The Story of My “Second Life”

Last night’s ISTE Speaker Series presentation was, in my opinion, one of our most memorable and fascinating to date. We were joined by Louise Later (SL), a Second Life developer working with Virtual Ability, a Colorado-based startup developing products to help people with different type of disabilities to use  Second Life. In real life, Louise is a writer and credentialed preK-adult teacher who volunteer at LARRS (Los Angeles Radio Reading Service). She also co-produces “Access Unlimited,” a radio show about issues involving disabilties, on KPFK 90.7 FM, Tuesdays, 3-4 pm PST.

Louise’s radio voice was crystal clear as about 30 of us watched and listened intently throughout her explanation of her background, how she got into Second Life, and like so many of us, how she connected with the best and the brightest in her field, including the folks at Virtual Ability and Simon Stevens from Wheelies.

It was incredibly powerful to hear Louise recount her discovery of Second Life and how she overcame obstacle after obstacle with relentless (dare I say, dogged?) enthusiasm, inspired by every triumph, to continue exploring, learning, and sharing for the benefit of all.

Max, as she would explain, started life as a “sled dog” she found for free inworld. Immediately recognizing the symbolic power of a guide dog and what they mean to the visually impaired. She knew that a virtual one would have the same impact in Second Life, and she was right. She fashioned a harness herself and began tinkering with Max’s scripts, and that’s where the fun began.

Through experimentation and work with others more skilled than her, she added more and more features to Max. Remember, Louise is legally blind, she has a condition called “keyhole vision” (also known as cerebral tunnel vision) which greatly restricts her eyesight (one eye is completely blind).  Here, Max is about to “follow” an avatar:

This, in itself, was a gigantic leap forward for Louise, enabling her to easily accompany her friends in Second Life as they explored. But the next thing she demonstrated was truly breathtaking: braille in Second Life!

This object, when clicked, actually reads braille-encoded objects in Second Life using the inworld voice chat. Amazing! It made her demonstration of EVA, a text-chat-to-voice tool, seem ordinary in comparison!

To be sure, these tools are in a very early stage of development. This is a great example of what I find most fascinating about Second Life; here, educators are literally part of cutting-edge research and development in virtual worlds, dreaming, designing, testing and using tools that may, some day, change the way millions of others interact in virtual space. It was a truly humbling, empowering, exciting hour. The full photo set is here. (We’ve just GOT to get our voice recording system up and running on ISTE Island, it is a terrible shame Louise’s talk was only shared with those present. Take heart, though, I am told she will be back for a Thursday night social soon, and we will have more time to talk with her!)

For more about accessibility in Second Life, click here: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Accessibility.

-kj-

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