How To: Make the Most of Virtual Field Trips

The Internet in the 21st Century and Beyond.


Field trips either in a non-virtual world or a virtual world is only a means entice the students then give a exhaustive information. Even after a class time on the subject, I strongly believe that the instructor should excite the students to do more research on the subject then simply getting them to it.

The 3-D virtual-worlds like SecondLife can profide a lot of information for educators and its students. With how much it cost to travel, the complexity to gather the students to and from the field trips, virtual-worlds provides a unique and wonderful format. Also you can go practically across the world withouth leaving the classroom. In a lot of ways, virtual-worlds can provide more information and even updated infromation fast and better then conventional means.

The Internet is far more then it was in the 1990s. With social media growing and growing, students can share and even communicate with others students on the opposite side of the country in real time. Other then time zones, there is really no limit to what and how students can learn online. I would not doubt that virtual reality systems like SecondLife will replace altogether all conventional educational means. Creating things in a 3-D virtual world is a lot cheaper otherwise. Udating information is much faster.

An instructor can even create a virtual world of the subject at hand, and updated a lot quicker then designing a class program for the week. With 3-D virtual worlds there are really no limit. It might make one think what world is more real. The limit in the virtual world is the imagination. Is that how we live our lives in the conventional world? The difference is it is much easier to create things in the virtual world.


Blessed Be to Isis and you,

Brandon Frater Pheonix
Real Name: Brandon Bowers

Researchers Find New Way Of Measuring 'Reality' Of Virtual Worlds

The Internet in the 21st Century and Beyond.


What is reality? It is what you make of it. It is interesting to me that people are still makng an issue of the reality of the Internet. Within virtual reality systems like SecondLife, one can live far beyond their own physical reality. Because something is not flesh and blood does not necessarily means it is not real. What makes me real is my own experiences. If I look an arm or a leg does not mean I loose who I am.

The physical world can be just as unreal as the virtual world. If a virtual world can be used for the productivity of any form of life, then it is just as real if not more so. One can waiste their life online as well as offline. The tools does not make a person, it is how one uses the tools. What makes something real is the mentality behind the action.

As you might have heard, "Never allow someone to tell you that you cannot do something." If someone wants the results hard enough, then success will come. I remember on a television advertisement from the United States Army, "Anything worth having is not easy." Another meaning for the word reality is "What kind of hard work are you willing to put into it?"


Blessed Be to Isis and you,

Brandon Frater Phoenix
Real Name: Brandon Bowers.

Linden Lab and Rivers Run Red Partner to Boost Virtual Collaboration and Productivity - MarketWatch

 

Here is where virtual worlds like SecondLife can fly beyond all understandings.  This type of business format is very essential to productivity.  While teenagers are learning to socialize with others in a virtual world, they are actually learning how to use the technology of the future.

If everyone does their part, we can have a different format of how we interact with others not only across the globe, but in our own back yard.  Social Media/Social Networking has already brought many, many people together in all aspects of life, including business.  Before business used spamming emails, two-dimensional advertisements, text ads, etc.  With virtual worlds like SecondLife, we all can present ourselves and our products without spamming or other annoying forms.

With ad blocking, spam filters, and all the other security softwares, it has been proven that those old tactics do not work.  Even telemarketing can be controlled by many successful means.  For a business, that is tons of money down the financial toilet.  With a virtual 3-D environment, we can see new products first hand without any sells person confronting us to buy anything.

The biggest win I see in SecondLife is that consumers can interact with the business on a grand scale that surpasses simple and useless surveys or other forms to fill out.  No one has to know your personal life in any interaction on SecondLife.  To ad to one's privacy, you do not have to have your avatar to be the same gender.  The avatar does not have to be human.

There is not limit to SecondLife for any walk of life.  What we have known about business or any aspect of life, we can do it all in SecondLife.  Each and everyone of us makes up what goes on in SecondLife.  Yes, we have an economy issue throughout the world, but we either can jump into this new technical age or we can stay in the past and do the same ole thing our ancestors did.

We either have to accept the changes in our lives, or go no where in life.  Change is not a bad thing.  It does take giant leaps of faith to keep going.  Change is not for the timid.  We also cannot let others do the changes.  All of us have the power to make a difference in this new technical age.

 

Blessed Be to Isis and you,

Brandon Frater Phoenix
Real Name:  Brandon Bowers

 

 

Linden Lab and Rivers Run Red Partner to Boost Virtual Collaboration and Productivity - MarketWatch

Virtual reality, the new place to promote your product

 

How I have been seeing the trends of virtual worlds like SecondLife, I do not how businesses can make a profit on SecondLife as stated in this article.  The trends for now is aiming at the personal gathering of social media/social networking.

It seems to be people are not interested in the business side of virtual worlds.  There are companies that have their own virtual worlds, but they have slacked off from keeping it going.  In the real life or first life, a business constantly changing the look of their building that they do business in.  If you go to most of the virtual businesses in SecondLife, they look the same as it did when they first built it. 

There are places within their world that is old and are linked to other places within SecondLife that are not there anymore.  To keep up with the fast growing technical aspect of virtual worlds, changes should be a constant thing.  The main theme of virtual world technology is "Constant Change."

I think it is more then the economy that is keeping business at a stand still in virtual world technologies.  This does not necessarily mean virtual worlds are dying, but it may mean that business may not be right for virtual world technologies.  I believe that the Internet has always been for socialization. 

Let face it, there are more business done offline then online.  It might be true due to our economy, we might be doing more business online to save gas money, but overall most of our shopping will be the old conventional manner.  As for promoting products online, I do not think so.  We are tired of the ads on websites, spamming, and all the rest.

For Firefox/Flock browsers, there are ways to block ads on websites.  I personally do this because of the security issues with ads.  They put cookies and other junk on my system that usually causes sluggishness on my computer and Internet use.  This spyware is put on my computer without my consent. I am also a private person, and do not like to be spied on by anyone.

It has been proven that telemarketing, spamming, spyware, etc., does not work for businesses.  Through today's technology, we can see who is calling before we pick up the phone.  We have ways of dealing with spyware, junk mail, and all the other pain in the ass systems businesses throw at us.  Due to modern day technology we are more in control of what is being thrown at us then ever before.

Bottom line, advertising or other business promotions are being stopped and controlled at the consumer level.  That should be a giant neon sign that we do not want to be bothered by business activities.  For virtual worlds like SecondLife, how many really pay any attention to the ads that are there?  If someone wants to buy something in a virtual world, they will simply do a search.

I wonder if the trends we have in over spending, in which has caused a big drop in our economy in the first place, is due to the pussy, pain in the ass, business tactics by stating we have to have this product if we are going to be accepted in the norm of society?  There is not good that come from a pushy salesman.  No one really wins by propaganda and other forms of manipulations.

Two wrongs do not make right.  There is nothing wrong with advertising, but it is something wrong in being a pain in the ass about it.  We have to have balance in all that we do if we want an outcome to be positive for all.

 

Blessed Be to Isis and you,

Brandon Frater Phoenix
Real Name:  Brandon Bowers

 

Virtual reality, the new place to promote your product

YouTube - CNN Future Summit - Virtual Worlds (Nick Yee)

 

From watching this video, I have come to realize that V-R (Virtual Reality) or virtual worlds are a far from a one up from chatrooms so long ago online.  This might have a very positive promise in getting to get others to work as a team.  This is a very big issue in the business world.

Virtual worlds also may end something that has been plaguing many since the beginning of time, prejudice.  I do not think virtual worlds will cause peace on Earth, but it may allow others to realize something they might never would see about themselves and others.  With virtual worlds, we strip our physical world and forces us to see only the soul of a person, which is the real person.  Businesses have always struggled with bringing the differences of others on the job to be one.

In a virtual world, we have a 3-D concept that we have in real life.  In a virtual world, we see only the reality of life, and not what is on the outside.  It makes me wonder what is really real life and what is a virtual one?  There are so many falsehood in our every day life, then anything that has been created or experienced online.  When I was on a virtual world, SecondLife, I liked calling the life I was born in, First Life or FL.  Calling is real life is matter of perspective.

If I were to ask someone who they are, their answer would be very long, but what makes each and everyone of us can be defined in one word......."experience."  It is our experiences that make us who we really are.  When we are challenged to communicate with others in  virtual world setting, we can only express ourselves by those experiences.  Others cannot know how we feel or see our body languages.  Instead, we have to share a little of our experiences with others in order to truly communicate with them.

In one of my blogs, I stated that virtual worlds like SecondLife are heading in a dead in.  It might be on a business reality as SecondLife appeared to start out as, but I am starting to see a new concept of business and even social interactions.  What is the biggest thing that all of us wants to do with business?  We want to communicate with them to the fullest.  Not all business websites have email addresses or some kind of feedback for us to talk to them.

What I am starting to believe is that business needs to not have only a 24hr/7 week shops for inworld shopping, but allow people in first life or real life to interact in both realities.  Social media was and still is designed for real time communication.  From this video, it appears many, many people are interacting a lot better then they ever done before.  True, virtual worlds are different, but that does not mean they are less real.  If more are able to chat with a person that is a different race, gender, religion/faith, age, etc., then I say a virtual world is more real then anything else.

Since the beginning of time, man has be with war for one reason or the other.  Warcraft might be a very popular game, but the battles are not against human beings.  Instead, human beings are united to find a common enemy, usually a monster or the like.  Teamwork is being learned that no classroom could ever teach.  By far, virtual worlds are not nor cannot bring a Utopian society.  There might not be peace on Earth, but I say, virtual worlds are do a lot better then anything in history.

Social media, virtual worlds, and the Internet is here to stay.  It seems that there are way too many people online to have anyone simply cut the wires in order to end this wonder that our technology has created.

 

Blessed Be to Isis and you,

Brandon Frater Phoenix
Real Name:  Brandon Bowers

 

 

Microsoft Calls Firefox Competitor To Windows - XBoard.us

 

I personally do not see any threat against Firefox from Microsoft, other then the possibility of competition.  This is a very good thing.  Competition allowed Mozilla to create Firefox to begin with.

As our technologies grow at alarming rates, it could not do so without competition.  Free enterprise is what it is all about.  The United States of America hold the leading record throughout history as having the freedom of business to achieve beyond all hopes and dreams.  If there is a such thing as the "Golden Age," then it is right now.

I first started this blog on the idea of web design, but web design is so much more then designing a website.  It has now become a big part of "social media."  How fast "social media" has grown, I do not think we can continue using the Internet without it.  As all aspects of the Internet and the rest of our technology is growing, we need competition even more.

We constantly need fresh and new ideas after another.  If anything is over 5 years old, it is ancient in regarding today's technology.  Instant messaging has replaced e-mail for it fast sending of information without actually killing email itself.  Social media has stepped beyond instant messaging in the same way.  Services like Skype has made using the telephone nearly an obsolete technical wonder, but believe it or not, the Internet it the next step from the telephone system.

That is right, we are in the "Technology Age" or better yet, "Technology Era."  Whatever one wants to call it, every aspect of our lives is the result of our technologies.  Medical science has advanced dramatically due to technology.  How we know and care for our environment has everything to do with technology.  See if you can find something in life that has not been effected by technology, in a wonderful manner.

Due to our technology we have learned to lower our pollution rate down dramatically.  Computers allowed us to see things that we might not be able to see otherwise.  Surely there are negatives in everything in life, but the wonders that our technologies have given us has out weighed any negatives.  I would not doubt that as our technologies have grown, we have eliminated those negatives.

Here is the chorus line once again, "We could not accomplish all that we have with out technologies if it was not for competition."

True, a good number of big business has put a lot of hurt on free enterprise due to NAFTA (The North American Free Trade Agreement), but there are other big business that had nothing to do with it.  Spite what businesses were for NAFTA, we still have free enterprise today.  Spite all the negatives in the United States of America, we have held on for over 200 years.  This had nothing to do with any party of government, nor any political leaders.  We are holding fast because our Constitution protects and serves "Free Enterprise."

When I read articles like this one, I see a greater future that this country has ever seen.  It is a shinning light through all the confusion that is painted from the media.  It gives a strong hope and wonder for our children of today and tomorrow.

 

Blessed Be to Isis and you,

Brandon Frater Phoenix
Real Name:  Brandon Bowers

 

 

Microsoft Calls Firefox Competitor To Windows - XBoard.us

Get real or go home: Web 2.0 party comes to an end - infoSync World

 

I have always thought the major reason what are economy is like it is today in the USA is due to the change of one age, industrial age, to a new one, technology age.

Other then games and major graphical usage, most of our technology is online.  For the most part, the Internet does not need powerful graphic cards on personal computers.  All we need is a up to date processor, a keyboard, mouse, update monitor, and a few others things to use the Internet.  Other then the hardware devices mentioned, most of the Internet is on some other hardware devices that someone else has to deal with.  Since public libraries have Internet services, a lot of people do not have to be concerned at all with the hardware.

On the job, the company provides the hardware needed.  Employee are at the computer using the Internet or Intranet (private Internet for companies), doing their jobs.  For a number of office suite software, employees are using the Internet to do their work.  Just about all businesses use modern technology in one form or the other.  Technology is here to stay.  In fact, technology is growing faster and faster, day by day.  What will have next is anyone's guess.

Due to our recent economy troubles, we are being forced to use it more and more.  It cost too much to pay for gas to drive our vehicles, so we shop online more, and do other things we normally might do in the conventional world and do it online.  We pay bills and other financial transactions on the Internet.  The fun that we started with with web 2.0 is now turning serious.  We are now using today's Internet for our day-to-day lives.

As I stated in a previous blog posting on this blog, social media is becoming a lot more then simply making friends and simple business transactions.  Though there is nothing wrong in communicating is such a fashion, social media today is becoming serious also.  When the micro-computer started in the early 80s, we started to play around with them.  In the early 90s, play time was over with.  Things became serious.  Even gaming has become a serious thing.

Games for the most part are on game boxes, while personal computers are geared for other things.  Since the technology age is growing faster and faster, there will be of need of the right employees.  What kind of employees that will be needed is the question.  That is why a lot of people do not have jobs right now.  Schools are not sure how to train their students, nor businesses are not sure how or what employees are needed.

As with any changing between ages, there is a gap of uncertainties. In time, things will start to go forward in jobs at an alarming rate beyond anything or anyone can imagine.  Look at history's past.  When the Industrial age started, everyone went through the same thing.  Before they new it, everyone was getting jobs and hardly no one was unemployed any longer.   I cannot state how or when this will happen to us today, but from the trends of history and how strong our technology future is today, I can say something wonderful will happen in time.

 

Blessed Be to Isis and you,

Brandon Frater Phoenix
Real Name:  Brandon Bowers

 

 

Get real or go home: Web 2.0 party comes to an end - infoSync World

Console Rivals To Launch Virtual Worlds - Smarthouse

 

The reason why others virtual worlds have not made it is the same reason SecondLife is failing:  Social Media is a lot more then making virtual friends and chatting with each other.

In the real world, these things do not make it.  Telemarketing, spamming, handing our fliers, etc.  does not cut it.  With the Internet there is really no difference other then it is done in a digital/virtual format.  Chatrooms were a fad, and they hardly exist online anymore.  Instant messaging is a personal communication system.

There is nothing wrong with making friends, chatting, and all the rest, but Social Media is a lot more.  When social media started in 2001, it was a simple communication between a group of people.  Today, October 10, 2008, it has grown to be a lot more.  People now can share websites, videos, pictures, and all sorts of things with friends, family, and everyone else.  Businesses are using as their mainstream form of doing their business, making money, without spamming, telemarketing, or any of the forceful activities.

With virtual-realities like SecondLife, Lively, and others, tried to do this, but it has only turned in a disaster.  Like video games on personal computers, video cards and even the processor speed cannot keep up.  The bigger problem is when too many are logged in to a virtual world system, it puts a lot on the servers.  This causes lagging, which is a slowing down of the entire system.  This in turn cases all sorts of problems.  I know a number of well know businesses that have not kept up with their virtual world.  That causes out of date link-ups to other virtual worlds, sections of their own world to be old and out of date, or simply the company does not have any maintenance at all.

If things are not constantly being maintained, then no one will come back.  Within the realm of the Internet, it you website or whatever is not constantly being adjusted on a regular basis, then no one will return back to it.  That is how virtual worlds are becoming today, dead end ghost towns.

If you want to simply communicate with people online, then use other formats.  Social media has evolved far beyond simple one-on-one communication, and it is constantly evolving beyond what it is today.  Maybe one day these virtual worlds may make it, but what I have seen, I do not think it will.  Who wants to have to update their computer on just about all aspects of it for virtual worlds that have no real future.

SecondLife has been around for five years now.  I have not seen that much change in it.  If companies are not keeping up with their own virtual island/world, then that may say something very profound:  "It has not future."  Again, social media started around 2001.  It has grown since then and constantly growing faster and faster.  So far, virtual worlds have been doing this.  Even video games improve with in a few years.

The only way any virtual realities can make it if they get off their collective butts and start widely improving the system.  SecondLife, for example, Linden labs, the creators of SL, cannot keep up with all the bugs in their own system.  When they implement new versions or whatever, it only causes more issues.  How can they evolve to better things?  This is why I believe virtual-reality online will not work.

All forms of social media is working and evolving beyond all expectations.  It has a future and constantly creating new and wonderful things for all walks of life.  That is progress far beyond all expectations.  With the Internet, if one is not progressing, then they will end up running into a dead end.  The Internet is here and alive, and it is here to stay.  It has benefited all ours lives in every way possible.

There has not been no virtual worlds system that has ever benefited anyone.  Yes, there has been a few, and very few, that has made real life money using Second Life, but today that can never happen.  There are too many people doing the same thing.  Have you ever read the book, "Grapes of Wrath?"  The more people doing the same thing, the less everyone will be making any profit.

Personally I do not see why one company would want to partake in a virtual world today, less alone create one.  There is no future in it, other then a light chance of a gaming system.  The problem with games, if the game is the same over time, it gets boring real fast.  Like I have said before, it will be hard for personal computers to keep up with the graphics overload.  Most games uses special hardware systems, like Game Cube or some personal Play Station (PS).

Bottom line, personal computers were not designed for games.  They were first designed for mathematics, and new they are used for business, personal use, and the Internet.  How much graphics are being used online, I am wondering if PCs will be able to handle the Internet in the future.  Time will always tell how the future will be, but for the time being, virtual reality worlds are already starting off with "dead end" written all over it.

 

Blessed Be to Isis and you,

Brandon Frater Phoenix
Real Name:  Brandon Bowers

 

 

Console Rivals To Launch Virtual Worlds - Smarthouse

Can Blog Learning Content End Newspapers? | Learning Management System, Learning System, and Courseware Development Blog

Blogging, twitting, and many other social networking are already replacing how we did things in the past.  Now with the new and fast growing aspect online, virtual reality, things will change even more.

With the economy throughout the world going down fast, technology is still alive and growing.  In the past few years it has grown at an alarming rate.  Also with the need to conserve natural resources, we might creating less newspapers, magazine, etc.  It is ever so much cheaper to use online media systems then conventional ones.  Also, more and more are using the Internet at home and at public locations like the public library.

Only the older generation is stuck on using conventional means of living.  Believe it or not, a good many of the baby boomers are using the Internet then one might think.  After retirement, it is easier to socialize online then face-to-face.  The fear of using the Internet has lessen dramatically with the use of common sense Internet usage, and newer and even free security software.  There are so much to do online then ever before.

Since social media started about 2001, more and more things are popping up online.  The old text static websites are the thing of the past.  Just about all websites online are interactive.  The ones that still are static is simply collecting virtual dust.  No one wants to go to a static boring website.

As far as newspapers industries are concern, they have their own websites.  If a small town like Gainesville, Georgia can have their own website, then I know the rest do also.  These newspaper companies know also that there are a lot of people that into green living.  That means the less they buy paper products, the better it will be for the environment.

For me, I actually do less reading online news.  I get my current information of what is going around me on many subjects through RSS Feeds.  When I read something interesting, then I will share that link with a blog post on one of my different blogs.  Social media is a lot more then chatting with others.  It is the means of sharing ideas and all that goes on in the world.

Social media has been the fastest and prominent aspect of the Internet then anything else to date.  With all the critics that tries their best to knock it, social media continues to grow more and more at alarming rates.  Social media is growing so fast that just about every time one wakes up in the morning, there is something new and exhilarating to see what is new online.

 

Blessed Be,

Brandon Frater Phoenix
Real Name:  Brandon Bowers

 

Can Blog Learning Content End Newspapers? | Learning Management System, Learning System, and Courseware Development Blog