Module 4 Blog Posting

•How is Second Life a disruptive technology?

Second Life is a disruptive technology in that it shifts how content is generated.  Instead of having graphics, sounds, and worlds developed by companies with their artists and designers, Second Life allows users to create these items and worlds.  I visited Second Life and saw the Eiffel Tower in “Paris.”  Obviously, this is not the real Eiffer Tower built by a team of individuals over time in the physical sense but it did take man hours, creativity, and skills to complete. Another reason I see Second Life as disruptive is that the model for acquisition of wealth goes against what we see in the real world.  When ideas are generated by individuals these ideas usually become the property of the company who employs the individual.  In Second Life, users make money for their own creations that are sold to other users.

•What technology or innovation did it displace?

Second Life has helped replace ways of executing ideas people have imagined in their minds.  We often come up with ways to manipulate space and objects, but have no tools to simulate these ideas in motion.  When thinking of an actual technological too that Second Life has replaced is AutoCAD or other drafting or creation tools that were around in the early 80s and 90s.  Second Life could also move users from using two dimensional creativity tools such as Paint or Illustrator to three dimensional worlds.

A competing technology which Second Life has the potential to replace is the game the Sims.  Although there is little or no gaming effect in Second Life compared to the Sims, there are similar ideas of generating content for the virtual worlds in both innovations.  If harnessed and improved upon, Second Life could take over where the Sims is lacking in true interactions with others (not the Simspeak) and economic benefits (making money for contributing/creating content).

Another innovation replaced by Second Life is the internet chat room.  I remember one of the draws of America On-Line was that individuals could enter a world of different chats about different topics and with different populations.  You could meet new friends and chat about the day’s happenings in hundreds (which grew to thousands) of rooms.  For the more adventurous you could look for singles in Sacramento, couples in Cooperstown, or your soul mate in Seoul.  Unlike Second Life, these chat rooms did not offer avatars or immersive environments, but they did offer the same type of social interactions.  Second Life enhances the social experience by offering graphics and appropriate locales for social situations to occur.

•How many years do you think Second Life has left before another emerging technology or disruptive technology replaces it?

I am struggling to find out how Second Life is going to be around much longer.  With innovations like Skype, virtual meeting software, Facebook multiplayer games, and the other products that offer some of the same benefits, it is hard to see the market continue to grow for Second Life.  Rosedale (2008) even mentioned that many gamers are not interested in Second Life because there is no gaming appeal or quality graphics.  It just is a place to hang out, meet new people, and if you are creative enough, make money selling creations.  One reason I see the economic benefit waning is that once something is built, say the Taj Mahal, there is no need for a second or third one to be built or sold.  I guess everyone could have this monument in their world, but it just does not seem like this would happen.  Rosedale mentioned translation devices that were sold as items within Second Life.  There are free versions of these which only require a little work to access.  The economic model does not seem to promote continued growth or need.

The social aspect of meeting others in trendy discos or the Sahara desert is intriguing, but I wonder if it would be something that loses its luster after a few uses.  Humans want to interact and socialize with each other.  We want to meet new people around the world.  We have tools like social networking sites that allow us to do this, but also have more features that interest users.  People can play Uno® online with their relatives, watch the Biggest Loser while chatting with Bob Harper, or interact with moderators during the presidential debates.  All of these are done without the need of an elaborate simulated world.  I just do not think users would get much more benefit doing these tasks in a room built to simulate the auditorium of the debate location, the gym of the Biggest Loser, or some smoky gin joint in the French Quarter.

•What are the social benefits of Second Life, and what might be the social implications of virtual worlds in your industry?

In education, Second Life could serve as a portal for students to come together and collaborate on large scale assignments.  Instead of creating a type of conference call where students take turns talking about ideas, they can instantly provide ideas and feedback to others.  They can create new avatars and new identities which might help them if they have self-esteem issues.  Students who are afraid of speaking up in class can “speak up” in Second Life without the disapproving looks and snickers of others.  

With my example of the Eiffel Tower, another way Second Life helps in education is that individuals could explore worlds that they may never do in their real life.  Teachers could offer tours of battle sites, historical monuments, or other places of interest for their curriculum.  Some users create tours in which the participant sits in a special chair which moves their avatar around the virtual world.  There are stops along the way that offer information about the various features or landmarks as well as citations or references for further study. A caution about this tool is that since the content is user-generated, it may not completely accurate or even appropriate for classroom use.

As Rosedale (2008) also mentioned, people from around the world could come together and interact with each other.  He gave the example of being able to ask others for advice when shopping online at Amazon.com.  In education, students could see who else is online, ask what the homework was for certain classes, and even get tutorials from experts online.  Teachers could keep office hours for students and parents from the comfort of their own homes.  Instead of physically going to the school, parents and students could click their way to the office to virtually meet the teacher.

Reference

TED Conferences. (Producer). (2008, December). Philip Rosedale on Second Life [Video podcast]. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/the_inspiration_of_second_life.html

Rhymes of History - Module 3

When thinking of the rhymes of history this week, I chose language differences and communication as items for exploration. Language barriers have been the source of some conflicts in history, the workplace, and in social settings. Imagine working with a new colleague who only speaks a language completely dissimilar to you own. The normal day to day routine of the workplace is disrupted when individuals cannot speak or understand the language. From my perspective, we all have a voice that needs to be heard and message we want to send to others. When others do not know what we are asking or stating, we get frustrated and often just give up trying. As Thornburg (2009c) noted, when looking at rhymes of history, we often look at how we utilize new technologies to revisit ideas from our past, even if we are working with the distant past. We are rekindling our inherent desire to share with others through verbal communication. We struggle to do this with those who do not speak our language, essentially causing a language barrier between people.

Enter translation apps, and more specifically, Google Translate. In previous renditions of these devices, words were directly substituted from the target language. In short, it was like looking up passages in a dictionary and piecing them together word by word. Of course, these “translations” were choppy and often times produced inaccurate results. With words like “weather” having different meanings, these searches would only find the word “weather” in the target language and substitute. You might have a sentence like “The house can weather a storm pretty well.” In Spanish, your translation might end up saying something like “La casa lata el tiempo una tormenta bonita pozo.” Each of the words is right but the sentence is something like “The house, can (like soda can), weather (like sunny, cloudy, cool, weather), a storm, pretty (like handsome or cute) well (like the hole in the ground).

As computer power and ability has increased, so have the capabilities of these translation programs. Instead of just looking at word by word definitions, these types of applications look for meaning of whole sentences and try to infer the message the user conveys. Our translations have improved as shown by this newer rendition of my sentence above. Instead of cans and pretty wells, we have a more reasonable, “ La casa se puede capear el temporal bastante bien.” As a Spanish teacher, I would know that this sentence came from a translation application if produced by my students. That said, it is pretty darn close to what the real sentence. The word “tormenta” is how you say storm and would have been the vocabulary word I would have taught.

But, looking beyond my classroom, individuals want to share their message with others in a language they understand. It is very unlikely we all would be able to speak over 1,000 languages and dialects necessary to communicate with everyone, so we need help. We are beginning to get help in the form of mobile translation applications like Google Translate for smart phones. Using an internet connection and the app, an individual can speak (or type), a sentence in their language and have it translated into the language of choice. This also works the other way around. A speaker of a foreign language to the individual could speak into the device and have their words translated into the language the person needs. We are getting closer to having some of the most accurate translations, but still struggle with intonation, inflection, and the nuances of certain words with multiple meanings or with certain verb tenses (subjunctive, imperative, conditional, etc).

So why is a translation application or program helping fulfill the rhyme of history of our communication with others? While gestures are still important in communicating, we don’t have to grunt, point, and pray the other person knows what we are saying. No longer do we have to have multitudes of individuals pouring over reams of documents and translating them for intelligence purposes, or just to read a menu. We need to know what others are communicating and we want to communicate back. These apps facilitate more dialogue with others from different cultures of our own and allow us to improve the global economy and sharing of ideas.

Now if only we could get an accurate translation program that would tell us what our dogs and cats are saying when they share their “voices” with us.

 

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Reference:

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009c). Rhymes of history. Baltimore, MD: Author.