Second Life

Starting today is a unique event running May 9-11 - Convergence of the Real and Virtual is the first scientific conference taking place in the MMORPG or World of Warcraft.

Lest you think this is not serious, check out the Science article of April 18 by Gonzo Scientist John Bohannon titled Scientists, We Need Your Swords!

This will not be your typical conference. Sure, there will be sessions devoted to various research topics involving virtual worlds, panel discussions, social activities, and those conference goody bags that we’ve all come to love. But to attend this conference, you don’t have to splurge on grant money or add to global warming by flying to another country. And in the goody bags, you won’t find brochures, pens, or those quickly lost notebooks.

Instead, each conference participant will receive (while supplies last) 10 gold pieces, a red “Sciencemag” shirt, a colorful conference tabard emblazoned with an infinity symbol, two extra bags for swag, a telescope, and a pet creature. Between sessions, there will be group field trips across landscapes inhabited by dangerous beasts–some earthly and extinct, others fanciful–an introduction to the world’s auction-based economy, and finally a massive joint assault on an enemy city. (Beat that, Gordon conferences!) Anyone with an Internet connection can take part, from anywhere in the world. All you have to do is install the game, create a character, and join the guild called “Science” on the Earthen Ring US server.

In addition to the main conference web page (which has a lot of useful links) there is much more in the conference wiki.

If there are an WoW educators out there, we’d love to hear some dispatches from this event.

This Friday May 9, Global Kids is hosting a live event on NMC Campus at Teaching. The new Joan Ganz Cooney Center will be streaming their inaugural, invite-only symposium on “Logging into the Playground: How Digital Media are Shaping Children’s Learning.”

As children everywhere tap into the new digital playground through gaming, mobile devices and the Internet, educators, researchers, policymakers and high-tech industry leaders are joining forces to examine how these latest technologies are shaping the education of today’s children. Galvanizing this effort is the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop, an independent, not for profit research institute named for Sesame Street’s visionary founder. Today, Center executives announced plans to host a May 9 symposium in New York, “Logging into the Playground: How Digital Media are Shaping Children’s Learning.” This first ever, invitation-only event will explore how digital media can improve children’s literacy, learning and development.

More info…

You can join Global Kids in world to watch the symposium on NMC Campus at the amphitheater on Teaching (110,113,22)

Contact in world Rhiannon Chatnoir for more about this event and look for further details on the Global Kids web site

In May of 2007, the NMC conducted a survey of educators in Second Life, and learned much about the habits, interests, goals from the more than 200 responses to this first survey. These results are available for free under Creative Commons licenses.

But given the continued expansion of educational places, events, and over all activity in Second Life, we thought it would be useful to redo the survey again 2008, so maybe we can see what changed (or not). So we just sat down to the survey machine, twiddled some knobs and…

We announce today the opening of the NMC 2008 Educators in Second Life Survey, which you can take now by going to:
http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/?p=WEB227S75R6YXA

Please share the survey link far and wide, as we hope to get a larger sample this time around. We will keep the survey open at least til the end of May 2008 and we will again publish the results to the NMC Campus Observer and the NMC web site.

Thanks for helping us learn more!

On Friday April 25, NMC CEO Larry Johnson (or as we know him in Second Life, Larry Pixel) was a guest interviewee for the Metanomics series, the weekly live show that takes place in, and is broadcast live from Second Life.

As part of an event atClever Zebra’s vBusiness Expo, in this interview, Metanomics host Robert Bloomfield asked Larry about the NMC’s Virtual worlds programs and then discussed more on Larry’s recent experience testifying before the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet of the US Congress.

You can find audio recording and video recording of this interview plus soon a transcript, at http://metanomics.net/larry-johnson

On Friday April 25, NMC CEO Larry Johnson (or as we know him in Second Life, Larry Pixel) was a guest interviewee for the Metanomics series, the weekly live show that takes place in, and is broadcast live from Second Life.

As part of an event atClever Zebra’s vBusiness Expo, in this interview, Metanomics host Robert Bloomfield asked Larry about the NMC’s Virtual worlds programs and then discussed more on Larry’s recent experience testifying before the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet of the US Congress.

You can find
audio recording

and

video recording

of this interview plus soon a transcript, at http://metanomics.net/larry-johnson

Join us on at 1:00 PM PT on Wednesday, May 6, for the opening of the new Second Life campus for the University of the Pacific. Meet at U Pacific (166,141,22) under the iconic replica of Burns Tower.

“U Pacific” is a based on the real campus area around Burns Tower. For those at the university, you can meet at Pacific Theater for a live demonstration and virtual ribbon cutting of the Pacific campus. Elizabeth Griego will officiate the ceremony. For all attendees, a virtual dance party with live DJ will follow.

Join us on at 1:00 PM PT on Wednesday, May 6, for the opening of the new Second Life campus for the University of the Pacific. Meet at U Pacific (166,141,22) under the iconic replica of Burns Tower.

“U Pacific” is a based on the real campus area around Burns Tower. For those at the university, you can meet at Pacific Theater for a live demonstration and virtual ribbon cutting of the Pacific campus. Elizabeth Griego will officiate the ceremony. For all attendees, a virtual dance party with live DJ will follow.

Please join us in Second Life for a simulcast of Case Western Reserve University’s Collaboration Technology and Engaging the Campus 2008 Conference. They will be streaming live presentations, including a keynote address by Anthony Williams, co-author of Wikinomics.

Mass Collaboration and the Future of Higher Education
keynote by Anthony Williams

When: May 8, 2008 8:45am SLT/PDT (check local time).
Where: Kelvin Smith Library Amphitheater in ClevelandPlus (184,107,24)

These other sessions will also be live streamed (see the full program for more detail) - times here are PDT:

• 6:00 – 6:45am LinkedCommunities — Case Western Reserve, OneCommunity, and the Community Wireless Mesh Project
• 7:00 – 7:45am Learning 2.0: Making Sense of the explosion of Web 2.0 tools and their relevance and consequence in Higher Education
• 8:00 – 8:45am Rich Media and Participatory Culture - The Experience of YouTube and iTunes in Higher Education
• 9:00 – 9:45am New Frontiers in Video-Based Collaboration: Adobe Connect and Lifesize
• 8:45 – 10:45am President’s Address: Barbara R. Snyder, President, Case Western Reserve University
  Keynote Address - Speaker: Anthony Williams, Co-Author of Wikinomics, Mass Collaboration and the Future of Higher Education
• 11:00 – 11:45am Virtual Worlds and the New Frontiers of Learning — From SecondLife to Wonderland
• 12:00 – 12:45pm Panel Discussion: Collaboration Technology - What’s Next: Bold Predictions, Cautionary Notes and Take Away Lessons

We look forward to seeing you there. During the simulcast the ClevelandPlus Islands will be open to the public. If you have any questions please IM Susanne Patrono or Aimee Later in world.

The weekly Metanomics show has been on a 35 week sprint marathon, with live shows each of the last 35 weeks, and is taking a breather in May.. but there are still things you can tune into. Every Monday and Tuesday, they will be showing rebroadcasts of the top interviews and as a live audience, you can tune in and discuss the topics with other people.

Monday May 5, 2008, 11am PST: Gene Yoon, VP of Business Affairs and architect of the Second Life Economy, provides his view of inworld commerce. Can you figure out which part of the interview made a Danish investment banker want to cry?

• When: Monday, May 5 at 11:00am PST (check local time)
• Where: Amphitheater on Outreach (87, 125, 34) (no group membership is required to teleport)

Tuesday May 6, 2008, 3pm PST: Find out the answer to which part of the interview made a Danish investment banker want to cry in Metanomics Rewind, when we see the followup panel discussion, Virtual Finance and the Reality of the Linden Dollar, with with inworld financiers Arbitrage Wise and IntLibber Brautigan, Saxo Bank’s Jillian Falconi and David Karsbol, and journalist Gigs Taggart.

• When: Tuesday, May 6 at 3:00pm PST (check local time)
• Where: Amphitheater on Outreach (87, 125, 34) (no group membership is required to teleport)

You will want to join the Metanomics group in SL so you can participate in the group IM that goes on during the live sessions.

For past events, see the Metanomics video archive from SLCN.tv.

Finally, after some of the snarky television response to the April 2008 Virtual Worlds congressional testimony, check out the The Metanomics Colbert Challenge

This Friday, April 25, will be a special Metanomics interview featuring the NMC’s own, our CEO Larry Johnson (who is the real real avatar of Larry Pixel). Like all Metanomics sessions, this takes place somewhere in Second Life, but is live video streamed to the NMC location on Outreach.

Robert Bloomfield and Metanomics will host a special event as part of Clever Zebra’s vBusiness Expo. Rob will interview Dr. Larry Johnson, CEO of New Media Consortium, who recently testified to the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet of the US Congress.

Here is some recommended reading for this week:

1. Read about NMC’s four major initiatives and international projects.
2. Read about Johnson’s testimony, or watch the webcast.
3. Learn more about Clever Zebra’s 4-day vBusiness Expo, which will hold events on virtual workplace, virtual education, virtual marketing, and virtual commerce.

• When: Friday, April 25 at 11:00am PST (check local time)
• Where: Amphitheater on Outreach (87, 125, 34) (no group membership is required to teleport)

You will want to join the Metanomics group in SL so you can participate in the group IM that goes on during the live sessions.

For past events, see the Metanomics video archive from SLCN.tv.