Second Life is Creating a “WordPress for Social Virtual Reality”

Innovate LINK

You probably did a double take at seeing “Second Life” in the headline. Believe it or not, Second Life is still going strong with 900,000 active monthy users and over $60 million in real cash income in world. But Second Life is still falling behind times, so its creators are moving into Virtual Reality. Sansar is a new project they are working on to allow every day users to create their own virtual reality world, connected by “teleportation” hubs (sound familiar?). Of course, it is still an expensive venture: users really need high end VR headsets, and this article mentions using things like LIDAR (laser radar basically) to scan and re-create rooms. Sansar is still pretty closed and basic, but they have plans to bring it to “everyone.” Well, “everyone” that can afford and understand it. Companies always seem to leave that out. However, the ideas are going in the right direction: recreate places in VR that would be hard to access, embed learning tools, let people use other 3D modeling programs to build objects, etc. The first minute 20 seconds of the video above is of Sansar in action, followed by a quick 30 second promo of “possibilities”, and then the rest is talk.

The Wild Ride of Being a Presenter

TxDLA 2008 Blog

Matt CrosslinWell… I knew that I was taking a chance by doing a hands-on session that totally relied on Internet connection to work. So, when the sites that I needed to do my presentation with weren’t coming up – I had to go to plan B. But plan B relied on a PowerPoint, which we don’t have installed on work laptops. So it was on to Plan C – make it up as I go along. So, yep… I was re-arranging my session as I went along. My train of thought is not always an easy ride to catch, but I think I finally got everyone on the right track. For those that weren’t there, or were there and need this information, there is a session wiki with all of my (original) notes in it:

http://moodledesign.pbwiki.com (The access key is moodle2008)

Tech glitches are the name of the game in online learning – what can I say?  I would have like to have gone in to Sloodle for more than 20 minutes at the end, but it is still an experimental program.  Just not much to see with it yet.

Blog From Inside of Second Life

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For a while now, I have wanted to blog about Sloodle, but I haven’t had the foggiest idea where to start. It’s a great tool for use in the educational world. But I think I have been waiting until the launch of my EdTech blog before I post too much on it.

But this one thing I found was pretty cool. You can blog to a Moodle account from inside of the Second Life virtual world. Just sounds cool. Here is a video that shows how to do it:

Second Life Does Have Educational Potential

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CNN has a great article today about schools that use Second Life for educational purposes:

Growing number of educators explore ‘Second Life’ online

The most important quote is this one, from Rebecca Nesson, who teaches a class that is offered online through Harvard and uses Second Life:

“Students interact with each other and there’s a regular sense of classroom interaction. It feels like a college campus”

So there is a growing number of people that are using Second Life for virtual online education. Think of it this way. I was in Second Life once for a conference on a product called Sloodle. I’ll have to blog on Sloodle later. I was chatting with someone else in there. I could see his avatar, and could tell a lot about his personality by the way he was typing. Then he mentioned that he was actually in London at that time. So, there I was – having an online conversation, for free with someone in London. And there are companies out there that are working on audio integration tools for Second Life. I guess Holodecks are coming soon, huh?

You Need To Get a (Second) Life

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Okay – so there are about a ba-zillion blogs out there that start off with that title. But Second Life is an interested development in the education and business world. It’s been around for a while, but after some people started making some real money in this virtual world – the real world started to take notice.

It seems like there are some that have negative opinions of it, and some that love it, and a lot that just don’t care. There also seems to be many people that just complain about it being full of porn and gambling. Well, so is the web – but they don’t complain about that. I’ve never run into anything like that in Second Life, but then again – I don’t look for it. Hmmm…. interesting concept. You don’t find junk if you don’t go looking for it.

Any way, Second Life is an online world that looks like a lot of the 3-D immersion games that exist online. The only deal is – it’s not a game. There is no point, no levels, no prizes to win. You just meet people, buy stuff, go places that interest you, learn stuff, and – well – just generally exist there.

My colleagues and partners in crime over at UT Dallas got me hooked on SL. My wife says I really smile when I am on there. Which doesn’t happen that much because Matt Man needs a newer faster computer at home. Mine is already two whole years old! Geez – that’s, like, ancient in the computer world! And I call myself a techie….

Anyway – i have been exploring it for educational purposes. There is neat stuff in there. I have attended in world presentations with people from around the world. There are simulations of everything from molecules to the solar system, from real life buildings to active ecosystems. Historical re-enactments, plays, concerts, art galleries, and even a Godzilla wreaking havoc all exist in world. Pretty crazy. Oh – and your in world avatar can fly and stay underwater indefinitely.

Anyway, I have been keeping a photo journal of my few in-world travels. As soon as I get a chance, I will get the Flickr feed up here in this blog.

Also, you can see one of the UTD crew’s exploration of SL at her blog. Great pictures there.