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Upcoming Exhibits at the Aho Museum & Ars Simulacra on the NMC Campus
These exhibits open at 3:30 p.m. slt on Sunday December the 28th. At 3:30 we will congregate at the sim of Ars Simulacra and tour the exhibit created by Glyph Graves. Glyph’s pieces are generally kinetic, sometimes reactive pieces of virtual art and prim manipulation. Light and color permeates each piece in such a way that [...]
Angela Thomas and Virtual Macbeth NMC Conversation #10
NMC Conversations #10
[download MP3] 26.1 Mb 22:50
In this NMC Conversation we are transglobal! Larry (in Texas), Rachel (in California), and Alan (temporarily in Iceland) talk with Angela Thomas in Sydney, Australia. Angela, a senior lecturer in English Arts and New Media Literacies at the University of Sydney. The NMC and Angela have collaborated numerous times since first meeting her in Second Life back in 2006, and she has presented several times at our Second Life conferences as well as being a featured speaker at the 2006 NMC Summer Conference.
We invited Angela to talk about her recent work on Virtual Macbeth, a deeply immersive Second Life experience designed to create a feeling for the visitor of the influences on and psychology of being “inside” Macbeth’s head. The NMC Virtual Worlds team built the entire project and brought her ideas to life.
Angela shares with us some interesting information on the design aspects of the project, the success in working with a large number of colleagues in its production, and its potential for teaching and learning. If you have not taken the time to visit Virtual Macbeth, carve out some time and enter Macbeth’s head via http://slurl.com/secondlife/Macbeth/44/54/54.
Educators Survey Noted in New World Notes
We can file this in the “self horn tootiing” department, but what the heck? This is our blog after all!
Thanks to the keen eye of Professor Beliveau (aka Ed Lamoreaux), we found that the NMC 2008 Educators in Second Life Survey has been mentioned in New World Notes in a story on If Second Life Educators Aren’t Talking In SL, Who Is?:
The story mostly hinges on what is observed as a relative low reported use of voice chat by educators, which contrast to larger numbers suggested by the company that provides the voice communication service in SL.
Most striking to me is the question above. When asked if they use VOIP communication in Second Life to teach, only 22% said “Often”, with 62% less frequently, and 16% not at all.
Assuming the survey is generally reflective of educators in SL, this is utterly odd.
The comment responses seem mostly speculative in responding; so we are curious to hear your ideas why voice chat might be used infrequently by educators.
but we are happy to see the quote:
The survey’s worth looking at in full.
Thanks NWN!
Research Presentation: Dr. Tom Boellstorff, author of “Coming of Age in Second Life”
The Virtual Ability Research Group will be hosting a presentation by Dr. Tom Boellstorff, the author of “Coming of Age in Second Life.” Tom is associate professor of anthropology at the University of California Irvine, and has done extensive research in SL culture. He will be speaking on his research and the presentation of self [...]
Attend Program For the Future Doug Engelbart Recognition in SL
If you have no idea who Doug Engelbart is, drop your mouse, your keyboard interface, your desktop windowing system, your local area networks, and fly to WikiPedia to read about the Mother of All Demos which took place 40 years ago Monday.
You can watch the Mother of All Demos video at the Babbage Amphitheater at NMC Conference Center.
This demo foreshadowed most features we take for granted in our modern computing. Engelbart’s contributions were more than hardware and software, and he was a visionary in organizational concepts and human network potential. So on December 8 and 9, a group of colleagues are gathering in San Jose to honor him and his ideas which are now known as Collective Intelligence at the Program for the Future:
Engelbart dreamed of technology and tools that increased our Collective Intelligence and a stunning example of how it works. Now it’s up to us to take up the challenge. To celebrate the 40th anniversary of Engelbart’s astounding demo, the Program for the Future is bringing together some of the best minds in science, media, business and education — and we hope you will be among them — to explore the question: what’s next?
On December 8 and 9 we’ll hear from some of today’s most provocative speakers, then brainstorm ways to enhance our capability for problem solving, decision making, knowledge organization, and planning in every field of human endeavor.
The NMC is honored to be part of the program, invited to share at 10:20am Monday PT on “The Story of the New Media Consortium – a networked improvement community inspired by Engelbart ” — which is not about really about us but the community we work with, in Second Life and way beyond. The NMC has had a strong connection with Doug and his ideas on networked organizations, and in turn we honor him as the main entry to the NMC Conference Center in Second Life:
While this is an exciting program, not everyone can travel to San Jose… but you can tune into the events in Second Life via at the Tech Museum of Innovation. To get access, you just need to do the free registration at http://virtualparticipants.eventbrite.com/.
It’s quite a lineup!
NMC Publishes Results of 2008 Educators in SL Survey
Yes, we took out our virtual clipboard back in May 2008 to conduct a followup to our first survey in 2007 of Educators in Second Life. We appreciate the great response this year, with nearly 360 educators completing the survey, an increase of 170% from 2007
Agaqin, we provide the survey results for free under creative commons licensing, along with a summary of comparison between the 2007 and 2008 surveys:
Among the summary points, we found:
- Educators are moving from exploration to use of Second Life for teaching and learning. More respondents report being involved in an educational-related activity in Second Life (increasing from 54% in 2007 to 71% in 2008). More than half report that the organization they are affiliated with owns a sim (up from 36% in 2007) and 74 individuals report in 2008 they own their own sim. This year 29% of survey participants report holding virtual office hours in SL; 37 of them (12%) have taught a class entirely in SL (up from 14 or 8% in 2007).
- Educators are expanding their Second Life social networks. This year recorded an increase in the numbers of people educators maintain as contacts. In 2007, 53% reported 10 or fewer contacts while in 2008 , this percentage dropped to 32%. The most common range for the size of their contact list in 2008 was 11-30 and the number reporting more than 100 contacts doubled from 2007 (4% to 8%).
- This year’s educators are much more experienced in Second Life. The percentage who have been in Second Life for 1-3 years increased from 30% in 2007 to 56% this year. However, the demographics of this group are about the same; in terms of game experience most self-classify as “Pac-Man” generation. More then two-thirds are between 36 and 55 years old, and more than 75% do not play console games or MMORPGs. Also similar to last year, about half of the respondents find time for Second Life by watching less television.
Again, more findings are shared in the Survey Summary. Thanks again to everyone who participated.
Teaching in Second Life: Using Social Media and Web 2.0 Tools: NMC Rock the Academy Fall Symposium
Aho Museum and Ars Simulacra Art Exhibitions
The Aho Museum
NMC Campus
Curated by Tayzia Abattoir
November 16, 2008
This exhibit opens at 11:30 a.m. SLT on Sunday, November the 16th and brings to you numerous works of art with a wide variety of unique Second Life art, including several one-of- a- kind pieces from various artists. The Museum is an amazing work of architectural [...]
Second Life Herald: Something Wicked This Way Come
NMC Symposium Opens with Reception
The twelfth in the series of NMC Virtual Symposia, Rock the Academy: Radical Teaching, Unbounded Learning, opened last night at NMC Conference Center with a nicely attended reception.
This fourth of these online conference held completely in Second Life, Rock The Academy is intended to explore the ideas and activities that are changing/revolutionizing the shape of education today. With some meeting and greeting, NMC staff welcomed attendees from as far away as Hong Kong, Australia, and Austin and one NMC staff member stationed in Iceland.
At the reception, participants took on the challenge of our Treasure Hunt; you can try it yourself by looking for the instructions in the treasure chest placed out in the Grace Hopper Expo Center. This activity had people looking all over the Conference Center sim for the magic lamps that handed out clues to a puzzle. Top prizes (L$2500) went to Marcia Kjeller and Chimera Cosmos for getting in their answers first– and Marcia was gracious enough to turn over her prize to the avatar that was newest to Second Life- Shaffer Parx who had made his avatar at just 1:00PM yesterday.
We then went down to the Cooper Coliseum for some fabulous live music from the very talented Jean Munro:
There is just something that is so exciting and what makes Second life special to be virtually together with a live performance.
The Symposium opens today with a welcome at 10:00am PDT by NMC CEO Larry Pixel (aka Larry Johnson) and we have a great opener in Desideria Stockton (aka Beth Ritter-Guth) on “Teaching Naked: An A-Z Guide to Open Access Teaching”. Other sessions today touch on using Wikipedia and YouTube in Academic Research; Virtual Cinematography, History of Ideas via the BBC’s In Our Time. and Infrastructures and Sandboxes in Second Life.
Today we are really rocking!
http://www.nmc.org/2008-fall-virtual-symposium
Originally published at NMC Virtual Worlds
NMC Symposium Opens with Reception
The twelfth in the series of NMC Virtual Symposia, Rock the Academy: Radical Teaching, Unbounded Learning, opened last night at NMC Conference Center with a nicely attended reception.
This fourth of these online conference held completely in Second Life, Rock The Academy is intended to explore the ideas and activities that are changing/revolutionizing the shape of education today. With some meeting and greeting, NMC staff welcomed attendees from as far away as Hong Kong, Australia, and Austin and one NMC staff member stationed in Iceland.
At the reception, participants took on the challenge of our Treasure Hunt; you can try it yourself by looking for the instructions in the treasure chest placed out in the Grace Hopper Expo Center. This activity had people looking all over the Conference Center sim for the magic lamps that handed out clues to a puzzle. Top prizes (L$2500) went to Marcia Kjeller and Chimera Cosmos for getting in their answers first– and Marcia was gracious enough to turn over her prize to the avatar that was newest to Second Life- Shaffer Parx who had made his avatar at just 1:00PM yesterday.
We then went down to the Cooper Coliseum for some fabulous live music from the very talented Jean Munro:
There is just something that is so exciting and what makes Second life special to be virtually together with a live performance.
The Symposium opens today with a welcome at 10:00am PDT by NMC CEO Larry Pixel (aka Larry Johnson) and we have a great opener in Desideria Stockton (aka Beth Ritter-Guth) on “Teaching Naked: An A-Z Guide to Open Access Teaching”. Other sessions today touch on using Wikipedia and YouTube in Academic Research; Virtual Cinematography, History of Ideas via the BBC’s In Our Time. and Infrastructures and Sandboxes in Second Life.
Today we are really rocking!
http://www.nmc.org/2008-fall-virtual-symposium
Twas Halloween Night at MacBeth’s Place
We heard there was a great turnout for the Halloween party over at Virtual MacBeth. We got word of this great machinima by HVX Silverstar showing the dancing on the heath:
And project lead Anya Ixchel (aka Angela Thomas) reports that they have done 20 tours over the last two weeks, averaging 2000 visits per day and more than double that on weekends.
But more than parties, this place is a stunning example of creating a rich immersive experience in Second Life. Learn more about the Foul Whisperings, Strange Matters project and be sure to check out the resources and educational materials on the Virtual MacBeth wiki.
Don’t just read about it (or gaze at all the photos). Go there. Get inside MacBeth’s head.
Originally published at NMC Virtual Worlds
Twas Halloween Night at MacBeth’s Place
We heard there was a great turnout for the Halloween party over at Virtual MacBeth. We got word of this great machinima by HVX Silverstar showing the dancing on the heath:
And project lead Anya Ixchel (aka Angela Thomas) reports that they have done 20 tours over the last two weeks, averaging 2000 visits per day and more than double that on weekends.
But more than parties, this place is a stunning example of creating a rich immersive experience in Second Life. Learn more about the Foul Whisperings, Strange Matters project and be sure to check out the resources and educational materials on the Virtual MacBeth wiki.
Don’t just read about it (or gaze at all the photos). Go there. Get inside MacBeth’s head.
NMC Campus 2.0
The original NMC Campus opened on April 20, 2006 (so many prims ago!) as our first step in exploring the potential of this 3D virtual worlds as a collaboration space. Fast forward from one sim with some buildings and events to more than 80+ sims in the NMC Campus region, and much has changed.
Over the next few weeks, the NMC Virtual Worlds team is finishing up some changes to the original sim. The Aho Museum, with all of its detailed art, has been nudged just over the border to a new spot in NMC Campus West, giving it a lot more prim space for its holdings. This too was completely redesigned from its original version.
The plan is to implement some more things and events to make the NMC Campus center a hub to the vast NMC Campus Region. We will be unveiling a few as we go, but one important thing is making the open space in the middle a sandbox (the old sandbox in the sky is long gone), not only for rezzing prims, but for rezzing ideas. The plan is to make this the NMC lunch room, because at any time around the world, it is lunch, and we invite you to stop by, chat, talk, ask questions, etc. We will stage some events here, show some movies, create some draw, but it shall be mostly informal.
To make some room, the venerable Gonick Amphitheater has been retired. We had a lot of fondness for it, but we have better venues on out other sims (NMC Conference Center, Red Rocks at Research Park, the sky performance stage at NMC Campus West…). Besides, you can get your own copy for L$1 at Learning.
One new tool we want to draw to your attention, that you will soon see in numerous public places and quads across the region are our NMC Campus Community Calendar event screens:
Powered from the NMC Campus Community Calendar, these will soon be able to tell you the most current events going on in the region, and will update dynamically as the calendar does.
We have set up the calendar site, which resides within the NMC Campus Observer, but is actually its own publishing site, so that anyone who owns or rents land in the NMC Campus Community, can directly post their events to this site. And automatically, these same stories are republished to the front page of the popular NMC Campus Observer. If you are part of the NMC Campus Region, then just submit a request for a calendar account at http://sl.nmc.org/calendar/contact/ and your events will be shared broadly, via both the web and in world on our events screens.
Coming up next, we will introduce you to the magic TARDIS!
Originally published at NMC Virtual Worlds
NMC Campus 2.0
The original NMC Campus opened on April 20, 2006 (so many prims ago!) as our first step in exploring the potential of this 3D virtual worlds as a collaboration space. Fast forward from one sim with some buildings and events to more than 80+ sims in the NMC Campus region, and much has changed.
Over the next few weeks, the NMC Virtual Worlds team is finishing up some changes to the original sim. The Aho Museum, with all of its detailed art, has been nudged just over the border to a new spot in NMC Campus West, giving it a lot more prim space for its holdings. This too was completely redesigned from its original version.
The plan is to implement some more things and events to make the NMC Campus center a hub to the vast NMC Campus Region. We will be unveiling a few as we go, but one important thing is making the open space in the middle a sandbox (the old sandbox in the sky is long gone), not only for rezzing prims, but for rezzing ideas. The plan is to make this the NMC lunch room, because at any time around the world, it is lunch, and we invite you to stop by, chat, talk, ask questions, etc. We will stage some events here, show some movies, create some draw, but it shall be mostly informal.
To make some room, the venerable Gonick Amphitheater has been retired. We had a lot of fondness for it, but we have better venues on out other sims (NMC Conference Center, Red Rocks at Research Park, the sky performance stage at NMC Campus West…). Besides, you can get your own copy for L$1 at Learning.
One new tool we want to draw to your attention, that you will soon see in numerous public places and quads across the region are our NMC Campus Community Calendar event screens:
Powered from the NMC Campus Community Calendar, these will soon be able to tell you the most current events going on in the region, and will update dynamically as the calendar does.
We have set up the calendar site, which resides within the NMC Campus Observer, but is actually its own publishing site, so that anyone who owns or rents land in the NMC Campus Community, can directly post their events to this site. And automatically, these same stories are republished to the front page of the popular NMC Campus Observer. If you are part of the NMC Campus Region, then just submit a request for a calendar account at http://sl.nmc.org/calendar/contact/ and your events will be shared broadly, via both the web and in world on our events screens.
Coming up next, we will introduce you to the magic TARDIS!
Halloween at MacBeth! What More Could You Ask For?
I was sitting around in my office chair wondering what I might be doing this weekend, especially with Halloween landing nicely on a Friday. Hmmmm, there must be something going on, but what?
And then I looked up and it was obvious!
Who better to party with and what better a place to go than Foul Whisperings, Strange Matters!
You have a few days to find an outlandish costume, but look for spooky avvies, live music, and fun at MacBeth (229,41,32), this Friday, 8:00PM PST (check for local time). For more details, contact in world the lovely Anya Ixchel.
Now what should I dress up as? Maybe a man in a suit!
Welcome Susan Chun and Steve: NMC Conversation #9
NMC Conversations #9
[download MP3] 23.2 Mb 20:17
Recently the NMC shared the news that we was awarded a a three-year $955,000 National Leadership Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences (IMLS) that provides another opportunity to partner with museums on an innovative software development project. For the grant, Steve in Action: Social Tagging Tools and Methods Applied, NMC will coordinate a project to further develop the Steve tagging application, a tool that simplifies the navigation of online museum collections by allowing viewers to tag an image with descriptive terms.
In bringing the Steve project to NMC we are excited to introduce Susan Chun as a new staff member of NMC to direct the project. We recently met in person at the NMC office in Austin, and took the face to face opportunity to welcome Susan and have her engage us in a conversation about Steve.
Susan was a founder of the Steve project at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and in this podcast she describes the thinking that led the Met to conceptualize the concept of tagging in 2004, before it was even really an internet buzz word. The idea grew from discussions at the museum, who had recently redesigned their web site and were finding what Susan calls a “semantic gap” for users using the search tools on the web site– they were struggling to find things, because museum visitors tended to look for terms based on iconography (”dog”, “hat”), color, emotion, which did not match the more technical language used by the museum to document the digitized art works. They decided the best way to find the best terms people would use to search for– was to ask them to provide the keywords, or “cataloging by crowd.”
The MET did many experiments with paper prototypes, which were successful enough to generate interest in developing software to provide this functionality. But they realized that even a large museum like the Met did not have the resources to develop it, so they reached out to their colleagues at other museums, and started Steve as a volunteer project in 2005 followed by a successful IMLS grant in 2006 to conduct research on the first version of the tool to find what would be best set of features to provide for public tagging.
Susan shared that the name of the project and software is not a person or an acronym - “Steve” was chosen as something to represent a person that was friendly, memorable, and non-threatening.
The new project with NMC will be to develop the next version of what is already a successful tool; the software is and will be available as opensource. The “new” Steve will provide tools that are applicable not to just art museums or libraries but any organization that has information that needs to described, found, and understood– a goal of the new project is to define ways to use tags from across many disciplines and collection types. In addition, there will be development in how tags can be used to provide multilingual access to collections.
Part of the project will also be to investigate new interfaces for tagging- going beyond typing text in a box– for other ways to capture social tagging, such as non textual tags, emotion sliders, and the uses of mobile devices for tagging.
Leadership in the technical aspects of the project will come from the developers at the Indianapolis Museum of Art (MA) who were part of the first Steve software project. The project starts in early December bringing together representatives from many museums such as the IMA, Metropolitan Museum of Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Walker Art Center, the Rubin Museum of Art,a number of the Texas art museums who participated in the NMC’s Marcus Project, and extending beyond art museums to the Minnesota Digital Library Coalition and science museums such as the Exploratorium.
At this meeting, technical and non-technical participants will participate in a software requirements process where they will describe user personas and scenarios of how they interact with the new software, and the software requirements will be pulled out of these stories.
We at the NMC are very excited about working with Susan and her colleagues, and you cna count on hearing a lot more about Steve and social tagging as the project unfolds.
The Wall V2- Mixed Reality Performance at Rinascimento Virtuale
It’s back! After twice weekly performances all summer long on NMC Campus, CARP (Cybernetic Art Research Project) is doing one more special Second Life interpretation of Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” as a mixed reality event for the ‘Rinascimento Virtuale’ festival at the Museum of Natural History at the University of Florence.
There will also [...]
Foul Whisperings, Strange Matters : The Metaverse Journal - Australia's Virtual World News Service
