I just met a fellow in Second Life from Rotterdam, and he pointed me to his blog, Aggiornamento II. Joop asked about the C.A.V.E., but I’m afraid that I didn’t sound very knowledgeable. I’m just not exuding a lot of confidence, yet, from this slippery place.
Reviewing his blog, however, I ran across a short piece linking to an article from Businesswire, that predicts that 80 percent of active Internet users will have a “second life” by 2011. It says that it will not necessarily be the Second Life, but that it will be a primary part of how we interact online. The story is about an Emerging Trends conference organized by Gartner Inc. and it advises the corporate world that:
I suspect that this is where we are in education — investigating and experimenting. Garnter also has identified five laws for participating in the virtual world. They include:
- First Law: Virtual worlds are not games, but neither are they a parallel universe (yet)
- Second Law: Behind every avatar is a real person.
- Third Law: Be relevant and add value.
- Fourth Law: Understand and contain the downside.
- Fifth Law: This is a long haul.
The story goes into more detail on each of these, but certainly some food for thought.
Such predictions like the ones that state that 80% of all people will be in Second Life are silly. Second Life will most likely be gone by 2011 and even if it’s not gone. Who cares?
Have you read the blogging statistics? Somehow the entire population of the universe blogs.
Let’s say that these statistics ARE true. What are we do with that data?
I understand Second Life, but I frankly don’t get it.
Is Second Life another way to covet a virtual space to distract us from doing the hard work necessary to make “real” schools better environments for children?
Thanks, David, for continuing and expanding this conversation, as I hoped (and knew) you would. I actually found Joop’s blog a while back thanks to Victoria Gloucester. He’s doing some wonderful exploring. He’s also written about our group, the C.A.V.E., here:
http://aggiornamento-ii.blogspot.com/2007/05/eduisland-ii-1231823.html
I commented there but will also post for your readers this link that explains a little of what we are up to:
http://www.storyofmysecondlife.com/?p=116
Other facilities in the Center include Existential Paine’s C.A.T.E.R. (Center for Avatar Teaching, Education and Research) and Hodjazz Edman’s massive custom-double-built structure he is creating for the ISTE Emerging Technologies task force, along with his work for the National Network of Digital Schools.
Basically we are all explorers trying to participate in and continue the conversation about educational uses of SL. Just so happens our facility has some pretty recognizable names. 🙂 It’s great to have you with us.
Kevin Jarrett
Walden University
My post relates directly to Gary’s “not getting it”. Gary, join us – spend some significant time in world getting to know people and what is exciting them. You are an important piece of this conversation, and your voice is needed to keep it all clear…
I have to say that I sympathize with Gary’s sentiments here. I continue to be skeptical about the instructional value of MUVEs, as they are manifest today. Still, if people will be here anywhere near what Gartner predicts, that will represent value in itself.
At any rate, just because I don’t get it yet, doesn’t mean that I’m going to ignore it, or even abstain! I’m going to push it and pull it, and see if I can find some traction.
Gary,
David isn’t saying that 80% of _people_ will be using the virtual product Second Life. He’s saying that 80% of _active Internet users_ will have a second life – lower case – in the form of a virtual avatar. SL isn’t the first VR space, and it won’t be the last – lots of naysayers are already sniffing that SL is past its prime and other virtual spaces will soon surpass it. Or someone will take the SL source code and build something a lot more useful than what exists already. Frankly, I have no clue whether it’ll be around in a few years, but the numbers of people using VR spaces is growing at an extraordinary rate. Who’s to say if VR doesn’t become a primary way for people to participate in chat rooms, social networks and the like. Yahoo even lets you have an avatar for your email account, even though from a VR perspective it’s pretty useless. But they’re doing it as a stepping stone in which they’re envisioning your Yahoo account and your avatar are truly one in the same.
So will 80 percent of us power users have avatars by then? It’s certainly possible. Will that be the case in schools? I seriously doubt it, given education’s track record.
Andy,
You’ve been on the scene long enough to have a historical perspective on all things virtual. Similar claims and enthusiasm were dedicated to many previous virtual efforts (The Well, MOOs, MUDs, MUVEs, Moose Crossing, Tapped-in, to name just a few) Not much seems to come of them.
OK, SL (and its spawn) “might” be different. If so, how?
How does having an avatar benefit a learner? What are the affordances and constraints of such environments. Surely choosing an icon to represent you in chat or email is hardly transformational.
I am quite willing to be persuaded that there is some there here, but thus far have yet to see an example of using SL in education that represents more than flying around tedious models of today’s classrooms.