Discussing Virtual Worlds with the Networks Community Forum

Posted on March 2, 2007 
Filed Under education, secondlife, virtualworlds

There’s an interesting discussion going on over at the AFLF 2007 Networks Community Forum focussed on virtual worlds, and after a nice plug from Anne Paterson, I had to jump in and add my two cents.

As the message I posted is pretty relevent to the discussions I’ve been having with others about Second Life and it’s educational uses, I’ve decided to post it here too. (After all - we all know how easily comments in forums can get lost, deleted or otherwise disappeared!)

Soo.. here goes. Originally posted here - and republished below….

Re: Second Life and other Virtual Worlds

by Joanna Kay - Friday, 2 March 2007, 05:00 PM

Thanks for the kind feedback Anne! Great to hear you enjoyed the tours we did last year for ENetworks! ;)

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Image: Second Life Tour - eNetworks Event, Sept 2006.

There are some additional resources, including presentation notes, comics and slides developed by Sean FitzGerald and myself on our Second Life in Education wiki.

I’d like to chime in with Aaron and agree that Second Life allows us all access to a thriving community of educators who are exploring the use of 3D virtual environments. For further information on the Second Life education community visit the SimTeach Second Life Education wiki.

Over the last 12mths I have made some fantastic contacts and explored a range of techniques for using the Second Life platform. I’ve also learnt to build and create 3D environments and objects for various purposes - including educational uses, from a fantastic bunch of Second Life ‘residents’ willing to share their skills with the community. It’s been an inspiring time for me, and I do believe that 3D virtual worlds will offer a wealth of opportunity for teaching and learning in the future.

Whether Second Life is the platform that we end up with years down the track is most definitely up for discussion. It cannot be denied that there are some limitations - including bandwidth requirements, firewall limitations, need for high spec hardware and the growing pains being experienced at the moment in terms of concurrent users.

Ultimately, I personally hope that open-source 3D environments continue to gain momentum. C’mon Open Croquet.. and peer-to-peer options like Outback will definitely have exciting applications!

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Image: Sean and Jo drumming in Second Life

However, at the moment the Second Life platform is the most advanced option we have access to, and I believe important to explore, experiment and trial for use in education. The virtual worlds pedagogies, standards for 3D environments, technical solutions and skills in 3D virtual worlds facilitation, which all being explored and developed now by the educational community in Second Life, will definitely inform how the future metaverse might look.

It’s exciting to be a part of that discussion/exploration, and important to note that any facilitation, building or technical skills developed in Second Life will definitely have application in the 3D virtual worlds of the future.

For Jen, and any others interested in exploring Second Life, I wanted to provide a few SLurls for you to consider exploring:

Sean and I also use BlogHUD (a tool for blogging from within SL) to keep track of our travels in-world. Visit here and here for more SLurls to explore.

You can also visit us at our Virtual Meeting Space in Second Life, which we have designed as a space for teachers and students to use to explore Second Life whilst having fun. Drop over and read the virtual books in our library, go for a balloon or boat ride, watch a piece of machinima, play some virtual games or join the virtual drumming circle. Visit: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Wasp/42/78/82/

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Image: Jo and Sean’s Virtual Meeting Space in Second Life.

Looking forward to meeting some of you in Second Life soon,

Regards,

Jo Kay
Email: joannamkay@gmail.com
Second Life: jokay Wollongong
Blog: http://jokay.com.au

PS. For those after some basic instructions to get you started in Second Life, there’s a little guide here that you might find useful.

PPS. We are available to provide inworld tours and Second Life workshops for educators again this year. Drop us an email if you’d like more info.

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