Server downtown, instability, unpopular policies regarding gambling and adult content, and the general lack of user consultation in new developments and changes of direction has often confused, and even angered the “residents” who call Second Life home, yet something must have been going right, because they kept coming back for more.

Big business and Linden Lab tried a variety of “partnership” relationships, with many international sales companies trying their hands  at marketing and sales inside the virtual world, but due to the relatively small size of the target audience (a company might reach sixty thousand users on SL where a web-based advertising campaign would reach millions), this experiment was soon abandoned. It seemed that even Linden Lab lost confidence in the ability of Second Life to appeal to corporate customers. They began to scale-back and shut down business focused programs such as “SL Enterprise” (Second Life behind the firewall), and a business focused web portal. Eventually dedicated, business-specific personnel were re-assigned.

Educational institutions didn’t fare much better. In late 2010, Linden Lab announced the cancellation of their education discount. This meant that schools and universities wanting to set up virtual campuses inside Second Life would have to pay full price, effectively doubling the cost. Official Second Life mailing lists related to education and healthcare have all but dried up as well, with only a few new messages trickling in every month.

Is this all bad news? Not at all. Here is how we see it.

With the appointment of new CEO Rod Humble (a former vice-president of Electronic Arts) in late 2010, Linden Lab seems to have found its feet again, and Second Life is seeing a renewed push towards extraordinary and cutting edge consumer focused improvements. Our take on all this is that by stripping away all the extra programs and costs that go with them, Linden Lab can and is and will continue to focus on the underlying development and growth of the virtual world platform itself and that’s exactly what they’ve been doing. New tools for content creators such as advanced path finding and the ability to import mesh content is where they should have been focused all along.

Is this bad for business use and development for SL, and for increased development of complex corporate SL strategies, such as training, education, and collaboration?  Not at all.  In this new environment companies such as CNDG can assure their customers that the platform itself is improving every day, and the problems which plagued the early grid development are in the past.

Companies such as ours who work with major corporate and education clients don’t need Linden Lab to establish business program after business program. In fact, it’s better for everyone if they don’t. Trying to facilitate business use of the platform confuses potential corporate customers. Who do they go to for their solutions, for their support and for advice? Who does the building? Who provides daily customer support training? Who do they call when they are having problems?

Now the answer is clearer. They call us, or whoever their solution provider might be, and we deal with Linden Lab. By not muddying the waters, and by attending to the piece that they do best, building and maintaining the complex infrastructure that is Second Life and the Second Life Grid, they allow us all to get on with our job – making using the environment a rich, immersive experience for our clients.

Looking At My Reflection In The Hall Of Mirrors

designing and creating virtual spaces from within virtual spaces

William L. Prensky, CEO – CNDG – Gold Solution Providers in Second Life

Learning and Entertainment Evolution Forum – LEEF (www.goleef.com )

Harrisburg University, Harrisburg, PA and

with concurrent participation from Second Life

Thursday, June 16, 2011 – 1:30 – 3:00pm EDT

As an increasing number of global companies and organizations express interest in using 3D Virtual Reality as an environment in which to host meetings and create collaboration and education spaces, good design considerations for creating effective and usable environments become more crucial.  With 3D spaces still a new and novel environment for most organizations, first impressions and ease of use are crucial to adoption and success.  Designing well for a positive user experience is a key factor in encouraging utilization and ensuring a positive first experience.

Just as there are basic considerations for good design in real spaces and face-to-face events, so, too, virtual space design has its own special considerations.   Designing well for comfort, ease of use, and effective transmission of information remain paramount considerations in both venues.

What are the special requirements of virtual spaces, and how do we focus on the specific good design standards for 3D simulated environments?

Using experience gleaned from creating applied environments on the specific building platform of Second Life, SL Gold Solution Provider William Prensky, CEO of the Chant Newall Development Group, LLC (CNDG), will discuss some of the problems and solutions that govern usable spaces and usable space design in totally immersive 3D.  An exciting component of this presentation will be participation in an actual meeting taking place in merged hybrid reality – participants in this meeting will be joining both live at LEEF and simultaneously in a virtual space in Second Life.

A question and answer period in both Real and Virtual Reality will conclude this presentation.

Each year HU hosts LEEF in June.  LEEF is a two day educational conference attended by members of the education community and the business community interested in Serious Games and Virtual Worlds as elements of both ordinary education and corporate education.  I am a member of the Board of Advisors for LEEF and am working this year to broaden with everyone the scope and content of the conference.

This year I am also have the great pleasure of moderating a panel and will be presenting on Thursday, June 16, in Harrisburg, PA.  I thought it might be interesting to you all to have the information about the program and the panel.  So here it is – all information is on the LEEF website which is here:  – www.goleef.com –

And the panel description is here:

*****************************************************************************************************

Establishing an Intelligent Organizational Avatar Policy – LEEF 2011 – June 16th 2011 3:30 to 4:30pm

Moderator and Presenter – William L. Prensky – CEO – The Chant Newall Development Group, LLC – Second Life Gold Solution Providers and Applications Developers

As company and organizational use of Virtual Reality and Social Media and Online Gaming grows and gains in acceptance, serious attention is being paid to how companies, educational institutions and organizations establish a workable and intelligent policy and best practice for employee/member/student representation through an avatar account.  There are many issues to consider, including the appropriate ways in which to represent oneself and the organization supporting the activity and legal ramifications of providing official access to these environments.  We will look at some of these issues during this workshop and raise questions which are vital to the discussion about establishing an organization-wide policy.

Panelists and Discussion Topics:

1. Best Practices for a Corporate HR Policy on VR participation – Margaret Regan, CEO – The FutureWork Institute, Inc. -  VR and serious gaming are platforms and tools that incoming younger educated workers expect in the corporate environment.  How can an organization initiate a discussion of how best practices in VR will impact employees’ desire to work there, and how will internal representation of the company and external representation of the company be governed?
2. Corporate Legal Exposure in VR Applications – James J. Regan, Partner – Satterlee, Stephens, Burke and Burke, NY – Does VR application and use establish a corporate responsibility for behavior in the Virtual World?  How does an organization manage legal exposure when providing sanctioned access to VR content?
3. Students and Faculty in a VR Learning Environment – Dave Taylor, Program Lead – Virtual Worlds and Medical Media, Imperial College, London – Educational institutions and learning are migrating in increasing numbers daily into the world of VR and serious gaming applications.  How can educational institutions establish a best practice to deal with student and faculty avatar accounts and behavior?
4. Establishing a Policy for Government and Military Presence in VR – Douglas Maxwell – Science and Technology Manager – US Army Simulation and Training Technology Center – One of the largest users of the new VR and serious gaming technology in learning is the US Military.  This use raises the question of how the military can responsibly represent itself and its interests best in the world of VR training and information and establish a policy of fair and effective use in the complex world of modern security.

What we will cover:

1. Logo and organizational representation by avatar accounts – what are the responsibilities of the organization and what are the responsibilities of the employees/members to portray the organization in the appropriate light,
2. Mixed entry – organizational accounts vs. private accounts
3. Corporate image as reflected in employee/member deportment in virtual worlds
4. Contact with inappropriate content – what is the responsibility of the avatar to follow company guidelines?
5. Organizational ambassadors – how to represent your company, institution or organization in a manner in keeping with both best practices and policies
6. Legal issues – what is the actual responsibility and liability of the employer or organization in virtual worlds and social media access.

Educational goals and objectives include:

Gaining a clearer understanding of the legal and ethical obligations in VR and Social Media of both the employee/student/member and the employer/institution/organization

1. Understanding the rights of the host organization to limit access and activity for company avatars and private avatars
2. Raising questions about the emerging nature of VR worlds and their mixed content, and the ability of individuals to choose content they wish to engage,
3. The differences between companies, educational institutions, and organizations in these regards,
4. How to establish a Best Practices Group within your own organization to establish a meaningful, fair and workable policy and practice.******************************************************************************************************

I hope you find these topics interesting.  If you can and want to attend, all enrollment information for LEEF 2011 is on the LEEF website – www.goleef.com

If you can attend please come and say hello.  It would be wonderful to meet you all.

The changes announced and those which are actually taking place, (which is not always the same thing) would not in any way negatively impact corporate and global organizational use of the SL platform for any use-case that we can imagine.  If the goal is to create a public or by invitation only area where any type of always-on or controlled access interactive experience can be visualized, we believe that the new model increases the utility and value of the SL environment.  The changes to the business model are intended primarily to improve the overall customer and user experience of SL and to add to the features available which would help to make any venture more useful and user friendly, as well as to make LL and SL more stable in the long run.

In fact, the only change to the business model which would potentially negatively impact a small number of corporate activities as far as we can see is the suspension of the private SLE server-in-a-box model.  That model would not, however, have been the most useful or appropriate one for most corporate and business groups, and was more focused on “behind the firewall” solutions for highly confidential activities.  All activity on the main grid, however, can be kept totally confidential and private using the existing security and privacy settings currently in place for private regions and estates.

The “new” SL business model focus is designed to do a number of things of great positive importance to almost any proposed business project.

• The new model focuses heavily on creating a more user-friendly interface viewer with a dual-point-of-entry model – “basic” and “advanced”.  All new users are offered the “basic” mode which allows for browsing but limited interactivity and building as a learning tool while the “advanced” setting returns the user to full functionality of all SL tools and navigation.  This new viewer is already the default SL download viewer in the 2.x series.  The new viewer is also based on a more familiar browser interface which makes it much more comfortable for the new user.
• The new model includes a host of new multi-media and interactive content tools, allowing us as builders to include highly sophisticated multimedia objects and events in the SL environment.  These include (but are not limited to)
  • Much more sophisticated multimedia streaming tools, including
    • Synchronous and asynchronous video
    • Proximity based video and slide show presentations
    • Enhanced two way web interactive and internet interactive communication
    • Web dashboards that are fully operational and interactive in SL
    • Two way communication is possible with any internet ready database
    • Customization of simulations and models using running executables on distant websites and servers is a reality
    • Two way data communication allowing SL objects to change distant real life objects and distant RL objects to change SL objects in real time is already in place
    • Viewer – Asset Server communication models which allow for better control of avatar inventory and less lag-time in rendering inventory and environment objects improve overall performance
  • More user controls over viewer communication settings allow more fine-tuning of viewer functions to network speeds and bandwidth and individual client machine capabilities
  • More viewer ability to function with reduced client graphics opens use to more basic corporate individual computers
  • The ongoing mesh project will roll out true Collada digital 3D modeling of objects in SL allowing for much more detailed and realistic building of environments with less polygon load
  • Improved server architecture and infrastructure allow for increases in the number of simultaneous logins on a given simulator with less lag and overhead
  • The open-source viewer project and the increased inter-communicability with Open SIM allows for moving of investments and builds from one platform to another and allows for warehousing of creations on separate asset servers
  • LL’s  dedication to focus on core business to ensure long-term stability of the platform and of LL and SL itself increases the comfort level of making investments in using the platform

Taken all together these changes and dedications to improvement of the user experience have led to an increased user friendliness and functionality of SL without sacrificing any of the complex richness of the environment.  They lead to an increase in the depth of immersion for individual user experience and to increased confidence in the long-term viability of LL and SL.

LL moved to implement their new model in order to focus on user experience rather than multiple siloed solution options, allowing us as applications developers to have a broader and more varied and complex canvas on which to work.  This had led to a real increase in the interests of major organization in the use of the environment, as is evidenced by our own experience with inquiries and ongoing projects as well as the reports of other solution and applications developers working with global Fortune 500 companies.

This is our take on the new approach and model.  We would love to hear your comments.

For more on this subject we have been conversing with our good friend – James Neville – also known as  Sitearm Madonna of SL – who posted a short conversation he and I had about corporate use and interest.  Sitearm’s blog conversation with me is found here:  http://sitearm.wordpress.com/2011/04/02/uptick-in-corporate-interest-in-use-of-second-life/ and is worth a look.

This is an exciting new development.  For a long time, one of the serious impediments to the use of SL by business clients – especially clients at the enterprise level – has been the difficulty of downloading and installing the SL viewer through rigid corporate firewalls and through restrictive security policies.

While this new viewer only offers a very limited set of functions, it will allow users to navigate and interact in a simplified way in the environment with unusually good graphics for a browser plug-in.  Most importantly, it opens the door to customized viewers for business and special application – branded versions, menu-drive tool-set selection, and a host of other possibilities which give the SL platform a new edge and clearly point the way towards the cross-pollination between the world of Second Life and the emergence of a true Web 2.0 world.

We would suggest that everyone interested in serious use of SL try this beta portal.  It is set up for consumer users and especially for those used to gaming environments, it is true.  But as with so many things, this is only the first venture out into this new world of browser plug-ins for SL.  Just as we and others have been doing for years, we will customize and modify to need specific needs.

Let us know what you think.  Your feedback will help to shape the next generation of tools for using SL and VR.

I started thinking about what it is we are trying to do and say to the world at large by working in Second Life and the emerging and expanded universe of Virtual Spaces and Hyper-Grids.  That led me to question something fundamental (for me) – is the Virtual World a tool, as it is often portrayed in business applications, or is it, rather, a place, a new sort of place, in which we find ourselves?  Is it a place which is outside of the ordinary limitations of geography and national boundaries, outside of the ordinary limitations of siloing and isolation of thought?  Is it more than just a communications medium, but rather a universe in which we can live a part of our lives in greater connectedness with the human community around us, and with which we can learn to make a different world, and make a difference in our own?

So many experiments have been done with learning inside of the Virtual Universe, and the data and evidence are quite compelling that we learn better when in the universe of VR than we do in almost any other setting.  Why, I wonder, is that?  Is it because we are so engaged in the process, which requires more of our attention than sitting in a lecture hall or classroom or meeting room or diner or coffee shop?  We can’t just slip into our ordinary day-dreaming, but, rather, need to stay attuned to the needs of the interaction required, which doesn’t come naturally and automatically, but requires the acquisition of skills we don’t have yet, and the use of tools with which we are less familiar, less automatic.

Is it because we are interested in the newness, the innovation of it, the quality of it and us both being beyond our ordinary limitations, witnessing things (flying, teleporting, beautiful structures built beyond the limits of physics, the freedom to explore that which is distant with others who are also exploring) that we don’t expect to see in our neighborhoods and workplaces and schools?

Is it because there is something happening, a melding of our lives and the increased ability to process and acquire information, which is a continuation of an evolutionary trend that has been ongoing for thousands of years?

And are we engaging in a new medium, a new communication style, which we just find enjoyable, or are we change agents bringing about a new approach to collaboration and learning?  Are we about to see a tectonic shift in how we live together, as human persons, and how we solve problems?

I don’t know to what extent any of these thoughts contribute truth to our conversation – but I do know that the conversation about it can only be fascinating and mind-expanding. And so let’s make sure that we have such a conversation – and engage in all those discussions which help to make this VR our new place rather than confining it to being our new tool, and rather than making it a device we use, let’s make it our own, to live and work and learn in.

I invite everyone to join in the discussion.  It should be fascinating.

For those who want to learn more, information about LEEF 2011 is here -  http://www.harrisburgu.edu/news/event-details.php?id=292&cid=5&page=1  and here   http://leefblog.com/ and information about Harrisburg University’s innovative program leading to a masters in education and learning technologies can be found here http://www.harrisburgu.edu/academics/graduate/learning-technologies/

Leave a posting here of your thoughts and experiences – I will pass it along.  Engage in a dialogue with the world through this new space we are all co-creating.  Let’s hear from each other.

http://blogs.secondlife.com/community/features/blog/2010/09/28/welcoming-teen-grid-organizations-to-the-main-grid .

This new policy will allow educators to construct schools and appropriate environments for 13 to 15 year old students and to use SL’s existing mechanisms to restrict these students to the estate on which the school is placed and create school-based accounts for their use.  Restrict to Estate is a well developed tool for providing access restrictions in SL for corporate and organizational accounts, and its expansion to the teen-area of the grid makes perfect sense.  This solution preserves the intention of teen education in SL while eliminating the need for LL to maintain an entirely separate grid and yet continues to allow access to this important community of educators and students.

It means as well that educators can now take advantage of the entire content creation community to build their schools, and that they can freely invite guest speakers and presenters to their sites and conduct their own process of approval for such speakers.  Students from all over the world will be able to share experiences as they do now, on other social media channels, while exploring how their educations are enriched by SL teaching and the 3D VR environment.

Given that the US department of Education has published a meta-analysis of VR education and has come to the conclusion that virtual education settings work and work better than many more conventional settings, this decision by LL is a very important one.  (The US Department of Education study can be found here:

http://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/tech/evidence-based-practices/finalreport.pdf

What do you think?  Let’s talk about how all of us can contribute to the enrichment of the educational experience using SL at its best.

Over the past few years we have seen Second Life, and the worlds of Virtual Reality, grow from small and experimental explorations of new technology into broad arenas of conversation, interaction and social experience.  There are now millions of users in Second Life alone pushing the boundaries of business collaboration, educational media and instruction platforms, and social networking and interaction every day, from every part of the world.

So common are the modalities of virtual worlds becoming that we have to ask ourselves, “what would stop anyone from exploring them?”  Over the next few years we can expect SL and VR to become as common as the telephone, the texting device, the cell phone, the television and email.  Why is there still such resistance to its use and expansion?

We have to be reminded of the internet – and the growth of the world wide web in the early 1980′s.  As more and more people from all fields, walks of life, age groups and backgrounds began to embrace email and web-based technology, companies which had resisted the changes to communication as faddish and transient were brought into the new world because their own employees and decision makers were starting to use it, and it was a case of grow with the times, or fall behind.

Second Life is pushing the envelope in just that way.  The world of Immersive Virtual Realities is here and upon us, and we all need to grow with it, or to fall behind.  And why shouldn’t we?   It is, after all, in the end, another way to talk together, share experience and work together towards common goals.  It is the next step in the communications revolution that has been going on for hundreds of years, as information moves quickly and distance between us shrinks.

I am posting a small video here of a presentation I delivered at the Second Life Community Convention (SLCC)  in Boston in August 2010.  The link to watching it is here: http://education.cndg.info/ .  It is my hope that this video will stimulate a conversation in which we can all participate  – how we will include the emerging “fourth dimension of VR” into what we do every day, to help create more intense, immediate and effective information sharing.  Isn’t that, after all, what the Global Village is all about?  Let’s hear what you think.

I won’t say that my worst fears and trepidations were realized - that wouldn’t in any way be fair.  I will say that the biases of the producers were evident, and that there was some misdirection of attention that seemed inappropriate, along with a considerable amount of food for thought.

That said it is almost impossible to summarize the one and a half hour discussion.  It ought to be watched, but with a weather eye and open mind.  Most encouraging, however, was how well Second Life itself was portrayed, and the positive light in which a long segment with Philip Rosedale explained his vision for Second Life and its eventual impact on communications.

There was considerable conversation about whether or not multi-tasking actually reduces the ability to focus, and more than likely it does, as the needed adaptations to multi-tasking are not a part of our environment yet, either internal or external.  But for me the implications on the positive side were clear – schools whose attendance, performance and quality of instruction improved because of the introduction of web technology, the ability to regain a sense of “small community intimacy” because of online communities, the very thing that the same voices have been lamenting the loss of since the industrial revolution and urbanization of our society.

My reservations about the bias, and my take on the show, can be best expressed by my reaction to the opening sequence.  One of the producers describes her family – husband, school aged son, sitting at the dining room table waiting for dinner, the husband working on his laptop, the son “doing homework” on his, two pre-school youngsters together – together – playing a game on an iPhone.  In my opinion – a major point was lost in this presentation of “how did this happen to us”? as was expressed in the film.

How did what happen?  That the entire family was around the table together, each doing something but still together?  That no member of the family was “siloed” in his or her own space, isolated and resisting interacting socially?  That the son was doing homework – not watching cartoons or playing a game?  That the husband was doing work and reading on the internet rather than by printing with toxic ink on environmentally unsound reams of paper?

What was wrong with that picture was that, in fact, there was everything right about that picture.  A point lost, I am afraid, in the rush to lament the “way in which this all happened without our realizing it.”

Philip Rosedale, founder and creator of Second Life, summed it up well in his segment.  It is the new communication, intimate, sound, environmentally friendly.  In each other’s virtual presences conversations take place, friendships are formed, and work teams, social groups, intimacies appear.  I thought we all wanted that.

“Digital Nation, Life on the Virtual Frontier” – A Documentary

PBS has announced it will air, on Tuesday, February 2, 2010, an hour and a half documentary on Frontline, at 9pm, on living with the new digital technology, and the good, bad, questionable, and indifferent aspects of the effect on our lives of this new technology of engagement, learning, communication, and, of course, disengagement.

The show hasn’t aired yet, so it is rather unfair of me to write about it now, and what I say will by its nature be incomplete.  But I have decided to do so, and then to watch it, and compare what I write after to what I write before.

So here are my thoughts drawn from my understanding of what the show will discuss, and some insights given by articles in advance about how these things will be presented.  These thoughts are mine and come from my own experiences of this new world of living, and not really dependent upon the content of the Frontline show.

All new technologies can cause and have caused disengagement from the expected and ordinary then-accepted norms of social intercourse.  Books did, when they became the common property of literate people.  The images of a Victorian maiden, demurely reading while others spoke, reading at the table, children sitting in window boxes or under trees reading rather than running together, could raise questions about whether or not books destroy our social structure.  But those children are also not painting graffiti on buildings, and they are learning an essential skill and discipline for future educational endeavors, and are charming, to say the least.

Immersion in virtual realities may make people less likely to seek out others in their communities, but it may also make it possible for those already living siloed lives to emerge into social commerce, either as a modeling or where other communication is barred to them.  People disabled, discriminated against, or isolated may find not only solace, but life-giving balm in such intercourse.

Soldiers fighting digital wars may be more removed from the horrors of what they are doing, but they may also not return from life and community saving missions with post-traumatic stress syndrome that destroys their own lives and that of their families.  They may, in fact, return from war when they may not have done so before, and so do not die while defending what they have sworn to defend.  For those of us whom they may be defending, and for their own families, this might be seen as a good use of this new digital technology.

No matter how hard to we look to find the ways in which the new technology of living digitally can cause a disconnect, and no matter how many of these disconnects from what we expect from others we may find, each of these disconnects is paired with a reconnect, a new-connect, a fresh-connect that is enlivening, life saving, rewarding, empowering.

Everything new, from the Mobile Society of cars and rapid transit, to television which now provides globe-changing news on a virtually instant basis, to Social Networking which gave the first news from Haiti recently, to the immersion in Second Life which has enabled so many to find the meaning they want in their lives when around them it was denied them, all of these new technologies change the old expectations and bring us new ones.  The old, the traditional, are not valuable in themselves, just because they are old.  They have value if they make us more human, and enable us to live in more of ourselves, in a loving way.

Remember, please, that I haven’t seen the documentary yet.  It airs tomorrow.  But I don’t want to look at it with an empty mind, nor an unbiased one.  No, I am biased.  I am biased in favor of finding the positive in the new, even if it means looking at what will change, and accepting what will be lost.  I refuse to look at that as sad, but rather I insist on seeing such new adventures as something we are creating that is young, immature, and which needs to develop into a new adventure that leads us to ourselves and each other.

As I approach tomorrow’s “revelations” on PBS, I remind myself, strenuously, that no matter how unbiased the journalist tries to be, there is bias in every story.  We have a tendency to accept authority, and we fall often into the trap of “If it is on TV, it must be true”.  But then, TV was once a new technology destroying the fabric of families, society, and social structure.

I try to remember, that no matter how many points are made, there are other points not made, due to limitations of time, bias, and vision.  What we are presented may be important, detailed, and well thought out, but is it “true”?  Is there a Truth to be had here, or only an evolution that is yet to be seen, from which we will create a new “good”, a new world?  That search for the “true” also needs to be questioned, and questioned even on PBS.

To read what I read that got me started on this theme, see the article here:

http://msn-cnet.com.com/8301-19518_3-10444847-238.html?part=msn-cnet&subj=ns&tag=feed

There are a number of reasons why this is such a hot area for research and development within the immersive environment of SL.  To start off the discussion, let’s list a few.

1. Second Life is a “hot medium” – it includes engagement of the three principal sensory modalities used to create a compelling interaction – it is
   1. Visual,
   2. Auditory and
   3. Tactile. Most people probably don’t realize, until they are fully engaged in the experience of living in SL, that the tactile sensation is so real and complete.  In typing, moving the mouse, navigating the avatar all of the body’s motor skills are engaged, and when that navigation is coupled with real-time engagement with other persons, complex emotional and intellectual interactions, and the sights and sounds of the environment, it becomes an extraordinary experience.
   4. Second Life is online and provides global access to learners 24/7/365.  Learners and educators can enter the environment at anytime from anywhere to engage the content, practice, socialize with other learners and educators from around the world, and explore other aspects of the Metaverse, including social activities as well as intellectual pursuits such as museums, theatrical performances, and sightseeing.
   5. Second Life provides a completely flexible mix of facilitated and self-directed instruction.  With new features being added to the SL viewer all the time, more and more web-based content can be viewed from within the SL viewer itself, letting the student and educator explore adding content, doing research, and talking with others all without having to open other windows, navigate back and forth, and create confusion.
   6. SL Voice adds a very meaningful dimension to the learning process, allowing all participants to engage in real-time online conversation in-place, further deepening the learning experience.  Combined with the availability of both written and multi-media materials which can be viewed and shared from within the SL Viewer, these communication tools allow a compelling and realistic environment to be created and experienced.
   7. SL environments are easy to change.  Redesigning a classroom in real life, or building a new building, is a daunting task.  Doing this in SL is a matter of weeks and little investment in capital.  The same holds true for learning projects, in which students and instructors can collaborate to build a structure, engineer an item, or explore a change to a design on a repeated basis without difficulty.

For all these reasons, educational use of Second Life is one of the fastest growing areas for development of the Metaverse.  For all levels of education and all subjects, SL offers a unique opportunity to model and engage subjects and for students and educators from around the world to collaborate.  We would welcome any comments you might have about your own experiences in education in SL, and thoughts you might have about how this exciting new world can be more widely and effectively explored in the future.

I am Chant Newall, William Prensky in Real Life, CEO of CNDG, exploring and helping co-create a world of interactivity in Second Life.

We at CNDG would like to welcome you all to our ongoing discussion about working in the Virtual World, and the business case for Second Life as a platform and venue for training, education and business information sharing and collaboration in the 21^st century.

We have all experienced an explosive growth in communications and the globalization of information sharing over the past 4 decades.  From fax machines and the earliest email systems, to the modern world of instant information sharing in Twitter and Texting, our virtual webs of connectivity have grown and continue to grow.

Second Life, and the Metaverse, represent the most advanced 360 degree virtual involvement for collaboration and training yet seen, and in these pages we will share a conversation about how this new medium of communication can affect all of us, and effect a change in how we impact the environment, how we reach out to one another, and how we learn.

Second Life represents the leading edge of the trend towards “Web 2.0” development.  The early part of this century has witnessed the transition of websites from isolated information silos to sources of content and functionality that interact with the viewer and engage more of the viewer’s attention and senses.  This, in turn, has led to a social phenomenon which embraces an approach to generating and distributing Web content itself.

The new internet builds applications and solutions for business and individuals which involve the user in dramatically new ways, and which are open-ended – mimicking more and more the realities of real-time communication but with all the advantages of a 24/7 access for users around the world.

This new approach is characterized by:

• Open communication between people distributed around the world, in widely separated communities, as well as “just around the corner”,
• Decentralization of authority and the ability to redistribute information and add to it quickly and efficiently, and
• Freedom to share and re-use information to inform and educate.

CNDG is a Gold Solution Provider to Linden Lab, developer and owner of the Second Life Platform which has over 15 million users world-wide.  In a collaborative partnership with Linden Lab, CNDG works with clients to develop the phenomenon that the Conference Board has described as:

• 3D
• Internet –based
• Simulated
• Including social networking communities
• Where interaction takes place in real time
• Which are immersive environments in which we can re-construct a virtual version of reality
• Where options are limited only by constantly developing new and immersive software programs
• And which can be based on real-life communities, absolute renderings of real-world environments or worlds which can be built “beyond the limits of time and space”

We invite you to share with us your own thoughts, experiences and comments about the Virtual World, and explore with us the expanding limits of the “possible”.  Please feel free to post comments, ask questions, and to express your thoughts here.  On a regular basis our team of designers, builders, project managers and educators will post their own thoughts about what they are doing, how they are experiencing, and the future they see for the Metaverse.  We invite you to do the same.

Welcome to CNDG’s Second Life – Welcome to a new world of communication, collaboration, and change.