The Drax Files Radio Hour Episode 16 : lindens are people too! [part 1] is another superb production from Draxtor Despres and Jo Yardley. A wide variety of topics are covered and as usual, I won’t go too deeply into them because the true richness comes from listening to the show!

However they cover education in Second Life and OpenSim. In terms of Second Life they talk of the recent Introduction to Second Life for Educators – a Course in Spanish, which Linden Lab blogged about. I must admit I got this a bit arse about face when I read the blog title because I thought it was teaching Spanish in Second Life, whereas it’s teaching Second Life to Spanish speakers.

In terms of OpenSim there’s an excellent feature on a school in Ireland using OpenSim and Oculus Rift to teach history by allowing the kids to experience historical settings in a virtual world. Virtual worlds do have a place within education but I feel the problem with virtual worlds and education remains the baggage with a one size fits all solution to delivery in terms of Second Life, indeed this is where OpenSim does have an advantage.

Now if Linden Lab were to make Second Life technology available to schools to host their own Second Life technology grid, away from the main grid, I feel real progress could be made there. Say for example if JANET in the UK hosted a grid powered by Second Life technology that educators could build on and collaborate with other institutions, there would be potential there. I thought this was where they were heading with SLEnterprise until I saw the pricing. However in this day and age when the public sector is still being squeezed, a presence on the Second Life main grid and all the associated baggage (much of which is overblown but still exists) is a difficult proposition for educators to sell as a business planning need.

I do believe Linden Lab need to consider such a setup because if they don’t deliver it, High Fidelity is likely to look very appealing to educators due to the nature of how that looks like it will allow people to create their own grids.

However back to the show, there are lots of features, lots worth listening to but the big news is that Draxtor has been out to Santa Cruz, where he was probably initiated into the FIC hall of fame as he fraternised with Ebbe Altberg and The Lindens … to those unfamiliar with Second Life, that is not the name of a rock band.

Drax was even photographed with Lindens!

@draxtor with a gang of Lindens in Santa Cruz. pic.twitter.com/CXKBbVLQKL

— Ebbe Altberg (@ebbealtberg) April 18, 2014

Whereas it’s not quite in the same league as the classic Microsoft photo of many moons ago, there is potential with this picture for it to become quite legendary.

The big interview this week comes in the shape and form of an interview with Don Laabs of Linden Labs …. sorry I couldn’t resist! Ok Don Laabs, AKA Danger Linden, Senior Director, Product at Linden Lab. This is yet another fascinating interview.

They talk about teleporting and the problems it causes in terms of people not engaging in a voyage of discovery, but I feel this ship has sailed and that there’s no going back.

There’s a brief touch upon achievements, which is something I’ve never been that keen on in terms of a global scale as Second Life is not a game, but I do feel there could be more done in providing tools for sim owners to introduce achievement systems for use in roleplay or even for stores. There could also be room for some sort of basic achievements for new users but that’s a topic for a blog on its own.

They talk of the experience tools and how they are still being developed which is good news to say the least.

They talk of the new user experience briefly and the subject of initial presentation comes up with talk of new starter avatars being on the horizon as old ones can make that first impression be one of a dated platform.

They talk of user generated content and Don makes an excellent point on why it’s not really a good idea to decided to delete old content. Don also talks about user generated content in terms of why it’s both challenging and fulfilling to deliver, noting that they are working on an eleven year old platform that therefore has challenges with legacy content, but on the other hand the reason they are working on eleven year old content is because Second Life is still strong enough to exist.

A fascinating interview and definitely worth listening to. Another excellent episode, if you have a spare hour or so I definitely recommend listening to this.

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