More from Metaverse U

Wish you’d been at the Metaverse U Conference last month? You’re in luck! The Metaverse U folks have now realeased YouTube mini-flicks with participant comments (much like Suzanne’s below).

In addition, they are beginning to put up blip.tv video of speakers. First up: Vladlen Koltun, a Stanford computer science professor and founder of their Virtual Worlds group. Subject: Dryad, a prototype intuitive, high quality, customized 3D modeling tool for “the rest of us” that uses collaborative design space exploration.

More videos promised soon!

My 2 cents about the Metaverse

At the MetaverseU Conference at Stanford last month, the asked all of us these 4 questions:

- What excites you about current metaverse technology?
- What concerns you about current metaverse technology?
- What will be most the surprising impact of metaverse technology on society within the next decade?
- What barriers will metaverse technology never overcome?

Here’s what I said

Here’s what others said:
http://youtube.com/group/metaverseuWhat are Metaverse technologies again?
The Roadmap describes them as those that fall under these categories- Augmented Reality, Lifelogging, Mirror Worlds and Virtual Worlds.

Immersion and Usability in SL

In an interesting discussion around immersion and usability in Second Life verses World of Warcraft, Rick van der Wal made some great points regarding interface/interaction design. I’d like to think through them as they apply to formal learning (i.e. institutional, sequential, hierarchal and evaluated learning) in SL.

So far, Second Life has been applied like an educational technology in formal learning contexts. It seems to be used to deliver and enhance a course or a part there of. In terms of design, I see at least two design levels instructors should consider: The software (environmental) and learning space (situational).

Environmental issues impact any formal learning context. The design of a classroom, its equipment, the location of a campus, its services, etc., all impact the process. To compare SL with another technology, a course management system (also a virtual environment) is arguably the most sophisticated educational technology a typical college instructor works with in terms of its environmental and situational design affordances. It is designed so that s/he can create an elaborate virtual learning space. Most instructors however must learn how to design that space and often rely on support from instructional designers and technicians. The situation represents a fundamental shift in their role and work habits. The same conditions apply to Second Life, with the added challenge that it is designed not for learning but for entertainment. What this translates into is something akin to considering creating a learning space in the back lot at Paramount Pictures. It can be done, but why would you, unless students were learning how to make movies.

This is my essential argument regarding formal learning in Second Life. Except in courses for which the environment (not the situation/learning space) is part and parcel of their goals, it has questionable learning value when set against educational technologies on the whole. I’m arguing for situated learning that honors situated cognition, two theories of learning seldom utilized in formal teaching practices.

Circling back around to Ricks point, SL has considerable environmental usability issues that overlay all other situational design issues which in turn impact the degree to which learners can be immersed (unaware of) the software.

Augmented Reality

Augmented reality:  Adding contextual, historical and other information to a  real object or place. Unlike virtual reality which is designed to simulate a physical  place, augmented reality uses technology to add information to a real place or object with goal of making it more meaningful and useful. One example are audio guides we can rent at museums; another is how MRI images can be superimposed on a patient’s body to help surgeons more accurately locate a problem . ELI’s 7 Things You Should Know About Augmented Reality does a good job at demystifying the term and highlighting its educational potential.  When we start looking around  we see other examples of augmented reality. For example mobile devices connect us with stores of information while we’re experiencing a particular place, GPS devices do as well.
So augmented reality is one future scenario we’re already experiencing, and like simulations there are ways to do it that don’t have to be high tech.

Does SDSU need Metaverse Roadmap?

If you’ve read (I haven’t) Neal Stephenson’s cyberpunk science fiction novel, Snow Crash, you’ll recognize the term. It describes the future shaped by virtual and 3D technologies. The Metaverse Roadmap, in effect a roadmap for the future, is an ambitious proposition nonetheless, I’ve been circling back around to it for definitions and ideas. It’s a big-picture heuristic that’s useful because it’s descriptive and predictive.
It’s a “first-of-its-kind cross-industry public foresight project” that asks challenging questions about “near-term” (2017) and “longer term” (2025) trends.

pICTsl Farm goals for 2008

Will 2008 be full of interesting developments and innovations in virtual worlds beyond Second Life? That’s what some are saying. We’ve given the Farm 2008 some thought. We asked our audience what they wanted “to know” about virtual worlds and we got some great and challenging responses like:

To get at any one of these questions in a systematic way is a big project. At the same time, there are vw (virtual worlds) projects in the pipeline (so I heard at MetaverseU) and a lot of discussions about them as well. We decided to participate in these discussions and bring what we learn back to Farm…well the flatweb Farm-this blog and website. This is what we’ll be up to.

Between February 2008 and 2009 we will:

* Follow near future trends in virtual worlds relevant to SDSU
* Develop a knowledge base on this site which will include vetted resources that will help us understand these spaces and the domain as a whole.
* What are important characteristics of each space?
* What are the implications of these developments for SDSU in the near future?
* Who is doing what in these spaces?
* How is Second Life evolving?

We’ll also:

* Maintain the pICTsl Farm in Second Life
* Offer on demand consulting in Second Life
* Offer a Summer Session Introduction to Second Life Workshop

2008 - the year of virtual realities?

Scanning the Virtual Worlds News (RSS Feed to the right) and boy, are there some things happening. I like this post
So Many Stealth Virtual Worlds Companies I’ve Lost Count

Word in the Metaverse last year, was this year we’d see some action….looks like it. Hmmmm which of my SL avatars will be the first to flee and explore the great unknown.