Virtual THON Video online!

Many huge thanks to Nate Tobey and the great folks at WPSU here at Penn State for taking some video and audio footage I captured and turning it into this great video about our Virtual THON that was held at Penn State and in Second Life in February.

measuring “success” in virtual worlds

In our discussion from Second Life meeting #1 we decided to check in with some ‘experts’ in the educational areas of Second Life and ask them about their success with their Second Life presence and how exactly they’re measuring that success.

I sent an email to Larry Johnson, CEO of the New Media Consortium to ask for his advice. I met Larry at the Digital Media Conference in Boston a few weeks ago and have talked to him a few times in Second Life.  With as involved as the NMC is in Second Life and education, I was sure Larry would have some data, research, or resources for me. I got an email back from Larry today that basically said he’s not sure much actual research on that exists at this point, and he feels that the past year or two has really been spent having educational institutions figure out what they *CAN* do in Second Life, and he thinks the next logical step would be to start measuring what’s going on. So, I guess at this point they’ve got nothing.

My next plan is to find the contact for the Second Life work being done by Ohio University and talk with them. They have a very significant presence and probably have at least some advice or input and hopefully some data or statistics.

I completely understand the need to have ‘numbers’ to support what we’re trying to do in Second Life. It makes the administration happy to feel like we have data to validate what we want to do. I, however, tend to not think in those terms. Success in a virtual world for me builds slowly. It’s not about how many people click through to your website from a given area. It’s not about how many students end up enrolled and choose “Second Life” from a drop-down menu in response to a question like “How did you learn about us?”.

We will be successful in Second Life because we’re providing students with something special. We’re giving online students a ‘campus’ to go to. We’re providing them with ways to connect, and network.  We’re giving them a meeting space for their group projects. We’re giving them a place to hang out with classmates and watch streaming video from WPSU. We’re giving them something amazing.  Something different, and unique, and something that will give them new ways to interact and become engaged in their education and time at Penn State.  I can’t wait.

collaboration. it’s a *good* thing.

I met today with a colleague from WPSU to talk about ways they could use social networking. Great guy, great conversation and it led to some great ideas for collaboration.

WPSU will develop a short video about THON and Virtual THON. We’ll be able to post the video on  YouTube, link it on the World Campus website and post it on Facebook as well.  I’ll be using my avatar to talk about what Second Life is, what the ‘Virtual THON’ is and why Second Life is good for communities and collaboration.

We also talked about ways to incorporate WPSU’s content into Second Life and I think that’ll lead to some exciting ways to educate and inform not only our World Campus students, but the public as well.  Sweet.