The new SecondLife Isalnd of the UM is taking shape!

Dear all,

I am glad to announce that the UM's new SecondLife Island is starting to take shape. In order to provide you with some first visual impressions, please consider the screenshots below. Naturally, we will keep you updated on any further developments via this blog.

With kind regards,
Martin

"Welcoming Centre"

"The UM Island"

 "The Lecture Hall - inside view"

"The Lecture Hall 'outside view"

"The (small) Cinema"

The Conversion from Virtual to Actual Reality (at SBE)

If you would like to get an impression of how SecondLife really can stimulate creativity and enthusiasm amongst students (at Maastricht University!!!), please take a look at this article.

Academics Discuss Mass Migration From Second Life

With SecondLife deciding to remove the education discounts, a lot of universities are considering a shift towards another platform (i.e. OpenSim).

For more information on this, please click here.

Virtual Rumors

Quoting an interesting article it seems that "Microsoft might be trying to get its hands on Linden Lab's online virtual world, but for what purpose is unknown"

In order to access the entire article, please click here.

Teaching in SecondLife (Reflections of a language teacher)

This is a very interesting blog on how to use SecondLife in lagnuage education:

http://slexperiments.edublogs.org/

It also includes an entire course guide (split up into different lessons).

"Mass Migration" from SecondLife to OpenSim?

Quite some people have suggested that SecondLife will be 'replaced' by OpenSim. Along these lines you might want to consider the following article, which considers this issue.

In order to access the article, please click here.

Virtual worlds: Is this where real life is heading?

"Recently a man bought a space station for $330 000, while last month Small Planet Foods, a subsidiary of General Foods, introduced a new brand of organic blueberries. What have these two products got in common? Neither actually exist. Well, not except as pixels in the virtual worlds where they are traded. Only the money is real."


To access the full article, please clik here.

Gartner Says 80 Percent of Active Internet Users Will Have A "Second Life" in the Virtual World by the End of 2011

“The collaborative and community-related aspects of [Virtual Worlds] will dominate in the future, and significant transaction-based commercial opportunities will be limited to niche areas, which have yet to be clearly identified.
[...]
However, the majority of active Internet users and major enterprises will find value in participating in this area in the coming years.”

To access the full article, please click here. 

Diigo Groups on SecondLife / Virtual Worlds

These two Diigo groups deal with SecondLife / virtual worlds in (Higher) Education.

• http://groups.diigo.com/group/education-in-second-life
• http://groups.diigo.com/group/gaming-and-virtual-worlds-in-education

First Draft for our "SL Cafe"

Interesting Link for Language Teachers

If you are interested in teaching languages in SL, you might be interested in this site.

It is "a wiki for language teachers interested in or already teaching in Second Life", which also organizes SL meetings.

Voice Morphing in SL

Did you ever wonder how to morph your natural voice into something bigger, smaller, bolder, or completely different? 


Well, this link provides you with some guidelines on how to achieve this in SL.

The ‘Immernet’ – A coming virtual world for real business

This link provides you with a vision of  the rapidly approaching 3-D driven Internet and web – what is being called the “Immersive Internet” or “Immernet": 

http://localtechwire.com/business/local_tech_wire/opinion/blogpost/8053843/

Why Open Sim is the Future Metaverse

Although our project focuses on SecondLife, we do (of course) should be aware of alternatives. In the spirit of that ... you might want to take a look at this link.

Universities employing SecondLife reported 30% increase in academic success

Welcome

Dear visitor,

welcome to the project-blog Dua Vivo: SecondLife at the UM.


We will us this space to:

• keep up updated on our progress
• inform you about new developments 
• share other interesting initiatives
• provide you with suggestions on how to use SecondLife in your curriculum

If you have any questions or comments, please do not hesitate to contact us.

With kind regards,
The Project Team