Thanks for creating this group, Barry. I'm not surprised at this decision from Linden Lab, and like Wesley, I am hopeful for the future. Just yesterday, in my explorations that will hopefully lead to implementation of some virtual world as a synchronous meeting place for students in a new public school's version of "online virtual school," I ran OpenSimulator for the first time on my Dell laptop, locally. It was invigorating and exciting! The fact that I have not even taken a peek at SL Teen Grid for this project might have been prophetic. In their vacuum-tight security policies and their doomed efforts to at least break even and perhaps to maintain some semblance of profitability in TG, Linden Lab still managed to imagine, create, and maintain the pioneering iteration of a world where kids can be safe, guided, and motivated to learn. This is a legacy no one can deny. The ways that you used TG, the ways that Peggy Sheehy muscled her kids into it, Wesley's fabulous creations, and those of others, will stand as examples of record alongside the visions facilitated by Claudia L'Amoreaux as Education Community Manager in the adult grid and ISTE's pioneering community-building there.
Prophetic too was the morphing of the "Playground" that was ISTE's "Second Life Playground" into the "Virtual Environments Playground" this last summer at ISTE2010 in Denver, CO. Our 35 back-to-back mostly half hour shareouts, both from ISTE Island in Second Life to Denver and vice versa, and also from several other platforms--including OpenSim (ReactionGrid, 3rd Rock Grid), Quest Atlantis, AWEDU, and others--dramatically demonstrated that Teen Grid wasn't the only game in Town. Sense of presence and community of place at a distance continue to be the mainstays of virtual environments, and I am guessing that my colleagues at ISTE's SIGVE will help show me the way(s). Let's continue to archive and share (if you haven't seen the archival fallout at the SIGVE wiki from Denver, go look) and, most importantly, let's keep it as open as we can. That delicate balance between caring/sharing and earning a living has always impeded progress, and that's not going to change. I encourage us all to err on the side of open discussion. You who are in there, if you can machinima your little tushes off before the Teen Grid evaporates, please make that an urgent priority!
Keep the faith, ya'll, and even if we don't find that purple banana, we'll bolster one another's creativity by continuing the dialog and sharing the creative work. Let's (to continue Barry's analogy) pahtay like it's 2099!
Check out Tatero Nino's musings on the closure at her "Dwell On It" blog.
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