VECoP

Is anybody still using it?

2008-04-27T12:14:00.002Z

I just wondered if anybody much is still using Secondlife in a meaningful way?

Andy Roberts

Awards for educational use of virtual worlds

2007-12-03T08:52:00.000Z

Edublogs are running awards for the best educational use of virtual worlds. You can vote at http://edublogawards.com/2007/best-educational-use-of-a-virtual-world-2007/.

The shortlisted entries are:

Edtech Island
Jokadia Island
Schome Park
Second Life in Education
Suffern middle school in Second Life

The links give the SLURLs or blogs so you can see what is going on.

They are also running other awards for details see my post over at RedGloo.

VAT and Second Life

2007-10-01T14:27:00.000Z

A few days ago I had, via my SPAM box, an email from purporting to be from Linden saying:

"We have identified that you reside in a European country. Accordingly, your next bill will reflect Value Added Tax (VAT) charged at the rate specified by your country."

There is a load of discussion about this going on over at: http://blog.secondlife.com/2007/09/28/questions-about-vat/

Apparently it is a real message.

Quite a few people on the blog are saying they hadn't received the email, I suspect Linden need to think about where they are sending such mail from and then we can add it to our White Lists.

SLTweets HUD

2007-09-30T18:54:00.000Z

Rosie and I met today just for a quickie and she asked me about the new SLTweet HUD. Yes, I can confirm that is is very easy to write your 140 character tweets from in world!
SLTweets Second Life Twitter and Research Hud

Education in Second Life

2007-09-20T19:52:00.000Z

I went to a meeting today in Real Life about Education in Second Life. I’ve written a fuller report over at http://redgloo.sse.reading.ac.uk/ssswills/weblog/1674.html.

But there was one really spectacular project called Theatron where they produce in-world models of theatres correct in detail. They even have to advise peopleto re-size their avatars – as apparently most people have avatars which are the equivalent to 7 foot tall!

The SLURL for their island is: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Theatron/183/23/48

Coventry Island Launch

2007-09-13T16:40:00.000Z

Several of us went to the launch of the Coventry University Island.
It was great fun - they have a nice island, lots of potential.
I've blogged in more detail over at http://redgloo.sse.reading.ac.uk/ssswills/weblog/, there are also some photos on flickr (either by the above blog or http://www.flickr.com/search/show/?q=coventry&w=56786265%40N00 may work :))

Goal

2007-08-19T16:42:00.000Z

I have added a new goal to my 43 Things: Visit Places in Second Life.
My motivation for this is: I have got a small amount of money to set up Community of Practice at my university to investigate educational possibilities of virtual worlds.
I thought an interesting goal related to this would be to set myself the goal of visiting 50 different places or events in Second Life. A visit should last at least 30 minutes, preferably longer. Having visited I will write a blog entry for the visit or event. I'm going to use the tag 50SL for these entries for pictures in Flickr and on my blog.
If you think it might be fun add it as your own goal, and use the tag 50SL, and we should be able to RSS them together.

Merlot conference on Boracay

2007-08-10T20:42:00.001Z

Merlot conference on Boracay
Originally uploaded by netopNyrop

Today, Bee Dieu was giving a keynote session at the Merlot edtech conference in New Orleans. She was on site , and part of the onliners were in Alado while others met in Second Life,and the Worldbridge people were webcasting this mixed mode session. I had to restrict myself to stay in Second Life as my other computer was not cooperative with neither SL nor Alado. Many good Webheads were present, as well as people from the TALO and also from CPsquare; many of us are indeed multimembers in this networked world of online communities

'Bee opened a wikispace at http://merlot.wikispaces.com

Multiverse

2007-08-05T20:28:00.000Z

I saw an article on TechCrunch about Multiverse (http://www.multiverse.net) and thought I should check it out.
Multiverse was started back in 2004 by a group of “Netscape veterans”.
Their aim was to develop a new sort of games platform that allows “indie” developers to create their own games. Multiverse provides a range of tools and contents to help in the games development. Game players only need one client to access any Multiverse game.
Games developers run their games on their own server, if they are not charging users then the use of Multiverse is free, otherwise the usual model will be to pay 10% of gross revenue, or to make an upfront payment.
There area number of sample games to try. I’ve succeeded in downloading the client on to my tablet PC, but I haven’t got any of the games I tried to actually run, I get quite a long way along and get an application error or the like.
The whole idea sounds great, and I will persevere in trying it so I can get a proper view.

Microsoft in Second Life

2007-07-12T20:58:00.001Z

I had another visit the Microsoft Imagine Cup site in Second Life. Caroline Phillips and Miel Van Opstal have set up a nice location and a good event. Miel has blogged about the island over at http://micromiel.com/2007/06/25/sneak-preview

The theme for this year's Imagine Cup is education (“Imagine a world where technology enables a better education for all” - http://imaginecup.com), Reading had teams in various challenges, our Web Development team: Rediverse did ever so well, especially considering they were first years. The SL Island is dedicated to the Software Development challenge entries from across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Caroline (Imagine Nishi) invited me to go along today as some of the teams were attending to show off their videos of their products and meet each other.

I got there to find quite a few people wandering a round. I had a chat with a guy from Portugal who told me about there entry which was to educate about cookery, I love that idea, and I wondered if the team knew about my object oriented cake examples.

I then met a guy who had an avatar called: "Creative Janus", he was from UAE, and their team had a very cool video that showed off their software that was going to save me time by allowing mobile learning. He (well I assume he was a "he") and some very snazzy shorts on, most of the avatars were new to SL and were wearing fairly standard newbie clothes, this outfit certainly stood out.

I went round and watched a few more videos and powerpoints. The ones I liked the best were those that told me about the products and a little about the team.

Imagine Nishi then introduced me to the Italian team, their mentor was part of the winning team last year. I had a long chat with them and watched their video, we also met a woman from Germany, who was part of the team that set up the blog site (I can't post there because I'm not a competitor L).

I then had a quick visit to the dance floor and then it was time to go.

I'll put my pics up on Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/ssswills/) with the tags:
imaginecup secondlife vecop

Communicate without those annoying graphics

2007-07-10T12:48:00.000Z

Avoid lag, experience

Secondlife in your web browser

This is a great way to pop in-world for a moment if you just want to chat with other residents, and as far as anybody else will be able to tell your avatar will look just fine

A trip to the Holodeck

2007-07-05T21:32:00.001Z

I met up with Sus in SL and she has bought a holodeck. There are apparently 25 locations to visit. We had a go on the space shuttle, including the experience of weightlessness; then some where more picturesque.

Sus and I had a bit of a gossip. Someone remarked when we are in RL we talk about SL and when we are in SL we talk about RL.

Microsoft in Second Life in more detail

2007-06-30T17:00:00.001Z

I now have visited the Microsoft Island in Second Life three times and thought I should reflect a bit more about the experience.

On the launch night I had difficulty getting to the island. Second Life kept saying it couldn't get me to the island and that it had teleported me nearby. Nearby was in fact miles away. I managed to hop to a nearer location and then teleport in. The lag was very bad, I chatted to a bloke from Norway who said he couldn't move for 5 minutes. I managed to pick up a free Imagine Cup T shirt (I was the only person I saw wearing one).

I had a bit of a mooch around and then headed over to the stage for the Natalie Moody concert. I was very impressed by that, I liked the music and there was a good atmosphere in the arena. The concert was followed by dancing. Dancing was easy; all I needed to do was click the floor and accept the dance steps. I do wonder how many people at the event were there because it was the Imagine Cup event and how many because it was a free concert.

The next afternoon I visited with a colleague (Futura) and we had a quick look at the facilities. There were a load of humming birds about, and they seem to be attracted to avatars, they were very annoying and so we decided to leave.

I returned in the evening for a bit of a longer look round. The island was much less busy but still suffering from lag. I was propositioned by a guy in an evening suit who thought I might like to visit another venue: "No thanks I've come to look at the IC stuff". The annoying humming birds were still around. I picked up details of a challenge (effectively an Easter Egg hunt), I was told the first egg was in area 10, which is the area which includes the UK. I didn't have much look in 10:

I couldn't get the video for the UK team to stream;
There was an invite to blog about my experience, but although I could read other people's blogs, there appeared to be no way to post;
Nor could I see an egg anywhere, having organised a treasure hunt in Boracay a few months back I thought I knew about where to look for things but obviously I can't find eggs!

I'll probably go back and see if I can get some of the other videos to stream, I would like to see the UK team as I saw them at the UK finals in Reading and it would be good to know how they are progressing.

Microsoft in Second Life

2007-06-28T21:12:00.000Z

Microsoft have opened an island in Second Life and have linked the launch to an Imagine cup event (see http://www.microsoft.com/emea/presscentre/SecondLife/default.mspx) the island is open until early August and is worth a visit.

There was a concert by Natalie Moody.

Followed by dancing.

1st European SecondLife conference Berlin

2007-06-26T12:00:00.000Z

Experience a conference where virtual meets real life.
Encounter potentialities for businesses and learning environments in a virtual life.
Engage in political and social real-life discussions and the effect of political and social decisions on the virtual life.

The conference will consist of a one-day workshop followed by a two-day conference featuring interactive sessions and workshops revolving around Business & Marketing, Education, Art, Design & Scripting and Community & Citizenship. Keynote presentations will also be a highlight of the conference as well as evening entertainment programs.

The event will take place in Berlin, Germany, from September 16 – 18, 2007.

http://www.slconference.eu/

SecondLife the movie

2007-06-24T18:30:00.000Z

What do you do when there is no internet conection in the conference area but you really feel like playing SecondLife with your friends?

Virtual worlds, real learning?

2007-05-11T07:52:00.000Z

Yesterday I attended the Eduserv Foundation's symposium entitled; "Virtual worlds, real learning?" The event was quickly oversubscribed, and they appeared to have limited attendance to one person from the majority of institutions.

The event ran in real life (at the Congress Centre in central London) and at a couple of place in Second Life (SL). There was a limited communication between us and them, as we were discouraged from running SL as it would certainly have led to bandwidth problems. We could however see them and watch what they typed (well I could as I positioned myself near to a screen).

Following the opening remarks the first session was a presentation by Jim Purbrick (Babbage Linden), he talked about SL and its potential, it was probably a good overview for people without in- world experience.

The second talk was by Roo Reynolds of IBM. I knew what of their work – I have visited the Sear's shop; but it was interesting to hear of other things they were doing. There area few links that look worth checking out: http://eightbar.co.uk/ and http://www.rooreynolds.com/. He also mentioned a SL area for learning about SOA – will have to check out where that is.

The third talk was Holyrood Park – an initiative from Edinburgh University to set up a virtual campus. Good to see a traditional university taking such an initative.

Lunch was interesting (the SL folks didn't get lunch) I talked to a few groups about their plans and work.

The next talk was by Joanna Scott about Nature's use of SL – they have an island Second Nature. Essentially they are experimenting, but from their point of view it is a small investment and potentially a huge area.

Then came Gilly Salmon, of Leicester. I had attended a keynote speech by Gilly at iLearn Paris, and not surprisingly most of what she said in London was a subset of the talk in Paris.

The final speaker of the day was Stephen Downes (http://www.downes.ca/) – he took a view that SL wasn't the way forward, with the problems of commercial ownership and that it wasn't really Web 2.0. He was very entertaining.

Then there was a panel session. This included all the speakers, and introduced Sarah de Fraitis (who wrote the JISC report on Immersive Worlds). Sarah spoke for about 5 minutes about her work, she has just taken up a post of Director of Research at the Serious Games Institute in Coventry. Then questions were taken from both audiences. The questions were largely aimed at Jim on aspects of SL, particularly on open sourcing.

The event finished with a drink receptions, a time to network. I fixed a meeting with Stephen Warburton (Kings College London), he had done a lot of work on recent proposals we were involved in and we have some ideas for the future.

Bridge Building

2007-04-27T10:39:00.000Z

In preparation for next week's event can you try to build a simple bridge. My directions below may help!
If you have problems call me.
--

Making a very simple bridge in Second Life

To do this you need to know how to rez and edit objects, if you don't there are lots of "Basic Building" classes in world.

Make a box that is 0.5x3.0x0.5, call it base1, note its position (for example mine was 46.267, 105.39, 299.5)
Make a second box the same size, call it base2, and position it 9 metres away on the x axis (mine ended up at 55.267)
Make a third box that is 10x3x0.1, called bridge.
Position it so that it rests between the two bases (I did it by positioning mine at 50.767, 105.39,299.75)
Link by selecting base1, base2 and then bridge and doing ctrl L

You now have a very simple bridge, to ensure others can change it etc, select allow any one can move, and copy.

You can save your bridge to your inventory, remember to delete any you have created.

NMC online conference in SL, May 25

2007-04-14T14:43:00.000Z

Sus Nyrop posted this over at CPSquare - I thought since she said "spread the word" I would copy it here:
"NMC online conference in SL, may 25
http://slbestpractices2007.wikispaces.com/
Second Life International Conference: Best Practices in Teaching, Learning and Research. A good friend of mine, professor Beth Ritter-Guth (alias Desideria Stockton), is preparing this all online, 24 hour conference on Friday, May 25 She kindly encouraged me to help with practicalities the European timezone. By then I'll be anderswo engagiert - in Porto, so I resisted this challenging temptation.
There are openings for keynote speakers and other presentations. Please spread the word! "

Maybe we should think about a VECoP presentation?

2007-04-13T13:06:00.000Z

Next Event

I was just talking with Nick/Corwin about organising another event (bridge building).

We suggest Thursday 3rd May 4pm British Summer Time (3.00 pm GMT), we could probably cope with a group at a different time.

Comment here if you can do that time or not.

Feel free to invite others.

2007-04-12T16:40:00.000Z

Another book review:

"the Complete Fool's Guide to Second Life" by Foolish Frost, I stumbled across this book, from a SL link, the book is at: http://www.sldrama.com/.

It is an amusing tale of a first visit into Second Life, supplemented by tips on how SL works and what can be done. As with other works on SL it is now out of date – it talks about First Land, which Linden has now deprecated, but other than that it appears to be current and I would recommend it as a style of writing that is readily accessible. It may be possible to use this style for other SL related training.

2007-04-11T19:52:00.000Z

Book review:

"second life – the official guide" by Michael Rymaszewski, Wagner James Au, Mark Wallace, Catherine Winters, Cory Ondrejka, Benjamin Batstone-Cunningham. I have had a Second Life (SL) account for about a year, I see a lot of potential in Second Life, but by Real Life doesn't give me much time for messing about and discovering SL. I bought this book because I thought it would help me, and indeed I found lots of things in it that were interesting, for instance I didn't know that I had a Library in my inventory and for a lot of those objects I can access the script, this allowed me to take a script from a chair and experiment with it (I now can make my avatar sit upside down). There is an Appendix by Pathfinder Linden (John Lester) on real Life Education in Second Life, I particularly like his section entitled "work at unlearning", educators too readily fall inti the trap of trying to re-create lecture theatres for learning events in MUVEs. In places the book's multiple authors show and things are repeated and/or contradicted, a little bit of proof reading probably would have spotted this and may well have avoided the curious repeats in the Glossary.

2007-04-10T07:38:00.000Z

Discovering Second Life with a Sheep
Rosie
This tale begins with Rosie Luna on a Friday night, she was wanting to organise an activity where people co-operate asynchronously in Second Life. She needs something that can be passed around and people can take to different places, write about what they learn, and take some pictures. Leafing through her landmarks she finds a landmark for Freebie Warehouse (http://slurl.com/secondlife/Burns/95/148/79) and she decides to go and visit. The warehouse is full of people and crates; she checks out the contents of a lot of the crates and decides to take one labelled: 62 Decorations, she also picks up 69 Clothes.
She returns to Boracay and finds a quiet spot by the sea and starts to look through the boxes. One of the things she finds is a sheep; she names this.
The next day she returns to Boracay and decides that this sheep she will pass round, along with a notecard that people can extend the tale. So she takes a few pictures of herself and the sheep. Writes this notes and then passes it on to Futura Fortas.

Futura
So the story continues. I decided to take BaBa to the Holodeck @ the ICT Library (http://slurl.com/secondlife/Info%20Island/13/183/33) where I took her to a virtual church. After all being a lamb/sheep I found that it was appropriate. In the holodeck I discovered how to take snapshots. I'm the kind of person who hates taking pictures in First Life, so I've only owned one camera ever, which I had while on a trip to the States. I sold it of immediately when I returned home. Having said that, I quite enjoyed taking the pictures in SL! Especially because I could take pictures of myself, even from underneath myself.
I've now passed on BaBa in the hope that the new "owner" will take care of her. (Hmn is it a her....)

Corwin
Unfotunately BaBa had a rather traumatic first experience with Corwin! When BaBa was sent to Corwin he was in the Life Sciences Center at the NMC's Research Park.
Corwin stupidly showed her the lab he was in and Baba was immediately reminded of cousin Dolly. No way was that the route to be taken for Baba and she quickly made her feelings known in no uncertain terms. Corwin blushed in shock at the vocabulary under a young sheep's control! Corwin apologised profusely for frightening her like and quickly moved off to more pastural grounds. So they went to Tol Eressea where Baba met some friendly horses and ate some grass and drank some fresh water.
Finally calm she asked to meet her next new friend.

JoeC
BaBa now was visiting its (is it a she or a he) friends in the Hauwai Zoo. I couldn't put her on the ground (because she was afraid), so I carried her, and I had to rotate her a little so that she can see something.
She was also afraid after a while that I could keep her there locked in the Zoo, so I took her to a roman spa instead to relax.
Then she went to see Sus!

SusNY
Sus was visiting the office of the Danish newspaper 24timer where she is preparing a carnival fest on Sunday, (for Danes only). (We'll invite our international friends later on). BaBa had the opportunity to climb a small snow mountain, created at a photo exhibition from Swiss. Sus thought that BaBa needed a face lift, and tried tentatively to give her a pink rose fur dye, and a texture! She did look cute, until Sus discovered to her dismay that BaBa has lost her significant face!
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Boracay/174/67/26
This discovery led to abig cloning experiment! Apparently each time Sus took up her BaBa, there was yet another little sheep! So this is how we make sheep in world , sus said to herself and started to create a flock.

Day 2:cloning rainbow sheep
Baba now has a whole family of clones. For everytime I pick her up, I get one extra BaBa. I've had to find out how to differentiate one sheep from another,to make sure I can keep track on the OriginalMotherBaBa. I like pink sheep! And baby blue ones to. buty my absolute favorite invention is BaBaLeo! This is a crossover, a mule with leopard skin. In RL this would mean she would not be able to breed new ones. but in SL, cloning is as easy as copy & paste!
I've taken my BaBaLeo identical twins to a playground area called ImagiLEARNING 57, 188, 21 where they learn how to climb poles with monkey twins! The URL copymaker is out of order today ,just like the Teleport button. My interface is reduced and i feel very uncomfortable about this. It took me some days to figure out hwo to get access to my inventory and find BaBa again. And I apologize for not sharing too many landmarks as they're hard to track in the Inventory under the actual circumstances!

Morton Mains 181, 159, 107
At the old castle of Morton Mains, There is a ferris wheel! This is something Sus loves, so she tries to get poor baBa feel the spinning around. BaBa gets scared and jumps up in Sus' arms! And next time Sus and BaBa logs in, their friends get a good laugh because baBa is still in the arms of her care taker. However now is the time to move on Baba!
Rob will be next in line, and I'm so sorry for being late with this; we had major problems for a while! Bye bye BaBa ; I hope that I'm handing over one of the original , horizontal sheep and not a clone with a preference for vertical presence! Or you can have both BaBa and BaBa Leo which is an extra bonus sheep :-)

Rob
Being very new to Second Life, Rob doesn't really know where to go with BaBa so he asks the now well travelled sheep what she wants to do with her time. Not surprisingly BaBa is hungry after all her adventuring and decides that she wants nothing less than the finest grass.
After finding out from the internet that there was a golf course at Hollywood (191,15,175 ), I decided to take BaBa there for a bit of well deserved, well groomed grass.
It seems that this sheep has a disposition to cloning itself and I'm soon left with an entire herd of BaBa imposters feasting on the grass. I do my best to tidy up and decide that we'll go to find somewhere a bit more stimulating for the afternoon.
Success, I found Space Port Alpha (152,227,175). Not wanting to end up with more BaBa clones I decide not to let her go this time, and hold her in my arms while I sit on the tallest space rocket I can find for the view.
BaBa is tired after all this adventuring and now needs somebody to show her somewhere a bit more relaxing!

The end?
Well that is the end of the Baba game – it took some what longer than expected, and we are still hoping to see some more pictures.
However BaBa and her colourful clones are still out there, so watch out for BaBa the Sequel.

2007-03-29T08:03:00.000Z

Game 2

I'm not sure what happened to Baba ... lost in the ether?

Anyway, are you all up for another group game/collaborative task?

2007-03-24T22:34:00.000Z

From Borcay to Las Vegas

This afternoon I met up with an informal panel discussion at the IA Summit in Las Vegas. I dropped in from Boston into Second Life. Met them at the IA Office on Information Island and then teleported over to Borcay to show another place. I ran into Sus. This was a cheap way to do remote mixed reality panel. Had some issues, of course, with the audio/video fading ....

2007-03-19T15:21:00.000Z

Eduserv Foundation Symposium 2007

Virtual worlds, real learning?

Thursday 10th May 2007
Congress Centre, London

for more details of this free event see: http://www.eduserv.org.uk/foundation/symposium/2007/

2007-03-12T09:52:00.000Z

Whatever Happened to Virtual Reality?

RU Sirius, who is a colleague at PajamaNation interviews Virtual Reality developer Jaron Lanier who was generally accepted as the public face of VR during the heady period that lasted from about 1989-91:

http://www.10zenmonkeys.com/2007/03/09/whatever-happened-to-virtual-reality/

Second Life is a timid sampling of what was then envisioned.

There were dozens of conferences about VR and lots of national media coverage in every major outlet. There were movies and TV shows that revolved around VR and there was even one arcade game. But VR quickly disappeared from public consciousness.

In VR, at some point, you would be able to be inside this place with other people where you were making it up as you went along. What people really wanted was a kind of intimacy where you’re making up a dream together with other people. You’re all experiencing it. I was calling it post-symbolic communication. The basic idea is that people thought that with VR they would be able to experience a kind of intense contact with imagination, some sort of fusion of the kind of extremes of aesthetics and emotional experience you might have when you open up the constraints of reality.

All in all it's an interesting and wide ranging interview which I would recommend.

2007-03-07T14:03:00.000Z

Two Shirley's

While I was in Singapore I met another Shirley Williams., she is the Director of Teaching and Learning at Ngee Ann Polytechnic. She is investigating how they can incorporate use of MUVEs (Multi User Virtual Environments) into their teaching. Which leaves me the opportunity of meeting a second me in Second Life.
I have invited her to join us here - so be prepared for double doses of Shirley.

2007-03-06T09:22:00.000Z

Campfire talk.

I quite enjoyed the session around the campfire on Boracay Island last Friday. It took a while to settle down with the inevitable problems of movement, some people finding it hard just to sit down, others including myself needing to quit the program and reload. It took maybe half an hour at least before we could properly relax and converse, but in the end I do feel that it is just about possible that the simulation does really work. It generates an atmospheric stimulus which might get people into the mood, and then exchange more open and speculative ideas. You can do that in a purely text chat as well, if you keep at it for long enough, but the visual and simulated kinesthetic cues from the 3d world perhaps accelerate or at least change the process.

If this is true, then the advantages of using Secondlife for business meetings or education sessions might be that the time wasted in beating about the bush and worrying about appearances and protocol may be reduced, and a deeper level of learning and interaction achieved more quickly. Compared with other forms of distributed multi-way media channels, that is.

2007-03-03T15:28:00.000Z

Margarita Pérez-García / Paz Lorenz introduction

Hi everybody, in RL, i am Margarita Pérez-García, a researcher in education science, working with MENON Network in Brussels, Belgium and SCIENTER in Bologna, Italy. I have bee working in the field of education for 15 years in all levels from primary through secondary to higher education. I am currently coordinating several projects on digital identity and reputation, user-centric implementation of Europass ePortfolio, online job search user behaviour, social directories, social sectoral libraries, social technologies in education and ePortfolios. I also work in the field of learning difficulties, in particular school performance and early school leaving. I promote the use of open source technologies and i am an activist in the field of citizens' digital rights and gender equality. My current research interests are focussed on the gap between epistemological conceptions and pedagogical practices and design of educational artifacts in massive multi-user virtual environments.

in SL, i am Paz Lorenz, educator, technoprogressive and hypernomade. Free spirit, free-thinker, free will, wild and rebel. Feminist, believe in and fight for gender equality in-world. Concerned by freedom and rights of our digital personas. Dream of an interoperable and open source grid. Wish to break barriers against inclusiveness and help disadvantaged people to access learning thanks to SL.

2007-03-02T02:16:00.000Z

Just a quick introduction ... I am an e-Learning manager at King's College London and a Fellow of the Centre for Distance Education at the University of London where I chair the research strategy group. I am currently working on a number of projects that include: a study of social software in distance education settings; developing a virtual library space (bibliospace) using social referencing software; and as part of the EMERGE project team supporting a UK wide community of practice in user innovation and development in the area of Web 2.0 and emerging technologies. My research interests are focussed on questions of identity in online learning, the dimensions of space and time in multi-user virtual environments such as Second Life, social presence, social networking and the changing notion of community.

Steven
StevenW Bohm

2007-02-22T09:07:00.000Z

Places to Visit

I am reading the blogs about BaBa's excursion, and there are so many places s/he has visited that I have not seen.

When the exercise has visited I think we need to post the story (from the notecards) and make sure we have SLURL's of all the places visited, and maybe we can fix a few dates and times and a few of us can have trips to some of these places.

I'm also looking forward to trips to other MUVEs.

2007-02-21T18:31:00.000Z

BaBa now was visiting its (is it now a she or a he?) friends in the Hauwai Zoo. I couldn't put her on the ground (because she was afraid), so I carried her, and I had to rotate her a little so that she can see something. She was also afraid after a while that I could keep her there locked in the Zoo, so I took her to a roman spa instead to relax.

Then she went to see Sus...

2007-02-21T16:29:00.000Z

Hi everyone!

I am Christina aka Tina.

In my “first life” I have a background in translation studies, communities of practice and editing. My (research) interests are primarily in the areas of eLearning, intercultural communication, knowledge sharing processes, diversity, advertising and lifestyle. I have been self-employed since 2000 and work with a number of profit and non-profit organisations. My mission is to create learning environments across cultural, language and geographic boundaries. I am convinced that communication processes within and across organisations as well as within and across first and second lifes encourage individuals to reflect on their shared interests and trigger knowledge sharing and innovation processes.

My “second life” is very young – I logged on as Tina T. for the first time three weeks ago. At first, it was a culture shock but it was good and comforting to find friends “in-world” that I knew from a different context, i.e., CP2. What struck me was the similarity of their avatars with their real life appearance as well as the specific lingo they used – for example, “k” for “OK” and other such “strange” abbreviations.

I’m here because I want to learn more about virtual worlds and the possibilities they offer for online collaboration. What worries me a little is the time factor. You should know that I’m more into mountain hiking, skating, dancing and cocktail-drinking in real life than online…

2007-02-20T05:13:00.000Z

BaBa's journey continues ...

Baba was delivered to Corwin in the NMC campus' Life Sciences building.

Not a place he liked to be, so he was taken to visit a more pastoral setting before going to see JoeC/Simon.

2007-02-19T23:24:00.000Z

Introduction - Andy Roberts - DARnet

I had my first 3d avatar made for me in year 2000, using a photo booth camera which took a full length portrait from 3 sides and then converted the images into a 3d digital model. The claim was this would soon be used all the time to represent myself everywhere on the internet. The result was recognisable, just, though a little creepy in appearance. The idea was way ahead of its time though, because there weren't any virtual worlds or games it could be used with at the time.

AT about the same era my internet activity consited of email, pure text newsgroups and cheesy homepages. So not a great deal has changed since then! That's not true, now we can add flickr photos and youTubes to our text based blogs and wikis.

I'll be trying to keep up with the group excursions into Secondlife, other virtual worlds and the various experiments which are being planned, and I'll write up some reflections here. The last one was published on my own blog - How I would like to use SecondLife

For more about me, please see my LinkedIn profile

2007-02-19T09:58:00.000Z

Now BaBa has been to the Holodeck at the ICT library. Here are a few pics:

I've given BaBa to Nick/Corwin. At least that's what I think I have, it was the first time I have given stuff to off-line people....

2007-02-18T15:28:00.000Z

BaBa
Here are a couple of pictures from Second Life.
I found the crate containing BaBa at the Freebie warehouse.

Going to busy places like this really shows the problem with lag and Second Life. At home we have an ok broadband connection, but it takes an age to get the view anything like properly loaded. At the university, where we have a superfast connection there isn't a problem.

I went back to Boracay to unpack the crates and that is where I found BaBa.

I also found in my crates a new shirt with a rose on it, just the thing for Rosie to wear, and a pair of dark glasses, to protect from the Boracay sun.

2007-02-18T14:38:00.000Z

So far Karsten, Rob, Nick, Simon and Sus have said they would like to take part in the asynchronous activity in Second Life.

I've found a Sheep (I call it BaBa) and I am going to pass it and a notecard (BaBaNote) to one of you (actually Karsten/Futura as we are in the same place and that may be easier).

You will receive the offer when you are next online.

Then can you take the sheep somewhere interesting, rez it on the ground and take a snap of you and the sheep, write a bit on the end of the notecard about this "adventure" and then save it. You should delete the sheep you have rezzed as you will still have a copy in your inventory.

Then pass BaBa and BabaNote to the next person on the list. You do this by opening their profile and dragging BaBa and BabaNote on to the Give Item area (under 2^nd life tab).

I hope this makes sense. If it doesn't say and we can see if we can met in world to sort it out.

If anyone else wants to play – just say.

2007-02-16T21:17:00.000Z

There is a JISC funded report "Learning in Immersive Worlds - review of game-based learning" at http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/programmes/elearning_innovation/gaming%20report_v3.3.pdf

It links from an article on the JISC homepage entitled: "It's just a game? Report on computer gaming published".

JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) is a UK funded body looking at "innovative use of Information and Communications Technology to support education and research".

2007-02-15T22:10:00.000Z

Sus Nyrop - my intro

*Sus 1955 *Sus 1960* Sus 2001*Sus 2003 *Sus 2005 *SusNy 2007

As 2007 is said to be the year of the ME, I'd better follow up with my current intro version.
Sus Nyrop in Farum, Denmark, SusNy Foss in SL since October 06 where I joined just before the first million inhabitants: by now I think more than 3.5 million have opened accounts.
I'm currently involved in several web 2.0 teacher training projects in Denmark. I'm a free agent and independent researcher with a cyber anthropologist focus on teachers' virtual community practices, using social tools and strategies for their lifelong self directed professional development For a living, I'm doing occasional service as a state appointed external examiner (in Danish language and pedagogy) - for social pedagog colleges all over Denmark. This used to be my professional field, until I decided for a major change in my career. In 1993 I took an intensive beginner class of computer science, very traditional and outdated, but a solid foundation. I fell in love with my Macintosh computer, and did my bachelor in communication and multimedia at the Danish University of Education, Copenhagen in 1995. Since then I've been working slowly towards a masters (candidate) in general education, with a focus on edtech and online learning community processes. . Since 2001, I got together with Webheads, in 2002 I joined the Electronic Village Online and in 2003 I joined CPsquare, the community of communities of practice. I'm currently enjoying being a senior mentor in the traditional Foundations of CoP workshop - where Nick Noakes will be one of our virtual guests in a few weeks. I've found out that so many different paths lead me towards SL as I meet more people in world that I already knew from other contexts.

In my off line private life, I enjoy being a granny, and a loving partner with Bernt, a retired school librarian and sportsman. We share an interest in gardening, film, literature, art and music, and we have travelled in Europe and China.

secondlifedk.blogspot.com - a co-blog with four Danish colleagues (in Danish)

www.xanga.com/susnyrop (my first blog from 2002 onwards that I still keep for nostalgic reasons)
worldofwebheads.blogspot.com (a more recent blog - I need to update or abandon it one of these days)
teachingculture.wikispaces.com ( my portfolio wiki that I used for an international EU funded diploma course in teaching intercultural, 2006)

The Nordic Voice project (2005-06) was a community oriented experiment, targeting Nordic language educators with a special interest in voide enabled digital and online learning. I was a cordinator and facilitator in this context. We hosted asuccesful all online conference, and invited guest speakers, posted a newsletter, and found new collaboration partners in Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Iceland. We were funded by the Nordic Council. ns05.wikispaces.com/

2007-02-14T21:06:00.000Z

Catching up
Over the last week I lost track of the emails coming in about what we now call VECoP, so I though I would try and reflect/summarise the general mood and suggest some way forward.

Summary
Lots of people think we should look at virtual worlds other than Second Life.
We have a definite time zone problem in that if we are to meet synchronously someone will be in their pyjamas.
Getting sufficient time for doing this work is a problem for all of us.
Exchange of practice, recording best practice is important.
Trying our ideas with our own students and communities should be an aim.
Publishing what we do is important, well at least for us academics.
Getting funding is, for most, a necessity.

Way forward?
We should schedule some field trips, with a purpose, in to Second Life and other MUVEs. We should aim for the hosts to try to run such events twice, so that we cover a civilised time for all VECoP members.

We should look at what funding opportunities are possible (Marga: can you post a bit about what is possible for networks etc with the EU?).

Next Week
I have an idea for an asynchronous activity in Second Life that we can all participate in during next week. By asynchronous I mean we don't have to be there together (although we can schedule help if needed). If there is interest I'll set it up.

2007-02-14T11:16:00.000Z

Simon Heid JoeC Daniels

I'm researcher at FIM NeuesLernen at University of Erlangen-Nürnberg in Germany. Before, I was studying psychology in Erlangen and graduated in 2002. I'm working on several projects in the field of e-learning and learning with new media in general. Some of these projects are on a regional or national level, developing and organising e-learning courses for students in the field of key qualifications, learning techniques and psychology.

Besides, I'm involved in several projects on European level, currently there are, among others, TALE, a web-based storytelling project, MASTER, a project developing an e-learning course for better understanding of statistics and Marga's KITE project.

In my leisure time I'm currently rushing from nice evenings with my girlfriend, playing table-tennis in my team, supporting my favorite football club, and SecondLife.

Im especially interested in psychological aspects and communication issues of MUVEs. Some nonverbal communication and the feeling of "real" presence in an web environment are the really new thing for me. It would be also very interesting to analyse other psychological aspects like identity, group performance or personality in real life/second life.

From my opinion we are just at the beginning of a development that will go to a photorealistic, 3D web, located on a virtual planet, maybe on the basis of 3D Google maps, as it is assumed here (I would say, yes, in 2015, depending also on development of hardware and network speed). Difficult to say for me what role SecondLife and other virtual worlds are playing in this course.

Looking forward to interesting discussions and resource sharing, here.

Best
Simon

2007-02-14T11:11:00.000Z

Introduction

I am Shirley Williams (aka Rosie Luna). I am a lecturer at the University of Reading, UK. I am in charge of the group teaching in the area of Information Systems, but my own teaching is primarily in Programming. Both Karsten and Rob in the past were members of my programming classes; I hesitate to say I taught them to program, as they are both much better programmers than me!

My research interests are primarily in the areas of knowledge transfer, communities and eLearning. I am involved in a number of projects, some funded and some not. The interest in Multi User Virtual Environments and Educational Communities is currently unfunded, my aim is to get some funding so we can do more work in the area.

PS I tried to post this from IE7; and the text failed to appear.

2007-02-14T09:41:00.000Z

Nick Noakes Corwin Carillon

I work as a faculty/educational developer at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology where I'm Director of the Center for Enhanced Learning and Teaching or CELT for short!

I have been working with a couple of educational non-profits, Educause and the New Media Consortium, in my out-of-work time for the past 4 years. I played around with graphical virtual worlds, Active Worlds, in 1995/96 when it first came out but it was so laggy and resource intensive that my PC couldn't really cope with it. Last June I was brought into Second Life by NMC colleagues and am the co-founder/facilitator, with the NMC's Alan Levine, of an in-world group (emerging CoP) called Teachers Buzz that meets fortnightly. For more on this see the NMC Campus blog and the NMC Campus wiki.

My passion is transformational change with teachers, learners and organizations, which has taken me from online learning to online facilitation to communities of practice to appreciative inquiry and back again.

I've stayed in Second Life, despite it's myriad issues, because of these interests and because these environments/platforms seem to engage people and their identities in new learning trajectories (see Etienne Wenger's Learning for a small planet).

2007-02-13T18:20:00.000Z

First off I'd like to encourage you all to use labels (tags) when you post here. I've registered the blog at technorati, so if we make good use of labels, then that can become a powerful tool for us later.

On a personal note. I'm a Research Assistant at University of Reading in Computer Science, where I also do my PhD. on the side. I've got many interests in CS, I especially look at knowledge representation (ontology) and what can be done with automation of semantics. At the moment I do this in the domains of eLearning and competency description, which also is somewhat connected to eLearning and lifelong learning.

MUVE's is a bit of a "pet" interest, and I can see many areas which could benefit from use of knowledge representation and semantic automation tools, especially in learning situations, however that is probably further down the road, because at the moment there are definitely many other areas that need attention before these kind of tools become neccesary...

2007-02-13T18:13:00.000Z

Me?

I'm Rob Ashton.

I graduated last year from the University of Reading and I'm currently working for a design automation company in the north of England.

While I have left university officially, I never really left in spirit, still staying involved in a number of university projects.

That's me after skiiing in Austria last year. I'm the smarty-man in Second Life - I don't think he needs another picture.

I'm really interested in the use of virtual worlds to assist in the learning process, and while Second Life may not be the most appropriate place for this, it seems to serve as a useful testing ground for researching the potential pitfalls and benefits of this kind of teaching.

I guess that explains why I'm here - I hope to be of some help during this project :)

2007-02-13T17:30:00.000Z

My Introduction

RL: Beth Kanter
http://beth.typepad.com

SL: Beth Kavka

I work as a trainer, coach, and consultant to nonprofits and individuals in effective use of technology. I work mostly on projects that include: training, curriculum development, research, and evaluation. Some of my expertise includes: how to use new web tools (blogging, tagging, wikis, photo sharing, video blogging, screencasting, social networking sites, and virtual worlds, etc) to support nonprofit.

I'm also a professional blogger and write about the use of social media tools in the nonprofit sector for social change at BlogHer, Netsquared, and my own blog, Beth's Blog.

If you want more detailed background, check my web site: http://www.bethkanter.org
or my LinkedIn profile.

My musings about Second Life and Nonprofits and an article I co-wrote about it for TechSoup.

I'm here because I'm interested in learning more about virtual worlds may or may not work for online collaboration. I still have mixed views on Second Life.

2007-02-13T14:44:00.000Z

Welcome to VECoP.