The One-Look Virus and Immersive Environments for Teaching and Learning

danah boyd has a post called "On Being Virtual" (be sure to read the comments)   As Kevin Gamble on the SLED list notes, what she seems to be saying is that if you look at the rise of social tech amongst young people, it's not about divorcing the physical social structures to live virtually.   She is also saying that virtual worlds are not for everyone which is definitely true. 

I don't think she is saying SL is a fad that will go away as other people without her depth of knowledge have articulated.  She says as much in the comments of her post in response to commentors.  Her post places an emphasis in looking at SL as simply virtuality (read this too) not social networking - as did Clay Shirky.

These posts have sparked some thoughtful reflections, from a folks on the Second Life Educator's List and I'm going to quote and summarize a few: 

The Second Life Doubter's Club

Here's the response to the Shirky numbers argument:

I think that Clay Shirky is looking at SL through the eyes of a mass market MMO like WOW. Right now anything that does not have more than a million users is considered a flop.  I really don’t think at this time that SL wants to be a WOW.  The difference between the two are about as stark as between Night  Elves and Taurens (a little WOW humor).  SL will take longer to gel into a cohesive environment that has a purpose and a following than the explosive growth experienced by WOW.

The response to Boyd's "On Being Virtual":

Again, we have someone who has either not spent time in SL, or has had a bad experience and now wants to convince the world that SL has no value and no future.  If Danah is so deeply rooted in social spaces, like MySpace and others, it’s no wonder she does not see SL as a next step.  To me, SL has the potential to replace all of those social networks with personal 3D spaces, all linked via a pseudo-metaverse.  Maybe Danah has been reading too many Stephenson and Gibson novels of late, because I don’t think I’ve ever read a post, blog entry or article in a major publication that suggested we were pushing towards divorcing ourselves from reality and physicality, and moving entirely into these immersive virtual spaces.  Come on, get real already<bwg>.

SL has the potential to add a new level to the existing web technologies.  Being another layer over existing technologies, those who are comfortable with the current models can stay behind while the rest of us move up to the next level.  As always happens, these slow adopters will eventually be dragged kicking and screaming along when they find nobody occupying the space they stayed behind to protect.  I have a large collection of buttons that I’ve gathered at various computer conventions over the past 25 years.  One of my favorites that I display on my office wall is from Word Perfect Corp. It simply states “I’m sticking with DOS”.  Back when World Perfect was making the move to the new GUI of Windows, a very large number of their longtime users stayed with DOS (actually, the majority of their market share stayed with DOS).  I think you would be very hard pressed today to find anyone still using a DOS version of Word Perfect.  How could serious work ever be done by trading in embedded codes for pull down menus?

This argument repeats itself over and over throughout time as each new technology emerges that has the potential to replace or improve upon an existing technology.  SL is not some new revolutionary model that has never been seen before.  It is a social space, a virtual space that can be used to model things not easily modeled in reality, and it’s a graphical layer that has the potential to link together many of the 2D media that we currently access via the Internet.  It is VERY well suited for connecting people from physically distant spaces for shared learning, communication and group participation.  This is why there is a current increase in educators coming to SL.

Now that Clay’s article has been linked to from all over the web, expect more of these me-too’s to jump in to add their words of criticism to the void.  Don’t worry, they will eventually get it. We’ll see them again when “the next big thing” comes along that needs someone to take the negative position.

Gary Hayes points to one of his older posts about this issue with a visual.  He also remarks:

This area of future gazing really polarizes people, especially those who have been through the cycle a few times, hype and burn. I also have been around this a couple of times and yet fall into the web 3.0, immersive social space camp as likely to grow and grow (even if it does crash and burn again do we really think in 20 years time Danah that we will still ONLY be browsing endless pages of flat text, graphics and video? I think to say that things will stay this way is far more preposterous than proposing an immersive MUVE communications revolution). I was a BBC new media producer from 95-04 and was part of one of the first broadcaster VRML world projects in 96 called the Mirror (BT, BBC and others). Six worlds, avatars, lots of chat and even then screens receiving video for 'avies' to stand around and chat. It sucked. Hardly anyone there, mostly early web geeks and cardboard cutout avatars. But more than this superficiality...

Why did these and others fail and why is Second Life really pointing the way to the future? To me the big difference lies in the integration of social web 2.0 principles that has turned the web from pushed to participatory. SL and its successors will have integrated personalization, networking toolsets, self publishing, it affords deep self expression, just above a visual quality threshold that makes suspension of disbelief far easier AND you create your own rules. So this goes way beyond just web pages and pictures, the identity statement you can make in SL and beyond is far less abstracted than it is in flat 2D web (and the area I think that most polarizes is 2D or 3D - as a technical step) - for those that don't get immersive spaces for social networking one has to use real world, simplistic socio-comm metaphors - web 2.0(D) is to sending a letter with your picture in it as web 3.0(D) is to going there and having a cup of tea with them.

Charlie Nesson, Founder Berkman Center at Harvard Law School, also reflects on the Clay Shirkey post and the description of the "one time look virus."  Nesson writes:

my first visit to second life would have been one time, if that,without my daughter to lead me and hold me in. whenever i’ve left berkman island to go forth and look around i’ve found the environment elaborately constructed but humanly forbidding. yet i am excited at the prospect of holding court in this virtual immersive domain. second life is a crappy way to do some things, maybe a fine way to do others.

If I didn't have a guided experience on information island and the benefit of conversations with so many educators engaged in exploring it for learning, I might be blogging naive remarks like this too.  That's part of the problem - it is still a fairly steep learning curve to master SL and to really understand the potential you have to experience it.   How can you write an informed critique by just reading other people's critiques? 

In reading Nesson's post, I was fascinated with the description of Harvard Law School's virtual court project:

my sense is that second life is an ideal environment for mock trials. compared to live mock trials which tend to be a rush of words in which evidentiary objections are difficult to focus, the pace of exchange in the text environment of second life is slower and more deliberate; a record is naturally generated; evidentiary objects are
easily represented.

we’ve built a courtroom on berkman island that gives an immersive sense of a legal dispute-resolving environment. we will select a jury from those in second life who would like to participate as citizens of the space in which they live. we will have witnesses and student-lawyers speak in text under disciplines of civility and rules of evidence, subject to objection by opponents and ruling by the judge, who will be me.

i expect the experience of the mock trial in second life to be better in many ways than cognate live face-to-face events. i am going to see, and to see if the experience can scale. i’m looking forward to teaching students who are able to gather and practice in a virtual environment which immerses them in the reality of the questions of liberty, identity and governance presented by our investment of energy and assets in a virtual world owned by a for-profit corporation.

It seems like one key strength Second Life offers for educators is simulations and other learning.  Sigh. This is most likely so far from the everyday training and professional development needs of most nonprofits.  Where, if it all, might immersive environments be of value?  Maybe for nonprofits, it is in the marketing area, where taking people into your world makes sense or for museums.

It makes me again reflect on the fact that using Second Life as an interface where groups are working together to get things done versus learning is not the best use.   If you are running meetings to plan events or do projects - Meyer's Briggs J tasks - Second Life sucks.  There are better and more efficient channels for collaboration, conference calls for one.  It works okay for getting things done if you use it as a back channel to say a conference call or a real life event.  That enriches the experience. 

For example, I get more out of remote attendance in Second Life that via an IRC chat line.  That also gets to learning styles too .. I'm a visual learner and text interfaces simply don't do it for me.  People who are not visual learners may have the opposite experience. 

I move from Nesson's Second Life reflections those of Gene Koo, a Berkman Fellow and also involved with legal education training initiative in Second Life. I've actually bumped into him in Second Life and chatted with him and not otherwise had that opportunity.   His reflection "When do online/computer simulations add the most value?"  The answers:

1. The subject is best learned through role-playing
2. The subject must be modeled using complex data and formulae
3. The subject is amenable to learning through exploration

Last week, I attended via Second Life, a discussion panel at Berkman on the use of technology in legal education.  My notes are here.  While poking around Koo's blog, I found the transcript and audio for the session, along with screen capture of what Second Life participants looked like from the view of those sitting in the room at Harvard Law School.

I am reminded of the rich experiences I've had in Second Life where there were simultaneous events taking place in "real life" and in "virtual world."   The MacArthur press conference, for example, and other classes or forums.    And, I am also reminded of the learning that happens by creating and building together in Second Life - the virtual morocoo project for example.

There was an article on ZDNet by Dana Garber on Second Life.

It took about an hour before I finally switched from thinking that my initial experiences with Second Life were a waste of time — to actually finding them being productive in new ways.

He goes on to talk about the other quality of Second Life that I found compelling:

What was different is that I was a virtual arm's length from some heavy-hitting IBM talent and leadership, and I was able to communicate with them, and learn from them quite well. That is not always the case in the real world, where crowds, noise, location, and the competition can get in the way.

There is an egalitarian equalizing effect when your avatar IMs with another … even if you know who they are. There's a comfort level with being virtual, and the IBMers seemed eager to chat with lots of folks. I can see getting better access to executives and the creative minds at IBM in Second Life than I do in real life, and that's a good thing.

I experienced this last night at the Creative Commons party being able to IM with Jimmy Wales. Probably something that would never happen in Real Life.

He goes on to describe the value of SL from business perspective:

I therefore see Second Life as IBM does, a powerful tool for bringing people and technology together, and given that proximity able to productively accelerate the processes that bind them. Yes, SOA may actually make more sense in the virtual world than it does in the real world, where the effects of SOA benefits will ultimately best manifest themselves.

Comments

[Sean FitzGerald (aka Sean McDunnough)]

Hi Beth,

Whilst I don't agree with the more optimistic user figures coming from Linden Lab - it's 2 million accounts, not 2 million residents - I don't agree either with the naysayers who are quick to condemn Second Life because of the poor return rate after first entering the world. Or in other words - the high rate of 'looky-loos'.

I think that poor return rate is in part, as you say, due to the steep learning curve, and because the current newcomer experience is abysmal. Have you been to Ahern Welcome area lately?!

Fortunately, like you, I had a guide. As someone who had no gamer background I think I would have been pretty overwhelmed if I didn't get the hand holding.

I hope Linden Lab come to the party and create a much better newcomer experience. It shouldn't be too hard. I believe Pathfinder is working on that now.

It's also our responsibility to do whatever we can do make the newcomers experience a more positive one.

On the more optimistic side I suspect many people who are overwhelmed on their first Orientation Island may return later for another look as media exposure increases and more friends join up (hopefully by then the new user experience will be improved).

So the long term return rates may not be that bad after all.

And don't despair about the uses of Second Life for non-profits - I think we are only seeing the beginning of what is possible with 3D virtual worlds.

[SandraDickinson]

One thing I have learned recently (from Kurt Squire) and really grabbed onto is the tremendous value -- for both learning game design and gameplay:
Moving back and forth between real world and virtual world.

[SandraDickinson]

to correct the link to me

[Amyloo]

Beth, I think the marriage of roleplaying and training could have real utility for certain nonprofits. I work for the National Safety Council, where we do training for safety managers, who do a lot of sitting around like most white collar types, but we also train trainers who train workers who engage in physical tasks. What better place than Second Life to SHOW people what it's like to be trapped in a confined space and work through what the victim should do, what co-workers should do and what supervisors should do.

I think if we look beyond the desktop crowd there are tons of training applications for the profit and nonprofit sectors. How about retail and food service customer service training?

[Alan]

It seems healthy to have these debates, yet this continued focus on validity of 'numbers' (like the validity of judging web sites by web server log 'hits) seems misplaced when we should be looking at the validity of experiences.

My unscientific sense is that the naysayers entered SL with some pre-disposed leanings, and continued down that track. Some may naysay knowing it will generate this sort of notoriety.

Those who have meaningful experiences in SL realize this does not happen on a one time visit, or a random encounter with some sleazy corner of the world, just the same as we would not judge the entire web if you had randomly seen only porn sites or cheesy ad sites.

Time will tell, and tell more than counting how many feet go or leave the front door.

[Stacy Surla]

Shirky seems to be analyzing the value of 3D worlds like Second Life through the lens of media attention. This is an entertaining exercise, but it’s also an example of a journalist aiming to scoop other journalists and make noise by posing “oh-no-it-isn’t” as an argument. Also, I suspect his audience is largely made up of early adopters/early criticizers of new technologies. Am I wrong?

But his article is stimulating discussion among the early ones, which is a good thing. And it does bring up some relevant points in an accidental way. Yes, browsing books by looking at 6-foot tall images of books is not a very good way to find what you’re looking for. This sort of literal representation of the world in web 3-D reminds me of the literal way we represented the world in HTML 1.0. In Second Life there are lots of these first-try, literal artifacts for browsing and wayfinding. This is one reason I think it will be great to have information architecture skillsets applied to SL. (Though the rate at which people learn what makes sense and what’s silly is rather fast in SL, so we have to be ready to tackle more sophisticated problems than this.)

Rather than focus on the media’s take on SL, it might be more valuable to look at what people and organizations are actually DOING in SL. Whether we’re talking about millions or simply tens of thousands of people at this point, Second Life is very clearly a powerful, broadly appealing, accessible, and feasible means for social networking. That’s why folks are drawn to it, and why widely different organizations are using it to build and strengthen real networks of all kinds. Social networking IS the revolution, and it is already happening. Hey, apparently that’s why we’re all Person of the Year.

[andrewhinton]

I had similar feelings, from a different angle.
I'm very intrigued by SL, but I find myself more entertained thinking and talking about it than actually using it, of late.
I may have been spoiled by MUSH life back in the day... or rather, I have some paradigm shifting to do in order to fully appreciate what SL has to offer that's different from its ancestors. I posted my ramblings here . Cheers! (The illustrious ms surla pointed me to your post, btw)

[evonne]

We are at the beginning of a long road with many twists and turns, that's the joy of working collaboratively in organic spaces. Beth, thanks for the insightful weaving and commentary.