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Welcome to the rabbit hole of virtual worlds, gaming communities, Second Life and more... buckle up, this episode is going to take us on a virtual journey back to 2007 and Chapter 14.
25 Years of Ed Tech is a serialized audio version of the book 25 Years of Ed Tech, written by Martin Weller of the Open University and published by AU Press. The audio version of the book is a collaborative project with a global community of volunteers contributing their voices to narrate a chapter of the book. Bonus episodes are a series of conversations called "Between the Chapters" to chat about these topics and more!
"In this lively and approachable volume based on his popular blog series, Martin Weller demonstrates a rich history of innovation and effective implementation of ed tech across higher education. From Bulletin Board Systems to blockchain, Weller follows the trajectory of education by focusing each chapter on a technology, theory, or concept that has influenced each year since 1994. Calling for both caution and enthusiasm, Weller advocates for a critical and research-based approach to new technologies, particularly in light of disinformation, the impact of social media on politics, and data surveillance trends. A concise and necessary retrospective, this book will be valuable to educators, ed tech practitioners, and higher education administrators, as well as students."
Credits:
Text in quotes from the book website published by Athabasca University Press CC-BY-NC-ND
BG music Abstract Corporate by Gribsound released under a CC-BY license. Track was edited for time.
Artwork X-Ray Specs by @visualthinkery is licenced under CC-BY-SA.
Audio book chapters produced by Clint Lalonde.
Between the Chapters bonus podcast episodes produced by Laura Pasquini.
0:03
Between the chapters, a weekly podcast discussion focusing on a chapter of the book, 25 years of edtech, written by Martin Weller. here's your host, Laura pasquini.
0:15
Right, Welcome to Chapter 14, where 2007 and talking about Second Life in virtual worlds. I'm here with Grant Potter and Sarah Frick for conversation. So let's get into it. So what were you doing or what were you involved with back then for second life in virtual worlds?
0:32
Well, I'm 2007, I was a very junior elearning instructional designer and I had just come out of kind of a corporate radio station web design role, and had done a lot in the past with just media design, web design and graphic design. And I kind of came into this team in Alaska at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, that had already been doing a lot of distance education, because we were in Alaska and fast geography, and they kind of had a pretty rich history and a really good team. So I kind of came into this very advanced team. We already had an island in Second Life called rhetorical. And one of the more senior designers, Kristen Buford, she was working on making our island into this space for our local Rasmuson library. And they were going to do an art awards opening there. And we did that. And so I kind of was like, austrack, I was like, This is my new job, I get to, like, spend some of my time at work, like, playing, you know, this role playing game was wasn't really a game, you know, so I was I was kind of, like, you know, young and full of hope. And just like, wow, like, I didn't know, a tech was so advanced. You know, I tried to find my niche, you know, I was able to kind of build it right away, because I had a web design background and like, you know, it's kind of a maker, nerd. And, um, but you know, I kind of found my niche right away in, in, there's an NPR science Friday island called cipher I. And so I would go to that, like, I would spend time in there just like with with some people that I felt comfortable with, like, checking out what's going on and interacting. And, and that was kind of, you know, where I was at that first part of, of my, you know, instructional design e learning career very, very much, you know, optimistic and an awestruck by being able to kind of, you know, see this advanced technology.
2:32
Love it. We're always hopeful at the beginning. And it's interesting. Martin starts this chapter off, that you've probably heard earlier this week around Linden labs launched in 2003. I didn't actually hear about it till about 2006 or seven. So I guess that's it. You're on point, man, well done for that. And I, I'll be honest, full caveat. I've not lived in Second Life, I've just been an outside observer. And so that's why I brought these great people on to talk about it. So I can ask so many questions, because I know grant you two were involved in the virtual worlds, what were you doing around that time, living in Second Life, virtual worlds where
3:07
I wasn't living in Second Life, but I was definitely playing video games. And I could see the second light chain emerging, you know, early days at the time when it first started emerging. I was working at a teaching it in in Java, actually a private Chinese offer school, so in Dali in China, and I moved to British Columbia in around 2006 and seven and took a job as a high school principal, started teaching some technology there. And that was also assigned to is this vice principal role of a fledgling Distributed Learning school. And so I had a system administrator of their Moodle, you know, server, and I'm more I started seeing Second Life emerge in this thing that Mark mentioned in the chapter called snoodle. I was I started actually seeing while contacting some of the students in the school that were using Moodle and say, Hey, if I gave you like, kind of a video game environment where you could use, you know, you could tap into the learning management system, would you use it? And they were like, Oh, yeah, we use that. So I started learning Linden scripting language and learning how to use this thing. So it's Moodle, is the way that I actually got really involved, you know, with Second Life and spent more time in it and working with the students. And it was from there that I, I took a job at a university in northern British Columbia shortly after that it was only in that gig for about a year. And then I started working with open sim at the University of Northern British Columbia, which is like the open source platform. Very similar in many ways. You can even use the Second Life viewer in and connect to these open platforms that please me, it had all the same kind of hang ups and problems that that, you know, the Linden labs offering our Linden Lab servers head, but it allowed us a little bit more creativity and some flexibility and you could get access to the platform itself and we were running that open soon. At the time on Amazon, which was like the like a very early Amazon service like easy to service. So, yeah, I taught a few workshops on Linux scripting language, both in world as we used to say it as well as in person. And yeah, that would be it was shortly after my worries, no open sim that unless the virtual worlds behind, let's still the gamer.
5:26
It's interesting. I love that we always create these weird words like Slidell that rhymes with Moodle, because we want to integrate them. Like I don't know, I think we just do this to confuse people coming into Teaching and Learning with Technology. I was not connected at all. But this time, I'll just say that I started, I was not going to MC advisor at the University of Toronto, and I go on down to a conference in the US and that these folks from Penn State World Campus and they were living their best Second Life in advising, they're having an island to really support their fully online campus. So the Penn State is a university. But there's also the World Campus which has been fully online. And they've been online since the nine, early 90s. And this is a way to kind of encourage engagement student services during affairs, and also like have everything from live concerts to meetups to campfire chats, and advice. And so they were sharing a little bit of what they were doing. What other one other instructors teaching tort law and the last law class. So a lot of this chapter reminded me about the hopes that they had for a second life in the mid aughts. And this is not the only kind of virtual world that was out there, like I was thinking about, as you both are interesting games like the Sims were around and started in the early 90s. Right. And they there's places that people can jump in and hack, and I wonder, had people put too much hope in a virtual world versus some of the gamified aspects of Second Life Is this where we got lost, and we should have been more worried about the role playing and less about the actual space, I don't know,
7:00
I think that's where the real, you know, gold was in Second Life was the role playing aspect of things. And I and in some respects, there were some people that derived a lot of real value, that exploring identity, exploring embodiment, and exploring the notion of, and I remember at the time reading a lot of informs from in folks that may have certain disabilities, and their ability to fly, their ability to use arms and use legs in different ways in these environments was empowering. And they would connect over these, you know, these elements of the game design, and it was a small niche community. But you can see that people really were deriving value and community out of that. So and that was an essence, like a roleplay. And so that's one form of roleplay. But there were other role plays where people could, I remember reading articles from people saying, I, my day to day job is this or that, and I'm not happy. But when I go to second second life, I can explore this other identity I have there. And I have a whole different group of friends in that space. So instead of, you know, I think that there was some real potential there. I don't know if that crossed over into other platforms. But I remember at the time being impressed with that.
8:19
Yeah, it was kind of a time where people that really weren't in the game, he or hadn't experienced that, that world, we're able to get into it in a non geeky way. And I mean, Martin even touches on that like that it you know, that some of that might even turn some people off, right. But we've kind of got this area where, for the first time it was, it was a little easier to build in their buildings for you know, people that might not have been exposed to that world. And it was easier to kind of imagine the educational applications, when there wasn't a clear goal, like there would be in an actual game. So it's kind of this, you know, playground. But, you know, it doesn't take very long have too many rabbit holes or visiting too many islands to start to kind of see that the fantasy lands that stem from that, that, I think, you know, at the time, and still do probably turn turn some more serious academics off.
9:14
Yeah, it's an unknown ambiguous space. And I think sometimes, maybe some of the lessons from this chapter is think about in the early part of the chapter is talking about, you both brought this up, community play, experimentation, tinkering, not all of our teaching and learning. staff and faculty are into that, right. So it's going to be someone who wants to try in the sandbox, and I don't, I don't know why. I think there's also a barrier for cost for a lot of these folks, because I knew it's something you had to get. At least you had to buy an island have some Linden Dollars I knew in Second Life, or maybe there's some other ways that they had to have hardware, and this is where I'm unfamiliar, and I'd love to know what you all were thinking about. Cuz it sounds like grant, your high school is more receptive to like playing in the
10:05
virtual world sandbox
10:06
versus going to post secondary, when they're kind of not really sure if we should invest or be a part of that or spend time invest money or resources, I guess.
10:15
Yeah. And in high school, it was very much part of what students had access to, and the folks in the school were interested in and willing to participate in, and the university setting in the skunkworks, it was sort of like, Okay, this is your thing. And it's something you like, entirely if it fails, or if it's if it's successful, so it wasn't a lot of buy in. And so yeah, I definitely saw I'm certainly among the students, you know, in high school, there was a lot of interest in curiosity, not so much in in higher ed.
10:53
And what I saw kind of in 2007, and the few years afterwards, in the couple of faculty that that picked up on it. One was a, an online science lab, where they recreated the lab and they had some experimentation, things happening in there, that couldn't happen, unless somebody you know, traveled to the lab, or how to expensive equipment, and that was our university, Alaska, Southeast Campus. So we really had some bass geography there, it was very cost prohibitive to travel it, you know, kind of open up the whole, like a world of Okay, like, we can build simulations in here, and we don't have to, you know, know, unity or whatever. And so, what I saw happened, though, with that, and then I had another faculty that I worked with, that was really into World of Warcraft, at the time, and she had a course in world world craft, she, these these courses, ended up being like not really able to take off the way they did without there being like a partner, instructional designer that could get in there and build with them. And having that that relationship, and that other person that was doing most of the tech world in the building. So, you know, that was kind of the biggest barrier I saw, you know, from the resources front, on the higher ed. And then, of course, the $800 a month, I think it was rental, showing a return on investment in that. I mean, there's only so long, you know, in higher ed, public service world anyways, that we're able to keep playing without showing some sort of return on investment. And that was hard to do. When we didn't have, you know, a lot of the students didn't have the bandwidth, where they were in Alaska to join some of these, some of these courses, even though there was in 2007, was also a time when we were having a lot of bandwidth put out in the villages. You know, to that front, it was the cost prohibitive piece on the universities and and the students and especially when we couldn't, you know, when they there were so many accessibility issues as well. And so I was on, you know, committees that were, you know, sitting at procurement, saying we're not procuring things that don't have a V Pat don't have a clear path for accessibility. And, you know, some of these controls didn't work for screen readers and all of that.
13:05
Yeah. And that hindsight of knowing that access points for both resources, actual disabilities needs visual impairments, is a concern. Because if people can't be coming to the space, it's not going to be an inclusive environment. It's not suitable for everyone. Martin talks about this a little bit, which is interesting. I also wonder if you really need you said, partnership. I like that you talked about that, Sara, like with the instructional design or technical support, or you needed a champion, like you almost needed, the instructor that was going to lead it or the staff member that was going to be on orientation island that Martin talked about to be kind of a champion or steward for why you were there. What was the purpose, and maybe it's because we were just needed more time to explore, but it seems like some of those little islands floated away, or that environment got left behind just because it was a high cost and time and money and everything else. But I think there's so much that we can learn from this because I don't know I'm thinking too. We are recording this at the end of 2020. It'll come out in 2021. But I'm thinking about like Animal Crossing, and people's escapism to other worlds like these are still we can learn so much from early virtual worlds that are being applied to other environments these days are being tested and what are some things that like you all took away from kind of the lessons learned at that time,
14:34
I remember at the time, and certainly now even more so with hindsight thinking you could create these spaces that look like anything in our anything and you have these classrooms with chairs and tables and you have like slides projected on 2d surfaces and all this kind of stuff. And I and then also at the tyri member market member the marketplaces where you can By like, people would design things and sell them for actually Linden Dollars and then be able to exchange them for real money. And as a kind of telegraphed those marketplaces that are that we have now like fortnight, for example is a great example like, look at the money that designers make designing objects for fortnight in Second Life, I think was probably one of the first where you actually had an economy in world where real money was being bought and sold. Of course, you had the you mentioned, World of Warcraft, you had like the gold, you know, where that could be bought and sold and, you know, on online markets, but I just remember that that what was it that the folks that started Pirate Bay that said, there's no such thing as, in real life, there's only Away From Keyboard that, like, so the is that there's so much crossover between the virtual and the, you know, the online in the, in the lived experience, and, you know, the tactile world, and that, that I think some of those design, no moving elements in, in the in, in the in world economy, you know, you know, sort of telegraph that
16:11
kind of like the online life is too real like that second life is to real life. And we're, we're not sure what to do in it within in a way. Yeah, and it's interesting that I used, I forgot about the marketplaces. But I do think maybe it influences. I don't want to say stretches too far. But where people have taken other online marketplaces and even Bitcoin, like this is the first kind of other currency that was out there, which may or may not, I don't know if it impacted, teaching and learning as much, but it is a question to say what was formed? Was there anything else for you, sir, that you were thinking about in terms of lessons learned that you're thinking this is still the same that we're doing today?
16:51
Well, I mean, there's, there's definitely some tie ins to, you know, what it means to empower somebody to be in a virtual world, to our mental health. And, you know, we'd be remiss not to like talk about the pandemic, with, you know, that lens because I've seen, you know, my own friends, my colleagues, my kids really latch on to these virtual worlds since we've been in the pandemic. I mean, the only way my friend My, my daughter talks to her friend, they're eight years old is in Roblox and they are making stuff and selling them their little hustlers. As soon as they figured out that they could make a hairstyle or get in Roblox studio, they did it. And I still, I still haven't taught her how to do any of it, it's just kind of left her with it. And they can do it on the mobile device. And, you know, they were calling each other on FaceTime, but that got really old real quick, just like us calling each other on zoom has gotten really old, real quick. They wanted to be somewhere playing together. And that's helped her mental health because they can't play in real life right now. And that was always the thing too. Great. You just touched on this and Martin touches on it is, you know, what's the point of this virtual world if we're just going to go replicate a one to many lecture in it? Are we really need to replicate are the things that we can't do in real life, like the simulations and then like right now like that, that means even play, you know what I mean? So you can't really play on a zoom call. I mean, you can you can make it work but you know, you can really get into Roblox or Minecraft and play together, call each other on audio and, you know, sometimes my kids are on audio with the friends and sometimes they're not and we make little dates for them to do it. And, you know, I think it's really helped their mental health, my mental health, I my colleagues that are way into gaming in virtual worlds. I mean, that's, that's their escape right now. And I think, you know, it's, it's a missed opportunity for for Ed, for education, not to be kind of in that space. Fully still,
18:50
I guess. Yeah, I hear what you're saying. Sarah, I used to connect with when I travel a lot and my kids were little and one of the things we do the fate like whatever at the time he could do the Skype call and I found it so lacking right. And still we started playing Minecraft together and chatting while we're playing Minecraft so we're talking about everything under the sun what they did to school what they had for dinner. But meanwhile that will be the conversation will break and they say Hey Dad, I want to show you this tunnel I can I want to take you down here and follow me in that and it became our call a 15 minute call or 10 minute call became an hour and a half connection over a range of things and the topic organically would move around in it I was in a way that really helped heal my loneliness and when I really would miss them when I was away and it was a very powerful experience. We did that for about two years.
19:49
It's interesting that you both are sharing kind of like the way this brings in community and getting connection with people because I it resonates with me both you were living in kind of remote. issue areas. And when you move somewhere and you don't know anyone, this is what you tap into. And I think I love the idea that second life in virtual worlds offer that. But that play space is the most interesting, like, I'm with you, I don't do a lot of zooms other than other than when I podcast. And that's fun for me. The other time is when I do a pub quiz with my friends virtually. And we spend three hours in trivia and laughing and it gives people purpose, instead of showing up. And I think, like, what I'm hearing is to say that we rarely think about meeting each other. And how we meet to gather is not fun anymore. But if we could put elements of what the virtual worlds can give us back is those experimentations, those discovery spaces, and this chapter comes after even web 2.0, where you could be anything you want to be like the purple cat teacher was one, but you could create and design what you look like and what you did, how you moved around the world. And we rarely do that in our own classrooms. Because I don't know we're have a different expectation, or we set different expectations. Maybe that's something we need to push back against as we, as we think about this year and still being virtually and probably just distant remotely because of the pandemic until we all have vaccines. I wonder, what are some things that you take it to the work that you're doing these days, you may not be in these virtual worlds yourselves right now. But what are some things you're thinking about for teaching and learning?
21:27
I mean, I was just gonna mention that, you know, from kind of another angle, Mike, the class I taught this last semester, is like a 200 level design class. So not anything super complicated, but kind of gets them ready for those majors to go on to the games program or something more advanced. And you know, I'm in Canvas, I've got discussion boards, I'm doing everything I can to get, you know, to make those engaging to the point that I can, you know, the first discussion board we had the students realize that they're into Dungeons and Dragons. So I was like, interesting that Martin brought up d&d, and like that kind of nerdy side of that, I think probably like, seven of the 15 students I had in that class, this last semester, ended up in a virtual Dungeons and Dragons little group that they formed by figuring out that they were all into it from the discussion board. So they found community through, you know, my pseudo, I would say, not good enough community I had built for the class, but then went on, you know, to have this community outside of that, which I just thought, you know, scrap, kind of the first time I saw that kind of happen, you know, that quickly, or, you know, I mean, the thread of like, Oh, I'm in d&d, what's your username? And, you know, however, they play online, I'm not even sure. But there's a way and I know, some of its manual. And some of it is, is is, with some stuff, technology, but you know, that piece too, you know, I just thinking to myself, like, you know, how, like, we could I could be like, why aren't I like building, you know, in like Mozilla hubs or somewhere that's easy to, to kind of hold this, this space. And I think that the biggest thing that I take away from it, you know, as an instructional designer, and what I would suggest to the faculty I work with is, you know, of course, like, the whole class doesn't need to be in the virtual world, like, you know, there still can be asynchronous parts of the class, they get them ready for that. But you know, what, what can't be done in real life right now that can be done in the virtual space. And what that really looks like and how being like in world is different than the virtual space in the LMS? Or in zoom? We, you know, what that brings, and what, what that different version of, of creativity, kind of can level up everybody's brain, even for your calculus class or whatever. Right? So, I mean, that's kind of the thing I try to, like, challenge myself, even with, like, you know, if what, you know, why have I been sleeping on this? You know, why? Why is that tech sleeping on us, when I've got my colleagues that work in games in VR all day. It's an interesting conundrum of the disconnect.
24:03
I'm glad you brought up VR because I see a lot of crossover between what second light was attempting to accomplish and what VR is currently trying to accomplish. I do see a lot of crossover there. And I think I do think the current round of VR experimentation is doing a better job. Certainly on the consumer electronics end of things like now the that hardware is getting closer and closer to the 434 or $500 range, which is still expensive, but I mean, we're not talking like $3,000 gaming PC, right? So the, the affordability is it's getting better. And I do think it's great, Sarah, that you mentioned Mozilla hubs because the ability Yes, you could have that consumer product, you know, $500 vr helmet, or you can open a browser, you can go into the same space and you can browse it in a two dimensional space. You're not excluded because you don't have the hardware. I think there's some real design opportunity. There. You You know, to take another pass at, you know, virtual worlds and doing it in a way being mindful of the accessibility elements being mindful of the digital divide, you know, for whether you if you're not assuming that everybody's on fiber, we're living in a city, you know, and I just actually just a few, just this week, got an Oculus to, and I started playing with it with, with my, with my son, and wow, like, we connect over it and, and have these great conversations. And a lot of it is about our sense of our sense of embodiment, you know, and how we feel and how it changes our balance or, you know, our emotion, our relationship and spatial, like our spatial relationships and everything. So I think there's a real opportunity for virtual worlds to open up to, you know, some more conversations and in learning environments, and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens, I just, you know, I'm glad we had those Second Life years, those were good years, but I'm really looking forward to like the new stuff that's coming.
26:08
I love how Martin brings up that barriers to entry, being horizontal and vertical and this in this chapter, because I use that terminology with faculty a lot, when they when they bring technologies to the table that they want to use that they saw. And, you know, kind of being mindful of, well, you know, what, what are the ramifications of bringing in a third party tool? You know, how accessible is it? How, how many of these students have it, you can it be used on mobile, because a lot of our students are on mobile, and that's even an eye opener, you know, that they don't realize that students are turning stuff in, in Canvas on the mobile Canvas, when we went to pandemic world, some of the students were like, had never even like logged into Canvas on a computer. So they are just checking their grades there and, and participating in the discussion boards and submitting, that's all you know, you can do all of that on the mobile. So the barrier, the barriers to entry being something that needs to be addressed right away. And, and I do love how, you know, the challenge has come a long way. You know, you've got the Oculus quest is $300. And you know, I almost bought it for my kids this Christmas as well. And I'm still a little cautious that it's so tethered to Facebook, I don't want my you know, my kids are going to be on this. And that's like this whole other ethical part of this too, right, as is the privacy issues. You know, what? Who are these tech companies in bandwidth like doing that research is important for us in edtech. To to champion
27:39
Yeah, I love that you brought that up both you guineas, the virtual worlds and even the augmented worlds and thinking about the the cost and the risk. I think that's something we don't do enough. We say let's use this other tool or thing and this happens with online as well. So we have faculty that try to use different spaces, but who's taking that data and where it What sense of privacy should you be thinking of or information sharing and asking your learner's if they want to be in those spaces instead of forcing them in, I don't think we do that enough. So thank you for bringing that point up. I am also thinking about the idea of just how so much of play and kind of Sarah the word level up, which I think we could gamify what we do in general, it doesn't have to be a world that you enter into or another app or tool, it could just be simple things we do to like, I don't know I think of a psychology professor that I used to work with the University of North Texas, and she's to give points and put other zeros on points in grades that they could see there. They're leveling up of earning points. And it just that's one example of like, modifying how you teach, I think there's so much that we can learn from the things that we enjoy doing, whether it's a virtual game, it's a board game on things that we can implement into our lessons, just to it doesn't have to be the whole course. But things that we do when we meet or if you're going to gather synchronously. Like I asked my friends fun quiz questions about if they're with a partner or they're themselves like just to reflect do we do that enough? I don't know if we do in this kind of reminds me of these are gathering spaces that we're talking about? How can we have better gathering opportunities when we teach and other things you're thinking about? In terms of that?
29:26
When you're talking about, you know, trying to sort of gamify things? Can we call them like it check hit points or something like that? folds into the DND thing? We've been talking about?
29:36
ticket points I like that.
29:39
Right? We have to like dumb down the imagination in some ways to get someone to take it serious or you know, and a lot of ways I think about like the zoom meetings right now and all the the aha moments that some people are having that are new to just even meeting virtually including like my kids, teachers and my own colleagues, and some of the ideas you see coming out about like okay, how Do like a round table fun icebreaker. And like everybody talking about their favorite Pokemon character, you know, that stuff works. And it reminds me of this used to be a website back in the day, but one of my bosses showed me and then I always showed my design students, I don't think it exists anymore, which sucks. But then you went to it, it was like, it was like the most stellar design advice and you went to it, and all the website said was have a fucking concept. Like it just set it like really big and like white and black. And, um, and, you know, you'll see people be like, well, just because it looks nice, or just because it has a theme doesn't mean it's good pedagogy. And I'm kind of like what, you know, I'm bullshit, like something having a theme and something being engaging like that you don't have to be in a virtual world for that you can be, it can be a very, you know, on that horizontal threshold that Martin brings up, it can be very low barrier entry,
30:52
is I liken it to the ear worm in music, you know, you may not love the song, but there's a hook and that song that you cannot get out of your head. That's what it is. It's the hook. It's, it's that little design element that just works. It's the delivery vehicle, I
31:10
think we can use that more in everything we're doing. And I love that you brought up our meetings, because we do terrible meetings, just as staff and faculty and institutions out there. Do better don't meet unless you have to. That's my word of advice on something that we do at our meetings, we do have icebreakers that are really funny and end up having people tell stories, or we set expectations when we come to places and we should in our learning environments, like what's the kind of awesome feeling that you want your learners to walk away from? Like you want them to smile? Or think back to an element of your course, that's just been delightful for them? And how do we really delight our learners or even their staff and faculty these days, I think I'd love to see more of that.
31:50
I just remembered something I read a few months ago and it was in it was in the first wave of COVID-19. I think this must have been in April, or may. And they're talking about people are already at that time and offices and remote working, getting exhausted with Zoom Zoom fatigue was a thing. And so people was trying to reorganize the way that they were meeting. And so they were I can't remember who the writer is. I'll have to dig the link out and send it to you folks, because I think you'd have a lot. They were they were sort of meeting in Red Dead Redemption, too. And they're holding all their office meetings that way in multiplayer and hilarious. And I thought wow, that I mean, this is like taking the whole second like ethos to the next level. If you're you know, you're adopting these characters, and you're meeting around a campfire. And it was quite, quite creative. And people, every single person in the interview in this office that bit, loved it, they thought it was a really great team building and fun. And quite often their meetings are interrupted by raids, which I had to collaborate right off the raid and then they resumed their meeting. So it was very funny.
32:56
Yeah, there's a lot of team building and cooperation and learning that can happen in like the PvE, which is like the player versus environment world. You know, you don't have to just get in these environments to just be with each other. You can be with each other against something else, or solving a problem or building something together that relates to what you're learning about. You know, being makers together, I think is the biggest, the biggest piece that sticks out to me is are problem solving problems together that you couldn't do right now in the real world. Or even when non pandemic pandemic land, when there's the distance piece is the biggest piece of this I feel like is the biggest part that jumps out as what the biggest difference is, you've got this environment to kind of work in together.
33:46
Yeah, like they'll create a space for a space created for a purpose, like give people a challenge a craft or make or something to tinker with or solve. And this made me remind me of the book. And if you ever heard of a Priya Parker's the art of gathering, like it's how we meet and why it matters. I think about like, we never really just set intentions or spaces to come. We're always like, well, we always used to meet. Well, why? And I think about my friend, I was having conversation with her on zoom about how many how many zoom meetings she has at her University and her like teenage son was like, Can I set up a Discord server because you all could just do this thing over here. She's like, that might just be too complicated. I get it. But we haven't really shifted her mind to like the things we do because we've just taken these new spaces, whatever we what tools we've been given, and we're like, we'll just go do the same thing. That's, that's terrible. We don't do that and teaching and learning and the online. So why would we put a virtual world or community in that space to
34:46
know I was just gonna call it slides on a cube phenomenon? Yeah, why don't look at one set of slides when I can look at many slides on a cube
34:57
say more grants.
34:59
Yeah. I'm not going to I neither confirm nor deny my involvement in the creation of slide cubes. I'm just going to put it I'm just gonna put that
35:10
mystery to be solved. Um, I was wondering, thinking about this chapter, is there something that you was you were hoping to be talked about? Because we've talked about some other cool things. Martin could have brought up, is there anything else that wasn't mentioned? Or you, we should talk about Now, before we get into some questions for the community and Martin,
35:28
I mean, I think a lot of it, we've kind of already touched on with, which is like, of course, you know, he finished this book before the pandemic, so there's kind of like this lens with which to read everything now. Which is, um, you know, how does that how what, what is the light that's shining on everything right now, that's amplifying everything relate to this. And, I mean, the biggest takeaway I have is just the the mental health implications. And you know, how these virtual worlds can help us cope. And, you know, there's a lot of really good research on that from, from the game world and from, from the play world, not just the video game world, but the game world in general. And I feel like I'm a little bit more exposed to that, because I have kids, and because I worked with gaming professors. But it's amazing. And, you know, I just always wonder about the disconnect of, you know, I think that a lot about this and other industries, too, like, what's the disconnect between, you know, higher Ed's understanding of this? or, uh, you know, academia is understanding of us? And what's happening in the actual field? Like, how are we so, you know, how are we circling back around on this again, but zoom? Like, what, you know, why are we showing that? Are we showing this slide cubes in zoom? You know, like, why can't this just be a, you know, why can't the lecture just be recorded? You know, why do we have to be in, in world, in this world, it's like, everything's circling back around. And, you know, thinking about the historical amnesia that is brought up constantly in the book.
36:56
One thing I mentioned, I know that Sarah, you brought this up before hit record, this is also the year, you reminded us that the iPhone was came out. And I wonder if 2007 is the start of the peak, virtual worlds, and also the peak decline of virtual worlds because that phone not that everyone had access to it in 2007. But it opened up us using other spaces. And maybe that's kind of what Martin alludes to, in this kind of is after web 2.0. And before he portfolios, so it's in a space, that kind of would have been the peak time of being in Second Life or any virtual world. But I wonder if the phone add more access point, because you said it yourself, our learners aren't often using a desktop or laptop, or using like, a mobile device, maybe a tablet, with really crappy data, even not even connected to broadband. And I think about that as a key point of maybe why that entry and access point that you all had mentioned, as well, is something to talk about the socio economic piece of it is slightly brought in, but I think it could be highlighted more, because that's not accessible for everyone.
38:08
I was just gonna say, That's that low threshold entry point. And what's interesting, you know, 2007, is when the iPhone came out, and then you've got, you know, all of these games, and these, you know, my kids can get on Minecraft and Pokemon Go on my, my cell data, and be in this crazy, detailed virtual world. I mean, it might not have the best graphics, but that's the magic of how it works that way, right? But at the, you know, things can still be replicated there. And built pretty easily. I mean, that's that low, low threshold as well. So you've got all that coming into play that is really, you know, I went and research like, the I tried to, like, see if I could download the Second Life app, and there isn't one still so I mean, you know, maybe this this virtual world that still isn't meant for gaming is still behind the games, right? Like so. You know, I know Martin talks about co opting some technology a lot for for education, maybe a you know, Second Life is still too focused on not being a game and it you know, could learn from, from what's going on in the game world because my kids have zero barrier to entry. You know, I feel privileged that you know, I have an iPhone that has cellular service, but we don't even have to have the internet for it, we just have to have the cell service and, and that is kind of the you know, one of the lowest common denominators right now amongst my students. You know, that they don't, you know, they can use their cell service to do whatever it is then then that's, that's the easiest way that's the cheapest way.
39:34
There's the mechanics of the environment as well. Like I remember scripting with LSL and building it was not trivial. Like it took a lot of homework and trial and error and study reading a lot of reading the manual, you know, to build something. My son when he started playing, he was maybe eight, seven or eight when he first started playing Minecraft. Within about six months he was using redstone to build you know, complex kind Things that moved in, you know, things that were somewhat automated with redstone? No, yeah. And that was like a ladder to learning how to use some of the command line Minecraft stuff. But there was this sort of scaffolding of expertise all the way through the platform, there was no scaffolding in Second Life, like it was just it was really there were so many barriers to actually using it in any kind of way. So I do think that Minecraft, took some of those elements and really did it well, and did it in there's no, it's no surprise that Minecraft bought it. But Microsoft bought it for such a memory, just some?
40:38
Are there things that you'd like to ask, I guess maybe the community. And that could be anyone in higher ed teaching and learning at Tech, or Martin about the chapter or some things that people should think about.
40:51
I mean, I was gonna, I guess, you know, one of the biggest things I kind of realized when the pandemic hit, and my kids were home, and I just pulled them from school, I mean, I straight up homeschool, I mean, I just couldn't even deal with what was happening with their own teachers. You know, and like not being able to, to get online and having like, so, so much less disruption, it was easier just pull on and just let them do their own thing. And, you know, I started researching a little bit more, you know, even Minecraft, the Education Edition, the version that's that's geared towards education is behind an office 365 wall. So my ability to get on, on Minecraft Education Edition had to do with that my, my university has office 365. And they have it turned on, right, which was like a surprise, I didn't even know. And I bet I'm the only one using it. But um, me and my kids couldn't have gotten on the Education Edition, the Education Edition, cost money. If not, if you don't have the ohsas 365 you have to get like your own non corporate non school account and pay for it. So there's still these pieces to the ed tech world. And, you know, Roblox is getting ready to go public IPO, like on the stock market, and they have like an education bent as well. So it's, it's kind of like, what are we doing in edtech? as professionals or as you know, kind of this larger field of professionals with all kinds of different titles to to make it known to these education? Are these tech companies, you know, that are? Maybe they're geared towards games? Like why would they give away, you know, the free version to education, like, I just feel like there's not enough even in, there's not enough synergy there. And there's not enough talks there between what education needs out of technology to adopt it, and what the benefits of that are. And of course, the benefits are, you know, you get more people in World of Warcraft and Minecraft using it for education, you think you've got the research and scholar at the university writing about it and taking it more seriously and like, you've got this whole other market, right? Like there's the business sense is there but it's not connecting. And that makes it inaccessible to us. Like, you know, my, my nine year old should not, you know, I should be able to get on Minecraft easier than my nine year old, you know, to the education version, but I can't, you know, so it's, it's those kinds of things. So I'm just like, wait, what is the disconnect in, you know, what can we do to help? Like, why? Why do we have this historical amnesia? Like, what what is it about our communication and our business practices and communication practices with these companies? That that is the disconnect. And I mean, I don't have an answer. Like I said, something I'm always wondering, like, how did how did it get like this? You know, I mean, what can what can we do to? To make it better? How can we think of it differently?
43:46
Sarah, please tell me there's not slides on the cube in Minecraft. edu, please.
43:52
No, um, they I think they that some of the stuff and it is really, like you can you can make, you can work with bees to make a pollinator field, you can go into a chemistry lab and mix, you know, you can do the same things that we were doing in Second Life, you know, you can go into a chemistry lab and mix chemicals in which is, you know, part of Second Life thing anyways, alright, part of Minecraft thing anyways, but, um, you know, you've got the kind of crafting culture that's inherent in the game, in the, in that space, I mean, they really do have some great stuff in there to make it a maker space. And then of course, anybody can make in that space. And it's so easy to make in that space, like so. You know, I have no doubt that if if educators had access, like better access, there'd be more making in the space but you know, we've got the different cultural cultural issues too, which is back to academia, which is what is this big disconnect between play and work that we can't see in the bridge? Why do we see it play so in making so nerdy you're childish, you know, that we can't take it serious enough to use these tools that would be so easy to simulate environments in I may have come across like a wall with some text, though.
45:04
Grant. Yeah, so eight bit eight bit eight bit text on the wall. Yeah.
45:12
But that's the magic of it. Right? Like,
45:13
that's how accessible? Yep, absolutely. Yeah, I think that's a good question that you pose, you actually asked two questions that are really good there. Sarah, why is there a disconnect between what we do in higher ed and industry? And I think, Bs on coming from the industry side, I actually am asking that to like, why don't we have more conversations with people that are doing gaming and tech, building and software? We always have an us versus them. But there could be more collaborations and part and true partnerships, not in one imposing lot of vendor imposing on or a company imposing on and that's it? That's a good question, because I think there are some shared goals that I know I think I live in Seattle. So I know that Microsoft wants to do these things. I know Amazon wants to do these things, to help support better society when in terms of learning and teaching, but we aren't closing those gaps for some reason. And and the other gap that you mentioned is the play and learning. I don't know what happened to us. Where do we lose the play? That's a great question. I don't know, maybe. This is a call at of, if you are listening to this episode, and you have more play, let's share how we're playing in our teaching and learning because I think we could do better and get new ideas. I think I do agree with you on that. There's play also means failing. So I think that's the call out is we're worried and we don't let some of our even ourselves like, fail and mess up and go, Hmm, I guess I'm gonna just try it again. Or there is an opportunity in your designs that allow, yeah, for real big troubleshooting issues, figuring out the problem or failing at it and going, I don't fail the course. But I failed this assignment and let me learn from that and recoup.
47:02
You're here more play more experimentation, more creativity. Yeah, we're, you know, bounded risk taking not, you know, you know, calculated risk taking somewhat calculated risk taking is everything.
47:18
Is that like, masterminding like the taking over the world domination? Is that what you mean? Yeah, maybe
47:24
that's it? Okay. Yeah, I'd be I think I've been watching too much Rick and Morty, if I'm using words like calculated risk taking.
47:32
Great, what questions or kind of things you want to do want to pose to Martin or the community to think about virtual worlds in Second Life?
47:40
Yeah, I guess. Yeah. I'm excited for what's to come in what we have learned, hopefully will take forward some of our lessons from second life, and have them informed what virtual reality and augmented reality are going to be. Hopefully, we will not make the same mistakes, you know, and we'll be able to, you know, improve those experiences, make them more accessible, make them, you know, lower barriers to entry, and be able to, as instructional designers, and faculty developers call out bad practices in that realm, when we see them and say, Hey, I was around in 2006, and seven, that did not work. So let's do it differently. Well,
48:26
I really thank you both for sharing all your wealth of knowledge and play and experimentation with these worlds. I know, like 2% of and so I'm really grateful for kind of hearing what kind of everyone was doing at that time and what you were thinking about, and we're still should be thinking about when it comes to gamification, virtual life that we're all living and how we could live a better life online. It sounds like, yes, thank
48:51
you for having us. Grant. I'm interested. I can't believe we got through this whole conversation. And we haven't told everybody what our second life name was we
49:02
Oh, my goodness. Oh, my second was nice. You know, and I'm going to do I'm going to send you both. I was digging actually for some because these two workshops, I know it recorded some and I found on YouTube from like 2008 a couple videos a week demonstrating simple stuff. And I wasn't going to share it because it was a little embarrassing little cringy. But I like now I'm going to do it. I'm going to share it so my username is actually in that video. So I'll send you folks a video so you can watch it you can see all the mechanics of how civil works the chatbox is made even some slides on The Cube you never know. What was yours? Do you remember yours?
49:41
I had to look it up. I mean, talking about historical amnesia, like I couldn't even remember like my avatar name in there, right? Um, but it was Jane wickel which is like a z w and I think I just wanted to be clever because there weren't any z w words or something to that effect. But I have like a sigh fry T shirt on. Just like NPR has obsessed about NPR and radio at the time and Public Radio, but, and science, but um, you know, yeah, it's cringe worthy, you know, there's part of it that, you know, I think we selectively left it out of our brain because you know, there's something cringe worthy or, you know, almost embarrassing about how excited we were maybe even so, you know, I'm willing to own that and kind of go back to it. And then think about how we can make it less cringe worthy, if we revisit it again. akademia
50:33
The thing that struck me too, when I was watching these old videos of me demonstrating things with my avatar is that I made the avatar look like me, of all the things I could have been anything and I'd look like this, you know, 30 something dude with frizzy hair, like I could have been anything.
50:51
I did the same, while other people were taking advantage of how they could like, I was kind of obsessed with trying to make my, you know, type trying to get, you know, tweak it to where it looked enough like me as I possibly could. Which is also probably some sort of other psychological thing with, with people who are into into making but yeah, same.
51:13
Oh, well, that's a different podcast. So we're not going to dig into identities and second life, but I do appreciate you sharing. Um, we'd love to share anything you have for listeners. I'm going to put together some links. But thank you so much for your time and chatting about and digging back into the archives of the virtual world. I really appreciate it grant. Sarah,
51:33
this is really fun. Thank you, guys, thank
51:35
you so much.
51:38
You've been listening to between the chapters with your host Laura pasquini. For more information for to subscribe to between the chapters and 25 years of edtech visit 25 years dot open ed.ca