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Ole C Brudvik

NMC Announces Parcel Leases in Three New Educational Communities in Second Life | nmc - 0 views

www.nmc.org/...virtual-worlds-lease-available

education nmc secondlife

shared by Ole C Brudvik on 21 Apr 07 - Cached
  • Are you or someone you know looking for a low-cost way to get started in virtual worlds — or Second Life in particular? As of today, the New Media Consortium (NMC) is offering land parcels in Second Life that are part of three unique custom-designed educational communities. These parcels are available now for lease exclusively to bona fide faculty, educational departments, or learning-focused institutions. The new sim NMC Campus, “Teaching”
  • The land is full-permissions, and can be used for almost any purpose consistent with research or teaching in Second Life. The parcels come in sizes from 1024 sq m to 8192 sq m. Costs are roughly 10 US cents per sq meter per year. This works out to $100 US per year for the smallest plot (32 x 32; 1024 sq m; 235 prims) and $800 per year for the largest (64 x 128; 8192 sq m; 1875 prims). There are no hidden or additional costs. Common area on the new sim NMC Campus, “Teaching 2″
  • Each educational community has a beautiful central area which has a number of spaces that all the residents on the island can share — these include a multi-media amphitheater, a conference room, a large classroom or other meeting space, a gallery suitable for exhibiting student work, and a resource center that has been stocked by the folks who run the highly regarded ICT Library in Second Life. Scene on NMC new sim available for lease, “Teaching 3″
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • You can see these sims now in Second Life — they are called Teaching, Teaching 2, and Teaching 3, and each is fully open to the public — no group memberships are required to visit. Soon to open as well are Teaching 4, Sciences, Mathematics, Arts & Letters, and Outreach; those sims each also have “large lot” options — parcels as large as a half-sim — available. Large lot leases include basic terraforming, landscaping, subdividing, configuration, and ongoing maintenance. The cost of the lease can even be folded into a “Special NMC Membership” package if desired, and both the lease and the membership billed on a single invoice — call for details if that is of interest.
  • NMC Virtual Worlds offers the full span of services to support educational institutions in Second Life, and many, including the use of the NMC’s Campus in Second Life for your own events, are free to NMC members. See the listing of services currently offered [PDF, 100k]
Kerry J

1. Learning to teach « - 0 views

learningfromsocialworlds.wordpress.com/arning-to-teach-in-second-life

teaching secondlife research second education learning muve vws edauILU ILUedau

shared by Kerry J on 25 May 09 - Cached
  • Kerry J on 25 May 09
     
    excellent article on students' reactions to SL as a teaching and learning tool with pre-service teachers.
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
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,  an immersive 3D simulation for language learners and teachers across the globe!  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  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.  We actually never planned to use a giant onion as our central meeting area... but it actually does a great job of representing  the organic nature of our island ~ We build. We make mistakes. We learn.... and sometimes we cry!  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.  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.  Here, avatars just click on the red loading ball, and they are instantly moved along the pathway 100 meters to their destination.  This saves virtual transport time.
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  • 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.  If you've ever taught a language class to a group of students, you will understand the importance of context.   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.  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.  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.  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!  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!  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.  Once loaded, teachers can flip through each slide easily like they would in a normal class setting.  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.
Kerry J

Looking at WoW and SL as educational tools - 0 views

learningfromsocialworlds.wordpress.com

sl SecondLife virtualworlds edauILU ILUedau

shared by Kerry J on 25 May 09 - Cached
  • Kerry J on 25 May 09
     
    Learning From Online Worlds; Teaching In Second Life was a research project at the London Knowledge Lab, Institute of Education, University of London. The project was funded by the Eduserv Foundation. The team worked part-time on the project from June 2007 to May 2008. Update: We are teaching more MA sessions in Second Life in spring 2009. Introduction: During 2007-2008, the project team, Diane Carr, Martin Oliver and Andrew Burn, researched learning in two online, social worlds, Second Life and World of Warcraft.
Teachers Without Borders

Is there a Second Life for teaching? | Digital student | The Guardian - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...second-life

guardian secondlife teaching MUVE

shared by Teachers Without Borders on 08 Dec 08 - Cached
  • has been heavily colonised by higher education institutions since its genesis a little over five years ago. But how useful to educators is it?
  • The Media Zoo's Second Life island provides a space in which students, researchers and teachers can experiment with learning in a virtual world.
  • Salmon believes that Second Life constitutes a good example of "edutainment" - the idea that students are more likely to learn if they are first amused. An example of how this works in practice is the programme developed for archaeology students at Leicester. While learning about the ancient culture of the Sami, the indigenous people that live in the area we call Lapland, the students used Second Life to meet in a virtual representation of one of the tents that the ancient nomads would have used for worship.
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  • A recent Jisc/Mori report indicated that Second Life remained the least popular technological pursuit among students.
  • As many as 76% have never, or only rarely, stepped inside a virtual world, and some students polled thought that environments such as Second Life were "sad".
  • "If you are an art and design student, then you have a canvass without boundaries,"
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.
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  • 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.
Fred Delventhal

Cell phone + Web cam + Second Life = Magic - Teach42 - 0 views

www.teach42.com/...hone_web_cam_second_life_magic

cellphone livevideo second_life secondlife sl streaming video webcam

shared by Fred Delventhal on 13 Jun 08 - Cached
  • Fred Delventhal on 13 Jun 08
     
    Streaming Live Video in Second Life
  • Fred Delventhal on 13 Jun 08
     
    w00t! Stream live video into SL.
Ole C Brudvik

NMC Campus Observer - 0 views

sl.nmc.org

secondlife teaching

shared by Ole C Brudvik on 22 Apr 07 - Cached
  • One of my challenges with talking about SL to colleagues is in explaining its value in terms of the traditional work environment - it seems like most of the online meetings and conferences I attend in SL are “about SL” - do you know what I mean - it can be elusive. smoke and mirror stuff. 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…. I think that’s interesting as my experience of SL so far is that it can accentuate RL experiences and emotions. Most students I kow are stressed about school - so why add more stress in a virtual environ! This is our challenge - how to make the experiences new…
James OReilly

The Consultants-E SL - EduNation - 0 views

www.theconsultants-e.com/...edunationtools.asp

shared by James OReilly on 19 Jul 08 - Cached
  • James OReilly on 19 Jul 08
     
    Free Teaching Tools for SL
James OReilly

Virtual Learning Quality - Mastering ISO 9001 Quality Processes In Virtual Worlds - 0 views

virtual-learning-quality.ning.com

shared by James OReilly on 21 May 09 - Cached
  • James OReilly on 21 May 09
     
    ISO 9001 implementation for virtual learning & teaching
Nergiz Kern

Learning and Teaching in the Virtual World of Second Life | Tapir Akademisk Forlag - Ne... - 0 views

butikk.tapirforlag.no/...1195

book virtualworlds secondlife mats_deutschmann

shared by Nergiz Kern on 06 Feb 09 - Cached
  • Nergiz Kern on 06 Feb 09
     
    by Mats Deutschmann, Judith Molka-Danielsen and others.
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
  • there are some fundamental questions which remain unanswered.
  • 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
  • The term “avatar” is an old Sanskrit word portraying a deity which takes on a human shape
  • 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
  • there are reported advantages to having students engage in these emerging technologies
  • 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.
  • Some educators may balk at adopting this technology because there is a learning curve associated with the use of 3-D virtual worlds.
  • 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

Second Stindberg: One year Babel Translations - growing of a virtual business - 0 views

stindberg.blogspot.com/...l-translations-growing-of.html

business model second life service translation work

shared by Eloise Pasteur on 12 Jul 08 - Cached
  • By that time I was primarily offering English/German at a price of 2 L$ / word, but soon requests for other languages came. I recruited French and Italian translators, soon Danish and Swedish followed. I charged 3 L$ for those languages, but kept English/German for a long time at the lower level as I was making these translations myself. In August 2007 I acquired my first reference customer. Blaze Columbia of Blaze Fashions not only insisted on paying the double rate, she also gave me some valuable business tips, like implementing a minimum fee for jobs. Back then I was in awe of what I considered "large" amounts of money, so I did not follow her advice of establishing 500 L$ as minimum fee, but instead chose 250 L$. I was reluctant to mention this limit to the first clients, but none of them objected. So up to date 250 L$ stayed the minimum amount for translation jobs.
  • In January I took my associate Tina Lynch aboard. Not only did she work on French translations, but she also replaced my notecard-based bookkeeping with a sophisticated spreadsheet based on Google docs. Under her lead we refined the spreadsheet over the next month, and now it is an invaluable tool of keeping track of jobs, degree of completion, distribution of jobs among translators and calculating revenues and fees.
  • In May, Babel Translation took over the competing agency "2nd Tongue Translation". For a couple of months we have silently cooperated already, granting 2nd Tongue a bulk buying rate for the languages they did not offer themselves. As 2nd Tongue's manager had to reduce her SL involvement, Babel Translations stepped in and integrated 2nd Tongue's business into our own.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Today, Babel Translations is the premiere translation and copywriting/text creation agency in SL. With a 3-figure number of jobs and a 6-figure amount of translation fees in recent months, our 50 translators provide the finest and most professional translation services in SL. We cover almost 20 languages, and each language is at least covered by 2, typically 5 translators. The translators themselves are in most cases RL translators, or have a similar qualification in language teaching, journalism or other text creation parts.
  • Eloise Pasteur on 12 Jul 08
     
    Description of setting up and running a translation service in SL including a range of tips for the budding SL entrepreneur
Eloise Pasteur

Letter to Second Life Residents « Official Second Life Blog - 0 views

blog.secondlife.com/...etter-to-second-life-residents

blog fixes m linden plans second life

shared by Eloise Pasteur on 10 Jul 08 - Cached
  • Second Life continues to expand each and every day. New Residents are joining, artists are creating amazing content, new businesses are springing up, big companies are entering for the first time, educational institutions are building virtual universities… and the list goes on. Everyday I learn of something new, something bold, something you’ve created.
  • Second Life offers something no ones else does - an astoundingly rich array of user-created content and a large, diverse and ever-expanding virtual economy.
  • The content and economy reflect the diversity of the Resident population. Your creativity covers 1.5 billion meters of space that’s taken more than 500 million hours over the past five years to assemble. It’s a mammoth undertaking.
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  • Our growth has come at a cost which you felt, and still feel - platform stability, viewer performance, lag, inventory management, etc. It’s important for you to know that we are ALL OVER these problems and that we’re making progress.
  • We have redesigned and rebuilt the registration process to make it easier for new members to join. Although it is still in testing, we’ve seen a significant improvement in registration levels. Significant. That, plus press attention outside the US have allowed us to hit some new registration records for the year. Very exciting. In addition, we are reworking the first-hour experience for new Residents to help them become more quickly acclimated and connected to Second Life and able to enjoy the richness and experience earlier.
  • m top to bottom – recognizing that new users don’t need such a dizzying array of features, and experienced users, land and business owners and content creators need better tools that are more thoughtfully designed and organized for their needs. Everyone needs better inventory management and search is due for an overhaul. We hear you. We’re on it.
  • Our next viewer, when it comes in full release, will offer a much better inworld experience. With more than 50 crash fixes, you’ll have fewer viewer failures and we’ve fixed some irritating elements in the interface.
  • In addition, Torley Linden has produced a library of 150 video tutorials designed to make it easier to do everything from teaching new Residents basic skills to putting media on their parcel. The videos are currently displayed on the blog and organized by category for easier consumption.
  • Support continues to expand its services to the Residents; in the last quarter we have redesigned the Support Portal interface in response to your feedback, to bring key components of our service front and center so they are more accessible.
  • Eloise Pasteur on 10 Jul 08
     
    M Linden's address to the world on the blog. It's a well written piece, unlike some of the Lab's previous effort, and although it's not as formal as a plan with timelines, it's got some nice indication of recent successes and imminent improvements in the pipeline. It's a confidence inspiring piece that maybe they've got management for their current size and maturity
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

Dusan Writer's Metaverse » Second Life Second Only to YouTube and Facebook - 0 views

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hamlet life nielson premium second teaching

shared by Eloise Pasteur on 04 Jul 08 - Cached
  • That means less revenue from subscriptions and virtual land ownership (since you need a Premium account to own land.)
  • Perhaps the real economy has shifted, as Philip famously predicted, to a service economy - one built on helping folks solve problems, not on furnishing their beach houses. Meanwhile, the brands, which struggle to make SENSE of Facebook - how do you make money on random pokes, afterall, continues to struggle with Second Life as well - how do brands, which prefer to communicate in 30-second snippets and maybe a viral thing here or there, make money in environments where the users are deeply engaged? Throw up a billboard on GTA maybe, throw some free skins around in Second Life (see Evian), but struggle to crack the question of how a 30 second brand makes an impression in a 296 million minute world.
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