside the diigo annotation system, because the Blog-Page might change , so that this valuable code might be buried inside the blog.

Kerry J

jokaydia - may2010_unconfschedule - 4 views

jokaydia.wikispaces.com/may2010_unconfschedule

jokaydia may2010_unconfschedule secondlife opensim reactiongrid virtualworlds professionaldevelopment jokaydiagrid

shared by Kerry J on 01 May 10 - Cached
  • Kerry J on 01 May 10
     
    The aim of our annual Unconference is to celebrate the year's discoveries and achievements and welcome SL residents both old and new to share their work... and you are invited to participate! Session could include workshops, presentations, panels or discussions and can be convened at the Islands of jokaydia or at your own location. The unconference is designed to provide opportunities for all experience levels to participate and is an opportunity for sharing, collaboration and exploration! No idea is too big or too small.... add your proposed sessions below!
Ole C Brudvik

eslteacherlink.co.kr - About us - 0 views

eslteacherlink.co.kr/index.php

education englishvillage holo-teaching holodeck secondlife

shared by Ole C Brudvik on 21 Apr 07 - Cached
  • n January 2007, Eslteacherlink.com constructed English Village,&nbsp; an immersive 3D simulation for language learners and teachers across the globe!&nbsp; At English Village teachers meet students in REAL TIME, using an avatar, Virtual white boards, VOICE, 3D objects, and role playable holodecks to provide 21st century learning.
  • Futuristic, yet Practical Instead of keeping our island flat, and having the majority of our buildings&nbsp; on the ground level, we have situated 13 glass classrooms along a 120 meter high, horse-shoe shaped mountain ridge. Below the steep mountain ridges, lies a welcoming sandy beach that reaches out into a c resent moon shaped bay area. This large open space is used frequently by our teachers for special learning activities, such as market place and carnival role play scenarios.
  • The Onion Our meeting area is in the shape of an Onion, and is constructed of 100% virtual pink stained glass.&nbsp; We actually never planned to use a giant onion as our central meeting area... but it actually does a great job of representing&nbsp; the organic nature of our island ~ We build. We make mistakes. We learn.... and sometimes we cry!&nbsp; So.. an onion - is perfect. Everyone begins in the onion. When an avatar teleports to our island for the first time, thats where they land - smack dab in the center beautiful pink wonder.&nbsp; Around the edges of the onion are several multi colored hamster tubes sprouting out - connecting to each holodeck classroom. Inside the hamster tubes are convenient People Movers - you know, the ones you see at the airport.&nbsp; Here, avatars just click on the red loading ball, and they are instantly moved along the pathway 100 meters to their destination.&nbsp; This saves virtual transport time.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • i3D Tools at English Village Holoteaching™ Virtual holodecks enable teachers to "Holo-teach™." Holoteaching™ is a term we use to describe teaching using a holodeck. Plain and simple. We'd love to do this in the real world, but since real world technology is not yet available we are doing it in SL. Holoteaching™ provides a number of advantages for our teachers. Namely - context.&nbsp; If you've ever taught a language class to a group of students, you will understand the importance of context.&nbsp;&nbsp; For example, if a student was, say, going to Italy for a vacation, and wanted to study how to order some food - they could easily pick up a book on Italian language and memorize the necessary phases.&nbsp; If however, they were actually able to do a trial run - and actually sit down IN an Italian restaurant BEFORE they went on vacation, the likelihood of a good meal would most definitely increase. This is EXACTLY what holoteaching provides - an avenue for teachers to immerse students into rich role play scenarios where the walls, floors, and ceilings are textured to match what they are learning! Talk about fun!
  • Holo-teaching also allows transforms our classrooms into versatile meeting spaces.&nbsp; If a teacher needs to provide office hours, or meet with the president, or a college across the globe, they can easily transform their classroom into the appropriate space.&nbsp; Need a meeting room? No problem, click on meeting rooms, and choose from our selection. You can't find a meeting room you like? No problem, build it yourself, and our engineers will program it into the holodeck for you!&nbsp; Need a library to do research on educational technology? Load our research lab, and have the walls filled with links to real world research portals on the web!&nbsp; The options are endless!
  • Interactive White boards English Village also makes use of several interactive white boards in Second Life. This allows our teachers to import Real World content from their PowerPoint presentations.&nbsp; Once loaded, teachers can flip through each slide easily like they would in a normal class setting.&nbsp; During conferences, our teachers also have the option to allow their audience, or guests to import and share their own PowerPoint slides during the meeting.
Dr. Fridemar Pache

Technology - Mash into SL - 58 views

Welcome Abbath, I am interested too, how to bridge the two systems. From the Web into SL there is an easy way to make connections. Leave in some wiki or other page, where you have write access, ...

mash technology

started by Ole C Brudvik on 20 Apr 07 6 follow-ups, last by Dr. Fridemar Pache on 24 May 07
anonymous

SSRN-The Virtual Property Problem: What Property Rights in Virtual Resources Might Look... - 3 views

papers.ssrn.com/...papers.cfm

law VirtualWorlds property

shared by anonymous on 02 Oct 09 - Cached
  • anonymous on 02 Oct 09
     
    'Virtual property' is a solution looking for a problem. Arguments justifying 'virtual property' lie among three common themes - Lockean labor theory, theft protection and deterrence, and market efficiency. This paper goes beyond those who advocate for or against the creation of 'virtual property.' First, Locke's labor theory is dismissed as a justification. Then, two models of what property rights may look like when applied to virtual resources are created. These models are then applied to six different virtual world scenarios in order to see the effects of 'virtual property.' Finally, the failure of property rights to benefit the users, developers, and virtual resources of virtual worlds is explained.
Eloise Pasteur

Gwyn's Home » Blog Archive » Let's put e-democracy to a test! - 0 views

gwynethllewelyn.net/...lets-put-e-democracy-to-a-test

Second Life change.org vote democracy Obama

shared by Eloise Pasteur on 31 Dec 08 - Cached
  • Barack Obama’s change.org website is accepting requests for ideas and projects to be implemented during his term. Knowing that he’s all for technological innovation, and that several successful experiments with e-democracy were done inside Second Life®, let’s try to push for even more. Andabata Mandelbrot is proposing that we vote to create an international metaverse - the Internet equivalent of virtual worlds. To get this implemented, we need 400 votes! And the deadline is… today at midnight, so we need to hurry… Voting is simple, you just need to create an account on the change.org account and vote (you can even log in with your Facebook or MySpace account) by clicking on the icon. If you’re willing to promote this idea, you can, of course, do more — add widgets, push it to your social network, and so on. With a surprisingly open-minded approach, voting is not limited to US residents, but it’s totally open to international voters too. The change is for America, but its impact will be global. A nice touch!
  • Eloise Pasteur on 31 Dec 08
     
    Vote for a change in the US and the metaverse, even if you're not a US resident
Eloise Pasteur

"Second Life is dead" unless you can actually read - Eloise's thoughts and fancies - 0 views

eloisepasteur.net/...index.php

Second Life Nielsen usage statistics blog

shared by Eloise Pasteur on 08 May 09 - Cached
  • The Nielsen people record actual minutes using various "sites" across 180,000+ US-homes. Second Life comes out at 760 minutes per week (that's over 12 hours), or over 1h 45 minutes per day... (wimps - I'd be an outlier around the 2500 minutes per week mark!). Amongst its users (comparing to other user-minutes per week) this makes it more popular than even the 800lb gorilla of World of Warcraft (653 minutes per week).
  • What does it all mean? Well, it might mean Second Life is a niche market, but it's a fiercely loyal niche market that really, really gets it - and this gives Linden Lab a reasonably solid (hard numbers are impossible to come by) income stream and around that a reasonable likelihood of continuing to provide its service.
  • Comparing it to social media sites the difference is even more extreme - Facebook does the best at 84 minutes per week: that's 11% of the time that Second Life users spend. Twitter weighs in at about an hour a week on average. Stephen Fry is much bigger in his usage I'm sure, but the averages are up there for easy comparison.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Signing up to Second Life is more like taking someone who has basically no computer experience and saying "learn the internet" - there are lots of steps along the way, moments that are critical to whether they will continue or not, but there are lots of skills to go from seeing your first web-page to signing up to a forum, RSSing a blog or two, generating a web-page with HTML, CSS and jquery... and that's the challenge of learning Second Life.
shayne mosley

Getting Used to Help and Support - 1 views

I have never been used to getting help and support with all my problems. But when it comes to computer problems, I am glad Computer Tech Help And Support is helping me out. Whenever my PC is in tr...

help and support

started by shayne mosley on 07 Jun 11 no follow-up yet
anonymous

SSRN-Virtual Rule of Law by Michael Risch - 4 views

papers.ssrn.com/...papers.cfm

law VirtualWorlds regulation

shared by anonymous on 05 Oct 09 - Cached
  • anonymous on 05 Oct 09
     
    This article, which follows a presentation at the West Virginia Law Review Digital Entrepreneurship Symposium, is the first to consider whether virtual worlds provide a rule of law that sets expectations for virtual business. Many consider the rule of law a catalyst for economic development, and there is reason to believe that it will be equally important in virtual economies, despite differences from the real world. As more people turn to virtual worlds to earn a livelihood, the rule of law will become prominent in encouraging investments in virtual business. The article finds - unsurprisingly - that virtual worlds now lack many of the elements of the rule of law. Which aspects fail is more surprising, however. Provider agreements and computer software, the sources of regulation that are most often criticized as "anti-user," provide the best theoretical hope for achieving the rule of law, even if they currently fail in practice. On the contrary, widely proposed "reforms," such as community norms, self-regulation, and importation of real-world law face both theoretical and practical barriers to implementation of the rule of law in virtual worlds. Part I of the article describes virtual worlds and their connection to business. Part II defines a framework to measure the rule of law in virtual worlds. Part III discusses the various types of regulation in virtual worlds, and Part IV critically analyzes how these regulations measure up against rule of law requirements. The article concludes with some suggestions about how providers might enhance legal rule in virtual worlds.
Nergiz Kern

YouTube - virtuallyHuman's Channel - 3 views

www.youtube.com/virtuallyHuman

secondlife preso-matic partridge gamekit game e-learning virtualwords tutorial vidoe

shared by Nergiz Kern on 21 Oct 09 - No Cached
  • Nergiz Kern on 21 Oct 09
     
    Preso-Matic Game Kit Tutorial Part 1 From: virtuallyHuman | October 21, 2009 | 100 views Part one of a tutorial / overview for the Preso-Matic Game Kit. This Immersive Learning Simulation Toolkit provides Second Life content creators with a convenient and easy to use set of objects that can be used to rapidly create E-Learning and conventional games in Second Life. Part one covers the scorekeeper object and tokens and begins the demonstration of traps. This is one of three tutorials and overviews of the Preso-Matic Game Kit (an Immersive Learning Simulation Rapid Development Tool for Second Life.) Partridge describes the 6 components in the kit and demonstrates their application. The online quiz creator (http://www.coe.iup.edu/gameKit/) is also demonstrated. Basically this is everything you need to know to use the kit to make interactive games in Second Life simulations.
Eloise Pasteur

Kim MacKenzie hits back on negative media coverage of Second Life : The Metaverse Journ... - 0 views

www.metaversejournal.com/...-media-coverage-of-second-life

bias economy life media second

shared by Eloise Pasteur on 23 Aug 08 - Cached
  • What is it with the Australian media? Why are they focused on slandering Second Life as a failure? I have recently discussed my research findings of commercial activity within Second Life with several journalists, where only minimal quotes have been used out of their original context; in order it seems, to support an obvious negative bias.
  • This is extremely disappointing as it is not an accurate reflection of the important invaluable opportunity that Second Life has provided pioneering commercial exploration of VR capabilities.
  • Vital 3D avatar immersion lessons have been learnt, modeling and building skills developed, use of digital agents, telepresence, interactive, navigational and communication applications explored, and platform and cultural limitations realised. This is all invaluable experience for commercial frontrunners preparing to invest in a virtual future.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Fundamental lessons have been learnt, and these firms will reap the rewards by being well positioned to take informed advantage of future VR developments. And fundamental developments are essential that encompass service delivery stability, ‘in world’ governance and behaviour policing, legal and copyright protection, a shift away from ‘virtual reality is just a game’ consciousness, and mainstream user adoption.
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