iSean

i have been hearing more and more stories about people who are using virtual reality in their teaching. now, when i use the phrase, ‘virtual reality’ i used to immediately think about about a person putting on a VR helmet and a glove with sensors all over — the helmet would contain the virtual word and your eyes were covered so you could only see the VR world inside the helmet on the screen. while that technology is still emerging and being developed, it’s not something that is even remotely close to being common in any classroom. that being said, there is a VR world that is much closer to being realized — Second Life. Second Life is something I first heard about from my buddy Robert. Second Life is a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents. i am now a resident.

i should clarify, i think i am a resident. i have created an account and updated my appearance for my avatar. but i have not paid any money as i am content to use the free version for now. the virtual environment is free to use, but i am sure there are perks when you start spending real $$$. i believe you need to spend $$$ to make money in this world. and money is used. for example, many people have their own houses and other inventory items, etc. and that brings me to my first experience.

Second Life starts you on a tutorial island which i completed fairly rapidly. actually, i jumped in a car at the end and sort of drove off of a bridge. the car tipped sideways and got stuck. i couldn’t get out and the car wouldn’t move, so i gave up and quit. i came back a few days later and i was automatically on another land/island with a lot of people around. i started bumping people, but everyone ignored me at first. then, someone saw my name “Jayhawk” and asked if i’d went to the University of Kansas (i had) and he explained that he had gone there as well. come to find out, this guy was 67 years old. he found out i was a newbie and offered me some documents to help me get going. he then added me as a friend and i did likewise — figuring the jayhawk family was good enough for me. all good. he wanted to show me his complex that he just built/purchased, so i allowed myself to be transported. this guy had an elaborate office building complex. and, i soon found out that he ran his own consulting business delivering speeches about changing attitudes. people actually use Second Life for business purposes. hmmm. this guy had a few rooms full of chairs and he could actually get folks there and then speak into a microphone and the real people could hear him do his real job in this virtual environment. amazing. well, it’s amazing until i realize that this guy is seeing me as a potential customer. that’s when i decide to end my second session . . . again stuck. doh! heh.

this guy wanted to continue his spiel so i took about 5 - 6 days off. i then logged in and quickly dropped him from my friend list and made sure he couldn’t see when i was logged in. whew! safe again. i made some island greeting point my home since i have $250 to my name and i am sure land costs well above that. in S.L. you can fly, which is pretty cool. so i took off and just headed in one direction flying. after a few minutes, i crashed. apparently you can buy airspace above your dwelling and property and block it off from regular folk like me. so, i headed back to land to walk around. i swear i landed in a XXX zone because there were scantily clad women pictures posted everywhere. i entered a building and it was clearly about sex — like a strip club. i wondered if people were really playing these parts or whether this was some sort of creation by one person using bot characters, etc. hmmm. i wondered whether people paid to watch their avatars (read: cartoons) do things that . . . never mind, i didn’t want to know and i quickly left. i then encountered a casino with nobody in it. yet, i could walk up to a table and gamble if i wanted — i didn’t. interesting, but i again left and kept flying. i eventually came to a neat house with open doors. i went in and nobody was home. i decided to make myself at home and fiddle around. it was pretty nice.

i don’t see the education application in my own experiences thus far, but i am not really looking yet as i am just trying to figure out how to best navigate the environment. i do know that one of our students at GVSU has created a museum (she’s an art teacher) and she’s placed paintings in this museum. her students can go into the museum and click on a painting. the painting will tell all about itself and help the kids learn more about the art. the teacher can cater the message being heard to help meet the course objectives, etc. that’s something that appears to be ideal for this environment. i am sure i will figure out much more in the near future. but, i am really trying to pace myself. i think i’ll make this my sunday evening experiment and that’s it. ;~)

Technorati Tags: Virtual Reality, Second Life

while i don’t like talking about my blog because that seems so vain, i also realize that my blog is part of my teaching and i like to document much about my teaching on the blog . . . so a blog-related post is sometimes okay, especially when the talk involved something in my blog breaking.

i recently upgraded my blog to WordPress 2.1. i have upgraded just fine since version 1.x many times with no problem. unfortunately, this time around my custom theme didn’t like the upgrade. actually, the blog worked just swell after upgrading, but my side menu where i had a list of the blogs that i visit and all that jazz was showing a database error. i couldn’t fix the code, but i could delete the offending code — except that i was left with no links to the sites i visit and all that. that wasn’t worth it to me so i decided to upgrade my theme.

i read not too long ago about a neat new feature in Drupal 5.0 where the user can customize the current theme’s colors to suit their preferences (and customizable content as well on some themes like http://www.google.com/ig). i fiddled with this on a demo somewhere and it was pretty neat using the eye dropper and all that to change colors. i searched a bit more and found the same type theme available for WordPress 2.1. so here it is. if you click the Options link far above, you too can customize the theme here. and who said that web 2.0 was worthless? ;~)

i learned much about virtual reality recently and i’ll want to write things up, but i’ll have to wait until i have more time as i am teaching a long weekend class this weekend.

Technorati Tags: drupal, wordpress, blog, blogging

i was excited when Apple released Keynote. Keynote is much like PowerPoint, but it also has a more professional look and feel. i jumped on board and started using it; however, in the back of my mind it just didn’t feel too new. so, i jumped off of the bandwagon shortly thereafter. instead, i have found just using the internet to be much more powerful and more natural. the topics that i typically would have used PowerPoint or Keynote for are most likely related to technology in some way and i often needed to get online to demonstrate this or that . . . why not start online and make the materials available to anyone? while i used Dreamweaver to make my presentations, i recently discovered another way — a wiki.

Donna DesRoches and Rob Wall did a presentation using a wiki last year and i just discovered it from Alec Couros who is doing something very similar. the wiki can be present as you walk the audience through your presentation and then the wiki remains for when the audience returns home (or gets online on the spot and follows along). or, could they log into and make changes while you are up there presenting? eek. while i am intrigued by the thought of using a wiki for a presentation — particularly because i am doing a presentation at the MACUL conference (Detroit) next month on wikis and textbooks — i am still not sure i can see this model into the future.

i note that Alec thought about using the materials on the DesRoches / Wall wiki and decided he didn’t want to “mess with their stuff” and that he wanted “control over his own work.” this is where i am getting hung up on things. i don’t know the protocol for using someone else’s personal wiki that is public. if i can create an account and make changes, will my changes still be there next month when i give my presentation or will the administrator revert to the version prior to my edits/revisions? will someone else come along and make changes before my presentation for their own needs? i don’t mind asking someone else if i can borrow their content for my own wiki, but i probably wouldn’t customize someone else’s wiki for my own needs. and, if i was really preparing for a presentation, i’d probably not want someone messing with my content either. hmmm. i like this model as a way to present and share information, but think i need to see it mature a bit before it becomes a PowerPoint killer . . . thoughts?

Technorati Tags: keynote, PowerPoint, wiki