Since 2005, the Second Life education community has grown to 4700 plus members (according to their listserv figures). This month Linden Labs has re-launched a blog for educators to complement its education events calendar and listservs.
I wish I could be enthusiastic about it. The people who run the calendar are supportive of Australian events and sympathetic to those of us not on US Pacific Time.
I also think Linden Labs does a great job of making their Jira job system open to users, setting up and training mentors to offer help in-world and creating a wiki for information as well as having great information and freebies on their web site. Their employees offer in-world office hours and one in particular - Torley Linden - creates video tutorials on using Second Life that are quirky and effective.
So why so lukewarm about the blog?
I get that they want to build a community and I’ll subscribe to the blog (but not the listerv, I’m trying to REDUCE my daily email intake) and I’ll contribute, but with tools like Technorati and del.icio.us around I wonder if an editor-facilitated, centralised information resource for a widely used service like Second Life is really necessary.
Sarah Robbins, the editor they’ve chosen sounds interesting - she’s an avid Twitter-er, blogger, SL junky and punky chick (her description, not mine) that co-authored the book Second Life for Dummies, presents regularly on Second Life and social networking and is an instructor at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana.
If you are interested in Second Life or other MUVEs (multi-user virtual environments) I’d encourage you to check out the Second Life blog.
But also use tools like del.icio.us and Technorati and RSS feed aggregators like iGoogle or Pageflakes or RSSReader to cast your information net wider and also to narrow in on what’s most relevant to you and your stakeholders.
6 Comments
Very thoughtful posting, and I hope that others think about all the resources available to them after reading your blog. I agree with your idea that people should check out and use the resource that most fits them and their stakeholders.
SecondLife and other visually based MUVEs are great places for virtual learning, and they are the first of many efforts to develop a true virtual/real world in the future. Not everyone is ready to go there, nor do they need all the services provided there. For these people, you have mentioned some great tools, like del.icio.us, PageFlakes, and Technorati, for research and some social networking.
Besides Twitter, there are other virtual environments that may be considered precursors to SecondLife. These learning environments, such as TappedIN still provide an important link for people not quite ready for SecondLife, yet wanting more than a static information site. TappedIN provides a chat based virtual community for those in education, including parents and related professions.
Personally, I know I would like to investigate SL, yet I don’t quite have the time and resources available to go there. Soon, though….soon;D
Dear Sam - when you’re ready to take the plunge, let me know. I’d be happy to show you and any colleagues of yours who are interested around Second Life. Cheers! KerryJ
I think it’s also important to realise that Second Life is not ‘it’ - it just happens to have the most traction at the moment, but there are many other virtual worlds, multi user online games etc. Before putting our water in the SL bucket it’s probably worth considering whether there are more appropriate 3D environments for the education sector.
Thanks for that Jen. To be sure there are other options out there and it should depend on communications outcomes and age appropriate content amongst other considerations which one is used.
I saw a great video giving an overview of several VEs out there - http://youtube.com/watch?v=wMOqI3hH9Gs
If you’ve participated in any of these, would love to hear about them. I have only played in SL so far as my focus is on communications and adult education.
Thank you for the link, working in web development I found the second life blog quite interesting to keep up to date with. I definitely think there is room for far more advanced MUVEs (multi-user virtual environments) that go beyond where second life has gone but i guess it remains to be seen if anyone has the time and budget required to create it.
Thank you.
James Cox
Hi James
It will be fun to see where it all goes, won’t it? : ^ )
There are several really good blogs that look at SL from various angles. If you go to del.icio.us and do a search on Second Life business (for example) you’ll find a wealth of information.
My point is that one centralised, editor-facilitated resource for something as widely discussed and niched as SL is an old school approach given the large amount of information available that is going to be specific to a particular interest.
Cheers!
KerryJ
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Second Life News for March 11, 2008
From: MVC Second Life recruiting for UK office Quote from the site - Linden Lab looking for over 30 new faces, some of which will be based in its Brighton office.
From: KerryJ’s blog Linden Labs’ Second Life education blog - an old approach? Quote …
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