Education and Collaboration Takes on a Second Life

Education and Collaboration Takes on a Second Life Brian Gray (Brian Garfield in Second Life) Case Western Reserve University [email_address] ALAO Distance Learning Interest Group June 15, 2007

What is Second Life?
3-D virtual metaverse entirely built and owned by its residents
Began as 64 acres in 2003
Today, 65,000 acres & growing rapidly
Fully-integrated economy - Linden Dollar Exchange
Linden Lab – Support & development

Metaverse (According to Wikipedia)
From Neal Stephenson’s 1992 novel Snow Crash
Widely used to describe the vision behind current work on fully immersive 3D virtual spaces
Environments where humans interact (as avatars) with each other (socially and economically) and with software agents in a cyber space, that uses the metaphor of the real world, but without its physical limitations.

Alternatives to SL
World of Warcraft (WoW)
Sims
There
Entropia Universe
Active Worlds
Home on Playstation 3

I wish someone told me…
Pacific Standard Time (SL Time)
Complete tutorials for new members
Downtime on Wednesdays
“Friend” people or keep track of names, as appearances change
For classroom settings, have people join before class – Multiple account creations all at once can lock down an IP temporarily

http://secondlife.com

PC Minimum System Requirements
Internet Connection: Cable or DSL
Operating System: Windows XP (Service Pack 2)
OR Windows 2000 (Service Pack 4)
NOTE: Second Life does NOT currently support Windows Vista
Computer Processor: 800MHz Pentium III or Athlon, or better
Computer Memory: 256MB or better
Video/Graphics Card: nVidia GeForce 2, GeForce 4mx, or better
OR ATI Radeon 8500, 9250, or better

LindeX Market Data $3700+ 293,102 Total Customers Spending Money In-World 834 Over 1,000,000 L$ 962 500,001 - 1,000,000 L$ 7,760 100,001 - 500,000 L$ 8,793 50,001 - 100,000 L$ 38,995 10,001 - 50,000 L$ 23,273 5,001 - 10,000 L$ 37,592 2001 - 5,000 L$ 45,300 501 - 2,000 L$ 129,593 1 - 500 L$ Residents Transaction Size Monthly Spending by Amount (2007 May)

Retain ALL IP Rights
Linden Lab's Terms of Service agreement recognizes Residents' right to retain full intellectual property protection for the digital content they create in Second Life, including avatar characters, clothing, scripts, textures, objects and designs. This right is enforceable and applicable both in-world and offline, both for non-profit and commercial ventures. You create it, you own it – and it's yours to do with as you please.

Ohio University Without Boundaries http://www.ouwb.ohiou.edu/

Ohio University Video on SL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFuNFRie8wA PLAY MOVIE

Avatars – Who do you want to be?

Dress for the Moment

Video Tutorials: https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Video_Tutorials
Example: http://youtube.com/watch?v=N787M2WOb24
Building with Prims
PLAY MOVIE

Recreating or Redesigning

Virtual Recruiting http://admission.case.edu/secondlife.asp

CWRU Promotes Dorms

Try Before You Buy

Kelvin Smith Library (CWRU)

SL Library 2.0
Alliance Library System
one of nine regional library systems in Illinois with over 250 member libraries of all types
Public Blog: http://infoisland.org/
“ Behind the Scenes” Blog: http://infoisland.org/drupal/
Best Overview: http://infoisland.org/drupal/reference/SL_ready_ref

InfoIsland 1
Libraries, Alliance Library System building, ICT, WorldBridges, TechSoup
InfoIsland 2
Science Center, Fireball Express, Museums, Galleries and more...
Consumer Health Island
Medical and Health Care Information
Cybrary City
InfoIsland's community of individual libraries.
Cybrary City 2
The expanded library community.
EduIsland
InfoIsland's community of educators.

Imagination Island
Rachelville comprises half this island with resources for children's literature, beautiful gardens and a maze.􀀂
Vendor Village (coming soon).
Arts/ALA Island
Arts - Coming soon a Grand Opera House where there will be performances of opera, music, plays and more.
American Library Association - InfoIsland will soon be welcoming the American Library Association.
Commonwealth Island
Commonspace for Organization
Echoditto
An event center for progressive web political and environmental organizations.

Second Life Library: Info Island I, Cybrary City, etc.
By HVX Silverstar
http://www.flickr.com/photos/photolibraries/511035937/in/pool-secondlifelibrary/

Renaissance Island
By HVX Silverstar

Info Island, by avatar Rik Riel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTQkzfz5osQ PLAY MOVIE

Collaboration Takes New Format

Online Presentations
Example: Presentation by R. David Lankes, PhD, is Director of the Information Institute of Syracuse (IIS) and an Associate Professor at Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies
http://quartz.syr.edu/rdlankes/blog/

Socialize Online

Deep Sea Marine Aquarium & Sea-Life Centre

Second Life Science Center

International Spaceflight Museum

Nature Publishing Group's Island: Eukaryotic Cell

New Course: Virtual World Librarianship - Your Second Life
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, The Graduate School of Library and Information Science, & Illinois Alliance Library System
Six 2-hour synchronous sessions will meet online in Second Life
http://www.lis.uiuc.edu/programs/cpd/Second_Life.html

San Jose State University's School of Library & Information Science
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADE0VSffgis
PLAY MOVIE

Mukwa Dibou (ALA President-Elect, Loriene Roy) and Jeremy Kemp (arriving) on SJSU sim chatting with SJSU students and librarians.

Owning Land
Islands are priced at US$1,675 for 65,536 square meters (about 16 acres). Monthly land fees for maintenance are US$295.
Offer a 50% discount to verified real world educators and academic institutions (e.g., universities/schools) or 501(c)3 non-profit organizations that will be using the regions to support their organization's official work.
Smaller “pieces” for less money

Brand Map of Second Life: http://www.kzero.co.uk/blog/?p=430

Avatar Academics, UCLA Magazine (4/07)
Esther Grassian, an information literacy outreach coordinator at UCLA's College Library; her avatar - Alexandria Knight.
“ Ball State University's students discuss their assignments on SL”
“ Students of a Pepperdine University distance-learning course meet every fortnight to learn, as well as explore, what it's like to be part of an online community.”
http://www.magazine.ucla.edu/features/second-life_virtual-classroom/

“ Charles Reed, California State University’s chancellor, recently said at an education and research conference in San Francisco that he would like students to telecommute more, meeting with faculty and peers one day a week on campus and using the rest of the work week exploring virtual worlds and downloading information to complete their course work.”

Last fall, Harvard University offered its first course on SL - "CyberOne: Law in the Court of Public Opinion“
40 students (50 more in physical class)
“ Professor Charles Nesson, who taught the course in the real world, and his daughter, Rebecca, a computer scientist at Harvard and instructor at the university's Extension School, who conducted CyberOne in SL”

Educators Explore 'Second Life‘ Online (CNN.com)
“ The three-dimensional virtual world makes it possible for students taking a distance course to develop a real sense of community, said Rebecca Nesson.”
“ Most people think online learning doesn't require participation or engagement with course material, he said. But in "Second Life" there's real-time interaction, which means students need to engage in the discussion -- much as if they were sitting in a brick and mortar classroom.”
http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/11/13/second.life.university/

Educators Explore 'Second Life‘ Online (CNN.com)
“ While it remains to be seen how much of an impact "Second Life" will have in the long run, there is immense interest within the educational community to find ways to harness its potential, said Mechthild Schmidt, a professor at NYU-McGhee, a division of the School of Continuing and Professional Studies.”
“ Schmidt, who learned about "Second Life" from her teenage son, integrated the virtual world into a course she teaches on digital communication to give students a new avenue for collaboration.”
http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/11/13/second.life.university/

Activities within SL
Collaboration
Streaming real time events
Art shows
Book discussions
Office hours
Social
Conference & poster presentations

Uses of SL
Create movies (Machinima)
Create tutorials
Alternative to architect or consultant
Experimentation before the “real”
Stage setting or directions
3-D educational objects
Brainstorming

Negative Comments to Expect
Only a game
Diversion
Only trying to be edgy
Waste of time
Lets do “first” life better instead
Fantasy, Fake
Unprofessional
Porn, Gambling

Signs of Growth & Acceptance
Sweden to set up embassy in Second Life
ALA Washington Opens Virtual Office
Reuters has dedicated SL reporter

Teen Second Life: http://teen.secondlife.com/
Eye4You Alliance Island is sponsored by the Alliance Library System, PLCMC and SirsiDynix: http://www.eye4youalliance.youthtech.info/

More Education
http://secondlife.com/education/
SL Education Mailing List (SLED)
Global Kids videos
Proceedings of the SL Education Workshop at the Second Life Community Convention, San Francisco, August 20th, 2006
http://secondlife.com/businesseducation/
education/slcc2006-proceedings.pdf

More Education
Second Life Best Practices in Education: Teaching, Learning, and Research 2007 International Conference
http://slbestpractices2007.wikispaces.com/
SL Blog, Education Category
http://blog.secondlife.com/tag/education/

Print Resources

Coming Soon
SL is currently chat based with sound effects and streaming media
Voice is in beta
Works good for small group discussions
Is directional (i.e. things get louder as you approach)

Extras: Librarians in Action
By HVXSilverstar
Librarians of Second Life: Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fYnplBHSpo
PLAY MOVIE

Extras: Librarians in Action
By HVXSilverstar
Librarians of Second Life: Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYHcXsaQdv4
PLAY MOVIE

Education and Collaboration Takes on a Second Life Brian Gray (Brian Garfield in Second Life) Case Western Reserve University [email_address] http://www.squidoo.com/library2point0/ http://www.slideshare.net/bcg8 ALAO Distance Learning Interest Group June 15, 2007

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Education and Collaboration Takes on a Second Life

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