2017 EDU: WW: Are educators leaving virtual worlds? Or just going to lower cost places?

Are educators leaving virtual worlds?
Or just going to lower cost places?

An article in Hypergrid Business announces "Educators sour on virtual worlds."    That conclusion may be too sweeping, since the evidence is limited to Second Life, but it is still useful to consider whether virtual worlds are living up to the potential that they once seemed to offer.

Modern classroom

Educators sour on virtual worlds by NUELA ADA · AUGUST 15, 2017

Educators are souring on virtual worlds, as evidenced by declining participation in online forums, in virtual conference attendances and education-related destinations on the Second Life grid.....

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

More after the break

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

Metaverse events, recent and upcoming

• Avatar Repertory Theater (ART) prepares a frightful Halloween show.
• Mal Burns: Inworld Review
• Hypergrid Writer's Community
• HYPERGRID EVENTS
• Metaverse Jobs; Job Listings
• IMA locations
• 3D web-worlds of the browser (G+ community)
• Selby's daily news collection:  Virtual worlds are real   
• Virtual Outworlding news collection 
• Events on the Hypergrid: HYPEvents
• Destination guide: OpenSimWorld
• Hyperica, Directory of Opensimulator hypergrid destinations
• WELCOME TO SEANCHAI LIBRARIES
• Entertainment on the Hypergrid, a G+ community
• Hypergrid Destinations
• Hypergrid-related articles in this blog

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

Online education is not losing ground

• Study: Enrollment in Online Learning Up, Except at For-Profits
• Growth continues, although it may be slowing.
• Higher education
• K12

Activity in Second Life does not represent the metaverse as a whole

• The data shows a dramatic decline in interest in educational activities in Second Life.
• But the interest may have shifted to Open Simulator, because of much lower costs.
• Or departments could run Open Simulator on the college/university computer.
• The cost might be very small and the department would have complete control over access and management.

Communication among educators seems to be shifting to social media

• Education (A G+ community)
• A communication hub for teachers, students, and parents.
• 202,452 members
• -
• Education: Community to discuss education (A G+ community)
• 29,823 members
• -
• Educators on Google+
• 95,450 members - Public
• -
• Gamification in Education
• 11,784 members
• -
• Virtual Educators
• 339 members
• -
• Thus a decline in communication on Second Life is not informative.
• The primary interest of educators is education.
• Virtual worlds are merely a tool they may use in support of that interest.
• They will not isolate their discussions to Second Life.

Educator interpretations 

“Educators still using the environment appear to be those who are comfortable with the environment,” said Kevin Feenan, the founder of the Rockcliffe University Consortium. “What you see now is more selective and targeted use by a smaller sub-set of the educational community.”

Feenan wants more features to support collaboration, event management: share files, images, video, sounds, and links. Feenan also wants  improved import and export capabilities including import and export of collaborative and group work projects.”

Collaboration, file sharing--look to Open Simulator

• A sim can be saved as an OAR file on your computer (if you made the contents).
• Opensim: Hypergrid, Search, OAR, IAR, SOAS, Kitely, Inworldz, Markets
• The OAR can be reloaded by anyone with Open Simulator software.
• Much collaboration in the Open Simulator community is done outworld. 
• We use SKYPE, email, and other established methods.  

Why would educators prefer Open Simulator?

• Lower costs: Kitely offers an area of 16 Sims for $40/month.
• Better service:  I can talk to the CEO of Kitely if I have a problem.  
• Exportable: I can save my region to an OAR file and keep it at no cost.
• Property rights: I have clear title to my work in Kitely.  Check the SL TOS.

The lack of mobile and low-cost support is also a problem

“We need to create virtual world activities that rely on low-cost phones or computers,” said Kurt Winklemann,  an associate professor in the Chemistry Department at Florida Tech. ”

• We have the technology to fix that.
• Web-worlds run in a browser.  On an iPad, Tablet, or Chromebook.
• Browser-viewer, progress and possibilities: Summary.
• Cybalounge supports user-built web-worlds.
• Visit Selby's web-world. Give it time to load.  
• Visit IMA's web-world.

Web-worlds in use

• The Web Report: Educator Edition: Digital Citizenship (beta)
• The web show: a magazine from the virtual worlds
• Demo web-world for education and presentations
• IMA web-world gives a sample of virtual worlds. Join a meeting, talk to live people from the other side.
• IMA Community web site: Visit a web-world.
• Web-worlds in your browser: Visitor's guide
• A2Z Galleria

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

General

• CybaLOUNGE is a user-built 3D virtual world running in a browser
• You get a free world when you register at Cybalounge
• How to start building in Cybalounge, a roadmap for beginners 
• Cybalounge is ready for virtual worlders to use: Tutorials and suggestions

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

License

• Original text in this blog is CC By: unless specified public domain
• Use as you please with attribution: link to the original.
• All images without attribution in this blog are CC0: public domain.

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

• My web office: Cybalounge.
• Don't register -- enter as guest.  If you don't see me:
• Click the pointed pushpin on the bottom line 
• See if I am in Selby's room.
• My office times:  Weekdays: 12: -12:30 Central time  (US) 
• Maybe weekends, too.  Other times by appointment. 
• Thinkerer Melville in Second Life, Selby Evans in Kitely
• A web page you can walk into
• Try a browser-based virtual world
• Cybalounge is ready for virtual worlders to use: Tutorials and suggestions

Entertainment in virtual worlds

• Mal Burns: Inworld Review
• Entertainment on the Hypergrid
• Opensim AAM Virtual Performers
• HYPERGRID EVENTS
• The web show: a magazine from the virtual worlds
• Art of the Artists: Slartist@UWA Machinima Challenge (L$350,000 Prize Pool) Create a film with a work of art.
• OpenSimWorkingRadioStreams (OSWRS). Invited article by shawnkmaloney
• Aviation radio: Music to fly by. And to promote your aviation event.
• Radio for your place - Radio for the metaverse. Anyone for podcasts?

Videos from virtual worlds

• Free video resources for virtual worlds: Screen capture beyond FRAPS
• Simple video editing with Shotcut, for virtual worlders
• Convienient video capture in Windows 10--any window
• Articles about videos from virtual worlds

News and Notes

Communities in the virtual worlds

• Arcadia Asylum All Around   
• G+ community: Hypergrid Safari
• G+ community: Metaverse Tours
• Opensimworld. Destination guide for the Hypergrid   
• Best metaverse communities
• Communities virtual worlds G+

Radio in the virtual worlds

• OpenSimWorkingRadioStreams (OSWRS). Invited article by shawnkmaloney
• Aviation radio: Music to fly by. And to promote your aviation event.
• Radio for your place - Radio for the metaverse. Anyone for podcasts?

Metaverse beginner help

• IMA best practices   
• How to Enter Kitely Virtual Worlds
• Metaverse 101 Info + Tutorials for getting started in Opensim
• Fr43k Paine/Dealing With Griefers
• A Dimension Beyond
• Virtual Outworlding Table of Contents. Summary
• Newcomer help in virtual worlds   
• Virtual worlds are about people. Communities, communication, shared goals
• Time conversion: put time/zone into Google search to get your time 

Articles in this blog

• About education
• About art
• Dinosaur
• Sailing in virtual worlds
• About Videos
• Sights of the virtual worlds
• People of the virtual worlds
• About business
• Outworldz One-Click Hypergrid (Install your own HG)

The Hypergrid WIP Show

• The Hypergrid WIP is a one hour "show & tell" of works in progress. 
• Everyone is invited.  Building, scripting, entertainment-- whatever you are working on.
• Selby may capture video of presentations in voice, for posting on YouTube.
• The WIP show normally meets on 2 Sundays a month at 12 pm California time.
• The show meets at the Pandora location on the second Sunday 
• But will not meet in the summer.
• And at Cookie II on the fourth Sunday.  
• To keep up with the WIP meetings, join the Kitely group, Work in progress.
• We can go to your place if there is time.

Next WIP meeting

• Sunday Nov. 26, noon SLT (California) time
• Cookie II location (fourth Sunday of the month)
• HG address below: paste into the World Map next to Find. Click Find, TP
• grid.kitely.com:8002:Cookie II 
• In Kitely, put Cookie II into the find bar of the world map. 

-

• Suspended for Summer: Pandora Location: (second Sunday of the month)
• Pandora allows presenters to run high threat OSSL functions.
• world.narasnook.com:8900
• Put the line above in your World Map next to Find.  Click Find. TP
• At Narasnook, use World Map to search for Pandora

Previous Articles from the WIP show 

• Glimpses of Hypergrid Work-in-Progress (WIP) show
• WIP Show: How to with NPC, Nara Malone. Storytelling of the future
• WIP on Cookie II, Kitely, 9/20 Dolls, Discos, and Discussion
• WIP August 23, A conversation about being creative
• The WIP show, 7/18/2015: Virtual mobile art by Lucy Afarensis
• WIP Show at Hobo Sandbox on Cookie II, Kitely
• WIP Show, works in progress on the Hypergrid June 3, 2015
• Hypergrid WIP meeting. The creatives of the hypergrid

-

• What is "Virtual Outworlding" and how can you use it? Keywords
• I publish 5 or 6 days a week, skipping 1 or 2 days in midweek
• For more, follow Selby Evans in Google+
• What do we do in Virtual Worlds? 
• Google search this blog: Search bar, upper left (in Chrome) --or:
• Put site:virtualoutworlding.blogspot.com at the end of the search terms 
• Annotated screen shots made with Jing
• Second Life, Linden, SLurl, and SL are trademarks of Linden Research Inc. 
• This blog is not affiliated with Second Life or anything else. 
• Ads are from Google.
• Selby Evans in Kitely, Thinkerer Melville in Second Life
• Lauren is funny