Virtual Worlds:8-Tracks or iPods?

AJ KeltonDirector, CHSS Technology Services

UnitCollege of Humanities and Social Sciences

at Montclair State University

Worldvs.

Environment

8-Track or iPod?8-Track iPod

New Technology New Technology

“Roman Candle” “Search Light”

Impact: Minimal Impact: Maximum

No Current Relevance Changed an industry

Which will Virtual Worlds be?

What do you already know about

Second Life?Why talk about Second

Life?

What is Second Life?

Started: Main Grid - 2003, Teen Grid - 2006“Second Life is a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents.”A flexible space for learning and explorationAn opportunity for people to interact in a way that conveys a sense of presence lacking in other media.Generalized rather than contextual, applicable to almost any discipline.

What is Second Life?Second life is NOT a game - there are no rules or a

fixed goal-oriented purpose.Teen Second Life - Ages 13-17, Adults must go through Criminal Background Checks/Linden Lab Aproval15-20K sign ups daily - over 12 million total (Main)30 - 60K residents on at one timePopulation of Montclair & Little Falls Combined (2000) 49,832

over $1 million spent daily (real US dollars)Hundreds of educational institutions actively involved

What is Behind Second Life

a scaleable co-located grid of servers running Linux

Real-time 3D streaming at DSL/Cable modem (or higher)

Rigid body physics simulation, streaming positional audio (distance and direction)

Persistent desktop access - everything resides on the grid

Cross-platform portability

Infinite avatar customization - no two avatars alike

Uploadable textures, audio, Quicktime video can play in-world.

International Language Support - chat and communicate in local languages, inc. Asian character sets. European keyboards supported.

Technical Requirements

Highest speed connection (no dial up)Best Graphics Card (specific)Windows 2000 / Mac OS X 10.3.9800MHz Pentium III / 1 GHz G4512 MB RAM

A Universe of Virtual WorldsSecond Life

Active WorldThere

SL Teen Grid

WhyvilleToontown

WebkinsVirtual Earth

Home

MetaverseProtosphere

Muse

Coke Studios

Sims OnlineDreamville

TowerChatTraveler

Habbo Hotel

The ManorMokitownCybertown

Virtual IbizaVoodoo

ChatPlaydo

Worlds.comMoove

The Palace

A Universe of Virtual Worlds• 22 virtual world platforms listing over 11.8 million

users, and that only includes numbers from 7 of the 22

•18 virtual worlds for Teens and Tweens listing over 52.3 million users from 12 of the 18

•15 virtual worlds for kids listing over 16.7 million users from 9 of the 15

Do the math: 55 virtual platforms w/ 80.8 million users

Show me the money

“We don't see any slowing in the market adoption of virtual worlds technologies and expect investment in the space to continue. In fact the market is growing significantly, with the rate of adoption of virtual worlds increasing as the technology matures and has more to offer both consumers and enterprise customers.”

Christopher Sherman

Executive Director of Virtual Worlds Management

Students visit the always available site

They enter the learning space

Explore and orient themselves

Encounter your assigned tasks

Hold Meetings In-world

For discipline-specific For discipline-specific uses of SL in the class:uses of SL in the class:

““101 Uses for Second Life 101 Uses for Second Life in the College Classroom”in the College Classroom”

Dr. Megan S. Conklin—Elon UniversityDr. Megan S. Conklin—Elon Universityhttp://trumpy.cs.elon.edu/metaverse

The CHSS Pilot Project

Recreate What Exists

Walk into a story

Always “On” Content

Traditional Spaces

Create Something New

Engage Your Students

Challenges

ChallengesA mass media that tends toward the sensational as opposed to the substantive. “Its just a game”What is created in SL stays in SLIt’s a platform - you have to bring your own goalsTechnical specifications

Challenges

Genome Island

The Second Louvre

NOAA

Business

Spaceport Alpha and Delta

Renaissance Island

San Francesco Assisi

InfoIsland

Princeton

The Sistine Chapel Vassar

Vassar Island

The Lost Gardens of Apollo

Abbott’s Aerodrome

http://teen.secondlife.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teen_Second_Life

http://www.globalkids.org/

http://holymeatballs.org/

http://zoomlab.org/kc/

http://pacificrimx.wordpress.com/

http://rampoislands.blogspot.com/

http://projectcabrillo.blogspot.com/

http://plcmc.org/teens/secondlife.asp

https://lists.secondlife.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/educatorsandteens

https://lists.secondlife.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/educators

http://www.simteach.com/wiki/index.php?title=Second_Life:_Educators_Working_with_Teens

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Virtual Worlds: 8-Tracks or iPods?AJ Kelton

Director, CHSS Technology Services Unit

http://www.sorry-afk.comkeltona at mail dot montclair dot edu

College of Humanities and Social Sciencesat Montclair State University

Special Thanks to Laura Nicosia for all her support and a few of the slides we’d used in a presentation we made together. Also, to Sarah Robbins for the inspiration to keep thinking about a

lot of this stuff.