It’s Wonderland & the pICTsl Farm for Faculty Development

When one thing leads to another, you have to go with it. Human resource challenges and our general consensus that AW is rather last year’s VW model, and Wonderland is potentially tomorrow’s model, we’ve made some decisions.

I’ll continue participating in the Wonderland/Immersive Education development community as a user and potential content builder. Cathy (Mari) will likely start snooping around there too.

Jon Rizzo (ITS), who’s becoming conversant with SL building and likes to play, has got a parcel on the Farm to play on in his free time (if the surf isn’t up :)).

We’re brainstorming on the design and content of a faculty development “outpost” at the pICTsl Farm. (We may call it something else).

In keeping with the initiatives goals, on top of the trends, and aware of our institutional readiness to accommodate vw technologies, we’re going to continue to provide faculty development in this domain and wait and see otherwise.

The faculty development outpost, or (maybe we’ll call it a barn) will be the only one of its kind in SL. Our emphasis is on using SL to introduce faculty to being and working in an avatar-based, 3D environment.

This parallels other work we’re doing with the Library, ITS and CTL, introducing faculty to social software. The main difference is that while web 2.0 seems to have reached its tipping point, web 3.0 is still “out there” for most folks.

I don’t see an avatarized version of psych 101 in the near future.

~~Suzanne

Activeworlds or Wonderland? Hmmm?

As we’re wading in the Activeworlds waters, deciding how we’re going to get in, I’m kind of wondering whether we should also (or instead) get into Wonderland a bit more. I’m connected to their and the Media Grid’s conversations, but we’re also looking at this with new eyes, with building some capacity to support a world in the future.

It’s really and apples and oranges thing, once I actually think it through. But the decision to allocate resources to one or the other is based (obviously) on its ROI.  There’s no obvious choice, as there was last year with SL.

Decisions, decisions

Where has all the knowledge gone? Activeworlds circa 1999

I began getting a sense of the bigger picture, let’s say the beyond Second Life view, of virtual worlds doing my dissertation lit review. Now that we’re actively looking into AW, I’ve come across a mountain of information. Projects, research, people, consortiums, conferences, all involved in this stuff in the late 90s, early  2000s.

I started on this page of educational resources for AW. Drilling through to this Vlearn 3D, and transcripts from roundtables at AWEDU, to a paper entitled, “3D Virtual Worlds and Learning: An Analysis of the Impact of Design Affordances and Limitations in Active Worlds, blaxxun interactive, and OnLive! Traveler; and A Study of the Implementation of Active Worlds for Formal and Informal Education.

Moral of the Post: Where has all the knowledge gone?

Activeworlds here we come

Expanding our exploration of the Metaverse, we’ve got a few green lights and need a few more, before we’re developing a presence in Activeworlds. There are over 110 institutions from around the world in their education  universe. The Educational Universe is an entire Active Worlds Universe dedicated to exploring the educational applications of the Active Worlds Technology.

River City, an NSF funded project with Harvard and Arizona State, uses AW, so I’m very excited to get in there and see what’s cooking. Stay tuned.

What Exactly Is A Virtual World?

Pop quiz: What is a Virtual World?

a) A shared space
b) Avatar-based chat room
c) 3D collaborative experience
d) All of the above
e) Or something else?

With new Virtual Worlds being announced almost weekly, the question bears asking.

The Virtual Worlds Review, for example, a pioneering effort in describing the development of Virtual Worlds, suggests six features common to all Virtual Worlds:

  1. Shared Space: the world allows many users to participate at once.
  2. Graphical User Interface: the world depicts space visually, ranging in style from 2D “cartoon” imagery to more immersive 3D environments.
  3. Immediacy: interaction takes place in real time.
  4. Interactivity: the world allows users to alter, develop, build, or submit customized content.
  5. Persistence: the world’s existence continues regardless of whether individual users are logged in.
  6. Socialization/Community: the world allows and encourages the formation of in-world social groups like teams, guilds, clubs, cliques, housemates, neighborhoods, etc.

However, with more companies and institutions jumping on the VW bandwagon, I begin to wonder if the term is becoming more broadly defined.

Case in point: Weblin.

The Weblin website describes their virtual world as follows:

Weblin “turns the web into a virtual world. Your personalized weblin avatar surfs the web with you, enabling you to see friends and meet new ones on the same site as you. Weblins can chat, move, show emotion, visit lounges, and trade stuff with other weblins.”

Wow! The whole web! Sounds interesting, yes? I thought so and quickly created a weblin for myself. I chose my avatar and decided to surf the web right away.

So.. IS Weblin a Virtual World? Or maybe Virtual World lite? Yes, it allows a shared social space, communication, immediacy. However, is it persistent? Does it allow any level of meaningful user customized content? Not really.

Why is this important? For a couple of years now, educators have been using Second LIfe as the standard by which to evaluate instruction and learning in a virtual world. But not all Virtual Worlds ARE Second Life. They each have unique capabilities and characteristics that must be carefully evaluated.

Does this make Weblin and other platforms “bad”? No. But it does make them different. And a wise educator will take the time to evaluate those differences in light of what s/he is attempting to accomplish with his/her students - and then make the most appropriate choice.

Learning in Virtualities on June 24

SDSU-DistanceEd-SL

Yesterday’s LAT published a piece about corporate America’s embrace of Second Life. New World Notes’ Wagner James Au, shared some of the back story. Great journalism, it was and what I love about the blogosphere.I added my 2 cents to his post, as I have been here and there, in the Metaverse- YouTube, Twitter,etc. I’m still refining it.

The LAT article is another tidbit to add to my box-o-examples of using SL in courses at SDSU. For now. Change is always afoot.

We’re just starting to go distance-ed at SDSU. Let’s get our footing in the 2D virtual realm first. Let’s get some experience under our belts with the tools we got already. And more importantly let’s start thinking anew about teaching and learning at a distance. It’s a different paradigm, model and set of theories.

It seems that the corporate world has allowed SL to become “official” meeting places for their globally distributed workforces. And why not. It’s outrageously cheap. It’s a new approach. What it offers (small and large scale social events at cool places with cool activities) are simulations of events. I could be mistaken, but I can’t imagine that IBM hosts Aspen ski weekends for it’s middle management in RL (real life). I could be wrong.

In any event, without making this more important than it is, three conditions come to mind and make this relevant to SDSU, 1) People cannot get together face to face, 2) People value (enjoyment, connection, etc) entering SL to meet with others.  3) It’s an alternative, not the only way of adding social connection to a distance learning endeavor.

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