Virtual Worlds Story Project Creators to Talk to Educators

Location: Story Book Island

I'm pleased to be the host for an event next week, at the Second Life Education Roundtable, for two very special guests, Martin J. Keltz (SL: Marty Snowpaw) and Jena Ball (SL: Jenaia Morane). We'll meet on Montclair State University's virtual campus in Second Life [direct teleport link] from 2:30-3:30 SL Time (PST) Tuesday, November 3.

Jena and Marty will discuss, in voice chat, their project to "develop and produce immersive, interactive, and educational Story Quests where people of all ages can embark on learning adventures."

Think of their project as a vast network of collaborative storytelling. And why stories? As Jena told Pathfinder Linden during an interview about the project, stories "engage, encourage creativity, and free the imagination. They help us make sense of our worlds." The Quest that I have begun concerns Uncle D, a man diagnosed as HIV positive, and I've read some of the work others composed as part of this project to educate collaborators (for there are no tourists in this project) on HIV/AIDS.

Jenaia and Marty encouraged me not only to plug their talk but to produce a creative piece linked to the Uncle D story. I plan to have something here and at their blog before the Tuesday meeting.

There is simply too much about this amazing project to capture in a single post here. So get a sense of the project from the trailer here and the longer film here.

Come join us Tuesday; we have two very talented individuals bringing their gifts to SL:

Jena Ball is a writer and journalist with extensive experience with new media, print publications, and creative writing. She's worked as a technical writer and editor at Sony in Japan and she founded The Nature of Writing, an online school for high-school and college students that emphasizes new media, virtual worlds, and online collaboration.

Martin J. Keltz came to SL with an impressive resume of more than three decades in publishing and media, including time as co-founder and President of Scholastic, Inc. and a long career as an Emmy-Award-winning producer for projects such as the films The Indian in the Cupboard and The Baby-Sitters Club as well as programming for ABC, CBS, HBO, PBS, CBC, and other networks.

Heritage Key Tut: The Mummy's Curse?

Location: Heritage Key

My students are in Heritage Key, and we are encountering some interesting "issues" to share with Rezzable's staff. I've not encountered most of these problems, but I'm running HK on a more powerful Mac laptop than my class members use.

Links to student "tourist report" blogs follow. They are to do another assignment with HK's Tomb of King Tut. We'll soldier on, but some technical issues below are likely to hinder student engagement. Every problem below disrupts the enjoyment of the virtual world, thus limiting immersion in the simulation.

Given how they've only recently gotten comfortable in Second Life, I'm wishing that Rezzable's SL Tomb of Tut still existed to finish my "Saving Isis" assignment.

Successes:

• Content: They like the idea of a virtual world dedicated to education. Antoine notes "Given that I love history, I was very excited to be able to explore some of the things that Heritage Key had to offer."
  
  
• Changing Clothing: At the welcome area, Chelsea found that "I like how all you need to do is drag the item from the inventory onto your avatar as opposed to Second Life where you need to drag the box into a space."

Concerns:

• Lag: The lag has been enormous for a virtual world with only a single avatar present in a given area. My students lack the experience to tweak their clients' graphics settings, so Rezzable has a great deal of work to do in this area.
  
  
• Graphics Requirements: Two students on PC laptops report how their avatars misbehaved. One result, visible on my system, appears above. In the words of Antoine, "My avatar still looked like a zebra in a gay pride parade and then his face began to turn gray."
  
  To be fair to Rezzable, neither Antoine's nor Fierce's Dell laptops--both brand new--met the minimum system requirements. If, however, Rezzable wants faculty and students to see its content, it--and Linden Lab--must work harder to make their worlds viewable on a wider range of current systems (especially laptops).
  
  All of my students use laptops, mostly slower but brand new Macs and a few PCs running Vista or, in one case, XP. It would be interesting to see what happens if they finish the assignments on more powerful desktop systems.
  
  
• Navigation: This problem can be addressed more simply. Students prefer to have choice, so HK should offer a more intuitive system to go to any point in the simulation from any other point. I'm to give a tour of the Cosmic Gallery for EDUCAUSE next week, and I cannot find the room!

• Stability: Fierce and I tried to meet in the welcome area. We got one snaphot, shown below, before I began to crash, repeatedly. I was on a high-end iMac in our classroom, optimized to run Heritage Key's client. Chelsea likewise reported repeated crashes on her laptop when she reached the Tomb of the Boy King.
  
  
  
• Fashion: It may sounds silly to educators, but my students are already spoiled by the greater range of avatar customizing in SL. As Sarah wrote, "Coming from Second Life, I now feel the need to have my avatar resemble and represent me; but was unable to do so in Heritage Key." HK should add some better hair and skins for their newcomers. I'm surprised how quickly this year's class of writers "got into" fixing up their avatars. In past years, perhaps because of SL's more limited graphics (I know- that works against system compatibility) students did not "pimp their avatars" as much.
  

It's Halloween, and the Mummy seems to be after us.

The students are still excited about the prospects for HK and specialized virtual worlds. They also enjoy writing for a real audience--Rezzable's staff and CEO. We hope that Rezzable can resolve these problems so the amazing content of HK's sites--Tut and the new Stonehenge project--will work well for future explorers.

Update: You don't often get a company CEO to write back when you post a blog, but I'd like to thank Jon and Meral at Rezzable for quick replies, as well as Pavig and Viv.

My students will be told to read this post and the comments. We're prepared for the work-arounds to finish the project. Jon noted that newer versions of the viewer code will correct some problems we've been seeing, and given the improvements to HK since my first visit, I've little doubt of that.

Student Slideshow, Burning Life 2009

Location: Koinup Profiles and Blogs

It's fun to get a second-hand look at my students' experiences in SL. They got an assignment to take them to the next stage of encountering a virtual world: to go to an event.

This avoided the "SL is always empty" feeling that so many reported in earlier blog posts. I'm saddened that so often our best educational content in SL can seem empty, save when a "flash mob" shows for a talk, tour, or class. So to see the range of SL avatars, as well as experience how it feels to be in a crowd, I encouraged them to visit Burning Life 2009.

Slides follow. Readers can also have a look at the class page for blogs, wikis, and Koinup pages (where many of the students place their photos).

One upshot of this is a renewed appreciation for how the Lindens managed lag at the event. My writers are complaining heartily of lag at Rezzable's Heritage Key virtual world, where they are all alone. Look for a future post on that adventure.

Last year, I found BL to be quite laggy. This year, performance was far better, even on wireless connections. So Linden Lab earns some praise amid my usual grousing about other issues.

The Generosity of Content Creators in Second Life

Location: Morris Mertel's Shop

As the House of Usher Project has evolved, I took short-cuts to avoid trying to "make it all myself." Even where I have the skills to do things, I can lack time. Luckily for me, a number of talented builders make great themed content.

I've sung the praises of Viv Trafalgar here before, and Viv is making costumes for actors and visitors at our simulation. Now I want to praise Morris, whose shop 3Dreamworld Studios led me to all sorts of everyday items to make a Victorian mansion look more Poelike--that is, a bit worn, Gothic, and massive. One trick for such a build involves not going for the over-the-top Goth look that is so popular in SL; it parodies for dramatic effect actual Victorian homes that Poe knew and that still stand in my and his home town.

I've imagined the House to be in England, perhaps an old family manor that may have been a castle in the dim past of the doomed family. That seemed to call for a mix of heavy retro-medieval pieces as well as more dainty Victorian objects.



Morris' fireplace, pictured below, came to us free of charge. It was bundled with a number of the period cottages I have seen on his property, and when I contacted him, he gladly gave me a free fireplace. We're using many of his items in our House of Usher, but the idea of helping an educational project seemed to appeal to him.



The fun of working in a community--that Burning Life spirit--keeps SL's creators creating. And I'm glad to support them with my Linden Dollars.