just a quick follow-up to yesterday's supposedly wrap-up post on the inaugural Second Life Best Practices in Education conference:
during Jeremy Braver's fieldtrip, one of my fellow participants 'said' (typed), "it's not right... it's too quiet".
to which some of us chimed in that voice is coming soon to the main grid.
Darren Draper, in a post to his blog two days' ago, more or less voiced the same sentiment in his post-conference reflections. Darren expressed it this way: "Second Life minus audio equals ineffective teaching".
well...
:-)
actually, i'm not so sure. first, some of us actually do prefer the relative peace and quiet that comes with a text-based chat system. i find that it does give me time to think and compose, before i speak.
further, if we were interacting by voice-participation, there might be a cacophony of voices, especially in the scenario of learners milling around a fieldwork site, or even, seated at a lecture theatre.
attribution of voices to speakers / avatars might also be a problem - i can't be sure at this point.
and what about audio quality... would the people who speak faintest be those positioned (in virtual space) furthest away from my avatar? or would they simply be faint because of a mediocre audio-setup in Real Life, or, because they might be speaking from a place in Real Life with a really poor internet connection with lots of packet loss?
i have not been a participant in Second Life's beta voice trials, so i do not have the specifics. frankly, i've had my hands full with my Real Life work, and my Second Life world-building :-) so, i might be wrong about the implementation of voice in Second Life.
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