Well, my Second Life talking friends, you can have that too with the Second Life Lipsync Viewer. This is a set of files you download and replace in your original Second Life application (see the bottom of the docs page and the Readme that comes with the download).

Now your lips move with the volume of your voice! Here is a brief test (it did not work with my dog avatar, so I had to play a human)

Read My Lips

If you like this, vote for it to be rolled into the regular viewer.

At the April 2008 NMC Symposium on Mashups, we showed the winners of the 2007 contest (the archive is available for viewing); this is your chance to see the newest collection that we announced just a few weeks ago.

When: May 14, at 12:00pm PDT (check local time)
Where: NMC Conference Center, Babbage Amphitheater

Plenty of good seats are available and we will provide free popcorn!

As children everywhere tap into the new digital playground through gaming, mobile devices and the Internet, educators, researchers, policymakers and high-tech industry leaders are joining forces to examine how these latest technologies are shaping the education of today’s children. Galvanizing this effort is the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop, an independent, not for profit research institute named for Sesame Street’s visionary founder. Today, Center executives announced plans to host a May 9 symposium in New York, “Logging into the Playground: How Digital Media are Shaping Children’s Learning.” This first ever, invitation-only event will explore how digital media can improve children’s literacy, learning and development.

More info…

You can join Global Kids in world to watch the symposium on NMC Campus at the amphitheater on Teaching (110,113,22)

Contact in world Rhiannon Chatnoir for more about this event and look for further details on the Global Kids web site

But given the continued expansion of educational places, events, and over all activity in Second Life, we thought it would be useful to redo the survey again 2008, so maybe we can see what changed (or not). So we just sat down to the survey machine, twiddled some knobs and…

We announce today the opening of the NMC 2008 Educators in Second Life Survey, which you can take now by going to:
http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/?p=WEB227S75R6YXA

Please share the survey link far and wide, as we hope to get a larger sample this time around. We will keep the survey open at least til the end of May 2008 and we will again publish the results to the NMC Campus Observer and the NMC web site.

Thanks for helping us learn more!

As part of an event atClever Zebra’s vBusiness Expo, in this interview, Metanomics host Robert Bloomfield asked Larry about the NMC’s Virtual worlds programs and then discussed more on Larry’s recent experience testifying before the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet of the US Congress.

You can find
audio recording

and

video recording

of this interview plus soon a transcript, at http://metanomics.net/larry-johnson

“U Pacific” is a based on the real campus area around Burns Tower. For those at the university, you can meet at Pacific Theater for a live demonstration and virtual ribbon cutting of the Pacific campus. Elizabeth Griego will officiate the ceremony. For all attendees, a virtual dance party with live DJ will follow.

Mass Collaboration and the Future of Higher Education
keynote by Anthony Williams

When: May 8, 2008 8:45am SLT/PDT (check local time).
Where: Kelvin Smith Library Amphitheater in ClevelandPlus (184,107,24)

These other sessions will also be live streamed (see the full program for more detail) - times here are PDT:

• 6:00 – 6:45am LinkedCommunities — Case Western Reserve, OneCommunity, and the Community Wireless Mesh Project
• 7:00 – 7:45am Learning 2.0: Making Sense of the explosion of Web 2.0 tools and their relevance and consequence in Higher Education
• 8:00 – 8:45am Rich Media and Participatory Culture - The Experience of YouTube and iTunes in Higher Education
• 9:00 – 9:45am New Frontiers in Video-Based Collaboration: Adobe Connect and Lifesize
• 8:45 – 10:45am President’s Address: Barbara R. Snyder, President, Case Western Reserve University
  Keynote Address - Speaker: Anthony Williams, Co-Author of Wikinomics, Mass Collaboration and the Future of Higher Education
• 11:00 – 11:45am Virtual Worlds and the New Frontiers of Learning — From SecondLife to Wonderland
• 12:00 – 12:45pm Panel Discussion: Collaboration Technology - What’s Next: Bold Predictions, Cautionary Notes and Take Away Lessons

We look forward to seeing you there. During the simulcast the ClevelandPlus Islands will be open to the public. If you have any questions please IM Susanne Patrono or Aimee Later in world.

Monday May 5, 2008, 11am PST: Gene Yoon, VP of Business Affairs and architect of the Second Life Economy, provides his view of inworld commerce. Can you figure out which part of the interview made a Danish investment banker want to cry?

• When: Monday, May 5 at 11:00am PST (check local time)
• Where: Amphitheater on Outreach (87, 125, 34) (no group membership is required to teleport)

Tuesday May 6, 2008, 3pm PST: Find out the answer to which part of the interview made a Danish investment banker want to cry in Metanomics Rewind, when we see the followup panel discussion, Virtual Finance and the Reality of the Linden Dollar, with with inworld financiers Arbitrage Wise and IntLibber Brautigan, Saxo Bank’s Jillian Falconi and David Karsbol, and journalist Gigs Taggart.

• When: Tuesday, May 6 at 3:00pm PST (check local time)
• Where: Amphitheater on Outreach (87, 125, 34) (no group membership is required to teleport)

You will want to join the Metanomics group in SL so you can participate in the group IM that goes on during the live sessions.

For past events, see the Metanomics video archive from SLCN.tv.

Finally, after some of the snarky television response to the April 2008 Virtual Worlds congressional testimony, check out the The Metanomics Colbert Challenge

Robert Bloomfield and Metanomics will host a special event as part of Clever Zebra’s vBusiness Expo. Rob will interview Dr. Larry Johnson, CEO of New Media Consortium, who recently testified to the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet of the US Congress.

Here is some recommended reading for this week:

1. Read about NMC’s four major initiatives and international projects.
2. Read about Johnson’s testimony, or watch the webcast.
3. Learn more about Clever Zebra’s 4-day vBusiness Expo, which will hold events on virtual workplace, virtual education, virtual marketing, and virtual commerce.

• When: Friday, April 25 at 11:00am PST (check local time)
• Where: Amphitheater on Outreach (87, 125, 34) (no group membership is required to teleport)

You will want to join the Metanomics group in SL so you can participate in the group IM that goes on during the live sessions.

For past events, see the Metanomics video archive from SLCN.tv.

In the interview, Larry talks about his testimony to Congress including his observations how the House Subcomittee took in the information about virtual worlds. He also talks about the NMC’s Horizon Project and some future plans of NMC in virtual worlds.

Listen to Virtual World Go To Congress.

What is RezEd?

According to Barry Joseph,

Global Kids is proud to launch the open BETA of RezEd, the new online hub providing practitioners using virtual worlds with access to the highest quality resources and research in the field to establish a strong network of those using virtual worlds for learning.

We launch with May focused on the theme of educational virtual worlds, with new themes each month.

No matter the theme, each month we will feature inter-related podcasts (along with full text transcription), brief best practice reports, digital resources in the library, and featured blog posts, updated weekly.

RezEd is proud to launch with a special focus on virtual worlds having had their day in Congress earlier this month. Listen to the podcast interview with Larry Johnson, CEO of the New Media Consortium, as he describes he experience testifying in Congress, read his and the other testimonies submitted that day, watch the full video of the hearings, and respond to this week’s featured blog asking what YOU would have told or asked Congress.

Please come join this unique community at http://www.rezed.org/