2020 #VWEDU: How schools and conferences can use big digital auditoriums. You don't want to make too many changes at once.

How schools and conferences can use big digital auditoriums.   

You don't want to make too many changes at once.    

A simple overview of how digital worlds can simulate the big meeting experience.

Part of an auditorium 

in the universal campus on Kitely

Initial consideration

• My fellow digital citizens have a puzzled look on their emojis.
• "What do they need big auditoriums for?" they ask.
• "Why not live stream the stage, for example through YouTube?"  
• "The whole web universe becomes your auditorium."
• "And the presentation is captured for subsequent use."
• Schools don't need auditoriums, but some will want them.
• Tradition
• And it is not as if the digital auditoriums cost like the old physical ones.

The "feel" of the environment

• The auditorium environment conveys the sense of important content.
• As does the sensed presence of a large crowd: Herd mentality
• Then, too, when you get bored you can look around at the other people.
• And we type to each other.  We type in public chat and in private chat.
• Everybody can see the public chat, so it is like a broadcast to everyone present.
• We use the private chat for networking.  

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How digital worlds can handle a large audience

Separate stage area

• The stage must in a separate place, live streamed to wherever it is need.
• Trade show booths could have one wall devoted to the stage stream.
• This arrangement would encourage people to stay longer in the booths
• Other areas could have such walls also.
• This removes the stage load from the auditorium.
• It also makes the presentation widely available anywhere on the the web.
• People don't have to get into a virtual world to see it.

Web-world auditorium

• A web-world is a web page.
• Handling a lots of users at the same time (human scale) is inherent in the design.
• Ordinary web pages do that all the time.  
• The added task for web worlds is to display an avatar for each person.
• That adds memory load, processing,and bandwidth.
• The critical limits are imposed by the browser and the local bandwidth.  
• We don't want to exceed local bandwidth for some users.
• We don't want to exceed memory limits or processing capacity for low-cost machines
• We can immobilize the avatar in a seat to reduce the processing load  and bandwidth. 
• We can simplify the item representing a person and limit the number of options. 
• That reduces memory load.
• My suggestion is to represent each person by an emoji.
• Users can be able to select the emoji they want to display at any time.  
• Thus they have self-expression and input to audience feedback for the speaker.
• Text communication systems would handle questions and specific feedback.
• (That is a productive activity for when you get bored.)

Installed virtual worlds: auditorium

• Installed virtual worlds have special viewers to display the 3D world.
• The viewers used in OpenSimulator take steps to limit avatar load.
• Only a small number of avatars are rendered in 3D.  Others are just images.
• And event managers know to plead with people to sit.
• Limiting avatars to a small, low impact set would further reduce avatar load. 
• Kitely has modified Opensimulator code to handle large numbers of active avatars.
• Trade show: could that be done online? A digital place could duplicate the look and feel of a trade show

How schools might use an auditorium

The content-process model for learning

• Content is presented to a large group of students.
• The students go into small groups with an activity that makes them process the content.
• They may be tasked to write a group report about the content.
• This class pattern Is used for project-based learning.
• content-process model for PBL (Wikipedia)
• PBL: Project-based learning. (Wikipedia)
• Scaffolding Content and Process in PBL
• Scholarly articles for content-process model for PBL

Related

• Keynote: Lessons Learned from the 2020 Educators in VR Conference. Are conferences in digital places viable?

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Visit me on the web

• Drop by my web offices Weekdays: 12:-12:30 pm Central time (US)
• I am available for free consulting on any topic in this blog.
• Cybalounge and 3DWebWorldz (Orientation room)
• I will be in both places, so you may need to speak to get my attention.
• Web-worlds, 3D virtual worlds running in a browser. Summary
• And we can visit the Writer's Workshop on the Web
• Don't register -- enter as guest.  

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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.
• Screenshots from ShareX
• Second Life, Linden, SLurl, and SL are trademarks of Linden Research Inc.
• Annotated screenshots made with Techsmith Capture
• This blog is not affiliated with anything.   Ads are from Google.
• Selby Evans in Kitely and Hypergrid, Thinkerer Melville in Second Life.