Welcome to Betterverse.org, a chronicle of the evolving and innovative efforts to use virtual worlds to promote various real world causes and improve the lives of people all around the globe.
This is interesting. IBM and the Chinese Palace Museum have created a Second Life sim as a 3D advertisement for another virtual world, "Beyond Space and Time," a faithful recreation of the Forbidden City in China. I did a mini-review of Beyond Space and Time about a year ago here.
I would imagine that it was fairly easy to create a Second Life version of their custom-made virtual world, since they already had a lot of the 3D assets and multimedia created. The Second Life version is limited to the main plaza you begin in at the full-blown virtual world, with a few videos and text showing what you will find in Beyond Space and Time. Still, it's quite beautiful to walk around in.
I just found out about the new Border House blog, which seeks to bring a feminist voice to the digital game and virtual world space. The Border House mission is to "break down cultural and
stereotypical walls and cross social borders in virtual worlds, MMO
games, video games, and social media through inclusive journalism."
I'm already familiar with the blog of one of the Border House editors, the fantastic Cuppycake. She's also the community manager at Metaplace, which is where I met her.
Can't wait to see what kind of issues, games and virtual worlds they talk about! There's certainly no dearth of topics to explore, whether it be sexism, racism, or homophobia in games and virtual worlds.
My friend In Kenzo sends out news that the US State Department is sponsoring another virtual panel discussion, this time on "Virtual Worlds as Green Workplaces" next Thursday, December 3, at 9am PST.
The panel of experts will include : Barbara Lombardo of IBM, Judy Wade of Linden Lab, Hanno Tietgens of BUERO X Media Lab, and Anna Jaeger of TechSoup Global. Together they will consider whether virtual worlds are viable collaborative workspaces and how these space can impact energy use and other environmental factors.
Moderated
by Bill May, of the Office of Innovative Engagement,
US Department of State, International Information Programs. The public event will take place on the Annenberg sim (teleport link). Get there early to ensure a seat!
As reported earlier, on November 12, Global Kids hosted a Fall 09 Roundtable on Virtual Worlds and Nonprofits on MacArthur Island in Second Life (teleport link). Representatives of five leading nonprofit organizations gave brief presentations on their initial explorations of Second Life and other virtual worlds, and how they are thinking of integrating these virtual tools into their organizations' respective missions.
Specifically, the following organizations presented:
Each of these organizations had just completed the Global Kids' Virtual World Capacity Building Program, a four-week intensive exposure to virtual worlds for public good institutions. The following are my rough notes from the presentations.
Thanks to the 50 participants who came to the roundtable, to the MacArthur Foundation for supporting this project, and our awesome presenters Mark, Bruni, Theresa, Emma, John and KC!
Linden Lab, the owners of Second Life, announce today the 2010 Linden Prize, to be awarded to the best project that "advances the human condition" using their virtual world platform. As they say on the official site:
The Linden Prize will award one Second Life Resident or team with
$10,000 USD for an innovative inworld project that improves the way
people work, learn and communicate in their daily lives outside of the
virtual world. This annual award is intended to align with Linden Lab’s
company mission, which is to connect all people to an online world that
advances the human condition.
Last year's winners were Wikitecture and Virtual Ability, both very worthwhile efforts that connect the real world and virtual world in meaningful and evocative ways.
One Caveat: What Linden Lab don't seem to make clear on the site or their blog is that the $10,000 is awarded in Linden Dollars and can't be cashed out. So you can't use the $10,000 to pay staff, fund overhead, or other real world expenses. Still, a really great initiative!
CORRECTION: Blondin Linden tells me that the US$10K prize is paid out in US currency and can be used however the winner wants!
For those that were not able to attend the Second Life simulcast of the "Power of Youth Voice" event last Wednesday, November 18, it has now been uploaded to Youtube by the MacArthur Foundation.
It was a neat event to be involved with, bringing together some of the leading figures in the digital media and learning field, a couple of hundred real world participants, and another 100 or so participating via Second Life and the web. It's great seeing the kind of innovative work being done with youth across a range of social media, around the United States, in a variety of formal and informal settings.
Due to the time, I was only able to transmit a couple of the questions submitted from the virtual audience, which you can see here. More pics from the virtual event are here.
Basically, Barry, Audrey, Amana and I spent about 40 minutes describing the "I Dig Science" program, an initiative to expose young people to science and culture in new ways through the virtual world of Teen Second Life. In it's first two years, groups of young people in New York City and Chicago have had the opportunity to go on short "virtual fossil digs" to Tanzania and Zambia from within Second Life. Role playing as fossil hunters, they connected on a daily basis with a real life team of paleontologists in the field, who send back videos and photos and called them every day from satellites phones into Second Life.
For our keynote, we focused on how "I Dig Science" aggregates a number of different learning environments -- from virtual worlds, online social media, and real world experiences -- in order to engage our young people with the subject matter in new and compelling ways.
The slides are admittedly a bit hard to follow without hearing us
speak as the slides flow by. We'll prepare a complete video combining
the slides, video from our presentations, and synced audio as soon as
we can. But hopefully this will give you some gist of what we talked
about.
We had a lot of fun creating this presentation using the online tool Prezi, which allows anyone to combine text, photos and videos onto a nearly limitless two-dimensional canvas -- and then present it to other people as a fun, spinny slideshow. Enjoy!
Linden Lab sends out word about a "Winterfest Wreath Competition," sponsored by Xstreet SL to benefit the micro-lending nonprofit Kiva.org. Second Life residents are invited to create and submit virtual holiday wreaths, which will be judged by folks from Linden Lab and Kiva. The winning entries will be offered for sale on Xstreet with all the proceeds to benefit Kiva.
For those that don't know Kiva, they are a great charity that supports direct micro-lending straight to entrepreneurs from around the world who are working to get out of poverty. It's a really innovative model for poverty alleviation that is well worth supporting.
To participate and enter, go to the official site. And visit the Kiva office in Second Life at this link.
This week's RezEd.org podcast is particularly spectacular, featuring lots of interesting information for virtual world educators and developers. RezEd episode #54,
produced by MediaSnackers
with Global Kids, includes interviews with Terrence
Cummings of Linden
Lab about Second Life Enterprise for the educational community. Terrence mentions in the interview that Linden Lab discounts the normally $55,000 SL Enterprise suite of services to only $38,000 for educational institutions. Still steep for many organizations (like Global Kids) but an impressive set of offerings for educators.
Today, November 18, I will be producing a Second Life simulcast of an event called "The Power of Youth Voice,"
a public forum about the potential for learning through engagement with
digital media. It will take place on Wednesday, November 18, beginning
at 4pm SLT / 7pm EST. The forum will bring together experts in digital
media and learning to share their research and experiences using
digital media in and outside of the classroom. Speakers include:
Renee Hobbs, Founder, Media Education Lab, Temple University
Nichole Pinkard, Founder, Digital Youth Network and DePaul University professor
Elyse Eldman-Aadahl, Director, National Programs and Site Development, National Writing Project
Connie Yowell, Director of Education, MacArthur Foundation (moderator)
To register for the free forum, please go to the Woodrow Wilson website. It will also be webcast, for those who are not able to participate via Second Life.
Linden Lab, the owners of Second Life, 
