C2 Workshop's E-Learning Blog

Lively by Google

Guess who's the newest kid on the block? I mean in the virtual world. None other than Google Inc - in a new avatar, Google Lively.

Spawned in July 2008, Google Lively is in the same vein as Second Life - that of making the virtual world your home. And once again it's all about creating an avatar and chatting with friends in rooms you get to create and design. What’s new about it? To be honest, nothing much. The method is pretty much the same. Lively users can create their own separate spaces, called "rooms". There are 19 "shells" or "room looks" you can choose from, including theaters, islands, and five-room penthouses. The disappointing factor is that these "rooms", unlike "land" in Second Life, are not connected to the big virtual world. Users can only hop-skip-jump from room to room through the provided room list. No crash-landing on school rooftops here. This, I feel, kind of takes away the free-roaming spirit that you so get to harness in Second Life, where a walk through Second Life’s larger, connected world can spring some memorable surprises.

Back to Lively. Once you've settled on the look of your pad, you move onto the next big thing - that of making it look and feel like a room straight out of "Better Homes & Garden". Lively offers you a host of furniture and accessory choices, each included with a price entry (a giveaway that Lively may have its own equivalent of Second Life's "Linden Dollar" and economy in the coming future). Decorating? Pretty much a girlie thing I would say, but then again visions of "Lazyboy" may seal the deal for guys. So now that you’ve got your own Zen space, your Chippendales, now it's time for "you" to make your entry. Come in, avatars. Did I hear someone say, déjà vu? As in Second Life you get to create an avatar, who will represent you in virtual world. "Be who you want to be” is what Lively advertises. Likewise, you get to choose how your avatar looks like and then get to customize it using various apparel options. That done, the "real Lively" experience begins.

In the words of Niniane Wang, Engineering Manager, Google Lively project, "If you enter a Lively room embedded on your favorite blog or website, you can immediately get a sense of the room creator's interests, just by looking at the furniture and environment they chose. You can also express your own personality by customizing your avatar's look, showing people who you are without having to say a word. Of course, you can chat with each other, and you can also interact through animated actions. In our user research, we’ve been amazed at how much more poignant it is to receive an animated hug than seeing the text “[[hug]]”.

An interesting feature that I noticed at Lively is that you get support for playing YouTube videos on your virtual TVs and can also display photos in virtual frames kept in your rooms. Moreover, gadgets in your Lively rooms can also run on your desktops. The home away from home feeling sinks in quite readily.

That said, Lively has a set of spoilers that get in the way of fun. To begin with, it lacks Second Life's voice-chat feature and its exhaustive "customize" capabilities that allow users to have a blast while designing their "new world" and “avatars”. It also offers no support for Macs. Something seems to whisper that Lively, in scope, is perhaps similar to the earlier VRML worlds (where avatars create worlds using World Building Tools) than the eye-popping 3D virtual world of Second Life. And the complaints from robust geeks have piled on. While some view Lively’s slow-to-load feature as a kill-joy, others have dismissed it as being a disguised "fancy chat room", a “failed social medium”, and very "un-Google like". It seems Google Lively has a long way to go before users come back for more. But then again, knowing Google Inc, the turnaround may not be too far away.

(Banshori Bhattacharya is Instructional Designer at C2 Workshop)

Second Life - The Future of Education

“Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
………………
You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one”

How could I not quote these lines. Second Life seems to embody it. Never heard of it? Here’s help. Imagine a scenario where you can build a skyscraper, enter a cell structure, arrive for class in a helicopter (wearing scuba-diving gear if you choose), or attend a Harvard lecture, with the click of a button AND from the comfort of your home. Impossible you say. Not anymore.

Welcome to the virtual world. And I’m not talking about gaming experiences. This is as real as it gets. It’s called Second Life (SL), a 3D virtual world developed by Linden Research, Inc (or Linden Lab) and launched in June 2003, where users (called "Residents") can recreate life as it were, online. So how does one go about it? Simple. Log in, create a 3D “avatar” of yourself (you can choose your preferred skin tone, height, hair colour), and jump onto the “experience it all” bandwagon. With unlimited freedom being SL’s trump card, as an avatar you can interact with other residents (via chat and Instant Messaging), conduct businesses, trade goods, attend universities, rock concerts, fashion shows, buy and sell land, go pub hopping, shopping, bungee jumping, monster slaying,… in short, anything your heart desires. A take on “Metaverse”, a term coined by Neal Stephenson in his novel Snow Crash, Second Life, with its own economy and currency (Linden $), is a world shaped out of your preferences. You want it, go create it.

So, you say, ok what’s new about this. Seems like another variant of 3D gaming. Heck no. I mean which 3D gaming would have actual Harvard University lecturers holding forth on collective syllabi? Or for that matter, why would NASA come visiting? You read right. SL’s "SciLands" boasts among many, the presence of NASA, NOAA, NIH, JPL, NPR, and NPL. In fact, a cool aspect of Second Life is the choices it offers in the field of education, be it “webinars”, presentations, book discussions, or corporate training. Educators and institutions, including Harvard, INSEAD, The University of Queensland, the University of Florida, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Princeton, Rice University, the Open University (UK), Australian Film Television and Radio School, Stanford University, have all come flocking to get a piece of SL’s island pie. You see, SL offers islands for sale where universities can conduct online projects. The islands come priced at around $1,000 each, with an additional $150 towards monthly maintenance. If a university, college, or host lecturer balks at the idea of buying “virtual land” ,they can also lease it for a day from fellow residents to conduct a one-off class. In fact, leasing lands made so much sense to a large consortia, that it purchased an archipelago of islands, divided it into smaller lots, and put it up for rent for $200 per year. Fitting examples are The Info Islands, (includes EduIsland I and II), and the New Media Consortium's NMC Campus.

Then again, critics may be quick to point out that SL’s programs replicate traditional distance learning outfits. That is far from the truth. By promoting 3D learning, where content is streamed through chat, instant messaging and audio files, Second Life allows its learners to not only communicate effectively but also view other avatars, making it an interactive, distance learning experience. The programs promote camaraderie, infuse the fun factor in learning (you can take off any time you want to), and allows simulation of projects. Real time chats with lecturers after class, exchange of notes among students, goes a long way in bridging the gap present in actual distance learning institutions. For example, Open University, UK, conducts learning programs on tow of Second Life’s islands in the metaverse, engaging distance learning students in various activity-based solutions. The Illinois' Alliance Library System and OPAL offer intensive online programmes to librarians and library users within Second Life’s libraries, called the Info Islands, where volunteer librarians even man virtual reference desks and hold workshops for other librarians and prek-12 teachers. So successful were its training programs that in 2007, Second Life promoted foreign language training, with the British Council and Spain’s “Instituto Cervantes.”

And they are still flocking to the hottest new party in town. As of March 2008, Second Life had approximately 13 million accounts. Who would have thought that cyberpunk would come so far.

As for me, I like the way they advertise “Your world. Your imagination”.
A whole new world.
Amen to that.

Check out this video...

(Banshori Bhattacharya is Instructional Designer at C2 Workshop)