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Thread: Second Life issues
Number of posts in this thread: 3 (In chronological order)
From: Jan Heck
Date: Tue, Sep 16 2008 3:50PM
Subject: Second Life issues
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Greetings, and please excuse cross-postings,
My college campus is wanting to roll out a Second Life "virtual campus" this
summer. They are aware that whatever info is posted there must be posted on
our regular Web site as well, so that critical info is accessible to
everyone. However, I have read and heard that Second Life is not very
accessible at all, and I'm concerned about offering its social environment
(avatars, chat, etc.) that is only accessible to some, but not all, students
(i.e., disabled students may not be able to participate because Second Life
is not accessible to their assistive technology).
If that is correct (and please do correct me if I'm wrong), then how are
other campuses dealing with the Second Life accessibility issue? One of the
management folks spearheading the project says that we are pretty much
forced to do this in order to remain competitive, so many colleges are doing
it.
Comments?
--
Jan Heck
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From: Moore, Michael
Date: Wed, Sep 17 2008 6:50AM
Subject: Re: Second Life issues
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Jan,
IBM has been doing quite a lot of work with second life and
accessibility. I recently attended a demonstration of some of the things
that they have been able to do in their second life world.
They have created a program that allows people to add tags to objects
within second life including descriptions of those objects. Anyone using
the plug-in can add tags to objects or add more information about the
object. The software also allows people to explore the world and query
the objects while using a screen reader. Finally they also have a
"follow" that allows someone to have their avatar follow another. It is
basically creating a virtual guide dog.
I would recommend contacting Phil Jenkins at IBM for more information
and to put you in touch with the folks that are working on this. It was
really very cool. If you need Phil's contact info contact me off line.
I have cc'd myself on this email so that you will be sure and get my
email address.
Mike
From: Oscar DeLong
Date: Wed, Sep 17 2008 4:30PM
Subject: Re: Second Life issues
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I have worked with Second Life a little bit over the past year. There
is a Second Life Educators listserv that covers many topics dealing with
Second Life and I know they have asked accessibility questions to that
list in the past. I cannot locate the email series at this particular
time but I know there has been a series of inroads made to allow
students with disabilities to function in Second Life. I know there was
a discussion about using Dragon Naturally Speaking in Second Life and
someone offered up the following document to assist with that:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgqj4cbt_35g2p7vkc5
Beyond that I believe there is a group within Second Life that has put
together some things about assisting individuals with disabilities to
use Second Life. If you have any questions feel free to ask.
Oscar
Oscar DeLong
Access Services/Reference Librarian
Ottenheimer Library
Pulaski Technical College
3000 West Scenic Drive
North Little Rock, AR 72118
(501) 812-2718
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