Okay so this is my third week blog post and reflection on things that are in my head about our class, virtual worlds, and Second Life in particular. To start off, I have a funny story (okay, at least I think it’s funny).
So we’re in this highly technologic class, and meeting twice a week in a virtual environment, and on Thursday morning after Wednesday night’s class I fly to the big Island for a four-day vacation at Kona Village resort, which is the antithesis of technology. No TVs, no radios, no telephones, no air conditioning, No room service, no locks on the doors, all of the Hale (units) are individual, separated by considerable distance, with dirt pathways leading to the main beach and eating area. the entire resort is enveloped in serene silence — the sound of the ocean, birds in the trees, nothing else. Info here They do have free Internet access only in the business office available 24 hours a day, so I would go over late at night with my laptop and work on my assignments from there. To say the difference is stark between our Wednesday class, and this little slice of heaven on earth with no technology (how many times have you gone four days without carrying your cell phone or laptop with you?) Is putting it mildly. So one of the humorous things that happened, was me walking by the pool one day then glancing over it and seeing the heads of people in their lounge chairs and bobbing in the pool and waiting for the picture to rez better so I could see their name and title above their heads… I am not making this up it actually went through my head for a couple of seconds! I wonder if anyone else in our class has had the experience in real world.
Producers vs Consumers
So anyhow, my thinking on class this week, is on producers versus consumers. One of the goals that I’ve had for my staff as we have adopted a broad range of technologies on our campus, has been to evolve teacher thinking from assuming premade content and activities with technology to developing activities with their student’s that make them producers. For example, it is one thing to have students view a lesson in a science class or concept being taught through a video or YouTube. It is an entirely different thing to have students create instructional videos that they can use to teach others. From a standpoint of cognitive hierarchy, is an entirely different thing to teach a lesson, design the scope, storyboard the concept, shoot, arranged talent, edit, and manage the resource than it is to be just a consumer of someone else’s. It’s very reminiscent for me that early in my modeling physics training at Arizona State University in 1995, that when the complaint came that students doing physics — really doing physics as a community of scientific researchers, was painfully slow and challenging. When the complaint was raised that we could cover the material faster by just telling the students about it, one of our mentors, Larry Dukerich, reminded us that the definition for “cover” was “to obscure from view”.
So where does this fit in with Second Life? The last two weeks in our class we are taking time each meeting to learn how to construct objects — a purse which contained objects, the media station, selecting and editing clothing, etc. None of these are particularly easy, certainly not intuitive to do. So it’s been bothering me, that if I were going to convince a teacher to use Second Life, they would almost certainly need to start and maybe stay, for that matter, as a consumer. By that I mean, they might go to sites that already have been made: a tour of a virtual gallery, flying inside the cell, sitting in and participating in a Socratic dialogue on algebra, you get the idea…
But my main stripe is to have teachers and students create things, not just consume them. Thus, the inherent tension for me, because the amount of time it takes to understand how to build objects in Second Life, makes this an almost impossibility for most students in classes.
Does that mean Second Life can’t be a powerful learning environment for teachers and students? I don’t think so, but I do need to rethink my approach to looking at it. I need to think of this as more of a social space than a laboratory space. Perhaps, at least for now, a powerful aspect of Second Life for me as a technology director, is its ability to be used as a social format. Teachers could meet here with students and teleport to interesting places together — to experience and learn as a community. Perhaps a teacher might take students to an MIT lecture, or arrange an expert to comment and demonstrates something to a class. Powerful? Surely. Best use of the environment? Not really, but until the tools or the students own prior knowledge allow easier construction we are still looking at Second Life as a consumer environment, not a producer environment.
And that’s the way it is… for now

My friend Dean who is also taking the class had a really interesting post that I wanted to ruminate on a little more… his post included the following paragraph

A couple of observations…co-presence or ambient awareness – the sense of being there and connected, is really evident when we’re in Second Life. I mean it literally seems we’re meeting face-to-face when we’re in class and meeting with our groups. I wonder if it’s because, subconsciously, we know that someone is controlling each avatar we see in class? It was funny when Mark, Cheryl and I met a few nights ago in Second Life. At the end of our meeting both Mark and I complemented Cheryl’s dress- her Second Life dress. It was a beautiful dress! The lines are getting blurred. Are we beginning to interact with avatars in Second Life or are they merely a window to the person behind the avatar? That would be an interesting study – to see who we begin to associate more with when we’re in a virtual world, avatars or the people who create and control them? In our minds, do we acknowledge a difference or are one in the same? Is Techtiki and Dean the same? Do people in class think that Techtiki and Dean are the same, think the same, act the same, etc.? I think the methods of communication impact our perceptions. I believe it’s easier to represent yourself differently if you only use local chat and IM. It’s harder to do so when you use audio. Not sure if I’m making sense, but I’d like to follow this train of thought throughout the class and see how I feel at the end. Stay tuned….

Link back to his blog here: http://abbahawaii.com/techtiki/

my response is below:

Hi Dean
I enjoyed reading what you wrote about the Blurred line in the virtual world and reality. I agree with you that there is a level of comfort and interaction that is happening now is that is surprising. I think you pose a particularly intriguing question about identity — in world and real world. It is one thing in Second Life when we are using this class with an instructor. In that case, we take an extension of our identity, but not really a new one.
I am quite certain that there is a large percentage of Second Life participants that “jump the fence” and take on a new identity — explore new ways of communicating, expressing, being. At one level I find this a little off putting, as interactions in Second Life ought to be the real thing. In this sense it is like going to a costume party, where people take on the identities of the characters they are dressed as. I guess I would think of this as a novelty, but I wouldn’t expect to come back to the party over and over again and interact with same fake identity each time. Maybe it’s the social nature in me, but I expect my interactions to be with the “real person”. But maybe that’s an indication of my age and my expectation or interaction.

Second Life, hype cycles, and reality

So,I’ve been thinking alot this week about what I might write about for this blog post about my current feelings about Second Life. Some of the activities we did this week included visiting interesting Second Life sights and rating them using the SaLamander wiki’s learner engagement rating like experiential, role-play, diagnostic, etc. more info here:http://www.eduisland.net/salamanderwiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

we also spent time learning more about creating objects in Second Life — working with prims, editing and creating scenery, wearing and designing clothes.

we also completed a project in groups of three where we chose a general theme, and then found 15 resources both in world and out of world and gave brief descriptions of these, to help novice and regular users of Second Life to navigate their world better.

So while all this was happening, in the back of my mind I’m thinking about where Second Life is in adoption. One of the articles we read in the first week (Jennings and Collins) used Everett Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations research to map out technology use and contrasted Early Adopters to Early Majority. They quote an article from Moore that defines behavior differences between these two groups. A few examples:
early adopters favor of revolutionary change, early majority favor evolutionary change
early adopters are visionary, early majority are pragmatic
early adopters are willing to experiment, early majority want proven applications
and probably most importantly:
early adopters are generally self-sufficient, whereas early majority may need significant support

so for those that understand Gartner’s hype cycle, there is a problem inherent in the current place where Second Life is and its future. (original source here: http://www.gartner.com/it/products/research/methodologies/research_hype.jsp)

For those unfamiliar with the curve – a quick pic and summary:

When technologies are first introduced, there is usually a period of inflated expectations: excitement around the new technology. This is where your early adopters would jump on board and get excited. Over some timeframe, there is a period of disillusionment where the process of getting it from a small percentage (5 or 10%) to a larger adoptance is hung up on a variety of factors: ease of interface, cost, flexibility, inflated expectations, applicability, etc.
As larger awareness and usability occurs, it becomes more adopted and it eventually becomes mainstream reaching the plateau of productivity. What is interesting about this curve is that it is not time-dependent. Technologies like augmented reality and mobile robots have been in the first phase of adopting for more than a decade. Other technologies like GPS climbed into fairly high adoptance in just a few years. So where is Second Life here? In this 2008 graphic, Public virtual worlds are in the trough of disillusionment. Some writing and thinking by Gartner indicate it may well be five or 10 more years before these become more mainstream.
…of course, the important question is why?
For a technology to move past disillusionment, there needs to be a crystallization of utility and need that begins to drive more use. We are still at the point in Second Life where a combination of factors keep the utility and need at a minimum.
As many of us have found in traveling virtual worlds, although there is an excitement and engagement in well-designed ones, this is still far from the universal experience. Just as importantly, the requirements to participate, both from a technology and usability standpoint, are still not nearly high enough engage more than a small percentage of technology users.
So what does that mean I think about Second Life at this point? This reminds me a lot of the early days of the World Wide Web. I remember coming back from a 1993 conference having seen the first version of NASA’s demonstration of the Dead Sea Scrolls via a web browser and told our school library and what a transformative experience it was to see artifacts through a graphical interface using the Mosaic web browser. Her response surprised me — I remember her saying that although viewing through a browser might be an interesting experience, users would still need to know protocols like telnet and FTP in order to use the Internet as a learning tool.
I guess that summarizes how I feel about Second Life at this point. I see the promise of an engaging and immersive environment, but realistically see more years (five?) before it begins to climb up slope of enlightenment.
Caveat: of course, when I started playing with Twitter a year ago, I could’ve never imagined it would evolve into the worldwide phenomena it has become in such a short time. Of course, Twitter had some things going for it that enable the quick adoptance. it has a platform that uses SMS, which had just become a mainstream tool, not just for adolescents, but for adults. The ease of use made it much quicker to be adopted as well.
So, maybe there is a seminal moment waiting for the immersive virtual worlds that will push it up the curve — uniform interface between environments? Easier entry point for beginners? Less traffic and bandwidth demand participation? Who knows? Time will tell…

This is a reflection on the assigned reading:

Handbook_Research_Edu_Comm_Tech_Chp17_VirtualReality
McLellan

“Virtual reality (VR) can be defined
as a class of computer-controlled multisensor y communication
technologies that allow more intuitive interactions with data
and involve human senses in new ways”

This article starts with an overview of definitions of virtual reality and some really thinking about what immersive virtual environments are about. It then walks through the history of virtual worlds from the 1980s. .

one of the drawbacks of this article, is that it was published before the emergence of real Second Life and MUVE developments in the early 2000s, therefore although it serves as a historical reference and an interesting discussion of the different ways that virtual worlds have been envisioned and developed, it doesn’t address current development issues. For example, the huge chasm between what gamers live on a daily basis and immersive virtual worlds, and the development of multiuser experiences, and watch was understood at the end of the last decade.

Thurman and Matoon – propose three dimensions which to view the development of virtual reality
1. Provocative idea about Verity dimension — does the virtual worlds make reality, or does it encompass abstract and novel ideas that don’t correspond to reality? Another way of thinking of the development of virtual worlds…

integration dimension — how well the human is brought into the environment
interface dimension — scale ranging from natural to artificial

“To summarize, we will be examining 10 types of virtual re-
ality: (1) Immersive first-person, (2) Augmented reality (a vari-
ation of immersive reality), (3) Through the window, (4) Mir-
ror world, (5) Waldo World (Virtual characters), (6) Chamber
world, (7) Cab simulator environment, (8) Cyberspace, (9) the
VisionDome, and (10) the Experience Learning System.”

aside from Mark — the recent release of the Microsoft gaming experience has potential to elevate the sense of immersion higher by making natural body movements correspond to what’s happening in the immersive world.

There was some discussion of blog mentioned reality, and a recent TED lecture that had a demonstration of a small device that projects information onto objects as it senses them was a powerful indication of how real-time sensory feedback will in the short future allow a human cloud computer interface that will be a new way of thinking of augmented reality. I’ll try to post the link for that lecture when I get back online

It’s interesting to read about their sports augmented reality stories here, as this article predates the release on the Nintendo Wii platforms, I think it would have been provocative to see how the authors would have addressed the development of that tool in the schema.

The authors also talk about Azuma’s research and medical applications of augmented reality refer to the link here-
http://www.cs.unc.edu/∼azuma/azuma-AR.html

interesting points being made when the author talks about in your worlds: first of all, the obvious interest in the gaming world example given is shooting hoops. But more importantly, and mentioned secondarily surprisingly, is the observation that players in the mirror worlds since they stand apart from the world itself can have social interaction and therefore an opportunity for a more interactive environment. This precluded the nature of multiuser virtual environments as the most notable example of the importance of social learning and the real draw for users of being in such a world. It is somewhat surprising that as late as 2001 that the nature of social interaction in immersive worlds would turn out to be such an important draw for users (for example Second Life is more about the social interaction that it is about just the information). Sometimes we focus so much on the technology, that we miss the implication in the human setting entirely.

An interesting aside about the cab environment is that in 1997 I had an opportunity to “land the space shuttle” in the virtual motion simulator at NASA Ames research Center. The simulator, which had 6° of freedom in a 10 story tall building gave one a truce sense of motion and interface, and was used as a high fidelity way to train astronauts on the conditions of landing the Space shuttle. it is amazing to me now 10 years later and more staff the simulators have become so common, that pilots of Jets never trained in real jets anymore, but use simulators. As is often quoted, the first time a pilot lands a actual 747, she has a full complement of passengers aboard – a little unnerving, for sure, but a testimony to the fidelity and veracity of these simulators

The Virtual Reality and Education Lab (VREL) East Carolina
University, in Greenville, North Carolina is one organization that
provides leadership in promoting education in the schools (Auld
& Pantelidis, 1994; Pantelidis, 1993, 1994). The Web site for
VREL is http://www.soe.ecu.edu/vr/vrel.htm

Good idea from article:
It will be important to articulate a research agenda specif-
ically relating to virtual reality and education. Fennington and
Loge (1992) identify the following issues: (1) How is learning
in virtual reality different from that of a traditional educational
environment? (2) What do we know about multisensor y learn-
ing that will be of value in determining the effectiveness of this
technology? (3) How are learning styles enhanced or changed
by VR? and (4) What kinds of research will be needed to as-
sist instructional designers in developing effective VR learning
environments?

the authors talk a bit about “affordances” – in understanding the research of virtual worlds. good quote
Although a virtual world may differ from the real world, virtual objects and environments must provide some measure of the affordances of the objects and environments depicted (standing in for the real-world) in order to support natural vision (perceptualization) more fully.

interesting perspectives from a couple of authors about thinking our cyberspace as a theatrical medium — the notion that participants are playing out roles in creating stories in spaces. Authors include Brenda Laurel, and Randall Walser.

interesting perspective by McLellan one situated learning which I think is excellent perspective to draw on she defines it:
“Therefore,this knowledge must be learned
in context—in the actual work setting or a highly realistic or
“virtual” surrogate of the actual work environment. The situated learning model features apprenticeship, collaboration, reflection, coaching, multiple practice, and will articulation. It also emphasizes technology and stories.”

from that experience design perspective, there is a nice, simple model from Shedroff that talks about each experience needing attraction (something that draws us in) engagement (experiences that make us part of the world) and conclusion (some sort of resolution that let’s us know we’ve accomplished what is in front of us). This is a great place to think about maybe the learning activity we need to design, as we can build in I think good examples of these three views and experience in the virtual world.

there is a nice distinction made about services versus experiences as an economic perspective. For example they distinguish a service to a client versus experience for a guest (for example Disney) – interesting perspective

one of the articles quoted from 1993 Bricken and Byrne, had students construct objects in virtual worlds. Considering this was 16 years ago, the interface by nature was very rudimentary and clunky, which presented all kinds of problems. All the same new research indicates a powerful opportunities there. I’d be interested in seeing in the last four years what research if any exists on student learning with the same model and design. In particular, given the greater ease of graphic rendering, manipulation, and student facilities with 3-D worlds, I would think that the cognitive process and learning environment would be reduced which would improve the processing capability to think about implications of their design more.

It’s interesting in the conversation about attitudinal responses to virtual worlds, but research from 1992 (Heeter) indicated issues with the tension between creating a complex enough environment that is engaging, it is simple enough environment for easy entry point. The current crop of immersive games like World of Warcraft, indicate a way by which repetitive access to learning environments seem to trump some of the novice fear that used to exist almost 20 years ago. Also, it came out that playing against other humans was much more desired than against virtual opponents — something that seems to be playing out in social learning environments today. Wake up another interesting research finding was the difference in gender — boys much more likely to play the game battle tech – more gender-neutral activities in Second Life in World of Warcraft scene indicate that the gender differences are evaporating (Pew Center in Internet life data for example)

Readings from ETEC 648D – Computer Authoring – Virtual Reality

Virtual or Virtually U: Educational Institutions in Second Life
Nancy Jennings, Chris Collins

2007 study looked at an overview of how institutions are using Second Life. In particular it examined as many institutions that could find — about 170 and looked at Onhow they structured the environment, the types of spaces that were located there in the kinds of activities that were being held.

The lit review was okay, although I do appreciate the inclusion of both Gartner’s trend analysis and a definite effort to include Roger’s work in diffusion of innovations. This is probably the most provocative piece in the article, as the authors quote an article by Moore from 1991 that applies Rogers work with diffusion to technology adoption, in particular defines characteristics for each of the steps of technology adoptions innovators, early adopters, etc.
The research questions for the article were to look at what institutions are using Second Life, what are the characteristics of spaces, and how institutions are using Second Life.
The authors then go through and list the main characteristics that were found in a variety of institutions, and used two particular institutions as case studies: INSEAD and Ohio University. Interesting comparison between these indicated a different vision for each one. The authors define different visions of virtual learning institutions: the operative and reflective, the difference being that operative environments exhibit characteristics of vision and self sustenance that stands apart from any brick-and-mortar institution, whereas reflective institutions mimicked the design of space in their bricks and mortar operation of the institution, and appeared more concerned with being an extension of their existing footprint.

Probably the thing that is most missing from this article in my mind, is the need to address the bridge between what early adopters have taken on in Second Life, who by Rogers analysis comprised 13% or so of the population and early majority who comprise 34%. The authors do a nice job of explaining that there are fundamental differences in the behaviors of these two groups, most notably that early adopters are risk takers and early majority are risk adverse, and early adopters are willing to experiment whereas early majority want proven applications. This is a very important lesson in Second Life adoption that I think is not being viewed as critically as it should. As an example, the Gartner article that the authors quote states the half by 2011 the early adopters, early majority, and late majority will have presence in Second Life (80%). I don’t see this as a remote possibility, given the behaviors of even the early majority, who need and want the technology they use to be invisible, by that I mean easy enough to use that it doesn’t require a few hours or more to understand. Immersive virtual worlds have incredible strengths and complex abilities to do things that are not possible face-to-face, but they are difficult to use, the requirement of high bandwidth and computing power, and a lack of added value are going to be main roadblocks to a higher adoption level in the immediate future (3 to 5 years). It could be that a common Gateway that allows all virtual worlds to become more powerfully enabled and interconnected may provide the opportunity, but it certainly doesn’t seem that this is going to be happening anytime in the near future (1 to 2 years). So for now, I believe we are looking at something on the order of 20% maybe 30% of technology users over the next 2 to 3 years. Another example of this, it is the number of students in my high school that I see who are Second Life users — relatively few. If this digital generation, comfortable with Facebook and virtual games does not yet see themselves as members of a community online in an immersive virtual world, I think Second Life for the time being will still be a novelty.