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I read about the Take Down notice served to Jokay Wollongong by Linden Lab. It’s a shame they chose not to nurture such an evangelist who has opened many educators eyes to the wonderful things you can do with Second Life.
Jokay may have been knocked down but she is obviously standing now and bringing a lot of attention to Reaction Grid. Her experience running events on her 4 Second Life sims plus her incredible Second Life talent and knowledge is 100% transferable to Reaction Grid. She already has set up her meetings there!
This is a great addition to Reaction Grid and has also become a beacon which illuminates alternatives.
I felt stuck with Second Life as being the only good virtual world out there for eLearning (I was even asked to help the Taiwan government re-establish their virtual presence). And my commitment is strong to Second Life and for many people, corporations, and colleges and universities, Second Life is still a top choice. The amount of resident created content is incredible as is the pool of talented builders, event planners, and facilities.
As you may know, some of the public social places we have on the iliveisl estate are used by corporations for meetings. We have two Fortune 500 companies that hold meetings on our estate and we enjoy being able to provide that. I have entertained the idea of offering separate sims (not attached to the iliveisl estate) that are 100% focused on the eLearning community. Throughout the past year, Ener Hax has graciously donated the equivalent of about $700 USD of land to purely educational efforts (University of Glascow Medical School, the eLearning Guild, University of Texas at Dallas, eBay, Sun Microsystems).
There is an obvious need for resources that are not quite what Linden Lab offers. The people that Ener has worked with do not need an entire sim, nor do they need it month to month. Some have needed a small 4,096 sm parcel for 4 months, some a quarter sim for a week, and so on. Right now it’s a bit of a risk for a big company or institution to simple pay tiers for a parcel for a short time. They can never be sure of the estate owner’s reputation (one such person to come our way had their massive build returned to them for being a day late in their tier – 3 weeks of work returned due to greed – something that we would never do – especially since we have donated that space!) or of the neighbors and so on.
Step in the terrible treatment of a valued customer (well, she would be valued by any other business) and it’s ripple in the virtual community has opened up new options. A seemingly good offering to the eLearning community that I deal with is a plan that costs $295 the first month (compare to $1000) and then $75 a month afterwards (compare to $295). This will set you up with as many as 4 sims that can hold 25 people. For my clients, that is ideal. There is even a lower priced plan that would be ideal if you are looking to use my eLearning practices and it is only $25 a month for 15 avatars and 8,000 prims.
I am looking at their reseller offering and may shape one for the eLearning community that would allow for the mixing and matching of several different pre-made islands and a variety of buildings, stages, classrooms, and meeting spaces.
So what looked like a poor move (indeed, it was a poor move) has opened up viable options to the eLearning community. Thank you Jokay for your grace, eloquence, and resolve. Your passion is unstoppable!
Show your love to Jokay by following her on Twitter @jokay and reading her blog!
Well, I have shifted my efforts more into the engineering and solutions side of Second Life simply because there have been steady projects flowing to me in those areas. However, I am working with OpenSim on my own box for eLearning.
OpenSim is the open source software for creating your own virtual world completely under your control. It looks just like Second Life because you can use the same viewer with it. You can read more about this in a brief discussion over on the iliveisl blog.
OpenSim has advantages over Second Life for what I do with it since I use it as a 3D animation program for filming eLearning video. The nature of the OpenSim license means that everything on my box is my copyright. This became a huge issue with Linden Lab when I asked them on proper attribution for using screen shots in an eLearning book on using Second Life as a 3D studio. I certainly respect copyright and even have a video tutorial on determining copyright owners in Second Life. But Linden lab wanted to review each screen shot and it’s context before granting approval.
OpenSimulator
I still think there was some miscommunication. There is no way anyone could ever publish a book about Second Life if Linden Lab has to review the entire thing. It took 4 months, a real face-to-face meeting with two business people in San Francisco, emails with same, blog posts with the CEO, inworld IMs with two Lindens, and numerous emails to the licensing department just to get the answer indicated above.
Imagine getting them to review 100 screen shots of converted images to 300 dpi TIFFS and the associated text for each?
Once I found out from one of the lead developers of OpenSim that their license granted me far greater freedom for publishing, it became the obvious choice for this book.
As to where is Subquark Hax? I am still doing the eLearning aspect, I believe and have seen others use it successfully as an economical 3D animation tool. It will have lasting staying staying power for a few more years as more business gets done virtually. Google has a new API (o3d) for rendering 3D content on websites that simply uses JavaScript. This should change a lot of the web as it becomes more the norm to have some 3D content for your web presence.
In addition to blogging here, I will blog a little over on the iliveisl blog as a contributing author and continue to help with their social media campaign (over 1700 Twitter followers, woohoo) and build like mad isl (my true passion). :)
Good luck with all your elearning endeavors! :)
Customer service for eLearning. It’s important, obviously.
Donated Land for eLearning Providers
I was in mid-management in the 90’s for Circuit City and was a regional customer service manager for part of that time. It was a multi-state position over about 30 stores. Our service center handled product for the stores and typically had no direct customer contact (customers brought defective units into the store, those managers sent the units to us). My customers were internal - the store managers.
Circuit City would look at any electronics, diagnose them, and send out repair quotes. That process took 3.2 days when I came onboard. After authoring and implementing a national standard operating procedure, that process was reduced to 1.7 days. That was a good metric (along with a call answering time going from 35 seconds to 9).
We had one lady that brought in a VCR in which her cat had obviously puked. Cats like to lie on warm things, get overheated and barf. It’s something we saw regularly. And you know it’s a cat because of the large amount of cat hair in these electronics.
This customer called us because the store managers had passed our number to her and we explained that we could not service her VCR due to its age and that we had never carried that brand (we could not even cannibalize another unit). And her VCR was 5 years old. We waived the $35 testing fee and apologized.
She was very upset and sent a letter to Circuit City’s CEO. In her letter she explained, and named, how five regional managers and several store managers were all unable to fix her VCR. By this time, a lot of Circuit City time had been focused on her (and our bonuses were affected severely that month).
In the end, we gave her a new VCR. Is that good customer service? It is and illustrates the lengths that we went to hopefully turn this person into a customer. Is it fair? I don’t think so because she was that squeaky wheel, but she did become a customer as soon as she brought in her VCR.
The point of all this is that we did respond. And all of this happened in the course of about two weeks. A person that spent $0 with Circuit City ended up with a free VCR.
What does that have to do with Second Life as an eLearning tool? Customer service. I create free tutorials for eLearning providers. They support my presentations at conferences. These activities cost me time and money (conferences do not pay you as a presenter, in fact; I have an upcoming one where you actually have to pay to attend your own session. I answer emails, do Adobe Connect, and even phone calls. Why?
I love education, I think the world can be a better place, and I love to serve (I was a volunteer ski patroller, skater aid, and later a certified firefighter and paramedic). There was no pay in being a volunteer firefighter and I did get hurt in a rescue call, but as a modern society we depend on service from others, and sometimes the reward is not money. Delivering a baby at 4 AM or removing the body of a hero who drove his cement truck into a ditch rather than through stopped cars on a highway is a reward that cannot be matched (and is humbling).
Customer service comes in many forms.
Our l33t speak counterparts at the iliveisl blog seemed to be thrilled about M Linden being responsive to a post on his blog. I am glad that there was a response but it is a shame that it had to get to the CEO. It’s just a simple matter of asking for a few links to point corporations to that are trying to determine is SL is right to them. Very minor but a legitimate request for promoting SL. Lol, I was finally was sent a link to the official business request form via an accidental inworld conversation with a Linden.
I say “lol” because that link would actually be a great resource to send businesses. In using the form, I received an automated email that says “you will be contacted within 2 business days”. Good thing I have not sent that link out, because the 10 days it’s so far would have been a reflection on me.
I have spent hours searching for this type of information on ROI and so on. Those who know me know that I am passionate and persistent, if nothing else.
Remember your customers, they don’t have to be the ones that pay you thousnads a month a month to be worth an answer. And blaming it on email is unacceptable. Thank your customers, thank your learners, and care about people. At least enough to not let things fall through the cracks. Onward to more eLearning!
update: M was true to his word and I was contacted inworld by George Linden to learn more specifics to my request. It seems like there may not be the type of information out there that people I run into want. Many elearning departments of Fortune 500’s have tight budgets both in time and money. They can’t afford a Maya license or the talent required to create 3D animation. But with Second Life you can create very good animation and bring it into Flash for creating branched scenarios. Those are the people trying to justify how to get land in Second Life. Most don’t need an entire island and a quarter sim or less would be ample. Perhaps it’s time for iliveisl to move into the corporate realm to fill this need! I look forward to what George and the team can come up with. It will be well received. Thanks Linden!
Oh yeah, I’m a Texas Longhorn and proud of it (plus I miss TexMex something fierce). So when I found out about the Texas Distance Learning Association I was quick to see if I could speak at their 12th annual conference.
TxDLA
Texas schools, community colleges, and universities enjoy a well-earned reputation in distance ed. I lived in Dallas when the Dallas County Community College District gained national acclaim with their satellite farm back in the day. It was an impressive array of large dishes.
DCCCD also has a presence in Second Life that is run by the Second Life passionate Montse who is associated with David Anderson of the eLearning Guild. Both have helped push what Second Life can do on the education front.
Texas State Technical College is pulling off a major paradigm shift with their work in Second Life as well.
This year, Linden Lab is pulling out all the stops to help make Second Life and even better tool for educators. Here are some highlights form 2008. And I continue to evangelize what SL can do to help learners.
Texas was a great place to get educated, no doubt. As a wannabe geologist, it made sense to study in Texas and the state universities offered a solid education in that field. It was a big move for a French Canadian and meant leaving a budding fencing career (a good move since a fencing instructor is not in very high demand). And I met Dr. Fred Fifer, my graduate department chair who probably does not realize the extent of his influence on me, even to my passion of creating rich media to engage eLearners. His focus was that every learner is worth reaching and that instructors need techniques that are within their reach.
This means solutions that are either free or very inexpensive. He had developed a “green box” of easy to assemble goodies that would allow even the poorest school districts to prerform meaningful and engaging science experiments. His equipment consisted of string, pennies, old prescription bottle, film canisters (back in the pre-digital days), and so on.
I’d like to think that my approach would do him proud as I use those tools that are typically free and easily available. Whether it’s Moviemaker or iMovie (both free and already installed) or free tool like WavePad and Second Life.
Free? Second Life? Well it can be and yes, it does make it easier if you have land, but you can do land one week at a time for a few dollars if need be. Or you can find people, like me, that offer a sandbox type space, and temporary land for projects.
See you at the end of the month, or maybe on the gulf coast of Texas in April, can’t wait to get some real TexMex and be among some of the nicest people you’ll ever meet!
Hook ‘em Horns!
eLearning Guild January 30th Online Forum
Not only fast, cheap, and effective, but real skills that you can add to your resume. Whether you are secure or a freelancer; you still need to push and add to your resume.
And maybe add a video of yourself (avatar anyway) to your portfolio? Why not? Learn how with my session on Second Life.
If Microsoft hired some senior VP based on their high level in World of Warcraft, who knows what may happen if you display your new found skills online?
Don’t have your own URL. Who needs one today (frankly, I love my URL – it ties to my grad degree – but I have all but given up on it’s email because of the incredible amount of spam one accumulates after 8 years and 20 other websites along the way).
Get a free blog site, create your own Ning network, or use visualCV. Lots of excellent alternatives that are just as valid (imo). So attend some sessions if you can, it’s a great way to network too!
