Databus Issue: 2007 4 12/04/2007
Brave New Worlds
Stan Trevena Director of Information and Technology
PDF
There is a movement underway to explore virtualworld
technologies for use in education. These
technologies have the potential to re-engage students
in their learning. Colleges and universities have been
exploring these technologies for a few years now while
K12 educators are just setting sail to these brave new
worlds.
Virtual-world platforms allow for the creation of virtual-
learning spaces that are accessible via the Internet
and a computer. These platforms allow many participants
to interact in a virtual space, often with a range of
communication tools from text chat to full spatial voice
support. Users create a virtual character, or avatar, to
teleport themselves into these environments to interact
with the world and other participants.
Second Life is the dominant platform in the openended
virtual world market today. Unlike Massive
Multiplayer Online (MMO) games like Everquest and
World of Warcraft, Second Life was a blank slate at
launch back in 2003. The platform and tools were provided
by Linden Lab in San Francisco with the world
to be built by the residents. To entice content creators,
Linden Lab granted intellectual property rights to the
creators of content for their world. A virtual economy
linked to a floating exchange based on the U.S. dollar
provides the foundation for business to thrive.
Businesses are still trying to figure out what works in
these virtual worlds. It has become obvious that simply
building virtual brick and mortar establishments in these
worlds will not ensure success or sales. Several businesses
have started to explore these spaces as a way to increase
the productivity of their employees, provide virtual
networking for distributed staff, project collaboration
across time zones and geographic locations and as a way
to increase their relationships and communications with
their customers. This focus supplements their real-world
business operations and does not seek to replace them
with virtual storefronts.
Cisco has several islands in Second Life that they
use for business-to-business communications. They are
using their islands for user-group meetings, international
staff meets, customer education and training, presentations,
special events and mixed-reality applications. This
past May IBM launched their virtual business center in
Second Life. This virtual center is staffed from North
America, Latin America and Europe. The center provides
sales and support services for IBM clients. IBM is also
seeking to do for virtual worlds what they did for eCommerce
in the 1990s. They see a day in the not-too-distant
future where there will be multiple virtual worlds and
they want to be the company that allows a user to transport
their avatar between these worlds and universes,
complete with their virtual assets.
These virtual-world platforms may look like video
games, but there is some serious business being conducted
in here. Educators are in the business of preparing
students for their future careers. For those paying attention
to these recent developments in business, therefs
going to be a need for people to be well versed invirtual-world platforms. Virtual worlds
will likely replace the web-based tech support
services on the Internet today as this
technology matures and expands. Much
more complex mixed-reality business
environments are only now leaving the
drawing boards in labs and R&D departments
around the globe.
Many people in the media are touting
these virtual worlds as the next evolutionary
step for the Internet, a way to break
free from the 2D confines of the flat web
and emerge into the rich 3D immersive
web of tomorrow. Catchy labels are being
coined like Web 3.0, Web 3.D (my personal
favorite), and World 2.0. While this
evolution of the Internet may be inevitable,
in the short run these virtual worlds
will likely only be layered over existing
Internet infrastructures to provide an
immersive 3D experience for the user. This
will not be an overnight revolution, but
rather a gradual blending and transformation
of the 2D web to the future 3D web.
The graphics engines and better crossplatform
compatibility need to improve
before we will see a wholesale replacement
of 2D technologies with 3D.
Our students are already fluent in many
technologies. Most of them multitask better
than any adult, they have multiple pages
on social networking sites (like MySpace
and FaceBook), they carry phones that
can deliver the full Internet from their
palm, they can text message faster than
most adults can type, they think nothing
of VoIP and online collaboration, they can
find a needle in a virtual haystack faster
than many adults can get online directions
or a phone number from Google, and they
broadcast their every move and mood on
services like Twitter while sharing pictures
on Flickr. It should come as no surprise
that many of these social networks and
Web 2.0 services are being blended into
the Second Life platform by its users who
have come to depend on these services.
And there are several new platforms that
will challenge the reign of Second Life
in the coming years. This is only just the
beginning of the revolution.
Teachers and educators should explore
the potential of these platforms as
educational tools. Many colleges and
universities have virtual campuses and
resources in Second Life. Two years ago,
Linden Lab opened a second grid (or
virtual world) exclusively for teens. The
Teen Grid is limited to 13 to 17 year olds.
The advent of this protected Teen Grid
has opened the door for K12 educators to
explore this world for their students, safe
from the adult content that exists on the
Main Grid of Second Life. Linden Lab
offers deep discounts for educators who
wish to purchase land in Second Life.
Modesto City Schools has a joint cultural-
exchange project in Second Life
with Kyoto Gauken High School in Kyoto,
Japan. This project supplements a long-running
foreign-exchange program between
these schools. Visit http://pacificrimx.wordpress.
com for coverage of this project and
the many resources for educators wanting
to explore these brave new worlds.
Stan Trevana is the director of information
and technology services for Modesto
City Schools and can be reached at
trevana.s@monet.k12.ca.us.
