by I’ve been asked by a few people for the report I wrote up about McMaster’s SL Virtual Reference Pilot. It’s now online here. It doesn’t really delve into service models and such as it probably should. I hope to do some in-depth research on virtual reference in SL and virtual worlds in an upcoming research leave, so I’ll share when it’s done.
Conference Round Up
Back from the WNY/O ACRL Conference: No Chalk Dust: Teaching and Learning in an Online Environment.
The keynote speaker was Harry E. Pence – aka John2 Kepler. It turns out that this ended up being another case of SL meets RL, as I’ve chatted with him in SL. I’m still not used to meeting SL people in RL, but it was a nice encounter nonetheless. His talk changed a bit from the conference program – he concentrated on innovation in libraries and innovation with little support. I felt rather lucky, as my library has been quite supportive of my foray into virtual worlds but it is often not the case. These are just a few of the points I took from his session.
- He stressed selling the sizzle, not the steak – most people don’t understand SL right away, we need to stress how SL can support the mission and goals of the university overall.
- Innovation requires success from 3 levels – self, the department and the university. It is rare to have the skill set to be successful in all 3 levels, so noted that it is important to have a champion from the department and/or administration.
- SL attracts risk takers, those willing to try without support
- Innovators burn out without support
- Fear often stands in the way of innovation and this fear of change can be more destructive than change itself.
The second session was a panel discussing some of the experiences and challenges of using SL in an academic institution.
The final session shared a class on Designed Play. They’ve been doing some interesting activities. The class involves students noting cool sites-of-the-day, reading responses, creating an sl avatar, 3 in-class projects (product, derive, sl retail space), a personal blog and a final project. Unfortunately, I was too busy watching the videos to take very good notes for this session.
My slides will be linked here soon.
The conference was a nice small conference – great for meeting people and sharing ideas. It was great going home after the conference feeling refreshed rather than tired from the constant flow of information that happens after a multi-day conference. I’d recommend the conference to others in the area.
Second Life Virtual Reference Pilot
I’m not sure if I’ve mention this or not, but we have decided to continue our SL virtual reference pilot project into the fall. In 3 months, with 80 hours of service and without much marketing, we answered over 120 SL and real life (RL) related questions from SL residents, McMaster affiliates (alumni, incoming students and existing students) and librarians. We hope to market the service more this term, recruit more volunteers and have already increased our hours of service to 8 a week. If you have any questions about the pilot, please feel free to contact me. I’m off to the WNY/O ACRL conference tomorrow to talk about reference in a virtual world and our pilot and will try to remember to post my slide, in case you’re interested.
Thanks to fellow SL archivist Christi Janus for his kind review of our pilot on his blog!
Wishful Thinking
Radiohead decided to release their album online – without a price. They gave fans the option to pay what they wanted! My guess is that many will still give something to have the album. Wouldn’t it be nice if database providers would do the same? Again, I’d be willing to pay something, just not the crazy prices many are asking for.
Google Virtual World
There has been a lot of speculation in recent months about the possibility of Google creating a virtual world. Second Life has opened the door to user created content in a 3D virtual world. Google could be an amazing solution to the myriad of problems SL has. The 3D modeling capabilities that Google has already created would be an amazing boon to the creation of virtual worlds. The blogging world has already noted that Google is working on something new with the help of the Arizona State University. Google has also recently purchased the social networking platform Zingku. Could these be steps to a social virtual world or will it end in a Google social networking site. I would love to see what Google could do with a 3D virtual world and can only hope that they will be moving in that direction soon. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
Phone-in Story Time
Here’s a neat story. Libraries in Nova Scotia have teamed up with phone companies to provide children’s stories. I think this is a great idea, especially since many children don’t live close to a public library. Children call a toll-free number to hear pre-recorded stories. The project’s aim is to help install a love of literacy, and I think story telling, to children.
Interesting News
Apparently Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty is going to provide millions in funding to school libraries, allowing them to purchase more books and hire more librarians. It wold be great if it’s true. Read more here. Did I mention that we’re about to have an election?
Gaming in Libraries
I recently saw a playstation commercial that had gaming in a library. It’s quite funny and I’ll post a link as soon as I find it on youtube. They may be joking about a gaming room in a library but this may well be what we see frequently in libraries in the near future.
Approach with Caution
Second Life should be approached with caution by academic institutions as there are numerous ramifications to consider. Second Life is not always a peaceful, quiet place – it is filled with sex, gambling, and griefers and depending on personalities, one may become addicted to the virtual world. We can control spaces we own in Second Life but we can not prevent students from leaving our space and entering more virtually dangerous areas. As academics, we must consider what it means to bring a student into this atmosphere. This is not the first time academia has encountered this muddy area though. The Internet’s birth is similar in a number of ways – it started out clunky and often with sex and gambling as a major portion of content. As with Second Life, the Internet can be an addictive space. We have since learned to work in this space and to use it effectively. In fact, many of us cant imagine working without it. Perhaps we will be the same with virtual worlds in the future.
The Chronicle of Higher Education recently had an article cautioning academic use of Second Life. I think that it is important to consider what it means to bring students into Second Life, what are the ethical concerns of this virtual world? That being said, I don’t think that that should scare us away from exploration. We need to caution and educate students as to what it means to be in a virtual world – what are the protocols, how can we behave in a virtual world. One of the important parts of exploration is discussion and we should have a discussion at all levels – departmental, administrative and campus wide. Consider what it means to you and your students to be in a virtual world and approach with caution.