Jim, I founded, and continue to be one of the moderators, of a meeting for educators in Second Life. The Virtual Worlds Education Roundtable ( http://www.vwer.org) has met weekly for over four years. We get a wide range of attendees from people who are brand new to those who have more time "in-world" than some others combined. For our weekly text-chat roundtable open discussion meetings we get anywhere from 25-40 each week. For our special monthly meetings where we have a guest or guests who get interviewed in voice chat, we can get from 30-50+ (although we've hit close to 100 a couple of times). Virtual worlds are an excellent medium for an immersive experience that allows people to feel like they've "been there". Yee and Bailenson argue that this medium allows for attachment in a way that others do no. Not that I dislike Skype, Google+, or video conferencing - but I've never heard anyone personalize and place an experience in those media the way people do in virtual worlds. I keep saying virtual worlds because open source alternatives are more popular than ever and becoming much more robust. That said, Second Life is still king of the hill. I would have to agree, however, with Greg, in that bringing a large group of people who are not regularly in Second Life in-world is problematic from two respects. First off, folks may end up fighting the medium, given they are not familiar with it. Its not THAT hard to figure out, but of course, everything seems that way once you've figured it out. :-) Second, you're still limited in the number of people you can bring into one place at the same time. The Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education Conference, which is a multi-day virtual world only event boasts an entire event attendance in the thousands (2000+ I think), but they only get 175 or so in the same place at the same time. The technology is still restricted in that respect. I'm happy to address this with you off-list if you have other specific questions. aj On Wed, Apr 18, 2012 at 3:13 PM, Jim Parker <drjparker@gmail.com> wrote:
The American Communication Association, http://americancomm.org/, is thinking of doing an online conference in Second Life. I have been to meetings in Second Life and found the experience to be superior to video conferencing and other alternatives for getting people together.
I would be interested to know what others have tried for online conferences and especially about any experiences with conferences in Second Life.
thank you,
Jim Parker President American Communication Association Asst. Prof, Austin Peay State University.
-- ...it's a crazy quilt reflected in a fun-house mirror! - Zippy the Pinhead _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
-- ----- AJ Kelton Director of Emerging & Instructional Technology College of Humanities and Social Sciences - Montclair State University Doctoral Student Educational Communication and Technology - New York University ---------- http://eld.montclair.edu Twitter: @ELDConf <http://twitter.com/ELDConf> Hashtag: #ELD12 ---------- http://www.ajkelton.net Twitter: @aj_kelton <http://twitter.com/aj_kelton>