Heritage Key -- a virtual world designed for learning

~~~

At Heritage Key, visiting Stonehenge as it was in ancient times

We know that learning takes place in virtual worlds. It isn’t always something that the designers of those worlds intended, and if they did intend for learning to happen it doesn’t always take place in the ways that designers hoped for or expected. Nonetheless, what we have seen happening--both in the unplanned learning that takes place and within the context of conscious educational experimentation--is giving some groups and individuals a sense of how they can try to do a better job of fostering structured learning experiences in virtual immersive environments. A wonderful example of this is Heritage Key, an independent learning grid utilizing OpenSim, software that is based on an open source version of Second Life code.

Heritage Key is a project of Rezzable, the company that is responsible for creative experiments such as the “Greenies” build in SL. However, rather than being a purely artistic or creative endeavor like the little green guys, Heritage Key is a stand-alone grid designed specifically for didactic purposes. Its elements include a number of archaeology/ancient history themed “exhibits” and immersion environments that are crafted to achieve specific learning goals, and to convey specific messages and information.

Elements of a structured learning experience in HK are distributed throughout the exhibits to provide context and meaning for the builds.

You come away from an experience in Heritage Key knowing something you didn’t know before, or having seen something you thought you were familiar with in a new light--and that information and perspective is more than likely one that the designers of the spaces wanted you to get.

This is real different from the type of learning I have been a part of and am familiar with in Second Life. There it’s not so much something that was intended, as it is a series of serendipitous light bulbs going on and someone suddenly saying “holy crap, I think we just learned something here, didn’t we?” It’s different and it’s intriguing. I have been visiting Heritage Key and watching their progress for a while. And yes, it is very much a work in progress. You can go visit it right now, but keep in mind it is changing almost daily.

Back when I started visiting HK, I was delighted to find that some old friends were part of the project: Viv Trafalgar and Jasper Kiergarten. They, along with some other folks who work there have been very friendly and forthcoming, answering my numerous questions. And when I hit them with some things they couldn’t answer, they directed me to Rezzable’s top guy, Jon Himoff.

Jon was likewise very helpful, especially as I was seeking to understand as well as possible the background of the project. Here are some of the questions I asked him, along with his answers:

DAK: I gather Rezzable Productions is a for-profit entity that generates income from advertising and providing services to facilitate virtual marketing initiatives for corporate clients (even the use of the term "sponsorships" implies an underwriting approach borrowed from the non-profit world). But I am unclear as to how Heritage Key is underwritten. I was wondering if perhaps it is actually not meant to generate income and is in fact a sort of "loss leader" designed to kill two birds with one well-crafted stone: doing something civic-minded and positive in terms of fostering learning in the metaverse; and actually creating a successful and innovative educational grid, thereby highlighting and promoting the creative and practical skills of Rezable and its partners?

In short, I'd really like to get a handle on why you're doing HK and what the goals are.”

Jon Himoff: (Our) goal is to make money with all this work on Rezzable/HK. We have equity funding to get all the technology and methodology in place. We started in 2007 really with the challenge of figuring out how to attract mainstream online users to more engaging, immersive experiences. Heritage key is our brand and we are using a combination of rich media--including virtual experiences to delivering unique, compelling content around the idea of traveling to ancient world sites. As this rolls out we are also looking at other types of brands that would benefit from real-time community capabilities. “

....Education is not as much an objective as making history relevant to people (or maybe that is what education should be?). Clearly if people find something intriguing or even fun then they will pull on it and drill into the material. The ancient world content fits the virtual online well--it has a level of imagination but also the facts are rich and many stories have not been told to large audiences (like Boudicca)."


DAK: “I would also like to know if there were there academic partners involved in each segment--content specialists who were partnered with the virtual worlds experts like Viv and Ordinal to create a successful and meaningful experience for the visitors? (I'm big on the idea of partnerships that cross boundaries of disciplines and worlds, and correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like that must be part of your philosophy in trying to make your projects work)."

Jon Himoff: “The hard research comes from the experts. We are not subject matter experts, but the packagers of that into something engaging online. We actually spend a lot of time learning about the things we will make virtually -- in fact almost the entire content of the .com is the work in progress on that effort. We would like to work more with universities and museums. “

DAK: “I gather there is some connection between this open-sim grid version of King Tut and the VotK build, and a similar previous project on the SL platform (but that in moving to HK, the concept was refined and expanded). If I am correct in that, then I am curious why the use of SL was abandoned?”

Jon Himoff: "We use our own OpenSim-based grid. We did some initial work in SL, but it is too expensive and integration is impossible. SL will also not scale."

DAK: “I would also be curious to know how things that were learned in the course of developing and presenting the previous version may have shaped and facilitated the expansion and enhancement of the new version--and if so, what sorts of lessons were learned in the previous experiments?”

Jon Himoff: "I think major lesson has been that just because you build it, doesn't mean people will come. You need to do a lot of work to make things digestible for mainstream online users. Navigation is major issue. Also we are investing a lot of time/energy into offering quests as parts of dynamic, user-oriented story telling.”

DAK: “HK is obviously open for visitors, but still seems to be very much a work in progress--is there a schedule for opening additional elements and a plan for promoting usage of the HK grid as bugs get worked out?”

Jon Himoff: “Yes, it is a sort of open kitchen right now. We are also getting a lot of great feedback from visitors. There are some technical issues, but main focus is really getting the flow across the content working better. It is hard to get it all right--some people are newbies, others are gamers so their interest and skills are very different. Ultimately they should all gain something by visiting.”

DAK: “Is it accurate to say that the current exhibits you have set up on HK are not just a laboratory to work out how to get "the technology and the methodology in place," but they also essentially function as "demonstration" pieces, to show potential clients what can be accomplished with your platform and the good people you have working with you? “

Jon Himoff: “I think of it as a proof point -- it does work and it can scale. We have done Tut, Stonehenge and integrated rich web content as well. Check all the videos for example, but there are also tons of articles, images, slideshows. See site search results as an example http://heritage-key.com/search/ancientworld/king%20tut . I think you don't really know how something can work until you get on with it and try to make it engaging. You hit a lot of issues that you wouldn't see as critical until people are using it. “

DAK: “If the current exhibits are in fact demonstrators, I was also wondering if the upcoming British Museum segment is also a demonstration piece or an actual contract job for an institutional customer? ”

Jon Himoff: “The BM is not a customer, but I also don't really see the museums as customers. They should really be partners with us. In general we should be able to work with them to generate more interest in their collections and special exhibitions in order to drive more visits and make online more profitable for them. Especially for the sites--which often don't have strong collections but are very exciting to actually visit if you understand the context of the history.”

DAK: “In one of your answers to the previous questions you said that you gave up on doing projects in SL not just because of the cost, but because "Integration is impossible." Would you explain exactly what you mean by that?”

Jon Himoff: “Trying to create a streamlined user experience from web community to virtual experience is not possible in SL. There are no API's for example. There is no way to brand the viewer etc, etc etc. And I would add that Linden Labs is not a credible business partner. There model is selling virtual land (at a high price) in a closed, proprietary platform--so if that is all you want, then they have it ready for you. We don't see that as a foundation for 3D Web.”

I found Mr. Himoff’s answers enlightening...as well as raising other issues that I am still not clear on. The question of how they plan to monetize HK still eludes me a bit, although I have noted sponsors being associated with various elements such as the Steamfish game on the main Rezzable grid. I also understand British cab company Addison Lee is sponsoring an ancient London element of HK. But I am intrigued that they think of the institutions they are working with--such as the Britsih Museum--not as “customers” or clients, but as “partners.” I am curious about this knowing that there are other organizations that would have an interest in being involved with experiments like the exhibits on Heritage Key, and at this point I am not clear how they would go about exploring the possibilities with Rezzable--I suppose in the end I shall simply tell them to get in touch with Rezzable and see what they can work out, if anything.

So that’s all very cool, but I bet you’re wondering about what the experience itself is like--why am I so excited about this alternate grid.

Well for one thing, they don’t make you use Viewer 2.0, which, for the record, I completely and utterly loathe.

Instead HK uses a simplified version of the old SL viewer. One big difference, however, is that you cannot build here or create new objects. But you can fiddle about with some existing things--and that’s something I shall discuss momentarily.

So let’s start at the beginning: You go through a simple sign-up process and then you get to choose from a series of pre-made avatars (all with a distinct steampunk flavor as they were borrowed from or inspired by the steampunk look of the the educational “Steamfish” game that is on the primary Rezzable grid). You then go into a welcome area that includes basic instructions on how to walk, and teleporters that can take you to a travel center through which you access the various exhibits and environments.

The travel center, in the entry area.

The entry area is clean and attractive--suggestive of a temple/train station mash-up. At times, they have live helpers to assist new visitors. HK/Rezzable staff supervisor Angelina Rhode explained:

“It’s essential to be available to welcome people and show them around. Not everyone who visits the HK grid is an experienced user. I missed that in SL, not having someone guide you if you needed it, taking you by the hand and explaining how the basics of SL work. A virtual experience is something very different and new for many people and it’s important to have someone who can help you with your first steps, to show you where to customize your avatar and then explain how to get to all the exhibitions. Of course we have many signs which do that too, but to talk with someone feels better and you can ask questions the signs probably cant answer.”

I like that a lot -- the idea that there will be times when live people will be there. Yes, if you are used to working with SL, Heritage Key will be second nature for you. But the visitor who is new to virtual worlds has the possibility of getting help from a real person.

There are also tutorial areas where you can make changes to your avatar, get new hair and outfits and learn more about how to navigate, communicate, interact with objects etc. All the usual stuff you get in orientation areas of SL, but cleaner-looking, easier to follow, and devoid of griefing morons.

Tutorial area where various functional skills are taught.

Being the busybody that I am, I quickly found that even if you can’t make your own stuff in HK, you can manipulate most of the hair and outfits to suit individual taste and mix and match. There are also outfits and hair that can be obtained in some of the exhibits. For example, when I got to the “Life on the Nile” environment, I took a man’s tunic and stretched it into a dress, redid the armlets as bracelets to fit me, and then shortened the long hair I picked up in the avatar center. Later on, I got another set of beaded hair from one of the mini-games in that build.

Sitting at the cosmetics table in the scribe's house, where I got my new hair with beads and all. An informative primatar is located in this room (as is the case with many rooms of the compound) to provide interpretive information. The primatars throughout the build were created by the highly skilled Jasper Kiergarten.

So then you go on to the various exhibits and environments. These include, so far, an exhibition of artifacts from King Tut’s tomb, an immersion environment recreating the Valley of the Kings at the time of Howard Carter’s excavations in the 1920s, a series of recreations of Stonehenge (showing how it developed and changed over time, from its initial stages up to the present), and a “Life on the Nile” environment that represents an affluent scribe’s household in Amarna, circa 1350 BCE.

In the Tut exhibit, viewing a the three dimensional, 360 degree recreations of one of the inner coffins. Clicking on various exhibit elements brings up interpretive information about the object, as well as links to additional interpretive materials.

I liked all the elements. The 360 degree representations of the artifacts in the Tut exhibit are just mind-buggering awesome. They can be viewed both in relative scale so you get a sense of their actual size in real life, and as “blow-ups” so you can see the stunning detail. The Valley of the Kings environment can be viewed either just as a cool immersion experience, or you can take advantage of various game-like elements that allow you to “follow in the footsteps” of Howard Carter.

I especially liked the recreation of the tomb, which for the first time gave me a clear idea of how it was laid out and just how bloody cramped the damn thing actually was.

Inside King Tut's tomb. The sarcophagus has theoretically been "removed" so it is represented by a semi-transparent place holder object.


The Stonehenge experience was engaging and attractively done. This is what a virtual space is ideal for: allowing you to move around in a space, see it from different angles, interact with objects, carry out tasks (and get easter eggs in the process) and most of all to see change over time.

Stonehenge, the present day.

At first I wasn't real keen on trying out the various mini-games and "scavenger hunt" kinds of activities. Keep in mind that I'm a terrible museum goer. I never follow the path the designers intended for me; I generally skip reading labels; I don't like feeling managed or manipulated. But Viv kept encouraging me to try some of these elements in Amarna, and soon I found myself getting caught up in them, especially once my competitive instincts kicked in.

One of the simple mini-games scattered through the various exhibits--this one, located in the scribe's house, gives you a mask of the river god as a prize when you get the answers correct.

Of all the areas in Heritage key, my favorite, not surprisingly, is the Amarna build. A number of the HK exhibits had been done before in some form in SL, including Valley of the Kings and Amarna (the Stonehenge one is, I believe, completely new). but they were completely redone by a team that included Viv Trafalgar, Jasper Kiergarten, Ianthe Farshore, My Mackenzie, Pavig Lok and LT Bartlett.

Interacting with a primatar at the scribe's house. He asks you questions to make sure you "belong" there. If you can't answer, you apparently get dumped in the pond.

These folks did a superb job. Just to give you an idea of the kinds of people who worked on these projects, I would like to share with you a bit about Viv's background: she has taught at both the high school level (poetry, literature, and writing) and at the university level (hypermedia design, Flash, web design, etc.). She comes from a programming and a graphic design/writing background, and has an MFA in poetry and MA in Interaction Design and Publications Design.

As an educator and virtual artist, Viv made the following comment about HK:

“I love creating spaces where there's a lot of potential for imagination to play, but there's also a lot of learning potential...and I am in love with this platform because it is more open and new-developer friendly than some of the platforms I've worked on.”

In the immersion environment of the Valley of the Kings, 1920s,

OK, so it’s great, but is it perfect?

No of course not. Nothing is perfect. Especially something like this that is still a work in progress. For example, it usually takes me three or four tries to get logged on. Sometimes funny things happen with what I am wearing. Viv recently told me that periodically all the builders find that OpenSim has hidden all their inventory. As she says. “it’s still very beta...depending on what viewer you use it's got different ways of behaving...and then on the third Saturday of the full moon at 2pm it just decides to go down the pub for a few...it's a bit like working with a cranky, but talented toddler.”

On the other hand it has been consistently improving. Viv further pointed out that, “A year and a half ago, the first opensim tests I went on--you couldn't have more than 8 people not moving or doing anything on the grid. Now? So much is possible...it's a huge growth and change rate.”

And not only is it technically improving, but the Rezzable people are taking a direct hand in making it work better for the audience. Yes...that's right: if you give them feedback they will actually listen. One of the things I passed on after my first visit was that I longed to be rid of the dreaded default “duck walk” and desperately wanted an AO. I was told that other people had mentioned it and they were working on it. Lo and behold, when I signed on today there was a gizmo both in the entry area and the Avatar Center distributing a free AO. Admittedly, it's not the best one I’ve ever seen (and slightly glitchy as it was in alpha), but it sure as hell beat the snot out of waddling around and feeling that compulsion to quack.

Are there other things that I don’t like about HK?

Well to be honest, there are some things that I wish had been done differently. I think the inclusion of multiple OOC signs, the steampunky-looking teleporters, and other OOC bits and bobs in the immersion environments does detract slightly from the overall effect of the experience. But at the same time, these elements are important for the “mini-game” and didactic aspects of the builds. I guess it‘s mostly a question of esthetics, and it’s certainly more important that the visitors actually see the pieces that they have to interact with in order to benefit from all the learning opportunities. If these features weren't as visible as they are, a lot of visitors would probably miss them altogether. Also, the freebie Egyptian women’s dresses were a little too fancy for my tastes, and I thought they looked a bit more Hellenic than Egyptian. But that’s just me being a persnickety old harpy. Minor stuff.

From certain viewpoints, the immersion effect is disrupted by the logistical and didactic elements, but they have to be somewhere, right?


The big picture is that I think this works. It offers that kind of improv theater/Kon Tiki/hands-on immersion learning experience that you hope for in a virtual world: it's essentially, as we say, "socially interactive self directed learning" reinforced through play--but in HK they have actually managed to utilize that dynamic combined with the kind of structured goals and desired outcomes that usually don’t seem workable on a platform like SL.

On a big reed boat on the Nile.

Yes, in SL we can have those self directed learning experiences--especially as they relate to world building and the skills connected with content creation, which you can’t do in a place like Heritage Key. But in HK, they have managed to integrate a form of that “exploration” experience with the communication of very specific messages designed by the educators and experts. And every time I go there, something new is underway, and its functionality keeps improving. I think Heritage Key represents an important step in the evolution of virtual worlds as a place to learn and teach.

~~~

Sometimes the magic works -- museums in Second Life

~~~

Visiting a not-so-great museum build in second life: the amphitheater in the Exploratorium sim. And yes, it is big enough to hold five times as many avatars as can actually fit in a sim at once. Wtf?

Having worked for a number of rl museums in the course of my rl career, I enjoy thinking about the potential for museums to utilize the Second Life platform. Sadly, while the thinking about the possibilities is lots of fun, actually looking at the experiments that museums carry out in SL tends to be much less pleasant. In fact, with some notable exceptions, SL museum projects usually just irritate the fuck out out of me.

But hey, you know me, ever the eternal goddam optimist, I thought I would do a search on “museum” tonight and see what turned up. And what came through actually proved to be pretty interesting in a number of ways.

Before I go any further, I want to remind you that as a rule, I am not going to write about people I utterly loathe or projects that simply blow. So if you don’t see a build get covered on this blog, it is either because I think the work itself is a total mass of petrified dog turds on dry white toast, or I think the people responsible for the build are peckerheads of epic proportions. Or it could be that I just haven’t heard about the build and haven't gotten around to seeing it yet. With that in mind, I might as well ask you right now to let me know if you have any suggestions for something you think I should look at. I'll be happy to check them out and if they are in fact just oozing with awesome goodness, you'll get to see me extol the virtues of said virtual exhibit or museum on this here ridiculous blog.

Anyhow, the first thing I noticed was that when I did a search for “museum” the top thing on the list of results was “Virtual Bucharest" with over 30K in traffic. Okey-doke, so I made a mental note to go look at that sometime. Never been to Romania, who knows, it could be cool. Then I started moving down the list looking to see if there were any projects by real life museums represented in the search results. Finally, at number 40, I finally found something that rang a bell -- a build presented by the Exploratorium, a well-known, hands-on science museum in San Francisco.

Now mind you, I generally hate science museums unless they have really, mega-cool shit, like in Chicago at the Museum of Science and Industry. But the museums that offer nothing more than a glorified science fair exhibit of turn-the-crank and light-the-lightbulb bullshit that is supposed to foster a new generation of kiddies who are hopped up about someday being scientists--that crap pretty much bores me shitless and/or makes me insufferably grumpy.

Well, the Exploratorium is sort like the grandaddy of that kind of museum, and whoopity-doo they got a very large area in SL. Not really my cup of tea, but I figured, what the hell, I’ll go look--maybe they fired up their imaginations and did something really out-of-the-box.

Well...they didn't. But I gotta tell you, it was...not terrible.

Ok, I'll admit I didn’t like it. I didn’t enjoy it. I didn’t think it did a very good job of teaching anything of significance. But I didn’t hate it. And I wanted to talk about this build because I think its creators made a noble effort that mostly fails because they made the mistake that is most commonly made by rl museums in SL.

Instead of breaking new ground, the Exploratorium folks made what was essentially a virtual version of what they do in real life: a disjointed series of more or less unrelated push-the-button-and-something-happens kind of experience that might teach you something about...oh...stuff. The biggest difference between the SL Exploratorium and the real-life one was that unlike in the actual bricks and mortar museum, most of the virtual exhibits seemed to be working and did not have little "out of order” signs hung on them. That was kind of nice. And mind you, I really didn’t think the thing sucked. The main thing that was disappointing was that they really weren’t using the technology of the platform to do something genuinely innovative. It was their same old shtick, just made from pixels instead of laminate and rubber tubing and hose clamps. The other thing about it I should mention was that it was completely empty--I had the entire place to myself, which wasn’t surprising considering that its traffic was only 646.

An exhibit in the Exploratorium build--it teaches us that "gee it's a long way from the sun to Earth." Or something.

Even though my head was starting to hurt at that point, I decided to take a stab at one more build off that list of search results, and hoo-boy, am I glad I did.

The thing I decided to check out was a place slightly higher up on the list (1658 in traffic) called the “Primtings Museum.” I thought hey, that sounds different, so just for shits and giggles I popped over there. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it is in fact an innovative and unique use of the technology to accomplish something that would not have been terribly practical in a bricks and mortar context. The organizers of the Primtings museum have invited SL artists such as AM Radio, to take real-life two-dimensional paintings by famous artists such as Dali, Van Gogh, David, and others, and translate them into three-dimensional presentations.

It was pretty much in the realm of fuckin’ awesome.

But sometimes, the magic works! Standing inside the 3-D interpretation of Van Gogh's "Vincent's Room," by SL artist Dekka Raymaker.

The build is the brainchild of Ina Centaur, an SL arts-entrepreneur, who describes the project on her blog thusly:

“Primtings Museum is a sim-sized “prim’ed paintings” gallery. Famous paintings in RL are interpreted by SL artists in a variety of ways via prims into 3d paintings. Built to “feel” like a RL museum, where visitors can take their time to explore and “stumble upon” an exhibit, visitors can also quickly “teleport” to a particular primting via Primtings.com’s search-able web directory of all primtings. Artists may also submit their primting for consideration as an exhibit in the museum. We will be exploring some notable Primtings in the interactive part of the tour.”

Ms. Centaur also explained that the project--like some others she is involved with--is "fiscally-sponsored by sLiterary, Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to furthering the arts in virtual worlds. sLiterary.org offers a variety (from historical to modern to cozy!) of high quality inworld facilities, open to the public for events and other activities...”

You can go look at her blog, though she posts only periodically. Still it’s interesting reading for a number of reasoms, some of which we might go into at another time.

Anyhow, I really enjoyed the Primtings build. Not only can you go and interact with these art works that you have known and loved since Art History 101--and getting a new and fresh perspective on them in the process--but in many cases you also get information about the virtual artist who executed the 3-D interpretation of the 2-D work, along with a discussion of why they think that particular work is so freakin' cool, and even what kind of modeling software they used to create their version.

Ha! This is what happens when you click on the 3-D rendition of Dali's "Persistence of Memory," created by Voodoo Shilton--I think Dali would have appreciated this, being as he had a pretty wacky sense of humor.

This is what museums should be doing in SL: looking at the platform and saying, "hey, how can we do something we really couldn't do in meatspace?" And one thing that the platform is extremely good for, is the creation of three-dimensional environments and offering an immersion experience for the visitor. How bloody remarkable is it to be able to interact with a surreal Dali landscape or to sit in Edward Hopper’s famous “Nighthawks” diner?

The other remarkable thing about this project is that it that was initiated by an individual, not a real-life museum organization. But maybe that shouldn’t be surprising...too many museum people are locked into thinking about doing things a certain way. And that’s probably why so many of them are in so much fucking trouble these days.

Sitting in Edward Hopper's diner from "Nighthawks," created by Tezcatlipoca Bisiani--gotta come back with friends all dressed up in 40's clothing and see what the place feels like with more folks in it.

You can visit the Primtings museum at:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Primtings/179/67/53

~~~

A new immersion experience -- British poets of the Great War

~~~

Big orientation signs and some pretty decent stuff--the freebie nurse uniform, and a great period motorbike made by Jenne Dibou

Being as the First World War is a subject that I am particularity interested in, I was intrigued when I followed a twitter link to the blog of a company called Brideswell Associates/Creative Technology Consultants, to find a post about a new WWI-themed build in Second Life. This post reported that Oxford University has created a literary-theme/historical immersion environment mashup to introduce visitors to the poetry of the Great War, describing the project thus:

An exciting new project in interactive education will launch on 2nd November 2009, drawing together the resources and expertise of the University of Oxford, and the possibilities for immersion and interactivity offered by the virtual world of Second Life.

The First World War Poetry Digital Archive and the Learning Technologies Group at the University of Oxford have collaborated to bring together a wealth of digitised archival material from the First World War into an environment that allows this powerful material to be explored and experienced in a radically new way.

“The aim of the initiative is to place the poetry of the Great War in context,” explains Stuart Lee, Lecturer in English at the University of Oxford, “It allows the visitors to the exhibition to visualise archival materials in an environment that fosters deeper understandings. Visitors also have the opportunity to take advantage of the social and interactive aspects that the environment offers.”

Well! And it was opening today! So I dragged myself down to the see this grand experiment without delay.

And you know what, despite there being a good number of relatively small-to-medium things that just utterly irritated the fuck out of me, I think the damn thing worked remarkably well in terms of the big-picture stuff.

Mostly.

Sort of.

In the orientation area

I might as well get right to one of the big things that bothered me. You arrive in the entry area, and there are big signs telling you what this is all about, and a nice video to get you started before you enter in the first environment which is supposed to represent the British army base at Etaples. By the way, while this build refers to Etaples as a training camp, it was actually a "transit camp" in France where units got organized and prepped (with some ongoing training as part of the process) before the final leg of their trip to the Western Front. But that's not my big issue--it's just a minor one. The really big thing that honked me off was that on one of the large intro panels, the creators of this experiment stated that "This project has imported of (sic) a range of digitized archival materials for the major poets (my bold) of the First World War."

As far as I could tell, all of these "major poets" were Brits. Seigfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, Edward Thomas, Isaac Rosenberg, Ivor Gurney, even poor old Vera Britain (whose work I always found whiny and annoying) are represented--but no Germans like Kurd Adler and August Stramm, no French poets of the war like Charles Vildrac or Guillaume Apolliniare, nor our American Great War poet, Joyce Kilmer (he did a lot more war poems than just that bloody tree thing, you know).

Now mind you, there's nothing wrong with the fact that they concentrated on the British writers--there's great stuff to draw on, especially Sassoon and Owen. But I do feel that this small selection of poets--drawn from mostly one social class from only one of the many combatant nations--provides only a rather narrow perspective on the war. The inclusion of snippets of oral history interviews from a more varied cross section of British and commonwealth soldiers helps to mitigate that somewhat. Even so, I think it would have been appropriate to make it clear that this is a very focused viewpoint and set of voices. They could have said "this project has imported a range of digitized archival materials for the major British poets of the First World War. And then they wouldn't be getting grumped at by people like me.

At the same time, anything about the Great War in a popular culture medium like SL is going to make me pretty happy. Hell, I even watched the Young Indiana Jones TV series, just because it was about WWI. And these folks obviously put a lot of work and thought into this project. There are freebie uniforms to put on (a nurse that is not too bad, and a soldier that, overall, is pretty dreadful, though the Brodie helmet with it is actually decent). Then you go into the camp environment, after which you tp into a section of a frontline trench system, complete with a dugout, a gas attack, a casualty sorting station, bursting shells, planes overhead, and tanks (one of them burning) in no man's land.

As you journey through the environments, all along the way there are media presentations, and little boxes that provide audio of either a reading of a war poem, or an oral history segment from interviews that had been done with British and Commonwealth WWI veterans back in the 1960s.

I spent a lot of time going through the sim, which also features an educational platform with a theater and additional images and interpretive materials.

Out of everything, I thought the trench environment worked the best. The trenches were laid out more or less correctly with communication trenches leading to the fire trench with its zig-zagging traverses. There was a fire step, a sand bag crown, and duckboards to help you walk over the mud. In one place, if you're not careful you sink into what must have been one hell of a shell hole.

In the trench environment--note the poppies, the
fire step and the ladders for going over the top

Rats scurry about, and ambient sounds of shells exploding and machine guns tapping away help give the trench environment a much more authentic feel than the camp segment offers. You wander, turning traverse after traverse, getting lost, finding yourself back where you started, falling in that damn big hole again, and you know, something? I've been in trenches, and this really reminded me of what's it's like being in a trench. Of course it can never really recreate the true feeling of it. The smell of death and shit, the mud and the dirt, the threat of actually getting killed--you can't really hope to convey that with pixels. But this project does do a nice job of hinting at the reality of it, and I think it achieves the project's goal of putting a portion of the literature of the war into a context.

Yes, I know I said there were things about this project that really irritated the fuck out of me. But hey, you're talking to a gal who got pissed off when she saw the film Nicholas and Alexandra long ago in a theater, and noticed that the czarist troops were armed with Soviet-era M91/30 rifles instead of the old M91 Mosin Nagants. Likewise I was disappointed by Lawrence of Arabia because the Turks had Browning air-cooled machine guns instead of water-cooled Maxims. So pay no attention to me when I'm getting cranky about details.

Malachi in the freebie soldier's uniform in no man's land. It's got web gear that looks like nothing made during the war, no spiral-wrap puttees, a generic sort of green outfit, and of all things, a mediocre rendition of an American '03 Springfield for a weapon--but hey, the helmet ain't bad. And the environment with the burning tank--suitably grim.

I think all in all it's a damn fine experiment, and for people who aren't familiar with this period of history and the literature associated with it, this build will be a real eye-opener. I also think it's a build from which a lot of the "museum in Second Life" people could learn something about playing with the technology in imaginative ways for interpretive purposes.

You can see this project for yourself at:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Frideswide/219/199/646/

~~~