NMC Campus Observer

Show Us Your Gadgets for Teachers Buzz

CDB Barkley (aka Alan Levine) : Feb 4, 2008 01:34am

The next NMC Campus Teachers Buzz session is going to be wild and chaotic, even more so than normal. We put out a call for educators to bring some educational SL gadgets they have created, ones they would be willing to share with other educators. We will meet on NMC Labs, our sandbox, where you should see lots of “Stuff” put out Monday, and pretty much it will be like the county fair.

When: When: Feb 4, 2007 4:00 PM PST (check for local time)
Where: NMC Labs (130, 114, 22)

Note: You will need to join NMC Guests or NMC Members group to visit this sim.

You can see a list of the stuff on the wiki that we set up for people to let us know what they can bring. So gar we have:

• StoryMachine (Graham Mills)- reads a script of commands from a notecard and displays a sequence of prims dynamically connected by particle streams, thereby telling a story. More info at http://tidalblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/dusting-off-storymachine.html
• Lucky Chair HUD - Do you want a fun way to teach students about the grid? Do you like free stuff? The Lucky Chair HUD is free, fun, and useful! Created by the Lucky Chair people, the Lucky Chair HUD indicates freebie chairs that begin with the first letter of an avatar’s name. Desideria Stockton will distribute and model the HUD.
• Lyr Lobo Goodies - Lyr emailed and said she would bring her big bag of goodies
• Butch Dae - 3D Mindmapping in SL - To make his Mindjet MindManager Pro 7 mindmaps more accessible, Butch asked builder Llanna Lane to help him bring his 2D Mindjet map into SL. She developed three representations of Butch’s mind map including an interesting 3D tubular display. The display lets avatars get the “big picture” and read node names in the static map using a 3D tube browsing tool. Avatars can actually fly around the information in the tubes.
• Simple Freeview - a simpler version of the Freeview screen made for showing only images (presentation mode or auto advance) — the video menu items have been hidden t make the interface easier to use for basic slideshows. Offered by CDB Barkley- a giver box is set up
• Picture Commenter - SL script and web site script/database structure (PHP, MySQL) for allowing avs to enter comments about an image. Comments are stored in web database and can be viewed in web as well. Last 3 comments are displayed as hover text. See web view. Offered by CDB Barkley
• Virtual Reality Room - Use and/or create your own photo-realistic VRR, can be used on any NMC or Info Island sim, created by Stephane Zugzwang. See http://sl.nmc.org/2008/01/15/vrr-demo/
• Random Avatar Picker - Device used by NMC for prize drawings- randomly displays avatar names from full list on notecard, draws one at random when owner activates selection. Created by Sendao Goodman for NMC
• English/Lakhota Dictionary - a modified SL Glossary. Instead of providing a definition for a word, the dictionary provides the Lakhota word for the English input. It is chat-driven and notecard-based. For example, in Chat, type ‘find cat’ and the glossary will answer ‘cat - igmu (hear it at [url is provided])’. The list of translated words can be found in the Glossary Help notecard (In chat, type ‘glossary help’ for the notecard to drop). To listen to the mp3 audio, click on ‘History’ of your chat. The link will be enabled then. Click on it and SL will open your browser directly to the audio file. The prim has full permission (scripts, notecards, background, etc) and is free to copy (’Take a Copy’). Modified by Willow Shenlin
• Web Browser: Culture URLs - a modified library monitor. Only a reminder how easy this notecard-based web browser can be modified for any disciplines. Change the URLs in the notecard, save; change the background picture; reset the script if needed. The web browser will now drop the menu with YOUR URLs. Full permission and free to copy (’Take a Copy’). Modified by Willow Shenlin
• Ann Enigma’s Goodies - Hilary Mason, aka Ann, is bringing some scripted goodies from her deep inventory
• Eloise Pasteur Educational Designs - Some goodies from Eloise Pasteur, some may be familiar, some are definitely new! (editor-it is very late for El’s time zone, so we do not expect her to be up in the wee hours!)

There may even be more stuff. Come and check it out

Story filed under: Teacher's Buzz, Teaching and Learning, What's Happening

See all stories by CDB Barkley (aka Alan Levine)