Keeping a Research Journal

A couple of my classmates in IT 6750, Alex and Blake, and I are going to analyze the use of virtual worlds, specifically Second Life, in higher ed and corporate training.

Since I read Will Richardson's book, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms, last year, I've been wanting to try having my students use blogs to keep research journals. Unfortunately, I haven't taught a class since then where that would have worked.

So, I'm going to do it myself. I'm going to use this blog as a research journal for our trend analysis.

A few days ago, I ran across a reference by Ray Schroeder to an article on MediaShift a PBS-hosted blog that tracks "how new media—from weblogs to podcasts to citizen journalism—are changing society and culture," by Mark Glaser titled "Your Guide to Virtual Worlds." This article looks like it will be a great resources for our project. Glaser has sections on background and history, Second Life, virtual worlds in the media, a glossary, and resources, including a partial list of virtual worlds.

About the same time, Nik Peachey wrote about There.com, what he likes about it, what isn't so good, and how he can use it.