Group items tagged

Timeline of virtual worlds with links to longer descriptions.

"The aim of this small project is to create a map of virtual world based scientific research and educational initiatives at UK universities. The map is being created by Birmingham-based virtual world specialists Daden Limited as part of this year's British Science Festival hosted at Aston University in Birmingham.Virtual Worlds such as Second Life, where users can socialise and connect on-line are already being extensively used by UK Universities and other educational and research organisations - but it can be hard to find out what is going on, and where. It can hopefully become a lasting resource for UK Science which can live on beyond the 2010 British Science Festival.The map is, appropriately, presented as virtual map inside of Second Life where visitors will be able to click on map markers to gain further information on each project, and to be directly transported to the science project location.Users without access to Second Life, or running projects in other virtual worlds, are not excluded from the project. All information will be available through this micro-site, which includes a browser based version of the Second Life map, and lists of projects in other worlds."

Auckland Uni running Virtual Grid.

Draft report of teaching 4 sessions in Second Life

This fall TSTC will be offering a Digital Media certificate which focuses on virtual world technology and they will be using Second Life as the primary way to deliver the course content. They plan for this certificate program to lead into an associate degree (AAS) in Digital Media starting in spring 2009.

Enterprise immersive software is a collection of collaboration, communication, and productivity tools unified via a 3D or pseudo-3D visual environment. In this computer-generated environment, one or more people engage in work activities like meetings, conferences, and learning and training. The software provides a shared, interactive, multichannel experience through presence awareness, voice chat, active speaker indication, text chat, and many other features, often including avatars. The Enterprise Immersive Software Decision-Making Guide is a use case-based guide designed to aid business decision makers in the enterprise immersive software selection process. In this report, we present "if/then" scenarios and highlight good-fit vendors for common situations, with a focus on the most prevalent use cases: meetings, conferences, and learning and training. The report offers guidance on how to: 1) ask core business questions to frame the discussion, 2) choose a research-and-demo, do-it-yourself, or combination approach, 3) identify requirements based on your use case, and 4) filter your options based on important limiters.

Handy list of synchronous tools.

Jo Kay does Minecraft.  Seems to be with kids but could be a useful resource.

Virtual worlds research journal - special on health