New Virtual Spaces

My apologies to both of my faithful readers of DigitalEdu for the long absence in blogging. Life just gets real busy at times, and something has to get tossed overboard. For me, it was blogging, but I'm hoping to get back into more regular postings. There is certainly plenty to blog about.

I've been following SecondLife for a couple of years now, and have been intrigued by the potential of a virtual world. Today I ran across two new virtual environments, both of which can be accessed from within your web browser. They do require that you install a plug-in, but that's easier than a complete program installation like SecondLife.

The first is called Vivaty and allows you to post items like pictures and YouTube videos in a virtual space. It appears on your Facebook page and your friends can dive into the virtual world to enjoy your information in a 3-D environment - as long as they are using IE on Windows, anyway. The second environment looks really promising, if for no other reason than it is from Google - my all time favorite software company. It's called Lively and it at least supports Firefox, but is also currently limited to Windows.

If you go to check them out, I suspect your first reaction might be a bit dissapointing. They seem rudimentary, the avatars look cartoonish, and the motion is a bit jerky. When I see something like this, I think back to the first time I used a web browser - Mosaic 1.0. There were very few web sites, they all had gray backgrounds with left-justified text which couldn't even wrap around images, and worst of all, they didn't contain useful information. The web became powerful because lots of really smart people turned it into the most powerful communication mechanism in human history.

I suspect that years from now we will be enjoying our fully immersive 3-D virtual worlds and we'll be looking back at these first steps with the same kind of wistful memory I have of Mosaic. All they need are some really smart people with the imagination and drive to make them into powerful and useful tools. Are you one of those people?

Artificial Intelligence in Second Life

There is a very interesting article about an avatar in Second Life that is not controlled by a human, but by software (thanks to Ted Leath for sending it to me). As the article points out, the future possibilities for this kind of system are endless - I think particularly in education.

Immersive Environments

If you want to see what is happening with technology and young people today, then you should read this article that describes what MTV is doing with virtual worlds. I think there is a very exciting trend toward fully immersive environments and it's something that deserves the attention of those of us in higher education. There is a lot of potential here to create some very effective learning environments.

The other day I joined an interesting conference in Second Life. I listened to a live audio feed of an Educause conference that was taking place in Raleigh, North Carolina, but I listened to it while "sitting" in a virtual amphitheater in Second Life with about 20-30 other people, all represented by their avatars. The topic was Immersive Learning Environments so it was a very fitting way to listen in. Frankly, it was not very effective for a couple of reasons. The technology still has a ways to go - there was no live video (only rotating still pictures) and the audio kept dropping out. What was most irritating however was related to human nature (which unfortunately technology has yet to overcome). Just like in real world conferences, a lot of people arrived late, were disruptive, and kept asking stupid questions. I think the potential for creating a very compelling, interactive and immersive environment with this kind of technology is huge. I suppose it's inevitable that we'll have to let real people (with all of their annoying habits) use it.

Universities and the "Virtual Future"

There is an interesting article on Cnet about the future of universities. I especially liked this quote from Charles Reed, the CSU chancellor, when talking about face-to-face versus the virtual world:

"It's not an either-or thing. We need the 'high touch,' but we need the high tech at the same time."

I think that is the right approach. Pure distance education is not for everyone, but a combination of face-to-face time augmented by a compelling, interactive virtual experience could be for just about everyone. The article also mentions some exciting developments in integrating virtual worlds like Second Life with course management systems.

Second Life

There is a fascinating trend on the Internet that I have been wanting to post about for quite a while, but just haven't had the time. Some people believe that the next logical step for the web is to move from a two dimensional space using a book metaphor (i.e. web page) to a three dimensional space. One technology that might fulfill this prediction is something called a Multi User Virtual Environment (or MUVE for the acronym inclined). The most famous of these is called Second Life and it has been growing rapidly due to a lot of media attention recently. In a MUVE you are represented by an avatar, which you can usually customize to meet your particular whim.

I first started using Second Life about a year ago and, like many people, I quickly stopped because I didn't really see much use for it. The primary usage seemed to be for (how should I put this) non family-friendly activities. Evidently people think avatar-on-avatar action is kinda hot. I kept reading more about it, and a couple of months ago decided to give it another shot. It truly is a remarkable place since everything you see in this world is created by members of the community. A number of educators are starting to explore ways to use SL, and it's very exciting to see the level of creativity that is taking place. You can read more about the educational uses of SL on their education page. If you are interested I would recommend signing up for the email list that is on that page. It is very active and a lot of great ideas are being posted.

Be aware that there is a significant learning curve to using SL and you should not skip the orientation that is available the first time you sign on. It is run by a company called Linden Labs and they have had significant growing pains with the recent rapid growth. The site can be quite flaky at times so be patient if you want to learn how to use it.

I think this kind of site has enormous potential in education. It can make distance learning more personal and engaging (the average session time in SL is somewhere around 3 hours and it can be fairly addicting once you get started). The other day I was checking out the SDSU virtual campus that is in the picture and a person "walked" up to me and started chatting. She was a language instructor at a private school in Belgium and we "talked" for a while about how SL is being used in education. It was a pretty fascinating experience and was much more engaging than just a typical text-based chat. It is being used by professors at Harvard Law, SDSU, UC Davis, Ball State, Stanford, and many others. You can find a complete list here.