web 2.0 and virtual worlds

Virtual worlds and Web 2.0

New York State Higher

EducationCIO Conference

Summer2007

Plan of the talk

Introductions

1. Web 2.0

2. Virtual worlds

3. Pedagogies, practices, issues

(Middlebury waterfall, spring 2006)

One theoretical argument

How do information technologies change?

(Dviga Vertov, Man with Camera (1929))

Janet Murray’s two-step1. Copy and paste2. Intrinsic affordances emerge

(Hamlet On the Holodeck, 1998)

One metaphor

Web 2.0 and education is like gaming and education: awareness is challenging

• Huge, financially and quantitatively successful worlds

• Global and rapidly developing• Bad anxieties, policies, and media coverage• Perceived lack of…

seriousness

One metaphor

Web 2.0 and education is like gaming and education: intersections are possible

• Take advantage of preexisting projects

• Mod/warp/hack

• DIY

• Literacy: audience

I. Web 2.0

The term’s history: Tim O’Reilly, 2005

• Expands “social software”

• Draws on Web history

I. Web 2.0

Microcontent, rather than sites or large documents

(Twitter, 2007)

I. Web 2.0

• Multiply authored microcontent, rather than sites or large documents

I. Web 2.0

• Open content and/or services and/or standards

(Pepysblog, 2003-)

I. Web 2.0

Open microcontent + multiple authors = network constructivism

(Pepysblog, 2003-)

I. Web 2.0

More simply: user-generated, shareable content

(Pepysblog, 2003-)

I. Web 2.0

Data mashups

Flickr

+

Google Maps

I. Web 2.0

Perpetual beta (O’Reilly, now history)

Geo-tagging in Flickr

I. Web 2.0

• AJAX-based? Also Flash, also database

I. Web 2.0

• O’Reilly: platforms for development

I. Web 2.0

What can we learn from this? Ton Zylstra:

“In general you could say that both Flickr and delicious work in a triangle: person, picture/bookmark, and tag(s). Or more abstract a person, an object of sociality, and some descriptor...”

I. Web 2.0

“…In every triangle there always needs to be a person and an object of sociality. The third point of the triangle is free to define[,] as it were.”

-http://www.zylstra.org, 2006(emphases added)

I. Web 2.0

What can we learn from this?Jyri Engesrom is succinct: “The fallacy is to think that social

networks are just made up of people. They're not; social networks consist of people who are connected by a shared object.”

-http://www.zengestrom.com/, 2005

I. Web 2.0

Collaborative writing platforms: the wiki way

I. Web 2.0

Web 2.0 components, movements• collaborative writing platforms: the blogosphere

I. Web 2.0

State of the blogosphere• 70 million blogs tracked by Technorati:

“Technorati is now tracking over 70 million weblogs, and we're seeing about 120,000 new weblogs being created worldwide each day. That's about 1.4 blogs created every second of every day.”

(David Sifry, April 2007)

Chart follows…

I. Web 2.0

Web 2.0 components, movements: social objects

http://flickr.com/

•Photo sharing:

Flickr

I. Web 2.0

Components, movements

• Mixing and mashing:

the RSS feed

I. Web 2.0

-Alex Iskold, The Read/Write Web, April 2007

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/the_future_of_rss.php

“RSS is basically a filtered push - the user subscribes (pulls in) to channels that he/she likes, and after that content is delivered automatically.”

I. Web 2.0

Social object: the person

• FaceBook

• MySpace

• LinkedIn

• ZoomInfo

• CyWorld

I. Web 2.0

Social news:

• Memeorandum, Tailrank, Digg, TechMeme

I. Web 2.0

Web 2.0 influences rich media

• Podcasting

I. Web 2.0

What’s happened since “podcasting” in 2001? Neologisms:

• godcasting

• nanocasting

• podfading

• podsafe

• podspamming

• podvertising• porncasting

I. Web 2.0

Web 2.0 influences rich media: audio

Freesound archive•DIY copyright•Social networking values

http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/

I. Web 2.0

Web 2.0 influences rich media: video

(Gootube? Suetube?)

II. Virtual worlds

(Second Life, 2004-present)

Wiki approach to other media?-social gaming and Web 2.0

•wiki objects•wiki resources

II. Virtual worlds

(LambdaMOO, 1990-present)

Antecedents, digital: the MUD, Adventure

II. Virtual worlds

(Activeworlds, 1995-present)

(image via www.virtualworldlets.net)

Antecedents, digital: avatar spaces

-There

-Atmospheres

II. Virtual worlds

(from Philippe Codognet, http://webia.lip6.fr/~codognet/)

Antecedents, predigital: Theater of Memory

II. Virtual worlds

Antecedents, early digital: science fiction

1984: William Gibson, Neuromancer

1992: Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash“’The matrix has its roots in primitive arcade games,’ said the

voice-over, "in early graphics programs and military experimentation with cranial jacks." On the Sony, a two-dimensional space war faded behind a forest of mathematically generated ferns, demonstrating the spatial possibilities of logarithmic spirals; cold blue military footage burned through, lab animals wired into test systems, helmets feeding into fire control circuits of tanks and war planes…’”

II. Virtual worlds

“’Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts . . . A graphic representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity....’"

II. Virtual worlds

“’…Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding…’

"What's that?" Molly asked, as he flipped the channel selector.

"Kid's show."

William Gibson, Neuromancer (1984)

II. Virtual worlds

(Club Penguin, 2005-present)

New forms

2d-3d worlds

-Habbo Hotel

-Cyworld

-Runescape

-VMK

II. Virtual worlds

Google Earth

-Keyhole DB

-2d: KML

-3d: Sketchup

-reach

-Geotagging photos: videos

II. Virtual worlds

“Human Pacman,” Adrian David Cheok, circa 2005

Augmented Reality

-mobile devices

game players

general use tools

II. Virtual worlds

Second Life scene, December 2006

Future: Web 3d?

-identity as avatar

-media platform

III. Pedagogies and issues

(Rome: Total War)

Pedagogies

1. Virtual reality

2. Social software


Ancient Spaces project, University of British Columbia

Virtual reality

Machu Picchu, Arts Metaverse,Open Croquet


Second Life,

Bryan Zelmanov

Emotional bandwidth (Linden Labs)

•Social presence•Self-expression


Teaching with Web 2.0: it’s not all new

-Web 1.0, internet pedagogies

• Hypertext

• Web audience

• Discussion for a

• Collaborative document authoring

• Groupware


Teaching with virtual worlds: it’s not all new

-Web 1.0, internet pedagogies

• Rich media

• Web audience

• Chat

• MUDs/MOOs


Teaching with Web 2.0: principles

• Distributed

conversation

• Collaborative

writing

• Object-oriented

discussion

http://smarthistory.blogspot.com/


Teaching with virtual worlds and Web 2.0: more principles

• Personalization

• Relative ease of entry

(Barbara Ganley)


Social object pedagogies, virtual worlds and Web 2.0

(from Edugadget,

http://www.edugadget.com/2005/05/07/flickr-creative-commons)

•Annotate details•Remix (“Make it mine”)


Teaching with the “net.gen”:

“[S]tudents… write words on paper, yes— but… also compose words and images and create audio files on Web logs (blogs), in word processors, with video editors and Web editors and in e-mail and on presentation software and in instant messaging and on listservs and on bulletin boards…

Kathleen Blake Yancey, "Made Not Only in Words: Composition in a New Key." CCC 56.2 (2004):297-328.


Teaching with the “net.gen”:

“—and no doubt in whatever genre will

emerge in the next ten minutes

…Note that no one is making anyone do any of this writing.”

Kathleen Blake Yancey, "Made Not Only in Words: Composition in a New Key." CCC 56.2 (2004):297-328.


Strategic choices: hosted or local


Strategic choices: vendor or open source?

(Open Croquet, 1999-present)


Strategic choices: CMS involvement


Strategic choices: CMS involvement

(Sloodle project,http://www.sloodle.com)


Web 2.0Limitations• Contrary to class safe space (Gary Kornblith)• Loss of individuality• Archival problems

Some responses• Can block comments and/or readers• Liberatory moment• Complement other practices


Virtual worldsInteroperability-no standards body-move content

between platforms?

(Rise of Nations, Microsoft Games)


Preservation questions-what state?-how to cope with vendor dependency?

Upcoming Sony PS3 product

Wired, March 2007


Content worries-Sex and/or children-Copyright (cf Copybot)

Support woes-Machines-Networks-Labs

(Flyguy, http://www.trevorvanmeter.com/flyguy/ )


Multimedia and audience

“Q: Will Web 3D take off? Or is the way we interface with the web perfectly fine at the moment?

A: Text is very good at conveying information. You don't need a 3D environment to read text, and indeed it could get in the way. Would you want to read what I'm saying here if it were in a 3D setting? Would it help or hinder your ability to follow what was going on?...”


“…Also, in an avatar-based virtual world, you're controlling a character. Sometimes, people don't want to control characters, they just want to be themselves. Do I gain anything from having to direct my character to read something I want to read? Or is it an unnecessary level of indirection?”

Richard Bartle, Guardian interview, July 17 2007


Is there a Wiki approach to other media?-video and audio• not fully yet

(Odeo,for Napoleon 101)


Wiki approach to other media?-video and audio• experiments

(IT Conversations)


Wiki approach to other media?-images

(Gliffy)


Virtual worlds applied to Web 2.0?Richer media; greater sense of place

Cyworld,South Korea

“Less than four years after its launch, 15 million people, or almost a third of the country's population, are members.” (BusinessWeek, September 2005)

National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education http://nitle.org

NITLE blog http://b2e.nitle.org

web 2.0 and virtual worlds

Technology

web history

metaphor web

readwrite web

talk introductions web

virtual worlds pedagogies

virtual worlds cyberspace

virtual worlds activeworlds

virtual worlds lambdamoo