Archive for August, 2007

The Sloan-C group I mentioned yesterday represented the first group meeting I’ve attended since voice was implemented in the standard Second Life viewer. Now that voice is really, truly here and I’ve had a chance to experience it in a group setting, I have a few thoughts and reactions.

For now at least, voice presents some interesting difficulties for group communications in terms of hardware. Not everyone may have the equipment available to participate. That’s what happened with the Sloan-C group; some had the requisite mic; others did not. That left us trying to communicate via audio and text – splitting the conversation(s). Ultimately, the solution was to do everything through text to allow inclusive participation, but that certainly slowed things down a bit.

I know several individuals which have said they prefer to continue using text. I’m not entirely sure that’s going to be possible. Even for this meeting – only a few days after voice became a feature of the standard viewer – there was an expectation for voice participation. Will the education community be understanding and accepting of those that choose not to participate via voice? Will individuals truly have a choice? What will the community’s perception of those individuals be?

I believe there’s no question that voice creates an additional level of complexity which makes technical difficulties more likely and/or adds another learning curve for new users as they begin participating in Second Life. At the very least, voice adds another “moving part” that can break or cause problems on the grid; will the benefit of voice outweigh the distractions it may cause? I’m an experienced SL user, and I consider myself fairly tech savvy; I can learn new applications quickly by trial and error. Exactly how difficult will the voice setup be for users that are new to SL or are not very tech savvy? How is a new SL’er supposed to understand what “hear audio from: camera position or avatar position” actually means and be able to make a choice between the two?

And speaking of hearing from camera or avatar position, what does that option do to privacy in world? Do we not carry certain meatspace expectations into Second Life with us? If a friend and I choose to walk away from a face-to-face group for a private exchange, because the risk of us being covertly surveilled is terribly low, we know there’s no “flies on the wall” listening to our conversation. In Second Life, flies can be on every wall. Using the “hear from camera position” option and the delimited camera options, it’s possible to listen to conversations from half a sim away. Is everyone aware of that? How long will it take for SL’ers to adjust their conceptions of privacy regarding their spoken word? While it’s likely to never happen in the physical world, in Second Life, my neighbor can sit in his house and very easily listen to what is being said in mine – without ever being seen. Imagine the implications for education. Will a faculty member needing to have a private conversation with a learner know or remember to switch to private conversations and/or text rather than simply walking away from the group?

Everyone speculated or knew voice would bring entirely new pedagogical concerns to Second Life. I experienced two of these concerns in the Sloan-C group. Small groups may need to be smaller than they’ve ever been face-to-face, online or in Second Life. A group of 8-10 can function via text chat; we’ve accomplished that in synchronous and asynchronous communication for some time now; plus the ability to track back through the conversation log makes it easy to catch up when behind. When communicating by voice in a face-to-face environment, it’s possible to work with groups of 8-10 as well; we have a number of established conventions and non-verbal communications that facilitate smooth transitions between individual participation in the conversation. However, in a virtual environment, those conventions don’t exist and the non-verbal signals to indicate one’s interest in speaking are unavailable. To reduce the confusion, Second Life groups using voice to communicate may need to be as small as 3-5 people. And, I’m not confident that we’ll ever get use to the lack of those smooth, non-verbal cues; when’s the last time you and a colleague/friend stumbled through that transition on the phone – unintentionally speaking over one another, both of you stopping for silence, both of you starting again at the same time and then both saying “Go ahead” at the same time? Ever have the same experience in a videoconference when you can actually see each other?

The second pedagogical concern focuses on the lack of a text-based log of the conversation. Voice communication in Second Life is more synchronous than the text is. I enjoy the flexibility of text-based chat, of being able to walk away for a few moments if needed but not missing anything because I can track back through the conversation. In terms of distance learning, Second Life with voice is a little less flexible than it used to be.

Finally, and I’ll only cover this one with a question and a short comment. Does voice in Second Life re-establish all of the social inhibitions and heirarchies of the physical world? I found that I was hesitant to speak in this group – just like I am when in similar situations in the physical world.

With all of those regarding voice in Second Life, I have to admit that voice is still an incredibly powerful tool within Second Life for one-to-one networking and conversations. While trying to capture the picture/icon for this blog post, I stumbled upon Thursday and had a conversation about the work he’s doing on his thesis which is directly related to what I do on a day-to-day basis. Fantastic opportunities loom in spite more than a few concerns . . .