An Interview with Milosun Czervik

I met Milosun during his fund-raising efforts on Information Island right after the Virginia Tech tragedy. He is an educator at Tech who has been experimenting with SL for some time, and he's worked with designers to build the amazing ICT Library. Beeble Baxter and I went in-world for multiple chats with Milosun about education with SL (and without it).

Not long before our interview, Milosun had given Tech a check for $1200, all collected as SLers donated money in-world from their Linden-dollar balances.

Part I: We tour UR Island

Milosun:Hi.

Ignatius: howdy

Milosun’s avatar is a small dinosaur today

Ignatius: okay, since it's wild avi day. . .about to put on my fave :)

Milosun:ok!

Ignatius changes into ape with tuxedo

Milosun:Great!

Ignatius: Over to your left the students are making some new buildings.

Ignatius: I'll show you the UR house first. It was our first building before we had the island

Milosun:spacious

Ignatius: Kevin Galbraith [of UR’s Academic Tech Services] tricked this out

Milosun:tricky

Ignatius: lounge here

Ignatius: My students used this a lot to meet

Ignatius: TV plays Quicktime movies

Ignatius: upstairs may be tough for your avi, but down here there's more room

Ignatius: Through the arch is Kevin's posh office

Milosun:lovely

Beeble Baxter teleports into the room

Ignatius: In a tux, the raccoon!

Ignatius: Beeble, this is Milosun. Milosun, Beeble

Beeble: Yesss indeeeddy!

Milosun:Nice to meet you, Beeble.

Ignatius: If only our students could see that.

Beeble: Hello Milosun.

Beeble: I just got a squatter's shack - think Pappy will let me set it up?

We line up for a snapshot

Milosun:better with open or close mouth?

Beeble: Wow, a dinosaur?

Milosun:tail up or down?

Ignatius: Open for the dentist :)

Ignatius: The Times Dispatch folks will now think we academics are all crazy. Which is true

Milosun: Let me do something ... authoritative...

Ignatius: Upstairs is. .. holy moly

Milosun has changed partly into a Star Wars Storm Trooper, except not all of his clothes materialize. It’s a perfect Second Life moment: ape in tuxedo tries not to stare at underwear-clad man with lots of guns.

Ignatius: Now explain that

Beeble: I thought the dinosaur was more authoritative ...Naturally, I'm biased!

Milosun’s remaining items attach themselves to him

Ignatius: now that you have on the rest of the outfit it is!

Milosun:hmmm

Ignatius: A storm trooper in BVDs wasn't doing it for me :)

Beeble: So, Milosun do you use SL in your teaching? What do you do?

I change back to regular old Ignatius (there being no female avatars nearby for an ape-meets-babe dance)

Ignatius: Hope I'm not nekkid now

Milosun: there we go

Ignatius: It says a lot that we teachers also fuss about our avis (and identity)

Ignatius: Milosun, what classes do you teach?

Milosun:I do not currently teach using SL

Ignatius: Do you support other teachers?

Milosun:my class this past semester was tech integration for Elementary ed pre-service teachers

Ignatius: And of course their schools wisely block the adult grid

Milosun:so...not much use for SL to them.

Iggy nods

Milosun: right... and one must be at least 13 to even get on teen grid

Ignatius: true

Milosun: this summer, I'm teaching a principles of ID course

Milosun:but my use of SL will be optional... it's likely not all will have access to it.

Ignatius: Do you get Qs from VT faculty who wish to integrate it into their courses? Or is it still rare?

Ignatius: Ah, Kevin's desk

I sit on the edge

Beeble: There you go!

Beeble: So, how well known is SL on the VT campus?

Milosun: good question...

Milosun: there are a lot of folks at the New Media Center here on campus who know it...

Milosun: and a handful of others....

Milosun: I presented SL to folks here back in .... hmm... January?

Milosun: I forget.

Beeble: Well, I guess we're all still learning it...even the Lindens!

Iggy nods

Beeble: I'd like to hear about that presentation - what did you talk about?

Milosun:I also presented it to university relations... though that should have been more polished

Milosun:I showed them various EDU builds in SL... and talked a lot about the interface.

Milosun:it was a good session...lots of interest, but in the end, no one saying, 'Here's money to do it!"

Milosun: finally, though, I approached my boss, who heads our office, and he agreed to fund 2 sims and provide some other funding.

Beeble: So, we understand the idea of 'interface' (i think) but did those folks?

Milosun: So....

Milosun: I think the folks here got it...the are fairly savvy but they are critical, too.

Ignatius: How so?

In a follow-up session, Milosun elaborated a little more, noting "SL did not represent anything 'ground breaking' to them. . .and I'd add for good reason. We all know that SL, though now three years old, is not the be all and end of of MUVE platforms." Milosun notes There.com, the older Active Worlds site, the open source "Croquet Project," all of which "offer opportunities to create" content by participants, a lynchpin of SL's interest to educators. M

Milosun notes that "freedom to create" is relative in SL; he can "create wildly in SL," but the adult content of SL limits a teacher's freedom in another way. In fact, Milosun adds, many secondary schools with a presence in the Teen Grid of SL lock down access to their virtual areas so only teachers and students may log on, which by itself severely limits access.

"What makes SL unique, and powerful, is that it is a bridging technology. A massive number of educators, who heretofore have ignored or been ignorant of desktop VR, have been switched on."

Beeble: Did you suggest specific ways to use it in the classroom or was this a more general intro?

Milosun:I have only talked to one faculty person who wanted to use SL in his course.

Ignatius: Yes, I have the students specific tasks which is was wise for this generation of students. They still disliked talking to strangers and the open-ended nature of the Metaverse (or "Pappyverse," around here :)

Milosun: [my presentation] was more of a general intro.

Milosun: use in the classroom is really going to depend on a professor’s comfort level with more open-ended teaching.

Ignatius: We worked with Blogger Ida Keen (and then me) to publish some students' travel accounts of places social and educational informal writing that, for 6 of 18 students, led to formal research on VR related topics.

Beeble: VT is supposed to be "the" hi-tech school in the state - what would you say is the level of tech use by your faculty?

Milosun:I think faculty here are like faculty anywhere when it comes to teaching.

Milosun:the distribution of those who adopt early and those who adopt later is probably the same.

Beeble: At UR there is some reluctance to engage with the steep & constant learning curve, but Iggy's bizzy wid it! (technology that is)

Ignatius: students lack that level of "play" however

Milosun: we're THE tech university because we get funded by the NSF and other engineering orgs in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Beeble: ahhh

Beeble: But I think that the funding uber alles approach will eventually be insufficient...creatively and intellectually sterile.

Milosun: not sure what you mean there

Ignatius: I think that it's simply the reality at an R1 university

Ignatius: You have to bring in the big research grants

Ignatius: And the humanities bring in. . .thousand of bucks, not millions

Beeble: I guess I mean that our most inspired efforts come from creative joy and curiosity, not just big bucks.

Ignatius: But it's a sad fact that SL may not be sexy enough (in a metaphorical sense) for big funders.

Beeble: What would it cost to buy and run one SL server on campus?

Milosun: you can't; all SL servers are owned/run by LL on a server farm or farms)

Beeble: What about Wii? Will that have an impact on SL since it engages the body more fully?

Ignatius: I envision our writing lab in 20 years with touch pads on the floor and goggles and body-gloves

Ignatius: Writing will look like a game of Twister

Beeble: Yeah, but we'll have to get past our body phobias!

Ignatius: true

Ignatius: but who would have thought in 1987 that we'd be doing THIS? William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, of course

Milosun: I wonder sometimes, though, how transformative this really is....

Beeble: My interest and respect for SL is growing but I still revere our biology - except for the land whales of course!

Beeble: Good point Milosun - me too.

Ignatius: Gents, my wife just got here. At least she didn't catch me in the strip club

Milosun:thank goodness for that.

Ignatius: I'm going to log off now and see you both on TH at 3.

Milosun Czervik gave you Hokies United T-Shirt.

Ignatius: thanks!

Milosun: great shirt, Iggy!

Ignatius: bye for now

Milosun: bye gents

Part II: We finish the UR tour and visit the ICT Library on Info Island

We meet near Pappy Enoch’s junkyard

Ignatius: hey! Welcome to Pappy's side of the island

Beeble: Great, I'm eager to hear about how he's been using SL.

Ignatius: Milosun, let's walk over to the UR tower before you TP us to your island

Milosun: sounds good

Ignatius: look out for Pappy's "treasures"

We trip over discarded moonshine jugs and then fly to the tower

Ignatius: Kevin put posters here from the Symposium

Beeble: Does he know how to use Kevin's transporter?

Ignatius: I wish he'd just put big holes in the floor

Milosun: the THiNC transporter is easier, I believe

Ignatius: you can't die by falling :)

Milosun: holes would be nice

We arrive at the room where clickable projects by faculty and students are displayed

Ignatius: you can click these

Milosun: yep

Ignatius: launches nicely in Firefox

Ignatius: don't know about other browsers

Ignatius: anyhow, Kevin also set up a jazz club and lounges

Ignatius: students are on the island now--working for Kevin and building

Ignatius: Not much else, yet :)

Milosun: mmm... not sure what you mean there.

Milosun: it's probably best to tour it...

Milosun: i have it on noon and it's still a bit dim

Ignatius: I don't know why Kevin captured mine with HoJo. . .

Ignatius: I'll cut that :)

Ignatius: perfect!

Ignatius: We are quite a crew :)

Ignatius: Anyhow, shall we follow you now?

Milosun: sure...

Milosun: I will tp you

Ignatius: thanks

Ignatius: The magic of SL :)

We teleport, but Beeble’s head is incomplete.

Milosun: Ok.. well, welcome!

Ignatius: Beeble, it's so funny, , ,your head!

Beeble: It is kinda big..I thought the tux would help.

Ignatius: you look like a duck

Beeble: A duck!

The rest of Beeble appears, but not before I take a photo :)

Ignatius: Where to begin, Milosun?

Milosun: well.... let's start upstairs.. 3rd floor...

We fly upstairs, and Beeble gets separated.  Eventually he meets us again, after a long conversation with a visiting Russian SLer.

Milosun: this patio has a couple neat things on it...

Ignatius: nicely designed, btw

Milosun: but let me give you the big picture first

Milosun: thanks - a friend built the building... I just fill it up with stuff!

Milosun: the mission of the ICT Library is to provide educators in SL with an opportunity to look at tools that might help them in the classroom.

Ignatius: excellent. I'll be here a bit before next spring when I use SL again in the classroom

Milosun: and also to show examples of other EDU projects... and ideas.

Milosun: though the "info" aspect has not been maintained as much as I'd like.

Milosun: at any rate...

Ignatius: what have we here?

Milosun: this thing over here, created by Ann Enigma (a prof at Johnson Wales).

Milosun: is connected to Yahoo! news

Milosun: the owner types in a key word on the "settings" notecard...

Milosun: and it looks for news by that key word

Milosun: over here is a weather station.. also by Ann

Milosun: so you can set the city and get the conditions

Ignatius: RL weather in SL. Need a snap

Milosun: the picture changes according to conditions...

Milosun: so cloudy, rainy, sunny...

Weather Station Says: GetYahooWeather: Loading the weather...

Ignatius: very nice

Milosun: alright... to the newspaper office

Milosun: this is the SLED Picayune office

Milosun: have you heard of the SLED Picayune?

Ignatius: Yes, but I've not read it yet.

Ignatius: Just seen the paper here at the library on my first visit

Ignatius: got my copy of the SLED

Ignatius: It would be a good spot for students to publish, no?

Milosun: well, publishing in-world turns out to be something of a dead-end.

Ignatius: hmm

Milosun: very few people actually read anything here

Ignatius: I've run some on my blog at the TD

Milosun: which is why I went away from lots of text on the notecard.. and went to the blog

Milosun: the graphic to my left shows how different pieces are connected to the SLED Picayune.

Ignatius: I am considering a project. My students in spring 08 would work in small groups to tour a space in SL with an expert just like this

Ignatius: up for it? I think it would take 1 hour or so + a follow up. The problem is that students don't see SL as more than sex and walking around. . .or both :)

Milosun: I'd be happy to help.

Milosun: well... one does have to do things to actually engage their interest

Ignatius: BTW, you are right. Students need some more direction and tasks nowadays

Ignatius: I'd have eaten this up as an undergrad

Milosun: the problem in SL right now, is that too many educators are doing whatever they can to make this *too* serious a place.

Milosun: everyone wants their students to accomplish this that and the other goal. Those aren't necessarily bad things - but I always have to ask ... is SL the right place to accomplish those goals?

Ignatius: good Q

Milosun: Are we pounding a square peg into a round hole? or, to use another overly used phrase... is the tail wagging the dog?

Ignatius: my focus depends on the class I ask my writing students to look at how tools change writers and writing for my lit students next spring they'll be studying VR, cyberpunk, and so on and SL is certainly a manifestation of those impulses so they can "live" Neuromancer or I instead of JUST reading them

Milosun: there is a LOT of fodder in SL about which to write...

Ignatius: but often SL is indeed the tail wagging the dog

Milosun: for an English class I took during my master's degree program at VT

Ignatius: SL is obviously based on Snowcrash. . . [Linden Lab’s Phil] Rosedale admits it

Ignatius: the naming of avs comes from Vonnegut's book Slapstick

Milosun: did you know the first avatar-based virtual environment was run over a Commodore 64? called "Habitat" by LucasFilms

Ignatius: I don't know Habitat

Ignatius: wild

Ignatius: Anyway, SL is rife with cyberpunk refs. I've not been to Midnight City but it's a sim based on the books

Milosun: yes, lot's of Hiro's around. ["Hiro Protagonist" is, you guessed it, the main character in Stephenson's "Snowcrash']

Milosun: shall we continue?

Ignatius: BTW, let me ask you. . . if SL is tail wagging dog, why do you bother with it for work?

Milosun: It's not always that way... but as an instructional technologist, I have to remind myself to be critical.

Milosun: I'm not deriding SL as a bad thing for education... not at all.

Milosun: But what happens is that you get folks who get very excited about this technology...

Iggy nods

Ignatius: true. Utopians. Like Rosedale himself

Milosun: and then fail to remember that *technology* does not drive our instruction...and neither does make the real difference in learning.

Milosun: *DESIGN* makes the difference - and if our design points to a need for a desktop 3d environment, then so be it.

Ignatius: agreed

Milosun: But more often than not, I hear educators say, "Hey, SL is cool! Let me use it in my class!!"

Ignatius: what you say is true

Milosun: Well, heck... there are a lot of cool things in the world. Why are they not used?

Ignatius: in writing classes, lots of teacher in the 80s said "let's work in groups" w/o thinking through the pedagogy

Milosun: or, thinking through the work behind having students work in groups...

Ignatius: I think one problem for the good things in-world is that people don't know how to find them

Ignatius: For that reason, Ida's blog is a Godsend

Beeble Baxter finds us

Beeble: This place is pretty sharp - what did he say about it?

Milosun has stepped away for a moment on real-life business, so I brief Beeble

Beeble: I was interested to note that Snow Crash was written a year before SL came online - is that right?

Ignatius: Was it that close together?

Milosun returns

Ignatius: Rosedale has admitted the influence of the book in interviews

Milosun: let's head downstairs, shall we?

Ignatius: cool

Ignatius: I went here on my first visit and got your bibliography for teachers

Milosun: the 2nd floor has a couple of sections

Milosun: Yes.. one section is the one that is more oriented towards "literature"..

Milosun: (well, lit that examines MUVEs. . .the other part is the ICT Shop...

Beeble: MUVEs? What are they?

Milosun: Multi-user Virtual Environments

Milosun: various scripters in SL make tools that are potentially useful to educators...

Milosun: but they are not free in all cases.

Ignatius: You've added to the building since my visit

Milosun: So, I sell some of them here.

Ignatius: There was just a balcony here

Ignatius: It's a good idea to add some [educational products] merchants

Ignatius: do you get a part of the sale?

Milosun: I was unsure about it at first...

Milosun: well, yes and no.

Milosun: the vendor mechanism is owned by the scripter.. who fills it with product

Ignatius: ah

Milosun: 10% of the sale goes to my account, but it's for the purpose of supporting the efforts here.

Milosun: I don't cash it out...there's really not enough to do that.

Ignatius: you have long-term buy in. . .

Milosun: Being here, on Info Island, has been a blessing.

Ignatius: How so, a blessing?

Milosun: All the space I use for the ICT Library is donated by the Alliance Library System.

Ignatius: very cool , Milosun

Beeble: Milosun, what do you think are the greatest potentials for SL? Most folk seem interested mostly in making $$$, but what other possibilities do you see?

Milosun: SL is like zombo.

Milosun: Have you seen it?

Ignatius: no. what's a zombo?

Milosun: http://www.zombo.com

Ignatius: okay

Beeble: Isn't that 1/2 of a stromboli?

Ignatius: Or the singular of "zombi":)

Milosun: Beeb...

Milosun: I think there are a number of possibilities in SL...

Milosun: but from an educational perspective, we have to think along the lines of "What do I want my students to do?" and then see if SL fits that

Milosun: I was explaining that to Iggy earlier

Ignatius: yes

Milosun: hmmm

Ignatius: (scholars of teaching writing courses with technology) Dickie and Cindy Selfe have always said to let pedagogy drive tech, not the other way around

Ignatius: For a teacher of SF, however, we have this world deliberately built in the image of a book

Milosun: but what they say is true... though rarely does anyone heed it.

Beeble: How have teachers at VT been using SL? For example how have your literary materials been used.

Milosun: Particularly these days when every single new thing that comes along is a hook.

Beeble: A hook?

Milosun: Beeble - I only know of one professor at VT who has used SL.

Milosun: a hook = the coolest new thing that everyone wants to do

Milosun: and his use of SL is in a general ed class... an optional assignment.

Ignatius: Do you think that Sl will follow the same path as. . .Web use in the classroom?

Beeble: Do you think SL will soon bore people like any fad or does it offer more possibilities?

Ignatius: Or even file-sharing over campus networks? I ask that because lots of teachers 15 years ago asked what is the purpose of XYZ?" They do it every time.

Milosun: yes...and web use followed TV use....

Milosun: and TV use followed radio use

Milosun: what we're looking at with SL is essentially Netscape 2.0, if you want to think of it in those terms

Ignatius: yes

Milosun: that was before the days of XML...

Milosun: the browser has not changed a great deal...

Ignatius: True but we needed content for education to make the browser a tool we could use

Milosun: there have been some nice additions... security upgrades, etc...

Milosun: what *has* changed is not just the volume of info on the web...

Milosun: but A) the way it's stored

Milosun: B) the way it's delivered

Iggy nods

Milosun: and C) The *expectation* by people in general that they can access it.

Milosun: D) Also, it's stable.

Beeble: OK, I get it.

Ignatius: D is VERY important

Ignatius: SL is not stable, yet

Milosun: and even a more important point is this...

Ignatius: but it's still amazing b/c it works at all

Milosun: that while some content takes a long time (try doing YouTube on a 56K modem)....

Milosun: most of the stuff out there doesn't care what kind of machine you're using, etc.

Ignatius: Right--the old PC/Mac wars seem ancient history, as do the browser ones

Milosun: the trouble with SL is that the diffusion of higher-end machines is not the wide spread.

Milosun: but even with that...

Ignatius: we are lucky at Richmond in that regard

Beeble: One interesting aspect of SL is that it's time intensive - not an 'instant' experience, but one which requires users to focus & invest some time.

In a follow-up comment, Milosun added, "The educators who stay in-world are, in many case, doing some interesting things There are those, however, who want to force SL to fit their current vision of education. They envision grand lecture halls, etc."

Milosun: folks in rural areas do not have access to broadband.

Ignatius: true

Milosun: I think that is a weakness of SL... that learning curve compare this interface to say, a browser....

Ignatius: I wonder if LL can improve Orientation Island more? It now has more "tasks" to help new avs

Milosun: It doesn't take that long to learn to surf the web....

Ignatius: one mitigating factor is that gamers (and that means more young folks)

Beeble: Are there any studies being done on improving "intuitive" design and whether "intuitive" means the same for a Russian as an American?

Ignatius: good Q

Beeble: (i may look goofy, but there *is* a brain in this big ol' head!)

Milosun: the question about design standards is a good one... maybe...as some actions are culturally determined... but cognition is not...

Ignatius: I wonder if we'll get more virtual worlds once there is a "standard"

Ignatius: b/c SL offers one amazing thing games do not. . .player created content

Milosun: the biological basis for our thinking does not differ based on race, culture, etc.

Beeble: Cognition is not culturally *determined* but wouldn't you say it is shaped by culture?

Milosun: the *perceptions* of it do.

Milosun: what we pay attention to differs, for sure.

Ignatius: And we live in a culture that is tech-dense

Milosun: and that is perhaps why User Interface changes from place to place

Beeble: Yes...check out a recent issue of The New Yorker - an article titled "The Interpreter" - fascinating info about cognition.

Ignatius: that's why despite the Millennials' distaste for SL's open-endedness I think they can master the interface quickly

Beeble: np - good to be learning new terms!

Milosun: that and a lot of folks have played 1st person shooters...so the skills of movement transfer

Ignatius: This is like that, except we can learn and collaborate instead of shooting!

Ignatius: That's my "sparkle quote" for the blog :)

Beeble: The topic of cognition is an important one but rarely discussed - I wonder if there is a danger of homogenizing cognition with new technologies.

Beeble: Wow!

Milosun: but we can still shoot!

Ignatius: But SL does take time to master. . .hence my desire to have tours for the next group of students in-world

Milosun: I don't think it's rarely discussed... there are lots of folks who think deeply about thinking and learning.

Ignatius: I think it inevitable that someone will put a chip into their brains

Ignatius: Consider Pappy's and my recent interview [with me]; one person's profile at the SLProfiles site said "I hate my real life"that's not new but we are getting closer to making something like SL a regular part of our working and playing lives

Milosun: yes.. but that is because we are badly addicted

Beeble: Good point. I guess I meant that in our enthusiasm about new tech we don't often consider that some older "ways of knowing" are still relevant, and in some cases superior.

Milosun: true, Beeble.

Milosun: I am not sure exactly what you mean about older ways of knowing

Milosun: as how we learn now is not too much different than how we learned 100 years ago

Milosun: the tools have changed, obviously

Ignatius: I find that I use machines as a sort of "backup memory" for my life

Ignatius: b/c life is so darned fast now

Beeble: My favorite example comes from the last chapters of Brave New World where the World Controller & John Savage discuss the merits of traditional time-intensive apprenticeships vs. conditioned programming.

Beeble: Of course, this is a kind of apprenticeship for me.

Ignatius: shall we stroll a bit?

Milosun: yes..

Beeble: Huxley is definitely worth a second look...especially his idea of "the feelies" an early concept of VR.

Ignatius: Beeble, good point

We tour the lower level of the library next

Milosun: down here is free stuff.. mostly

Ignatius: I suspect that body gloves will be next

Beeble: So we can recommend this place to other teachers? I'll send the links!

Ignatius: We should

Milosun: sure!

Ignatius: I need to come back to get some scripts

Beeble: English Village? That sounds fun!

Ignatius: I think the open-source, info commons approach makes this so much more powerful than, say, World of Warcraft

Ignatius: yet educators and admins will have to get past seeing this as "a game"

Ignatius: Milosun,do you encounter that?

Beeble: Milosun, I have to applaud your generosity in building these tools and giving most of them away. I hope others are following your lead!

Milosun: I didn't build the tools but I did collect

Ignatius: It's nice that so many SLers share like this

Ignatius: But my last Q for now is about the "Game" label. . . how do we get past that?

Beeble: Iggy, your question/point about gaming is a good one. I didn't really appreciate their value or complexity myself until I had a conversation with one of our students.

Beeble: I was amazed and impressed by the sophistication of his knowledge and observations about gaming.

Ignatius: But games have "winners," even RPGs online. And they are premised on competition

Beeble: Aren't there psychological or educational studies that show the value of fun in learning? Isn't "play" the way we learn for the first ten years of our life?

Milosun: I am not sure that "game" is a bad word

Ignatius: Only for marketing.

Ignatius: I'm a RL gamer--paper and pencil sort--but I want admins to see that this is a world, not just World of Warcrack

Beeble: Milosun, I agree but there still seems to be that old suspicion of that which is fun....I believe the fancypants word for it is "ludic" - something that is fun.

Ignatius: Ludic--Luddite? Nah. But fun, anyway.

Beeble: Does VT have any plans to promote SL use with professors?

Milosun: I [plan to] do some training with VT faculty about SL

Ignatius: Milosun, any parting words?

Beeble: My parting words are...let's get Milosun to come to UR for a talk! Thanks - see you later.

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