The Launch of Web 2.5 and IB3DVW

Watch This Video: Online Video explained by an old friend of the course. Press the play arrow to watch.

Welcome to Learn 2.5!!

For those returning Learn 2 Vets - Welcome back! I know we just finished up 2.1 a few weeks ago, but it is nice to see you back! If you are new to the Learn Experience, no worries, you are in good hands! This learning experience is all about trying new things, collaborating with your colleagues and having fun.

The major goal of the course is to continue the exploration of technology and culture. Once a month we will post a new topic for exploration. Some months we will focus on just technology, and other months, just culture. The very best is when the two collide or mash-up into something new. Based on the feedback received at the end of Learn 2.1, I am going to try to keep these experiences at about the 30 minutes of participation. If you do the Adventure activity, your time may vary.

Registration Process -registration is EASY!!!Just click the FOLLOW button on the lower right side and you are part of the course. To help me communicate with you – shoot me an email letting me know that you are part of the course – here is my email address: simpson.Thomas@ocls.info . Was that easy or what?

Are you new to the Learn series? You will need a blog to participate, click here for the step by steps to create your own blog: Link to L2.0

Internet Based 3D Virtual Worlds (IB3DVW)
By now there is a good chance that you have already heard of the Internet based 3-D virtual world Second Life. Our library has several employees deeply immersed in the technology, providing virtual information services for the participants of Second Life. The question here is why is this important? Why do we need to be a part of Second Life? The answer is pretty easy, so we don’t get left behind!! Second Life is a virtual world where participants (I thought about using the word “players”, but SL is more than just a game) create themselves as an avatar and participate in a community or communities of other avatars. Second Life is completely Open Source (blatant Learn 2.1 tie in!!!) and all parts of the Second Life world are created and built by the participants. So again, why is this important…..? Second Life isn’t the means to an end – this technology is going some place bigger, dare I say, some place better. We need to be part of SL to keep our knowledge base current; to give us the expertise for whatever the next evolution of the 3-D virtual web environment is going to be. To ignore the growth of 3-D web technology would be like telling Guttenberg that his machine is just a little too complicated and that people really like hand printed books!!


Explorers: Here is a 12-minute presentation that is a great source of information about Internet based Virtual Worlds. It was created by Kathryn Robinson and narrated by Chris Zabriskie. (the server necessitated splitting the presentation in two parts - not our choice!)

Virtual Worlds Part 1

Virtual Worlds Part 2

In your blog, share your thoughts about Second Life and 3-D virtual reality. I know some of you are thinkng “I would never do that” and that is fine, I am not a SL citizen either. But…what do you think of the technology? Do you see a use for it in your library world? Are we competing with virtual reality worlds now – will we in the future?


Adventurers: Have you already been to Second Life?? We want to see your Avatar!!! Post your avatar to your blog. You should be able to take a screen shot of you in SL and then save it to your hard drive or send a digital post card. (Disclaimer: I am not a SL citizen, and I am pretty sure you can do this, but I have not)

Here is another example of OCLS in Second Life - take a look: Central Florida Memory

If you haven’t visited Second Life, this is something you will have to explore at home. The Library does not have the computer hardware of Internet bandwidth to permit access to SL – sorry!

Hey isn’t it Easter time….? Hmmmmmm….I wonder….?