Of Avatars and Islands

Authors Kemp and Haycock report on San Jose State University’s experience with Second Life, a virtual campus, begun in 2006. The article entitled Immersive Environments in Parallel Universes: Learning Through Second Life explains how teacher-librarians can obtain a degree in Library and Information Science (LIS) using creativity in exploratory and inventive environments. The program has potential for growth and platforms similar to Vista (e.g. Blackboard Learning Systems at UBC) need to exist in order to deepen the learning (Kemp and Haycock, p.93).

What is Second Life? as concept is aptly explained as a city garden metaphor inviting people ‘to let your imagination grow’ at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zt5YVG4n2bA . The program has proven popular with 12 million user accounts registered in 2008 which is a 3600% increase since its inception in 2006.

The San Jose State U Second Life Island (SJSU SLIS) campus tour at http://www.youtube.com/user/jeremykemp provides a visual explanation of campus islands (e.g. research & development; student union; presentation & classrooms; teacher sandbox; neighbourhoods) and avatars (student persona) who attend and participate in non-violent simulations on a variety of topics (Kemp and Haycock, p.91). The authors report that work needs to be done in aligning more quests & lectures with portfolios & reflections and in reducing graffiti and virtual abuse that infiltrates at beginning stages (Kemp and Haycock, p.93).

“Timeliness is no longer a function of geography but rather of psychological presence (Garrison et all, 1999) and transactional distance (Moore, 1993) between teacher and student” (Kemp and Haycock, p. 89). The authors believe that future librarians will be creating ‘virtual space’ that match the techno-literate novice and experienced learners’ approach to solutions, interactions and productions (Kemp and Haycock, p.90), found to be embedded in a tumultuous phrase, ‘digital natives and digital immigrants’ alluded by Prensky, 2001 (Kemp and Haycock, p.96).

LLED 462 uses thread messages and document/media file uploads as noted in this article on Distance Education. There seems to be a ‘2.0 wave’ moving in post-secondary education and multi-user virtual environments show promise with estimates at 80% of Internet users exploiting such worlds by 2011 (Wagner, 2007). Kemp and Haycock then briefly describe the most popular virtual worlds as fantasy, role-play motifs: World of Warcraft, Lineage and Runescape (Woodcock, 2008). They also note two platforms for educational purposes that would be worth exploring: Active Worlds according to Barab et al, 2001 and NeverWinter Nights according to Baker, 2008 (Kemp and Haycock, p.91).

The authors include the LIS core competencies at: http://slisweb.sjsu.edu/slis/competencies.htm which reveals the essential skills at play. The Virtual Worlds Conference outlined at Infoisland (http://infoisland.org) would be a wonderful technology fair to attend with varied workshops being presented on April 24-25, 2009. The theme is Virtual Worlds: Libraries, Education , Museums (VW LEM). One topic of interest would be VW LEM: Opportunities for children, tweens and teens. Lots to learn!


Bibliography:

Infoisland, 2008. (http://infoisland.org)

Kemp, J., Haycock, K. (2008). Immersive Environments in Parallel Universes: Learning Through Second Life School Libraries Worldwide, Volume 14, Number 2, July, 2008 (pp. 89-97), IASL http://schoollibrariesworldwide-vol14no2.blogspot.com/

Library and Information Science (2008). Core Competencies. http://slisweb.sjsu.edu/slis/competencies.htm

What is Second Life? (2008). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zt5YVG4n2bA

Second Life SJSU Campus Tour (2008). http://www.youtube.com/user/jeremykemp