CSI: New York and Second Life

I finally got around to watching the episode of CSI: New York from last week that was supposed to portray Second Life. One question kept going through my head: Had anyone involved in producing the episode actually ever been in Second Life? It certainly didn't seem so.

The avatars and sims did look like ones that could exist in Second Life. However, the CSI characters' avatars did things that I've certainly never seen avatars do: find out from a white rabbit (or anyone else) where a particular avatar is currently located, walk off in synch while holding hands, teleport together to a different location, assemble a crowd on the spur of the moment for any kind of activity, pick something up with a hand.

I'm afraid this show is only going to make it harder for educators to convince administrators and students that Second Life is different from violent computer games.

Results of Research on Virtual Worlds

This week, I've found the following blog posts and websites about Second Life:

1. Another review of There
2. A review of Gaia Online
3. Virtual Worlds Review--not updated since Feb. 20, 2006, includes list of virtual worlds by category
4. "The Virtual World That Started It All"
5. OnRez Viewer: "OnRez Viewer, First Impression," "Electric Sheep's OnRez viewer - first impressions"

On Wednesday night, CBS aired an episode of CSI: NY featuring Second Life. I recorded it but haven't had the time to watch it yet.

Twine

I read about Twine in a post on Read/Write Web. It looks very interesting. According to the About page, "Twine is a new service that intelligently helps you share, organize and find information with people you trust." In addition, "Twine uses the Semantic Web, natural language processing, and machine learning to make your information and relationships smarter."

I've requested an invitation to try it in beta, but I haven't heard back yet.

Video: Exploring Virtual Worlds, Part 1

This video was produced by Joe Sanchez and posted on the Sloan-C SL-Net social networking site.


Find more videos like this on Sloan-C SL-NET

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.

Presentation on Wikis, Blogs, and Social Networks

In a recent post on his blog, Karl Kapp included links to handouts and slides from a presentation he did on wikis, blogs, and social networks. Both can be accessed on a page in the wiki for the book he just had published: Gadgets, Games and Gizmos for Learning: Tools for Transfering Know-How from the Boomers to the Gamers. The wiki includes a glossary for the book.

I'm still trying to decide whether or not to buy the book. I'd be interested in hearing from anyone who's read it.

Web 2.0 Tutorial

I recently ran across a link to a Web 2.0 tutorial for teachers. The author explains what Web 2.0 is and also discusses blogs, wikis, RSS feeds, and social bookmarks. For each of these applications, he includes lists of and/or links to popular tools of that type, educational benefits, classroom applications, concerns and solutions, real-world examples from teachers, further reading, and tutorials (including videos).

Help for Educators in Second Life

Right after I joined Second Life back in May, I learned about SLolar Central, "a place where [educators] can experiment with modes of communication, movement, etc., to enhance their SL experiences, offering free temporary 'homes' for people to use as they explore." Yesterday I checked with KJ Hax, one of the founders, who told me that there are still spots available. Anyone who's interested should go to their Google Group page and download, complete, and submit the Temporary Office Space Residency Application.

My Adventures in Second Life

If you'd like to read more about my adventures in Second Life, please go to my main blog.

Co-Author at Tek Trek Blog

I'm going to be co-authoring the Tek Trek blog with Bethany Bovard. I hope to post my first entry next week.

The Crystal Cave

About a month ago I finally bought some land in Second Life (from a private party not Linden Labs). My property is on an Athurian-themed sim named Logres, which is one of the historical names for Arthur's kingdom in England. I bought a cave with crystals, so, naturally, I had to name my lot The Crystal Cave, after Mary Stewart's novel about Merlin.

Emerging Technology Applications for Online Learning

According to an e-mail message sent to the SLED (Second Life EDucators) listserv this morning, the Sloan Consortium "has embarked on an initiative to help online educators gain a better understanding of how the technologies available today can help make their classrooms better." To accomplish this, Sloan-C has launched a new website. The site was designed to support Sloan-C's upcoming conference on emerging technologies for online education, but the site and its forums are open to anyone interested in this subject, not just people who attend the conference.

List of Podcasting Tools

Thanks to the Savvy Technologist for pointing out this great list of podcasting tools at Mashable.

50 Ways To Tell a Story

Alan Levine is using a wiki to prepare workshops for his cross-country tour of Australia this month. The first workshop is titled "50 Web 2.0 Ways To Tell a Story." Participants in the workshop will use one of 49 Web 2.0 tools to create a story.

In another workshop titled "Precious Web 2.0 Gems," participants will select a tool from the "Web Gems Starter List" or "Web Gems Other Lists" to try. He's used the tag "webgems" to identify these tools on del.icio.us.

His other two workshops are still "on the drawing board," but I intend to check back later to find out more.

Presentation on Using Second Life for Higher Education

An overview of Second Life, how it works for education, and examples of SL uses for a selection of subjects.


SlideShare Link