Just found a pretty amazing video of Sun’s (relatively) new virtual workspace called MPK 20. Inspired by Second Life, Sun developed this environment for businesses to use; however, a lot of the new functionality they’ve added could easily be applied in an educational setting:

• Voice Chat – still coming in SL, but current in this environment
• Application Sharing – Great idea I’d never even thought about. Just as in Elluminate or Horizon Wimba web conference systems, you can either share your entire desktop or a specific program. Others in the same virtual space (I assume if given the appropriate permissions) can collaboration on content.
• Share media – You’ll see in the video that you can share music, but not much more information is given. This got me thinking about how useful it would be to have media easily available in a virtual environment. I know, I know — you can do this in SL, but setting this type of media content up could be a lot easier and more flexible.

Click here to view the video.
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Katrina Adams

Howdy folks! I’m an Instructional Designer at UT Dallas. I have a Bachelor’s in Elementary Education from Angelo State University and a Master’s in Computer Education and Cognitive Systems from the University of North Texas. I’ve been working in edtech for 11 years. Hmm… what else? I’m a *huge* fan of that little Irish band called U2, and I’m a bigtime Firefly/Serenity advocate.

u2katrina.blogspot.com