Unit 6 - Our Own Interests: Sim on a Stick & Open Sim

Rationale:

I fully recognize that our research was supposed to be on some aspect of SL this week.  I decided to take a slight detour, though my topic in general is about the mass exodus of educators from SL to other Sims.  I chose Sim On A Stick (SOAS) and Open Sims as my topic for discussion because I believe that Second Life and made a definitive change of course that leads away from educational uses to ones that are more commercial.  It remains to be seen whether or not Linden Labs changes it's mind and renews ties with education.  Educators are moving in new directions and on to new grids.  I see SOAS as a cost effective, safe, and viable alternative to SL, at least in a middle school environment.

Articles:

 The articles I read dealt with introducing SOAS to Multi User Virtual Environments (MUVE) users.  I watched a YouTube from iliveisl, the creator of SOAS, that has the record, as of this blog, at 576,000 prims on one SOAS.  That is amazing!  The one concern I have had is not being able to colaborate on projects as SOAS is a single user environment.  Some clever souls have fixed that too.  If you have the luxury of having a dedicated computer for SOAS, you have others log in usind the computer's IP address.  You have to create new accounts for each person but, you can truly make SOAS a MUVE.  This can all happen safely behind the school district's firewall.  I would be interested to see how it handles multiple users and how many users can it support before things start to lag out.

Another interesting article is about how machinema creators are looking to SOAS as a way to be completely secluded and in complete control of their environment they are creating.  Again, this falls in to being more cost effective.  Obviously on this front, you have to be quite skilled in building in SL but, if you are making machinema, you probably are or have someone at your disposal who is.  This is another angle I might take as I like to make machinema and taking cool photo caps in SL.  

I also read some article on Open Sims in general.  I have been on a couple but feel that I am not really satisfied with what I have seen thus far.  Open Sims add more options, sometimes are cheaper, but still require rental fees and the like.  I believe a some point, someone is going to have to build an OpenSim, that is virtually free to educators and students.  I foresee world wide conferences and sessions held in MUVEs on a variety of subjects all within a safe, well maintained virtual world.  Someone is going to have to take the lead.  It isn't that far fetched when you think how the internet has grown in the last 20 years.  I also read some interesting articles on how to transfer SL content to your OpenSim, provided what you are trying to take is not not copyrighted or without the necessary permissions.

I feel that if I use MUVE technolgy in my current teaching assignment, this is avenue I will be force to take.  I do plan to continue to come back to SL and maybe even drop by Fontbonne Island.  I will always need a sandbox to build my creations :-)

Articles & Research