Lansing State Journal article on Second Life

My own home town paper did a nice article on Second Life today that mentions the Michigan Library Consortium among local users and entrepreneurs. And, refreshingly, not one mention of SL porn, Anshe Chung, or Prokofy Neva.
Second Life bring virtual, real life together
Barbara Wieland
March 8, 2007

Information Today - Librarians on Second Life

Feb 2007.Vol. 24, Iss. 2
Focus on Publishing
Librarians on Second Life
Robin Peek delves into the virtual worlds that test the limits of online gaming.

This is yet another half-baked article on Second Life. Ms. Peek states that "very few are coming; it is similar to a library ghost town". The truth is, that the library islands have over 4000 visitors a day, and over 300 volunteers. It looks like she spent a few hours touring the island and drew her conclusions without actually interviewing a librarian there, attending an event, joining a group, or learning how to view the traffic.

Too bad.

I can't provide a link to the article, it is available through ProQuest

CNET News - Universities see Second Life as a solution to classroom crowding

This article seems particularly relevant in light of an email exchange on Wayne's LISPINF in the last 24 hours. A student asks "Is Library Admin ever offered as a web centric or all online class? Or are there plans for this class to be offered in this format in the future?"

Dr. Mika who teaches the course and is the head of our program replies that it will not, because interaction is an important part of the course. Second Life is already being used to offer interactive distance learning. There are 70 universities with a presence in SL and companies like Sun Microsystems are helping to improve the technology to do this.

Universities register for virtual future
Students may soon meet with professors once a week and then use simulations, virtual worlds and downloads to complete coursework.
Stefanie Olsen
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
February 7, 2007

SAN FRANCISCO--If you want to know what higher education will look like in a few years, you might ask Charles Reed, chancellor of the largest four-year university system in the United States.

As head of the California State University system--with 23 campuses, 46,000 employees and more than 400,000 students--Reed says he's worried about classroom space in the future because of, among other reasons, expanding enrollment.

Consequently, Reed said he envisions students becoming more like telecommuters. They might meet with faculty and peers one day a week on campus, and then use simulations, virtual worlds and downloaded information the rest of the week to complete coursework. (the rest)

School Library Journal on Teen Second Life

Meet the New You
By Kelly Czarnecki and Matt Gullett -- 1/1/2007

In Teen Second Life, librarians can leap tall buildings in a single bound and save kids from boring assignments—all before lunch.

MIT Technology Review: Second Life, Darwin and God

Second Life, Darwin and God
Is this new virtual world a product of creationism or evolution?
Thursday, February 01, 2007

While this article speculates about the "virtual evolution" of SL, there are residents who have made evolution models in SL. The island of Svarga is an entire ecosystem. Surina Skallagcrimson modeled Darwinian evolution with her virtual fish. And "In the Terminus area of Second Life, a team of coders are attempting to reproduce the beginnings of life. "

Information Week - Second Life Lessons: Cisco, IBM Pace Corporate Push into Virtual Worlds

Companies as varied as Toyota, Dell, Sears, and Adidas have all established bulkheads in the 3-D virtual world called "Second Life." Is this influx of brands an exciting precursor of how we'll be conducting business very soon, or the ultimate exercise in corporate flat-footedness?

By Alice LaPlante
InformationWeek

Feb 3, 2007 12:01 AM
The rest of the article here.

Article by Second Life Librarians in January issue of Computers in Libraries

Although Second Life has been receiving lots of attention in the popular press, and although there seem to be an endless supply of blogs, podcasts and other web-based articles about SL in libraries and education, until recently there has been almost nothing about Second Life in library publications. So the article "Get a (Second) Life! Prospecting for Gold in a 3-D World" in the January 2007 issue of Computers in Libraries may give authors Lori Bell, Tom Peters, and Kitty Pope the distinction of being first to publish. This is a distinction they have certainly earned. Their combined efforts planted the first Second Life Library.
I can't provide an external link to this article, but it is available through the Wilson Web database.

Get a (Second Life! Prospecting for gold in a 3-D world
Computers in Libraries 27 no1 10-15 Ja 2007
Lori Bell, Tom Peters, and Kitty Pope

Computers in Libraries

New York Times article about education in Second Life

The Ultimate Distance Learning
Christiane Lagorio
January 7, 2007

This article lists a few of the educators and institutions who are currently teaching their students in SL, like Pepperdine, and N.Y.U. It also includes some nice slides.
The article perpetuates the incorrect statement that SL has 2,000,000 users. It doesn't, over 2,000,000 have created accounts since SL began in 2004. Nearly 900,000 users have logged on in the last 60 days (and many of these represent users who have more then one avatar), and has had a peak use of over 20,000 concurrent users.
(A list of universities and colleges who have a presence here is at this link: Sim Teach Wiki - Institutions and Organizations in SL