Alternatives to SL

This blog post was written almost a year ago. Nonetheless, it’s comprehensive and an insightful overview of the immediate terrain of virtual worlds.

MetaverseU reflections

MetaverseU
Some quick reflections on the conference before leaving Palo Alto. Themes and comments that resonated for me.

It was great, intellectually stimulating event, and a fun, interactive crowd.  I was though disappointed at the lack of opportunities to have conversations.  Lot’s of folks attended via SL, and to facilitate a more democratic discussion, those of us live were asked to fill out cards with our questions that would be given to the presenters. It didn’t work really.

Browser-based access to SL, open source & gender

A young British woman (yeh!) is developing AjaxLife, a web-based application for connecting to Second Life from within your web browser. She’s surveying us on what we’d like to see. Do the survey here. Great idea (the survey and the project). I’m cheering women on is this domain because it is overwhelmingly male in culture and practice. Read these gender reports from the EU and FLOSS (Free/libre open source software).

“Women are actively (if unconsciously) excluded rather than passively disinterested. The effect lies within F/LOSS cultural and social arrangements. The exclusion happens among people who often do not mean to appear, and who do not interpret their own actions, as hostile to women. The effect is an outcome of the importance given to the individual as the sole carrier of agency. ”

Democracy?

John Bransford on SL for learning

Bransford is coauthor of How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience and School. In late 2006 he hosted a discussion on learning in SL.

“People have asked if multi user virtual environments (MUVES) like Second Life (SL) can support ‘rigorous learning’. Given the right kinds of designs, the answer is ‘yes’ But the yes answer requires ‘effective designs’ Read the transcript from the discussion held in SL.

Updates on the Metaverse

The metaverse is indeed expanding. First is the announcement that Media Grid’s is looking at a 3-5 year timeline for developing an education grid: “a dedicated, not-for-profit grid of computers for educational content, worlds, and learning games that can be used in a classroom. All information would be marked with metadata so educators could build their own virtual experiences from a large distributed database of content. Pre-constructed virtual learning environments will also be available for quick classroom implementation.” Read more.
Second, the New Media Consortium’s Virtual Worlds program announced its plans for 2008. They’ll be adding new services for educators, including live mentors for newbies, space development services, a learning prize for content development, an educational resources repository. Great stuff.
And finally, the German magazine der Spiegel, interviewed SL founder Rosedale on SL. Making it crash less is his first priority, he says. Read more