Ancient History Ramblings

Portus Project

I have been very interested lately in 3D recreations of ancient sites. Today I ran across the Portus Project. The project which is directed by researchers from the University of Southampton and the University of Cambridge. The project's website says that:

• "The excavation applies an integrated suite of techniques not generally used on complex Mediterranean sites with major structural remains, including digital recording and visualization. This exceptionally rich and challenging site provides young academics and students with experience and training in site and survey techniques, electronic data-capture and in the identification and analysis of artefacts, fauna and botanical remains."

It was fun to play with the Polynomial Texture Mapping of artifacts that was available and they even have a site available in Second Life at Portus II. The SL site was informative and interesting. All in all, the site was very well-done and worth a look, both on the web and in SL.

RSM

Second Life Advising

Penn State's online campus (Penn State World Campus) now is requiring advisors to be available in Second Life for meeting students face-to-face, so to speak.

• "Students on the real campus get to chat with their advisers face to face. Now online students who never set foot there can do the “exact same thing,” says Shannon Ritter, social-networks adviser for the Penn State World Campus."

It is always interesting to me how uneven knowledge of Second Life is, some people and schools are really into it ,while other groups of people have never heard of it or only heard bad things. I asked the students in my Intro to History class how many of them had heard of Second Life and only 2 of them had. Of the two, only 1 had ever tried SL and he only visited there once. So, I asked them all to explore SL and to see if they could find history related SL sites - I'll know the results tomorrow.

RSM

Second Life Competitor

It looks like there is a new competitor for second Life to worry about. The University of California at San Diego announced recently that one of its professors is working on creating a new virtual world environment that will offer more flexibility than Second Life. An article on the subject says that:

• The center will use a new hybrid-computing platform developed by IBM. Sheldon Brown, a professor of visual arts at the university who is also the director of the new center, said artists working with simulations have been limited by the computing technologies available. The new IBM platform, Mr. Brown said, offers an increased level of flexibility and power that will give artists more freedom.

 

For more information check out the Wired Campus article "New Research Center to Design 'Next Generation' of Virtual Worlds."

RSM

Google not so "Lively" anymore

Google recently announced that it plans to shut down its virtual world, Lively, by the end of 2008. Google only introduced the virtual world a few months ago. Google says on its blog that it has decided to focus its attention on its "...core search, ads and apps business." Despite Google's success in other ventures, Lively never received much public acclaim and in fact was criticized by many people who saw it as a flop and felt that it did not offer much to the virtual world competition. Its membership saw a steady decline, including a 30% drop in the number of visitors from September to October. It will be interesting to see if the tightening economy affects people's interest in participating in virtual worlds, either positively or negatively. 

RSM

Darwin in Second Life

I read an article in Educause (Galapagos Islands in Second Life) about a project by the University of Cincinnati that is celebrating the sesquicentennial of the publication of Darwin's On the Origin of the Species by Means of Natural Selection. This project will include activities on campus and the recreation of the Galapagos Islands in Second Life that will allow students to recreate Darwin's voyage. The SL site will be open to the public in January 2009, but some screen shots are available in the Educause article if you are interested in an advance view.

RSM

SL Archaeology

So I have ventured back into SL to see what archaeology sites have popped up. I visited ROMA Archaeology - an interactive archaeology site whose goal is archeological education. This was an interesting site to visit.  There were a number of stations devoted to various aspects of archaeological investigation, such as stratigraphy, relative dating, recording, etc. It even had a flotation tank and a section on ethics.

This was nicely done and was a great introduction to archaeology for students. I might ask my medieval history students to visit in the next week or so and see what they think. My final assessment was - I enjoyed this site, it was both informative and well designed, and I hope to find more like it in the coming weeks.

 

RSM

IBM and Second Life

IBM continues to use Second Life as a platform for unveiling its newest products. On Friday it will use a Webcast to inform people about its new eco-friendly data center. A 3D model of it will be available for viewing in Second Life. This close relationship between IBM and Second Life was started last year when they announced a cooperative effort to develop avatars that could travel between different virtual worlds.

Speaking of Second Life, I plan to continue my exploration of Second Life archaeological sites, which has been on hold for a while, I spent some time playing around in SL tonite and there are some sites I want to explore and report on.

RSM

Sudden Realization

The countdown to my leaving for Cyprus stands at 5 days. I realized today that I need to work hard if I am going to be ready to leave next Tuesday. This morning I talked to Bill on the phone, called David, and then met my students to divide up supplies. Fortunately this year, between my students and David's students, we have 7 students who can help carry supplies to Cyprus. I then had lunch with a colleague who is coming to Cyprus for a week to visit family and checkout our project. This afternoon I spent some time scanning in stuff I will need in Cyprus and tonite I worked on logistics. The week before leaving for Cyprus is always so busy and then the first few days in Cyprus (before everybody arrives) seem to be very calm.

On the Second Life front, a few minor things to report. First, I was given an IUP Senate grant to facilitate the construction of ancient Greek and Roman buildings on Archaeology Island. Second, Archaeology Island is nearing completion and should be open to the public soon. Finally, there was an interesting article in the Chronicle of Higher Education's The Wired Campus that addresses Second Life - "Co-Founder of Second Life Says Academics Are Biggest Trailblazers in Virtual Worlds."

RSM

Work on SL Display

Work on IUP's Archaeology Island has been a bit slow this semester. Most of this is my fault, I have not had as much free time this semester as I had hoped, even though I am teaching a reduced load since I taught an overload in the fall. My lack of free time means that I haven't been able to help build structures or hunt up images for the design guys from the Applied Media and Simulation Game Center. I am hoping that I will be able to catch up over spring break, but we will see if that happens.

Since I haven't been keeping up with my SL work, the students from the AMSGC have been working with Dr. Sara Neusius, a faculty member in IUP's department of Anthropology. They have been building a Second Life exhibit based on a real world exhibit "Indiana County Archaeology: Revealing the Native American Past" that was shown at IUP's University Museum back in January. I am going to help with the text panels when they finish the village display, so I better catch up on all my other work.

If you get a chance and are looking for something to read, I ran across an interesting article on-line about an ancient Greek tomb discovered on the island of Lefkada.

RSM

Digital History SL Intro

Today I gave a demo on Second Life to the Monday section of my Digital History class. I thought this would be a good break for the class from working in the lab, and they have a midterm this week they need to take on-line. It actually went quite well, the class had lots of questions and seemed impressed. I showed them Vassar's Island, NASA, Crimson Island, and the items we are working on for Archaeology Island. They did ask me how many other historians in my department have tried SL - I told them that I wasn't sure, but I only knew of one other person in my department. I did give them one assignment for our next meeting, which is 2 weeks away - Spring Break is finally. They have to navigate into SL, find Crimson Island, and offer friendship to me. I was pleased to see that two students actually accomplished this task within a few hours of the class.

Tomorrow I am scheduled to give a SL demo to another faculty/staff committee on campus. It seems like I have given a SL demo to every group on campus. I expect people to start fleeing from me when they see me coming into their meeting with my laptop. Oh, and to save someone from emailing me with it, yes, I am sure they have many other reasons for not wanting to be in a committee meeting with me.

RSM