Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
While media screens may not seem like a
ground breaking item to list, I would suggest
otherwise. Early in their development within
Second Life, media screens were fairly basic and
mainly allowed for the presentation of static.JPG
images. As such, they were typically used for
PowerPoint-like presentations to large groups or
classes within Second Life. The problem with this,
as I'm sure you can guess, is that PowerPoint in
Second Life is no more effective that it might be
in the real-world. Unless it is supplemented by
other material, participants will soon begin to get
bored, their attention will wander and chances are
learning does not occur to the extent the instructor
had hoped. I would even go to so far as to say that
these types of presentations in Second Life are
even less effective because of the 3D environment.
There are too many easily distractible items to
catch a participants eye, such as other colorfully
garnished avatars, moving environmental objects,
or even the built in communication channels might
get more attention than the intend presentation.
However, over the past year media screens
have become much more complex and can now
play a much greater variety of content. While
static images are still available, newer media
boards can launch videos hosted outside of Sec-
ond Life, search and play You Tube videos, and
show HTML pages from the Internet. Given the
current rate of development, it probably will not
be too much longer before media screens can play
Flash-based content. What this means to corporate
training professionals is that we are no longer
limited in making information available to staff in
Second Life. Training sessions no longer have to
be an instructor-led event or worse yet the death
by PowerPoint which we have all experienced at
some point.
Using Second Life, training programs could
be developed and become entirely self-paced.
Imagine, creating a virtual representation of a
corporate headquarters. Staff located anywhere in
the world could login to Second Life and explore
the building. Along the way they could view media
screens preloaded with content chosen specifically
for that location. Maybe they are greeted with a
video from the president or head of HR welcom-
ing them to the building and giving instructions or
directions for the exercise. As they move through
the building they get more information drawn from
the company Intranet: benefits, the company mis-
sion statement and goals, IT security procedures,
whatever it was decided they needed to know. With
the use of newer media screens a company Intranet
page can be viewed an explored. Media boards
now let training professionals push much more
information to staff and other interested parties.
This makes training more interesting and more
likely to stick, since it becomes more interactive
and immersive for participants.
Another major development that will change
the way corporate training and development
programs create training within Second Life is
bots. By bots I mean robot avatars that simulate
a real person and that can functionally be inter-
acted with, even so far as to give a response when
spoken to. Such a thing is now currently available
within Second Life. Residents have created objects
that look just like an avatar and have used them
for things a simple as placing them in store like
mannequins to display their wares or to give the
appearance of being busy in hopes of increasing
traffic volume. But others have taken it a step
farther and used scripts to simulate interaction,
movement and even intelligence.
By taking advantage of the Linden Script-
ing Language, developers have been able to
demonstrate the true power of bots. By placing
scripts within dummy avatars, movement, con-
versation and gift giving can be easily simulated.
More advanced developers have crossed bots
with scripting that allows them to draw upon
the power of A.L.I.C.E. (Artificial Linguistic
Internet Computer Entity) and AIML (Artificial
Intelligence Markup language). A.L.I.C.E. “is a
natural language processing chatterbot-a program
that engages in a conversation with a human by
applying some heuristical pattern matching rules to
Search WWH ::
Custom Search