[UAUG] meetings of this users group

[Jeremy Robb]

Hmm.  Interesting.  I haven't run into anyone that had taken it in such a
way in my classes, or at least they have not so communicated their
reservations.
Video chat quickly becomes a bottleneck to bandwidth as more students meet
together.  If you are teaching a class in Second Life, you can't have video
chat with everyone, expect them to interact, and guarantee that they will
all have the bandwidth to handle it.  Second Life gives them an opportunity
to interact with myself and each other with a fairly small amount of
bandwidth.  I can also stream video to a screen in the world, both
pre-recorded and live.  Live Audio streaming tends to be the more popular, I
have found.

It's also been used successfully at Stanford, Harvard, MIT, Boise State, and
other universities that are quickly running out of physical classroom space.
 For large groups in entry level classes (you know, the classroom with
stadium seating and over 100 students), it's been very effective.  Each
student can hear the lecture clearly as it is articulated in real time, and
make sure their questions are asked and answered (either by the instructor
or a TA, depending on the course).

I suppose I just never thought of Second Life as a game, but rather a big
chat room with more interaction.  It's become very popular with Distance
Learning instructors and teachers, at any rate.

It's just experimental for me right now.  Our department is looking to
expand our lab environment without having to build a new building (and
subsequently take another parking lot out of service).  It's an interesting
problem to solve.

Anyway, back to the original intent ^_^.  Let me know when meetings are, and
where.  I'll see about possible physical facilities at one of our site
locations, and see if they are available and when.

Would Murray, Sandy, or Downtown (4th South) work for everyone, or are we
considerably spread out across the state?  Let me know.  ^_^

Jeremy

On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 4:21 PM, Wade Preston Shearer <lists at wadeshearer.com>
wrote:

> On 23 Jul 2008, at 16:07, Jeremy Robb wrote:
>
>  Why would you think it was creepy?
>>
>
> Well, I'm not quite sure how to articulate it, but the whole thing seems
> creepy to me. I have nothing wrong with pretend and playing games, but it's
> just weird. Perhaps it's the graphics. In regards to this though, doing more
> than just recreating seems strange… conducting business or holding a meeting
> through that medium is weird. You mention being able to have face time, but
> it isn't your face… it's some character you've designed with a mouth that
> doesn't sync up to you as you talk (I assume… I have never used the
> service). It seems especially weird to meet your teacher in a space like
> that (same as having them as a connection in MySpace (once again, assuming
> how things work… I've never used the service) could imagine seem
> inappropriate to some.
>
> I love technology (that's what I do for a living) and love the idea of a
> professor having virtual office hours (that would have been awesome back
> when I was in school—I worked full time and could never make it during
> professor's office hours), but it seems like a video conference would be
> both more natural and more effective. I guess everyone doesn't have a web
> cam, but I'd definitely rather chat textually than "meet you in a virtual
> place."
>
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