Molbio in Second Life
As part of initiative to understand how we might use virtual environments, my colleague and friend Sam Jackson and I prototyped a region name “Molbio” in Second Life. Molbio is a contraction of the term “Molecular Biology”. This region was hoped to serve both training for and promotion of the Promega brand.
This video is an un-narrated tour of the region that I made just prior to our shutting it down.
It is vernacular in Second Life to use the term “build” as a noun to describe the virtual objects and landscapes created there. Sam made several ‘builds’ to be used as gathering places for meeting those interested in general molecular biology topics. Sam also created a ‘build’ of a laboratory where we had hoped to create ‘virtual videos’ – more typically known as ‘machinima’. Machinma has several advantages over real-life media creation and is becoming a significant product of virtual environments.
I created a replica of a building from Promega’s corporate campus to orient new arrivals to the region. I also created a ‘walking tour’ of the basic concepts of molecular biology. These walking tours are another typical use of virtual learning environments which reflects the real-world concept of the poster show – a common practice in the communities of academic and research science.
We could not generate the traction we needed within the organization to continue with the prototype. While Sam and I both had great enthusiasm for the possibilities, we just could not make that connection for our colleagues. It was a very valuable lesson in just how challenging it can be to move people from their comfort zones to explore something new.