Community College Librarian » Virtual Worlds

Castronova Virtual Worlds Workshop at IU

Denise — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 15:20:40 +0000

From Press Release:
The Virtual Worlds Workshop at Indiana University – taking place August
3-7, 2009 – offers proven strategies for future virtual world developers
from business and academia. Whether you wish to create a profitable virtual
world game, an economical consumer engagement strategy, an immersive
learning and research environment, or a media rich tool for collaboration
and training, the Virtual Worlds Workshop will assist you in matching your
organization’s goals, desired audience, and technological scope to the
appropriate tools and a viable plan of action for construction and ongoing
operations. Virtual worlds have become a multi-billion dollar industry, yet
too many fail by recreating the mistakes of the past; the Virtual Worlds
Workshop gives you the tools to move into the future. Save 2 years and $2
million!”

More information can be found at vw2.indiana.edu.

Congratulations, Damn it.

Denise — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 21:46:42 +0000

The winners of the Linden Prize were announced today. I’m very happy for the people at Studio Wikitecture and Virtual Ability. I know some of the hardworking and tremendously creative people in both of these groups–they richly deserve this award and need the cash infusion. In my heart was really hoping that the Alliance Library would get the award. They were the pioneers of education in Second Life and its quite the bummer that people aren’t just simply burying them in money.

Nursing, Second Life and Educause

Denise — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 15:28:00 +0000

This new article in the Educause Quarterly http://tinyurl.com/c3ug6e,
Virtual World Learning Spaces: Developing a Second Life Operating Room Simulation by Stephanie Gerald and David Antonacci from the Univ. of Kansas illustrates how SL can be used in medical education. They’ve created some really fantastic simulations for students. My favorite part is that the students’ interactions with the simulator are emailed to the instructor. With these virtual world simulations, students can practice at home on their computers—simulations are no longer confined to the lab at school. They can also work together in teams in a virtual world and talk to one another while interacting with the simulation.

What I double love about this article is that its gives a detailed description of what SL is and how to use it and chronicles the entire journey of these educators getting up and running in SL. I wholeheartedly agree with the authors’ point about using SL for focused, identified instructional needs instead of trying to make the instruction fit into the medium. Not everything can be taught better in 3-D, though stuff like real-time data visualization is on its way to virtual worlds. That said, you cannot know what is possible until the medium is thoroughly explored. I really believe that faculty and instructional designers getting in a virtual world, playing around and experimenting, is totally necessary. It is exactly like learning a new software, except its a lot more fun.

I also LOVE how the article is written and designed–Text, video and audio. This is the new face of the academic paper, people! EQ v.32 2009

Second Life for Workplace Learning

Denise — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 21:49:19 +0000

Tom Werner is the god of workplace/virtual world info. He did a free webinar on the topic just recently which I kick myself hard for missing. The phrase “3-D:In it, not looking at it” has to be at the top of my list for believing so strongly in virtual worlds in community college education. I’ll spare you the soapbox and give you Werner’s presentation. I will get on that soapbox as soon as I get some more coffee down my gullet.

Using Second Life for Workplace Learning 03-25-09

View more presentations from twerner.

My blog sucks…

Pip — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 13:30:11 +0000

Because I never have time to post anything more than a video or a picture of something cute. Here’s an awesome student machinima. Excellent editing.

Because I like you..

Pip — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 22:59:43 +0000

I give you Animusic

Teaching on the MUVE Workshop!

Pip — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 22:47:43 +0000

Teaching on the MUVE Workshop, originally uploaded by notmarian.

Here I am with my class on the first day. Its so exciting to have so many of my COD peeps here with me. In this group, we have 4 computer scientists, a student services professional, a journalism professor, an architect, a literature professor, a business professor and, of course, a librarian! The experience was a total riot. Everyone dived right in and learned a bunch of basics. My favorite part was when I gave everyone “walk overrides” so they wouldn’t walk like ducks. It was so cute when all the women in the group simultaneously said “oooooh” when they saw their avatars move with the Sexy Walk override. Hilarious. The guys are diving right in too. One guy is looking pretty beefy and another is fashioning himself into an angel. Ha! Next week we’re going to discuss the life of an avatar and the virtual representation of self. Check out the workshop wiki–click on the pretty wiki tab at the top of this page!

The ISTE and me…

Denise — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 16:13:25 +0000

I’ve been asked to give a talk in the ISTE Speaker Series about community colleges and Second Life. Now that the date approaches (June 10) I’m giving in to panic and just a little smidge of excitement. What can I tell this enormous group of K-12 educators about the benefits of virtual worlds to community college students? Well, I guess, a lot. I can tell them what we’re already doing: bringing literature to life, emergency room nursing simulations, electronics and engineering “labs,” introducing students to other cultures and immersive language learning, letting them experience art in a new and very personal way; not to mention bringing the students together in a learning environment that they can create themselves. I can tell them about introducing our students to the future workplace/workspace and teach them new forms of collaboration that go far beyond the dreaded online group project and into the realm of distributed teams. Second Life and virtual worlds in our sector of education is so exciting. So, why am I intimidated about giving a presentation to this group? Because my name is in the same lineup of speakers as Howard Rheingold’s. In the immortal words of Wayne and Garth: I am not worthy.

Sorry, greatly lame.

Pip — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 05:16:27 +0000

Sometimes the You Tube comments are just so spot-on that they are better than the videos. Vollee just released a Second Life client for mobile devices with the iPhone version coming soon. I love my iPhone and would not do that to the poor sweet thing. BUT these sorts of developments in virtual world access do give me hope that people will have come to major grips that virtual worlds are here to stay and we educators just need to suck it up and deal with it. Just relax and let it happen. It will be ok, I promise.

(NOTE: 6-5-07 This video is not Vollee’s version of SL for the iPhone. When it is really ready for public consumption…I will review it. I’m hoping that it will be wonderful. Pip)

Here’s Second Life running on an iPhone. It really is, as Alex3330 says:

Whither the wiki

Pip — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 03:46:28 +0000

The Community Colleges in SL group finally has a wiki. See the pretty tab above or go to: http://ccsl.wetpaint.com I hope we’ll make it a useful tool for all CC’s interested in getting into virtual worlds. What I’d really like to post about today is my search for the free wiki. I looked at pbwiki, wetpaint and wikispaces. PBWiki is by far the nicest in terms of user-interface and editing features but it is not customizable unless you pay for it AND you can’t have your wiki just be open for anyone to work on it. Collaborators have to be invited. What a pain for a large group. Wikispaces is a nice vanilla option but its sort of ugly which I know is a really helpful assessment. I chose wetpaint because I could add a logo, a theme and the editing is really easy, and anyone can edit unless I lock it up.