Although I can't actually say anything about it, as the Alpha program's terms and conditions have strict non-disclosure clauses, Metaplace is multi-world, 'play' in browser virtual worlds environment for which users can create their own worlds. 

One of the things I really like about this idea is that you can link between worlds.   Anyway - without reproducing their press-blurb, that is probably all I can really say.  Worth taking a look, in my opinion, but I don't know how well it will scale to multiple users, or deal with different in world physics simulations yet (most of the "worlds" I have looked at have been 2D games)

We are planning a CoP3D activity on the afternoon of Monday 17th December from 3.00 pm.We aim to provide a tour of a number of educational sites in Second Life and then to encourage you to share what you find out about them, what you like and what you don't like.The exact nature of the activity will depend on how many people come, I realise some of you will be away from Reading, but if you do want to come leave a comment here, sign up for our Facebook event or drop Shirley a mail.

University staff interested in Second Life might like to attend:

Second Life – A Virtual 3D World                               

Wednesday 28^th November 2007

12.30 to 13.30

This session will explain and show you what second life is all about and why it is getting so much attention. It will then go on to look at the educational possibilities and how other universities are engaging with it.

There was a select group for the building tutorial.

When I arrived Edwin was talking to an avatar President Charleville, from Amity University in India. They have an adjoining plot to us on Teaching 5. He is planning to make the first Indian University campus in SL. Very interesting.

I didn't actually build anything – although I accidentally deleted the sand from the sand pit, when trying to delete a chair.

I was wondering whether we can do anything to encourage people to use RedGloo and this group to help build 'community' or whether it is best to concentrate on the Googlegroup instead?

You may find the following podcast - from this weeks Virtual World Forum (London) - by Lord Puttnam of interest.

http://www.yada-yada.co.uk/podcasts/VirtualWorldsForum/audio/LordPuttnam.mp3

http://virtualworldsforum.com/

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Also recently from the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7056199.stm

 

At http://www.eduserv.org.uk/foundation/sl/uksnapshot092007 there is a link to a report mentioning the CoP3D project.

We are running the first proper CoP3D meeting on Wednesday the 26^th September at 2.00 pm, we aim to try out a few things with a small group.

If you would like to come drop me a mail (or leave a message here).

We are planning a bigger event on Wednesday 24^th October, so if you aren't able to do this week put that date in your diary.

The University of Reading's Teaching and Learning Development Fund - Small Project Scheme has funded the project to develop a Community of Practice to Explore the Potential of Multi User Virtual Environments (3D Web)

We will use this community and the tag ReadingCoP3D to record our experiences as a Community of Practice.