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Call this post a mental brain dump.

My colleagues and I have been spending more and more time in SecondLife lately, and all the while I’ve been experiencing a growing sense of conflict between the potential of the environment and the traditional curriculum-based structures and expectation of higher education.

On the side of untapped, raw potential there are the immersive aspects of SecondLife.  There is an incredible amount of creativity and diversity interwoven into the fabric of SecondLife, and it is truly inspiring to behold.  Those who can enter the realm with an exploratory willingness experience a world of limitless potential.  This translates quite strongly to incredible depth in learning opportunities; however at least based on my experiences so far, they seem to be of a different variety to the targeted, preplanned outcomes that are emphasised in higher education.

I would characterise the learning processed I’ve experienced in SecondLife so far as very holistic and multi-faceted.  Yes there are specific tasks that I’ve learned to do and skills that I’ve acquired - most notably in terms of the construction of structures and landscapes on the island - but on a wider more fundamental level I can’t help but get the feeling my SL experiences thus far have resulted in a more esoteric knowledge that I can’t quite define yet.  This seems to have arisen from the constant interaction with different perspectives, different approaches to the realm, and a social dynamic that is both familiar and exotic at the same time.

It’s not something that is easily defined - let alone assessed or evaluated.  The latter puts it in immediate conflict with the traditional university culture.  If you can’t assess something, how can you grade it; if you can’t grade it, how can you grant credit; if you can’t grant credit how can you award degrees?  Is the inherently social constructivistic culture of SecondLife ultimately out of phase with higher education?  I don’t know.

There are of course the technical issues and infamous learning curve to account for as well.  However in my personal experience, if you can see the value in the process, and the learning that emerges amidst the process - you can recognise SecondLife as a learning journey, rather than a learning objective.

The problem once again though, is that university culture and structure is generally defined on the latter - in the assessment of performance focussed largely on the result, or the end product.  It would almost seem then that - in an age of shrinking course periods - maximising outcomes is seen to take priority over promoting a holistic experience that affords learners the opportunity to follow their own interests throughout its organic development.  How then can you tap the immersive potential in SecondLife without diluting it so far that it loses its potency and value?

I normally don’t link to support resources, but this find has proven so informative I wanted to pass it along.

Linden Labs, the folks who bring us SecondLife, have an amazing support library of videos available for download that cover a wide range of topics.  I only discovered them yesterday but have already watched nearly 20 of them.  They’ve cleared up so much confusion for me!

Anyway the post where I initially found the link was called “‘Inside the Lab’ Podcast, a Discussion on Education in Second Life“.  I’ve yet to read this yet, but that topic alone sounds worth a read.

More importantly the support resources are available via a few different means (see the above link for the full options).  Personally I prefer the podcast option, which is located via this link:

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=151557204

The link looks unusual if you’re not familiar with podcasting, but if you load it in your browser you’ll find you’re notified that the content will be loaded in iTunes and asked to confirm.

The content is appropriate for a range of experience levels - including brand new users.  I think it’s also a really nice example of what support possibilities exist when considering use of video tutorials.

Finally, if you’re considering building in SL but don’t know where to start, the tutorials point to an amazing in-world resource centre known as the Ivory Tower which depicts how the build tools can be used from the most simple block through highly intricate arrangements.

The in-world location of the Ivory Tower is: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Natoma/208/171/26

Might be worth a field trip I think  I’ve already had a quick look and will definitely be heading back again soon.  Most likely later today in fact.

I created this screencast for my work colleagues and thought it was worth sharing here as well. It’s a quick and dirty tour of the Isle of Zapp in SecondLife. The clip features a commentary covering basics of SecondLife, design history of the island, and ideas for future development.

The island can be accessed through the following site. This map depicts an areal view and features a link to teleport to the island.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Inglewood%20Estate/41/69/22/

I was recently gifted an island in SecondLife and haven’t managed to pry myself away from it since. It’s not something I would have thought to do, but having been given the opportunity I’ve embraced it and have been quite surprised with the results. Along those lines I’ve made several observations that I’d like to discuss here.

The first observation was that building in the virtual world immediately introduced a sense of vested interest and ownership in the project.  Perhaps not surprisingly this has resulted in an increased sense of purpose when in-world. Whereas previously I’d wander aimlessly wondering “what I’m meant to do in this place,” I’m now content to widdle away the time on the island experimenting with ideas and generally exploring the possibilities.

In that sense I’m beginning to think that one of the key values of SecondLife lay in the dynamic - in the building of new things and the planning and design processes that go along with it.

When I decided to terriform one portion of the island I didn’t arbitrarily start digging; I did research first. I sourced photographs and images that depicted island geologic structures and landforms and considered notions like the local geologic history. The logic being, unless you now how the land is formed and evolved, you can’t effectively sculpt it.

For example, when building mountains you are mimicking a naturally-ocurring process characterised by lifting and erosion. In order to produce realistic looking virtual mountains you must replicate these agents and consider factors like water drainage routes and how this would alter and affect the landscape.

Biologically speaking there are matters if climate and corresponding species to consider. For example you wouldn’t see a Giant Panda and Kangaroo side by side in the wild. So unless you’re building a virtual zoo they shouldn’t be on the same plot of land. The same goes for plant species. In order to maximize realism you need a solid grasp of the ecosystem and what exists within it.

Thirdly, I’ve been paying much greater attention to shapes, colour, proportion and geometry in real life lately. In Secondlife the building process involves linking together lots of small shapes until gradually they resemble something recogniseable. Maximizing realism requires recognising the fundamental patterns and shapes that make up the object.

At first a project doesn’t look like much, so you have to think in terms of detail and aggregate at the same time.

In the sense of the built environment and landcaping there have been layout and architectural considerations. The same rules that apply to designing realworld homes apply to virtual ones as well. And in the case if virtual instance constraints like budget don’t apply; so you can really push the boundaries.

The jury is still out for many people regarding the uses of SecondLife in formal education, but one things fairly certain - it definitely caters to experiential learning.

I must admit I’ve been a very slow adopter of the realm of SecondLife. Perhaps because I’m more of an auditory learner than visual or kinesthetic, it was quite some time before I had the slightest interest in creating an account and logging in, and even longer before I was willing to open my mind to the possibilities of it being used to somehow support learning. To be brutally honest, a certain degree of scepticism still remains as to the logistics of using SecondLife in education - not the least of which arise from the massive learning curve required to acclimate to life “in-world” - but I’m quite happy to have reached the stage where I’m at least open to the possibilities.

In no small part due to the edublogging activities of many people around the web, a great deal of discussion, some very helpful and insightful SecondLife advocates, and my own curiosity I have begun to spend time in earnest exploring the activities and educational uses of this emersive environment. As luck would have it I’ll also be meeting in SecondLife for the upcoming Facilitating Online Communities course I’m taking beginning the 28th of this month.

In yet another amazing coincidence it would seem that there is an unconference on the horizon as well. From the Island of Jokaydia Community Wikispace:

“The Islands of jokaydia Community of Practice is planning an In-World Unconference which will will occur on the Islands of jokaydia from 27-28th September 2008.”

The unconference is expected to cover a variety of topics relevant to education and eLearning, with the three main themes being: Virtual Worlds for Education, Innovation in eLearning and Arts and Culture in Second Life.

Continuing the apparent theme of openness and community-driven learning that I seem to be in the midst of lately, the conference content will be largely directed by the participants:

“According to wikipedia, an unconference is a: conference where the content of the sessions is driven and created by the participants. Generally, unconference style events are community organised, informal and social events where participants provide the content and facilitation for the event.”

There’s a great deal of additional information on the unconference page of the Island of Jokaydia Community Wikispace, so if you’re interested I would encourage you to check it out. From what’s been discussed in the wiki the event is being exceptionally well planned and organised, so it should be something you don’t want to miss.

Personally speaking the portion of the unconference that has piqued my interest the most concerns a case study on titled “Ramapo Islands: A New Dimension in Learning”:

Focusing on the process of developing constructivist learning in the virtual world, Sheehy will present the steps her teachers have taken this second year of teaching in Ramapo Islands on Teen Second life to translate their content into the virtual landscape. She will outline the best practices that have evolved as a result and the student responses to this 21st century pedagogical shift.

The hour long presentation will include anecdotal evidence from teachers, administrators and students, video clips of the work being done and both the anticipated and actual outcomes.”

If you’re planning on attending any or all of this unconference please let me know. Perhaps we can go together.

After an exceptionally long absence from the social network I have recently begun to experiment with Facebook again. As one might expect, there has been a great deal of activity since the last time I interacted with the network - notably including the Beacon debacle, as well as the launch of countless new applications.

Of particular interest in recent Google news, I’ve just discovered that a Lively application for Facebook now exists. This discovery came after a few hours wasted trying (unsuccessfully) to figure out how to embed my existing room in my Facebook profile.

[NB: Based on my investigation so far, it would seem that Facebook's code restrictions on what tags can or cannot be used were such that using Lively's iframe-based code snippet has so far proven impossible.]

Lively on Facebook

Enter the Lively by Google application. On the surface this seems to be virtually identical to the offering available outside Facebook with a few significant caveats.

First and foremost you cannot unify your Google Lively activities (avatars and rooms) with those created within Facebook. As the help site indicates “Merge Facebook and Google Account?“:

“If you download or access Lively from www.lively.com, a Google Account is required.
If you’re logged in to Facebook, we don’t require a Google Account.
For this reason, your Facebook Lively access is separate and cannot be linked to your Google Account.”

As such I had to create a brand new room and a brand new avatar.  It is looking like there may be way to use existing Google rooms with an avatar created in Facebook, however I haven’t figured out whether this is or isn’t the case.

Unfortunately as seems to increasingly be the case lately, Lively crashed and I’ve not been able to access it since - both within Facebook as well as the external rooms created at Lively.com directly.  Interestingly I seem to have been the one to cause the outage - still ongoing as of the time of this post.

Having said that there are interesting implications for the fact Lively is now available in Facebook.  First and foremost, the demographic and usage habits are very similar between the two.  Users of social networking platforms frequently spend countless hours interacting via various means - including posting commenting on each other’s profiles, sending messages, posting photos and videos.  Google’s launch of Lively for Facebook is a natural step in that sense.

Only now, users will have th opportunity to interact virtually via avatars.  Given the amount of attention many users devote to personalising their profiles (both on Facebook and elsewhere), I would expect some very innovative uses of Lively to emerge in the coming months.  That is, if Google can manage to keep the application from crashing.

Embedding Lively Rooms from Facebook elsewhere

It would seem that Lively rooms created in Facebook can be embedded outside of Facebook, where they can be used by other users. What credentials need to be used to enter the room is a bit of a mystery to me currently - though I suspect they’ll need to be Google.

If anybody would like to help me test this theory please click the screenshot below to enter the room and try entering your Google login details. If you could then relay your findings in the comments area I’d be grateful!

Getting Started with Lively by Google

The following presentation was created with a primary focus on the Facebook application for Lively, however much of the content and screenshots are applicable to the version outside Facebook.

| View | Upload your own

As a matter of practice I try my best to keep my criticisms positive when it comes to emerging technology, but Google Lively is starting to seem like a lemon. After a flurry of activity and scattered enthusiasm amongst early adopters in the wake of the launch of the so-called SecondLife killer, Lively has failed to impress ever since.

Discussions have emerged across the blogosphere about how unacceptable a PC-only virtual world is, and now it would seem that Lively is having issues on PCs as well.

As I discuss in the Seesmic clip embedded above, Lively has ceased to work for me - full stop. I was able to login and create an island initially, experiment and design my avatar, and begin to evaluate the functionality - however as of 18 hours or so ago this has ground to a halt.

Now when I try to access a room in Lively - ANY room - I’m told that “Firefox can’t find the server at embed.lively.com”. I’m told to check for typos along with several other things - including my firewall settings - but everything is in order. Despite the fact nothing has changed, I can no longer use the service.

Now Lively is of course a Google Labs project, which means it has no formal support, nor any way to report bugs. There is a Google group devoted to the project, but a quick perusal of the posts and threads makes it clear that there are more disgruntled users than there are answers.

I still firmly believe there is tremendous potential for Lively in the scheme of things, but this will only occur if Google starts to give the application - and particularly its users - adequate attention. Otherwise what initially appeared to be a promising offering will quickly shrivel and die on the vine.

Update (12 July @ noon): Things seem to be working again. Let’s hope it’s going to stay that way.
Update (13 July): Nevermind, it’s broken again.

Google has just entered the realm of the virtual world with the launch of Lively.

Via the Official Google Blog (”Be who you want on the web pages you visit“):

The Lively team wants to help people experience another dimension of the web. We hope you will use the product to express yourself with and without words, and to do this in the places you already visit on the web.

If you enter a Lively room embedded on your favorite blog or website, you can immediately get a sense of the room creator’s interests, just by looking at the furniture and environment they chose. You can also express your own personality by customizing your avatar’s look, showing people who you are without having to say a word. Of course, you can chat with each other, and you can also interact through animated actions. In our user research, we’ve been amazed at how much more poignant it is to receive an animated hug than seeing the text “[[hug]]”.

YouTube Overview of Lively

Embedded Instances

In a significant move, Google has made it possible to embed instances of Lively rooms in websites and blogs. Users login with the same credentials and can then move around, participate in text-based conversations, or right-click over objects to perform additional actions.

Additional functionality can be accessed by loading the room in a pop-up window, accessed via a button in the embedded instance.

Above is my room for example - also available as its own page. When the page is initially loaded the room is displayed as a still frame in the same convention as online video. Then upon clicking on the frame the room loads and you can begin to interact.

Considerations

As per the Lively Help Section, the application is currently Windows only:

“Lively is a Google Labs project, which means that we’re still testing it and seeking feedback. We hope to support other platforms in the future, but for now you’ll need a Windows system to access Lively.”

In terms of other system requirements, the help section indicates Lively requires:

* P3 800
* 512 MB RAM
* DX 9
* 32MB GPU (such as GeForce 2 or above)
* Flash 9 or higher
* Broadband internet connection

A myriad of rooms, not a single realm

Additionally, unlike SecondLife in which there is one single immersive environment, Lively currently operates on a room-by-room basis. Users can create their own rooms or log into public ones - all using the same login credentials - however there is no one single realm where all avatars reside and interact.

Investigations Ongoing

Having only created this island 15 minutes ago there is much of Lively still to investigate and many questions to research. For example, does the environment support audio or is communication restricted to text only?

I’ll update this post as information becomes available.

Lively is Windows Only

As mentioned above, Lively is only available for the PC. This is made very clear on the main Lively website, however users are nonetheless unhappy about the somewhat PC-centric release.

Duncan Riley at The Inquisitr cites a series of quotes from FriendFeed users who are unhappy with the llaunch and are only too happy to say so. [More on this here]

To add to this discussion, it’s not just non-Windows operating systems that won’t run Lively currently, but virtual installations as well. I just tried to access my room via the virtual instance of XP I’ve got running on Ubuntu but was told “Lively could not detect a suitable graphics driver on your computer.”

I note however that the parallel installation I have running on my MacBook via Bootcamp does let me run Lively successfully.

While I agree that it is unwise to launch a platform specific offering in the way Lively has today, as quoted above the site makes it clear that as a Lab project it is still in development and they “hope to support other platforms in the future.” Furthermore it’s not the first time Google has done this. Picasa still does not exist for Mac OSX, and Google Desktop was not made available for the Mac platform for quite some time after the PC launch was released.

For their sake I hope they rectify this vacuum quickly though, because the natives are getting restless.

Screen Shots

Here is the message I received in my virtual instance of XP when trying to load the room (full size here).

[Show as slideshow]