Lunch with Kemp

Today I had lunch with Jeremy Kemp of SJSU
Last May I had the pleasure of spending some time with Dr. Daniel Livingstone from the School of Computing at the University of Paisley in Scotland. Dr. Livingstone came to SJSU to deliver a talk on Immersive and Web-based Virtual Learning Environments: Bridging the Gap with Sloodle. I picked him up at SFO and drove him to San Jose. Livingstone and our own Jeremy Kemp had just received a first-year grant of £80,000 from Britain's Eduserv Foundation to develop their Sloodle project (Moodle in Second Life.)

This is big stuff! In my opinion Second Life is where the Internet is headed. Yes, at this stage it is geeky and kinda on-the-edge stuff now, but give this technology ten years. Remember personal computers themselves were once considered geeky and on-the-edge stuff. From what I see all the signs are there for growth in this technology: from Moore's Law to the cost of oil. In my opinion, the world is going to move in a direction of decreasing the movement of people and increasing virtualization in engaging, dynamic and compelling ways. We are going to be moving electrons more and people less.

Is this profound for education? I think so. Kemp has been traveling around the world, he is spending several days a month presenting about this technology (while flying the flag for SJSU.)

Is it a big thing that one of the early innovators in this technology comes from San Jose State University? What do you think? Today I met Jeremy for lunch. What a treat! Someday I will be saying I knew Jeremy Kemp when...

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