CPCC 3D Campus / SLC3

Sony plays catch-up

2007-03-11T22:54:00.000-05:00

Very nice graphics... it'll be interesting to see how this all pans out (note there is an ad first): http://www.gametrailers.com/player.php?id=17701&type=mov

Also note the dogs, relating to my earlier article about Fable... http://www.gametrailers.com/player.php?id=17701&type=mov

Very interesting things on the horizon...

d.i.

A quick catch-up

2007-03-11T21:08:00.000-05:00

There has been a lot going on on all front SL - the number of users keeps growing fantastically - though it's not clear how many of those become users, and how many are just dropping in for a peek. Regardless, 1 % of 4.4 million is still a lot of people- especially when compared to say the number of people in a program of study at a school, or visiting a mall.

Our campus development is moving slowly and steadily along. We invite you to visit "CPCC Campus" and if you are an educator, and are willing to clearly identify your RL self within your profile, will give you some office space - email di dot vonbriesen at cpcc dot edu if you're interested.

There are several articles i just happened across on BBC:

"Volunteers sign up to build game " http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6422333.stm Is about a company that's asking players to help. Not unlike the move the Linden Labs made in open-sourcing their client recently - not to mention that almost everything WITHIN SL is user-created to begin with.

"Real game characters 'next year'" http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6376479.stm deals with the development of more realistic avatars- that is where they look like real people instead of animations. The best I've ever seen along these lines is the Last Flight of the Ossyris in The Animatrix - specifically the fight scene - though i'm sure there are better variants out there - and that is now several years old anyway.

I've prognosticated with colleagues about the future of conveying emotions. Currently we have gestures, and even some minor facial expressions, but by no means the richness of a real conversation. Which begs the question, do you want a real conversation, or do you want people to see what you send (i.e. LOL, even though maybe you're only grinning). So there is future potential for all kinds of expression online, while you may really be sitting there grim-faced, unmoving.

On an even deeper note, we have "Designer hopes for love in games" http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6434471.stm in which the Fable folks go so far as to plan for baby making, and baby development, in the hopes that you'll fall in love with your baby. AI (the movie) anyone? They also have plans for a dog, which can help (or fight) it's owner and is unique. Thing brings us back to the Gilbody principle i spread around- It's two things that make it work- emotional investment and proximity. It'll be interesting to see how this goes.

For a little bit of side drama, and examples of how people get emotionally invested, there was a dialogue from the Islamic Society, which is closely affiliated with the Chebi Mosque developed by the (non-muslim) designer Marino Nov(dang, can't remember rest of last name). So there was a woman who wanted to convert. I advised her to go to a real place of worship and have real witnesses - but somewhere in the mix she ended up at the masjid/mosque, and someone else showed up with guns, and another person protested the presence of the "obscene" guns. From what i gather, his refusal to dump the guns (remember, this is all in the virtual world, folks) she stripped off all her clothes - and offended everyone else by going in naked. Eventually he dumped the guns, and she was banned for persisting in her immodesty. So silly as it seems, there are very real political, social and even religious interactions going on. One person even put forth a suggestion that people be able to have Islamic marriages within SL. I voted against it. There's already an establishe way to "partner" with others, officially, and if you're going to be up to things that are intimate, you need to get that verified in real life first - at least in my version of what God wants.

I bring this up not to bore you with petty politics but as evidence of how involved people get with these things. I was booted out of a private meeting (didn't know it was, and tried to be respectful) by getting zapped a few hundred meters off an island and dropped into the water. I was OFFENDED- really. It hurt my feelings and made me angry. I've seen similar things on chatroom discussions and even forums- but this had a certain immediacy to it- as when you are cut off in traffice, or asked to leave a meeting that you happen upon. It is because of this that this platform is so intriguing- after all, we are working to bring people together over distance, and to replicate experiences for educational purposes. What better way to show racism, sexism, abuse, bullying, or even poor traffic intersection design?

So onward we go!

D.I./Icabad Vallejo

ps: as an aside, to get a sense of how you relate to the current high-schooler/undegrads, as yourself how often you send text messages by phone. A kids a asked yesterday said virtually everyone he knows sends at least 2 messages a day, and some are at it all day - even during class.

Second Life Goes Open Source

2007-02-07T08:43:00.000-05:00

Nearly three weeks ago, Linden Lab open sourced its Second Life viewer application. Rob Lanphier, Linden Lab's director of open source development, said the development mailing list has been very active and there is an IRC (define) channel that's hopping 24/7 with people doing development.

Read more ...

SL Shortlist

2006-11-29T09:49:00.000-05:00

If you had 7.5 minutes with the School President, what would you show?

Stats - 2nd life home page http://www.secondlife.com
Updates to SL - shows how much development is going on: http://blog.secondlife.com http://blog.secondlife.com/2006/11/28/second-life-1130-release-wednesday-november-29th/
Second Life classes in Second Life (A sampler) http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?t=88521
Real World Businesses/Organizations:

A note to SL Training List

2006-11-26T19:49:00.000-05:00

I wrote this just now in response to the question, "How will you use SL for training?"

I had an argument with Martin Dougiamas (maybe argument is too strong a word- discussion then) the founder of moodle last night via skype. He'd spent many many hours in a virtual world in the 90's, and felt that in education we have far more important things to work on.

I explained that while I completely agree the web, and LMS' have a long way to go, there is a huge segment of the population that is still spending a great deal of time watching sit-coms, talk shows, or otherwise killing brain cells- and anything to get them engaged in learning is useful- and if it helps the rest of us, that's great to.

So my focus is in figuring out where SL enhances existing things we have setup. We're working on this with sloodle, but there are certain things where a webpage does just fine. Need a list of links? Need to see a photo, or get some simple text? I'm not sure that SL enhances this much.
However, with some creative thinking, we can come up with areas, mostly involving BEING there and collaboration (real-time, not asynch) that let SL earn its stripes. For example, say you want everyone to compose a haiku? Each person creates a note, writes it, and then passes it around to others. They comment and pass it on. You can actually do things like one does in in-person seminars (everybody turn to the right, and introduce yourself). These kinds of things are simply not possible with existing technologies.

At the same time, I believe we should not allow SL to limit our thinking - because it's a virtual real world, we tend to constrain ourselves to certain physical things- even while flying and building floating spaces. So our rooms are still square, and our seats are still ampitheater or classroom style, and our bodies are still....well, bodies mostly.

So, lest this answer get too off track?

Math and geometry? Teach 'em to build - since you're limited to 10m prims, make them make a tower 100 m high, with 3 columns arranged on a circle, supporting a globe. It'll have to be an equilateral triangle, and the ends need to line up nicely, but when you make one column, you can multiply it times 3 to get 3 and so on... there are many many ways to incorporate real-world stuff. Things we came up with to start:
-idenitfying land fomations for geography
-scenarious for emergency medicine (mock up the accident, have characters assume roles)
-customer service role-playing (bank teller with payments, that sort of thing - even upselling at fast-food counter)
-client-consultant role-playing. I teach web design, and there's lots to do in an interview.

Overall most of these really need the sound interaction to get away from chat- and we've been using skype with some success. Time will tell.

If anyone is interested, we've also been building a blog of our collective experiences- not refined, but may be useful regardless: www.javidi.com/sl

Cheers!

d.i.-- D.I. von Briesen
God is Greater

DI's Update

2006-11-09T17:20:00.000-05:00

- I'd like to represent the island as a collection of opposing things: north south, east west, hi low, sand forest, old new, to create an interesting and rich environment where anything we can imagine has a place (futures institute could be a floating building, geology could be an ancient fossil on the beach).

- the compass metaphor with symbolic "campus building avatars" is a focal point, integrated with the flag and fountain symbolic of the current quad - but is NOT meant to be a duplicate of all the campuses. Based on his list we then begin to incorporate buildings that serve the necessary functionality, but do not attempt to replicate anything just for it's own sake, except perhaps the overcash building (which will symbolize central campus) and the statue in front of it.

-Immediate quick wins should be the gallery, the 4 other buildings i've agreed to purchase, and perhaps a number of the freebies we've collected, along with various plants, landscaping, etc... that we've already aquired.

-We have a planner/designer (Liam Kenno) who's eager to help and is looking at the big picture.

-Farhad is planning to work with 3 star students to put some things together. I hope to get online with them if they still plan to meet thursday night at 6. We will jump on the island as soon as we hear from them.

Farhad, if you can go ahead and meet, buzz me during the day and we can check my status as far as computer/skype setup - if we can skype and meet in SL, it'll be good practice. Also, i'd love to participate in the program chair meeting if you can do speaker phone - could you call me when you guys meet?

If you can get Antonio, Nick, etc.. to go on this, here are a few things we need on the more technical side:
- how to easily create scripts that get you from one sim to another (not a normal teleport- it must load the map, or window, and then the user choosed to teleport).
- how to apply a photo to an avatar (want to build zeiss' face, and maybe rod's and others)
- how to mimic the sculpture in fronnt of overcash- can maybe take photos from differnet angles and create with just 2 interlaced (Gary knows a bit about this)
- find some really cool building for the futures institute, and how to buy it with right to edit- and tweak for that purpose.
-anything else you can think of...

Jean, what you could really help with is a few specific things in second life- i'll lay out, and maybe you can call or reply by email with thoughts/questions.

We need art, digital, and lots of it. I'm hoping you can do the following:

contact elizabeth ross, and (gallery named after her) and explain what we are doing (she might remember me) and ask if we can have digital copies of her work. How much? Whatever she's willing to give us- but not less than 10 or 20 pieces. My intention is to name the gallery in SL after her, as it is here - and so want her work to start as the center.

Then, or in parralel, and maybe with her help, contact other art folks (start with director or whoever) and get some more art, and find digital copies of the student submitted artwork - if we can get each page as a jpg (jen in student services is connected to that, as is robert mungo, who i believe has a cpcc account) we can easily make books of them.

this all shouldn't take much time, but would be easy to get bogged down in- my target is to have 50+ pieces ready to work with - gary or I can give you money in SL to allow you to upload, or you can put the pix on a website we can access and we can upload them. Then we can start putting them in-world.

We also need headshots of all key players - zeiss, drumm, malik, rod, you, me, etc... anyone who is a key decision maker, or who may be interested. I'd like to get marj orell and david goble in on things (I think goble would look dapper as an avatar).

So that's a big priority, and would help us immensely if you could pursue it - the key is delivery.

Other things we need:
- a tall flagpole to match that of the quad
- a fountain like the quad one
- you to be familiar with all the teaching tools- search on thinc, check out NMC, join SLED, join SLOODLE, and check out the ITC (??) library.
- you to be familiar with how to get around, look at objects from all sides, zoom in and out, pan, etc... can all be had thru the tutorials.

That's what comes immediately to mind. I'm envisioning a multi-themed island, that goes from one extreme to the other- we have 4 pts on the compass, four seasonal themes, sea level to mountains, sand to forest, and in architecture old (ruins representing something like a roanoke era ship) to new (futures insitute).

d.i.

New Device for navigation - from Logitech

2006-11-28T04:21:00.000-05:00

It's about time- we'll need more like this:

3D Connexion offers new device for the 3D worldBy Candace Lombardi, CNET News.com Published on ZDNet News: November 28, 2006, 1:01 AM PT
var dwInfo = "&oid=2100-9595_22-6138727&ptId=2100&onId=9595&sId=22&asId=6138727";

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-6138727.html

Wonderful SL Introductory Report

2006-11-26T13:32:00.000-05:00

Watch this wonderful SL introductory report from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).

Dell hops into second life, and what's with the numbers?

2006-11-25T23:26:00.000-05:00

A few days back (Apologies if you got this here already) : Dell jumps online

Not quite clear why you would want to buy a computer in SL other than to look like an office machine (which i've seen a bit)... But it may be publicity like all the others. My neighbor came over the other night and took a ride in a Scion... which has pretty good dashboard graphics but crappy driving- but hey, this stuff is immature.

What would be interesting is if, imagine the way you currently build in 2nd life, you worked on your computer in it. So instead of opening your browser in windows, you opened it in SL, and if you wanted the full - screen, you'd go to mouseview... basically SL could BECOME your OS... now just imagine if SL were written to run natively on the CPU, as linux and windows do.... there are some very interesting opportunities with that.

So i've taken a free teleporter and converted it to a single-click teleporter. A few tidbits: Under the first tab when you edit an object (the exandable section you get when you click the more button) there is an option at the very bottom where you can set the left-click (that's regular click for most of you) functionality. By setting it to the SIT event, you can have the action occur when you simply click on an object (as opposed to right-click, and then choose sit, or teleport, or whatever). This, in my opinion, streamlines the functionality, so for poseballs, teleports, etc., you just click for the action to take place. As opposed to right-click, move mouse to option, and then release mouse- so 75% (or so) less physical action required (can you say metacarpal release).

In the long run, much of this navigational stuff, and the communications in particular, must be simplified and streamlined for you to really become immersed... the keyboard as it stands and those special combinations are far more kludgy than they need to be at present. I wonder if something like a touchpad - like a wacom tablet that you touch with your fingers might not be the new device of the future. The mice (mouses?) are just not happening. I've got an optical trackball mounted to the left of my keyboards (home and work) and a mouse on the right, and find it to be workable that way. I do remember learning autocad when you had a mouse with multiple buttons - and a specialized mousepad that had hotspot sections. If SL gains more ground, it would behoove them to come up with a specialized interface. While I'm on that (since IE "has encountered a problem and needs to close) I'll finish with some ideas of what SHOULD be built in, tout suite!:
- voice support (partner with skype, or something - and hurry!)
- better inventory management ("object" doesn't cut it. How about a small icon for each item)
- off the shelf avatar skinning - some folks want to reinvent themselves - others just want to duplicate themselves, with less wrinkes and fat - make it easy to drop a jpg onto a facial skin.
- if the menu options don't exist, don't show them... and put them all on the next level, esp. if there are only a few.

That's probably enough for now!~

d.i.

SL Surfing, 0130, 26Nov06

2006-11-26T01:38:00.000-05:00

Since every time i try to get something done it takes me downs various rabbit holes, i figured it probably makes sense to begin to document the distractions, and there is some interesting stuff there- if i don't, it'll be lost. If i do, it's here for posterity.

So highlights of the last few hours (BTW, the average time spent on SL is about 3 hrs per session, so i'm right about there...):
- you can make lava waterfalls: chicagon 966, 233, 142 - Goblin industries
- there are folks making photorealistic body skins. Nothing new, but some are even modelled after famous folks. Had a chat with someone with a Vin Diesel torso the other day. Soon someone will do it with photos you provide - more useful for faces I think.
FEELINGS
- a few things that really make me "feel" in second life:
-- falling long distance and slamming my face on the ground, or going up and bumping my head
-- ending up in someone's living room, and they are there or appear- and feeling strangely awkward and embarrassed
-- standing in front of a picture or product of dubious reputation and wondering what would happen if somebody saw me, "the professor." If anyone says this environment is not "sensorily rich" show them some of the more offensive art/photography/animation and tell them not to get offended!! (or titilated).
-- wanting to know more about people I bump into. Why should I care? I do, but I'm not sure why.
-- feeling remotely "proud" when folks compliment my rave stick. I mean, i paid about 20 cents for it, and people complement it. More so than just about any article of clothing i've worn in the real world. I wonder what that says about my real world clothing...?
-- feeling like i'm snooping when i'm wondering around other folks houses, and even more so when i end up in their bedroom/jacuzzi
--

TEACHING: Things we may want going forward:
- many of these vending and pose devices make for useful educational/museum/library devices. For example, there are many vending devices that show a variety of pictures - you click one and it enlarges to the middle. Others show one on each side, which act as a next/previous link, with the current one large in the middle. There are many variants of these - unfortunately it's not easy to just find where to get one- though you can find the creator's name by right-clicking to it. One i just saw: VendNet. Now looking at JEVN/JENC - which you see all over the place. The interesting thing is that the commercial sector has built in all kinds of interesting things, like ability to give commission, pass out notecards, and perhaps even sale leads. So imagine having a slideshow type thing where each item has with it a notecard, perhaps including URL and other things. Check this out at: ironjaw 140, 39, 138. 3000 LD's gets you both.
NOTABLES:
--JEVN: networked vendors system
--JENC: networked catalog system- live updates across all distributed catalogs
--SL Courier: To distribute up to 30 things to a distribution list. Imagine a group of studentss...
These are from esmay Rand...
-- also a "slave tracer" which while not what we have in mind, seems to have the mechanisms for tracking users- which would be really cool for things like treasure hunts, or specific guided activities. Can do things like show if user stops for 3 minutes or more....

- VERY cool building demonstrator- you pick a building from the slideshow, and it builds it on the fly... which, if you could do with everythign, you'd really have solved the space dilema.. GEOJE 163, 201, 129

- there are a number of things at Apollo that seemed applicable, including a teleport HUD, which I bought. See Random Other Stuff for this.

- Found a sauna. As a fan of real sauna's, i'm a bit cynical about this one, but a small enclosed sitting space has an interesting "feel" to it. Would be useful for seminars and such, or small group meetings - it's a different feel to NOT have the table in the middle - feels somehow more connected. Example: Kang Nae 225, 212, 69
-

RANDOM OTHER STUFF:
The lost gardens of apollo are really cool! Visually amazing. Apollo 245 18 56
Could that be done with normal terraforming? - Dane Zander's the owner/creator of the balcony..
There is a nice welcome map, that includes some scripting for showing all locations- probably another technology for good to education transfer.
It also has an interesting teleporter- where you "ride" a jetpowered chair
And i bought an HUD that allows you to have a bunch of TP shortcuts, AND, allows you to display a ball which others can click on to go to a location.

A few current events - Around Turkey Day 2006

2006-11-25T15:37:00.000-05:00

When i logged in to SL there was this link to the SL news: http://blog.secondlife.com/2006/11/22/continuing-our-support-for-in-world-education/
which evidently relates to Linden Labs (LL) compensating (or not) people to teach within SL. Evidently it's about those who act as mentors and teachers to all users, as opposed to folks like us working to develop courses.

Which, as my mind churns, highlights yet again the tremendous potential of this platform. If we talk about teaching and learning, what could be more like the real learning process than real life? What could be more like real life (in terms of simulation) than something like SL? So if we can create experiences, then we'll really be on to something.

In other news, Friday around 115pm there was an article on NPR - can't remember talk of the nation- or probably on the media...

While looking, i found SL's list of articles: http://secondlife.com/news/ which is awefully weak- there have to be hundreds of articles in the last few weeks alone... so there must be another page, or they just don't have anyone looking very hard...

So a search on NPR second life took me first to this article which is from earlier in november - what i noted immediately is that it said, "Second Life has built a booming virtual economy around some little animated characters called avatars."

This is interesting, because, whether intended or not, "little" in this case sounds derogatory, as if i were to say, you go have lunch with your little friend, or go watch football with your little wide-screen TV. They may have meant little in terms of small... but you wouldn't say, "I built a little webpage" even though all webpages should fit onto a 17" monitor..." So the battle we are going to have to continue to fight is getting our language not to belittle the environment - it's not a "game" but a "simulated virtual environment" - i wouldn't even say it's a virtual world just yet, though perhaps that's being overly limiting. Unfortunately, semantics are critical when we deal with things like funding, public opinion, etc... So for those on this project, please put on your PR hats so we are really presenting the benefits of what we are trying to do.

So where was I? Ok, the NPR article: This was from JANUARY, decades ago in SL time... http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4488103 but still not the one i heard...

But i found this interesting bit about stats: http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/11/17/more-second-life-stats/

And evidently On the Media covered this before: http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2006/09/on_the_media_on.html

Still looking... OK, so it wasn't On the Media, it was Here and Now... progress... AHA! http://www.here-now.org/shows/2006/11/20061124_1.asp

Now i'm not sure that this article is all that much more than any of the others- but what's interesting is they started out by talking about Virtual worlds in general, not specifically SL. Then at another point, they introduced Pathfinder Linden, (http://zero.hastypastry.net/pathfinder/) who is John Lester in real life- but referred to him as Pathfinder when introducing him, and then the other name when finishing- so if you didn't know about name aliases, it would have been confused. She also made a major gaffe, by referring to Pathfinder as the creator of SL; John Lester is not the creator Philip Rosedale is - but hey, that's the media, huh?

Other notables? The host (Robin Young?) speaks with David Weinberger, the fellow who runs Games for Change in SL. She probes about why people would put so much of their life into a virtual environment, and he has a great comeback at one point.

Here's the dialogue:

Host: "What does that do to a community of people - a sense of community? Does it isolate people? "
David Weinberger: "You mean the vibrant US communities where we all go out every evening and we spend hours and hours on the sidewalks talking with our friends engaged in deep conversation? - That community? That doesn't exist? That's the fantasy" (while the others chuckle).

He finishes with some more interesting commentary: "This is an environment that we've made of ourselves that's intensely social... it's differently social.. [sic] this is not a video game dungeons and dragons video game where you slash and cut [sic] this is entirely populated by people projecting themselves and their interests and their passsions and their senses of humor and creativity into a terroritoy that we get to build"

He also mentioned that Leo Burnett has a world-wide distributed staff, and that they use SL for business meetings - worth looking into a bit more. More so since Farhad is pushing us to have some of our staff meetings in SL.

It was also puzzling that she mentioned over a million users, when it's actually a lot more than a million - 1.6 actually, this day after the story.

Anyway, good stuff out there.

They key to all of this is that this is not a REPLACEMENT for real life- but it brings richness to interaction with those in other places, and incredible possibilities when it comes to creating things or environments that would be difficult or impossible to deal with in the physical world.

d.i.

Plan for the President

2006-11-25T15:23:00.000-05:00

On Wednesday, we present to our school president, Dr. Zeiss. We had some grand plans originally, which were scuttled by the lack of an island. SL is so backlogged they are predicting we might get ours about mid-December. The meeting is only 15 minutes long, so it needs to be short and sweet.

Here's what I'm envisioning, and pitched to Rod (our dean):

We meet in a classroom (should it be 5122 or 5123?):
-I'll work the podium and so have the overhead, with my own login
-Dr. Zeiss will use his, but either Rod or Jean will sit next to him to help where necessary
-We'll have a couple students in the room, as well as in another room.
-Farhad and Alberto will be in the other room or their offices.
-I will have skype, piped thru the room system, and each other person that can will have it. We'll meet in world, and then get the skype conversation going.
-We'll have a quick chat in some central location - either the CPCC Futures site, or the SGD site, and then go on a quick tour:
-- Reuters news service, specifically the building and the topical meeting areas
-- SDSU campus, showing the role-playing, and then the building

After that, it could go a LOT of different directions, but we have little time, and a lot to show. Rod's keen to show the classroom interaction, so assuming we have no more time, the thing to do would be to go to a virtual classroom.
-so where's the best, at present? Edunation island? Black Library - there's a sloodle demo in the corner there...

Within this class, we have limited time, but we should work to do at least the following:
-demonstrate raising hands
-demonstrate a slideshow
-demonstrate giving out something (like when a box is passed out)
-demonstrate giving inventory
-demonstrate writing and giving out a notecard
-demonstrate a link to a website (if not done already at this point)
-demonstrate giving a small payment (attaboy)
-mention things like attendance, and how we don't want to replace things that work well in RL.

So that's the plan, man. Feel free to chime in, or help.

d.i.

News agency adds virtual beat

2006-11-22T09:24:00.000-05:00

Saw this article on News 14.

Chad Ray

Face Creation

2006-11-21T17:47:00.000-05:00

Last night Farhad and I worked on SL creating our own avatar of Farhad's face. We worked until 4 in the morning but all we got was something that looked like something out of the living dead, but it was enjoyable none the less, and a learned a good bit about Character UV images.

Overcash Building

2006-11-20T11:22:00.000-05:00

Marc Tucker, SGD student (one our best TechConnect teachers), is helping me to create the Overcash Building in Second Life. As the first step we decided to create the building in SketchUp. SketchUP is a free Google tool used to create 3D models for Google Earth.

My Face

2006-11-20T11:34:00.000-05:00

I am in the process of creating my own avatar. To do this I started with my own face. Here is the UV of my face:

Our Second Second Life Meeting

2006-11-17T11:45:00.000-05:00

Doesn't the title "Second Second Life Meeting" sound funny?

I conducted another Second Life meeting last night with 12 of my students in my Intro to Game Development class. We were in the meeting for over 4 hours building and scripting. We experimented with writing many different scripts and building objects from scratch.

Most of my SGD students have SL account now and I am working very hard to bring SL development into the curriculum.

Your Face Image on Your Shirt

2006-11-17T11:41:00.000-05:00

I have been working to have my own avatar, with my own face, in the last few days. I am not there yet. But, I just had an idea. Why don't we, meanwhile, post our face image on our shirts, like this:

My New "The Spirit of CPCC" Shirt

2006-11-15T07:00:00.000-05:00

I just learned how to make my own T-shirt:

New avatar for Gary Goldkey

2006-11-16T15:50:00.000-05:00

I created a new for myself in Second Life. I bought a new "skin" for 350 Linden dollars. The skin is an older guy with gray hair. I wanted an avatar that looked more like myself :)

Educators explore 'Second Life' online

2006-11-15T08:59:00.000-05:00

NEW YORK (CNN) -- The classroom of the future isn't on a college campus. It's in the virtual world of "Second Life."
A growing number of educators are getting caught up in the wave. More than 60 schools and educational organizations have set up shop in the virtual world and are exploring ways it can be used to promote learning.
Read more...

Pamisano Gets SL

2006-11-13T11:42:00.000-05:00

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Article was submitted by Don Belle.

Loved It!

2006-11-12T20:32:00.000-05:00

The blog looks great. Gosh, and I didn't realize I was attending our first 3-D meeting last Thursday. I loved it. I learned a lot and had great fun. Next time I'll bring a coffee pot :-)

jean

How It Started

2006-10-01T05:39:00.000-05:00

It all started a month or so ago when i read an article in popular science about Second Life. Then I found an article in MIT's technology review from 2005 that mentioned the economics of second life. I thought it might be interesting to play with in my emerging tech class, and set the articles aside for review.

A student tried it out and was excited about it, and i mentioned it to a dean or two, and about the same time a few more articles started popping up, and i did some basic research.

Which culminated in my boss' boss asking me to figure out how to make it happen, and to make it happen, with pretty rapid deadlines.

So first steps:
-create account, verified with my card
-muck with my avatar- too complicated, walk around with white and blue shirt coat using flag texture for first week until someone gave me some regular clothes
-spent way too long a week into trying to make my face look like my real face, but then giving my ears pointed tips, and making my hair silver-gray
-requested education island space- waiting to hear back
-learned about first land, and got some
-built my first primitives (prims) as big flat boards to put on my property
-and so on.

So this is a place for me to start putting this al together, though I'm wondering if a wiki wouldn' tmake more sense...

the impetus? The SLED list had this link, and i needed a place to put it:
http://ets.tlt.psu.edu/virtualworlds/

- DI

SL Project - Draft Strategic Plan

2006-10-01T12:13:00.000-05:00

Mission
To create an immersive 3-dimensional virtual environment for CPCC faculty, staff, and students to interact, collaborate, teach, learn, and experiment. The user-friendly interface will allow for the creation of a rich learning environment for students, and in addition, it will help to establish a climate of innovation, investigation, experimentation and entrepreneurship.

Second Life Development Team
The development team is a cross-disciplinary group that will include students and possibly experts from outside the College. The group should be fluid, adding members as the need arises in the accomplishment of its goals.

Goals
Phase I
The essential concept of this initiative is to create the feeling of a college campus within Second Life that is functional, representative of CPCC, and aesthetically pleasing. The CPCC Campus should be modeled after another successful site. For example, NMC chose the existing SL island of Serenite as the ideal model for their topographical layout. Some of the architectural detail to emulate could be: detailed cobblestone/brick walking paths, intricate stone bridges, areas for reflection and gathering in small groups, lush and extremely high quality vegetation.
The main CPCC building will have a professional presence to be shared by all departments and disciplines. This site will provide a gateway to courseware, academic and student support services, advising and counseling. This main building might be reminiscent of the Overcash building with a large formal theater, student life center, recital hall, and art gallery.

We will create an open area/commons that will serve as the touchdown for those teleporting into the campus. This area should include guideposts that indicate where to go to find the major areas, as well as an events calendar. The sculpture garden should have rotating sculptures, some created by our students, some created by visitors as part of an art competition or show. This area should have trees, fountains, benches, and high quality vegetation and landscaping.

An audio/video interface will be accomplished using Skype or some other tool to provide real time conversation and visual contact.

The FI will have a creative and experimental presence within SL. The FI venue will serve as a showcase for emerging technology projects and research from students, faculty and staff. This building (or room) must be unique, futuristic, and still functional. It will house both permanent and visiting exhibitions, demonstrations, and work areas for students and faculty. We will need at least three display spaces, and a formal board room for small meetings seating 12 with an oval table and projection screen. We will need lots of interior wall space, and an interior design that encourages exploration and learning. Within the FI, we will have an area for the Center for Emerging Technology. It should showcase the technology areas of the college as well as have areas for instruction. New and innovative approaches to online learning should be presented here. Examples could be a virtual network closet using all remote lab tools available and virtual PCs to configure RL networks or SGD modeling of clothing, avatars, and other objects.

CPCC will establish a course within SL with an LMS (Sakai or Moodle) interface. Using a mixed media approach, the LMS and the SL environment will both be used as appropriate to take advantages of the strengths of each. The SL courses could contain a variety of live events—seminars, presentations, & trainings that use streaming video and web content extensively, but emphasize and capitalize on the value-added of the 3 dimensional immersive environment.

Through the FI, we will start a business within SL where faculty and students could sell objects, education, programming, entertainment, etc. The business will be organized as a 401c3, through the CPCC Services Corporation.

Phase II
Develop a Harris Conference Center replica for large conferences and seminars. The conference center will contain three meeting rooms. One should emulate a tiered classroom at a university with seating for 75, the second would be smaller room with seating for 20, and the last a conference room with a rectangular table seating for 8. All conference rooms will need a projection screen and a terminal to access the content library. The interior should include several comfortable conversation areas, and a central terminal for searching content (functionally a list of content links).

Greenway. This area should follow the creek that will be part of the topography. It should be a peaceful place to walk, relax, and meditate on current events and studies. It should also demonstrate some of our desires to integrate NWF type curriculum into the classroom as well as authentic habitat areas. Along the greenway should be the “Zeiss Trail” that displays historical trees from important places and events.

Student Services One Stop Shop for admissions, registration, advising and counseling.

Design an amphitheater with at least three projection surfaces. The space should accommodate as many as 75, all with direct access to the screens, but not all need to be seated. Attendees should be able to easily fly here. There could be standing room areas. Each of the projection surfaces needs to be able to show independent content. As in the library, there needs to be an interface to select content. Sometimes we will want to steam live content, and sometime we will want to allow folks to choose from a playlist.

- Dr. Rod Townley