Does it have to be timely to be relevant?

I saw a very interesting online conference come across my email the other day. It's for "Stepping into Virtual Worlds" which happens January 30th, completely virtually through Second Life. How incredibly neat is that?

I did see this posted last year, but I was too late to attend at when I found the conference. So when I saw this the other day I was excited that perhaps I could attend this year and experience some true learning through Second Life. I've sat in on some concerts, movies, and even a few comedy shows. I've visited some sandboxes where I could read text and learn how to perform some tasks. I haven't yet experienced a learning scenario.

I mentioned this to my boss and thought what a great opportunity to see some of the potential opportunities for this type of training. I can imagine how wonderfully it could possibly work with a hospital facility's training needs. Best yet, is I could use it as a work at home day and stay in my pajamas.

Unfortunately the feedback I received from my supervisor, who by the way is supportive about my elearning initiatives, question the relevancy of such a seminar at this point in "our" elearning journey. "If something like this is years down the road of time from where we (our organization and learner) then should I be wasting time exploring this option now."

My answer is yes. I think it's quite important to be exploring all learning/networking options out there within reason. When I say within reason I mean within money constraints and time constraints. I've found that you never know where the next great idea is going to come from that you can apply to your/work learning environment. Being on the forefront of many of these tips, tricks, and techniques is very much intriguing and exciting.

I'm curious if others have come across this "road block" within their personal learning initiatives. Do you believe that there is a proper time for seeking out new learning techniques or should one explore them as they present themselves?

SL Question - How do you start sending staff into Second Life for training?

I certainly haven't got all the Second Life lingo yet, but I'll try to pose my question here anyway. I was looking at a virtual conference in Second Life coming up that had some health care topics involved. Thinking about this I thought neat, I could register and give it a try to see what was covered and how they even do a conference in SL.

I then wondered though, if I wanted to create/send coworkers into SL for a virtual experience how would that be done. I realize it would take some time to get land and create my area (Sim? is that right?), but then what. Would you just tell your people to show up? I'm thinking not. It takes some time to get use to the environment, moving and looking around, inventory, chatting, etc. This is not to mention the billion hours (oh yes I mean billion) spent on creating and changing the appearance of your avatar.

I'm curious to find out how one would get their staff started into SL and how long it takes. Given you've already set up the area. Would you create 5-10 random avatars that staff could use to start with? Would you let them create their own avatars? Anyone interested in responding I'd be grateful. I'm not going there yet, but am quite curious.

Twitter and Second Life - 2 things I'm still figuring out

Just a quick note on some things I still haven't got the whole point of yet. Twitter - so I'm signed up and I'm following a few people. It took me some time to get connected to updates through my phone. I found out that it was a Canadian thing related to the number I post to for Twitter. Since then I've started getting little messages from this person and that person. Over the last few days several of the "Twitts" or is it "Tweets" have been pointing me to some interesting information. I think to myself this is actually kind of neat.

Today Brent Schlenker threw out a call for others to respond so he could demo it in a presentation. What a great way to collaboratively help someone in 160 characters or less. So I get these messages from my "eLearning Friends" but for my "Personal Friends" they stick to the tried and true Facebook and I mobile into that every day to see what everyone is up to. Both are like the one person you can always go to in the office because they know the gossip on everyone. I'm definitely going to give this a little more time before I turn it off from my phone.

The second thing I keep playing with is Second Life. It really can suck you in dramatically as you search around for the perfect shoes, pants, accessories, and most importantly just the right hair. It seems to me until you figure this part all out then there is little sense wandering around searching for anything else.

I am struggling to find some legitimate learning activities through SL. I was really hoping to sit in on a bunch of different topics, but this appears to be hard to find. Perhaps I am unassociated with the proper schools to participate. The only one I have sat in on was a discussion on NASA related topics, but it was above my knowledge. That and I found the guy with bat wings sitting behind be distracting.

I've tried to find some places where I have visited to see if they are true to life or close to real layouts. This too has proven unsuccessful. I guess this is part of the whole experience any way. It's not suppose to be real it's suppose to be a second life. I have been able to find a place that resembles Rome, another that looks similar to the Duomo in Florence, and Capri was laid out a little the same. If anyone has suggestions for more academic/learning type locations I would love to wander and explore.

Again with this, I haven't quite decided not to "play" anymore as I am having fun walking around in purple, pink, or blue hair and occasionally finding a place to dance. (I know sounds ridiculous).

My First Second Life Education Experience

I've been experimenting more and more with Second Life and now have my character looking more and more like a real person and less like the initial choices offered to first time users. I'm hooked on this silly thing. I explore all over the place and just this weekend was riding and Orca Whale, Parachuting, and Surfing. Wow I'm so virtually exciting.

I've been searching around for something educational to do though and hadn't yet found anything that really piqued my interest or was like a virtual classroom/discussion. That was where I had set my sights to start. Well today I finally found something.

I'm currently sitting in with NASA leadership, astronauts, scientists, and engineers along with local business, technology and academic leaders and local, state and federal officials discuss the role of space exploration in advancing science, engineering, technology, education and the economy that benefits your community and the nation. Sounds pretty cool.

(If you can see me, I'm in the second row of chairs to the left of centre, behind the guy with the red shirt. I'm the one with blue hair.)

Well it turned out it wasn't a presentation or lecture, but was an open forum. I can't say I understood or could follow all the lines of thinking that we going on as the discussion continued in just text form. Each person who wanted to join in the discussion would just type freely and their thoughts would display in the "chat" area.

It was certainly a neat place to start off to see the some of the potentials of learning in this manner. It was certainly an extremely more interesting and attending keeping method of group discussion than many of the chart rooms and discussion boards I've had to participate in for online college classes.

I shall continue my quest to find a "conference" kind of learning event.

Second Try at Second Life

So I was convinced by my friend Angela and by a presentation that I went to by Alan Levine ("I'm busy enough...What do I need Second Life for?") that I should maybe give this Second Life thing a second chance.

I found it hysterical that Angela and Alan had both said that they love to dance in SL. Alan describe that just creating your avatar can take hours to prefect if you really want to test it all out. Creating an object like a coffee cup can apparently take just as long. A good real life reference to this is that I couldn't just go into my kitchen and make a mug. It would take me hours as well to get the clay and mold it and fire it, glaze it, etc., etc. So why would we expect it to take minutes in SL.

One of the issues I had mentioned to Angela and in a previous post was my propensity to get motion sick when game screen spin around a lot. After the presentation and the fun notion of dancing when no one is looking or when I don't have that half-a-drink too many in me, made it all sound a little more intriguing. So I've given it another try and I hope to Angela's much happiness I capture myself dancing. I have no idea where I (Sessifet Fittinger) am, but I figured out how to do it.



I'm not completely happy yet with my appearance, but it's getting there, and no it's not the pink hair I'm unhappy about. It's the silly flip-flops.

I am hoping to walk around more and explore some of the more intriguing learning aspects that Second Life has to offer. However, for my first trip of Orientation Island I'm happy to wander and dance.

Second Life - Alan Levine

hetemeel.com - Einstein image with any text on chalk board behind him

Presentation will be in slideshare


Virtual worlds - been around for a while, graphics better, virtual worlds are international, video better, computer better, critical mass of people now doing it more and more, more games, more collaboration

Habbo Hotel - Had 7.5 million active users in 2000, Second Life 500,000 in 2003

Many more now in based on tons of children products.

Federation of American Scientists are trying to learn, track, list features of these various virtual wolds

Gartner Groups - says by 2011 80 percent of active internet users will have a Second Life

Levine's Law
START WITH THE &*#& DEMO

Demo:
his org. built on a 64x64 land, a virtual class room. Query in SL do we build real life items or fantasy. Hold a class on a cloud.

You can walk around for hours in SL and not actual run into anyone.

People spend much time and money setting up their avatars. Important though in that it identifies you and what you like.

250 Lindens = 1 real dollar

Use your Lindens to buy real things. Creates a virtual economy as well. Those that can build well can sell their items.

3d shapes are primitive shapes. Apply graphics to these to make them look like other items. All building tools are within the world. Their are free class to learn how to build and scripts that you can apply to them so they become interactive when you interact with them.

10% of people tend to represent them selves as a different gender. Lots of non-human avatars are created. Appreciate it more by getting in, trying, and learning.

"Get a First Life" - parody on this

FoDS - Field of Dream Syndrome - building something nice doesn't' necessarily mean people will access it. It is more then just creating. You can have rich interactions/learning/social interactions without owning any land/items.

Where do people have the time to interact/do this?
Henry Jenkins - South By SouthWest Conference 2008
- what's wrong with America? Bright articulate people are going in creating this content. What can we do to harness the creative & talent energy that these people have. As we grow into greater knowledge collectives we need to grow and adapt to these more. You don't get a user's manual in SL, you need to go in learn on your own, get feedback from a community. They don't get this opportunity at work, but use work so that they can afford to be creative outside in their private lives.

The Skeptics
The Gamer - the graphics suck (okay, but not like new PS3 kind of games), there's nothing to do (no goals, no tasks, the things that happen in SL are because of what you find around to do)
The Fearful - there are strange things that happen in there, you need a good computer, a good internet connection, you need to learn how to walk, talk, dress. It took you 18 years to really become a person in real life, but want it to happen in 18 seconds online
The Boss - How do I make money? - not the place for every type of training, but maybe for simulations and virtual collaboration.
The Traditionalist - I can do that in a chat room? - need to find out more what their interests are

http://www.nmc.org/horizon - looking at 1-2 year horizon, 3-4 years, 5 an beyond (2006 report) Launched and exploration into SL. http://sl.nmc.org/2006/06/12/seriously-engaging-movie

http://sl.mmc.org/2006/07/04/third-time-charm (NASA - lift over, people in room you are now sharing the experience with, remembering old launches, learning from one another, being in a social environment with other people that share a similar interest)

NMC Campus Observer
- have hosted 4 conferences in the virtual world.

You can hire people to go out to design your islands/areas for your space that you wish to design. NMC Virtual Worlds creates these for others. Professional networks can go through this.

"Second Life for Dummies"

Behind every avatar is a real person. During a survey of educators - there is a real feel of embarrassment. People have real reactions to cartoon images of themselves.

couple thousand to invest in you own island. Some places will rent out their space to you.

It is a cartoon world, but in the same sense we react to what we seen within the SL in a very real way (ie: fear snakes).

There is a voice client within SL with no lag time or delay.

Landmarks act as book marks.

Do you need to go to specific places at specific times to get to educational opportunities out of it?
-currently yes, but is is growing and becoming more and more diverse each month.

Many activities are scheduled and are rescheduled to explore. It is all still relatively "Brand New".

Virtual Hallucinations - designed to give you the sense of what it is like to have a mental illness

How do you find out what events are happening and occuring? - Second Life.com has an events calendar.
in the eduation realm - secondlife educator listserv

ie: Daden.co.uk (shows real planes coming into LAX) NOAA
interactive weather maps
second earth - explore earth
Rumsey map collection

You can set up you islands to limit you can come in to your island. You can not really set them up to leave your islands.

Note - I still got motion sick watching the presentation (the spinning of the screen gets to me).

Second Life made me motion sick.

So I finally have a computer capable of loading and running Second Life on. (thanks mom for crashing my old one) So I made my little character. Fixed her hair. Changed her clothes. Flew around a bit. Then suddenly I realized something.....I was getting a headache, I was feeling unwell, I was a little dizzy, and slightly nautious.

I was getting motion sick sitting still in my chair. I do know I experience this a lot when playing video games. I'm one of those people that when playing a driving game needs to hold the PS3 controller way out to the left or right if I want to steer the car around a corner. So its no wonder I felt ill staring deep into my screen trying to figure out if my avatar had just the right shade of lipstick to match her shoes. It was also completely logical when I started flying around the limited places I could.

Note to self: Sit back, relax, don't stare so deeply and intently, get up from the computer more often.