NMC Campus Observer

And You Thought They Worked on Virtual Islands

Originally uploaded by cogdogblog.

I was in San Francisco this past weekend for WordCamp and for a Sunday stroll just wandered aimlessly along the Embarcadero and then back down Battery Street. I passed this almost non-descript brick building and almost missed the familiar hand logo, rather strange to see it on a real building.

No one was around, the lights were off, but yes, here is the real Linden Lab. The have real real estate!

Greetings students, faculty and friends!
On August 19th, 2008 the Academic Outreach department will be hosting our first Second Life Open House from 9:00am – 4:00pm! Come join us on our virtual campus where you can experience East Carolina University in a new way.
For the educators, now is your chance to meet [...]

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Yesterday we took the massive audio equipment for NMC Studio One (that is a joke, we just use voice chat and WireTap Studio Pro) over to NMC Orientation to talk to Robins Hermano, who we learned is akin to the circus daredevils, by planning this fall to bring 700 of his accounting students into Second Life.

Robins RL avatar is Steve Hornik, an accounting professor in the College of Business Administration at University of Central Florida. Robins has been using Second Life actively for at least a year, and it was a few months ago when discussing NMC’s Second Life account creation and Orientation experience that he shared he had brought 200 students in through that service back in April 2008 (hmmm that is the cause of the nice spike in usage!).

He did laugh when I asked, “So what do accountants do in Second Life?” but quickly responded, “We count things!” Actually, as he shared, accountants are pretty active, with CPA Island and recent events like “XBRL and the International Future of Financial Reporting”. There is also an Second Life Association of CPAs and KAWG&F was the first accounting firm to open a working virtual business office in Second Life.

Check out his work on Really Engaging Accounting web site — and he did mention he is going to be sharing some results of his research into student engagement at the upcoming SLCC conference.

What caught our attentions was when he mentioned he was planning to bring more than 700 students through the registrations system for his upcoming fall semester accounting course — this is a basic required course in the UCF Business College.

In our recorded conversation (see below), Robins describes the ranges of ways he uses Second Life, with basic content like access to class content/recorded lectures and onto some custom interactive activities where students must manipulate a data modeler. He also shares some of his strategies for using Second Life with a large number of students (revolving around asynchronous design).

Studio One Interview with Robins Hermano (26:52 18.4 Mb MP3, apologies for poor audio quality in first half due to network flakiness)

We look forward to learning how the “big” class succeeds!

This week, on Tuesday, is a special Metanomics show you can catch on NMC Campus at Outreach. Do you think Second Life experience can deal with a user interface update? If so, this is a show for you.

Dusan Writer will reveal the winners of his L$800,000 contest to design a better user interface. Then [...]

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Join us again this week at Outreach on NMC Campus for another Metanomics show. This time around, it features the use of Second Life to teach languages with guests from Language Lab.com

Metanomics sponsor Language Lab teaches foreign languages in Second Life. Their novel curriculum uses a staff of instructors and actor to immerse people [...]

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It has been a long time we managed an in world audio interview. Would you believe the dog ate my microphone? Hmmm, I did not think so. But when you listen to the audio (apologies in advance) you will see how rusty I am. Details on this part follow below.

I spoke briefly to Chase Marellan, who in real life is Nicholas Chase, programmer and author, and a principal at InterSection Unlimited, makers of a very interesting Second Life application called ChatBridge.

This tool has been used since June for the weekly Metanomics show, which is video broadcast from one sim in Second Life to several others (include Outreach on NMC Campus) as overflow viewing places.

In Second Life, ChatBridge is a small mic device, and what it does is to broadcast any local chat in one sim to all of the other sims, so there is a common chat area across all sites. This is much more reliable than the group IM channel the Metanomics folks used earlier this year.

But there is another more interesting feature- the ChatBridge also allows people to participate in that same chat area via a web site, not even logged into Second Life. So interested viewers can create an account at Metanomics and go to the live show page. There they can see the streaming view embedded in the web, and read and add to the chat going on across the Metanomics sites in Second Life.

This got me very interested in this web/Second life integration, and given the NMC in world conferences were large enough to have multiple sims, I was interested in how this technology might work.

So in this interview, Chase describes how ChatBridge works, where it is being used, and some other aspects of connecting the virtual and web worlds.

As a note, Chase is co-authoring a book due out soon on Platform Second Life:

This book focuses on the skills needed to build applications that connect real life and Second Life. This includes:

* displaying RSS feeds in-world and creating 3D displays with external data
* controlling access to your virtual presence based on a real-world database
* updating external databases based on what happens in the virtual world

Platform Second Life is aimed at developers building Second Life applications, from casual scripters trying to build a cool tool to enterprise-level coders integrating with their company’s legacy systems.

The book is not yet published, but a f ew chapters are available for purchase via the Manning Early Access Program.

So we do have an audio file to share, but its hard to listen to. The story is I use WireTap Studio to capture my interviews. When I upgraded to my new MacBookPro, the serial number got disconnected, and I did not dig it up in time for the interview, so I ran it in trial mode– completely forgetting in trial mode, you can record, but about every 15 seconds there is an overlaid audio of a sultry woman saying, “This recording was made in a trial version of WireTap Studio Pro” — how embarrassing! I promise to do better next time!

Interview with Chase Marellan 5:55 4.1 Mb mp3

Organizers of the Second Annual Teen Grid College Fair are seeking representatives and speakers to attend the fair on October 12, 2008.

Last year’s fair was a hit! Take advantage of this unique opportunity to promote your college or university and meet teen grid residents from all over the world.
See http://eye4youalliance.youthtech.info/?page_id=629 or IM Alice Burgess [...]

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Already one of the most popular locations on the NMC Campus, Learning offers some of the finest open-source educational content in Second Life. While the NMC has several resource centers on campus devoted to free items to outfit the avatar and teaching tools, Learning is a full sim of learning spaces, orientation kits, major buildings, classroom, and much more.

Learning is the a culmination of over a years worth of development by NMC Virtual Worlds and was built in response to many faculty member’s requests for a sim wide resource center with content specifically pertinent to educating in Second Life.

Here is a sampling of what you can find.:

NMC Modular Building system, created by CJ Carnot, which can be easily used to create buildings and rooms of any size by connecting together what are essentially “unit blocks”:

The NMC Amphitheater, an event and presentation space with built in screens and room for 80 avatars which appeared first on NMC Campus (and is still actively used there) as the Gonick Amphitheater.

For a unique presentation venue, try the NMC Coliseum, an “in the round” approach to an event and presentation space, which has been used in many of our symposiums in Second Life (The Cooper Coliseum and NMC Conference Center) and seats up to 96 avatars.

If you are looking for something smaller, look for the NMC Mini-theaters, which seats 48 avatars and is scripted to sink below ground with a click when not in use.

As aids to new users, get a copy of the NMC Orientation Kit, based on NMC’s own Orientation with everything you need to build a basic version of your own.

We also offer a copy of Stephane Zugawang’s Virtual Reality Room, an immersive photo realistic environment free for educational and non-profit use.

And there are many more items in the NMC One Linden Store, where you can purchase hundreds of items made by NMC Virtual Worlds for 1L$ (the fee is just so we can track the usage- it costs you less than 3 cents!). You can find everything from classroom and library furniture to entire avatars in professional attire.

We hope you find useful items at Learning. Stop by and fill up your inventory! Find us at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Learning

Published originally at NMC Virtual Worlds

Join is at Outreach on NMC Campus for another great episode of the live, weekly Metanomics series, this week focusing on K-12 education with some special guests.

• When: Monday, July 28 at 12:00pm PST (check local time)
• Where: Amphitheater on Outreach (87, 125, 34) (no group membership is required to teleport)

Join Metanomics at Noon on Monday, July 28th, to learn about how K-12 teachers are using the Virtual Chalkboard. Hear superstar educator Kathy Schrock of “Kathy Schrock’s Guide for Educators”, Teen Grid pioneer Peggy Sheehy, and Linden’s Boston Operations Director (and academic evangelist) Pathfinder Linden. But first, we put the grid-spanning group ISTE “On the Spot” to talk about the Second Life activities of the International Society for Technology in Education.

For more details on this wek’s show, bios of the guests, and reference links, see http://www.metanomics.net/archive072808

You’ll be able to communicate directly with other audience members across the metanomics locations using their ChatBridge technology. Or as an option you can view the feed directly (and also be in the same chat) via the Metanomics web site at http://www.metanomics.net/WatchNow.

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

This Friday, August 1 is a special celestial event, a total solar eclipse. For the fifth time, the Exploratorium is providing live webcast coverage by sending their special team to a remote area of northwestern China near the Mongolian border (see details on how they broadcast an eclipse).

full size version of poster 1.4 Mb PNG

You can also watch the eclipse live in Second Life at Exploratorium Island (86, 141, 32) where there will be a viewing party, complete with interactive exhibits and music. The live video stream will also be available at other locations in Second Life, including the SciLands Skyditorium, the Pi Day Theater at the Sploland sim, the Science School sim, and the Spindrift sim. For teleport links, see http://www.exploratorium.edu/eclipse/2008/secondlife.html

Okay now for the bad news for those in the USA… the time of the totality of eclipse is 4:09 AM Pacific time! Stay up late or set your alarm clocks!

Even after a month since the first show, CARP’s (Cybernetic Art Research Project) performance of The Wall V-2 continues to pull in good sized audiences twice a week at the perfomance center located on NMC Campus West.

You can catch this show twice a week, either Friday or Sunday at 2:00PM PST at NMC Campus West (127, 47, 612). This will continue through the summer as long as the audiences keep coming!

Each performance features the rich music of Pink Floyd interpreted by the dance, effects, and audio affects as implemented by the CARP team.

According to Creative Director Debbie Trilling, CARP has continued to improve the show with the most significant change a re-design of the Wall itself to the actual design and construction of the Berlin Wall - including Guard Towers and authentic graffiti. It looks amazing under the colored spotlights lights.

I am always excited with the large spinning ball moves out, questioning the sense of identity, it picks up the profile pictures of people in the audience (see the dog!).

Then there are the smoke and fire effects as the intensity of the performance reaches the high note

And the suggestiveness of the large imposing figures of Judge and Teacher…

See more photos

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Be sure to stick around and participate when the performers invite you on stage. Show your appreciation for this amazing performance. again it is playing every Friday and Sunday at 2:00 PM at NMC Campus West.

The New Media Consortium (NMC) has announced the 2008 cohort of Virtual Learning Prize (VLP) awardees. The NMC Virtual Learning Prize, part of a $100,000 competitive program of awards, is intended to create a collection of innovative open-source learning experiences that make use of the unique attributes of a virtual learning environment.

The NMC Virtual Learning Prize is envisioned as a way to surface and realize creative ideas for how to make optimal use of a virtual setting, using a process that provides recognition, financial incentives, professional development services, and a return for education as a whole.

The first-round awardees are:

Tim Bell
University of Canterbury
"Computer Science Unplugged in a virtual world"

Natasha Boskic
University of British Columbia
"Collaborative creative writing in predesigned space"

Eric Hackathorn
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
"Exploring Weather and Climate Change Through a Climate Time Line"

Lisa Ortiz
Metropolitan State College of Denver
"Experience Virtual Disabilities"

Heidi Trotta
Seton Hall University
"Endangered Ecosystems - The Virtual Salt Water Marsh (Part 2 - A Case-Based Learning Scenario)"

Ruth Tringham
University of California, Berkeley
"Student-Designed Virtual Archaeology Class"

Thomas Waters
University of Pittsburgh
"Measuring Heart Rate and How Medications Affect Heart Rate"

Michael Zerbe
Stark State College of Technology
"First World Economics in Second Life"

Nearly 75 applications were received in the initial round of this highly competitive program. Each awardee will receive US$5,000 — a cash incentive paid to the awardee of $500 as well as $4,500 in expert development assistance from the NMC Virtual Worlds team to create their proposed learning experience.

As many as 20 awards will be distributed during the 2008-9 award year – since all 20 were not awarded in the first round, the process remains open, and proposals will continue to be accepted until all funds have been expended.

For further information, or to download a proposal submission form, please see the Virtual Learning Prize website. Questions related to the criteria or the submission of an application should be directed to virtual-learning@nmc.org.

As previously noted, the NMC is excited to be hosting CARP’s (Cybernetic Art Research Project) performance of The Wall V-2. The curtain lifted last Friday to that symphonic rock sound of Pink Floyd enhanced by the dance, effects, and audio affects interpreted by CARP.

You can catch this show for the next few weeks at NMC Campus West (127, 47, 612) every Friday and Sunday at 2:00pm PST. If you land on the ground there, just look for the comfy green/white chairs which lift you to the venue.

Be sure to turn on your music player to catch the audio stream and do lots of alt-zooming to watch the action.

Show up early, mingle, and you are invited to be active in chat during the show.

And after the closing, be sure to join the actors on stage as they launch into original music. Bring your dance animations and hop on the wall!

Again, the NMC is very excited to bring you cutting edge art and performance to our Second Life campus.

A bit of time has gone by since the 2008 NMC Summer Conference at Princeton, but we wanted to make sure we jotted a few notes on the closing plenary by Henry Jenkins- an inspirational presentation on What Would Herman Melville Say to Soulja Boy?: Remix Culture and the New Media.

This was not only taking place in a gorgeuos real world facility, Princeton’s Richardson Auditorium in Alexander Hall, but was also live streamed to a remote audience gathered in the Second Life version of the same room.

We have the presentation available as video, audio, and on the NMC media archive site you will find a MediaSite version synced to slides.

Quicktime video
(129 Mb Quicktime, 1:04:11)

MP3 audio (58.8 Mb MP3, 1:04:11)

Jenkkins opened with the story of rapper Soulja Boy who not only used web media to reach his dream of stardom but instigated the whole following of fans from all walks of life who created and published their own versions of his dance moves — right up to the MIT Nerd version featuring legendary Richard Stallman.

This was one of many examples Jenkins weaves in as Participatory Culture, which in interestingly, ought to have parallels or relevance in Second Life:

• low barrier for engagement (not the barrier of entry for learning SL, but that it does not take much for one to be active, if they choose)
• strong support for sharing creations with others very much evidenced by the freebies one fiinds, the giving nature of the education community, the numerous web sites, photo sharing sites sharing SL creations.
• informal mentorship which happens all the time be it Orientation Island, accidental, there are countless stories of experience Sl-ers helping newbies
• members believe that contribution matters which is the underpinnings of a user generated world
• care about others opinions of self and work - pretty much describes the grooming of avatars, the importance of building reputations

From his MacArthur Foundation white paper on Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education, Jenkins shared the 11 competencies young people need to pas new media literacies:

• performance
• play
• networking
• collective intelligence
• multitasking
• distributed cognition
• appropriation
• negotiation
• judgment
• simulation
• transmedia navigation

And he expanded more on appropriation as the competency for creating remix content:

the ability to meaningfully sample and mix media content within a context

and then went on to argue that we have a fallacy of looking historically at creativity as coming form nothing, or all as original (which as taught in school tends to intimidate learners creativity):

• The Sistene Chapel is a mashup of prior imagery
• Shakespeare practiced fan facition, re-writing characters and plays from existing works into new contexts, new meanings
• Homer was remixing Greek mythology every time he spoke

Culture operates in dialogue with other existing cultural materials

Jenkins went on to demonstrate the newer versions of this concept via fan videos, and offering remix as a form of pedagogy as demonstrated in Scratch the mix, mash, and generate software tool that allows people to create games, art, interactive stories via a simple tool set– so much that there is one new item created there every two minutes.

And he went on to show the Moby Dick was a classic example of absorbing everything from a culture and recasting it into a new, mixed form- that Melville was a “protofan” of whaling culture. He then moved into to modern remixes of Moby Dick, ranging far from political cartoons to Moby Dick House of Kabobs, and a video of how a modern version of Moby Dick was retold by kids in a contemporary setting.

Jenkins closed with some strong words on copyright, parents using media of their kids in less than appropriate ways, and took some questions from the Second Life audience (see the SL chat log for more).

All in all this was an incredible session, both in RL and SL.

Come to Outreach on NMC Campus for today’s Metanomics show! And as a new feature, you can watch the live video stream and participate in the chat via the metanomics website.

Host Robert Bloomfield interviews Christian Renaud, who until last week was Chief Architect of Networked Virtual Environments for the Cisco Technology Center. Renaud announced [...]

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Today, a few NMC staff got to peek in on the rehearsal of what will be one of the most popular performances this summer on Second Life.

Opening Friday, June 27, is an epic production by the Cybernetic Art Research Project (CARP) — The Wall V-2.

On July 21 1990, nine months after the dismantlement of the Berlin Wall, Roger Waters and an all-star cast performed “The Wall” at the Potzdamer Platz in Berlin. The performance was watched by a live audience of 250,000 and an estimated half-billion people on television…

And now, an international team of artists working with the Cybernetic Art Research Project (CARP) bring a unique vision and live performance of “The Wall” to Second Life ™.

The original CARP version of “The Wall” was performed in SL fourteen times to 1260 attendees. Each performance filling sims and to rave reviews.

The NMC is delighted to bring you “THE WALL V-2″! The CARP Team have especially updated and re-scripted near every element of the show for NMC, as well as adding entirely new effects and surprises. “The Wall V-2″ is now even bigger, more colorful and more visually stunning than ever before!

“Amazing. Not so much viewed as it is experienced” ~ Metaverse Messenger
“All I can say is WOW. GREAT show” ~ Second Arts
“Nothing short of spectacular. A complete immersion” ~ Looking Glass

Starting this friday and for the next few weeks, “The Wall V-2″ will be performed at twice-weekly at NMC Campus West:

• EVERY FRIDAY 2pm PST
• EVERY SUNDAY 2pm PST

You can watch the show at NMC Campus West (127, 47, 612)

Interest is expected to be high, so please arrive early! Arriving early will also allow the Texture Pre-Loaders to send all the data to your cache before the show starts. Both shows will start promptly at 2PM PST.

This is a live artistic performance by a team of experienced SL/RL artists, using the very best and sophisticated of SL’s technology to bring you a unique interpretation and vision of Pink Floyd’s ‘The Wall’. It should not be confused or compared with other SL “Pink Floyd” performances, where avatars simply use pose balls and stand on a stage whilst a stream brings in music.

• Creative Director: Debbie Trilling (UK)
• Producer: Velazquez Bonetto (Germany)
• Wall Design: Elfod Nemeth (UK)
• Animated Puppets: Duggy Bing (US)
• Animations: Caravaggio Bonetto (Austria)
• Original Music: Junivers Stockholm (Sweden) & Josina Burgess (Holland)
• Stills Photography: Adec Alexandria (UK)
• Dancing & Joyfulness: Klute Copploa (France), Southern Riptide (US)

with valuable contributions from:

• Scio Kamanchi (US)
• Gypsy Paz (US)
• Lyddyn Tzara (US)
• Celeste Moonlight (US)
• DJ Jenns (UK)
• George W Bush (US) Yes, that George Bush!

and, of course, Pink Floyd’s incredible album ‘The Wall’

Please note that facelights and all other prim lighting are strictly prohibited from the venue. Please detach all such prim lighting systems before arriving. If you are unsure, please use ‘Advanced | Rendering | Info Displays | Light’ to check. This will cause all sources of prim lighting in your vicinity to be surrounded by a yellow bounding box. Please be aware that facelights and other sources of prim lighting will not only ruin the show for the wearer, but also for everybody else within up to 20 meters of the wearer.

Please enable ‘Nearby Local Lights’, particles to a minimum of 4096 (but preferably to 8192), sun to midnight, turn volume to HIGH!

• “A massive, magical hit. An unforgettable, enchanting triumph, “THE WALL” dazzles the senses and touches the heart.”
• “Packed with shocks, sorcery, special effects and incredible costumes, “THE WALL” is an SL sensation.”
• “A great big luscious SL musical extravaganza. “THE WALL” has taken SL by surprise and will be a hit musical. Powerful and subversive. It’s a fabulous production.”
• “An incredible technical feat to have achieved all this within SL”
• “The best live performance ever to be staged in SL”
• “Sets a new benchmark for live performances in SL”

For press release photographs or any further information, please IM Debbie Trilling

• Selection of performance photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/7759984@N05/
• Cybernetic Art Research Project: http://diabolus.ning.com/
• Recent CARP ventures: http://www.gallery-diabolus.com/CARP/carp-04.pdf
• Debbie Trilling wiki: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/User:Debbie_Trilling
• Debbie Trilling SL profile: http://world.secondlife.com/resident/4e07f6d1-4598-4351-84fa-826ccb723ea8
• Velazquez Bonetto SL profile: http://world.secondlife.com/resident/e762560e-0314-4388-b8bf-02610283cc16

All facelights and other vanity lighting systems are strictly prohibited from the venue. Please see article “How to Ruin an Artists Work Using Facelights & Prim Lighting” for more information.

Don’t miss this stunning performance!

For January through March 2008, NMC Campus was proud to have hosted regular performances of DanCoyote Antonelli’s ZeroG SkyDancer show for 2008, entitled Second Spring.

If you never had the opportunity to experience this performance, virtuoso SL film maker Gary Hazlitt (aka Gary Hayes) has published am immersive full recording of this as machinima which you can find on YouTube (because of the 10 minute limit of YouTube, he has it in 2 parts- perhaps he may post it to Google or blip.tv??).

Enjoy!

Metanomics, the web’s premier program about the business and policy of virtual worlds, begins an exciting second season on Monday, June 23rd at Noon PST.

For the kick-off program Metanomics host Robert Bloomfield will feature USC’s Second Life and the Public Good Community Challenge, with guests Douglas Thomas (Doctor Ludovico in SL) Associate [...]

Do not miss out on seeing this entire sim of artistry created by Madcow Cosmos, which is being held over until Tuesday June the 10th.

Madcow Cosmos was born May 23, 1978. A chef by trade he resides in the pacific northwest of the USA. Initially drawn by the simple-to-use creation tools, SL [...]

The Center for Intellectual Property 8th Annual Intellectual Property Symposium takes place May 38-30 in Adlelphi Maryland. But you do not have to be in Maryland; you can also attend and participate in this conference in Second Life, an event we are hosting on the NMC Conference Center.

The theme is “Monopoly: Playing the Innovation Game”.

Join the Center for Intellectual Property for its annual symposium exploring the relationship between the U.S. copyright monopoly, technological innovation and higher education institutions.

Although the default rules in U.S. copyright law encourage exclusive ownership and create a limited monopoly, today’s technological and cultural landscape encourages sharing and collaboration. The result is a high-stakes conflict between copyright law and culture. Where do higher education interests reside?

We will discuss these issues in the context of:

* The Development of User Generated Content
* Mass Digitization Projects
* The Transformation of “Authorship”
* Use of Wikis, Blogs and other Technologies in the Development of Scholarship

All of the sessions from Maryland will be video streamed live into Second Life, and the breakout discussions will take place here as well with summaries shared across locations.

If you are interested in attending, see the online registration and the specific information on the Second Life Simulcast. Oops, regular registration ends May 23!