Teaching in SL

The holidays are over, so blogging resumes.. slowly :-)

Yesterday, IBM Lotus blogger Alan Lepofsky mentioned an article on teaching in SL: "I Can’t Believe I Just Said That! Shamp Writer in Second Life."

It's a funny report on a NMI professors' first teaching experience in SL. Some quotes:

"But last Friday, I found myself saying things I never thought I would have to say.
“Please don’t sit on the fountain during class. Don’t forget that everyone needs to wear clothes the next time we meet. And, please, try and remember not to fly during class time.”

But the serious stuff is in this quote:

"Sure, Second Life is a little clugy and crazy. But providing a way for physically distant people to interact and experience things together in real time is an educator’s dream that had Socrates tossing in his sleep. SL is a place for minds. It is going to take a while to figure out how we should use it. Frankly, now virtual worlds seem like a powerful creative solution. We just need to find the right problems for virtual worlds to solve. Back in 1994 I felt the same way about the web. It is going to take a lot of patient experimentation to find the best way to harness its potential. And that is why the NMI is there!"

I would add to that: "a way for physically distant people to interact and experience things together in real time " is not only an educators' dream, but of many other people too, wether they are looking for conferencing means, ways of doing business or attending events. This 'togetherness' is indeed one of the true powers of virtual worlds. And yes, it is going to take a lot of patient experimentation to figure it all out. And that's probably going to be an interesting ride..

RL interference

Sometimes, SL activities suffer heavily from RL interference. Such is the case here too! Due to holidays and other stuff, there won't be much new stuff here until the end of august. Too bad, actually, because there's a lot going on that deserves coverage.. but I guess it'll have to wait.

See ya later!

Nad Gough @ Rocky Shores

Quite a lot of visitors at Rocky Shore, where Nad Gough is currently performing. The mood is relaxed - and so is the music. Crossposted to http://sered-sl.blogspost.com
posted by Sered Woollahra on Cascadia using a blogHUD : [permalink]

IBM Codestation

It's been listed on BlgoHUd before, but for those who haven't seen it yet: IBM's codestation has some handy open source scripts you can save into your inventory - and some other activities. But, as the pic shows, you can also donate any scripts you might want to open source, it's not just IBM coded stuff. Crossposted to http://sered-sl.blogspot.com
posted by Sered Woollahra on IBM CODESTATION using a blogHUD : [permalink]

multiverse 1.0 released

Today, Multiverse released version 1.0 of their development platform for virtual worlds, and I thought I'd check it out. Right now, I am installing the Multiverse client. Downloading was fast, installing too, but now that I'm actually trying to access a world, it needs to download a lot of other stuff. Apparently really a lot; this is taking a loooonnggg time.

One thing that's nice about Multiverse, is the ability to connect to multiple virtual worlds of mmogs, using just one viewer, through the Multiverse network.

Creative licensing
Multiverse is not open source, but their software can be downloade for free. As soon as you start to make money, things change.

The simplest option is to buy an upfront fee. I have no idea how much that is, but I guess it won't be cheap.

The second option is interesting: the revenue sharing license. If you choose this option, your newly developed world will have to be part of the Multiverse network, that's a requirement. Again, as long as you don't charge your end users or have paid-for advertising in your world, it's free. But, as soon as you start to earn money off your world, Metaverse wants 10% of the gross revenues. They do this by handling all your money stuff: consumer billing, credit card processing etcetera. They collect all the fees, keep their 10% plus some handling fees, and pay you the rest.

That's actually a good model for starting entrepreneurs, creative developers with little financial resources and the like. Plus, it could be very rewarding for Metaverse as well. What if one of these Metaverse worlds is the next World of Warcraft, or the next Second Life? Ten percent of "the next big thing" could mean an awful lot of money.

By the way, this is an awkward blog post to write.. these days, my daily job consists mainly of administering a financial application named "Multiversa", so every time I need to type "Multiverse" I am automatically typing .. well, you can guess what happens :-)

So, I am finished writing this blogpost, and updating Multiverse has finished as well. That should tell you something about how long it took..

Take me to your leader

I just got beamed up to the Greenies mothership. What a cool experience. We come in peace..
posted by Sered Woollahra on Greenies Home Rezzable using a blogHUD : [permalink]

Apparently, greenies like beer.

Today, the much discussed Greenies sim is opened. A nice experience indeed. Where in SL does the world look like you're about the size of a mouse? Very cool stuff. There's more to explore here. This huge living room for example, but also flight packs, teleports to the greenies ufo.. I'm off, see ya later!
posted by Sered Woollahra on Greenies Home Rezzable using a blogHUD : [permalink]