Scilands Video treat

A video recording of the Scilands track is now up at Cruxy.com .... I'm working on the basis that people always look fatter on TV (!).

Tish Shute's weblog of SLCC is interesting, plus I look better in the photograph.

Second Life Community Convention

Courtesy of Fleep Tuque: http://flickr.com/photos/tags/SLCCedu07/interesting/?page=3

James Dearnley falling over his words: l-r: JD with microphone, Dave Taylor (NPL), Jeffrey Corbin (University of Denver), Eric Hackathorn (NOAA), Kat Prawl (International Spaceflight Museum).


I spent a most enjoyable few days at the SLCC in Chicago over the weekend - plus a rather less enjoyable day hanging around in Detroit airport waiting for a connecting flight to Chicago (tornadoes shut the airport, tsk).

SLCC took place at the Chicago Hilton, an imposing venue that was plagued by wi-fi dropouts, a NFL Fantasy Football convention (with rednecks a-plenty), triathletes, and the 800 individuals who made up SLCC. What was immediately obvious from the start was the sense of opportunity that SL has fostered - while the 'Developers meeting' obviously pitted competitors up against each other, the overall sense was that of shortage - of developers, and of experts. Despite the eight million SL users, many of the driving forces were on show in Chicago (variously, NMC, Millions of Us, 'famous Lindens').

As conferences go, this was probably the most interesting I've been to - primarily because the essential fluidity of SL development meant that nearly everything was interesting in its own right - there were odd exceptions (notably, the peevish, self-serving 'media' stream at the end of the conference). Our Scilands panel went off well it seemed, despite my mind going blank during the introductions (being streamed into SL!), and the numerous problems we faced with Internet access. Some useful contacts were made as a result. I also, throughout the weekend, tended to mix up real names and SL names, with odd results in the Scilands panel - luckily, nobody seemed to mind at all....



This was broadly speaking the perfect conference in many ways - slightly chaotic in places, populated by people who were genuinely interested in SL, and on the whole, there were few boundaries and obvious cliques. SL is still in its infancy, and the conference tended to reflect that. Long may it last. Certainly, the ideal place for networking, presenting a paper and making an impact - I'm keen that one of my PhD students writes a paper for inclusion in SLCC 2008 - the venue of which is not known yet. Hopefully, the east coast of the USA.

One thing I certainly will not be doing next year is travelling via Amsterdam, or with KLM. The airline threw my schedule off by cancelling the direct Amsterdam-Chicago flight, and provided an uncomfortable flight back which was livened up with an air hostess telling off another passenger for using the business class toilet...

Finally, I now know Detroit better than I should......

Let's Play Blog-Tag!

In his Blog, Tony Karrer points to an article on Brent Schlenker's Corporate eLearning Strategies and Development blog, which in turn references a You Tube video on using Second Life as a teaching / learning tool.
Tony Karrer's post is interesting about ways he sees Second Life being used for educational purposes on historical sites such as 'a recreation of Plymouth where actors playing the part of Native Americans and Colonists told stories and answered questions about life, religion, history, etc'.

ALT-C next week, anyone?

Eduserv Report on UK FE/HE Developments in Second Life

This report summarises an investigation into the use and uptake of Second Life (SL) by UK Higher and Further Education. The research had four main goals:
1. to determine the “state of play” of SL developments within the Higher and Further Education sector
2. to discover how these developments are supported, in terms of time, funding and other resources
3. to explore the functionality of these developments, i.e. which types of media or interactive service they incorporate
4. to establish how “busy”, or well-used, the developments have been and discover any impacts resulting from their implementation and use.
Initially, the work set out to take a global perspective, as at the outset of the research there were only a small number of UK academic SL developments. However, as the work progressed a considerable number of UK Higher and Further Education SL activities were discovered (see appendix), and this report focuses exclusively on those.

Karl Kapp

Another thoughtful Blogger on uses of Second Life in Education
http://karlkapp.blogspot.com/

Serious Virtual Worlds Conference

First European Conference on the Professional Applications of Virtual Worlds, to be held on 13-14 September at the Serious Games Institute, Coventry.

http://www.seriousvirtualworlds.net/index.php

If you sign up online, you can collect three gold tokens to offer to the Keeper of the Gate on the Island of Cruel Beings, to gain access to the Upper Chambers of Asgaroth and a shot at the title... seriously (not!).

James's avatar watches James on a live feed (via Wirecast). Had problems last night with others seeing this, and I guess that's due to me using my home machine as a steaming server. Not much use on a 128kb upload.

But - it can be done.

Web TV

I've been playing around today trying to get a live videofeed into SL - the one product that would do it OK is the only one that doesn't work on my machine [https://www.veodia.com/beta/]. As a proof of concept, I've set up my own stream on UStream, and did some 'broadcasting'. Very good it is, but obviously the upload speed is important. One for work I think.

Finally, after a seven week wait, the island is up on the grid. As you can see, I've been doing some basic design and playing around ....

http://slurl.com/secondlife/DISland/92/159/30

http://www.publictechnology.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=9631

Eduserv to fund research into eLearning in new Virtual Worlds

Eduserv, the not-for-profit IT services group, has announced that its Foundation has awarded grants totalling £333,000 to fund four research projects, each of which involve investigations into the use of virtual worlds in learning and education. The Foundation’s grant programme is designed to drive the effective application of IT in education.

The projects, conducted by Oxford University, Kings College London, London Knowledge Lab and University of Paisley, will investigate how educators can develop effective means of incorporating 3-D virtual worlds into teaching and learning.

Full article here.

Waiting

The campus was ordered three weeks ago now, but still we wait.

The last I heard ( a week ago) was an email confirming my academic credentials for the University discount.

The Portuguese Angle...

The Second Life Insider Blog references notes on a workshop on SL at the University of Aveiro, Portugal. The notes, entitled 'Surprising Research Results' , offer insights into the use of SL in education that are, apparently, founded on proper scientific research:

"We’re all entitled to “opinions”. However, there is a world of difference between an “opinion” and a qualified opinion by an expert. And there were quite a few experts that came up with their conclusions — backed by scientific research. In some cases, I was astonished to the conclusions they came up with. And I’ll be certainly be much more confident in emitting some of the opinions — now that they’re scientific results."

Some of the headline findings delivered at the workshop:

1. Don't simply replicate Real Life, do things that SL will let you do and add value
2. The informality of SL aids communication
3. SL classes are much better than RL ones
4. Text based interactions level the playing ground for all students to participate and provide better learning
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

Stephen Downes' presentation at Eduserv was indeed interesting, and probably would have been suited as the first of the day rather than the last - primarily, I suspect, because it would have given the other speakers a slightly darker background to 'work with'. Myself and Mark Hepworth spoke to him outside the Congress Centre afterwards, and it was easy to feel some sympathy for him - the contrarian speaker who put a chill on proceedings and was effectively treated then by the panel moderator as a pariah.

His main points - that Linden can't carry on as it is (in regard to maintaining its network/servers), and that the 6 million users mask the realities of actual use, were well made - as was the point that parts of SL are virtual ghosttowns.

Yesterday, I attended a SL session at Coventry University (Sigma - Maths support), and we were shown the University of Hertfordshire's new campus. Beautiful design, but nobody there. Walls, sliding doors, vast open indoor spaces, but empty. During the session, placing resources was dicussed in detail - lecture handouts et al.

I can't help feeling that the educational future of SL is participative, action-based and without RL physical boundaries to contend with. And hopefully not as a place to pick up lecture handouts.

Second Life International Best Practices in Education Conference

More about the Conference, to be held on May 25, 2007 in venues all over the Second Life world, which I advertised below earlier this month.
In the meantime, and on 'the other side of the pond', Kevin Jarret runs an excellent blog entitled The Story of My “Second Life”. He sets out the background to his work like this:

About the Project

Hello and welcome to my Second Life blog! My name is Kevin Jarrett. Let me tell you a little about this project.

In February I received a $10,000 Faculty Excellence Grant from Walden University (where I teach part-time) to study Second Life (SL) and its implications for education at a distance. Thanks to this generous grant, I will be taking a leave of absence from my teaching duties so I can spend at least four to six months exploring, investigating and experimenting in SL. My vision is to essentially immerse myself in SL as an educator, documenting the experience in real time. I know that with the right tools, the right input, the right contacts, the right perspective, and enough time, I can create a practical resource of great value for educators who wish to use SL with their students, and to learn about it for themselves.

There are people who believe (I am one of them) that the 3D world of SL is the future of the web. I want to thank Walden University for giving me the opportunity to explore this technology as a Faculty Excellence Fund scholar. I will know my project has been a success when the value I have created for Walden and for the SL community far exceeds the cost of the grant.

What struck me about Kevin's work was the (apparent) parallels to the work being revealed and discussed in this Blog, and that set me wondering about the value of inviting Kevin into our 'circle'. Any thoughts?

Eduserv Symposium - Virtual Worlds, Real Learning?

Stephen Downes gave a talk at the Eduserve Symposium on 11 May (see post below) and followed it up with a very useful blog entry, commenting on the Symposium and pointing to a number of other blog entries created by people who attended, including Richard Wallis, who provides further links and comment.

Universities discover Second Life - Guardian article

This article by Jessica Shepherd in the Guardian (8 May) picks up on this Friday's (11 May) Eduserv conference at the TUC in London about the educational use of Second Life.

Island

The Department was formally accepted into the Scilands group at their weekly meeting last Thursday, and I ordered the DIS island with Linden Lab this morning. We are to the south of the Scilands group, near to NASA's Co-Lab, and various other University / governmental non-profit organisations.

Getting accepted was a bit more involved than I'd thought, with our application going through Council and Senate approval before the affirmative answer. Anyhow, we are now in a location which I think should be to our benefit in the future.

I've also registered for the Second Life Community Convention , which is being held in Chicago (August 24-26). Scilands are hoping to present a track in the convention, to which I'll either act as Chair or as a contributor. More about that when Scilands get around to planning it out formally.

Second Life International Best Practices in Education Conference

You'll probably have seen this...if not, you'll probably be interested!

Planning is currently underway for the first Second Life International Best Practices in Education Conference!

The conference will be held on May 25, 2007 in venues all over the Second Life world, with exciting presentations, vendors and exhibitors, and everything an educator needs to know to get started exploring the possibilities for teaching, learning, and research in Second Life!

Registration is free of charge and participants will receive in-world goody bags with donations from some of the best content creators in Second Life.

Want to be in on the latest news about the conference? Join the Best Practices in Education Group in Second Life by using the Search tool. Membership is free and you will be able to access Group Notices, vote on proposals, network with interested parties, and stay abreast of Events.

Please note: All times listed anywhere on the site are in PDT.

A couple of URLs that I found

This one is for the SL Liberation Front...

Virtual loses its virtues

LA Times article on the fight to right the wrongs that exist in SL... Fascinating

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-fi-second22feb22,0,4800566.story?page=1&coll=la-home-headlines

In Second Life, no-one knows you're a lapsed Catholic

Worth reading if only for the following quotes:

"It's like online sex — it's satisfying in a weird way, I suppose … but the real thing is so much better, why would you want to waste your time on it?" asked Francis Maier, chancellor of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Denver and an avid video gamer.

**************

The Easter service this morning will be an experiment — and it carries some risks. "Griefers," or online vandals, have been known to disrupt church activities by manipulating their characters to streak nude through a chapel or belch loudly during meditation. There's also a danger that nonbelievers posing as Christians could engage visitors in text-messaged conversation and teach them false theology.

But in the end, Gruenewald expects great benefits when cats, emus and impossibly buff surfer dudes gather together to celebrate Easter. "This is definitely a messy frontier," he said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-virtual8apr08,0,5161696.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Blogged with Flock

Two weeks in

Another week spent getting basics sorted out for the campus - primarily, my first steps at mastering the SL building editor, and getting my first 'structure' up (a floating transparent circular 'viewpoint' (with chairs) that sits above New Hope.

Yesterday, I attended a Scilands meeting, where I put forward our case for getting the DIS campus located in their reserved space. This appears to have been successful, and I would hope we'll be in there my mid-May with a workable campus. Thanks go to Dave Taylor (National Physical Laboratory - Davee Commerce in-world) for the invitation to join. DIS will be located in a non-commercial space (barring some oddities who have got land in Scilands by accident - notably, some "Trekkies"), and we join a number of govermental and public-sector organisations from around the world.

The meeting itself was interesting as well, with 12 or so people sitting around and chatting to each other (along with IMs). Meetings require a concentration, as people tend to chat at the same time - I noticed that one or two of participants would chat to me, whilst others were talking to others. The text-based messaging on SL thus rather 'flattens' normal conversation in a room, and means that you have to be on your toes.......

DIS was one of three invitees who were asked to state their reasons for joining Scilands, and I'm going to join their Google group when back from holiday.

Next step after Easter is to get our island ordered. And then the fun will really begin....

Prime's makeover

The adventures of Prime and Annie

Well, what he has forgotten to tell you, is that yesterday Prime gave himself a makeover and appeared with one of the coolest avis in SL. Mr P now looks very very good ideed.

Annie's avi is currently developing a sartorial means to express mood and emotions in conjuction with Jezzie. The funny thing is, it appears to actually help in times of upset. :) It's also fun when times are good.

Blogged with Flock

A week in

The last week has been interesting for all sorts of reasons - notably, my first rather clumsy steps towards social inclusion in SL, and a better sense of the commercial underpinnings of SL.

I'm now better at a) chatting and B) Instant Messaging (IM), and can tell the difference between them (!). I've also been talking to Annie with other users 'eavesdropping' on conversations, which is a bit strange. I'm also beginning to get a grasp of how huge SL is.

Next week (Tuesday), we have the first meeting to discuss inclusion of the DIS campus in the Info Islands next month (eta end of April). The mechanics of the land-buying process should become a little clearer.

Second Life Scripting

Views on LSL from inworld

The latest viewer update has enabled me to actually see where I'm going for the first time in weeks, despite the appearing like a noob, invisibility and friends online status issues. However, even I'm starting to crash often on my mac, and the issue appears to be related to 2 issues.

1. That places such as shops use a lot of scripting for vending machines, large numbers of vending machines means running large numbers of scripts. All of which look as if they have to processed by you as the client before you can get the full experience.

2. That these places also use large number of prims and these need to be rezzed, therefore placing even more work on your humble processor.

The result is currently crashing and freezing.

So, I wonder if there is a more effective way to script? Why people think it is a good idea to overload the sim? Why isn't LSL an object-orientated scripting language?

:)

Blogged with Flock

Annie's First Post

Meaning of culture

Well, I had a really interesting discussion with Jezzie about culture and the sorts of cultural events that we can organise on New Hope. Having really agreed pretty quickly that nationalism isn't really what we are about, we're looking at ideas such as:

• Meaningful events such as Remembrance Sunday (my suggestion) as this is both international and current
• Quirky things such as Guy Fawkes Night, which is really rather bad taste if you think about it
• Festivals to explore cultures like the Aztecs

Jezzie's feeling is that culture is about what we eat, how we live, daily life and so forth. If you include arts and crafts, I really couldn't agree more.

On a slightly less serious note, bizarreness on Cichlid.

Having been harrassed by a moronic griefer, who has now been both banned from Cichlid and reported. I met the brother of said griefer the following day! He came to say that he was really impressed with the way that we responded to the incident, and apparently the attacker is alledgedly 11 years old. Certainly behaved like an 11 year old, I must say.

This elder brother appeared as I was talking to a random German from Berlin via Babbler and a tiny furry from California. Only in SL. :)

Blogged with Flock

Report from Virtual Worlds 2007

Tony O'Driscoll reports (actually 'dumps') from Day 1 of the Virtual Worlds 2007 conference in NYC.

A start

DIS received money from a HEFCE mini-grant in March 2007 to develop a campus on Linden Labs Second Life. This blog will act as a diary of progress as we roll-out a campus during 2007 and early 2008.

There is an awful lot to learn, as I've found out over the last month or two - in fact, the last week has proved to be the steepest learning curve so far in my clumsy attempts to manipulate objects, build things and avoid bumping into people.

This project is based at the Department of Information Science at Loughborough University, where it is managed by Dr James Dearnley and Dr Mark Hepworth. The collaborative nature of SL, and the interest shown in developing VLEs in SL, means that we welcome input, comment and interest in what we're doing.