OCCDLA in Second Life

Avatar Help Sessions

2011-03-03T13:05:00.001-08:00

If you are an instructor in the Oregon Community College system and are considering exploring the integration of virtual worlds into your curriculum, you are welcome to stop by our open instructor avatar skills building sessions on Oregon Community Colleges Isle.

We post our schedule a week in advance on the island calendar :

http://bitl.ly/ORCCIsle_calendar

Note: We don't schedule assistance times during the first week, finals week or during breaks (spring break, for example).

So if you're looking for advice, assistance, practice, content help, ideas? Bring your questions by the sandbox! One of us is available during posted times.

Arts & Education Film Festival- On Now!

2011-02-22T08:38:00.001-08:00

Happening now in the Sky Box Theater!

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/OR%20Community%20Colleges/188/160/343
Bring a colleague or invite new virtual friends to join you for a shared viewing of a playbill that selects presentations that will get you thinking about the possibilities of Second Life. In the Sky Box Theater above Oregon Community Colleges Isle, we’re screening a collection of videos that focus on Second Life - it’s current state and future pedagogical possibilities.

Island Update

2010-12-08T13:52:00.001-08:00

It's finals week for most of our Oregon Community Colleges, and as we get ready to break away for a breather, I've produced a brief Island update for the OCCDLA. Though we haven't been blogging much, a lot has been happening with the project. (As a side note, we at PCC are also migrating our learning management system from Blackboard to Desire2Learn... busy times!)

Remember- if you are a faculty, staff or student in the Oregon Community Colleges system and would like to use virtual worlds in your curriculum, for an event, or maybe even for student group meetings, let us know- we're happy to help you! Our Monday 2PM meeting at the OR CC Isle camp fire is a great place to drop in and share your ideas.

Where we were:

Summer 2007- OCCDLA Emergent Tech Workgroup Formed, Team ID’d.
April 2008 - Purchase of Island in Second Life
2008-2009 - Development of Island & Basic Resources (Blog, main Website, Calendar, Island Council meetings, etc.)
2009-2010 - Pilots, Ongoing Development of Island resources (Library, Public Events)

Where we are:

2010-2011- In third year of three year exploration pilot
Establishing Student Services
Exploring HS Completion & Student Success & Retention

Supporting HS students using Second Life in their current curriculum migrating from the Teen Grid as it is being shut down in early January 2011.

Training Instructors to use Virtual Worlds and how to integrate Second Life into their course events, and how to assess the outcomes of those events.
Developing instruction for students- Virtual Worlds Skills (Spring 11)
Exploring Clinical Simulations and Virtual Worlds for OCNE
Ongoing course events throughout the year

BI 202- Botany- Indigenous Flora- Students of BI 202 help populate Oregon Community Colleges Isle with greenery by collecting images of native plants in the field
ED 206- Students in the Library Assistant program are introduced to Second Life and how this technology fits into the greater Ed. Tech. toolkit
PHL 201- The Philosophy Garden- Our most advanced/immersive use of Second Life. From a launch point on Oregon Community Colleges Isle, students are teleported to Plato’s cave, where they begin their journey from the darkness of ignorance to the light of the Philosophy Garden. Once there, a walk through the garden introduces them to seven historical western philosophers

Arts Events available to an international audience

ArtBeat 2010
2010 Student Kickoff Party featuring Chervona, a Portland folk band

Where we’re going:

Oregon Immersive Education Initiative

Multi-Institutional partnership within Oregon Ed. System (K-20 proposed), including Oregon Center for Advanced Technology in Education (U of O) Teaching Across the Curriculum (OSU), OCCDLA
Coordinated program development statewide
Programs designed to support students throughout their academic careers in an effort to encourage college enrollment

Next 3 years- Second Life/OpenSim Duality

OpenSim not yet mature enough to directly migrate, but rapidly developing
EDU groups mass migrating to the OpenSim Hypergrid, which allows for an interconnection between independent virtual worlds, making communication and inventory sharing possible.
Second Life ending EDU discounts in 2 years. (prompted mass migration)
Offering uninterrupted service for courses currently using or developing course events/public programs/high school completion etc. events that use virtual worlds

Exporting Content out of Second Life to Open Standards
Eventual Migration to all open content/open standards/open tools by default.

Blender and SketchUp for Content Development
OpenSim Platform
All Content registered .CC Creative Commons- Non-Commercial (Attribution) and cataloged/shared via clive.merlot.org

Oregon Immersive Ed Days

2010-10-19T13:04:00.000-07:00

Just returning to campus from Oregon Immersive Ed Days, the inaugural meetup of statewide educators and affiliated groups working in virtual spaces. We're all working toward greater collaboration, and this meetup was a great kick off to those efforts.

Though Oregon focused in name, truly we're an open group and had participants from out of state in attendance enriching our tribe. We're working in tandem with many other groups at the moment all the way to the international level looking at the future of immersive education. If you are interested in joining our group, we would love to add your input and energy to the collective- just email jonathonrichter at gmail dot com, and he will add you to our listserv. Also, check out the wiki- I've just posted notes from Saturday's planning session at http://immersiveoregon2010.wikispaces.com/.

My notes from the individual presentation sessions if you'd like to check them out can be found at http://bit.ly/oied2010_Notes .

Getting a chance to link up with others around the region who understand these technologies for teaching and learning and dreaming about how together we can take greater leaps forward than alone was truly a treat. Though avatars are a great for when you can't get together, there's nothing like bantering possibilities over a pint and slice of pizza to get to the heart of a groups challenges.

To the future: here it is, now! :)

Chervona Party- Happening NOW!

2010-10-10T18:15:00.001-07:00

Come join us on OR CC Isle til 8PM Tonight- Russian folk rock band Chervona is rockin' it streaming NOW!

http://bit.ly/sandbox_Cafe

Kick off the school year with Chervona!

2010-09-28T08:05:00.001-07:00

Come join us Sunday, October 10th from 5:30-8:00 for a bit of FREE social R&R as we welcome PDX's very own Balkan party band 'Chervona' for their first performance in the Metaverse! We'll be streaming a live show recording that Chervona has made available to us specially for this event.

"Mixing together taste and passion of the best Gypsy, Russian, Ukrainian, klezmer and Balkan musical traditions, Chervona brings the fire of Eastern European carnivals to the land of America. With their authenticity and genuine fire Chervona has stolen many hearts."

We're honored and delighted to have the band playing for us at our kick off party for students, faculty and friends of Oregon Community Colleges Isle. If you've never enjoyed the sounds of Chervona, head on over to http://www.reverbnation.com/tunepak/2457609 to get excited about hearing them get their Gypsy jam on! Also see http://www.starbugs.com/chervona/ if you want to know more about this fabulous band.

We'll be partying in the Sandbox Cafe: http://bit.ly/ORCCIsle_Cafe

Want to join us and don't yet have a Second Life account? Get a free one at http://secondlife.com, and then check the island calendar for drop-in help times available throughout the week- you can find it here: http://bit.ly/ORCCIsle_calendar

See your pixels on the 10th!

Philosophy Garden Tour and Ethics of Virtual Worlds Discussion

2010-05-21T11:05:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday May 26th at 3:00 PM Oregon Community Colleges in Second Life will be presenting a tour of the Philosophy Garden with instructor Bill Noonan of Columbia Gorge Community College followed immediately by a group discussion in the garden amphitheater on the Ethics of Virtual Worlds led by Philosophy Instructor Matthew Stockton of Portland Community College.

Please encourage your philosophy minded colleagues from any interested academic discipline to attend. Philosophy instructors who teach the history of western philosophy (PHL 201) will be especially interested in exploring the Philosophy Garden as a shared resource that can be used to easily introduce an immersive learning experience into their courses. If you would like to see a preview of the Philosophy garden and hear a few words from instructors and students who have participated so far, click here.

If you have a Second Life account , the Second Life URL (SLurl) link where this tour and discussion will begin is here:

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/OR%20Community%20Colleges/132/169/24

You can also get a free account for yourself at www.secondlife.com. Instructor Mike Russell from MHCC has written a brief guide to get you started available on our main project website by clicking here.

Assistants will be available 1 hour early at 2PM at the starting point on Oregon Community Colleges Isle to help you prepare to participate. Please feel welcome in dropping by during this time to ask any questions to help you improve your avatar skills.

Note: This event will be enhanced with live transcription to to make it accessible to all participants.

Live events on OR CC Isle

2010-05-13T08:56:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we presented our very first live video streaming event on OR CC Isle, Tango Pacifico, a wonderful musical group who gave a beautiful performance. While I can't say the event went off without a hitch, I was happy to say that those of us on Mac computers experienced a good event. The majority using PC machines however couldn't see the stream within Second Life. With flexibility, this isn't a problem, as it is possible to see the stream out in a web browser. (We're also streaming it to the Art Beat page on PCC's website at www.pcc.edu/events/artbeat . )

Today we'll be streaming Tears of Joy puppet theater and their live performance of Stella Luna. We're streaming this into the outdoor amphitheater which you can get to by having a Second Life account and clicking on this link: http://bit.ly/dfjcYW I'm very excited for this event today, I'm a huge fan of puppets! Hope you can join us in Second Life to share it.

..and a HUGE note of thanks must go out to the Media Services and Production staff at Portland Community College- with a specific nod to Michael Annus and Marc Cole. We've used this event to help us figure out the technical aspects of what our equipment and facilities are capable of re: live streaming. We're all in the middle of an incredibly busy term, so the team and their willingness to always go the extra mile in service to our institution is admirable and inspiring. Mahalo nui loa!!

Note: If you don't have a Second Life account but would like to enjoy this event anyway, you can see it on the Art Beat website at 1PM. http://www.pcc.edu/about/events/artbeat/2010/live.html

Oregon Information Literacy Summit

2010-04-01T17:18:00.000-07:00

This Saturday, island librarian KevinW. Huckleberry (Kevin Moore of Portland Community College) and I will be going to the Oregon Information Literacy Summit at Linn-Benton Community College. We'll be available at a poster table to answer any questions librarians and information specialists from across the state may have about the Oregon isle library, and library services in Second Life in general.

So far, the island library pilot has included Kevin establishing the space and creating a link to each of our 17 community college's library catalogs. The library also includes an area for small groups to review and discuss media, as well as a link to a 24 hour reference desk. We both think it's a good first start, this presentation of content.

We're both also looking forward to having an open conversation with those who are thinking deeply about information literacy regarding what the next steps for the library and services on Oregon Community Colleges isle might be. After all, we're working in an environment exploring a new kind of literacy-avatar literacy.

I grew up on an island, and the local library was my bloodline to information from the outside world. Having earned my master's degree online, I reflect back to see now how similar the mental isolation of these two experiences were. Maybe if the librarians at the library helped my imagination flourish as a kid, I wonder, could it help distance learners in their sense of isolation to have access to a librarian? Would some of those learners prefer to do it through an avatar?

I hope to find a way to bring a couple key roles to the island for 2010-2011 to help us answer some of these questions, and Kevin as our librarian is one of them. Student services is another. So far, our work has been focused more from the perspective of finding out if faculty are interested in using virtual worlds as a tool for presenting learning experiences. Now that we have a core team of instructors who know how to use the environment and value it's pedagogical strengths, I'm excited to delve more deeply into helping Kevin help our students become more info-literate avatars.

Avatars United - A "Facebook" site for Second Life?

2010-02-04T14:16:00.000-08:00

Greetings!

In late January Linden Labs announced their acquisition of Avatars United (http://www.avatarsunited.com), a Facebook-esque social media site designed specifically for the avatar. Avatars United had been designed for avatars of virtually any genre (Second Life, World of Warcraft, etc.) to come together and share exploits, pictures, and more.

I joined Avatars United earlier in 2009 as my avatar (Regulus Darkstone), but there had been virtually no activity until the announcement from Linden Labs... now, with the force of Second Life behind it, Avatars United is exploding. Indeed, at the time of this writing (February 4, 2010), their main "Recent Activity" page says "Limited Activity Feed" due to "increased load on their site". I would concur: Regulus has been receiving a plethora of friendship requests over the last week, and he has (somewhat enviously) noticed other avatar profiles with friends numbering in the hundreds... *smiles*

Anyway, I encourage you to explore Avatars United... and if you create a profile, be sure to request the friendship of Regulus Darkstone! :)

Peace, -- Michael Russell (Mt. Hood Community College, Gresham, Oregon)

Thank you Gearsawe Stonecutter!

2010-02-01T17:46:00.001-08:00

I want to take a moment this afternoon to send a shout out of thanks to Gearsawe Stonecutter, the developer of a tool in Second Life called U-Poser that we use to create poses for our avatars. I love it because it's a very simple visual tool that works directly in Second Life. I also love that its creator bothered to stop and take the time to help me this afternoon, making me feel both connected to this technology, and incredibly well supported in my tool selection.

I ran into a frustrating road block by my own error- when you create a pose in U-Poser, you export the data to chat and then copy and paste the data back into a notecard in the HUD to save it for later retrieval. There are two types of data that prints in your chat window, and I by Murphy's law and trying to do too much with too little time grabbed the wrong format. It's the one with plusses, not decimals, if you're ever in the same situation.

Gearsawe patiently came by OR CC Isle and helped me walk through what could be wrong. twenty minutes later, I feel a bit foolish when he points out to me my error, but also grateful beyond imagination that he reinforced my feeling of belonging to a true community by his assistance.

If you are in the market for a pose creation tool, I can't say enough good about U-Poser or it's creator.

Tueday afternoon with the Gaming Students at PCC

2009-11-06T13:28:00.000-08:00

It's always interesting to spend time with the students enrolled in the Gaming Class, each group focuses on something different when in the sandbox on the island. The last time we were with the group, they were interested in finding vehicles to drive around on the island with. This the students enrolled in the class this term found great delight in building and wearing boxes. They were very interested in modify their avatars body shapes and clothing.

This group was the first group that were able to visit Socrates' Philosophy Garden that was build for a class at CGCC. As you can see several students enjoyed playing in the virtual water fountain.

These classes are always a bit challenging getting everyone into second life and on to the island. The experience is always fun and enjoyable!

A Messy Sandbox is a Happy Sandbox.

2009-11-05T13:23:00.000-08:00

We had PCC's Walter Morales' CIS 133G- Computer Game Programming class on the island yesterday. Each fall and spring DharmaPuppy PinkLady and I do a session for the game programming students, most of who haven't actually had experience with Second Life or heard of it. They are intrigued by the concept, but also expressed the sentiment of virtual spaces being a time sink. I don't think that will be the case for kids used to playing in these spaces so they already have avatar skills, but I do wonder about how mental play in virtual spaces via embodiment paralells or differs from physical play in learning?

We didn't get as far with this larger group- there was more technical time needed to get everyone on board, and then more requests around the classroom leads to not moving as far forward in the session as I thought we might. Everyone seemed to pretty rapidly start expressing with their avatars- two students stood around and did a stooping dance together in their boxer shorts, boots and helmets. It was a funny moment that gave me a chance to talk to the group about asking themselves as they did certain things like the squat dance- how does this make 'me' feel? In this sense, who is 'me'? As game programmers, I reminded them that this experience design was something that they had to think about when creating their own games, and I think that resonated with them.

Great stuff! I always love being in the classroom with people exploring Second Life for the first time- the students are an especially fun view, they seem to be less inhibited than instructors when it comes to being expressive through their avatars quickly, so you never know what student sessions are going to bring.

Great thanks to DharmaPuppy and her pink beacon of hair- it's easy for the newbies to follow. :)

Notes from Our Virtual Frontier Now Available

2009-10-15T07:45:00.000-07:00

With enrollment through the roof we've been a busy team making sure all of our beginning of the term requirements were met. For updates on what's been keeping us busy, check out the September issue of "Notes From Our Virtual Frontier".

We present this newsletter every month to two months, depending on where we are in the school year (November and December are presented together because of holidays, March and April are also presented together because of Spring break.) If you are faculty, staff or a student group of the Oregon Community Colleges system and would like to include something in an upcoming issue which we distribute statewide, please email me your need and content to be included.

2009-08-20T17:13:00.000-07:00

Check this out- though these platforms are hundreds of meters up in the sky, and avatars can easily fly or teleport from place to place, two of our instructional tech specialists have placed a bridge between their work spaces.

A physical bridge.

Functionally, it's superfluous in this environment. But mentally, a virtual spaces connection is made between two who work closely together in the physical world. It gets to be expressed here for others to see in pixels, forming a bond of communication between two platforms for imagination.

Have I mentioned lately that I love my job and team?

Test Scores, Training Outcomes Improved with Second Life

2009-07-13T21:25:00.000-07:00

I'm always excited to see new studies supporting teaching and learning in Second Life. Thank you to Regulus, for sending this around via email this morning:

The article from Linden Labs can be found here: https://blogs.secondlife.com/community/community/education/blog/2009/07/10/case-study-loyalist-college-massively-improves-test-scores-and-training-outcomes-using-second-life

A case study from Linden Labs on this even can be found here: http://secondlifegrid.net.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/Second_Life_Case_Loyalist_EN.pdf

The article from the Journal of Virtual Worlds Research can be found here: https://journals.tdl.org/jvwr/article/view/374/449

Finally, and the best for last, here's a YouTube video on how they are using Second Life at Loyalist College (cool!): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCUWcpVPtMM

A question for instructors in our community college system: how can we support those of you exploring using Second Life in your courses in doing a bit of action research to gather some feedback about how things are going? Pro or con, gathering this data can help us learn how to support your exploration better, so please let us know.

"Teaching in Second Life - Impressions"

2009-06-03T13:25:00.000-07:00

Greetings OCCDLA!

From the desk of "Shameless self-promotion" (but all falling under the auspices of Second Life and education! LOL):

I just wrote a "reflections" paper entitled, "Teaching in Second Life - Impressions: Thoughts and Lessons Learned During Five Quarters of Teaching Experiments in Second Life". You can view the full text here:

http://mhchem.org/slt

Several references to the members of the OCCDLA and specifically the "OCCDLA in Second Life" group can be found inside.

See you in the metaverse! Peace, -- Michael Russell (SL: Regulus Darkstone), Mt. Hood Community College

Regulus at Chouchou

2009-05-29T12:32:00.000-07:00

Here's further proof to me that avatars matter. I don't feel the same way about working on other objects as I feel while I am sitting here scripting some life into one of our virtual patients. I'm quickly learning how to use Prim Puppeteer so that I can turn this shop assistant shaped object (Thanks to Todd Borst for the awesome freebies!) into a 57 year old grouchy Catholic male with broken ribs. The animation build for this doesn't actually take much- someone with broken ribs doesn't move much. What I find interesting is that presence of another human-ish is being implied by something human shape, and I do feel less alone in the lab with Nurse OCCDLA at the front door, and this prim puppeteer stand in for our future patient laying on the exam bed. Isn't that funny? They aren't even inhabited by human agents!

I have to admit though, I also feel like this is something I'm glad I don't have to explain to people passing by behind my cube at campus- taken out of context, it looks like I'm playing some weird medical game as a mad scientist, bringing some strange new life like creature into being.

Oh, wait.... ;)

Spring Report Now Available

2009-05-14T09:12:00.001-07:00

A spring update to what projects are happening on the island is now available! You can get it here.

If you have any questions about current projects, please contact avatar MonicaMarlo Martinek.

New Quickstart Second Life Guide! New adult filtering content options coming to SL in June!

2009-04-24T12:49:00.000-07:00

Greetings! There were two new and exciting developments in the world of Second Life this week that deserve comment here...

The first is a new "Second Life Quickstart Guide" created by Linden Lab for new (and experienced) users. I find the guide somewhat akin to viewing an airplane safety manual (you'll know what I mean, I think, if you view the Quickstart guide), but it should prove useful to people learning about Second Life, etc.

You can view the guide here:

http://static-secondlife-com.s3.amazonaws.com/downloads/Second_Life_Quickstart.pdf

The second item from Linden Labs this week consists of new filtering options for adult content in Second Life. In education, it might be nice to search for items which do not involve the, ahem!, more "mature" locations and activities in Second Life... and these changes will start occurring. You can filter your searches for adult content (and, supposedly, filter your searches for only adult content!) From what I've been able to gather, it sounds like Second Life will now be split into "PG", "Mature" (R-rated, I'd guess) and "X-rated" spaces... sim owners/operators will have to pick and plan accordingly. An "Adult Only" continent is also being developed by Linden Labs (a "sneak peak" picture of which is provided at the top of this post)... interesting!!!

The filtering options will become available in June, although next week you'll be able to see some of them enacted using as unreleased as-of-yet Release Candidate viewer (http://secondlife.com/download).

You can read more about the new filtering system at these sites:

Both of these items should prove useful to educators and SL fans! :) See you in the metaverse; peace, -- Michael Russell (Mt. Hood Community College, SL: Regulus Darkstone)

SLTip: Create a Tour for Others

2009-04-07T20:02:00.000-07:00

You can easily create a tour of places in Second Life to share! The first step is to come by Oregon Community Colleges island and pick up a free copy of the open source Tour HUD* that was made for GSD&M by Digi Vox of the Electric Sheep company. You can get one here:

http://tinysl.com/S78b424

To use the HUD as a tour guide, you find it in your inventory and right click on it and select "wear", and the tour HUD will show up like in your Second Life viewer window like the graphic above. Then, to visit the places in the Tour, you just click on the image of where you would like to go, and a brief description of where that image links to is displayed. When you click the "go here" button, you are teleported to that place in Second Life.

To create your own tour with this HUD, you will need 1) a title for the tour stop location, 2) an image to represent the tour stop 3) a landmark for where you would like the tour stop to ultimately take you when you click "Go Here." Edit it by dragging it out onto the ground rather than wearing it, and right click on it and select "Edit". Rename it something that makes sense to you first, then, go to the content tab and right click the note titled "Locations- Fill this out to change the tour!".

When you open the Locations note, it is fully documented, and very easy to update- all you have to do is replace the information that is in the card for your 12 locations. Step by step:

1.You make a descriptive title up for each place, and put it where the notecard says Title:

2. You list the name of its corresponding landmark, which you collected in Second Life from any point by using the "Create Landmark Here" from the World Menu where the notecard says LANDMARK: !!Important note!! The title for your landmark must exactly match from the notecard to the actual landmark. You will delete the current landmarks in the Tour HUD, and drag your landmarks into it instead. Its easiest to get the title exactly the same if you find the landmark in your inventory and copy the name by right clicking and selecting copy, and then using ctrl +v to paste.

3.you replace the UUID number for the picture You find this by right clicking on the corresponding image in your inventory and select "Copy Asset UUID, then paste it by pressing ctrl+v in the script where it says Picture:

4. You create a brief description (180 characters or less) and place it in the Locations notecard where it says DESCRIPTION: for each of your 12 locations.

!!Important!! Try changing the information for a single location in the Tour HUD and test it before going any further to make sure you understand how to update it.

You just do this four step process for all 12 places in your tour, and then you can hand copies of it out to your students, colleagues, friends- Have fun exploring and sharing! If you would like additional help for any part of this process, check out our island schedule for an open sandbox drop in time.

*A HUD is a heads up display, or a small piece of software that extends the things that your Second Life program can do.

FREE Conference HAPPENING NOW!!

2009-03-28T11:16:00.000-07:00

If you have some time this weekend, come join us at Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education. Click here for a schedule of events and SLurl locations:

http://wiki.vwbpe.org/index.php?title=Schedule

In the image above- Rik Riel from Global Kidz speaks about "Aha!" moments in Virtual Worlds, RezEd.org (A social network that acts as glue for the Virtual Ed community) Lots of excellent programming happening throughout today and tomorrow!

“I don't know what you could say about a day in which you have seen four beautiful sunsets.”

2009-03-25T14:21:00.000-07:00

John Glenn quotes (American Marine and Astronaut, b.1921)

I wonder if John Glenn would change his quote to say “I don't know what you could say about a day in which you have seen six beautiful sunsets.”, if he spent 24 hours in Second Life?

Did you know that it takes three hours in Real Life for Second Life to go from sunrise to sunset and that nighttime only lasts one hour? Every four hours, a new day starts in Second Life

This means that for every 24 hours in real-life you age six days in Second Life and that a new year in second life starts appox. every 60 days in Real Life.

FREE Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education Conference

2009-03-19T20:24:00.000-07:00

Register for free here.

From vwbpe.org:

"he Virtual World Best Practices in Education (VWBPE) conference originated from the 2007 Second Life Best Practices in Education Conference. This grassroots, community-based conference attracts faculty, instructors, trainers, administrators, instructional designers, technical specialists, and members of organizations from around the world. Those who create teaching/learning environments, resources, tools, support services and professional development opportunities internal and external to virtual world environments participate. During the conference, participants have opportunities to ask: What is education?, What is teaching?, What is learning? and How can we provide virtual world educational environments in which today’s learners can become all they can be.

The VWBPE Conference provides opportunities for virtual world communities to showcase projects, courses, events and research that lead to best practices in education. The end result of collaborating, sharing, and co-construction of knowledge during the conference is the creation of innovative and immersive environments in which virtual world residents can learn, work, and play."

This is an incredible opportunity for anyone interested in teaching and learning in Second Life- if you have any time available at all next weekend, I urge you to get registered and attend what you can! Hope to see you there~ :)

SL Tip: Create Landmarks (like bookmarks in SL)

2009-03-10T23:47:00.001-07:00

Adding a landmark to return to a place once you've found it in Second Life is easy- just go to the "World" menu and click "Create Landmark Here". Once you do this, a landmark is created in your inventory folder that you can then right click on and select "Teleport" to return to that spot anytime its available.

You can drag and drop landmarks onto another avatar or to their drop box on their profile to pass them around, and you can also attach them to a note card in your inventory- this is a great way to build "tours" or guided experiences in Second Life. The next time you're wandering around exploring spaces for your teaching practice, make a note card, and annotate each landmark in the note card to pass off to others. We love trading these to share our Second Life discoveries!

Virtual Theater: Come Watch Media Together!

2009-03-09T09:52:00.001-07:00

Up in the clouds on OR Community Colleges Isle you'll find our virtual theater- a space for up to 35 avatars to come and synchronously watch streaming media. This week playing in the theater: The Neuroscience of Emotions"- a talk given by Dr. Phillipe Goldin.

Use this link to get to the Theater

And remember, if you are an Oregon Community College instructor and would like to schedule the theater for streaming video media for a distance course, just use our island scheduling request form here. If you're ever wondering what we've got scheduled or coming up in the theater, you can find out at our island calendar available here.

Welcome JoeC Portland- Our New Student Assistant!

2009-03-04T16:04:00.001-08:00

If you come to the island and see JoeC Portland working on tasks or building and scripting in the sandbox, be sure to introduce yourself and add JoeC as your friend. Joe is a Electronics Engineering Technology student at PCC, and is working as our student assistant. He's here to help you find answers to your basic questions and learn right along with us all, so don't be shy about checking for drop in sandbox help time on the island schedule calendar (link in the upper right corner of the blog), and bringing your Second Life questions to us!

SL Tip: Ctrl+Shift+F = Friends List

2009-03-03T07:55:00.000-08:00

This week's beginner tip suggested by Faolan Young- to quickly access your Friends list to see whose online that you've befriended, or to communicate with someone who isn't in your immediate area, use ctrl+shift+f. Remember, you can also access a person's profile from your friends list, where you can find information about them or send them an item.

@ITC eLearning 2009- No Sandbox Hours this week

2009-02-23T23:34:00.000-08:00

The team is attending ITC eLearning 2009 this week, presenting tomorrow as one of the final sessions in what has been an incredibly rich conference, attending to our OCCDLA quarterly reporting, and meeting the state community college librarians on Friday. Because we're especially busy getting through this week's first life requirements, we are unable to schedule drop in help.

Don't worry, assistance time will return next week!

SL Tip: Give an Item

2009-02-18T22:30:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Wa Nootan for asking about this week's tip! When you want to give someone else in Second Life something, you can do it a couple of ways:

1) Drag the item from your inventory onto the other person. If you have permission to transfer the object, they will receive either the item itself if its a "no copy" original, or more likely, a copy of the original item from your inventory.

2) You can give items to anyone on or offline by opening their profile (if they are on your contacts list you click the "Communicate" button to find them, or if you don't know them but know their avatar name, you can click the "Search" button, and then use the "People" tab to search for anyone in the system by their avatar name. Once you've found them and have their profile open, you can drag an item (notecard, object, script, texture, etc.) to the "Give Item" field on their profile (see the graphic above)

Embodiment and Collaboration- How Second Life and Twitter Complement

2009-02-13T12:58:00.001-08:00

Stargazer Blazer, DharmaPuppy and I are working on Avatar Boot Camp for ITC next weekend, and we’re wanting to use Fleep Tuque’s pre-made avatar shapes at ITC’s Avatar Boot camp next Saturday, and it dawns on me as I go out to tweet our needs to Fleep- both these technologies are about communicating with communities of practice for me, but they operate to connect me to groups and goals in a very different way- and it has to do with embodiment.

When I am standing in SL with an avatar in a space, I generally know by our proximity and engagement in the environment that the human behind the keyboard is there, on task, and probably engaging in the same goals that I am if we’re working together. Our avatars give me immediate feedback and make me feel like I am in a place and a space with someone, and if I chat type or say something in that environment, I am expecting immediate feedback from the avatar I’m chatting with. Twitter gives me access to a lot of the same people as Second Life- most SL’rs I know also tweet. But when I in this instance have to go out and tweet Fleep to use her skins, I know that her likely answer will be “yes”, as she’s given them out in world as a courtesy, but the copies Stargazer Blazer have are no transfer- that indicates to me like a creative commons license use item, the content creator probably wants communication about the object’s intended use, if you aren’t going to take it and personally use it yourself. If Fleep’s avatar were standing here with us, we would know by her presence and participation that we share goals and can gain ground on them succinctly. When I tweet to her, I may wait forever for an answer, and don’t know if she was likely present to receive it. So having both Second Life and Twitter to connect to her, I can either ask to meet her in SL for immediate needs, or tweet her so that she can get back to me on her own time. In this case, there’s no immediate need, so Twitter fits the bill. (Socially, Twitter adds lots of other dimensions too, but that’s another post. ;))

Embodiment in an avatar seems to give me communication expectations from others in the system when we are both present with each other. If Rovai identifies reducing transactional distance between instructors and learners as good for building learning community*, I think this example of transactional distance in Second Life vs Twitter is a good one to illustrate how being an avatar with your students could help them become more engaged in what you have to teach them – what do you think?

*see http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/79/152 for Rovai.

Cascades Fire Pit- Temporarily Disabled

2009-02-12T14:05:00.000-08:00

If you come on to the island between now and next Friday (2.20) you may notice a few changes, that could be a little jarring and make the place not look like what it did the last time you were here. We're doing some island upgrades- starting with our Cascades meeting area. Regulus is hunting for an upgraded fire pit, and we've cleared out the trees for now to allow for designing room.

Don't worry, even if there's no fire pit Monday, we can still meet! :)

p.s. Thanks to DharmaPuppy Pink Lady for keeping the island festive through the VDay season!

SL Tip: Explore freely without showing group affiliation.

2009-02-10T12:21:00.001-08:00

When you are out and about freely exploring Second Life, please keep in mind that when you are displaying your OCCDLA group affiliation, you are in essence a representative of our institutions. Of course, things are a little different in virtual spaces- in the physical world, we don't go around with glowing tags over our heads. (Though, as a teacher, don't you sometimes wish?) Luckily in Second Life, you can also turn off your group affiliation display.

** TO Show NO Group Affiliation

1) Right click on your avatar and select "Groups."

2) when your list of current groups is displayed, the one that is currently active is bold. Select "none" at the top of the list, and then click the "Activate" button.

The "OCCDLA" label will disappear from above your head. When you come back to the island (or explore other non-mature content or Ed spaces where you will want to share your affiliation information) Be sure to go back in and re-select the OCCDLA group as active- being a group member gives you additional OR CC Isle privileges. And as always, if you have questions? Bring them to the island team!

SL Tip: Stop SL Emails, and say "I'm busy" automatically.

2009-02-03T18:23:00.000-08:00

(First- a HUGE shout out of "Mahalo Nui Loa!" to the amazing group of instructors through OCCDLA that have just become avatars. There aren't words to express how proud I am of everyone jumping in and learning this technology together. With each session I learned so many things along with you, I'm still sifting it all out in my head! Common threads are emerging to illuminate ways I and the core team can help us all to become the teacher avatars we can dream to be. KUDOS to the wonderful crew who trained our new instructors right along with me- DharmaPuppy PinkLady, Ruby Sol, Regulus Darkstone, Faolan Young- you my friends, are avatar Rock Stars. :)

Ok, enough gushing, I just can't help it. You had to be there, maybe next time you will be!

Onto what I intend to be an ongoing tip series- first I'll be addressing questions that were asked by a few of you, so stay tuned for the bite sized way to keep gaining Second Life skills. In this tip- Stopping those Second Life emails from coming to your inbox, and letting people know when you're in world and on task that you'll be happy to chat with them at a later time.

Lets face it, we all have busy in-boxes! So,check out the graphic above- remember, you get to your Preferences menu from Edit>>Preferences or Ctrl+P (Cmd+P for Mac.) Once you open the preferences window, go to the "Communication" Tab, and make un-check the box next to "send IM to Email(your email address will display here). That stops Second Life from sending messages to your in-box. They will instead wait for you in Second Life, at least, a maximum of 25 of them will. When you get message 26, the oldest drops off the list. So if you really need someone to be able to give you a communication in Second Life, make sure to have them write you a note card, and give it to your avatar- those are stored until the person you're giving the note to logs in next.

Also on the Communications tab is a handy "Busy Mode Respose", that you can write a custom message in to let people know that you're currently heads down, trying to get something done. To set your avatar in busy mode, just go up under the World menu and select "Set Busy". Then, when other people try to IM (instant message) you in Second Life, your pre-written response is returned to them, and messages are stored until you click the "set not busy" button at the bottom of your Second Life viewer window.

Got any questions? Be sure to check out our island calendar for drop in times, swing by our meetings at the fire pit Mondays at 2, or drop me a line at PCC.

THIS WEEK: Ed. Support Faire!

2009-01-25T09:03:00.000-08:00

This week, Educause is holding a Second Life Education Support Faire in-world on their island. A wiki on the event is here:
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Education_Support_Faire

The SLurl to get there is :
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Faire/32/184/35

From their Facebook page: "The SL Education Roundtable (along with the Montclair State CHSSSouth Free Land Initiative and EDUCAUSE Virtual Worlds Group) are participating in the SL Education Support Faire.

The SLER meeting for this week (Tuesday, 2:30pm SLT) will take place from there and we have an "area" where where will be volunteers hanging our for most of the week.

The following folks have generously volunteered to hang out in our area for the hours indicated. Come by say hi, network, relax, and come back as many times throughout the week as you'd like.

All times in this description area listed in SLT" (and remember, SLT is the same time as Pacific Standard/Daylight Time (PST/PDT), or GMT-8).

Sunday, January 25
7am - Aerdna Beaumont
8am - Linda Sautereau
9am - Linda Sautereau
10am - Luipher Fhang & Margaret Michalski
11am - Luipher Fhang
1pm - Wirecutter Renard
3pm - Aedna Beaumont
4pm - Philled Graves
5pm - RubyTuesday Ballyhoo

Monday, January 26
7am - Willow Shenlin
8am - Donna Piaggio
9am - Margaret Michalski
10am - Teachergirl Razor
11am - Luipher Fhang
12pm - Luipher Fhang
1pm - Wirecutter Renard
3pm - Aedna Beaumont
4pm - Philled Graves
5pm - RubyTuesday Ballyhoo

Tuesday, January 27
8am - Donna Piaggio
9am - Wonderalica Alturas
10am - Wonderalica Alturas
11am - Luipher Fhang
12pm - Luipher Fhang
1pm - Wirecutter Renard
2:30 - 3:30 - come by the Pavillion for the SL Education Roundtable
4pm - Aedna Beaumont
5pm - Profesora Farigoule
6pm - Margaret Michalski and Profesora Farigoule

Wednesday, January 28
9am - Margaret Michalski
11am - Luipher Fhang
12pm - Luipher Fhang
1pm - Wirecutter Renard
3pm - Ignatius Onomatopoeia & Aedna Beaumont
4pm - Philled Graves
6pm - Margaret Michalski

Thursday, January 29
4am - Corwin Carillon
5am - Corwin Carillon
7am - Oronoque Westland
8am - Oronoque Westland
10am- Teachergirl Razor
11am - Luipher Fhang
12pm - Luipher Fhang
1pm - Wirecutter Renard
3pm - Aedna Beaumont
4pm - Olivia Hotshot and Logan5 Obscure
5pm - RubyTuesday Ballyhoo
6pm - Margaret Michalski

Friday, January 30
6am - Linda Sautereau
10am - Margaret Michalski
11am - Luipher Fhang
12pm - Luipher Fhang
1pm - Wirecutter Renard
3pm - Aedna Beaumont
4pm - Margaret Michalski

I urge you all to stop by and take a look around, and when you're there, please say hello!! These are some of the most friendly and helpful people you will find in your your journey to understand what it means for you to explore Second Life in your teaching practice.

Training soon? Check your audio.

2009-01-23T15:24:00.000-08:00

If you are signed up for a training session, we'd like to remind you to log in to Second Life prior to your session to be sure that your audio chat functions are working. If you aren't sure and need assistance, we are on the island half an hour early so we can help you. These three a half hour sessions are packed with information, so the less we're dealing with technical issues during the workshop, the more we can share.

Grid Status Sunday: Log-ins Intermittent

2009-01-18T16:22:00.001-08:00

I don't want to use this blog space to report on grid status generally, but with our training session coming up on Tuesday, (and our Monday holiday) I wanted to let those of you trying to get in this weekend know that Second Life is experiencing technical difficulties. This may effect your ability to log in prior to our training session- I will email you directly if on Tuesday if we are still having problems logging in. If this ends up being the case, we will as a back-up meet in my Elluminate virtual office, and I will provide a link for you in the heads up email.

You can always check the current status of the grid when you're unsure if the problem is on your side or theirs at this link: http://status.secondlifegrid.net/

"Second Life is creepy."

2009-01-18T12:47:00.000-08:00

I recently met with one of our college administrators who just joined Second Life, to give them a few minutes of over the shoulder time to get them up to speed, and have a chat while we were at it about some of the ways we see working together to enable Second Life for our students and Faculty. They brought up that as they were creating their character at home, their daughter saw that they were doing so and commented "Oh, you're using Second Life? I think its kind of creepy." The administrator went on to explain this was primarily because of the adult side of Second Life being what was known to her daughter about the space, no doubt because this is the aspect of the world large exposure media focuses on. This led us into a discussion of the public nature of Second Life, and what pros and cons that seems to present.

I brought up Project Wonderland, and told the administrator that its possible to spawn your own instance of an open source server with many benefits re: scalability, privacy, etc.- But then also talked briefly about the idea that we could remove our students from the messiness of random interaction that is more likely when the virtual people you interact with are strangers without a campus affiliation and role to define (control) them, but is that really what we want to do? So many of Second Life's communication and learning affordances have to do with access to ideas, ways of thinking, learning cultures that aren't like our own- and I think if the chaos and messiness weren't there, we'd actually kind of miss it. I definitely think we don't yet know enough either way to make this decision for our organization.. after all, we're a team of community colleges- access to all is what we're all about.

When we participate, feelings are effected, but pixels can re-render- no avatars die. Our classrooms and real-world physical campuses hopefully offer a level of safety and comfort- how do we offer this to our virtual students, faculty and staff, considering the anonymous and open nature of Second Life participation? What about some current learning theory that states we learn more from conflict and failure than we do from safety and success? Our island is open to the public, we have a sandbox, but we also have groups that enable greater access and abilities on the island with affiliation. How is this the same/different from what we do on physical campuses?

Such a huge thing to think about really. It's a multi-faceted issue, as most are when regarding our residence in the Metaverse. I just want to boil down to finding the best way to inform our students that Second Life (like the real world) has some creepy aspects, but overall, it's absolutely NOT a creepy place.

Training Times Announcement Sent

2009-01-17T10:00:00.000-08:00

If you are a memeber of the OCCDLA who has signed up for training during the last two weeks of January, you have been sent an email with your date and time assignment. We've also sent you a SLurl to our fire pit in the Cascades on the island- our starting point. Remember, you'll want to log in once prior to our training session to make sure that all is functioning on the machine which you wish to use for your training session.

I will be available on island a half hour prior to training beginning if you need any help getting your audio working- and our island team is getting very excited to meet you all!

Second Life Education Support Faire- Jan 25-30th!

2009-01-13T13:21:00.001-08:00

From Michael @ MHCC- Thank you Michael! :)

A "Second Life Education Support Faire" is being organized by Linden Labs (the creators of Second Life) to be held between January 25 - January 30. You can read more about it here:

http://blog.secondlife.com/2009/01/10/second-life-education-support-faire-january-25th-30th-2009/

From the site:

To support the educational community, we would like to invite you to participate in and attend Linden Lab’s inaugural Education Support Faire! Over the years, Second Life has provided ways for the world of academia to put to use creativity lending to immersive education, distance learning, knowledge sharing, faculty networking–and many other ways to enhance the collective educational community’s efforts in the real world. The success of projects surrounding these efforts within Second Life can be attributed to the many innovative educators, academics, and students who have chosen to utilize Second Life for these purposes.

The main goal for the Education Support Faire is to bring together educators, academics, and students to explore the support mechanisms available to residents who use Second Life to enhance real world educational efforts.

With many networks of support provided by and for residents in Second Life, we would like especially to extend an invite to Second Life educational minds to take part in presenting at the Educational Support Faire.

Might be worth checking out! The faire will be held here:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Supporte/151/152/36

Have a great day! Peace, -- Michael

Bloom's Taxonomy and Second Life

2009-01-11T17:32:00.000-08:00

I found this great chart online a while back in the public domain that listed Bloom's Taxonomy like a ladder, and stacked verbs appropriate for each level beneath, and placed activities that aligned above. Taking this one step further, I've added a third tier of information to this chart. It's by no means an exhaustive list of possible ways to use Second Life for teaching and learning, but rather an aid to get your creative juices flowing when you want to use Second Life appropriately in your lesson plans. Click on the image above to get a copy in PDF you can save and print- and feel free to send me feedback or suggestions for improving it.

Can't Log In? Check The Grid Status

2008-12-29T16:45:00.000-08:00

Sometimes no matter how many times you type your username and password, you can't get logged into the grid. Remember- you can check the current status of the grid and any issues it may be experiencing at http://status.secondlifegrid.net.

It's been a quiet winter break... with statwide training and conference workshops and sessions coming up, we're looking forward to a busy winter! Stay tuned...

RGB = XYZ

2008-12-03T12:27:00.000-08:00

Melany and I are working on still images and poses for the Small Business Development Center's simulations, and it dawns on me that when I first started learning how to move objects around in Second Life, it took me a while to put to memory which direction was which. Coordinates in Second life are still Cartesian, but in math classes growing up, the entire grid was tipped 90 degrees to what is "normal" to what I learned. This didn't come to light for me until I sat down today to work with Melany, and she insisted that this grid isn't the same as a "math grid. "

So, here's a little mnemonic that I've devised for myself that may help you- it helped Melany:

RGB = XYZ, where the red handle correlates to the x value, y correlates to green and z to blue.

Also helpful? Thinking of the way things will actually turn in the real world when correlated to values on the x y z plane - I did this thinking of the way my body moves. R, or red, is like tumbling head over heels, Y or green is like doing a cartwheel, and z is like spinning in place. Does this make sense? Let me know if a better explanation than this is desired.

Homogenous Forests?

2008-12-01T11:55:00.000-08:00

If you've been on the island lately, you may have noticed that from our space has emerged a ton of pine trees- the basic Linden evergreen is acting as a placeholder, until we can grow more localized Oregon fauna. Did you know you can help sprout new plants to bring green variety to OR Community colleges island? We have a list of native species we're growing as a group- and making plants in Second Life is pretty easy- we'll happily help you, just come on by during sandbox drop in time! (Plant list, sandbox schedules and more are at our main info site. )

If you'd like more information on the island flora project, drop avatar Ruby Sol a note in Second Life.

Lots happening on the island

2008-11-17T16:10:00.000-08:00

I just got back from a two week vacation and got a chance to wander around the island this afternoon. It is developing so wonderfully. Go take a stroll! Here are some photos of our hard working builders.

Island Map and Signs

2008-11-15T09:40:00.001-08:00

Information signs have been added back into the island landscape, and now includes an island map at our central landing point in the Willamette Lowlands. The tent just behind this spot will house general island information- project process, opportunities to get involved, and an island events schedule.

While the pathways need some fine-tuning adjustment, they are also in place to help aid you in interpreting the island layout. If you want to visit each available area on the island, just follow the path and read each sign to find out what's planned for the space, and who to contact to get involved.

Beautiful Sandbox Chaos

2008-11-13T20:46:00.001-08:00

For two hours last Wednesday, DharmaPuppy Pinklady and I went out to Rock Creek campus at PCC where we work, and helped introduce a class of 12 CIS133G-Introduction to Computer Game Programming students to the basics of Second Life building. What an incredible experience! Above is a collage of some of the wonderful things that sprouted up in our sandbox in less than two hours. This group of brilliant kids, I'll thank them again for playing. I also learned a valuable lesson. Give kids a system to game, and they will. Always un~check the "allow terraforming" box BEFORE you let the sandbox horde loose. ;)

The Sandbox Returns!

2008-10-28T12:24:00.000-07:00

The sandbox on OR CC Isle has been set back up, complete with streaming jazz from our very on KMHD at Mt. Hood community college. This space on the island is set to allow anyone who comes to Second Life a spot to try building- using public sandbox spaces in Second Life is totally free! It's also set to auto-return objects that are created there after six hours, so nothing permanent gets left.

Do you have a project you would like advice or assistance in building? Check our weekly island schedule for drop in sandbox hours- volunteers are available on OR CC isle during this time to assist. Or, just come on by, sip a virtual cup of joe, and hang out and watch others build while listening to some smooth, smooth jazz.

Construction Continues...

2008-10-27T15:25:00.000-07:00

The island is nearly finished being terraformed- the general layout is stable and all of our planned land masses are in place. I've popped up a temporary tent city in for the Willamette lowlands- Regulus and I will be working on more permanent structures soon- it's been a busy project week outside of Second Life.

This week, I'll be having a meeting with possible partners from allied health- moving health care simulation space on the island forward is one of our primary goals. We know now that it's easy enough to construct a health care related space in Second Life- now what we need are subject matter experts to help us 'flesh out' a simulation script to test here. Will we do this through interactive objects, or a scripted HUD? Only time and a little formative evaluation will tell.

Also in our new build plans- we have talked from the beginning about wanting a large presentation space, like an outdoor ampitheater on the island- we've decided upon the Ashland open air Elizabethan theater as a model, and it sounds like we may have a theater arts instructor who will be interested in being involved- exciting times!

Now that the island needs only minor land tweaks, the next step is our flora project! Stay tuned for when the "how to make plants in Second Life" workshop will be held on the island in the next few weeks....

Upcoming Terraforming Plans

2008-10-15T11:36:00.000-07:00

Hi Island team! (and anyone else out there keeping an eye on our project ;)) You may have noticed a few things like trees missing from the island lately...

We're moving into the next phase of our development, which includes running terraforming tests on the island, starting this Friday, October 17, through Monday October 20th. DharmaPuppy PinkLady and I will be making a terraformation mess over the weekend, so the island may or may not be available. At the meeting on Monday October 20th at 2PM- we will be presenting multiple possible terraformed futures to the team, and between the 20th and 27th, we'll put design plans on our main information site.

If you have items on the island, we will be returning them to you to be sure they don't get lost during construction. Come join us if you would like to be involved in terraforming or selection of the future island look! (Note- we do have some guidance on what plans we are aiming to meet, please see project documents at the main information site.)

Fall Term Prep- Next Meeting, 9/29- 2PM

2008-09-22T08:58:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the 2008-09 school year everyone! Prepping for fall term is one of our busiest times at our individual institutions, so the island group is focusing on our campus needs for the next week- a new date and time has been set this year for our meetings- we're in the Cascades on Mondays at 2PM. Come join us for some virtual coffee, real camaraderie, island development and instructional planning!

SLCC 08 Poster Session Followup

2008-09-11T10:26:00.000-07:00

In Tampa while we were giving our presentation, a number of questions came up during our session that we didn't get a chance to address- there were many interested people asking questions at once, which was awesome! It made for a bit of a chaotic session, though, and I wanted to make sure that everyone's questions about our project were addressed.

First, the SLURL for our island:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/OR%20Community%20Colleges/111/83/29
If you have Second Life on your machine, you can click this SLurl, and Second Life will launch and you will be transported to OR Community Colleges Island.

-How did we approach administration with our project? As a group! :) Group support for such a new and unique technology has really helped us bind together to create a salient justification for exploration of Second Life. I have a Masters of Arts in Learning and Technology focusing on Avatars, Cognition and Community in Second Life, which makes my physical administration of the island a good fit (though I will say I am just a conduit to organize everyone's incredible efforts- Second Life takes a village more than any other technology I've worked with.)

-How do we overcome security issues? We take advantage of system affordances that allow us to secure the space technically, like group permissions levels and land controls that don't allow pushing for instance- but in the end, we approach the space with the open hearts and minds of pioneer explorers, and know that if things go awry, well. Time is expensive, but pixels can be regenerated, and humans usually learn more poignant lessons from mistakes- great teaching moments can arise from strife. We all also realize that we can guide the space, but we can't really control it.

- What about our build or train priorities? We believe it is most important to train as many people as we can to think of this space with their higher order hats on- and that there is already a TON of incredible content in Second Life to utilize for teaching and learning. We will be putting the vast majority of our project funds into preparing folks to use the environment, rather than building out an elaborate build on OR CC Isle. Now, that's not to say we don't want to have a nice island that people want to visit- but we recognize that the success of this project is found in the human efforts atop the pixels. "The sauce", so to speak.

Whew! I think that's all that got missed, but remember, if anyone has questions about our project, please contact us in world, or come to the island. We're meeting this term on Mondays at 2PM. We'll be taking a small break for the next two weeks to get Fall term up and running, so our next meeting is September 29th- come on by and join us!

SLCC2008 ROCKS!

2008-09-06T12:16:00.000-07:00

I'm here in Tampa, and Regulus and I just got through with presenting an in-world poster session for the conference proceedings that are happening in world. There were a few technical challenges, which I could expect in a hotel full of people using Second Life at the same time (incredible lag!)- and I was happily overwhelmed by the curiosity that seems to exist around our project. A HUGE shout out to Regulus who is an incredible presenting partner, without him I think the chaos of so many questions at once would have buried me! :) And THANK YOU to everyone who came to Rockcliffe to hear us speak about the project today- as I said at the end of the presentation, it may be that amidst all of those questions flying about, Regulus and I may have missed yours - I will be posting the transcript from our presentation at our site at http://sites.google.com/site/orcommunitycollegesisland - and will get to any questions that we missed during the presentation when I get home from Tampa on Monday - trying to take in as much as I can and meet you all while I'm 'here' is my primary priority this weekend.

I will say I was also excited to hear shout outs about others who are attempting similar projects, and very much look forward to continuing this dialog with you all as we grow forward!

Funny thing- that may have been the quickest half hour of my life! And, I meant to get a picture of the event to post, but was so involved in presenting, I didn't take a shot. Anyone got an image of our presentation? Please send it our way. :)

As we say in Hawaii where I grew up, Mahalo nui loa!! (Thank you very much)

East and West Office/Condo Teleport Boards

2008-08-28T13:32:00.000-07:00

Hooray! Just a few days later, and we have a functioning teleport board, that lists the names of spaces that are already occupied- so great thanks to DharmaPuppy Pink Lady for jumping in feet first and learning how to script by building items the island needs to do it- what a win win! :)

This makes it easier for all of you to come in and find a space to use - choose a numbered space, verify it is indeed the one you want, and then let DharmaPuppy PinkLady or me, MonicaMarlo Martinek know via a note card or IM in Second Life that you've found your new virtual office.

What exciting pixels! (A discussion of why they're more than pixels with human effort involved some other time...) We can't wait to promote the availability of this space to interested faculty and staff this fall. We've got a short list of tasks to complete to get the island ready for it's next stage of technical development- Regulus and I will be meeting to generate our timeline and project plan as a structure to seek a developer with.... stay tuned for a busy and exciting fall term here on OR Community Colleges Island.

Free Virtual Office Space!

2008-08-22T09:52:00.001-07:00

Our project has received funding to develop forward with professional assistance, yay! For the rest of the summer and some of Fall term though, we've got temporary structures on the island- one of these is an office tower, that we invite you as Oregon Community College faculty or staff to come in and claim a spot to set up your own virtual space in Second Life.

A few guidelines:

-Some of the tower spaces are already busy being used, and it should be obvious by objects being present in the space when you get there. We're creating a system that will check each space out by the week, but until this gets completed, we're going by the honor system. If you are curious about which space you may use in the tower, please IM or send a note card to me, MonicaMarlo Martinek- I'm happy to assist!

-Please keep your prim use amount to about 150 prims. What's a prim you ask? Prims are primitive objects, the shapes that make everything in Second Life. A single item, like a chair or table, can have multiple prims. You can right click on an item and see how many prims it takes to make the item by the number of objects it lists from the general tab. Admittedly, 150 prims isn't very much, but we have an island limit of 15,000 and want to be sure everyone who wants to participate can.

-Island structures will be going away at some point during fall term to make way for version one of our island design plans. We will give you two weeks notice once this date is announced, and you won't lose any of your items when this happens, but they may be returned to your inventory all at once.

Keep in mind as you explore with us on Oregon Community Colleges island that we're all learning together- for example- I take the greatest care to assure experiments conducted on the island will have minimal impact, but as a space for pioneer exploration, it's difficult to give guarantees that all will be stable from day to day.

Come Make Machinima!

2008-08-21T13:45:00.000-07:00

I've taken a floor of our condo tower which is still pretty empty and made it all white, and set it's primitive shapes or prims to full bright, meaning they are fully lit no matter what the state of the lighting in the environment. I did this so that we now have a "Machinima Studio" - It's kind of like an enormous Hollywood lot stage, where sets can be popped up and filmed in at will. In the space in the tower there is a sign that you can click and get a notecard of a list of Machinima resources in Second Life and on the web- and a place at Alt+Zoom studios that you can get a free camera to start too! Be sure to read the Alt-Zoom manifesto, and thank BuhBuhCuh Fairchild if you see him wandering the Metaverse for enabling us all with a great tool. :)

Machinima are animations that are made using the Second Life environment and a virtual video camera to record scenes, just like making a real movie but a lot easier and less expensive-and it's a great way to use some of Second Life's abilities for expressing visualizations without having to deal with the complexities of an entire group's direct participation.

Are you an Oregon Community College instructor who would like to try producing a short piece of Machinima to explain something you find your students have trouble getting because it's such an "abstract concept"? If you can imagine a way to visually represent your ideas to express them more clearly for your learners, chances are, we can put our heads together and render our collective imaginations. Bring your ideas to our meetings on Wednesdays, or drop me an email, or notecard in Second Life so we can discuss what it would take!

Presence and Loneliness

2008-08-18T14:25:00.000-07:00

It's funny, really. I never get lonely when I am Googling information, or digging through podcasts up on iTunes U, but sometimes when I am on the island by myself doing work as I am this afternoon, I find it feels, well.. pretty empty. I'm assuming this is tied to my sense of embodiment through an avatar, and the expectation that if I am present in a space it would be a very rare thing to be alone had I not sought isolation out. I don't necessarily expect anyone to be on our island yet- we've only been "open" to the public for a few days, and have done no promotions, events or marketing outside of the core exploration team.

So, strangely, I find a moment of childhood comfort in pixels this afternoon. I grew up west Hawaii- in my neighborhood, there were no children within walking distance of me, so many times my playmates as a kid were my stuffed animals and pets. Copping a squat for a few minutes of contemplation on DharmaPuppy's tie-died bear(which she'll be showing us all how to make in an upcoming Wednesday afternoon workshop, by the way)I'm realizing that the affordance of shared space communication offered by Second Life feels like it's quickly becoming something I expect, rather than find novel.

Hmmmm. What kinds of connections exist between my not wanting to be alone here, and humans peferring to learn from each other?

Ok, I think the bear's tie dye has worn off, and I can get back to work now! :)

What a busy week!

2008-08-18T00:51:00.001-07:00

Yes indeed, a busy week! It started out with taking over stewardship of the island as owner, which gives me flexible control to do things like create a sandbox for us, and assign media URL's to subdivided parcels on the island. It also gives me build control to jump in and explore just what it might take to build out a space, say, for allied health or the medical lab tech program- both in need of distributed education models to help with capacity building requirements. We've got no choice as a state, it seems there's a dire shortage of healthcare professionals in our future, and not enough space to train everyone necessary in existing programs around the state.

So, I spent a bit of time this weekend looking at what value these spaces can have for health careeducation, and came across a TON of information- the best synopsis I found at http://healthcybermap.semanticweb.org/sl.htm - which is a wealth of links to articles, movies, locations in Second Life, all aimed to educate about healthcare topics. In all this searching through the sites of others, in the spirit of sketching ideas out in 3-d to save them, I popped up a few floors in the tower on our island, and created with about six hours and twelve dollars of purchased prims, a space for an example clinical practice simulation, and an example medical lab tech simulation space as well. No, they aren't fancy or interactive yet, but I hope they serve to show that building in Second Life isn't the difficult part of creating immersive simulations to teach- the greater challenge will be in writing the narratives that engage and challenge students enough to want to embody a necessary role to become part of the story, rather than just watching it - keeping them engaged long enough to learn through what one of my heroes 'Squi-dawg' ;) calls "seductive failure".

Another valuable tidbit was found with the Apple Ed community at http://edcommunity.apple.com/ali/print.php?itemID=11243 -

"
According to Brown, Collins, and Duguid (1989) there are six critical components for creating a situated learning environment- apprenticeship; collaboration; reflection; coaching; multiple practice; articulation of learning skills. All of these components are present in VICSR with a learning environment that is contextually rich and highly realistic using high quality audio, graphic images and content based on real life situations."

Important components to design toward as we go forward to imagine what kind of scripted experience within a virtual clinic in Second Life can impart the core competencies we need our future health care workforce to critically understand.

Personally? I hope to channel some 'Dan-tastic!™ inspiration' along the way, and maybe even gain some Sterling advice, as I plan to mine the wealth of creative genius that is in my pack of g8m4 friends heads for ideas on compelling narrative in a virtual space. After all, they've been playing simulation games of one form or another since childhood, and now all engage in MMO's.

...AND I need to invite the nurses and lab techs to an afternoon at Ground Kontrol.

Buggy Today

2008-08-10T13:27:00.001-07:00

Here it is Sunday, and I'd like to get a chunk of island work done, but Second Life has been acting strange since last night. Its times like this when I wonder is it our island? Is it all of Second Life? Luckily, the human network there is pretty responsive- a ping out in a couple of directions to friends on separate server instances validate that indeed, Second Life is acting buggy today.

Ah well, sometimes the world makes us slow down and take a break, even when we don't want to. I got a good amount of my task list chipped at yesterday, including better info signage, path markers, the sandbox and it's temporary pop-up 2.5D "Cafe", where each community college has their own table. It's a neat thing to see all of our diverse logos clustered and represented standing together in physical form. I know, I'm a little bit of a sap. Hey, I've never hidden my Oregonian pride! :)

Terraforming changes have happened, a Island zones are better marked with explanation signs, and I am hunting some options for pre-fab buildings to meet our immediate needs for Fall on the exchange and in world instead of doing any actual building today. It takes a lot of patience practice for me to do the same monotonous task twice, so anything maintenance, I prefer to do at a time when the grid is being a bit more stable, even if there are never any guarantees.

The Island as a 3D Sketch

2008-08-09T15:45:00.001-07:00

While we were in Yachats for the OCCDLA summer retreat, Paula Ascher of CGCC(Ruby Sol) said something that stuck with me about the state of our island. It's like we began with our plans in 2D on paper, first by writing them down, and then doing some preliminary rough mapping graphically. Now between here and knowing what our island build out will truly be, we've been loosely using the space as a sketching sandbox.

We're developing both our vision of what we're doing here as a group, and also our team abilities to define what it is within Second Life at the same time- but there does have to be some point where we say enough is enough, and move forward toward a more cohesive island plan. I think in our collective vision we can all feel how this space can represent Oregon well, but it's difficult for any of us to express exactly what that is sometimes.

Donna Swanson (DharmaPuppy PinkLady) of PCC and I are spending a lot of time 'after hours' on the island to really bring the current island plan as forward as we can in "sketch" fashion now, and using signs on the island to express what our plans are. It's important to us that if you want to get involved, you feel welcome in doing so. It's also important with so many people's wishes being represented here that we be highly communicative about its development phases.. that way you know what's going on, and how you can participate if you want to. (I know so far I keep saying I will go back and blog after the fact, but that hasn't happened much, so for now, I'm trying a phase of blogging as I go... )

Do you have ideas how our group process in island development is going, perhaps you have ideas of how to aid the effort? Please come to our island planning meeting on Wednesdays at 2 PM, we meet around the fire pit in the Cascades.

More Communication Needed

2008-08-09T15:32:00.000-07:00

Well, I face a challenge today with such open permissions levels on the island. Because we're all allowed in the current setup to terraform or change the lay of the land, even though I've asked for any major changes to be cleared through the group, we all respond to different levels of what is or isn't OK I think.

Even when a participant is well meaning, when so many cooks are in the kitchen at once and we all add a little salt, well, pretty soon the broth is inedible to everyone. I think I need more information on how to guide democratized spaces through the wisdom of the group, but I am challenged today by the idea that for some people, understanding a limitation toward greater goals can be void from a person's world view, and this is why limitations though not necessarily desirable, do seem to be necessary if I'm not going to spend my Second Life repairing well intended mistakes that change the lay of the land and make it lack functions for the majority of the group.

So my obvious solution is to create permissions levels for group members, and have people outside the admin group come through the same group participation process as everyone else, otherwise I get some group members upset at others for making unintended changes. I try to recognize my own irritation at these changes and neutralize it, knowing that change is just a challenge, but never seems to end up as bad over the long run... I'm making those groups today, but not necessarily happy to have to do it.

In a perfect world, no is understood, agreed upon, and actually means no to everyone participating. Thank goodness we've established one fact- Second Life and our interaction with it, imperfect. :)

Why Persistent Monitoring is Important

2008-07-30T21:47:00.000-07:00

I'm in on the island this evening doing some maintenance, and I get this message sent to me via a general broadcast from Linden Labs:

"There is a hardware issue which is affecting some resident’s ability to log in. Some residents inworld may not appear in search, or may appear to be offline. Affected residents may also experience problems rezzing items or making transactions. To be safe, we reccomentd all residents refrain from rezzing no copy items or making transactions until the all clear is given. Some groups may also experience issues related to group abilites. Ops is at work correcting the problem. Please monitor the Second Life grid Status Report, http://tinyurl.com/5e20pk, for further information."

The thing that immediately strikes me- I am sure that this message will go to everyone logging into the system, and it could set people who are new to this environment on edge. It makes me as a seasoned user nervous to do anything in Second Life at the moment- considering if I do something irreversible, I may not be able to get help fixing it. I am not a SL rock star by any means.. so I am not likely to get immediate service, and I can't afford down time.

This is one of the things that piques my interest about the open source platform of Wunderland. When SL has problems, they only have so many people trained to respond. Were we as an academic community to embrace an open source virtual world standard, we could be our own response team. Our only limit then is time, and impetus- and I know MANY passionate folk in education around virtual spaces.

I post this in presenting the thought to our group- what will "support" mean for users of our environment? Can we expect to hold course learning experiences where students pay for a high quality interaction, when our avatars live through such great challenges trying to guarantee a safe and stable place to learn in the metaverse?

I believe it's possible, but then.. you all know, I am a dreamer. ;)

OCCDLA Summer Retreat Update

2008-07-30T13:41:00.000-07:00

Howdy team!

I just got back from the OCCDLA summer retreat in Yachats, and the weather was pretty Oregon coast- half sunshine, half fog socked in so thick we couldn't see the beach 50 yards away. I can hardly complain, the coast is beautiful no matter what the weather it seems.

The fog did make it easier to focus on virtual worlds and other group concerns for OCCDLA- so Tuesday morning when Ruby(Paula) presented our progress, all eyes and ears in the room were riveted to find out that our project so far is successful and on schedule. We've asked for sustaining funds for 08-09, as well as a development budget so that we can seek and hire a professional design team to assist in our islands planned buildout. (http://sites.google.com/site/orcommunitycollegesisland/) The next critical date for funding information is August 6-7th, when CIA/OCCDLA will be meeting in Salem to hash out the annual state budget.

Progress, exciting! :)

~Monica

Inagural Meeting

2008-05-04T22:40:00.000-07:00

Wednesday May 3oth we held our first on island meeting, with participants from multiple institutions. It was a casual discussion- with a few tasks metered out toward next week's May 7th meeting.

Regulus Darkstone will be focusing on urban development/building plans. Ruby Sol and MonicaMarlo Martinek have enlisted the help of AppleAnn Finkel to add authentic local flora in localized zones that reflect the flavor of Oregon.

A suggestion box has been placed on the island for people to drop note cards into, to share thoughts at our weekly meetings.

Next meeting, Monica Marlo Martinek will be leading a how to basic building clas for 45 minutes, the second half of the meeting.