Monkeys, Birds and Spirits: Differences in How We Experience Second Life

Jeremy Kemp suggests that there could be a certain development in the way people use Second Life over time. From this it follows that we need to think about which of these groups our own uses might be in, so that we can design for them better.

His idea is that we start of as monkeys, liking a replication of the real world environment. We walk our avatar around the world, walking through doors and up stairs. He also uses the word verisimilitude, which is very impressive. It means that when you build for these users, you should replicate real life to make them feel comfortable.

We then tend to grow into birds. We fly to where we want to go, using atriums rather than stairs. We move and land with comfort and grace. This group of people require phantom barriers. If you use walls and ceilings they should allow you to pass through them, but really you probably just need some sort of landmark. It doesn't rain in Second Life.

Finally we become spirits, seperate in many ways from our avatar bodies. We teleport to where we want to go, even if it isn't far. Rather than move to see something we use the camera controls to change our view. He suggests that for these experienced users we design for an out-of-body experience. Lots of objects replicating the real world environment are just getting in the way of these users' experiences.

See the slide-show embedded below for his slides. The ones that I've been talking about here are 14, 15 and 16, but he has other interesting things worth thinking about.

SJSU SLIS Campus - Second Life Unifying Concepts

View more presentations from jeremykemp. (tags: second_life campus)

This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence.

Using Virtual Worlds in Higher Education

As I'm focussing my SOLSTICE Fellowship project on using Virtual Worlds in Higher Education, I decided to put together an overview of the possibilities and challenges relating to using them.

For my purposes, 'Virtual Worlds' includes 3D social spaces like Second Life, simulation environments (like Google Earth might be used as part of) and gaming environments like World of Warcraft. Metaverse Roadmap's overview especially their diagram of where Virtual Worlds, Mirror Worlds, Lifelogging and Augmented Reality fit together, looks like a useful tool to help me keep a focus.

Much research has already been done and made publically available. For a visual overview of virtual worlds in general Kzero have produced diagrams which do a great job of helping us to visualise the overwhelming variety and number of non-gaming virtual worlds that are being developed. For the 3rd Quarter of 2008 they have a diagram that shows the age group that use the environments, the number of subscribers and when each was released. They also have one that shows the type of the environment, and the age group that use it.

Other interesting starting points include JISC's new scoping study, Serious Virtual Worlds which links to relevant research. The Second Life in Education wiki is a extensive collection of links to the ways that educators are using that particular environment.

After looking at some of the research and activities going on, there are several general areas and questions that I think might be worth looking at.

1. Online Synchronous Discussion.

The Openhabitat project included a cohort of Philosophy students using Second Life for group discussion and David White's excellent presentation about Openhabitat includes information about this. Listening to this presentation got me thinking about how online interaction differs in a Virtual World, compared to the basic Chat tools that we use now. Is anything useful added to the experience by using Virtual Worlds? As the technology develops how will these experiences and the value of using the environments for online discussion change?

2. Learning to Navigate and Create.

Some Virtual Worlds allow you to build complex environments and simulations. Pretty much any project going on in Second Life will require some building, and projects like the PREVIEW project will require more complex scripting. If we are going to create environments for Edge Hill courses, it would be useful to the planning process to know what skills, processes and time are required to build environments, of various levels of complexity, in different Virtual Worlds. Also what time and skills would the student require to use each environment?

3. The Future.

a. It seems like the initial rush by businesses to set up in Second Life has slowed down. What are businesses in general likely to be doing next in the area of Virtual Worlds? Can we help prepare students for any uses of Virtual Worlds that they may come across in their working lives or future lives outside of work?

b. Currently, according to Kzero's data, the most subscribed to Virtual Worlds are aimed at children. This suggests that, over the next 5 to 10 years we might be expecting people who have grown up using virtual worlds. What might virtual worlds look like then, and how can we best prepare for their possible mainstream use?

Second Life: SciLands Solar System Tour

There are a lot of educators using Second Life and looking at possible ways that this and other similar environments might be used to improve teaching and learning.

While not every use is really suited for the 3D environment occasionally there is across something that uses the strengths of the space well. SciLands is a mini-continent devoted to science and technology, and one of the things it contains is the Solar System Tour which aims to demonstrate the massive distances in space - something that isn't easy to do in 2D.

If you're new to Second Life you can sign up for free, read 'The Unofficial Complete Fool's Guide to Second Life' and subscribe to the SL Educators mailing list. To look at other educational uses of SL watch 'Educational Uses of Second Life'.

I'm in the process of trying to calculate what sort of costs occur (time and money) to both Edge Hill staff and students when creating and accessing various resources and learning experiences in this environment and other similar ones. This will help us make decisions about what we can try to achieve if people want to use the technology.

Introduction to Online Tools for Teaching and Learning

There are many beginners guides to new web technologies, but I was especially impressed by Jeff Cobb's concise and well illustrated 'Learning 2.0 for Associations', which covers some of those that are becoming mainstream as well as the theory that is often linked with their uptake in teaching and learning.

The document won't take long to browse through, and if you want someone to talk to about how and where you might implement any ideas that you have, contact your local Learning Technology Development Officer. At Edge Hill University your current contacts are:

-Faculty of Health: Adrian Cain, David Callaghan and Lisa Bushell
-Faculty of Arts and Sciences: Peter Beaumont and Carol Chatten
-Faculty of Education: Paul Duvall and Megan Juss

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