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Financial Aid
Tuesday, August 12th, 2008
Gary hayes of Personalize Media created this 7-minute video which takes the viewer on a tour of over 40 social virtual worlds. Hayes is working on a commercial report exploring the creative, business, and educational potential of the metaverse and has some preliminary insights in his post here.
Tuesday, August 5th, 2008
Rafael C. Alvarado, Director of Academic Technology Services at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania writes for Educause Quarterly with Overcoming the Fear of Gaming: A Strategy for Incorporating Games into Teaching and Learning. Alvarado discusses opportunities for the effective use of immersive games in academia.
“Ultimately, to take full advantage of games as engines of learning, we should move from a critical approach to a creative one and encourage the innovative use and development of games (and gaming engines) within our colleges and universities as collaborative new media projects. Such projects would take advantage of our unique social arrangement of students, developers, and faculty and allow us to rely less on consumer culture to provide game content. The design of these games would be guided by the experience of managing the pedagogical outcomes of games in real-use contexts, forming a feedback loop that would identify and select for better games.”
Thursday, July 10th, 2008
I’ve created a faculty office in Google Lively where my students can drop-in and chat in a virtual space. Up to 20 people can join and interact in a room at once, although 100 can enter rooms with view-only access. If you’ve installed Lively, stop by and say hello. If you’re just getting started you may find these resources helpful:
Wednesday, July 9th, 2008
On Tuesday, Google launched a virtual world called Lively which allows players to embed their avatars and even “rooms” from within the world into their websites and blogs. Similar to Second Life, users must download and install software in order to enter, but then can access the world from social networking websites such as Facebook and MySpace. A search of Lively’s rooms reveals that several libraries may already experimenting with the service including the Alliance Virtual Library, ASU’s Noble Library, and Rutgers University Law Library.
For more coverage check out:
Google ventures into virtual reality with ‘Lively’
Thursday, June 19th, 2008
Kathryn Greenhill at Librarians Matter has created a step-by-step guide to how to stream audio and video live from a webcam into Second Life. She has video clips of this amazing feat which she accomplished in preparation for an upcoming conference presentation. If you’re at all interested in presenting or streaming media in-world, you’ll want to check this out.
Wednesday, June 11th, 2008
Educause has come out with another of their handy 7 Things guides, this time about the popular virtual world which many libraries and librarians have decided to join. In 7 Things You Should Know About Second Life, the folks at Educause answer the following questions:
Wednesday, May 28th, 2008
Laura Milligan at CollegeDegrees.com has compiled an all-in-one guide to creating a learning space in Second Life. Her annotated guide presents 50 resources which will help you make the most of the virtual world. Her tips, tricks, and resource links are divided into the following categories:
Tuesday, May 13th, 2008
The Association of Virtual Worlds has published The Blue Book: A Consumer Guide to Virtual Worlds. This free, downloadable book provides a guide, with links, to over 250 virtual worlds along with a glossary. Included are virtual environments for every age group ranging from Disney Fairies Pixie Hollow, Creebies, and Frenzoo, to one of my faves - Neopets, Planet Cazmo, and Scions of Fate. Coming soon: The Green Book: A Business Guide to Virtual Worlds.
Thursday, April 3rd, 2008
Sara de Freitas writes a chapter for Volume 3 of the Becta research report, Emerging Technologies for Learning, discussing educational trends, issues, and potential uses of virtual worlds. Other interesting research from this volume includes:
Wednesday, March 12th, 2008
University Business discusses the innovative ways colleges and universities are using the Second Life virtual realm for collaboration, instruction, promotion, and machinima creation in Sizing Up Second Life: Higher ed learns how to live in a virtual world.
“The greatest benefit of our Second Life campus has been as a marketing tool, really extending our brand out into a whole different channel,” he says. “Along with creating the campus, we also created a corresponding machinima video on YouTube that has had thousands of hits. That has done wonders in terms of throwing attention not just on our Second Life campus but on Ohio University as well.”
via Educause
Thursday, December 20th, 2007
I’m all for empowering women to learn about technology, so when Women’s Voices for Change asked me to contribute a piece about educational opportunities in Second Life, I was more than happy to write this article about Learning in a Virtual World. If you’re interested in Second Life learning, you may want to check it out.
Friday, December 14th, 2007
Ohio University Campus
Second Life is a massive virtual world with many opportunities for learning and entertainment. Over 60 colleges and universities have a virtual presence there, and are joined by more than 500 librarians. If you are just starting out in this MMOG (massively multiplayer online game), this guide should get you up and running. Follow the SLURLs (Second Life URLs) by clicking or pasting them into your browser’s address bar and then clicking the “teleport now” button on the page to go to that location, (note: you will need to have established a SL account first & have the program installed).
These sites are the 12 islands of the Alliance Library System which make up the Info Archipelago:
Here are some sites to visit when you’re ready to learn how to build the world around you.
Sunday, October 21st, 2007
The MediaShift blog has compiled a resource guide to virtual worlds including a glossary, background and history, a section discussing Second Life, a summary of how media companies are using virtual worlds, and a list of resources. Worth a look if you’re a fan of these online environments.
Thursday, October 4th, 2007
A recent study by the Yankee Group has indicated that there has been a significant lack of growth in virtual worlds such as Second Life which may be due to their non-mobile nature. According to this study, Second Lifers only average 12 minutes per month in-world, while sites like Facebook entertain visitors for 186 minutes per month.
Via CrunchGear.
Tuesday, October 2nd, 2007
The latest niche to expand in the social networking arena is online communities for gamers, and most prominently for players of MMOG’s or massively multiplayer online games, and MMORPGs or massively multiplayer online role-playing games. This is hardly surprising considering it’s recently been reported that 217 million people worldwide play online games, and that strategists are forecasting the online games market to triple its current $4 billion dollar worth over the next 5 years.
