Archives for August 2007

To voice or not to voice? There really is a question

Unless you haven’t logged into SL in the past few days, you’ll be aware that voice is now part of the main grid browser. It remains an optional download at present but it’s certainly ramping up. New World Notes are running a reader poll on voice take-up and its early results are interesting:

nwnvoicepoll.jpg

It’s no great surprise that there’s initial resistance to voice from well-established SL users and there’ll no doubt be some technical and etiquette issues over coming weeks with the wider use of voice. New SL users will probably take to voice more quickly. I don’t think anyone’s making claims of text-based communication dying out though. There are som many areas where being able to type your thoughts is the superior option. Eventually the two will probably co-exist fairly amicably but in the short term I think lots of land parcels will have voice switched off.

What do you think? Don’t forget the Voice forum on our discussion forums, moderated by Juko Tempel.

Weekend Whimsy

Each Friday we provide a sampling of content generated by SL users and posted on services like YouTube:

1. セカンドライフ-問題ねぇだろう-スイカ鉄砲大会

2. An evening with Nylon

3. Step Inside Urban Bubbles

International Virtual Teaching and Learning Research Institute proposed

I stumbled across this message on the SL Research email list today – great to see Macquarie University well and truly joining the virtual world fray:

“Call for Expressions of Interest to contribute to a proposed International Virtual Reality Teaching and Learning Research Institute

This is a general call for academics and practitioners involved or interested in the field of Virtual Reality Teaching and Learning (using environments such as Second Life) to express their interest in contributing to or being associated with an International Virtual Reality Teaching and Learning Research Institute.

The range of research and development that the proposed Institute would support is intentionally left open, but could include projects such as investigating the efficacy of various virtual reality learning designs, researching the sociological and psychological aspects of learning in virtual reality environments, and the success with which tools and
scripts can be applied across different curricula.

Interested parties can nominate roles that they would like to perform, which may include:

– advice on the policies of the Institute and the services it provides
– research and development in conjunction with the Institute (utilising support services that would be provided by the Institute)
– evaluation of Institute performance

If you are interested in becoming involved with the proposed Institute, please provide an Expression of Interest (of no longer than one page) outlining your experience with VREs or related technology based learning applications, any research experience, the reasons for your interest in becoming associated, and the ways in which you would like to be involved.

Please return all Expressions of Interest no later than 9th August 2007.

Prospective contributors would form part of a Carrick Grant Application to establish the Institute.

This initiative is being lead by Professor John Hedberg, Macquarie University Australia.”

There always had to be a Gold Coast in SL

This evening I stumbled across the Whitsundays, Great Barrier Reef, Noosa Heads and Gold Coast:

whitsundays.jpg

We’ve contacted the owner for a chat about the latest virtual part of Australia so watch this space. I’m guessing there’ll be no Jupiters Casino though.

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