You’ll have to look quickly, because it won’t be up long. Go check out Dante’s Inferno, used as a teaching tool as part of the Literature Alive series, itself an effort of Lehigh Carbon Community College in Schnecksville, PA. Even if Second Life were nothing more than a souped-up chat tool, it would arguably be useful, but builds like Dante’s Inferno help show how much greater the potential is than “just” as a chat tool. Quick, before it goes away! It’s supposed to just be up for a week.

I realize this is an article about “big business,” but their experience in using SL as a means of communicating with customers sheds light on the nature of SL for education. The thing that, in particular, strikes me about Mitch Wagner’s Information Week article on “Using Second Life As A Business-To-Business Tool” is this comment:

The real value of Second Life for Cisco is the opportunity for spontaneous customer interaction, said Christian Renaud, chief architect of networked virtual environments for Cisco…. “I bump into customers and partners multiple times a day in Second Life. In 11 years at Cisco, walking through the parking lot in San Jose, I never get people come up to me and say, ‘I’m a Cisco customer, have a second?'”

Renaud confirms what I’ve seen for myself, and learned talking to other real-life businesses in Second Life. Second Life is a social networking tool, like blogging or Web discussion forums. It’s a way for people to come together and talk. It’s a way for companies to come together and talk with their business partners and customers.

At the risk of sounding like Martha Steward, that’s a good thing. In the classroom, it’s easy for two or three people to dominate discussion. In a Web class, it’s easy to feel disconnected from everyone else in the class. Both situations have been shown by research to negatively affect learning. If SL can counter that, then it’s useful.

I realize Linden Lab is far from perfect, and people have legitimate gripes. It is to be expected when you deal with something that grows as fast as Second Life, and that requires true pioneering–they’re doing stuff no one has done before.

It’s easy amid that to miss how impressive Linden Lab is in terms of enlightened employee and corporate relations.

Most Internet companies attempt to protect their trademarks and intellectual property with “cease-and-desist” orders and threats, which may establish some legal territory but lose them tremendous PR points in the process. As KnowProSE.com notes, LL has achieved the level of genius with a different approach (along with breaking ground in eBay commerce, and proving in a very interest way that SL is not a game).

Read “SecondLife Gets A FirstLife In More Ways Than One: Licensing Parody and eBaying Items” yourself, but I can’t resist telling you one of my favorite lines from the legal notice LL sent to a parody site:

Linden Lab is well-known for having strict hiring standards, including a requirement for having a sense of humor, from which our lawyers receive no exception.

Seriously. Read the story–it’s short, and well worth the time.

Ed Francisco and I spoke at the last session of the “Virtual Worlds Symposium” to start our discussion on PSTCC’s use of the MMORPG-based virtual world system, Second Life.

I started off the session by demonstrating the current state of the PSTCC virtual world campus. PSTCC purchased two “islands,” one of which will be used as a campus where classes and meetings can be held, while the second island is for use in a proposed gaming curriculum, with the first class scheduled for Fall 2007.

Ed Francisco then discussed ideas for using part of the campus island to host activities related to next year’s common book, Sharpshooter. Ed proposed ideas for how various disciplines might discuss the book and the time period in which it is set:

• English – reports, collages, poetry readings, collaborative exercises
• Biology/Chemistry – Civil War-era germ theory, anesthetics used, changes in life span since that time
• Sociology – class structure, Tennessee’s role in Civil War, the “hillbilly”
• Art/Photography – photography as a new medium in 1861, gentleman’s agreement not to take photos of a battle in progress
• Psychology/Philosophy – ethics of warfare, Tennessee’s reluctance to take sides, guerrilla warfare
• Engineering – war technologies, bridges, railroads, telegraph
• Education – education in the South being put on hold because of the war may help explain why we are still behind…

Some of the ideas that came out during our subsequent conversation included:

• The character in the book is attempting to find meaning through drawing and study, just as we are trying to discover the context of the book through Second Life media.
• Interior design could help with period furnishings and decoration.
• The Library can participate by providing access to e-books and SLURLs to their web resources.
• Students learn this type of environment through play; we can use it to help keep their attention and make learning more interesting.
• We can use in-world events to garner publicity for the college.
• Political geography, the “lay of the land,” can help in providing context for understanding the action of the book.

I talked to Sharpshooter author David Madden last week about his thoughts on using Second Life in the common book experience. We told him of our plans to build Fort Sanders and Bleak House on the PSTCC campus island. He suggested we also consider building the Andersonville Prison Guard Tower and the Coppola at Seminary Ridge. Based on this conversation, we plan to offer a narrated slide tour from the windows of the buildings we build for the common book experience.

This was the last session of our “Virtual Worlds Symposium.” It was very useful to me in both furthering my own understanding of virtual worlds and in understanding how the technology is viewed by others in the college.

I only wish we had more faculty/administrative participation. I believe that this technology provides us with the best mechanism for a multi-disciplinary interaction that we have yet seen, and that because of this, its use will grow rapidly over the next few years.

I’ll be seeing you in-world.

Take care,

David

Business Week has been tracking Second Life for a long time. The lead article in a special report today on “Virtual Life” says, in part:

All these developments have one thing in common: They suggest that before long, the Internet of the future, and the vast wealth of information and services on it, will look different: slicker, more realistic, more interactive and social than anything we experience today through the Web browser. “Three-dimensional virtual worlds will, in the near future, be pervasive interfaces for the Internet,” says Bob Moore, a sociologist who studies virtual worlds at Palo Alto Research Center, or PARC, the legendary Xerox lab in Silicon Valley.

The article is entitled “The Coming Virtual Web.” It’s not just focused on SL, but rather on the concept of a 3D Internet even more pervasive than the current one. Related stories include:

• The Virtual Meeting Room
• Digital Suburbia
• I Was a Second Life B-School Student
• The Coming Virtual Web
• Big Spenders of Second Life
• Virtual World Rich List
• When Griefers Attack

Spend a little time perusing this one. It’s solid food for thought.

Akela Talamasca has insightfully analyzed this question in a post entitled, “If SL Isn’t the 3D Internet, What Is?” I appreciate the thoughts all the more because SecondLifeInsider.com is not just a booster site for SL. Akela raises some very good points, worth thinking about for those concerned that a large investment of time and money in developing something in SL could go to waste.

I spoke this week at the “Virtual Worlds Symposium” on “Spirituality and Virtual Worlds.” The conversation following the talk was lively. A copy of the handout that I gave at the session is available from this post.

One of the main points of my talk was to discuss the difference, as I see it, between spirituality and religion. Dr. David Howell spoke at the symposium a few weeks back on “Religion and Virtual Worlds.” I wanted to discuss the long standing mystical tradition of reading sacred texts as more than simply factual descriptions. In connection with this, I suggested discussion of virtual worlds as tools for self discovery, and perhaps even as the basis for a real utopian vision of how the world could be.

We had a good turnout. A few people seemed to be offended by the topic, but it definitely served as a fruitful basis of conversation.

Our last session in the “Virtual Worlds Symposium” is next Tuesday, April 17th, from 2:00 – 3:20 p.m. in the Cafeteria Annex on the main campus. Ed Francisco and I will discuss plans for using the virtual reality environment “Second Life” for next year’s common book: Sharpshooter.

Please join us.

We have been fortunate in having a talented builder, Infiniti Mirihi, working with us on the PSTCC Islands. She’s not done yet, but has achieved some amazing stuff in a short period of time. The most immediate bit of information associated with this is that our Welcome Center has moved locations. The Web page on “Getting into Second Life” has changed to reflect this, but if you bookmarked the Welcome Center earlier, you might want to update your bookmarks. Following the old SLURL will leave you materializing into virtually thin air.

Edward Francisco addressed the third session of the Conversation Cafe “Virtual Worlds Symposium” on Tuesday, April 3, 2007. The topic that he introduced for conversation was “Pedagogical Uses of Virtual Worlds.”

After noting his concerns about the use of virtual world simulation technology by military groups and others espousing violence, Ed put forward ideas on how VR could be used across the college. VR worlds could be used as a stage for previewing plays. Animated movies, or “machinima,” are easy to make in virtual worlds and provide an inexpensive way to bring a screenplay to life. It is also easy to snap pictures of virtual world sets and use the resulting images to make graphic novels, comics and storyboards. He challenged faculty to learn about this new form of communication media so that we can be in a position to shepherd our students in its use.

The resulting conversation revolved around how we in academia can best utilize this powerful technology and help direct its evolution. Some of the ideas that emerged are listed below:

• History—can build historical re-enactments and environments
• Biology and Nursing—virtual dissections, body system simulations and walk-throughs
• English—using virtual meeting for collaborative writing, building/exploring virtual worlds based on literature

Another topic discussed during the conversation concerned how teachers would be able to translate their enthusiasm for a subject within this new medium.

Dave Vinson suggested (somewhat tongue in cheek) that we immediately begin to create simulations using Second Life to create a fractalized virtual reality within a virtual reality, a “Third Life” environment, so to speak.

Two more sessions remain in the “Virtual Worlds Symposium:”

April 10—David Brown: “Spirituality and Virtual Worlds”
April 17—David Brown and Ed Francisco: “Second Life and PSTCC”

The presentation on April 17 centers on the use of Second Life in next year’s “Common Book” experience. Please join us in our remaining sessions and learn more about the variety of virtual world experience.

Dr. David Howell spoke at the second session of the “Virtual Worlds Symposium” yesterday on “Religions and Virtual Worlds.” Dr. Howell said that after reading Synthetic Worlds by Edward Castronova, he was struck by the similarity he saw between the creation of virtual worlds and the creation of “real-world” religions. (Dr. Howell’s notes will be attached to this post… when I can get them from him…)

A few of the points raised by Dr. Howell for discussion during the session were:

1. Like the “coding authorities” of virtual worlds, the founders of religions (Moses, et al.) claim a special kind of authority for their interpretation of reality. What happens if the “players” of the religious “game” gain more control over this interpretation?

2. “Bots” (artificial life forms) play a large role in many MMORPG’s (massively multi-player online role playing games). Consider that in the “virtual world” game of religion, the gods are bots, that is, they are not human players of the game. They move the game along and mete out rewards and punishments. How does it make you feel to consider the supernatural elements of your religion (or another) as automatons programmed by the founders of the religion?

3. Why should we think that religions are “real” when they are so similar to virtual worlds? The idea of “the sacred” is seductive. Perhaps the followers of religions have been fooled by their “coding authorities” into believing in fantasy worlds, which promise power (in this world or the next) to their followers.

The attendees broke into two groups for discussion. My group noted the aptness of the analogy at least as far as how religious denominations form. The other group discussed the idea of “transcendence” as a way past the view that religions are not “real.”

I sincerely enjoyed Dr. Howell’s presentation, as did the other attendees. It will provide an interesting counterpoint to my talk on April 10, “Spirituality and Virtual Worlds.” Dr. Howell seemed to be suggesting that anyone who follows a religious/spiritual practice is in effect, fooling themselves. My presentation will take a different viewpoint in the hope that further excellent discussion will ensue.

Please come to our next installment of the “Virtual Worlds Symposium” on April 3 when Ed Francisco will start our discussion of “Pedagogical Uses of Virtual Worlds.”