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The Archives
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10.16.10Please Give the Kids Commerce: Second Life and the Teen GridThe Teen Grid, while technically on the same 'map' as the Main Second Life Grid, was always partitioned off with a set of technologies that were difficult to maintain. Any time you made a change to the server code, you'd need to double check to make sure the Teen Grid was still, well, separate - an odd thing to understand, but there were all kinds of protocols built in to the server code to maintain separate access streams and accounts and inventories and whatever else. When Linden Lab announced that it was 'merging' the Teen and Main Grid what it was ...
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10.04.10Linden Lab Raises Prices for Non-Profits and SchoolsLinden Lab is ending discounted rates for not-for-profits and educational institutions, according to an announcement today on their blog: "All education and non-profit private regions of any type, purchased after Dec. 31, 2010, will be invoiced at standard (i.e. non-discounted) pricing. All currently discounted renewals which occur after Dec. 31, 2010, will be adjusted to the new price at that time. To continue to provide entry-level, private spaces to educators just launching their programs, we will be providing Homestead and Open Space regions to qualifying organizations without their meeting the retail full-region criterion. Customer Support will ...
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05.07.10Of Two Minds: Virtual Worlds for Education and EnterpriseI went to two schools when I was a kid, and they swung from one extreme to the other. In the first school, my teacher would start the day by pulling out a guitar and singing to us. One of the highlights of the day was "feeling time" when we'd all be asked to place our heads down on our desks and to consider what we were feeling - were we happy or sad, frustrated or bored, and at the end of this communal silence, we were supposed to share. During 'feeling time' I'd slip a book into my lap ...
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04.09.10Free Land For Educators: Summit Attendees Get Second Life TierAny school or non-profit who sends a teacher, student or administrator to the 2010 Immersive Education Initiative Boston Summit will receive a "full region of space measuring 256x256 meters in size (65,536 square meters)" in Second Life. The space is valued at $2,500 and can be renewed on a yearly basis. The summit will take place April 23-25 and covers education in virtual worlds, exploring the various benefits and challenges that educators and students face. The event follows three tracks: general interest and higher education, K-12, and a research track.
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03.17.10Fulfilling President Obama’s Virtual VisionI've never claimed to be a journalist. And based on recently Tweeting articles from 4 years ago I'm not much of a fact-checker either. So in order to bring some respectability to this blog I'm bringing a journalist on board (and keeping it in the family while I'm at it). Craig Thompson is a journalist who recently covered virtual worlds and training, learning and collaboration at 3DTLC. You'll note his byline at the footer of articles and you're welcome to contact him with events, news, product launches or whatever else you think might be useful to others who want to keep ...
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03.15.10Program or Be Programmed: Education, Virtual Worlds and Our Lives OnlineIt may seem like a stretch to say that 5,000 educators and trainers coming together in a virtual world represents the leading edge of how we can come to an accommodation with technology's power over our lives, but that's what struck me about the Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education (VWBPE) conference. Karl Kapp wrote a follow-up piece in which he claimed he had seen the "future of conferences" and while that may be true to some degree I was instead reminded of what Tom Boellstorff said during my interview of him on Saturday: that as we CREATE we both ...
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09.30.09The Story Box: Second Life Breaking BordersSecond Life is a Story Box: But when I look at Second Life I don’t see a game, and I don’t see a role-playing environment, and I don’t see an e-commerce engine (although to some degree it is all of these) – I see the possibilities for stories. And in these possibilities I am attracted to how Second Life may be a new camp fire around which we weary hunters gather, scratching pictures in the sand with our primitive tools and telling each other of the days we’ve had, and the adventures ahead. Stories without Borders has extended this beyond our personal ...
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06.19.09Open Wide: Dental Training in a Virtual WorldThe University of Maryland-Baltimore, the oldest dental school in the US, will be the first school to offer virtual training to dentists at its Baltimore Virtual Dental School, set to open later this year in Second Life, according to SLentrepreneur. “We have developed a virtual world where students and faculty can collaborate and train,” Dr. Carroll-Ann Trotman, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs, told SLE. “Second Life enables us to reach students around the world in ways that were practically impossible before. It is a global outreach.” The new facility will be housed on three floors, compared to the nine floors of ...
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06.09.09Quick Link: List of Accredited Universities and Colleges in Second LifeThe Second Life Research Blog (SLRB) has come up with a definitive list of which universities and colleges currently have a presence in SL. Recently, Rolig Loons took exception to the SimTeach.com wiki entry on the same topic, and also to the search engine's abilities to find schools in SL, noting that both were unreliable, "incomplete, and, worse yet, misleading." To create their definitive list of post-secondary schools in SL, the SLRB used the wiki as a starting point and then used the in-world search tool as well to come up with their list - a list that is also ...
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06.02.09Breaking Barriers: First Virtual Grad in Second LifeAs the shape of education changes and educators slowly move some of their coursework to virtual worlds, Texas State Technical College's virtual college in Second Life has announced its first graduate, becoming possibly the first graduate of a certificate program entirely in a virtual space, according to eMediaWire. Julie Shannon completed the school's digital media design program, which was offered exclusively in SL. The virtual ceremony included a processional, a pledge of allegiance, the national anthem and the conferring of her degree. The ceremony was also notable as representatives from Linden Lab were on hand. "This is a significant milestone ...
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