The following is the powerpoint from Barry Joseph's keynote at the SLEDcc 2008 Second Life educator's convention. Barry write that: "In it I introduce a term I have coined, "the ludic life," and discuss its implications for Second Life and learning. In short, Eric Zimmerman, the game designer, has recently been making the argument that we have entered "a ludic century." We once moved from an industrial age to an information age. However, we are now interacting with that information in a way Zimmerman finds best described as ludic, which is not to say everything is becoming a game but rather game/play dynamics, aesthetics and sensibilities will increasingly define our social interactions. "While Zimmerman uses Wikipedia as his example, I am looking to articulate that Second Life is a better example and, more importantly, the way in which SL allows users to combine their real life identities and practices within a ludic context not only makes it a powerful space for teaching people how to live a ludic life, but it also becomes the key defining characteristic of the Second Life experience. The ramifications are tremendous and will be explored, both at the keynote and within this group." It is highly recommended to not just view the images but download and view with full notes. It's rather dense. In fact, the full recommendation is to go to http://www.rezed.org/group/ludiclife to watch the powerpoint while listening to the presentation audio or watching the video. Enjoy.

1. Title card Why Second Life Can’t Tip: The Power And Perils of Living La Vida Ludic Barry Joseph Global Kids, Inc. Tampa, Florida 09.06.08

2. 1 Me

3. Barry Joseph H E L L O my name is

4. Gk logo

5. 2 You

6. YOU

7. AUDIENCE

10. AUDIENCE

11. AUDIENCE

15. 3 Big Ideas

16. Ecology of games

17. Race

20. 4 Tipping

21. Malcolm Gladwell “ a new way of understanding why change so often happens as quickly and as unexpectedly as it does.”

22. Rate of Growth

23. Rate of Growth

24. Rate of Growth 35 Million user hours a month 8/08

25. Brands In

26. Competition

27. Pop Culture

28. No Plans?

29. Plateau Kingdon on Second Life's Recent Concurrency/Active User Plateau

30. Brands Out

31. 5 Digital Minstrelsy & Me

32. Grand Theft Auto

33. Guitar Hero

34. Lars and Stone

35. 6 Mercury Metropolitan

36. Mercury Metropolitan

37. Ryan Winters Mercury Metropolitan

38. jolson Jolson

39. jolson2 “ Jolson was the first openly Jewish man to become an entertainment star in America. His marginal status as a Jew informed his blackface portrayal of Southern blacks .” -- St. James Encyclopedia Of Popular Culture

41. “ At first it was really a personal experiment . I wanted to see what sort of reaction I received and if I was treated any differently. When I first started, I was a white male avatar, and found it difficult to fit into some already existing cliques . So, I wanted to try a different approach:” “ Creating a virtual identity that was different from my real identity, but remaining transparent about my real life identity if ever questions were brought up in conversation. Being honest about your real identity is important if you want to form ‘real’ friendships, ones that can even extend outside of the virtual world. I was actually treated even better than I was as a white male avatar. There were also a lot more clothing choices as a female. I've grown attached to this female avatar .”

42. 7 “Ludic” & the Modernist Divide

43. Ludic

44. Gonzalo Frasca "We will propose the term ludology (from ludus, the Latin word for "game"), to refer to the yet non-existent 'discipline that studies game and play activities'."

45. Play Money

46. Thomas Malaby “ Johan Huizinga set the tone for much of the inquiry into games and society in the latter half of the twentieth century with his book Homo Ludens (Man the Player) in 1955… Later in the book [Huizinga] speaks of the “ play-element ” (a type of experience or disposition), rather than of “ play ” as a (separable, safe) activity... This play element is marked by the legitimacy of improvisation and innovation that it allows.”

47. "...it was not my object to define the place of play among all other manifestations of culture, but rather to ascertain how far culture itself bears the character of play."

48. Thomas Malaby “ There is a standard account of what games are that saturates both popular and academic accounts of games. This is the idea that games are a subset of ‘ play ,’ where play is understood to be something fundamentally opposed to ‘ work .’ The primary shortcoming of seeing games as play, and play as opposed to work, is that games become domains intrinsically set apart from people’s day-to-day life .” “ Gaming becomes sensible not as an escape from everyday life but as just one of its multiform domains…”

49. Classroom vs recess

51. 8 “A Ludic Century”

53. DISCLAIMER!

54. “ Have a box or similar non-human object with the name ‘Eric Zimmerman’ on it, and you should do my voice and make it clear that it is just your construction of me.”

56. Eric’s Books

59. “… games represent one of the most robust and inventive vectors of digital culture.”

61. “ Games do not merely represent new systems of meaning, but are new paradigms under which meaning might be created.”

62. “ Games do not merely represent new systems of meaning, but are new paradigms under which meaning might be created.”

63. A Ludic Paradigm

64. Over the last century, the industrial age was replaced by an era of information , as factory processing and paper bureaucracy … reached their practical and physical limits. In this context, the study and production of information in and of itself arose…”

66. “ Just as the information age replaced the industrial age, a ludic age has already begun to replace the information age.”

67. “ Information as a paradigm is inadequate to describe emerging cultural systems like Wikipedia, multiplayer online games, or global financial networks.”

68. “ These phenomena are not just based on the formal complexity of abstract information processing, but are very human, creative systems.” “ It is inhabited , played with, evolved , and transformed , by a social organism that itself is changing over time.”

69. “ It is inhabited , played with, evolved , and transformed , by a social organism that itself is changing over time.”

70. “ The free play of gears or a steering wheel ” “ The play only exists because of the more rigid structures, but also exactly despite them.”

71. “ Games are the embodiment of this paradox of rigid rules and free movement, of locked formal structures and playful improvisation. And it is this movement from systems of information to systems of play that is increasingly defining our time.”

75. 9 Living La Vida Ludic

76. Global Kids, Inc.

77. GLS

78. B.Z. A.Z. G.K. = Youth Development SL = Embodied, Constructivist Learning G.K. & SL = The Ludic Life!

79. The Ludic Life We are finding a new way to live our lives within a virtual world by collapsing the modernist divide, allowing us to live or approach our lives in news ways through integration with play -elements.

80. 10 Designed or Emerged?

86. Thomas Malaby by email (Aug ‘08) “ Rather than think about what is happening now as somehow a ‘ break’ from the past (a new era, or somesuch), it is rather that the way everyday life has always been game-like is only now coming into focus , becoming more and more difficult to deny.”

87. Philip Rosedale by email (Aug ‘08) “ Since the world is moving towards more mutability and creativity in general (not even counting SL), I'd say Eric Z's thoughts are correct .”

88. 11 Salesman Dwight vs. Philly Jim

89. csi

90. csi

91. The office

93. Dwight the SL Salesman Jonathan Fanton McArthur Foundation Henry Jenkins M.I.T. Luis Moreno-Ocampo International Criminal Court

94. Philly Jim the reporter Hamlet Au New World Notes Walker Spaight Second Life Herald Katt Kongo Metaverse Messenger

95. 12 Ludic Life & Education

96. Human Barometer Avatar Barometer

97. The Ludic Life Continuum LUDIC Ryan pretending to be a woman

98. The Ludic Life Continuum LIFE Ryan appearing as a man

99. The Ludic Life Continuum LUDIC Ryan pretending to be a woman LIFE Ryan appearing as a man LUDIC LIFE Ryan appearing as a woman

100. The Ludic Life Continuum LUDIC LIFE LUDIC LIFE 1 2 3 4 5

101. Harry Potter Dance Party of Good and Evil

102. The Ludic Life Continuum LUDIC LIFE LUDIC LIFE 1 2 3 4 5

103. The Ludic Life Continuum LUDIC LIFE LUDIC LIFE 1 2 3 4 5

105. The Ludic Life Continuum LUDIC LIFE LUDIC LIFE 1 2 3 4 5

106. International Criminal Court

107. The Ludic Life Continuum LUDIC LIFE LUDIC LIFE 1 2 3 4 5

108. "IT WAS REALLY FUN!!!! I enjoyed building a solar/ hybrid car [in TSL] for my project and I enjoyed making a billboard. I would recommend this style of learning for any subject because it keeps us (students) pushing because we are using a game for learning." -- Ernesto

109. The Ludic Life Continuum LUDIC LIFE LUDIC LIFE 1 2 3 4 5

110. 13 The Subversive Nature of the Ludic Life

111. Tipping image

112. Background/foreground LIFE LIFE WORK WORK PLAY PLAY PLAY PLAY PLAY PLAY PLAY PLAY

113. stuff LUDIC LIFE 1 2 3 4

114. 14 Second Life Can’t Tip

115. Title card Why Second Life Can’t Tip: The Power And Perils of Living La Vida Ludic

116. “ Can’t Tip” Second Life will never tip. or Second Life has yet to tip.

118. Ludic Life Discomfort CSI The Office Congressional Hearings on Second Life

120. Title card Why Second Life Can’t Tip: The Power And Perils of Living La Vida Ludic Barry Joseph Global Kids, Inc. More information at: RezEd.or/groups/ludiclife Tampa, Florida 09.06.08