Using Virtual Worlds in the Conspiracy to Create an ah-ha Moment

Abbott Bundy with his backpack and walking

 stick ready to embark on a story quest with his guides.

Yesterday, I had the privilege of touring a fascinating project in the 3D virtual immersive environment of Second Life. It is called The Virtual Worlds Story Project with the tag line "Weaving the Narrative Threads of Our Lives." If you want to gain a glimpse into an effective and exciting way to provide context, experience and learning, this is the place you should check out. The method used is called a story quest.

My tour guides for the experience were Marty Keltz and Jena Ball who have created a three-dimensional experience engineered to teach about the HIV/AIDS pandemic called The Life and Times of Uncle D.

Exploring Uncle D's cabin and learning about his life.

The goal of the experience is for the learner to gain an understanding and appreciation of the impact of HIV/AIDS through the exploration of one person's life by visiting the everyday places where he lived and by immersing in the experience and letting it touch and move the learner. It is a Constructivist approach to learning and the environment creates opportunities for learning by allowing the learner to interact in the story...ok, so that is the academic definition but that doesn't do the project justice. A better explanation was provided by Marty.

Marty said he was involved in a "conspiracy to create an ah-ha moment."

Wow, what a great concept! Shouldn't all designers of instruction be involved in that conspiracy? Instead we seem to be involved in something a lot less exciting, interesting or even educational. Yesterday I also spoke to a client about ethics training...wouldn't a conspiracy to create an ah-ha moment be an excellent goal for the design of ethics training or diversity training or sales training, etc. Instead we tend to strive for "awareness."

We are all "aware" of things but never act based on that awareness. Many people are aware they should exercise every day...doesn't happen. Others are aware that cigarettes will kill them, and they say so between puffs. Others are aware that texting while driving can be deadly...yet they text away-try texting DOA. Employees are aware of policies, procedures and protocals but take shortcuts to get the job done. Awareness is petty crime compared to a conspiracy.

Conspiracies take coordination, effort, planning and a deep understanding of what needs to be done. These adjectives rarely describe the level of effort dedicated to organizational efforts to change behavior through learning experiences. We need to stop creating awareness and start to create conspiracies. What better place to start than in a 3D Virtual Immersive Environment. Involving learners in a story where they can interact and react is the first step in the conspiracy in which we should all partake. We can hide clues, engineer experiences and force situations that can create cognitive dissonance in learners which will ultimately lead to learning and behavior change as a result of that learning.

To get a better idea of what this kind of conspiracy looks like, check out a trailer for The Uncle D Story Quest:

And check out the interview with Marty Keltz and Jena Ball at the Second Life blog in an interview with Pathfinder Linden.

Today, leave behind petty educational endeavors and get involved with a conspiracy to create an ah-ha moment.
__

Catalog of Recommended Books, Games and Gadgets
Recommended Games and Gadgets
Recommended Books
Content Guide

Creating Learning Spaces in Second Life

This morning I received an email message from, Fiona, who provided me with a really interesting link to 50 Tips and Tricks to Create a Learning Space in Second Life.

Actually, it is really a listing of great SL resources and ideas broken down by different categories such as:

• Training Purposes--Employers and educators who want to train new hires or test their students can use Second Life in a number of ways.
  
  
• Blogs and Websites--Turn to these blogs for tips, services and tools when setting up a learning space in Second Life.
  
  
• Examples of Second Life in Education--Follow these real-life Second Life projects from Stanford, Harvard Law School and even a New York middle school to start your own studies or get students of all ages involved in Second Life.
  
  
• More Tips and Ideas--From Campus: Second Life to designing your own planetarium to creating games for history class, this list features even more tips and fun ideas.
  
  
• Resources--These tutorials and guides are designed especially for educators who want to create an effective learning space in Second Life.
  
  
• Second Life Tools for Teaching--Learn how to create your own prims, make use of virtual camera tools and discover SL features to make the most of your virtual classroom.
  
  
• Communication Tools--These teaching tools to help distance learning educators, college professors and other teachers communicate with students through Second Life more easily and effectively.

You may want to add this list to your favorite social bookmarking tool.

Thanks Fiona!
__

Catalog of Recommended Books, Games and Gadgets
Recommended Games and Gadgets
Recommended Books
Content Guide

Second Life Pictures from Webinar

A few days ago, I presented a webinar titled "Second Life in Education" for NETWORKS which is is a National Science Foundation Resource Center that is focused on the advancement of semiconductor, automated manufacturing, and electronics education. NETWORKS has a Digital Repository that contains classroom ready resources that are current, relevant, and easy to implement into a curriculum.

We had a little over 30 attendees at the webinar and had a really good time checking out our island and looking at all the educational benefits of a 3D world like Second Life. You can read a little more about the tour in TechSpectives:Second Life in Education blog entry.

During the tour I "took some pictures" and so here they are.

Special thanks to Mark Viquesney for arranging the entire event.

Here is the entire group putting on our firefighter gear.


Here is the group trying their hand at building.
__

Catalog of Recommended Books, Games and Gadgets
Recommended Games and Gadgets
Recommended Books
Content Guide

ASTD Second Life Webinar

Yesterday, Tony O'Driscoll, Matthew Monahan and I gave an ASTD Webinar on the topic of Second Life. We talked about it a little and gave a tour.

One of the attendees was Tom Werner who wrote a nice post about his participation in the webinar called Simple vs Complex Spaces. Tom has written a great deal on Second Life and innovative learning content and methods. If you haven't already, you should check out his blog...lot of great links and posts to good information.

Our session yesterday was very interesting. We had most of the 400 plus people attending via application sharing through WebEx (not ideal but it worked) and about 15 or so people attending within Second Life. The two different platforms and not using Voice in Second Life made it a little unfair for the SL attendees, I am hoping they were listening via WebEx but I don't think everyone was.

Anyway, it was a great session and here are some images from the webinar. Here we are at Presentation Stadium on MSIT Island.

The group walks up the steps to continue their scavenger hunt and examine the "Green" office building on MSIT island.

Here we attended the - National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's island in Second Life and experienced a full blown Tsunami (virtually).

If you attended, please let me know what you think and what we could have done better or differently. Also, let me know if you'd like me to post the slides we used in the presentation, I'd be happy to do so.
__

Catalog of Recommended Books, Games and Gadgets
Recommended Games and Gadgets
Recommended Books
Content Guide

Second Life Training Presentation

Yesterday, graduate student Matt Monahan and I presented at the Training 2008 conference. Our topic was "Learning in 3D." We had a great group of attendees who stayed with us for the entire 3 hours with no break. We had a lot to cover from how to navigate in Second Life to simple scripting with building, teleporting and designing Second Life training solutions in between.

Usually I travel alone so having someone with me was a big help in terms of preparing for the presentation and helping to guide the presentation. Matt did a great job presenting. He was poised and well spoken and he knows Second Life very well.
Participants pose for a picture.
One audience member gave a great account of how he is using Second Life to reproduce a critical incident at a power plant. He explained how employees receive an email about a failure at a power plant due to a malfunction of a generator. Each person then must enter into a conference room in Second Life just as they would drive or fly to the plant that had the failure. The group then meets with the company representatives in a conference room and is able to bring up specs for the plant and images in world. The team then goes out to the plant and looks at the generator to see if they can identify the cause of the problem.

They even have the ability to lift off the top of the generator and look inside to see what caused the explosion and malfunction. The team can examine parts, look for signs of wear and identify other issues that may have caused the problem. Once they think they have enough information, they present their findings to the group back in the virtual conference room.

This is the first of many scenarios this Fortune 500 company is creating to leverage the ability to simulate and interact in real time in the Second Life environment.
Matt answering questions about Second Life in this hands-on session.

So thanks to Matt for helping out with the presentation and doing such a great job and thanks to the audience members for all the wonderful ideas and hope to see you in world!

Not suprisingly, an issue many of these people had is trying to the idea internally. Many of them mentioned the boomer/gamer knowledge gap and in several cases describe a senior management that does even turn on a computer...tough for that group to grasp something like Second Life...tough indeed.
__

Catalog of Recommended Books, Games and Gadgets
Recommended Games and Gadgets
Recommended Books
Content Guide

Fair and Balanced

So the other day after a presentation, I was asked "you are so positive about this stuff, there has to be some negatives. Can you explain the negatives of Second Life."

Aah, I LOVE half empty people! (oops, I mean people who view the world from the perspective of looking at a glass with water in it up to about half way and calling it half-empty instead of half full...which it is.)

Anyway, in the spirit of being fair and balanced, here is a little bit about the negatives of Second Life...enjoy, I guess.

There are definite “non-business friendly” areas which should be avoided. Not to mention a handful of resident who, from time-to-time, conduct activities that contribute to a negative in-world experiences. Because Second Life started more or less as form of social networking and chat-based software, it allows many activities that would not be appropriate in a professional business environment.

For one, each avatar has the ability to completely disrobe. This could potentially result in an avatar walking into your office, conference room or other space completely undressed. It also means that Second Life is populated with many virtual “red light” districts and the associated illicit activities that occur within those virtual brothels and massage parlors. The world is also filled with night clubs and cheap hotels. (See Sex in Second Life.NSFW)

If you are careful in your selection of locations you can stay away from those areas but it is difficult to limit an employee from venturing wherever he or she wants once they are in world. Traveling to a red light district is as easy as clicking a few menu selections (so I've heard).

The red light districts are not the only dangers within Second Life. There have been incidents where one resident has illegally copied items created by another resident and then sold those items for profit. While it’s a virtual world incident, it is real stealing. (See The Dark Side of Second Life.)

More common than stealing are incidents of graffiti or property destruction. One resident virtually defaces the virtual property of another resident. In fact, people that cause mischief within Second Life have earned their own name. They are called Griefers. A griefer is a Second Life resident who decides to cause problems or grief for other residents. They carry on in a manner that interrupts others activities, destroys virtual property or somehow cause problems for other residents. (See Second Life griefers assault real estate millionaire Anshe Chung)

More sophisticated griefers have created attacks where the screen fills up with virtual images appearing over and over again like a yellow smiley face or even inappropriate pieces of the human anatomy. These types of attacks are known as “griefspawn” and can chew up system resources and slow down performance of the software.

Security is available for avoiding griefers and red light activities on your own land through the ability limit which avatars are allowed on your land and which are not. You can establish security settings that allow onto your land only those who you have invited onto your land. This works well for private spaces but does not work so well for public spaces. Also, once a person is in-world there is no way for a corporation to restrict where that person goes and what they view.

Of more concern to businesses is probably the learning curve involved with using the software and the newness of the concept. Since virtual worlds are a relatively new technology, the growing pains of any new technology are encountered within Second Life. These include unexplained bugs, some performance lagging issues and the initial difficulty of understanding how to navigate and make sense of Second Life.(See Breaking the Second Life High Learning Curve)

Ok, so on that "half empty note" have a nice weekend:)

__

Recommended Games and Gadgets
Recommended Books
Content Guide

Second Life Resourses: Supporting NCTT Opening Address

This morning I am giving an opening address the the National Center for Telecommunications Technologies Information and Communications/Convergence Conference at the Orange Coast College, Costa Mesa, CA on the topic of Second Life so I wanted to provide some resources:

• Second Life (the web site)
  
• Second Life Wiki (a wiki with "how to" information and other links.)
  
• Video on Educational uses of Second Life
  
• Video on Science Experiments in Second Life
  
• Funny Clip of "The Office" in Second Life
  
• Second Life...Its Synchronous Discussion of the synchronous uses of Second Life

UPDATE:
Here is the book that I recommended in my presentation.

__

Recommended Games and Gadgets
Recommended Books
Content Guide

The Office in Second Life...CNN in Second Life

Here is a very funny video put together by a grad student of mine about the tv show The Office and Second Life...The Office is a really funny show and this clip is funny. Check it out. It is very "LOL" as the gamers would say.

As you may or may not know...CNN now has an office in Second Life. You can read all about it in the article CNN enters the virtual world of Second Life

As the article states;

Just as CNN asks its real-life audience to submit I-Reports -- user-generated content submitted from cell phones, computers, cameras and other equipment for broadcast and online reports -- the network is encouraging residents of Second Life to share their own "SL I-Reports" about events occurring within the virtual world.

"The thing we most hope to gain by having a CNN presence in Second Life is to learn about virtual worlds and understand what news is most interesting and valuable to their residents," said Susan Grant, executive vice president of CNN News Services.

So if you have something happening in Second Life, you just might want to give the folks at Second Life an I-Report via IM or a Notecard.
__

Recommended Games and Gadgets
Recommended Books
Content Guide

Much Happening in Second Life

Yesterday, I presented with Tony O'Driscoll at the DevLearn event virtually. Assisting us expertly was Matt Monahan my graduate assistant who has been helping me with many Second life tasks. Neither Tony or I could make it in person so we presented virtually. Which, of course, was a perfect use of Second Life.

We provided a little tour with Brent Schlenker discussing the uses of Second Life for providing learning solutions.

I also kicked off my Basics of Second Life workshop as part of the Live and Online Learning series. It was a great class. The students ranged from no experience to a great deal of experience (like so many classes).

We opened the class with information about Second Life, we talked about the hype and reality of the software and we then entered the world and learned to communicate, fly and establish landmarks. I hope the learners had as much fun as I did, it is a great group and I look forward to the next session.


Discussion in Second Life

The thing I like about Second Life is that I learn so much every time I teach a class, it keeps it exciting. For example, this time when the learners started to fly, they were in a dome so they couldn't fly too high, they just flew around the dome. Other times, I have taught people to fly in an open space and "off they went!" So, if you are teaching the basics of Second Life, it might be good to teach the art of flying within a relatively closed space until everyone gets the hang of it. The closed space allows you to keep everyone together and maintains some form of order and keeps the new learners from getting frustrated.
__

Recommended Games and Gadgets
Recommended Books
Content Guide

Face Lift for Our Second Life Space

Old Classroom Space


In honor of the Second Life workshop I will be starting next week (still time to sign up, click here for more information), we have given the MSIT Second Life classroom space a little make over. You can see some of the "before and after" screen shots.

New Classroom Space from the Student's Perspective



New Classroom Space from the Instructor's Perspective


Old Classroom Space from Instructor's Perspective



Once again, I am going to be discussing how Second Life can be used from a corporate perspective and how designers need to leverage the strengths of the space. We have even included a "first responder" obstacle course teaching the concepts of team work and coordination within the 3D world all on our island...quite an upgrade.



Special thanks to Matt Monahan and Heather Gee! Great work!
__

Recommended Games and Gadgets
Recommended Books
Content Guide

CSI and Second Life: Awesome!

So, last night I got to watch the CSI New York show which combined the television episode with some action in Second Life. Two of my favorite things so it was fun to see how the wove the two together. Although, I've never seen SL graphics so crisp and clear.

Anyway, a great combination of media, televison and a metaverse. Taken one step further, you will soon be able to "star" in your own Second Life CSI. Check out the show's web site featuring Second Life adventures like Find Venus.


As an added bonus: CBS and CISCO created great and simple tutorials for Second Life all done by avatars. Check out the CBS/CISCO Second Life Tutorials.
__

Recommended Games and Gadgets
Recommended Books
Content Guide

Comparing 2D and 3D Synchronous Learning

Here is a video I created for my "Learning in 3D Class" which contrasts the world of 2D Synchronous tools with 3D Synchronous learning tools. I hope it illustrates some of the advantages of 3D environments and some of the things that can be done to faciliate learning within a 3D environment.



The video is based on the work Tony O'Driscoll and I did for the e-learning guild's Synchronous Learning 360 Report. For a full discussion of 3D synchronous learning, you want to get your hands on that report, it contains a complete essay describing our view and explains how to create your own interactive synchronous learning as well as providing a maturity matrix of the use of 3D synchronous learning environments within organizations.

Also, you can check out a webinar where I co-presented with Steve Wexler and Karen Hyder on the Synchronous report. It is worth taking a look. The webinar is titled Synchronous Learning Report.

The webinar provides a great sneak peak into the data contained within the report and shows you the powerful data analysis tool available free to guild members.
__

Recommended Games and Gadgets
Recommended Books
Content Guide

Total Chaos: First Second Life ID Class...Total Fun

Tonight was the first "Learning in 3D Class" it was totally fun and totally chaotic. It reminded me a lot of the first e-learning classes that I taught, no one was really sure what to do, the software would crash from time-to-time and students and instructors where figuring out what needed to be done.

So here are a few lessons learned:

• Avatar must be off of orientation island before they can teleport (we had some stuck students) A good prerequisite would be for the learner to be off of orientation island before attending class.
  
• Be aware of graphic card issues. You need to have the right graphic card to participate or it will crash on you. Had three students with this issue (out of 30)
  
• Show learners how to create landmarks early so they can find their way back to you. We wanted everyone to come back to the classroom on our island but they couldn't find it.
  
• The scavenger hunt was a lot of fun. I hid blue cones with definitions of key terms the learners had to find. They had a great time looking for the cones and finding the definitions.
  
  
• Things take longer than you think. Allow extra time for helping to return lost avatars and working with permissions. We had some people "locked out of areas" because of permission issues. So they had to be "opened" during the class.
  
• Expect weird and strange noises periodically through class as some more experienced students would virtually "yawn" or laugh or worse.
  
• Develop protocol for asking and responding to questions, everyone talking at once is too much

The lack of audio was really an issue so...we mashed together a solution. We had everyone log into Adobe Breeze and use that audio while we were in Second Life. We also had Heather demo some Second Life stuff through application sharing within Breeze. It worked surprisingly well.

So, I would say the first class was everything you expect from the first time using any new technology and I am sure the other classes will be more tame...maybe.
__

Recommended Games and Gadgets
Recommended Books
Content Guide

Great Leads and Misc Information...tying it all together

Sometimes, things just all seem to come together at once.

A number of alumni and friends of Bloomsburg University's Instructional Technology program have sent me some great links and they are all about wildly different things but all are related to the gamer generation. Check them out.

• Here is one titled Most-Praised Generation Craves Kudos at the Office from Alison Stone. It talks about the gamer generation and their desire for feedback and praise...a desire, that I believe, comes from the immediate feedback from video games. Nothing provides faster, more constructive feedback than a video game. You know instantly if you are on target or wrong.
  
  
• Here is an article Swedes open embassy in Second Life of course it is about Sweden opening an Embassy in Second Life courtesy of Katie Rebilas. If you still don't think 3D worlds are important, you really need to look at what is going on. Even if Second Life does not become the learning platform of choice for 3D interactions, there will be an on-line 3D component to training programs in the very near future.
  
  
• Here is short piece on Cigna's efforts to educate young cancer patients about their disease through the use of a video game from a 2002 alumni Brandon Beaver. The article, Cigna offers free video game for young cancer patients explains about the disease and tries to take some of the mystery out of what happens to the patient in a way that they can relate to...video games.

A lot is happening in terms of using games to teach about a serious, life-threatening disease, using a 3D world to set up an embassy of a country and figuring out how to work with the new generation of employee. The gamer generation is hitting the world stage and impacting everything it touches.

Are you ready? If you want to be more prepared, pick up Gadgets, Games and Gizmos for Learning

__

Recommended Games and Gadgets
Recommended Books
Content Guide

Understanding Virtual Worlds Articles and Links

Here is a link to an article I wrote called Defining and Understanding Virtual Worlds for ASTD's Learning Circuits.

And here is a good companion piece if you haven't read it already, check out Another Life: Virtual Worlds as Tools for Learning at eLearn Magazine.

One of the authors of that article is Tony O'Driscoll who I am workign wth on an article about 3D synchronous learning environments for the E-Learning Guild.

Tony has a great concept called "The Seven Sensibilities of 3D Spaces." Read his post Virtual Worlds Going Mainstream.

Here is a snap shot of me and Tony discussing our article at IBM's location in Second Life.

__

Recommended Games and Gadgets
Recommended Books
Content Guide

Gadgets, Games and Gizmos: Second Life Class Project

This semester as part of a larger class project where students are required to respond to an e-learning Request for Proposal (RFP), my students are going to need to create some spaces and areas in Second Life.

To faciliate this process, I have created wiki (at the suggestion of Barton)to provide information and to answer student questions. The wiki is called MSIT Second Life and is designed to provide information to students. If you want to stop by and provide some assistance or help, feel free to do so.

We are in the process of purchasing an island and setting up for the class project.

Here is my land for you to check out.

__

Recommended Games and Gadgets
Recommended Books
Content Guide

Gadgets, Games and Gizmos: ESL in SL

This weekend I attended an English as a Second Language (ESL) class. It was a surreal experience for two reasons. 1) I already speak English (unfortunately, the only language I do speak except for a little French which I continually butcher, oui) 2) the class was in Second Life (SL).

The instructor, Kip, separated the attendees into two groups and then asked a series of questions in English using slides and then the participants answered with written English sentences. The instructor would correct the students (most of whom spoke German as a first language) by typing a correction or the entire correct sentence.

It worked surprisingly well. The students raised their hands with questions and there was good rapport between the students and the instructor. Many of whom used that medium as their only method of learning English.

It was interesting to attend a class online in SL. I would strongly urge you to do so if given the chance, one can certainly see the potential and the promise of learning in 3D for a language.

For example, the instructor could move the class to a restaurant and have the students order a meal or go to a train station and have them buy a ticket or ask for the restroom or walk down a street in Paris and ask a policeman for directions. The SL environment provides a great opportunity to immerse the learner in the language and the situation. A guided tour designed to help learners speak the language.



Special thanks to Deanna!
__

Recommended Games and Gadgets
Recommended Books
Content Guide

Gadgets, Games and Gizmos: Second Life by the Numbers

Here is an article brought to my attention by one of my students Jason Kojtek. The article, The Second Life Census provides a link to a spreadsheet showing some interesting SL numbers. For example, the number of non-repeat credit card accounts is 2 million and the number of people online at any time is between 10,000 and 30,000.

But the most interesting part of the article are the comments posted afterward. The vast majority blasting Second Life because it is not a "game" and there is nothing to do in Second Life except walk around.

Interesting, I think a lot of early technologies are seen as "non-exciting" by all but the techies and then, when someone figures out something cool to do with them, they catch on or when someone else makes them simplier to use. Remember, not everyone had a bag phone but when they became smaller, cell phones became a must have.

Also, I remember when GPS seemed unnecessary, now I can't live without it or when PDAs first came on the scene. I think we are on the verge of something but, perhaps, Second Life isn't the final form, however, I think we owe it to ourselves to explore the possiblities so we know what works and what doesn't in these new metaverses.
__

Recommended Games and Gadgets
Recommended Books
Content Guide

Gadgets, Games and Gizmos: Attending an ISTE Meeting in SL

Last night I attended my first meeting in Second Life. It was sponsored by the International Society for Technology in Education better known as ISTE. (that's me in the hat with the blue and black striped shirt.)

It was facilitated by Kittygloom Cassady. She did a great job! I kept the bubbles over everyone's head for the picture to show a little of the environment in which the chat took place. We had about 22 folks attend the meeting.

The diverse group is trying to work toward determining the best ways of teaching within a virtual world. We heard examples of mock courts, English as a Second Language (ESL) and the creation of ancient cities as well as role-plays.

The meeting was, at times, chaotic with many people chatting and, I noticed, Second Life doesn't really have any classroom management features, it is hard to tell who raised their hand first and a little difficult to avoid one person talking over another. Also, when people got "bored" they would stand or even fly or jump...interesting, never had that in an actual classroom (flying that is)



One thing I think that should happen once a meeting starts is that protocols are created for making the meeting effective. For example, have chat words like DONE at the end when a person is done with their comments. Don't raise your hand or ask to speak until the person has indicated DONE. Perhaps take questions from left to right so that it is orderly.

These are just some ideas. It really reminded me of when virtual classrooms like Centra started to appear, eventually the software grew into its use by the pioneers.
__

Recommended Games and Gadgets
Recommended Books
Content Guide