Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Get a 'Second' Life

You may have heard about Second Life, you may even have entered Second Life, but are you aware that this virtual world is now host to conferences, seminars and professional workshops? Having first entered this world out of curiosity a few years ago, it is very clear that the world of Second Life continues to evolve at a rapid pace... not only in graphical experience, but in the way global users are harnessing its power... for good!

The International Society for Technology in Education is one of many groups that are hosting seminars and presentations in the virtual realms of Second Life. For those who are unfamiliar with this world, I've created a brief screen capture that gives a taste of what it is like to attend a technology in education workshop on ITSE Island. The session is with Konrad Glogowski, who coincidentally is working on a Virtual Classroom Project within Second Life.



After downloading the free Second Life application and creating an identity, users have the opportunity to learn about the space, and to customize their avatars through a self-guided orientation.

The hard core virtual lifer, can even choose to spend Linden dollars bought with real money. It's this money that allows real people to buy virtual items like clothing or plots of land. Though you need not spend any money, it's this virtual economy of non-essentials that is allowing some people to make a real living in a virtual world.

Gladly, learning in Second Life is still free!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for attending the presentation. I hope you found it interesting. The capture looks impressive. What did you use to capture both the video and the audio?

Rodd Lucier said...

Konrad, I've been using a product called 'ScreenFlow' to capture and edit desktop activity. The tool also allows simultaneous capture from the isight camera on my Mac, which can be layered on top of the screen capture. Good pricing for education, but you have to have a Mac running Leopard.

I appreciated the opportunity to drop into your session. Without advanced notice, your tweet was read just in time for me to catch the tail end...

Sarah Stewart said...

Hi Rodd, thanks for dropping by my blog and adding your thoughts about twitter. I am really starting to enjoy it and its ability to introduce me to people such as yourself. Thank you, Sarah

Anonymous said...

Thanks Rodd. I'm on a PC, so I guess my quest for the perfect screen capture tool continues ... I am very pleased with Fraps, but it's the easy audio capture that still eludes me.