reported by NMC Virtual Worlds July 2nd, 2009
Our first installment of Virtual Worlds Expeditions took place yesterday and was undoubtedly a huge success - nearly 70 avatars joined us for our tour of two Yale projects. We were also fortunate enough to be joined by Ken Panko and Themba Flowers of Yale to provide some excellent behind the scenes information on planning the virtual world projects and answer the many enthusiastic questions from our participants.
Our first stop on the expedition brought us to the virtual version of the Seeley Mudd Library, which was built by CJ Carnot (Chris Holden) from NMC Virtual Worlds as a vehicle for collaboration between Librarians and other staff that share the real world space. By using a number of scripted interior elements, Chris created a place in which the individuals that would use the building after the remodel could participate in the redesign process through a simple, menu driven dialogue.
For more information on this project, check out the information for Ken and Themba’s session at the 2009 NMC Summer Conference in June.
or
Our recently published case study about the Mudd Library project in Second Life on the NMC Virtual Worlds portfolio site.
If you missed the expedition, you can still check out the space at this SLURL.
Our next stop brought us to the Elihu Paper Mill, which was built as a cost effective and safer alternative to visiting a real Paper Mill while still highlighting the different processes involved in making paper on a scale that can be related to. According to our participants, the only thing missing from the experience is the smell (which apparently is not especially pleasant, anyway!)
For more on the Elihu Paper Mill, check out the information from the aptly named Summer Conference session:
or
Our own Elihu Paper Mill case study, including a link to a machinima piece of one of the faculty lead field trips:
Also, visit the project inworld at this SLURL.
If you have any questions for Themba Flowers or Ken Panko about their projects, you can contact them at themba.flowers at yale.edu and ken.panko at yale.edu, respectively.
As always, questions, comments, and additional insights are welcome in the comments of this post or to NMC Virtual Worlds directly at chris at nmc.org or beth at nmc.org.
If you captured an images during the event, please tag them with “VWEx”! We hope to see you for future VWEx sessions on the first Wednesday of every month!
If you are interested in obtaining a chat transcript of the event, you can do so with the link below:
July VWEx Chat Transcript
Originally published at NMC Virtual Worlds
published July 2nd, 2009 at 09:38am
Department(s): Resources & Information
reported by NMC Virtual Worlds June 23rd, 2009
Are you interested in learning about places in Second Life that are more than pretty buildings? We are starting a new monthly informal group here at NMC Virtual Worlds where we will lead expeditions to some of the more immersive experiences.
Join myself and CJ for Virtual Worlds Expeditions (VWEx) that will take place the first Wednesday of each month (see below for time and place). The first few trips we have lined up include recent projects we have completed. First up, for Wednesday July 1 (check local time) we are taking a trip to Yale University, where we will visit two exciting projects- the Yale Paper Mill and the Mudd Library. Our colleagues from Yale will be present to discuss the project and how they are being used now.
cc licensed flickr photo shared by NMC Virtual Worlds
The Yale University Paper Mill was designed to give students an experience in industrial production processes at a facility that would normally be too dangerous or unfeasible to visit. he virtual paper mill serves as a substitute for student field trips and features accurate modeling of real world machinery and equipment, with all the sights and sounds (sorry no smell yet) of a paper mill.
cc licensed flickr photo shared by NMC Virtual Worlds
While the virtual Mudd Library is a replica of an existing building, it does things in Second Life you cannot do in real life. This virtual tool was created to allow people to explore ways of redesigning an existing structure that was due for renovation- All three floors are open space where you can add windows, doors, walls, and furniture to envision a new library. When done, you can generate a digital copy of the new floor plans.
To promote a participatory design process, it was proposed to create a virtual model that the future occupants could actually plan themselves, allowing for the fact that they had little or no experience in either architectural design.
If you are interested in joining this expedition, meet at 10:00 AM PT (check local time) at NMC Campus (we will leave teleporters there if you miss the start of the tour).
Originally published at NMC Virtual Worlds
published June 23rd, 2009 at 07:32am
Department(s): Resources & Information
reported by NMC Virtual Worlds June 16th, 2009
NMC Conference Program: The Metalic Version, originally uploaded by cogdogblog.
We’re back from the 2009 NMC Conference in Monterey, California and as with every year it was an incredibly engaging experience. While every year allows us to meet individuals with Second Life projects on the horizon and those we’ve collaborated with throughout the year, it is always an extreme pleasure to see what is going on in other realms of new media education. As with the rest of NMC, the NMC Virtual Worlds project is committed to pushing the boundaries of innovative uses of technology for learners and educators and absolutely no virtual world developer on earth could have a better organization in which to feed and fuel that dedication.
A few favorite moments:
* Exploring the concept of a learner’s “suck threshold” as Kathy Sierra so eloquently outlined to us in her keynote.This concept is one that is particularly poignant and will be lasting throughout the year for me as a Virtual World Developer! I will continually be asking myself how to create virtual environments that move learners from a noobie avatar to an engaged, involved, collaborator before they feel discouraged by the sometimes complex notions of virtual spaces. We’ve often discussed how important it is to remove finer grain technical aspects from a Second Life educational experience so that the real learning is in the content, but somehow the “suck threshold” strikes a stronger more encompassing chord!
* The marachi version of Star Wars’ “Catinia Song” shared with us by Marco Torres during his keynote session, which subsequently stayed in my head the entire day!
* Meeting the Adobe Training staff and realizing what a waste of CS3 Master Collection it is that I am focusing only on Photoshop!
* The absolutely amazing pictures produced by the Point Lobos Photo Workshop lead by Bill Frakes and Don Henderson.
* A conversation with Jared Bendis of Case Western Reserve University and Ruben Puentedura of Hippasus in which a highly intriguing idea bout Second Life evolved: Would Second Life be more engaging if your presence or lack thereof effected the environment in sustained projects? I can’t wait to find a way to put this concept into action this year.
* Doug Engelbart: Inventor of the mouse! I couldn’t possibly think of a better candidate for this year’s Fellows Award.
* Bryan Alexander’s (NITLE) session on Gaming on the Liberal Arts Campus. I’ll admit it, I attended mostly for personal reasons as an active gamer, but the concepts and ideas thrown discussed were not so far removed from things that we experience everyday in virtual worlds development. For instance, the methods of assessments being based not on how well one plays the game (interacts with the world), but based on the critical analysis of the experience within. While we’ve been saying for years now that “Second Life is not a game” (the argument even arose in this session!), I am ready to throw up a white flag and continue absorbing all the information I can in anticipation of a truce on the horizon once the two are less mistaken for each other. Another bonus to this session: I added a few new books for the summer including Bryan Alexander’s “Gaming in Education”, “Videogames and Education” by Harry J. Brown, and “Understanding Comics” by Scott Mcleod.
As soon as we have a chance to catch our barings, I’ll be posting more information on NMC Virtual World’s session, “How to do an Educational Build in Second Life”. For now, I’m happy to be back home to the good old virtual world!
Originally published at NMC Virtual Worlds
published June 16th, 2009 at 03:42pm
Department(s): Resources & Information
reported by CDB Barkley (aka Alan Levine) June 11th, 2009
My humble apologies for those logging in earlier to NMC Campus to catch the opening keynote for the NMC 2009 Summer Conference. We… er I had a snafu and forgot to trigger one more switch to transmit the streams until the keynote was half way over. Many folks did find their way to the stream live on the web.
We do have everything lined up correctly now to broadcast the remaining sessions. The best place to gather is at the Babbage Amphitheater (SLURL).
Friday, June 12 9:00am - 10:00am PT (check local time SLURL: Babbage Amphitheater) Friday Plenary - It’s not About Clicking and Dragging! It’s not About Blogging, Podcasting, Web 2.0′in! (Marco Torres).
Friday, June 12 4:15pm - 5:30pm PT Five Minutes of Fame (check local time SLURL: Babbage Amphitheater)
Saturday, June 13 10:00am - 11:45am PT (check local time) SLURL: Babbage Amphitheater) Closing Plenary — Center of Excellence Awards and Fellows Award with Special Tribute to Douglas Engelbart
Please join us in world!
published June 11th, 2009 at 01:47pm
Department(s): Campus Headlines
Tags: nmc2009
reported by NMC Campus Calendar June 11th, 2009
Three Featured artists with a variety of mediums and art forms. In this exhibit you will find the real life paintings of Filthy Fluno, virtual static sculpture by Red Randt as well as virtual ever changing sculpture by Maryva Mayo. Stop in and get to know these talented artists and ask them about their RL [...]
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published June 11th, 2009 at 05:25am
Department(s): What's Happening
reported by CDB Barkley (aka Alan Levine) June 3rd, 2009
Next week is the 2009 NMC Summer Conference, this year taking place at Monterey, California. The agenda features a number of virtual worlds sessions, and there is still time to register if you can find your way there.
Since we recognize that due to budget cuts, many people are not able to attend our conference, so this week we have been pulling out the stops to step up the amount of live video we will be able to stream from the conference. We are excited to announce that we will be piping live video of the plenary and main sessions into the NMC Conference Center in Second Life. Attendance is free and open to the education community, thus to the first 65 or so avatars that find their way there.
You can catch the sessions listed below at the Babbage Amphitheater (SLURL).
Maybe if you peek real hard into the water, you might find some whales flopping around. We are asking some of the in-person conference attendees to log in so they can relay information to and fro.
Live Streamed Sessions from NMC 2009
Thursday, June 11 9:00am - 10:15am PT (check local time SLURL: Babbage Amphitheater) Opening Plenary — Creating Passionate Learners (Kathy Sierra)
Is there one thing that you really wanted to be good at but didn’t get there? Everyone wants to be better at something, but in this fast paced 2.0 world, who has the time? With a little help from science, entertainment and technology, we can help ourselves and our learners survive the “I am no good at this” phase, break out of intermediate ruts, and get to the deeper, richer, high-res experiences that come with being really GOOD at something.
As educators, we want to take better advantage of how the brain works to reach our learners at a deep emotional level that inspires their enthusiasm and participation. We will look at the lessons learned from the organizations and individuals who’ve succeeded at turning on the hearts and brains of their users and pinpoint how these techniques can work in higher education.
Friday, June 12 9:00am - 10:00am PT (check local time SLURL: Babbage Amphitheater) Friday Plenary - It’s not About Clicking and Dragging! It’s not About Blogging, Podcasting, Web 2.0′in! (Marco Torres).
It’s about teaching and learning. Or, learning and teaching. In this “flattening” world, we are required to be more creative, more flexible, more community based. However, teachers — the world still needs GOOD, empathetic, ingenuous educators, a teacher, a Yoda! Yeah, you! The kids, more than ever, need us! Multimedia is a language to our students. If we’re smart and ready, we can use it to be very academic and very rigorous (and have fun along the way, too). If we use multimedia right, we can empower in ways that we never imagined. Turn your classroom into a stage, a studio, and a community and HURRY! The kids are waiting for you to catch up!
Friday, June 12 4:15pm - 5:30pm PT Five Minutes of Fame (check local time SLURL: Babbage Amphitheater)
Five Minutes of Fame, an annual NMC event, allows academic members to show off their latest new media projects. At every Five Minutes of Fame demonstration, selected members are given five minutes each to highlight innovations of all sorts, from multimedia and web-based projects, to course modules and newly invented or adapted tools, to student portfolios and collaborations with off-campus groups. In each fast-paced session, you’ll see numerous examples of the exciting work your NMC colleagues are doing.
- Building Community out of Online Professional Development
- Creative Web Tools For and By Kids
- Documentary is the New Black: Filmic Textbooks in the 21st Century Classroom
- Good! ¡Bien! ¡Ütz! Maya Language Learning from Guatemala to Tulane
- Jones Media Center, How do I….?
- Library On A Stick and On the Air
- The NMC’s Hakone Project: New Life for Second Life
- Taking Digital Stories on the Road
- Talking to Our Computers? Transcribing Interviews at 2:1!
- Teaching the Elephant to Walk Itself: Self-Generating Pachyderm
Saturday, June 13 10:00am - 11:45am PT (check local time) SLURL: Babbage Amphitheater) Closing Plenary — Center of Excellence Awards and Fellows Award with Special Tribute to Douglas Engelbart
Join us for the closing plenary session where NMC will award the Center of Excellence Awards to three of NMC’s most deserving members, followed by the presentation of the 2009 NMC Fellows Award to Douglas Engelbart. A special tribute to Dr. Engelbart will celebrate his many accomplishments and contributions to the fields of information technology and multimedia.
So join us virtually for NMC 2009 (and if you take any inworld photos, please tag them in flickr as nmc2009
published June 3rd, 2009 at 10:54pm
Department(s): Campus Headlines& What's Happening
reported by NMC Virtual Worlds June 2nd, 2009
So, thanks to Alan, Beth & I have been given a voice outside of the virtual world which we hope to use on a regular basis to tell you about what we’re working on and maybe even offer some tips along the way. This being the week before the annual NMC Summer Conference, we’re actually busy preparing our pre-conference session for that, so there’s not a lot of building going on which is unusual for us! That said we spent a couple of days building a pavillion for Linden Lab’s upcoming land expo.
I’ll say at the start, this is not a grand and exciting piece of architecture, but a simple plaza featuring some display boards with an entertaining little secret - if you get the chance, do visit it and wander among them. It’s apt though, as I prepare for our session, because although I’m an architect, I’ll spend some time considering the appropriateness of ‘buildings’ in the virtual world, and the fact that although our first instinct is to start throwing up walls and roofs, they’re not necessarily the best solution to a problem, and with imagination and a defined goal, a ‘build’ can be almost anything you want it to be. If you’re coming to Monterey, I’m looking forward to seeing you there!
Finally, as these blogs were meant to be more than dry missives on our work, let me tell you what I’m listening to this week! 30 years ago in the age of punk this album would have been recorded on a cheap tape recorder, but being the age of digital media (see, it has nmc relevance!), it was free software and a mac + a drum, a ukulele and the incredible voice of Merrill Garbus aka Tune-Yards. Since she released it free on her website, she’s been picked up by a record label and performed at SxSW in Austin, Texas as well as a couple of music festivals in the UK. It’s deliberately primitive and lo-fi but this aesthetic only serves to highlight her soul and talent, don’t be fooled, there’s some serious music going on underneath it all with influences ranging from the folk of Woody Guthrie, the soul of Nina Simone, traditional African singing to the no-wave noise of Sonic Youth. I like Regina Spektor well enough, but this is the real thing, laid bare, and the most inspirational stuff I’ve heard this year.
http://vimeo.com/3790320
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-OtNMyufe8&feature=related
The album ‘Bird-Brains’ is available on iTunes.
Originally published at NMC Virtual Worlds
published June 2nd, 2009 at 04:34am
Department(s): Resources & Information
reported by NMC Virtual Worlds May 27th, 2009
Hello, World!, originally uploaded by stellacostello.
I’m Beth Sachtjen (aka Stella Costello) from NMC Virtual Worlds. You’ll be hearing a lot more from me in the future as I blog here straight from flickr or otherwise. I’m excited to be able to bring you a window into what I do with NMC Virtual Worlds and offer a “behind the scenes” look at just how it is I spend my day. While my time might not be as vast as my list of things that I’d like to share, among the things I have planned are tips, trick, and how-tos and introductions to some of the folks I meet everyday around the NMC Campus in Second Life.
Originally published at NMC Virtual Worlds
published May 27th, 2009 at 10:03am
Department(s): Resources & Information
reported by NMC Campus Calendar May 18th, 2009
Global Agenda 2009-Tinderbox-Understanding The Middle East
Date & Time: May 20, 2009 - 4:30-6:00 PT (7:30pm ET)
This week #7 of 7: Fueling the Flames: the Politics of Oil
Speaker: Jon B. Alterman - director and senior fellow of the Center for Strategic & International Studies Middle East Program
Location: http://slurl.com/secondlife/University%20of%20Delaware/56/150/26
For Questions or TP help: Firery Broome
This is a [...]
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published May 18th, 2009 at 08:30am
Department(s): What's Happening
reported by NMC Campus Calendar May 12th, 2009
The University of Delaware Women’s Studies faculty invite you to join them and their students for the unveiling of the capstone oral history project, “Latinas Speak Out!”
A juried exhibit featuring short video documentaries by University of Delaware Women’s Studies graduating seniors opens Thursday, May 14, at 1:00 p.m. EST (10:00 a.m. SLT).
The three-minute films highlight [...]
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published May 12th, 2009 at 06:18am
Department(s): What's Happening
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