Educational Gaming Commons - Press Start

I've been fascinated by Hypercubes since I first became aware of them. Robert Heinlein wrote a short story about such a construct in 1940.

So I was delighted to find one in Second Life! I think this is a great example of how, via careful scripting, one can provide environmental manipulation to SL for educational purposes. It's one thing to read about hypercubes; it's another to actual experience one.

Cerated by Seifert Surface, this is a scripting marvel. When I first though about how to do this in SL, I became hung up on one key fact - gravity is always "down" in SL. You can't really have avatars walking on walls or ceilings. This is critical to experience immersion in a hypercube. Seifert solved the problem by simply (?) manipulating the structure so it changes depending on how you progress through it. Watch the movie to see this in action. You'll see my avatar several times inside the cube. As I move about, the structure changes around me. See the attached movie.

Besides being neat, this points out the next level of effort required by educators to provide engaging experiences in SL. The social stuff is easy - it's built in. Manipulation of objects requires some hefty programming savvy - and time.

Most of us simply don't have the programming skills, time to develop scripts, or both. We need to find ways to do this, or we'll not realize SL's educational potential.

Some of my colleagues are using students to build and script. That's great! It may be an answer. Now we need to find ways to share this knowledge. Fortunately, efforts are underway. SimTeach has a scripting section, for example. The Salamander Project is another example.

If you are developing interesting build and scripts, I urge you to share them. It's the only way the vast bulk of educators in SL will realize their creative visions.