EduGeek Journal

1 | Katrina Adams

June 28th, 2007 at 4:09 pm

I hope they open up their island soon. Can’t wait to be nosy and snap some photos of what they’ve done.

Honestly, though — I don’t understand when educational sims are set to private. I can see restricting sections of an island for classroom use so that only students can enter. And I can see having a sim closed until it’s completely developed. However, it seems strange to completely shut out the outside world. It seems more beneficial to everyone if you have open access — you get to share ideas and generate buzz about your virtual presence. I’m thinking specifically about a couple of academic institutions in particular who have fully developed sims but are only open to their students.

That being said, if anything ever happens and NOU needs to use their sim for the purpose you mentioned, they’ll have to close their sim so that students are able to access the island. (Hopefully, that will never happen.)

Very nice first post, by the way! :)

2 | Erin Jennings

June 29th, 2007 at 7:41 am

Thanks, Katrina :)I agree with you — it is unfortunate when educational islands are set to private. I can understand that restricting access reduces the likelihood of griefing and vandalism, and also makes it easier to keep course content secure. But there are measures you can take to protect public islands, as well, and still get the promotional benefits of an open space. It is also regrettable that other educators have no access to the private islands, because of the lost networking and collaboration opportunities. I would hope that, even though their islands may be private, the developers and educators involved would still participate in the various educational groups and forums in Second Life.

3 | Matt Crosslin

June 29th, 2007 at 9:38 am

Ditto – and welcome to the EduGeek’s!

I think I can see why some islands are set to private. When you take a look at the overall picture – privacy laws are still pretty hazy when it comes to things like Virtual Worlds. But schools get sued over minor, pointless stuff all the time. I think until lawmakers get caught up with things like Second Life, I think you are going to see a lot more of this ‘throwing out the baby with the bath water deal.’ Just today, I got an email from some office here, telling me that my ID with them had been switched to take out anything that resembled my Social Security number. My original ID didn’t have any part of my school security number in it, but they still changed it. Just to make sure they weren’t in any kind of trouble.

They also might not have the staff to run a public area and a private area.

They may be conducting some type of social research, and the conditions of their proposal or grant stipulate that the entire project be restricted access.

They just don’t care about having visitors. Some colleges have big gates and no visitor centers still, after all.

Anyway, I personally don’t care if they are set to private or not. It’s just like when I come across a link to a really cool EdTech idea, and the link leads to a password protected area of a University site. It’s their stuff, and therefore the choice is theirs. The educational community will survive if a few people don’t share their ideas. Just don’t expect me to share back with them :)

4 | Darren Crone

July 6th, 2007 at 9:17 am

Welcome Erin! I am not a big fan of the whole private island thing. As I have said before, I am a major proponent of sharing as much as possible as often as possible. To reference Gestalt theory, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I think the Borg were (was?) on to something.

5 | Erin Jennings

July 24th, 2007 at 7:17 am

A new article appeared in the Campus Technology newsletter today about the UNO Second Life project. It gives a little more information about the courses that the university will be offering within SL in the fall, and also claims (though I haven’t tried it yet) that visitors can now access the campus on New Orleans Island.

http://campustechnology.com/articles/49280/