Widespread Faculty Adoption of Virtual Worlds: Unlikely

Location: Heritage Key Virtual Tut Experience

It was both a revolutionary moment and a sad one. I talked about my class' "Saving Isis"assignment for the VWER (nee SLER) group's first meeting outside of Second Life. At the same time, I realized how few of us, in higher ed, use these technologies. I've often written here about why students don't take to virtual worlds. But how about my colleagues who sometimes snicker about the work we do in SL and elsewhere?

To this observer, despite feats like the much ballyhooed rollout of the UT system's SL project, virtual worlds are not likely to be a mainstream technology on campuses any time soon. Some possible reasons:

• Incentive and Reward: Tenure-stream faculty, and even full-time nontenured ones like me, have to meet goals in our assessments that may prevent us from living deeply enough in the culture of virtual world to truly learn it. I've been lucky, personally, with my work for Richmond, but I know that my department and school expect a juried publication out of all this, preferably in a major journal. This is how we faculty accrue prestige in academe for ourselves and our schools. It may be a dated measure to non-academics, but trust me: it will be around until my readers and I retire.
• Time the Tyrant: Right now, VWs like Second Life and Heritage Key are far too difficult to master in a few hours, even if one is not a builder. In SL it's the overwhelming size of the simulation and the difficulty of the building tools. In HK, which one colleague just dismissed as a big museum where you cannot build, the navigation tools and pedagogical activities are not yet in place yet the world is wide open for visitors who will go, crash multiple times, and not return.
  
• Creepy Treehouse: Here it's the culture of SL and even the name that turn off so many admins and colleagues. That does show signs of changing, after these parties get a look at what a good simulation can do to spark learning. More educationally focused and PG-rated virtual worlds will emerge under OpenSim and that will both hurt the Linden product and encourage the reluctant to "give this one a try instead."
  
• Linden Lab's Mercurial Policies: We educators recall how jokay Wollengong was promoted by one part of the Lab and issued a cease-and-desist order by another. It was one reason I urged my colleagues to change our Roundtable's name. But the problems go deeper. Decisions like that undercut the very culture that brings in academics: when I showed a reluctant colleage jokay's wiki in 2007, he said "I get it now." Now his URL won't work, and Linden Lab lost a potential customer.
  

It's all as one, as Tateru Nino claims in a reply to me about her post on the decision by Australian telecom Testra Bigpond to leave SL, that Second Life does not quite fit the hype cycle famously described by the Gartner Group.

She contends, with evidence, that there's a sinusoidal cycle at play here, with ever-diminishing amplitudes. Those ripples do not seem to register in the very crowded professional lives of academics.

Egghead with Dreads on "Tonight Live With Paisley Beebe"

Location: Ready for my close-up, Ms. Beebe

It may have been a slow night for news about virtual worlds, so Paisley Beebe resorted to having me as the final guest for her November 15 show. To be honest, I was honored to be featured on treet.tv's lineup of outstanding shows shot in and about Second Life. I even behaved myself, given that the experience was quite immersive; I felt as though I were on a real-life set.

Our talk ranged over several topics, including my feelings that educators need to explore beyond SL and why most students never log on with their avatars once the semester ends.

Special thanks go out to Paisley, AutumnFoxx, and the fine crew at Tonight Live. I didn't even fall off the stage or sit on Paisley's cat.

Here's the show, embedded. Be sure to hear Buckley Moonwall perform and listen to Alice Burgess, a librarian at the University of Kentucky and Shamblesguru Voom, an education consultant in Thailand discuss education in SL. Then I can lull you to sleep.

SL Education Roundtable Changes its Name

by AJ Kelton, Founder and Chief Moderator
and the Virtual Worlds Education Roundtable Organizers
(photo courtesy of Olivia Hotshot)

In March of 2008 the idea was born for a weekly roundtable meeting focused on a specific topic each week. The idea was to bring a bit of democracy to the process of discussing education in this new and adventurous world we'd all found ourselves in. The group was called the SL Education Roundtable and the idea was for us all to, quite literally, sit around a round table and talk with each other. Over time the meeting group grew to 40 or more attending each week, with nearly 400 members in our Second Life (c) in-world group and over 400 members in our Facebook group. Through the efforts of both a handful of dedicated volunteers, as well as a broad and diverse group of people participating on a regular basis, the group has seen a fair amount of success.

SLER was never meant to be a bully pulpit from which controversial ideas or political dramas were fostered. Our role has been to create an environment within which many thoughts and ideas can be talked about and shared, without anyone feeling like theirs were bad or wrong or unwelcome. In many ways, this group has become somewhat of a news media outlet, where topical ideas are raised and discussed without the gloss of one side versus the others. This is not to say our conversations cannot get heated, or interesting, but the organization itself does not take sides, it just facilitates conversation.

Since that day nearly two years ago, the landscape has changed. Technology has changed. Virtual worlds have changed. Second Life has changed. And now it is time for our organization to also change. In order to acknowledge that there are many virtual worlds out there to be talked about, and proactively moving into compliance with the Linden Lab restriction of the use of the "SL" in any name, effective January 6th, this group will be called the Virtual Worlds Education Roundtable.

In addition, effective immediately, Our scope will broaden beyond the weekly meetings every Tuesday in Second Life, at Montclair State University's virtual campus. We will continue to hold our Tuesday weekly meeting in Second Life. We will also be holding additional meetings on other days in other virtual worlds, including one tomorrow, Wednesday November 18th at 3:00pm Eastern Time, in Rezzable's simulation, Heritage Key. In the future we will also be meeting in Metaplace, Reaction grid, as well as other virtual world grids.

A new Second Life group, Virtual Worlds Education Roundtable (VWER), has already been created and, as of today, will begin to accept membership. Although we will leave the original SLER group open, effective today, no new members will be allowed to join this group. There are also Flickr and Koinup groups making use of the new name, a Facebook group, and a Twitter account. We feel the time between today and January 6th will allow all of those interested to make this important and exciting transition with us.

Great thanks to all those who support The Roundtable efforts and activities. We're looking forward to even better programming for our regular meetings as well as expanding our virtual worlds vocabulary.

Blue Mars Teaser Trailer: Entertainment, Business

Location: Avatar Reality Web Site

So much dazzle from the makers of Blue Mars, and not a word about education. I get to these things slowly--the post where I found the embed code for this video bore the date May 2009.


Have a look. The maker, Avatar Reality, promises a public release soon (the virtual world is in public Beta now). As with Second Life, system requirements are high. But--groan--it's Windows-only. I'll find a gaming PC eventually and try to take an unbiased look at this new entrant in the VW universe.

Gee, maybe I'll play a round of golf. No, maybe I'd rather have spikes stuck into my eyes. The prevalence of golf on the site--though not in the trailer I've embedded--says a great deal about the target demographic.

Okay, I'll find not a driving range but a place to drive in Blue Mars and see how the cars work.