RezEd Holds 1st Seasonal Virtual Meetup on March 25 in Second Life!

[Rik Panganiban]

At RezEd Central, we are always looks for ways we can better serve our growing community of educators. We had such a great response to our first virtual conference in Second Life last November, that we have decided to hold seasonal virtual meetups for the RezEd community to socialize, network and share information more regularly.

Our first Spring Meetup took place on Wednesday March 25 at the Foundations Sim in Second Life, generously offered by the MacArthur Foundation. The topic is a hot one: "Educational Implications of Mixed-age Versus Age-segregated Virtual Worlds." We featured three excellent speakers who can address this subject from a youth, teacher and librarian perspectives, plus lots of time for Q&A, discussion and socializing.

Here's the details:

WHAT: RezEd.org's Spring Virtual Meetup
WHERE: Second Life, Foundations Sim (Teleport Link)
WHEN: Wednesday, March 25, 12-1pm PST / SLT
WHO: Lucky Figtree: Teen Second Life Resident
Peggy Sheehy: Teacher, Suffern Middle School
Kelly Czarnecki: Librarian, Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County

It was a fun and thought-provoking event, with more than 60 avatars present. Clearly there are many, many people interested in the changes going on in the Main Grid and Teen Grid of Second Life, how other virtual worlds and MMORPGs navigate mixed-age and age-segregated spaces, and the impacts upon education and youth development.

For those that have not been following the developments closely, on March 12, Linden Lab, the owners of Second Life, announced that in the next few months they will be implementing changes to segregate "adult" content from "PG" content on the Main Grid. See the Linden Lab blog post on this.

Here's what they wrote:

The system we build will have three main features, which we will describe in great detail over the next few months. First, it will provide a way to geographically separate Adult content and activities to a part of the “mainland” designed to accommodate these activities (Estate owners with Adult content on their land will be required to flag their content; they will not be required to move). Second, it will filter search results, so that those who do not wish to see “Adult” results will not. Third, it will require that those who access or see “Adult” content (whether on land or in search) have had their accounts verified – such as by a payment or age verification method.

Some have surmised that this is linked to possible closure of the Teen Grid and moving the teens over to a "mixed-ages" PG grid. The future of TSL has been in question for nearly as long as its been around. But in January 2009, three years after it first left beta, Philip Rosedale, former CEO of Linden Lab, addressed this issue on the Metanomics talk show. He said the following in response to a question from an audience member, Daniel Voyager, a recent graduate from TSL:

I think that the future of Second Life needs to be one where people of all ages can use Second Life together, and that's the direction that we're taking in our planning and our work… If you look at the problems with having a teenaged area, which is itself so isolated from the rest of the World, they’re substantial… We need to stop creating isolated areas that are age specific and, instead, look at how we can make the overall experience appropriately safe and controlled for everybody. So that’s the general direction that we’re taking there.

After the event, we are going to use this blog post for people to voice any views or questions for the panelists that they didn't get to express at the event, and in general to continue the conversation about Mixed-Age versus Segregated-age online spaces. Please comment below!

For more information contact [e-mail]. See you there!

[Bryony Constantine]

I'm very sceptical of merging the two grids...I've been a Second Life Resident since 2007 and I've seen the many facets of it and what goes on. I'm interested to see how Linden Lab will address the needs of the established residents, Teen Grid residents and their parents and the fact that so many people never bother to go in-world on Main Grid but think they "know all about it" and dismiss it as a pit of sleaze. Handle this VERY carefully Linden Lab...the world and the sensationalist media are watching! :)

[Daniel Voyager]

This should be interesting. I was a TG resident between October 2006 until December 2008 when I transfered to the Main Grid.

Will this be recorded in-world to view later on?
Can Teens watch it from the Teen Grid?

I'll will be making notes and reporting about this to publish on my blog etc.

Latest update (24th March 2009) from the SL wiki on the merge idea, can be found here: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Adult_Content_Forum_Transcript - SL Forums > "Teen" to find more posts relating a possible merge.

:)

[Rik Panganiban]

Daniel, we are recording it for a podcast on RezEd. So they can listen to it later, and respond in this thread.

[Daniel Voyager]

@Rik: That's cool! :)

[Lisa Dawley/Mali Young]

great session! mixed teen/adult space provides GREAT opportunities for teens who have "aged out" to become mentors for younger teens

[Rik Panganiban]

thanks everyone who participated. It was a really great session.