NMC Campus Observer

NMC Teachers Buzz: Check Out Student Art Projects at Otis Island

CDB Barkley (aka Alan Levine) : Feb 17, 2008 09:25pm

It’s time for another NMC Campus Teachers Buzz field trip! On Monday, join us at Otis Island, home of Otis College of Art & Design, as Mags Writer (a.k.a Otis faculty member Michael Wright) will show us the projects his students recently completed in Second Life.

Mags Writer is hosting the next NMC Campus Teachers Buzz- a trip to Otis Island

As he describes it:

Otis College of Art and Design associate professor Michael Wright took three Classes of Otis digital sophomore students into the virtual world of Second Life where they developed and created content based on a class-developed theme.

The project, which was created on the Otis Island in Second Life, required team building, out of the box creative thinking, introducing students to working with 3d & 2d virtual tools, working with a budget (3000 lindens per class), and working with a limited amount of building blocks (3100 primitives per class). Each team/class developed a production pipeline and a theme for there area. Three hours of in-class time and 10 hours of outside of class time were devoted to this project. None of the 55 students had second life experience.

They were required to learn proprietary software to engage in the process. The process required students to create and design their own personal avatar. After creating the avatar each had to manage to get to Otis Island at an assigned time. At the island they were given brief introduction to movement, flying and building. The production pipeline began with brainstorming sessions. Once the themes were established the teams went to work creating content for their individual areas. The themes developed were “Heaven and Hell”, “Pirates and Atlantis” and “Lost World and Mythology”.

When: Monday, February 18, 2007 9:00am PST (check for local time)
Where: Otis Island (128, 128, 0)

Your NMC host and contact for this Buzz session is Ninmah Ash.

To give you a taste of what Mags has done, we met up with him last week for an NMC Campus Studio One interview where he shared a bit about the unique programs at Otis College of Art & Design, how he got into Second Life, and how this first project with students fared (and their reaction to the project). In summary, he took his students through
a project design and production process, working as teams on the themes outlined above.

Interview with Mags Writer (20.4 Mb MP3, 22:15)

See a comprehensive summary of Michael Wright’ work on the Otis web site which includes evaluation from the students as well as their comments.

Otis Gallery in Second Life, modeled after a real building on campus that was built originally for IBM (note the punch card motif). Inside, the SL version, you will find ongoing exhibitions of student work

In this session, we will assemble at Otis Island so Mags can tell us a bit more about what is available to see here, then you will go and explore the student projects, and return for some followup discussion.