My primary area of research is training enhanced by the Internet. When most people think of this, they envision the only part of the Internet that they are familiar with – the Web. This vision usually includes what’s sometimes called a learning management system (e.g. Blackboard/WebVista or Moodle). If they went to college in the last decade or so, they think of the courses they took with syllabuses and sometimes lecture notes posted to these systems. And although more innovative methods exist, information is usually just placed online (whether through plain text, audio clips, or videos) and learners are expected to absorb it.
But the web isn’t the only place learning takes place on the Internet. People can also learn in immersive virtual worlds, like Second Life. In these environments, you can create a virtual version of yourself (in ed-tech circles, this is called an agent) and then engage that version of yourself in whatever activities you like. Some simply explore. Some develop clothing and sell it to other players. Some buy land and rent out furnished apartments or homes. Some even engage in sex trade. The options are only limited by the users’ ability to create content within the Second Life universe.
Which is precisely why this is so powerful as an instructional tool, both in educational and organizational settings. In Second Life, the user isn’t simply playing a game – a version of themselves is actually present in the virtual world, with all the good and bad that comes with it. In a classroom setting, the sense of presence – the idea that when sitting in on a lecture, that you are actually there in the same room with the lecturer – is surprisingly strong. This opens up a great range of possibilities – students collaborating across continents suddenly requires relatively little effort above and beyond normal class preparation.
ODU-SLRF: My lab away from lab...
What you see to the left is what I call the ODU-SLRF – the Old Dominion University Second Life Research Facility. I’ve built it on a small plot of land on one of the main “continents” of Second Life in order to conduct classes and run studies in this virtual world. On the second floor, you can see a classroom just waiting for students to attend.
What’s amazing about this whole affair is that I built that entire facility – walls, floors, chairs, doors and all – and it only took a few hours of work. There is a currency system inside Second Life (called Linden Dollars, or L$ – roughly US$1 = L$270), but other than to buy the land, I never had to use it. Everything you see here was either created by me by hand or acquired for free from other residents. If you don’t want to spend any real money in Second Life (important if you are asking college students or employees to participate!), then you don’t ever need to. Accounts are free, basic building components are free, and a sizable library of objects can be acquired for free. The only thing that always costs real money is buying the virtual land itself. Unless of course, you want to hire someone to do all of the design and building for you.
Now showing a video of a classic interview with B.F. Skinner in the virtual classroom...
Thus sits my research facility, run by my Second Life alter-ego, Arlanders Rae, just waiting for its first round of participants. Come by and take a look if you want. It only takes a free download and free account to visit. And if you’d like a guided tour, just ask!
Every day that things continue to go smoothly, I grow increasingly suspicious.
We went to the home inspection today, which took about 3 hours. The man basically went from top to bottom in the house and looked for every single possible thing that is or could be wrong with it. We ended up with a many-page printout (which he produced on-site!) detailing everything that needs to be addressed by either the sellers or by us.
Fortunately, it’s nothing too major. Apparently the previous owners either were or knew a handyman who decided he could install the wires to the air conditioner by drilling a random hole in the side of the house and running them through it. Which, believe it or not, is the not the appropriate way to install such a cord. There was also a random extension cord installed in a similar fashion, several plugs which appeared to be grounded were in fact not, and a few shingles were damaged or missing. So altogether, nothing terribly surprising, and the sellers shouldn’t give us much trouble to get them addressed.
This is not our house, but it is modern laminate. Not bad, eh?
As for us, we’re planning how to update this house once we get to it. I pulled back some of the ’70s carpet on the stairs and upper floor to discover a diamond-in-the-rough: neglected hardwood floors. After closing, we will have $5200 in escrow from the sellers to deal with the flooring, so a good chunk of that (we are guessing around $2000) will be used to sand, stain, and re-finish those floors and the stairway. We’ll also be ripping up the flooring downstairs and installing laminate (which is much higher quality than it used to be) and hopefully re-tiling the bathrooms.
So the tentative plan thus is:
- Move in late May
- Pull up the upstairs carpet
- Call in a carpenter to get an estimate on refinishing the floors
- Paint the upstairs and move to the downstairs ASAP
- Get the carpenter to refinish the upstairs flooring (hopefully this step will be complete within 1 week of us moving in)
- Have our furniture and possessions from Minnesota delivered
- After the downstairs is painted, pull up the downstairs carpet
- Install hardwood-lookalike laminate flooring in the entire downstairs
- Buy area rugs and possibly a runner for the staircase
- Re-model one or both bathrooms
So there goes our June and July. That’s why the dissertation has to be done before we move!
Yes, there's a mural, and yes, it's wood panelling. Why do you think we have so much work to do!?!
Our New Home!
Day 7 was quite a bit more successful, although still a little stressful.
This morning, we heard from our agent that the bank had not updated their conditional approval letter (previously called a “pre-approval letter”) to reflect our new asking price ($5k under asking rather than $12k under asking), so the seller’s agent never even forwarded it to the sellers. A quick call to our mortgage company later, and the letter was off. Only a few hours later, we received word back that the sellers had verbally agreed to our offer with a minor change – we had asked for the entire house to be re-painted with white primer, but they only wanted to put primer on non-white walls. Minor distinction (and not really important to us), but a distinction that had to be made in writing.
You might note that I used the words “verbally agreed.” This is because the sellers don’t live in VA Beach anymore – they moved to North Carolina some time ago. So the seller’s agent (based here) had to drive 4 hours to North Carolina in order to get them to sign the papers – which they did! We very quickly drove to our agent’s office to sign the papers indicating we agreed to the slight change in wording, followed by a trip to Haynes (a local home furnishing store) to look at carpet and hardwood floors.
So as of March 19, we are homeowners. At least, given several contingencies. One, our financing has to come through (of course). Two, the house must be appriased for more than we paid for it. Three, the sellers must repair anything troubling discovered in the home inspection. We managed to find an inspector willing to schedule a next-day inspection, so around 4PM tomorrow, we’ll be heading to the house with our agent to listen to the inspector tell us about our new house for a few hours. Fun times!
Our agent seems honestly surprised that this all worked out. We went from looking at our first house to having an accepted offer in one week! Not bad, eh?