SL konference i RL i Portugal

Mens vi andre har måttet "nøjes med" konferencen i SL, har der været en SL konference i Portugal - nå, det forsåt jeg ikke meget af, men Gwyneth Llewelyn skriver en spændende post om den: Surprising Research Results. Den kan jeg ikke anbefale varmt nok. Gwyneth Llewelyn kommer omkring mange væsentlige områder: forskning i SL, forskningsresultater vs. meninger, undervisningsformer i SL samt det, der ikke kan siges for tit:

Don’t replicate Real Life
This is something I tend to tell to all my customers: don’t recreate your RL buildings in SL, create new ones. Don’t do auditoriums and classrooms for holding out classes; create new things that only SL can do. Instead of recreating a clinic for giving classes on cardiology, build a model of the human heart!

Most of my customers cannot understand why they should be doing that; they’re too stuck on RL, and think that what works in RL, will work in SL. Well, I always thought it didn’t. Now I can prove them that scientific research showed that the best and more effective way of putting SL to use to bring a message across is to put the medium to work for your message, instead of replicating what you’ve got in RL.

It’s something that most companies will still have to figure out on their own — trial and error. But they’ll soon figure out why it won’t work so well. There are many reasons for that, but the general consensus was that SL should be handled like, indeed, a second life — a tool allowing immersion in a different environment — and not necessarily an “exact replica” of the classroom that will replace it. Instead, it should be used as a new complementary teaching tool, an additional environment for study and research, a further classroom, and not a digital replacment for existing spaces.
Surprising Research Results

Søndagens artikel om Second Life i Politiken "Forbudt at lege seksuel klæd ud-leg" handler om det samme. En 27 årig kvinde og en 54 årig mand er blevet bortvist fra SL, fordi de legede forbudte sexlege - den 27 årige kvindes avatar var en lille pige!

Til frokost i dag snakkede jeg om artiklen, og en af mine kolleger kunne slet ikke høre, hvad jeg sagde. Pædofili er forbudt. Basta! Men var det nu pædofili? Det spørgsmål kunne hun slet ikke forholde sig til - jeg er sikker på, at hun tror, jeg synes pædofili er OK. Ak, ja - jeg overvejer seriøst - i protest - at ændre min avatar til en Furry!!!

Virkelig interessant for e-læring er også postens afsnit: "Text-based environments level the ground for all students". Her er virkelig også sprængstof ift. den traditionelle diskussion om "dialogens (den mundlige) betydning". Ikke mindst tankevækkende er sætningen: "And since teacher will have to type a lot… ". Er danske undervisere vant til at skrive? Bryder danske undervisere sig ikke om at skrive? Hm!

PS: Gwyneth Llewelyn har virkelig nyttige tips om at bygge i SL! Og bemærk hendes konklusion:

In my case I gave it up and just bought a prefab home from Dominion’s Sam Portocarrero has lots of clever designs with very nice texturing, and special types for mountainous terrain, or with a more modern look instead of a conventional one. Look him up on the map and get your new home for as low as L$150…