Bryan Carter has been using virtual worlds for education since 1997, and he talks about the lessons learned from his Virtual Harlem project to immerse students into the literature and music from the 1920s. He talks about some of the resistance that he received from his peers in Africana studies, and how his students are already immersed in technology and that using virtual worlds is a way to create more engaging and potent learning experiences.
Harlem in the 1920s was improvisational and edgy, and Bryan is attempting to recreate this feeling with his virtual recreation. It was one of the first extended recreated environments for African Americans and so it attracted role playing, entertainment, live performances, lectures, poetry slams, and DJ performances, and businesses, educators and a range of different classes being taught within Virtual Harlem.
He talks about diversifying his presence from Second Life to OpenSim as well as some of his future plans with Unity and experiencing Virtual Harlem within fully immersive virtual reality with the Oculus Rift.
TOPICS
- 0:00 – Intro. African American literature of 20th Century and Digital Humanities. Virtual Harlem as existed by 1920s jazz age. Wanted students to experience some of the literature from the 1990
- 1:05 – Started into VR in 1997. Some of the Silicon Graphics and CAVE technology used back then
- 2:04 – Used Quake for lower-cost multi-player networking, then VRML, and then eventually Second Life
- 2:54 – Virtual Harlem is focused on African American Life and culture. Attracted role playing, entertainment, live performances, lectures, poetry slams, and DJ performances, and businesses, educators and classes being taught. Then other platforms opened. Linden Labs briefly eliminated non-profit pricing, which
- 4:05 – Educational lessons from Virtual Harlem. Have a short-term, medium-term, and long-term plan. How to teach in these environments. Other African American scholars have more of a wait-and-see mindset, and there’s a resistance towards things that new and technological, and to games and virtual worlds. Engagement and success will help convince others of it’s worth.
- 6:27 – Bringing diversity to Second Life. Field of Africana studies came from activist roots, and some question why work with something that’s not real when there’s so much other “real” problems happening. Some don’t see relevance of virtual worlds. Perceived as a distraction, hobby or a toy.
- 7:23 – Create an educational period piece and collaborating with businesses. Cities have diversity from education, commerce, entertainment and other media as well. OpenSim, Second Life and Unity.
- 8:23 – Immersing people into the music of the time. Jazz was edgy and improvisational. Immerse them within the environment.
- 9:23 – Be prepared for your technology to fail. There are different levels of Internet connectivity. You don’t have control over the entire ecosystem. Tech failures can frustrate students.
- 10:32 – Change in discount pricing in Second Life. Migrating towards open source OpenSim version of Virtual Harlem. Funding is more difficult, but the community is in Second Life. Hopes to have a presence in a number of different diverse places.
- 11:42 – Future of the metaverse. Working with Virtual World Web company, and they’re creating Curio. WebGL is also a possibility. Open communication channels up between these worlds.
- 13:28 – Using fully immersive VR within Virtual Harlem.
- 14:37 – Future of education with immersive technologies. Many new tools in this new toolkit, and they all need to work more seamlessly together and connect to these disparate worlds.
Theme music: “Fatality” by Tigoolio
