matt.me63.com - Matt Edgar

So I’m on the train home after a day in London and my phone beeps.

It’s a video message of Fabian riding his bike without stabilisers.

“I don’t know who I’m most proud of,” I tell Caroline later, “him for riding a bike or you for sending a video message.”

“Don’t patronise me,” says Caroline.

Please excuse this shameless plug for my brother’s new venture, Social Minds. Back in 1997, Edmund went to work in Japan for a year. He stayed, got married, and has gained a wealth of experience in distance learning and educational technologies. Now he’s taking that experience into virtual worlds, including Second Life.

As his shiny new website says:

• Social Minds provides educational opportunities using cutting-edge distance-learning tools.
• We offer classes based in a 3-D Virtual World, currently centered on Second Life.
• We are focussed on combining the motivational energy of conventional classes with the power and reach of distance learning.
• We are actively involved with the Sloodle Project, and host a free trial Sloodle site.

There’s also an engagingly-written blog (”Vote for me! I’ve got an office! With tables and chairs!”) and the offer of a limited number of free places on the experimental Second-Life-based introductory Japanese course.

It’s refreshing to see how virtual worlds could start to enhance existing real-world activities, such as education. Obviously I’m biased, but I reckon Edmund has the rare combination of skills and experience to make this a reality.

Pascal adeptly demonstrates the archetypal use case for mobile video - I reckon I managed to catch steps three, four, five and six :)