CLICK ON THE FIRST SLIDE TO START MOVIE
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Saturday, October 4, 2008
NMC VIrtual Worlds
"NMC Virtual Worlds is a program of the New Media Consortium, an international 501(c3) not-for-profit consortium of more than 225 world-class colleges, universities, and research centers. The mission of NMC Virtual Worlds is to help learning-focused organizations to explore the potential of virtual spaces in a manner that builds on community knowledge, is cost-effective, and ensures high quality. NMC Virtual Worlds provides a palette of premium custom services for education and training, and conducts an ongoing series of events, conferences, and programs. A suite of pro bono services and fellowships are a central aspect of the organization, and reflect our deep commitment to learning and access."
The NMC is offering parcels of land in SL as part of their NMC campus there. Each of these is a community with educational goals that have lots available to lease for faculty, academic departments and any institution that is "learning-focused." The community/sharing aspect of this is a big plus as collaboration really is a key word in the SL educational community and as I have learned myself - a lot more fun! Available service listings can be found by clicking here.
Final Class
Students previewed their final projects today. There were some amazing uses like a middle school math project involving prof development for teachers. One day I was on the MCGC site and they were meeting on a Sunday!
We ended our time together with a Dance party that included fancy clothes, a disco ball and GREAT music. While you view these images imagine "Jumping Jack Flash!" Virtual beer by the way is exceptionally harmless, and dancing in SL is a trip!
SLoodle
Our next to the last class we were taken to meet Giannina Rossini who guided us through the Second Life Sloodle site. This project is an open-source mash-up between Second Life and the CMS Moodle!
"Sloodle is an Open Source GNU-GPL project which integrates multi-user virtual environments such as Second Life® with learning-management systems (VLEs) such as Moodle® and helps the community of educators in virtual worlds test curriculum innovations and advocate those proven successful. Sloodle provides a range of tools for supporting learning and teaching to the immersive virtual world; tools which are fully integrated with a tried and tested web-based learning management system used by thousands."
A visit to their website http://www.sloodle.org/moodle/ is where you can find downloads, tutorials and a wonderful case study of a cultural exchange between Korea and Dubai that happened in this platform! Also here is a link to Huntington Junior College's announcement of its foray into Sloodle where according to MarketWatch:
"By creating a “social presence” using a mash-up of Second Life
and Moodle, called Sloodle, in coordination with Campus Management’s student information system, HJC has created a full-service virtual campus that enhances faculty-student interaction while automating management of rosters, grades, drop/adds, and other administrative chores. Students log in once to the college’s portal, and can leap into their Second Life campus, attend class, and participate in online cafe conversations."
Road Trip!
This week we took another "road trip" in SL to various sims. Esme had us all board these "chairs" that she had the power to bring us all along on like an amusement park ride. It was very fascinating. And I have to comment on the fact that even in virtual reality when I am living vicariously through an avatar, when I am dangling in "space" without terra firma below I feel a bit queasy. Interesting.
Our first stop on this trip was to Imagination Island where the way to travel around is via the Magic Bubble Teleporter. This sim contains some awesome projects which include: the Mythiea Library full of digital books on mythology and fairy tales, the Castle of Dreams where you can find recommended children's books with summaries, Rachelville an imagination area created from the mind of a seven-year-old who was undergoing treatment for Leukemia. I visited several areas: a merry-go-round, the Grief center, and I went underwater!
Our next stop was Ohio State University Medical School's Testis sim. This amazing sim brought me through a 3-dimensional model of a testis! Once I got to see up close and personal a seminfeous tubule for sperm production I thought that this platform had some seriously amazing education value!
Then we went to the Pothealer's Adventure on Numbukulla Island. This is an adventure/role play sim where the user finds clues and hidden stuff in order to solve a mystery. This sim takes some time to get all the way through.
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Our last stop was the Louvre...which in fact did not contain art from the Paris museum's collection, but was an interesting mix of art of various mediums.
FireSabre Consulting
http://firesabre.com/
One week we had a visitor to our SL class named Gus Plisskin. He is the founder of FireSabre Consulting a company that will help your organization develop presence in SL. His firm has worked on many 3D collaborative projects. The economic statistics that he gave us were astounding in terms of how much money exchanged hands in-world for buying designer clothing (40%), land trade, photo-realistic avatar skins, prim hair and avatar makeovers. (Reminds me of paperdolls when I was a kid - but these are very expensive dolls, yes?) In fact in the last 24 hours in Second Life $1.8 million US dollars exchanged hands.
Gus answered questions for the class about land aquitision and projects that Firesabre had worked on. He said renting land on an existing project was cheaper than buying land or one could start from scratch. It takes a couple of months for them to develop a project and for $250-400 one could start up and then it would be $50-100 monthly for upkeep. In other words for about $2000 a year a school could run a project in SL.
Welcome to FireSabre Consulting!
"We are a full-service building and consulting company for Second Life (SL). We can help you design, set up, and deploy your SL presence, and provide ongoing support after delivery. We are experienced with educational and non-profit projects, on both the Main Grid and Teen Grid. We can arrange land purchase, provide terraforming, building, scripting, texturing and clothing, account creation, and other administrative services."
What are some of the things they have done in SL?
- First public school build in Teen Second Life
- First middle school build in Second Life
- Ongoing support for the Ramapo-Suffern public school project for over a year (and counting)
- Participated in Global Kids project, first Teen Grid educational project; built in the Main SL grid and moved to Teen SL
- Advice and support to Schome Teen SL transition project
- TRUTHS satellite project proposal and exhibit for National Physical Labs, UK
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