Research in Second Life

Dr. Cynthia Calongne

Colorado Technical University

October 27, 2007

Copyright Cynthia M. Calongne, 2007.

Permission is granted for this material to be shared under a

Creative Commons Attribution - Share Alike 3.0 United States.

You are free to copy, distribute, display, perform, remix and make derivative works.

Attribute the work to Cynthia M. Calongne and distribute it with a similar or compatible license.

Agenda

• Trivia Questions

• Statistics and Terminology

• Research

• Education

• CTU Classes

• Second Life Research Links

Trivia 1 - Game and Television

On which program was Svarga recently featured?

Svarga, a primitive lifesimulation created by Laukosargas Svarog,a Lionhead game studio developer who also worked on the game Black & White with Peter Molyneux

Svarga

Trivia 1 Answer

Gartner

• By 2011 – 80% of the world’s active Internet users will be

in a virtual world• Also Fortune 500 enterprises, re: Reuters

– Over 330 million active Internet home users in March 2007 -- Nielsen ratings

– Business Issues• Security• Branding and staffing a virtual world presence

Terminology in Second Life

• Avatar– representation of self

• Island– simulator or region

• Object– linked set of prims

• Prim, primitive– a shape you build

• RL - Real Life

• Rez– to render a 3D object– drag from inventory or

Build menu to the ground

• Sim– simulator or region

• SL - Second Life

Avatars and Roleplay

October 2007

• Prior to CSI: NY on 10/24/07– Over 2 X the size of San Francisco – Over 10,419,158 accounts in Second Life– Over 51,000 simultaneous logins– Every day - > 120,000 people log into SL– August average user - 23.6 hours per week– March 2007 - over US $15 million per month

• 10/26/07 $1.1 million spent in 24 hrs

Hot Research Topics

• Software interoperability

• Research and Web 2.0 integration

• Robots and AI

• Education

• Integration between virtual worlds

• Math, science and Google search

• Behaviors

• Teaching and learning in a virtual world

Virtual World Interoperability

Dr Dobbs - Researchers Discuss Interoperability

Research

• Virtual Hallucinations– U of CA at Davis– U of Queensboro– Schizophrenia– Survey instrument

• Seifert Surface– Knot and fractal theory– Crooked House

• Seifert Surface - Math in SL– http://www.segerman.org/2ndlife.html

• Dr. John Bransford – Center for Learning in

Informal and Formal Environments (LIFE)

– Cooperation to navigate a maze -- we sit above, gazing at media screens with slides appear

– Avatars sit above the maze looking at slides

Virtual Hallucinations

University of Queensboro University of Calif, Davis

Survey Instrument in SLVoices and Perception

Seifert Surface’s Research

Trivia 2 Math

• What is a Tesseract?

• Which popular science fiction author wrote about it?

• Hint: A dozen authors wrote about it, but this one is no stranger to it...

Modeling the Problem

Crooked House

You never run out of house as it rolls over while you walk

Trivia 2 Answers

• What is a Tesseract?

• Which popular science fiction author wrote about it? A dozen wrote about it!

• Look at examples!

• A 4-dimensional hypercube

• Robert Heinlein in “And He Built a Crooked House”

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesseract

Cooperation Theory

We sit above, seeing the maze and the demonstration viewers

SL Research

• VITAL Lab -- Software Engineering Process Game and more– http://vital.cs.ohiou.edu/vitalwiki/index.php/Second_Life_Development

• Eric McLuhan on animation and the Egyptian silhouette

• Conferences and Symposiums

Eric McLuhan in SL

Robotics at CTU

Student, instructor and Big Robot on Campus group robots

CTU Exhibits - August 2007

MacArthur Foundation in SL

Philip Linden, CEO of Linden LabMeets with the MacArthur Foundation

Real and Virtual Meetings

NMC Symposium, Lyr Lobo queries the MacArthur Foundation

Acheron LV426

Experimental Design Space by Lyr Lobo

Trivia 3 -- The Movies

• What science fiction movie features Acheron LV426?

• Who lived at Joyous Garde?

• Hint: there were four movies in the series.

• Hint: John Cleese played him in the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail

1st NMC Teachers Buzz

Education in Second Life

• Thompson NETg

• Teen Tutorials– from the Ivory Tower

of Primitives - Lumiere Noir

• Ramapo - 400 8th graders– Of Mice and Men

• CTU Classes – CS 672 Systems

Engineering Methods– CS 641 Software

Requirements Engineering

– CS 382 Software Design

– CS 835 Robotics

Thomson NETg in SL

Presenting video stream with Thomson NETg online course content

8th Graders Learn to Design

Teens and Immersive Literature

Of Mice and Men in the courtroom

Colorado Tech Island

CTU Boardwalk in SL

CTU Classroom and Workspace

Dementasia - CTU experimental design space by Lyr Lobo

CTU Class - 1st Day in SL

Robotics Class Projects

Robots by CTU doctoral students and Lyr Lobo on Acheron LV426

Virtual Office Hours

Communicationin Second Life

Left to right

TeleportGroup Notice

2nd rowVoice Chat (*)Instant MessageURLs embedded

Star - Basketball - Water Park

The student designed,textured, linked and scripted her star project the first two hours in SL

Havok physics challenged basketball project; phantom water park

Evolution - CS 672 to CS 641

Evolution of a Merry Go Round - astudy in state machines

CS 641 Projects

Evolution of a Ferris wheel -- on right, has a rotation problem

CS 641 - Portable Duck Shoot

Score & ducks reset with push button control; Colorado Tech island

CS 641 Eliciting Requirements

DART

DementasiaAerialRapidTransit

CS 641 Requirements Projects

Student designed monorail system with menu and stations

The Effects of Roleplay in Class

The monorail evolved intoa rollercoaster and went underwater after thecustomer requirementschanged during roleplay.

Monorail Goes Underwater then Becomes a Rollercoaster

Physics is enabled at the end, sending the car andriders rolling & plunging into the water.

Scott Radel specified an attractioncalled The Thing in the Water

Learning Communities

Bridging two CTU classes together with the monorail

Team Project by 12 Students

The game maze sits 300 meters above Lyr Lobo’s Dementasia

A Capture the Flag PVP Maze Game

I survived the Maze Game

shirts

Traps and Scoreboard

PvP capture-the-flag game set in a maze filled with traps

Educational Opportunities

• Collaboration and community– Extracurricular events

– Cultural venues– SL groups, including

educational networks

• Educational news

• Learning extends beyond the classroom– Student services and

union board activities– Music, dance, art– Real Life Education in

Second Life– NMC Guests

• www.nmc.org/sl

– SL in Education listserv– SLED Picayune

Art Gallery

Photo by Jeff Hiles

Dragons at Elf Circle

Tolkienesque fantasy roleplay in a creative community

Dance - Important in SL Culture

Elf Circle’s First Anniversary Celebration

Art Exhibit - StarAx Sculptures

One day exhibit at the NMC Symposium October 2006

Launch at the Int’l Space Museum

Notice an avatar floating overhead as the flight crew prepares to launch

Second Life and CSI: NY

SL Research Links

• Research in Second Life presentation– http://www.slideshare.net/lyrlobo/research-in-second-life

• Artificial Intelligence in SL– http://web.bvu.edu/faculty/schweller/

• TCC Preconference Wiki -- SL from a Flash drive tips– http://tccpre-conference.pbwiki.com/

• Libsecondlife -- programming tools– http://www.libsecondlife.org/wiki/Main_Page

• LSL Wiki -- programming tools– http://www.lslwiki.net/lslwiki/wakka.php?wakka=HomePage

• Edumuve– http://edumuve.com/tour/ and http://edumuve.com/blended/

SL Research Links 2

• Second Life http://secondlife.com/ http://secondlifegrid.net/• National Public Radio’s Science Friday in SL

– http://www.sciencefriday.com/

• NMC Campus Observer– http://sl.nmc.org/

• NOAA’s Traffic Analysis– http://mayarealities.com/

• Best Practices in SL– http://www.slcn.tv/bpe-lyr-lobo

• Annotated Bibliograophy of SL Educational Resources – http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~mpepper/slbib

SL Research Links 3

• Second Life as a Virtual Learning Environment– http://www.dokimos.org/secondlife/education/index.html

• An Educational Tour of Second Life– http://www.slideshare.net/lyrlobo/an-educational-tour-of-second-life

• A View from Second Life’s Trenches: Are you a Pioneer or a Settler?– http://sl.nmc.org/2007/06/09/pioneer-or-settler/

• Leveraging the Affordances, Minimizing the Barriers of Virtual Worlds– http://sl.nmc.org/2007/06/09/edu-panel/

• LearnScope in Second Life– http://www.slideshare.net/lyrlobo/learnscope-in-second-life

SL Research Links 4

• Using Second Life– www.educause.edu/ir/library/powerpoint/SAC07025A.pps

• Beyond Course Management Tools: Second Life – www.educause.edu/ir/library/powerpoint/SAC07014.pps

• Virtual worlds in Online Education: Are You Ready to Teach in Second Life?– http://www.telecoop.org/conference/materials/

CalogneTeachinginSecondLife.ppt

• What Can We Learn from World of Warcraft & Second Life?– http://archive.nmc.org/events/2006fallregional/materials/calongne.ppt

• SL Podcast by Bayne, Walker and Calongne– http://connect.educause.edu/blog/gbayne/podcastusingsecondli/44967?

time=1188754831

SL Research Links 5

• Who’s on Second? Educational Podcasts– http://www.rabble.ca/rpn/podcast.php?id=wos

• Second Life Development -- VITAL Lab– http://vital.cs.ohiou.edu/vitalwiki/index.php/Second_Life_Development

• Suffern Middle School in Second Life– http://rampoislands.blogspot.com/2007_02_01_archive.html

• Second Life Library 2.0– http://www.infoisland.org/drupal/ and

http://www.myspace.com/73899784

• Second Life Education Wiki– http://www.simteach.com/wiki/index.php?title=Second_Life_Education_Wiki

SL Research Links 6

• Secondary Worlds– http://secondaryworlds.com/

• Reuters -- Doors to open on Google Virtual world(s)?– http://blogs.reuters.com/mediafile/2007/10/24/doors-to-open-on-google-

virtual-worlds/

• SL and Google Earth are Transforming the Idea of Architectural Collaboration– http://archrecord.construction.com/features/digital/archives/0701dignews-

2.asp

• Timeline - History of Second Life Wiki – http://secondlife.wikia.com/index.php/Second_Life_Through_The_Ages

• UberNoggin: Big Brains - Big Ideas– http://www.ubernoggin.com/

SL Research Links 7 News

• Reuters in Second life– http://secondlife.reuters.com/

• The SL Newspaper– http://www.sl-newspaper.com/

• Second Life Herald– http://www.secondlifeherald.com/

• Metaverse Messenger– http://metaversemessenger.com/index.html

• SLNN– http://www.slnn.com/index.php

SL Research Links 8

• New Worlds Notes– http://nwn.blogs.com/

• SL A Virtual Universe for Real Engineering– http://www.designnews.com/index.asp?

layout=article&articleid=CA6490691

• Just Virtual– http://www.justvirtual.com/index.php/category/second-life/

• Seifert Surface - Math in Second Life– http://www.segerman.org/2ndlife.html

Research in Second Life

Lyr Lobo in Second LifeRyl Redgrave on the Teen Grid at Ramapo

calongne@pcisys.net

For more information, contact