zondag, mei 20, 2007
Virtual worlds for the enterpise
Told you so: the first intranet experiments for virtual worlds are showing up. Both IBM and Sun are building a corporate kind of Second Life, or metaverse. The principle is the same, but it is within the well protected walls of your own organisation, and within complete control. Time will tell if there is a market for this.
You can read about IBM's and Sun's experiments in this GigaOM article by James Wagner.
You can read about IBM's and Sun's experiments in this GigaOM article by James Wagner.
Labels: metaverse, Second Life, virtual worlds
dinsdag, april 10, 2007
Second Life and education: lookalikes
I've been focussing on Second Life in my latest posts because that is the most succesful virtual environment today. Together with you I'm curious to find out how virtual worlds will find their way into education and how. But it is not sure at all in the end it will be Second Life. It's rarely the innovator or the first succesful market entrant that survives. Wordperfect was the text processor that broke the market open. Heard of it lately? What about the 'killer app' Lotus 1-2-3? Mosaic was the browser that found its way to mainstream. And so on. (I'm trying to find an example that doesn't involve Microsoft taking over, but it is hard to find one :-) ).
There are others currently to consider. There is Warcraft or something like that (I'm not a gamer). It is a large virtual game world, but with a purpose as opposed to Second Life that has as much purpose as life itself.
Take a look at a Belgian virtual world: taatu.com . Big in Belgium and France, they are currently raising money to break thru internationally.
Take a look at there.com. I didn't try it out but the introduction video looks nice and they do have sound/voice.
And those are all examples in the 'consumer web'. I'll expect some companies to launch similar sites for the 'corporate web'.
Labels: metaverse, taatu, there.com
donderdag, april 05, 2007
Second Life and education: the good, the bad, the ugly
Last time I shared 5 ideas of how SL can be used for learning. Today I'll list some pro/cons for using Second Life for education.
PRO: Second Life is free
This makes a very strong argument! No software to install, no software to purchase. No investment. If you don't like it just walk away. And you can't develop it yourself for that price!
CON: There is a hugh threshold
(Please note I'm writing this from a corporate learning perspective.) There are two big thresholds to using Second Life for learning in companies. One is technical. You need a powerful machine with a rapid graphical processor and plenty of memory to run it properly. In many companies the current PC platform will not allow for a comfortable Second Life experience. The second one is time. (And time is money.) It takes at least 4 hours for an orientation in Second Life. So if you use Second Life for mandatory training, you will spend 4 hours per person just to learn how to move in Second Life an go through the orientation and help islands. It will kill your business case because teleconferencing or face-to-face classroom take 0 time. In schools you might assume students already have a SL account or will get up to speed quickly. In a company you really can only assume basic internet navigation skills.
PRO: Second Life is hot
It doesn't hurt the hip factor of learning to ride on the waves. If people are curious and motivated to be on Second Life, give it to them! Motivation is key in adult learning and anything that helps, just helps. Consider it a form of edutainment.
CON: There is no sound
A big handicap is that Second Life has no voice facilities. You cannot speak, just chat. That means your teacher will either have to type everything and your session becomes an animated chat window, or that you'll use a telephone/skype conference on the side. That is far from ideal. I think takeup of SL and its use for education will go up even much higher at the time Linden Labs bring voice to this virtual world.
PRO: There is money to be made
It is possible and even relatively simple to charge and sell in Second Life. So there is an opportunity for a virtual learning MARKET as well. You can sell classes, rent virtual classrooms to others, etc.
CON: You don't own it
This might sound like a typical 'web 1.0'/capitalist/'big mean corporation' thing to say. But companies want to control the learning environments they use. Second Life is completely owned by Linden Labs. If they decide to kick you or your students or customers out of SL based on their interpretation of the code of conduct, there is nothing you can do about it. And there are no guarantees on security, privacy, availability of the environment. These are typically things companies need and are even willing to pay for. If companies really want to use SL for part of their learning, it cannot crash and it has to adhere to some Service Level Agreements.
Note: in January, Linden Lab put the code under GPL but only when linked to their own servers. So it doesn't really count as 'open' as far as I see it.
PRO: You can fly
Seriously, flying is fun :-) . What I mean is that a virtual environment let's you do more than you could in the real world. For example, in a real setting you can't speak to fellow students and listen to the teacher at the same time. In a virtual setting you can.
CON: It is public
Anything you say can and will be used against you. So do you want your sensitive and costly in-company training given on a public place? Would you organise your sales training in the middle of the city park?
So there is good and bad, as always. I'd like to conclude on a sceptical note taken from a newsletter I got:
"In case any of you are being pressurised to dabble in the online virtual reality game that is 'Second Life', The Register provided a useful analysis this week:
Despite Second Life's claim that it now has 3.1 million residents, there are typically only 15,000 clients logged on at any time. Only 15% of those who became residents last October have ever logged on again after their first 30 days. Less than 50,000 of the residents are premium accounts which are able to start businesses. All of them rely on new users entering Second Life for their income. Although 21,000 of these premium accounts had a positive cashflow last month, only 10,000 of these made more than $10. And that was before the owners, Linden Labs, applied their charges.
Only people with no first live need a second...?
Other sceptics who believe the emperor may well be wearing no clothes include the one-page spoof Website that is http://www.getafirstlife.com/ ."
PRO: Second Life is free
This makes a very strong argument! No software to install, no software to purchase. No investment. If you don't like it just walk away. And you can't develop it yourself for that price!
CON: There is a hugh threshold
(Please note I'm writing this from a corporate learning perspective.) There are two big thresholds to using Second Life for learning in companies. One is technical. You need a powerful machine with a rapid graphical processor and plenty of memory to run it properly. In many companies the current PC platform will not allow for a comfortable Second Life experience. The second one is time. (And time is money.) It takes at least 4 hours for an orientation in Second Life. So if you use Second Life for mandatory training, you will spend 4 hours per person just to learn how to move in Second Life an go through the orientation and help islands. It will kill your business case because teleconferencing or face-to-face classroom take 0 time. In schools you might assume students already have a SL account or will get up to speed quickly. In a company you really can only assume basic internet navigation skills.
PRO: Second Life is hot
It doesn't hurt the hip factor of learning to ride on the waves. If people are curious and motivated to be on Second Life, give it to them! Motivation is key in adult learning and anything that helps, just helps. Consider it a form of edutainment.
CON: There is no sound
A big handicap is that Second Life has no voice facilities. You cannot speak, just chat. That means your teacher will either have to type everything and your session becomes an animated chat window, or that you'll use a telephone/skype conference on the side. That is far from ideal. I think takeup of SL and its use for education will go up even much higher at the time Linden Labs bring voice to this virtual world.
PRO: There is money to be made
It is possible and even relatively simple to charge and sell in Second Life. So there is an opportunity for a virtual learning MARKET as well. You can sell classes, rent virtual classrooms to others, etc.
CON: You don't own it
This might sound like a typical 'web 1.0'/capitalist/'big mean corporation' thing to say. But companies want to control the learning environments they use. Second Life is completely owned by Linden Labs. If they decide to kick you or your students or customers out of SL based on their interpretation of the code of conduct, there is nothing you can do about it. And there are no guarantees on security, privacy, availability of the environment. These are typically things companies need and are even willing to pay for. If companies really want to use SL for part of their learning, it cannot crash and it has to adhere to some Service Level Agreements.
Note: in January, Linden Lab put the code under GPL but only when linked to their own servers. So it doesn't really count as 'open' as far as I see it.
PRO: You can fly
Seriously, flying is fun :-) . What I mean is that a virtual environment let's you do more than you could in the real world. For example, in a real setting you can't speak to fellow students and listen to the teacher at the same time. In a virtual setting you can.
CON: It is public
Anything you say can and will be used against you. So do you want your sensitive and costly in-company training given on a public place? Would you organise your sales training in the middle of the city park?
So there is good and bad, as always. I'd like to conclude on a sceptical note taken from a newsletter I got:
"In case any of you are being pressurised to dabble in the online virtual reality game that is 'Second Life', The Register provided a useful analysis this week:
Despite Second Life's claim that it now has 3.1 million residents, there are typically only 15,000 clients logged on at any time. Only 15% of those who became residents last October have ever logged on again after their first 30 days. Less than 50,000 of the residents are premium accounts which are able to start businesses. All of them rely on new users entering Second Life for their income. Although 21,000 of these premium accounts had a positive cashflow last month, only 10,000 of these made more than $10. And that was before the owners, Linden Labs, applied their charges.
Only people with no first live need a second...?
Other sceptics who believe the emperor may well be wearing no clothes include the one-page spoof Website that is http://www.getafirstlife.com/ ."
Labels: metaverse, Second Life
woensdag, april 04, 2007
Second Life and education: what can we do?
Second Life is hip. Hey, even I've been there. And when someone talks about the 'many uses' of Second Life, somewhere education is in that list. But how exactly can Second Life or a similar multi-player virtual world be used for learning? Here are five of my thoughts:
1- Virtual Class 2.0
One component of the e-learning spectrum has always been the virtual classroom. At this time a virtual classroom is pretty close to a web conference system. You have a list with participants (sometimes in a seating metaphore) who can raise hands and/or show basic emotions. You have a shared whiteboard, a central presentation or polls and questions. You have an instructor and/or a facilitator who speak, sometimes via the tool itself sometimes via a separate telephone conferencing system. And you have a chat window. Centra is one of the popular products in this area.
Second Life-lookalikes could transform this 'Virtual Class 1.0' into what virtual classrooms have always been trying to do: mimic the ever so popular face-to-face classroom as natural as possible, but distant. It might work. People can all teleport to a virtual classroom building and share a learning moment there. As long as the learning is instructional and information sharing only and doesn't involve labs or exercises this will work fine.
A further evolution of this is a Virtual Conference. Lotus for example held part of its January LotusSphere conference both in Orlando ànd in Second Life simultaneously. They are basically the same, except for the number of participants and concurrent events.
Take a look: http://slurl.com/secondlife/ibm%209/34/58/23
2- Research
A second big learning thing with Second Life is learning about Second Life itself. Hey, it is a virtual world and a hugh experiment. Second Life has for example its own virtual economy. I can imagine economists wanting to research if it behaves in the same way as the real world. Will the SL economy collaps if that Chinese lady tries to convert all her money into real dollars?
And there is the dark side. You didn't think SL would be free of terrorists, hackers and freaks did you? Some weeks ago a bomb exploded on SL. Hackers are trying to steal your virtual assets. Just last week I heard about a new problem on SL: child porn. There are no laws against avatars having sex with avatars representing children. I can imagine sociologists will want to research how a society and community in a virtual world evolves. How it regulates itself.
So all of that is valid learning. But it is more research-oriented , so I for one am not interested as my 'thing' is corporate learning. This is for the academics among us.
3- Learning to be someone else
What better way for sensitivity training, role play or diversity training if you actually can change into someone else. How does it feel to be a woman, a black person, or a gay rabbit? Second Life can have its place in any kind of training where you are trying to let participants experience things from the other's point of view.
4- Soft skill simulation and coaching
Second Life can be used to bring coach and coachee together via the net. For example a manager and his coach can meet on Second Life every evening to go over their program. A sales trainee can schedule a one-on-one with a virtual coach to practise selling a product.
5- Images and 3D animation
And if nothing else, Second Life is a cheap way to get quality images and 3D animation movies. Just 'act' in Second Life and let the program capture it. Then include it in your e-learning course. I haven't figured out if Linden Labs (owners of Second Life) prohibits the use of photo's and films taken on SL. I think you are OK if you mention the image or video was taken there and link back.
I did not include putting learning on Second Life billboards in here. For me, that is just the same as putting up a web page or writing a piece of paper on some topic. Second Life doesn't add anything to that.
As a conclusion for today's post, some educational resourses on Second Life:
- TOP 20 EDUCATIONAL LOCATIONS IN SL
http://www.simteach.com/wiki/index.php?title=Top_20_Educational_Locations_in_Second_Life
And some other sources of information on the same topic:
http://greateribm.typepad.com/web_log/2006/10/greater_ibm_vir_1.html
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/011107-web-20.html
In one of the next posts I'll talk about pro's and con's of SL.
1- Virtual Class 2.0
One component of the e-learning spectrum has always been the virtual classroom. At this time a virtual classroom is pretty close to a web conference system. You have a list with participants (sometimes in a seating metaphore) who can raise hands and/or show basic emotions. You have a shared whiteboard, a central presentation or polls and questions. You have an instructor and/or a facilitator who speak, sometimes via the tool itself sometimes via a separate telephone conferencing system. And you have a chat window. Centra is one of the popular products in this area.
Second Life-lookalikes could transform this 'Virtual Class 1.0' into what virtual classrooms have always been trying to do: mimic the ever so popular face-to-face classroom as natural as possible, but distant. It might work. People can all teleport to a virtual classroom building and share a learning moment there. As long as the learning is instructional and information sharing only and doesn't involve labs or exercises this will work fine.
A further evolution of this is a Virtual Conference. Lotus for example held part of its January LotusSphere conference both in Orlando ànd in Second Life simultaneously. They are basically the same, except for the number of participants and concurrent events.
Take a look: http://slurl.com/secondlife/ibm%209/34/58/23
2- Research
A second big learning thing with Second Life is learning about Second Life itself. Hey, it is a virtual world and a hugh experiment. Second Life has for example its own virtual economy. I can imagine economists wanting to research if it behaves in the same way as the real world. Will the SL economy collaps if that Chinese lady tries to convert all her money into real dollars?
And there is the dark side. You didn't think SL would be free of terrorists, hackers and freaks did you? Some weeks ago a bomb exploded on SL. Hackers are trying to steal your virtual assets. Just last week I heard about a new problem on SL: child porn. There are no laws against avatars having sex with avatars representing children. I can imagine sociologists will want to research how a society and community in a virtual world evolves. How it regulates itself.
So all of that is valid learning. But it is more research-oriented , so I for one am not interested as my 'thing' is corporate learning. This is for the academics among us.
3- Learning to be someone else
What better way for sensitivity training, role play or diversity training if you actually can change into someone else. How does it feel to be a woman, a black person, or a gay rabbit? Second Life can have its place in any kind of training where you are trying to let participants experience things from the other's point of view.
4- Soft skill simulation and coaching
Second Life can be used to bring coach and coachee together via the net. For example a manager and his coach can meet on Second Life every evening to go over their program. A sales trainee can schedule a one-on-one with a virtual coach to practise selling a product.
5- Images and 3D animation
And if nothing else, Second Life is a cheap way to get quality images and 3D animation movies. Just 'act' in Second Life and let the program capture it. Then include it in your e-learning course. I haven't figured out if Linden Labs (owners of Second Life) prohibits the use of photo's and films taken on SL. I think you are OK if you mention the image or video was taken there and link back.
I did not include putting learning on Second Life billboards in here. For me, that is just the same as putting up a web page or writing a piece of paper on some topic. Second Life doesn't add anything to that.
As a conclusion for today's post, some educational resourses on Second Life:
- TOP 20 EDUCATIONAL LOCATIONS IN SL
http://www.simteach.com/wiki/index.php?title=Top_20_Educational_Locations_in_Second_Life
And some other sources of information on the same topic:
http://greateribm.typepad.com/web_log/2006/10/greater_ibm_vir_1.html
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/011107-web-20.html
In one of the next posts I'll talk about pro's and con's of SL.
Labels: metaverse, Second Life
