Society and Information Technology in Second Life

Wednesdays, January 9 - July 30, 2008, 4-6, SLT/PT, 7-9 pm ET

on Berkman island in Second Life - http://slurl.com/secondlife/Berkman/114/70/25

 Course homepage - http://socinfotech.pbwiki.com

 

Instructor: Scott MacLeod (not on Harvard's faculty) = Aphilo Aarde (in Second Life)

http://scottmacleod.com/papers.htm

 

 

 

 

 

June 25 2008 Soc and Info Tech class transcript

 

 

 

[16:01]  Boston Hutchinson: Hi Aphilo

[16:01]  Connecting to in-world Voice Chat...

[16:01]  Connected

[16:01]  You: HI Boston!, Claryssa!

[16:02]  Claryssa Schmidt: hi

[16:02]  Boston Hutchinson: Hi Claryssa

[16:02]  You: Welcome to talking further about a Global virtual world University

[16:02]  You: Let's wait a little until others come.

[16:03]  Jayne Urqhart is Offline

[16:03]  You: I'd like to talk this evening - vis-a-vis envisioning about virtual world aspects, and then some organizational aspects.

[16:04]  You: Have you seen any of "Torley Lives" videos on SL building?

[16:04]  Claryssa Schmidt: yes

[16:04]  You: Torley is a Linden - Torley Linden - who makes helpful tutorials.

[16:05]  Boston Hutchinson: A few.

[16:05]  You: Which have you seen Claryssa?

[16:05]  You: Boston?

[16:05]  Boston Hutchinson: I remember a bit of one on particles.

[16:05]  You: Yes . . .

[16:05]  You: Hi Rain!

[16:06]  You: Welcome

[16:06]  Claryssa Schmidt: hi Rain

[16:06]  You: My SL hasn't downloaded completely yet.

[16:06]  Michele Mrigesh is Offline

[16:06]  Boston Hutchinson: Hi Rain

[16:07]  You: In Torley's video about terraforming that's abt 17 mins long, there's

[16:07]  Luciftias Neurocam is Online

[16:07]  SamBivalent Spork is Offline

[16:07]  You: a button he talks about that will allow one to convert raw data files into terrain, that is now broken.

[16:08]  Krysss Galatea is Online

[16:08]  Rajah Yalin is Online

[16:08]  You: And, obviously, it's for land owners, mostly,

[16:08]  Arawn Spitteler is Offline

[16:08]  You: but it does offer the opportunity, in a sense, to shape a virtual world Universe, possibly overnight, limited only by server space.

[16:09]  Joseph Tisch is Online

[16:09]  You: And for a global, degree granting, virtual world, open, free-to-students, comprehensive University, w

[16:09]  You: with Harvard as a key player, for everyone but particularly the developing world

[16:10]  You: - it does offer a remarkable 'physical plant' in virtual terms that it infinitely extensible, and shapeable.

[16:11]  You: If photos, of one kind or another, are raw data - they are also infinite

[16:11]  You: both on earth, under the oceans, and in the universe

[16:11]  You: And all with the click of a button.

[16:12]  You: And of course it's possible to look inside bodies now with sophisticated tools.

[16:12]  01 Hifeng is Online

[16:12]  You: So that, too, could be part of this virtual university

[16:13]  You: So it seems to me that virtual worlds offer remarkable opportunities for idea exchange

[16:13]  Boston Hutchinson: terrain and textures can be imported, but I haven't heard of any way to generate prims automatically from photographs yet.

[16:14]  You: And the possibilities for anyone to help shape aspects of this emerging University and Universe have far reaching implications as well

[16:14]  Boston Hutchinson: But the holodecks give the illusion of a world with objects in it

[16:14]  You: Perhaps that's what this button will do.

[16:14]  Boston Hutchinson: prims?

[16:15]  You: It says convert raw data -

[16:15]  You: this is the video . . . .

[16:15]  You: If one can take usgs DEMs

[16:15]  You: maps -

[16:15]  You: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MR5tZN4BVSw

[16:15]  Boston Hutchinson: yes, that's terrain. But not prims.

[16:16]  You: Digital Elevation Model is what DEM stands for

[16:17]  You: True, but I would hazard a guess that prims aren't far off

[16:17]  You: Here's a source for DEMs - http://seamless.usgs.gov/

[16:17]  Boston Hutchinson: actually, it's a radically more complex problem technically, but you're probably right that it will start happening soon anyway.

[16:18]  You: Have any of you used these?

[16:18]  You: Does anyone know who is developing the Havok Physics Machine?

[16:18]  You: It would be in relation to them that one might find a fruitful avenue of prim development.

[16:19]  You: So what would you like to see in a virtual Universe, that might facilitate both something like the MIT Open Course Ware content, but also a variety of courses beyond this

[16:20]  You: both for a degree granting University, with Harvard as a key player, but also what might be useful to a global University built on a wiki / wikipedia model

[16:20]  Aidan Aquacade is Offline

[16:20]  You: that might be very far-reaching, in multiple languages, and for the developing world,

[16:21]  Boston Hutchinson: what would a wiki in a virtual world look like?

[16:21]  You: and that would take advantage of IT?

[16:21]  Eme Capalini is Offline

[16:21]  Harper Beresford is Offline

[16:21]  You: Probably like a browser window in SL or OpenSim

[16:21]  Gareth Otsuka is Online

[16:21]  You: (And it occurred to me recently, vis-a-vis browsers in SL) that recoding a browser to be an avatar in SL

[16:22]  Luciftias Neurocam is Offline

[16:22]  Boston Hutchinson: Maybe the idea of an encyclopedia in world and in multimedia, and with objects and scripts would be a useful teaching tool.

[16:22]  You: - like the open source Mozilla Firefox 3, which seems secure between a mutual fund and you, for example,

[16:22]  You: would be a way to create secure interactions in virtual worlds.

[16:22]  You: Hello Jazz9

[16:23]  Boston Hutchinson: a browser avatar would be a google-bot?

[16:23]  Jazz9Ometeotl Loon: hihi :)

[16:23]  You: Yes, very much so, Boston

[16:23]  Boston Hutchinson: a robot that responds to inquiries by quoting google? or by quoting wikipedia?

[16:23]  Michele Mrigesh is Online

[16:24]  You: Can anyone think of any examples of reconfiguring a browser into another form that then carries with it the properties functionality it originally had?

[16:24]  You: *or other software?

[16:24]  Gareth Otsuka is Offline

[16:24]  You: like a developing and sophisticated ChomskyBot, Boston?

[16:24]  You: Hi Seeker?

[16:25]  Boston Hutchinson: There are a lot of widgets that do that. Also cell phones and maybe other devices.

[16:25]  You: in formation being sought for through an avatar-browser?

[16:26]  Jon Seattle is Offline

[16:26]  You: The idea of an encylopedia in world is fruitful, but making such sources as interactive as

[16:26]  Boston Hutchinson: It's all a bit complicated technically, but people are exploring different ways of reconfiguring browsers, but it usually means rewriting all the web pages!

[16:27]  You: ... and empathic, as a real teacher, is an interesting challenge.

[16:27]  Boston Hutchinson: not realistic in the near future.

[16:27]  You: And while I'd like to envision this global virtual university as, in part, being independent of humans, so that one could work toward a Ph.D. without human intervention, for example,

[16:28]  You: the beauty of SL is that it allows for interaction between real professors and students, placelessly, and

[16:28]  Sonja Strom is Online

[16:28]  You: with the help of new forms of representation, and much else in the Info Tech revolution.

[16:30]  You: It might be a challenge to move from html in a browser, to a secure avatar-browser communication process, but if one privileges

[16:30]  You: the conversation aspect of knowledge generation between real faculty and students, using google chat, as an example,

[16:30]  You: I think it already exists, Boston, and wouldn't be that challenging.

[16:31]  You: So say one could make the Universe in virtual worlds by the fall, for example, and use this a classroom, and that conversations could be secure between faculty and students, who are real

[16:32]  You: what else would you want to see virtually

[16:32]  You: for a global university for everyone and especially the developing world?

[16:32]  Dena Dana is Online

[16:33]  You: What would virtual worlds add that we can plan for?

[16:33]  You: . . . beyond the familiar classroom?

[16:33]  Boston Hutchinson: It seems to me that one of the key problems is that the developing world doesn't have access to virtual worlds.

[16:33]  You: library?

[16:33]  Michele Mrigesh is Offline

[16:34]  You: I agree, Boston, but keeping SL with a light footprint, and waiting for OLPC to have enough memory probably won't take that long.

[16:34]  Michele Mrigesh is Online

[16:34]  You: I also think that focusing such

[16:35]  You: a global, degree granting, virtual world, open, free-to-students, comprehensive University

[16:35]  You: with Harvard as a key player, for everyone but particularly the developing world

[16:36]  You: for even cell phones, like the iPhone, which is basically a computer, has some merit, becasue that may be at least the beginning device of choice.

[16:37]  You: So, for example, say Harvard Medical School, was teaching MDs medicine in Africa, who were based in AFrica.

[16:37]  Persis Trilling is Offline

[16:37]  You: One interesting aspect of virtual worlds, would be the ability for Boston - based physician- instructor

[16:38]  You: instructors to be in the virtual world of both their students, as well as

[16:38]  You: the environment that their students were working in.

[16:38]  You: ... and living in . . .

[16:39]  Persis Trilling is Online

[16:39]  You: And, say, that almost every aspect of a medical education

[16:39]  You: could be represented virtually, and within a year or two, in a basic way

[16:39]  You: what would be helpful and far-reaching that info tech would add to such an educational process?

[16:40]  You: Could I.T. speed up a medical education, help create quick specialized knowledges for particularly groups of care givers?

[16:41]  Joseph Tisch is Offline

[16:41]  You: What else might be possible with Information Technology, given a virtual environment, that allowed for the accomplisment of

[16:42]  You: 99% of real life medical education tasks (that might be workable in a year or two)?

[16:42]  Persis Trilling is Offline

[16:43]  You: Certainly, education processes might be easier, thus, for example, possibly reversing HIV transmission from lack of safety precautions.

[16:43]  Persis Trilling is Online

[16:43]  You: Thoughts? Observations?

[16:44]  Persis Trilling is Offline

[16:44]  You: Literacy would be a limitation, but so much is possible in generating medical educational opportunities.

[16:44]  You: ... with a virtual world

[16:45]  You: and cell phones are significantly less expensive than OLPCs . . .

[16:45]  Champler Snook is Online

[16:46]  Boston Hutchinson: Can you imagine a student attending this class via cell phone?

[16:46]  You: so I think we might think of these devices could be seen as basically free .

[16:46]  Boston Hutchinson: It would certainly require a greatly simplified version of the SL client software.

[16:47]  You: That's a stretch for me, Boston, but as Hans Rosling pointed out in his video on improving trends in global poverty

[16:47]  You: when countries get teh internet, standards of living improve

[16:47]  You decline ::CONTACT:: 3.1  on ::SATURN:: from A group member named Sonja Strom.

[16:48]  You: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/92

[16:48]  You: True

[16:49]  You: What else might we envision vis-a-vis Harvard Medical Education in a virtual world - Boston <> Africa?

[16:50]  You: which virtual worlds would make possible?

[16:51]  You: What would a global, degree-granting, virtual world, open, free, comprehensive University, with Harvard as a key player, for everyone and especially for the developing world, based on a wiki model, do

[16:52]  You: reshaping medical education around the world? What could, for example, Harvard Medical School, privileging a virtual world model of medical education, in part, learn from other parts of the world?

[16:53]  You: In part, I'm thinking of medical anthropologists work (Kleinman, et al.) which knowledge is being transformed by these new developments.

[16:54]  You: The cultural rootedness of disease and sickness understandings would be transformed by, and are being transformed, by globalization

[16:54]  You: of which the Internet could be seen as an extension.

[16:54]  JenzZa Misfit is Offline

[16:55]  You: And virtual worlds become an example, without parallel, of a globalized world, especially in relation to disease, that

[16:56]  You: potentially transforms these understandings in

[16:56]  You: radical ways.

[16:56]  You: So, before we take a break, and focus afterward, on some organizational questions, considering a wiki model,

[16:57]  You: what are other envisionings that aspects of virtual worlds make possible in relation to a global University, Ph.D., M.D. and open, as well?

[16:58]  You: Let's take a break now, and return at 10 minutes past the hour. I'd like then to even begin to generate a list that will inform a wiki that we then can develop.

[16:59]  You: See you soon . . .

[16:59]  Jazz9Ometeotl Loon: :)

[16:59]  You: :)