Nearly 30 University of Wyoming graduate students spent several hours being introduced to the 3-D virtual world, Second Life. The day included multiple presentations from faculty, graduate students and other staff from the institution. One of the visits was Wyoming Entrepreneur Island, a facility of the Small Business Development Center (SBDC).
Some of the students accessed the virtual world directly with their own avatar while others met in a room and watched a projection with sound of their professor's avatar. The latter strategy is an effective work around to a Second Life island's limit of about 50-60 avatars being on an island at one time. Although the software allows 99 avatars on an island at one time, experience shows that an island without too many objects or running animations, will typically run stable concurrently accomodating around 45 avatars. The Wyoming Second Life facility was purposefully designed to have few objects and practically no constantly running animation, to allow great capacity.
The required activity seemed a success with many positive comments from the learners. Typically though, not everyone who visits Second Life is impressed since it is sometimes difficult to distinguish this environment from an online video game, and envision its possibilities with work, government and education, or other users. But they are there and many envison 3-D virtual spaces to become a common platform for distance collaboration of all types. The current 2-D web used in our daily lives may even become 3-D within 10 years, so says I. In order to do so, interoperability between virtual worlds and platforms would be requisite.
Some of the students accessed the virtual world directly with their own avatar while others met in a room and watched a projection with sound of their professor's avatar. The latter strategy is an effective work around to a Second Life island's limit of about 50-60 avatars being on an island at one time. Although the software allows 99 avatars on an island at one time, experience shows that an island without too many objects or running animations, will typically run stable concurrently accomodating around 45 avatars. The Wyoming Second Life facility was purposefully designed to have few objects and practically no constantly running animation, to allow great capacity.
The required activity seemed a success with many positive comments from the learners. Typically though, not everyone who visits Second Life is impressed since it is sometimes difficult to distinguish this environment from an online video game, and envision its possibilities with work, government and education, or other users. But they are there and many envison 3-D virtual spaces to become a common platform for distance collaboration of all types. The current 2-D web used in our daily lives may even become 3-D within 10 years, so says I. In order to do so, interoperability between virtual worlds and platforms would be requisite.
