Learning Inworld

I started my exploration with Stacey Fox. Stacey is a Visual Art faculty member at the University of Kansas. She's a very creative Second Life builder/designer as well.

Claudia: Stacey, have you tried the new SLViewer 2.0 yet?

Stacey: Yes! The New SL viewer is great. It has really opened up a whole new world of possibilities. SL is now a complete trans-media platform unto itself. We are currently experimenting with using SL as an interactive 3D performing environment allowing for international telematic collaboration as well as live input from audience members both inworld and through web inputs on various prims. We can now also have surround sound streaming live within the environment from multiple sources so users wearing headphones are completely immersed in sound and visual landscapes. I've created an imaginary landscape in SL based on the characters from one of my animations and I've set up an interactive game on the sim. The new viewer also enhances abilities for Augmented Reality. I had brought 3D modeled augmented live objects into SL for several years in my work but the new viewer allows for the augmented objects to be experienced in SL and on the web at the same time, popping right off the viewer's monitor.  As an artist and educator, I see Second Life not as a new technology or alternative reality, but as a serious venue like other art spaces and with the new media capabilities, it becomes one of the most creative.

Stacey/Sage Duncan in SL sent me this photo captioned "Sage Duncan using the new browser to do augmented reality.  Pops the object right off the screen "

Annabeth Robinson/Angrybeth Shortbread in SL, Senior Lecturer in Digital Media at Leeds College of Art and Second Life artist/musician is another inventor. AngryBeth's Education Tools that include her communal whiteboard and Machinima TV Studio are in many a SLeducator's inventory. I ran across a link to a YouTube video titled Using Moodle on a prim with the SLViewer2 created by Annabeth. She describes the video on YouTube as "Moodle on a prim... this course has embedded Vimeo, Yahoo Pipes, and Google Calanders - all working amazingly well!"  I pinged her immediately.

Claudia: I spotted your video on Moodle on a prim. I'm wondering if you could describe how you're using it? Are you integrating it into any classes you are teaching or are you just in the What can we do with this? phase....

Annabeth: I'm certainly more at the "what we can do with this?" phase. Making sure our college's Moodle works was a good place to start, particularly to simulate a virtual kiosk that students can access directly inworld (though I've noticed I can't download files via Shared Media or Internal web browser so that means changing some aspects of our VLE or Virtual Learning Environment to make most things web-based - as opposed to pdf downloads and the like).

For future Exhibitions of students work, or End of Year college shows, life has been made a lot easier in displaying students' video showreels or webportfolios inworld, as well as the ease of setting up something like Livestream to play with live video broadcast. Plus it's good timing as well, as I'm helping support a module using Second Life for Applied and Interactive Theater at the School of Arts and New Media, University of Hull Scarborough Campus so having the ability to play with ideas like websites, video and flash on surfaces or on the avatar attachments expands the experimentation. It's an excellent addition to Second Life.

Scott Merrick describes himself as an educator and a learner--"everything I do springs from those two habits of mind." He is an ISTE Second Life Docent and Island Manager of the Blogger's Hut and the Podcasting Place, two resource-rich island spots for sharing and highlighting superlative work in education. In addition, he has the grand title of Poobah at the helm of the ISTE Special Interest Group for Virtual Environments.

Claudia: So Scott, what have you dreamt up for Viewer 2.0?

Scott: I've managed to pipe in a Ning to a prim, which is a closed one and requires login, and I've logged in and navigated it merrily. Non-registered users could register right there. One supposes that a Ning's Center for Educators could hold an assortment of objects that could display a whole set of those valuable networking tools that are available to us, like Classroom2.0, EducatorsPLN, ISTE-Community. These could be browsable by an avatar at will. I've already seen "put your twitter feed on a prim" and I'll be all over that too. Now, my Bloggers Hut Blog Windows, full of little spheres that each hold url-launchers, could be the actual blogs.

And on the SLED list I noticed an intriguing post by Rik Panganiban of Global Kids. "Here's a fun experiment I conducted over the weekend to see if I could bring in and operate another virtual world from within Second Life using the Shared Media tool in the 2.0 Viewer.  Here's how it went: Bridging Worlds with Second Life 2.0 Viewer. Great work, Rik!

Melissa Carrillo, director of the Smithonian Latino Virtual Museum in Second Life IMed me when she spotted me inworld. "...we have been testing out the new SL viewer and LOVE IT! ...I am sooooo happy with the ability to intergrate Flash as well as do dynamic searches in-world from a webpage...now we can use our own centralized database in LVM via the new SL viewer!!!! You just don't know how many obstacles just disappeared for us with this new viewer!"

How are You using the Second Life Viewer 2.0? Let us know. We'd love to hear from

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Developed Region Styles

I attended Bob Ketner's presentation at the Second Life Community Convention in San Francisco in August 2009. Bob is the Virtual Community Manager at The Tech Museum in San Jose, California. The Tech currently has three sims in Second Life: The Tech which is a "museum" with finished works, The Tech 2 which is a "workshop" with prototypes, and in Teen Second Life, The TechTG, a "workshop" with prototypes created by teens. At SLCC09, Bob talked about how The Tech was using Second Life to do rapid prototyping of real world exhibits. SL to RL? I was intrigued. I finally caught up with him for an interview.

Claudia: Thanks for giving me a tour of The Tech Virtual project today. I was really intrigued by your presentation at the Second Life Community Convention last summer. You mentioned that you were prototyping museum exhibits for the real world using Second Life and I wanted to find out more about it. How did the idea for this initiative originate?

Bob: As you can probably imagine, museums are challenged to develop very complex installations that not only have to be informative but interactive as well. This especially applies to science and technology museums that rely less on unique artifacts and more on interactivity. So the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation funded this idea in 2007 (that's Gordon Moore as in Moore's Law).  Basically they asked,  what if you could use Second Life to prototype exhibits with simultaneous input from experts and casual visitors as well?  It opens up the creative process to a much wider talent base, and means that you can preview ideas before you ever even order any materials. It's the open source method of development, applied to exhibits.

Claudia: I understand that you have some teen interns doing some prototypes...can you tell us what teens are up to?

Bob: Over the summer of 2009 our intern Kyle Walker built a Second Life model of a specific section of The Tech Museum. The purpose of this was to be able to do a complete "before and after" visualization of  a renovation.  It's not hard to imagine, if we can prototype exhibits individually, why not an entire room or gallery? We have other teens who are partnering to build and script exhibits such as the recent work done by Christopher Organiser and Mikeza Obolensky on an exhibit called The Macrochip. They do very detailed and high quality work and I'm hoping that this work can support their art and design portfolios.You'll find a preview here.  Wally Oyen and Riden Blaisdale have done an amazing remodel which we'll be using as an example when they're all done.

Claudia: Now that this project has been running over a year and a half, and was even a Linden Prize finalist, what's new with The Tech Virtual?

Bob: We are really excited to be partnering with 3 new museums in 2010.  Starting first will be Citilab Cornella in Barcelona which has opened an adventurous project called Expolab.  Basically they want to experiment with the whole concept of museum interactions and exhibitions and open up the design of the interactions to a worldwide community.  Second Life is obviously the perfect place to do this! Science Center Singapore will be working on all aspects of "water"- from its physical properties to art pieces. See that preview here. Sometime before summer Lemelson Center at The Smithsonian will be joining us with a topic they'll announce soon. The opportunities for Second Life users to show their talent and ingenuity to this professional audience are really growing. Want to see your work in these awesome places? This is the way to make that happen!

Claudia: Where can people see the exhibits in Second Life?

Bob: Our "virtual museum" is "The Tech" sim.  You can see some of the prototype exhibits from completed design rounds at http://www.tinyurl.com/ParksideHall, and there's an entire museum there as well to explore.  The prototyping sim is "The Tech 2" and you'll find the newest work there at http://tinyurl.com/TheTech2sim

Claudia: How long will these initiatives run?

Bob: The Citilab project will be developed and installed by June 2010 so they're on the fastest turnaround. The "water" exhibits will likely be realized in early 2011 and the others are on longer time frames. It's good for aspiring exhibit designers to start early, because we can help refine the idea and approach and make it more likely that your exhibit can actually be fabricated in the real world.

Claudia: How can someone get involved?

Bob: It starts with creating a profile. Then, just look at the topic list and think about an exhibit on a topic that interests you. Then, click on "Create a Project".  You'll be prompted to sign up and describe your project. We'll contact you to assign a space where you can build your prototype in Second Life!