“Knowledge management is an oxymoron”

Yesterday at the Federal Consortium for Virtual Worlds conference Tony O’Driscoll (SL – Wada Tripp) stated that “Knowledge management is an oxymoron, knowledge cannot be “managed”, it can only be enabled. Learning and education is about optimizing our networks, it’s not about pouring information into people’s heads”. Also mentioned was “the “Immerent” which i the immersive Internet that will redefine learning and collaboration. 2D synchronous learning, knowledge sharing spaces, web 2.0 tools and virtual worlds are on a convergence trajectory towards an immersive web future that will redefine how we work, learn and play.”

If you have not read the book “Learning in 3D” by Karl Kappa and Tony O’Driscoll I highly recommend it. They talk about how “3D can enhance knowledge sharing and social networks.” Slides can be seen here.

Today I got a twitter from Tony that states “72 Hour “Moon Shot like Challenge” to Stop the Spill. Please read and if you like, pass along http://bit.ly/aNKT5h This was mentioned yesterday also, let “us” solve this oil spill crises.

from Roland Legrand

Collaborating, learning and communicating in Second Life – building communities

It has been a big month for me in Second Life this past month. I have gone to 4 conferences, meet all kinds of people and learned so much. So, if you think virtual worlds are dying — then I would like to offer that you spend some time with me in Second LIfe.

Yes, many college campus are empty, but that could be for many other reasons. For example, it is hard to get around because they tried to replicate their campus in Second Life. They are not encouraging professors to learn how to teach in Second Life, and they do not have good introduction to their students about how to use tools in Second Life. They do not have any social places for their students to meet at…. and the list goes on. It takes time, patience and commitment, but when you really start feeling comfortable in Second Life, a whole new world opens up. They are still using the traditional model of “sage on a stage” with the professor lecturing with powerpoints, instead of making learning engaging.

The last couple of weeks, I have attended SLPro, The Future is Now:  Libraries and Museums in Virtual Worlds, NCTIES 2010, and this week VWBPE 2010 in Second Life. All of these are conferences are full of educators, businesses, and the top people who are using Second LIfe to teach, collaborate and create communities. VWBPE (Virtual Worlds Best Practices Education Conference) had over 5,000 attendees from all over the world.

Karl Kapp in his blog, has written an article “I Have Seen the Future of Conferences….and it is 3D! about the VWBPE conference. The slides of his and Tony O’Driscoll’s talk on their new book “Learning in 3D” can be found at slideshare.

The next generations will not know anything besides the web. Kids are now in virtual worlds.

http://www.kzero.co.uk/blog/

Second Life Viewer 2 – 1 day later

Yesterday at the SLPro conference Linden Labs announced the “beta” version of their new viewers. Suddenly everyone at the conference was emailing and twittering others to download and test this new “game changing” viewer out. Please note: THIS IS BETA — if you do not like to deal with problems, do not download it. I crashed twice just trying to upload a texture.

So today, I want to summarize some of the comments by others. Most of these comments are from people who have been in Second Life for some time. And this is where we are going to have to relearn something. This will be easy for “newbie”, but old timers are getting frustrated.

Invisible prims are not needed, there is a new tattoo and alpha layer. Invisible prims, hid part of a mesh in an that you could not get rid of. This way you can create other than human like avatars. The new alpha layer is “mostly for the ability to mix’n’match skins, tattoos, and makeup”

One of the biggest changes is “html on a prim” or Media On A Prim (MOAP). Any media with an URL can be put on a prim face. Or multiple prim faces. You can put two or more prims next to each other and play a game online or collaborate on Google Docs in real time. It also works with Flash, javascript and embeded videos! The viewer is open source so it is easily scriptable. Educators should love this.

More on MOAP at Youtube. A very interesting mashup can be viewed at the blog “Life at the Feeding Edge”

Snowglobe 2 is a open source version of this viewer. By the way, Linden Labs now will is going to control viewers and what they can do. Linden Lab told us at the conference, who are mostly content creators, that they are going to take copyright violations seriously.

Second Life has also changed the search options making it easier to find places, people and things.

Second Life viewer forum is a great place to make comments and look for help in resolving issues.

Pictures of interface:. Help can be found at the Quick Start Guide and video tutorials.

Download the new Viewer 2 (Beta).

Good luck, and be calm….breath!

James Paul Gee on Global Kids Island.

This was created in 2007, but I just found it. Global Kids is on Teen Island. There are fifteen Youtube videos. I am only posting one.

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Second Life Learning Curve

All of us in Second Life were “newbies” at one time. Second Life is full of people who will help “newbies”. If you are a company or university who wants to start using Second Life it is very important to make it “comfortable” for newbies.

Joe Sanchez in his blog The Educators Coop” discusses his and his students adventure into Second Life.

Learning in 3D – talk at Metanomics

The video is up at the Metanomics site. If you were unable to be in Second Life, this is worth while seeing. Tony O’Driscoll and Karl Kapp’s new book is a necessary reading if you are at all interested in virtual worlds for learning and teaching.

As Roland Legrand says in his blog:
“In my experience many young people do use social networks such as Facebook, but they don’t blog, don’t know what a wiki is, don’t use RSS-feeds and are bewildered by Twitter, let alone that they have the faintest idea of how to use a virtual environment for learning….That does not mean we should not use social media tools to facilitate learning, and immersive environments are such a tool.”

According to the Information Solutions Group (ISG)

More females play social games (55% vs. 45%).
– In the UK, the percentage of female social game players is slightly higher at 58%.

Social game players average 43 years in age. 20% are less than 30 years old, 21% are 30 – 39 years old, 20% are 40 – 49 years old, while a total of 38% are at least 50 years old.
– Social game players in the US tend to be older than those in the UK with 46% at least 50 years old, compared to only 23% in the UK. The average age of US social gamers is 48, while UK social gamers average only 38 years old.

Less than half (43%) of those in the US who play social games are college graduates with 28% receiving a 4-year degree.
36% have completed some college or trade school.

Learning in 3D

This week at Metanomics in Second Life (video is not up yet, but should be soon), Robert Bloomfield interviewed Karl Kapp and Tony Driscoll and we got to listen to them talk about their new book “Learning in 3D“. This was an audience that truly understands learning in Second Life.

As Zaid Ali Alsagoff stated in his blog this week there are still limitations to computers, graphic cards and network connections when attempting to use virtual worlds. But there was a whole group of people at this talk that are doing this successfully — teaching in Second Life.

Connie Malamed in her blog wrote “Your Brain On 3D Learning” how this book “rewired her brain”. She talks about the cognitive advantages of learning in 3D — Generative Learning, the Power of Being There, Promotes Informal Learning and Individualized Guidance. We all need to open up our minds and understand that this is the future of leaning. Sure it will be blended with other traditional forms of learning as Tony and Karl talked about, but it is effective learning.

Full Youtube video of Enterprise Applications of Second Life.

Will Apple open a store in Second Life

Apple was just granted a paten for “Enhancing Online Shopping Atmosphere”
Another article “Apple Granted a Huge Patent Win for 3D Virtual Apple Store” talks about other new patents that Apple was just granted.

It is certainly getting interesting — Apple in 3D and Google to build an ultra-fast broadband network.

Presentation: Learning in 3D

Bah Learning In 3 D

View more presentations from kkapp.

Learning in 3D

Great book!! “Learning in 3D: Adding a New Dimension to Enterprise Learning and Collaboration“. by Karl Kapp and Tony O’Driscoll

As I started to read this book, I started thinking how much am I willing to compromise by ideas and thoughts about learning in virtual worlds such as Second Life for a job. I have been looking for a new position as an Instructional Designer. I have had 3 interviews but none of these companies which are involved in everything from military training to higher education have any interest in learning anything about Second Life. One — a university that does have a presence in Second Life, said that “that was a different department”. But the position was as an Instructional Designer. Shouldn’t the whole school be involved?

My last position as a Course Director teaching web 2.0, communities of practice, and introducing students to Second Life, was trying to recreate its campus. For us online courses, they created a classroom that looked like one of the trailer classrooms you seen on grade school campuses. I am sure any teacher you asked would prefer not to teach in one of these bland classrooms. They did teach how to create a powerpoint and a machinama, but like most schools, they were using traditional learning for online classes. Wimba, was the tool choice. An LMS was where content was stored.

Much like what is written in this book — schools no matter how much they say they are advanced and technology orientated still have far to go. My past school never listened to the course directors — the true experts in their field. This is typical of education.

Will it ever change? Can I be happy in a job I know that can be much better, but I have to stay within the constraints of administration? Or do I find a different kind of job and stay away from education? This is not to say I will stay away from Second Life. I belong to a learning community, go to concerts by some of my favorite musicians, art shows, and many other events. I still have my friends in Second Life.

Wada, I am moving to your area in April? Need help?