Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Second Life and Moore's Law


Alright, I admit it, I'm in Second Life (TLTC Palisades) and learning as much as I can about it as fast as I can. Just recently I agreed to write pieces for the SLED Picayune, an inworld (see how good I've gotten at the lingo already) publication about education and libraries in SL. Second Life has been getting a ton of press lately and it is growing quickly. There is plenty of chatter in the blogs and web about its success (or lack there of). Some people think it is the future, some already are writing it off. �

BTW, like any SLer worth their salt, here is a picture of me in SL.�

There's talk in the education community that SL requires too big of a computer system and too big of an Internet pipe and that most schools can't participate. That software security and lab management of computers makes it nearly impossible to make SL available in schools.Many educators aren't sure how to even educate IT staff or key administrators about what it is and why it might be useful.�

Now I have a life times worth of experience that could help people with these issues, but it is sort of like raising kids.Just because you've been doing it for 20 years and your kids turned out great, doesn't mean you know anything at all about how to do it!! Same is true for SL deployment. Each school, each user, each case it different. Educate people and hopefully they can find their own way.

The point of all this of course is SL is the tip of the iceberg. Sure Linden Labs deserve credit for doing such a thing, but things like SL will become routine soon. Technology will change fast and SL will seem primitive in just a few short years. How does one participate in something like SL without feeling like they are on the bleeding edge and at the same time investing in something that won't be around in two years? How is it that I'm in a quandary about how to even tell my superiors what SL is and at the same time wondering if it will even be viable by the end of next year? This I argue it what we are in store for as we move out further and further from the 32nd square. We are in store for more improbable things that become primitive over night.

If you don't know what Second Life is, find out. But don't worry if all the time you use learning about it feels like it was lost when in two years it is something completely different that is "in". That's the way it goes.�

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