During my evening constitutional, an idea came to me. It may be a solution to a design problem.

The design is a themed camp to be installed at the Burning Life event in Second Life®, and may introduce a curious aspect of the American Dream: the Stealth Tower. For one element in this collaborative project, I will be adapting my SLickPix panel to serve as an interactive picture postcard. Conceivably, visitors to the camp will see images of other Burning Life camps and installations.

The problem is this: how can the image-sharing panel be modified to engage passerby? The hope is that—by enticing rezidents to participate by submitting images (generating content)—an image set will emerge that represents our collective memories.

If that sounds splendid to you, too, a tip of the hat goes to Sachie (whose notions tend to the elegant, I find).

So, I am walking along thinking about

1. how I have not worked on SLickPix in days
2. how a self-serve instructional kiosk might work
3. how to improve the Parcel Media Link Prim Generator (could start with that name)
4. how to proceed on the Virtual Ability proposal
5. how to reconcile the existence of two identities (alts)

…and it comes to me: Polaroids.

If the image panel were married to a blank, white, rectangular prim, it could be made to appear like a Polaroid snapshot. Can a two prim object be made to auto-scale one dimension, given a change in another? But still, that alone does not bring me (the user) to the tipping point; I need something else. I want ownership in this project you are asking me to invest in…I want my own Polaroid!

Alright, what if you had a chance to take a piece of our little camp with you? Not only will we show you your own memories yet to come, but we’ll make them interactive and persistent, too. (After the Burn, when the embers have lost their glow, you can still share the collective memory of the event.) You just need to…

Take a copy.

I swam competitively for many years, and usually had little regard for synchronized swimming. With all of the other sports and entertainment around me, I just wondered what’s the big deal in all of that frilly water dancing?

Well, last week, as I watched the Olympic team synchronized swimming competition it occurred to me that I had not really watched synchro for a long, long time. The duration of the event, the often-impeccable display of synchrony in movement, the creativity in the performances, all amounted to amazement.

Synchro swimmers have certainly been just as artistic and athletic during all of those previous years; so, why is it that synchro just never did it for me before. What kept me from seeing the artistry and athleticism?I have a hunch…

That was then, this is now.

In a comment posted to a group discussion about collaboration in education, Birdie Newcomb (SL) wrote

“…almost every day, I’m learning…how to find out what I need to know, how to work with people, find out their stories, marvel at ingenuity or originality. It refreshes me. Why doesn’t it refresh students the same way?”

I have a hunch about this, too; but, will take a long way ’round…

In a recent post, Hamlet reveals an overall shrinking in the proportion of echo boomers in Second Life®. He goes on to present Feldspar Epstein’s notion that

Generation X’ers know how to play in the freeform manner that Second Life requires, whereas Millennials typically do not display that skill

My emphasis is on the word “display” here, because I have no doubt that the Gen-Y users of SL will show us all a thing or two about using this new technology.  These are smart kids.  But, with all of the technology and virtual world games around, maybe they look at the state of the technology and think “what’s the big deal?”

The advent of the World Wide Web also found many people wondering what is the big deal?, especially amongst the oldest of us. That was then. Now, it is a rare thing for me to meet someone who does not regularly use the Internet for something (and I spend most of my time in a retirement community).

Perhaps, in the same way that it took a long time for me to appreciate synchronized swimming—by seeing how far the sport has come— the echo boomers will only begin to invest themselves in virtual world building after the technology ripens a bit.

Thanks to New World Notes, where I learned of the first crossing of avatars from SL into another grid.

At about 11:00 AM, Linden, Ruth arrived on an OpenSim server
- Zha Ewry

This seems significant.

What it could mean: Soon, parents and school administrators down the street will not have to worry about Mature Content, because they can run their own grid and minors can TP in from the Teen Grid for lessons…

The Jianghu Tea House

Of the educational builds in Second Life that I have seen, one that is sure to keep me coming back is The Jianghu Tea House, Monash University’s new lesson in instructional design.

Like Jianghu - an alternate universe described in the Wulin tradition as coexisting with this one - the tea house exists to complement foreign language instruction given to real world students of Mandarin Chinese. The space is ornate (built by FlyingKnifeModels Oh, a First Life artist) and makes good use of the interactive technology of Second Life.

Students see Mandarin text paired with English phonetic spellings, then listen to pronunciations (via embedded sound files that play when the student interacts with the space). Moving further into the experience, learners are again prompted to interpret text or recognize sounds, reinforcing the association of a written word with its sound (and vice versa).

On first visit, this tea house may appear to be a bit over-the-top. All this for one lesson? However, considering that the space supports a number of different lesson formats (both synchronous and asynchronous content) and can entertain any number of learners over time, the potential for a return on investment becomes more evident.

Open access to the sim may be six months away; however, Xilin Yifu would be happy to give guided tours to visitors from the SLeducation community.

“Every now and again Wulin needs to have a champion, a general or a commander to lead the collective resources of wulin participants for China.”
Wikipedia

There are plenty of educators surfing the grid, looking for the best uses of this new technology. By all accounts, Xilin may be one of the heroes showing us the way.

To this Second Life resident, virtual reality represents an exciting opportunity to develop rich, engaging instructional content. Many educators seem to agree and there are plenty of educational sites to explore. Still, it is difficult to predict what will be effective, which design elements are essential. It is likely that we are far from seeing any standards emerge for instructional design.

“The Source is Within” - a SL art installation

There is, however, something to be learned about engaging a Second Life user. Rezzable’s community of artists, designers and developers seem to consistently deliver an experience. Have you visited “The Source is Within” (SLURL), their recent installation showcasing the SL imagery of Melodious Source? This is a must-see build, in my notecard.

As evidence of their ability to capture attention, have a look at this video. The interactive object seen in that video was developed simply to promote a current event in the grid (titled “Garden of NPIRL Delights“; loosely, a festival of building in SL). If you happen to have a parcel—and room for 24 prims—a description of the interactive invitation can be seen here, they are distributing the object freely.

And finally…thank you, Bettina Tizzy, for the information shared at Not Possible IRL. The care you take in writing every post is apparent to this reader.

Flabbergasted and puzzled.

I certainly botched the freebie vendor for Pollster. For nearly a year, visitors who clicked on the vendor at the ICT Library (SLURL) received the display version of the tool (not a working model).

I thought Pollster had real potential as a tool for teachers and presenters in SL, yet I never heard a word from folks who had received the object. Recently, I returned to SL after a six month hiatus and learned about my error. The message read:

The version of your Pollster in the ICT library is only the demo. Can I get the full CC licensed version anywhere please?

/me whacks self on forehead.

I remember the night well…scrambling to prepare my first SL presentation, editing images for the slideshow…popping into the grid for yet another snapshot, and another…scripting and testing the Pollster Presentation version (yet a third variation of the tool I was juggling that night). I had scripted a freebie vendor a week earlier, planning for the tool’s release to occur on the day of the presentation. It was in this last-minute rush that I (apparently) loaded the vendor with the Demo version.

I was dumbstruck on receiving that message. Hundreds of people had received the wrong version (distribution data is tracked); and nobody said a thing!

That is, until one user had enough interest to inquire about a week or two ago…(Thank you, Simon)

There are at least two possible explanations for the lack of feedback from Pollster recipients:

1. Folks just do not expect much from SL, yet (and so, are not surprised when they obtain tools or objects that do not work) or…
2. Folks just opened their Pollster Set folder, rezzed the tool for a look, and never actually tried to use it.

Likely a combination of both.

The situation has been corrected. The working version is now being distributed. Thank you, Milosun. (And yes, this too shall pass.) Might even get to see it in action one day.