The Virtual World @my Fingertips and I Don't Know Where to Start

Recently we were invited to give a short talk about Technology in Learning- basically using Second Life in learning. Few common questions, did we spent millions in the island? How effective is it? Our answer were, nope it did not cost that much and we are still in the stage of testing so it is too early to tell the effectiveness.

Effectiveness is often dependent on design of the training program and the more you plan about how the users will be engaged in learning using technology, the more effective it would be. Take for example, if I want someone to sit through 4 eLearning course of 3 hours each in one week, it might not work as one might not find the time or the self discipline to complete the courses. So what you might have done is to set yourself up for failure.

Yesterday I had a meeting with my GM and discussed about a project and he kept asking the questions why. Maybe I had spent too much time thinking about what to do and how do we use Second Life and had not spent enough time thinking WHY should we use Second Life. By asking WHY first, we can make an investment of 500K seem like 500 instead of 5M.

Why Should We Use Second Life As A Tool for Learning
I am sure I heard this somewhere before, the benefits:
1) Reduce travel costs
2) Increase learning opportunities
3) Engaging learnings

But what about FUN? Should not we consider designing a training in Second Life to be fun? "FUN??? What FUN? We pay to train these people to learn. Not to have FUN." an image of your GM screaming back at you when you suggest that. What if they can play and learn? What if by playing, we are able to increase, not only engagement but also retention. All this depends on design.

"Instead of making people have to learn, we should make people want to learn." This is what my GM always challenge us. Make training something people would want to come to instead of force to. Second Life can be used to make learning fun.

But Second Life is more than just a learning tool. It can be a communication tool, a electronic white paper for 3D design, etc. The only thing limiting us is our imagination on how to use it.

4 Keys To Get Your Colleagues To Embrace Web 2 0 And Second Life Slides by TBDMarketing

This is an interesting slide about promoting Web 2.0 and Second Life in your company

4 Keys To Get Your Colleagues To Embrace Web 2 0 And Second Life 1 5 09

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: performance improvement)

Maxis Academy Receives an Award for Second Life Island, Maxis iLearn & MLearning Initiatives

We were given a pleasant surprise when our island & mLearning initiative was awarded Mobile Learning Initiative Recognition 2008, APACMLEAP in the Mobile Learning & Edutainment 08.

Vollee (Second Life for Mobile Phones) in Action

Wow, the more I see this, the more I want to try playing this but then either I walk out to buy a new phone or wait until my model is supported. I wonder which would be faster...

Second Life on Mobile Phones

While doing a trial run and usual snooping around, we came across this beta program called Vollee which is pretty interesting. Imagine, going to Second Life via your mobile. I have not test it yet although I wanted to but then my handset is not supported yet but it worth a check.

Maxis iLearn, Second Life in GoMobile

It is final, we will be showing the virtual island, Maxis iLearn in the GoMobile exhibition. Although it is new, and there are a lot of things still to do- there is no reason why we cannot display the island to all learning practioners- corporate and local universities. I will be in the island in my virtual self- Kouga Taakaki and also be there in real life. As to my knowledge Maxis is the first Malaysian company to have a presence in Second Life. We will be in booth E11.

Cool introduction on how to use Second Life

Want to learn how to create your avatar? How to communicate? How to get around and how to use Second Life

Intro to Second Life Pt 1


Intro to Second Life Pt 2


Intro to Second Life Pt 3


Intro to Second Life Pt 4

More introduction about Second Life

This is a nice overview of Second Life by GiffForseti... very interesting. Forget about books if you haven't the time- most of what you want to learn about Second Life, you can do it with YouTube these days... enjoy :)

About Second Life

While preparing a presentation for my GM, I came across this interesting slide about Second Life:

Virtual Worlds Introduction: Second Life and Beyond

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: virtual worlds second life)

Flying Around in Second Life

Yeah, I have registered and got online into Second Life which was why I did not blog for a while. I downloaded the software and created my account. My avatar however does not look like me which is a plus point, you have the freedom to choose what you can look like, afterall it is like your second life or virtual life.

You are then transported into a virtual land and there are already people there so I just browsed around to see what I can do and I discover I can actually fly... for those Second Lifers, they will go like... "big deal". Yes, you can fly in Second Life. You are literally Superman or Supergirl. You fall and cannot die, you can go under water and can hold your breath for a very long time.

It's more like a 3D version of chat rooms. You can meet up with people there, you can read whatever they post, see what they create. My company already bought a land there and off I went to see our new island. Currently there is nothing there but an island, a building with 3 floors which we asked the developers to create like our current training facilities then a bird hovering in a circle above the place. So far nothing interesting yet. So comes the natural issue- no content yet and no events that are planned.

So hopefully we can get something done by then...