LETTP FIELD TRIP!!Using Landmarks to visit and examine established islands in Second Life

Seeing working examples

The purpose of this Second Life (SL) field trip was to visit other established islands and get ideas and inspiration for what we might eventually include in an island of our own.

First Stop - Exploratorium

We (Phyllis, Julia, David & also Doris) visited the Exploratorium, which is maintained as an online supplement to the famous San Francisco hands-on and interactive Science center.

Strength

Timely and recently updated – For example a large centerpiece exhibit was featured on “Pie Day” which is March 14th – 3.14 and chosen as a celebration of the mathematical term Pi. Clearly prepared

for the following day

Strength

Very appealing to the eye – it was colorful and lively looking. There was movement and lots of little details.

Strength

Interactive – lots of little exhibits – some probably based on the real world museum – that you could climb into and onto to get interesting perspectives – for example this 3D Star Chart you can climb into. If you go to the center, you are in the position of earth.

Strength

Exploratory - There were interesting places to find and explore – some unexpected and not obvious – like the satellite and Planet Mars in orbit in the clouds above.

Weakness

Not very collaborative – it was more of an individualized experience. This was largely on account of the voice communication being disabled on the island. Chatting was the only way to communicate. This was probably because they sometime shave too many people. But it was not crowded.

[“Pushing” and “Building Objects” was also disabled which seems like a good thing] *Pushing I think involves anti-social behavior of literally pushing avatars and trapping them so that the user needs to quit or teleport elsewhere.

Weakness

Many of the more educational exhibits were… a bit boring. They presented as dry, complex and bookish. More needs to be done to draw the visitor in and get them to be tempted. If the complex inner workings are too obvious many would be by-passed.

Tech Island

Phyllis and David also paid a brief visit to “Tech Island” nearby which also had interactive areas

Ideas for Story lines, themes activities or meetings here

The obvious Science theme makes this a nice place to play with compartmentalized science concepts

Individual Learning / Exploration Engaging learner curiosity Holding a preparatory visit before a visit

to the real Exploratorium Testing out new interactive objects with

a inquisitive audience (like the dancing stone)

What we might incorporate into our own islands if we had one

Certain of the small interactive exhibits were very fun and some were activated into motion by clicking on them. The Mars exhibit included a meteor that crashed down, raining rocks and fire.

The dance stone was very fun – it asks permission to interact and then makes your Avatar dance like a professional for a few minutes.

Some of the 3D exhibits gave a unique perspective only possible using a virtual 3D environment (like the 3D Star Chart)

What we might incorporate into our own islands if we had one

The optical illusion section was fairly effective in a virtual (and therefore controlled) virtual world.

It was nice that this island was grouped together with similar islands – expanding the potential of the experience during a visit.

Getting out a bit is good for Avatars’ health