At the NMC Teacher’s Buzz with Wainbrave Bernal discussing the SaLamander Project, a way for SL Educators to rank, rate, and cateogorize learning objects in the virtual world. Items tagged with the SaLamander tool and rated highly will be included in the MERLOT learning object repository. Cool!
posted by Fleep Tuque on Teaching 2 using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]
Second Life
21
Jan 08
Wainbrave Discusses SaLamander
20
Jan 08
Hanging out in Chilbo with SL for Dummies Author!
Typewriter Tackleberry stopped by to meet mi madre, Sine, and Chilbo neighbor Rachel, and talk about the SL for Dummies book which was SOLD OUT in two stores when I tried to pick up a copy this afternoon. Finally found one on the east side though, last one! Wainbrave dropped by briefly too, good night in Chilbo!
posted by Fleep Tuque on Chilbo using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]
19
Jan 08
Fleep & Sine Listen to Cylindrian
Listening to a live concert in-world with mi madre in avatar form! w00t!
posted by Fleep Tuque on Artropolis using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]
15
Jan 08
Fleep’s Avatar in Chicago?
Nope, just attending a demo of Stephane’s Zugzwang’s Virtual Reality Room, which he is making available for free to educators! He also mentions a site that has a tutorial for making panoramic images: http://www.fromparis.com/html/technical_us_create_a_quicktime_vr_in_10mnts.php and a free software tool to stitch them together called Panotools at http://www.panotools.org/.
13
Jan 08
Second Life Travel Guide Launch Party!
Author Sean Percival (Sean Voss in SL) talks about his terrific Second Life Travel Guide, now available on Amazon at http://tinyurl.com/2a3ut4. I think this will be a great resource for new users and can’t wait to get my copy! Sean also has a companion website http://www.landmarkisland.com/ and a location in world at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Landmark%20Island/135/128/35. Terrific stuff for new users and those of us who help them!
posted by Fleep Tuque on STA Travel Orientation using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]
12
Jan 08
Reminder: Fleep Speaks at Extropia @ 1PM SLT
Just a reminder for folks who might want to attend, I’ll be speaking at Sophorosyne’s Saturday Salon in the Extropia Core sim @ 1PM SLT today. We’ll be talking about community building and education in the metaverse. Hope to see you there!
posted by Fleep Tuque on Extropia Core using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]
10
Jan 08
MediaGrid and Immersive Education
The New Media Consortium (NMC) hosts MediaGridAaron Oh of the MediaGrid project, aimed at creating a non-profit education grid – pre-made, pre- constructed educational experiences so you don’t have to go build your own Egypt, for example. Goal is an open repository of content for use by educators, like open courseware for virtual worlds. More information at http://ImmersiveEducation.org/EducationGrid/
posted by Fleep Tuque on NMC Conference Center using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]
10
Jan 08
Invitation to Extropia’s Saturday Salon
How exciting! I met Sophrosyne at last week’s Community Builders meeting and after some very engaging discussion, she invited me to come speak at Sophrosyne’s Saturday Salon in Extropia. The plan is to discuss education in virtual worlds and our community building efforts on the Mainland sim of Chilbo. Hopefully I will be joined by Chilbo’s other Land Steward, Cosimo Urbanowicz.
Join us this coming Saturday, January 12th, at 1PM SLT (PST) in Extropia Core!
02
Jan 08
Awaiting Horizon Report 2008: No Virtual Worlds
Discovered this little nugget over on the Not Possible In Real Life site. The author talks about Second Life in 2008 with Larry Pixel aka Larry Johnson, CEO of the New Media Consortium (NMC), a big mover and shaker in the educational arena of Second Life, Forseti Svarog aka Giff Constable, COO of the Electric Sheep Company, and Seifert Surface, a brilliant mathematician who created the tesseract house.
If you’ve never heard of the Horizon Report, it is a collaborative annual report from the New Media Consortium and EDUCAUSE that surveys emerging technologies that will impact education in coming years, and I highly recommend it, especially for instructional designers and others involved in educational technology.
In any event, I’ve been looking forward to the 2008 report and spotted some surprising words from NMC CEO Larry Johnson in the interview:
Larry Pixel: NMC Virtual Worlds plans a big announcement after the first of the year. It will come out first in the NMC Campus Observer, about January 10th.
Also, the NMC’s highly influential Horizon Report (75,000+ copies downloaded or purchased in hard copy in 2007) will be released in late January. The contents of the 2008 report will be announced on the wiki next week.
Notably, this will be the first year since 2005 that some form of virtual worlds is not mentioned in the Horizon Report. I am not sure if that means it is now mainstream for edu, or if it is passe, but among my Real Life constituency, there are many many established projects, and many of these are clearly reaching mainstream faculty and other groups. Within the NMC, virtual worlds are still important, but are no longer considered the set of hot emerging technologies they once were.
I’d say the 2007 Horizon Report was a key piece of ammo for me when I first approached my dean about the possibility of using Second Life at the University of Cincinnati, and I wonder if its absence in this year’s report might be a blow to later coming faculty and IT staff who are making the virtual worlds pitch at their own institutions. Hopefully there are enough reports and data from other sources in 2007 to bolster their efforts, but I’m still surprised to hear that it won’t be included in the 2008 report.
It also means I’m even more anxious to see what the 2008 report _does_ hold. Will let you know when I find out!
01
Jan 08
DynaFleur opens Jan 5th
My very good friend Douglas Story has collaborated with some of the best artists in SL, including Desdemona Enfield, Dizzy Banjo, and Poid Mahovlich, to create a wonderful new art installation opening on January 5th. If you like seeing art that is only possible in virtual worlds, check out the DynaFleur opening this coming Saturday and visit a previous piece called “Chambers and Landscapes” hosted here in the Chilbo Museum Center.
posted by Fleep Tuque on Chilbo using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]