NMC Campus Observer

Viewer 2

NMC Virtual Worlds : Mar 23, 2010 08:33am

So… who’s tried it? First made public during the SL Pro! conference, the new viewer’s steadily gaining more publicity and I hope users.

There are a whole slew of improvements to the interface designed to make it easier for new users but of most interest to us as developers is naturally the shared media. In a nutshell this is web media on a prim, interactive and independent of the old parcel streaming media properties so there are no longer any limitations on how many different sources of streaming media can be playing in one place at one time. The fact that it’s interactive also means that we can now incorporate many existing digital learning tools into our Second Life environments, web pages, video and even interactive flash.

I’m particularly interested in this as depite our best efforts, meaningful educational content is frequently a bit thin, in part because the technology of SL can be clumsy or not best suited to some aspects of this content, so it may be omitted entirely or simply recreated in a less than ideal form in-world. Now, we can use other technologies where appropriate and augment this with what a 3D virtual environment is best at, leading to richer and more meaningful experiences than could previously be created in any of the available media.

If you have a great idea for this and are looking for help to develop the next generation of educational content in Second Life, do please contact us as we’re already testing, experimenting and preparing to lead the way!

Originally published at NMC Virtual Worlds

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