Friday, May 25, 2007

Second Life Best Practices in Education



Popped into the SL Best practices conference. Hit the registration tables, got my gift bag, off to a discussion about DRM and contracts in virtual space.


Here's the scene at the presentation space...Parallels right now to Viacom v YouTube, discussion of safe harbor provisions as they will apply to Second Life. Real life money is involved in Second Life, real life legal action will follow.




What happens if someone misappropriates my content in virtual space outside of virtual space (outside of the 'rules' in Second Life)? There are layers of rights (game code, copyright) but do they give a practical answer?

Interesting angle...What happens when the players don't like what the game desigeners/owners are doing. Interesting because this could be seen as a game, but significant investments could be made in virtual space. How does freedom of speech, etc play in?

Second Life may be more open source. How about Creative Commons licenses? There are some mappings between the SL object permissions and CC permissions. What does CC give us in SL that copyright does not give us in SL? We need to be careful here about coding or contracting away rights that may be in copyright. Note this is from an Australian perspective.

Next pres, Profiling e-world customers...This is an e-marketing presentation.

  • personalization of products and services (CRM)
  • online profiling of customers (what's that)?
  • all e-world transactions leave traces of data
  • issues involving trust, accuracty, privacy
Online profiling is practice of aggregating info about consumers lifestyle, product preferences, purchase history. Adds up to info on customer's buying behavior. Now talk about SL specific approaches..

Brands and self image apply in virtual space. Research discussed addressing the issue of online profiling by introducing self-profiling. Capture online ideal self-image via brand personality. What evolving brands traits could be highlighted online? SL objects must be designed in a way to construct an ad-hoc shopt display for each customer, sensing their profile, brand identity, self profile.

Between presentations. It's interesting to watch typical real life confo behaviors play out in virtual space. Small groups congregating, people walking in to check the scene, and deciding to attend the other talk after looking at the boards. Presenters trying to figure out how to get their slides to show, etc. IOW oddly familiar. Also cool is how people linger to associate, and look around to check who else is in the room. Lots of networking going on, and informal off-line talk.

Into a panel discussion now... gonna sneak to the Grind for coffee. Just like a real confo!

OK..came back at the end of the panel..darn..took too long. Off to the vendor area, outreach, etc.


Popped in to a bit of discussion, SL Education is about collaboration and partnerships. Example, various teachers can swap sections to teach content that they are best at, and enjoy teaching the most. The content is the focus.




That's a shot from the discussion area. I'll wander over to the exhibits now. Saw the Moodle Booth, vendors who build sims, libraries. Here's an interesting thing, a booth for the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, who will be coming to Second Life...




More wandering..

Digital Campfires Foundation, looking at creating thinklets within second life. UTD has an impressive booth, going to have to visit their campus. Some discussion ensued about an open source model within SL. SLForge was one attempt to start this. Perfect for higher ed!

Schome looks like an interesting pilot project. "Schome park was the site of a pilot project during which over 100 memebers of NAGTY (National Assoc of Gifted and Talented Youth) collaborated with staff in Second Life to seek ways to transform educational spaces and practices"

Map of forces shaping future of education, from the Knowledge Foundation...Feed of current projects from My SL Project. Here's their academia edition. Saw Columbia College Chicago has a cool sim, I AM Columbia. I'm going to do a quick tele to their sim.




Checking out the galleries at Columbia College.

Back to the presentation hall. Instead of turning of our cell phones, we are reminded to kill all particles and animations. No SL bling for lag's sake.

Suzi Mazzenga (Xirconnia Morphett-SL) Drawing on Second Life Experiences to Enrich the First Life.


This presentation is being simulcast over the plain old web via SLCN (Second Life Cable Network) now.

Living outside of the circuit box...applying learning about self in Second Life to First Life...Compare your avatar in SL to real life. Mine is a virtual doppleganger. Or is your avatar a subconscious blueprint for making a better 1st life you?

What does your SL interaction say about you? Is your avatar a virtual extension of your personality? What does your SL home say about you? Did you put up a virtual wall to block your neighbor's view? Would you do the same things you do in SL in real life? Is there morality in SL? Various giggles and grins in audience.



Here's a shot of the talk, note the video screen showing the live simulcast.

How many have group meetings in SL? Do you have a traditional board room for meetings? Look at other non-traditional settings. Coffee shops, koi ponds...no walls, no chairs. Restrictions and expectations can be changed by working within SL as groups.

There is no 'back of the room' in SL collaborations. Gonna break out, do some RL work, and hit the IBM keynote...

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