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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.

The real life avatar of Larry Pixel, known there as “Larry Johnson” was interviewed by the folks from Global Kids, as the first podcast for their new RezEd site, a site devoted being a hub for teaching and learning in virtual worlds.

In the interview, Larry talks about his testimony to Congress including his observations how the House Subcomittee took in the information about virtual worlds. He also talks about the NMC’s Horizon Project and some future plans of NMC in virtual worlds.

Listen to Virtual World Go To Congress.

What is RezEd?

According to Barry Joseph,

Global Kids is proud to launch the open BETA of RezEd, the new online hub providing practitioners using virtual worlds with access to the highest quality resources and research in the field to establish a strong network of those using virtual worlds for learning.

We launch with May focused on the theme of educational virtual worlds, with new themes each month.

No matter the theme, each month we will feature inter-related podcasts (along with full text transcription), brief best practice reports, digital resources in the library, and featured blog posts, updated weekly.

RezEd is proud to launch with a special focus on virtual worlds having had their day in Congress earlier this month. Listen to the podcast interview with Larry Johnson, CEO of the New Media Consortium, as he describes he experience testifying in Congress, read his and the other testimonies submitted that day, watch the full video of the hearings, and respond to this week’s featured blog asking what YOU would have told or asked Congress.

Please come join this unique community at http://www.rezed.org/

In addition to the regular scheduled Metanomics session today at 11:00am PST on Experimental Economics in Virtual Worlds, there is a special event of interest to educators - at 2:00 PM PST join us also at Outreach on NMC Campus for a live event. Charles Nesson from Harvard will be giving a lecture in Second Life on the future of the university.

• When: Monday, April 7 at 11:00am PST (check local time)
• Where: Amphitheater on Outreach (87, 125, 34) (no group membership is required to teleport)

Robert Bloomfield and Metanomics will host a panel on the challenges and opportunities of conducting economic experiments in virtual worlds. Our guests include:

- Tom Chesney, Lecturer in Information Systems at Nottingham University Business School
- John Duffy, Professor of Economics at the University of Pittsburgh
- Steve Atlas, economics graduate student at Tufts University

Monday’s show will include:

- Introduction to the field of experimental economics
- Explanation of motivation of and results from recent experiments conducted by Chesney and myself in Second Life
- Discussion of challenges and opportunities of experimental research in virtual worlds.
- Possibilities for macroeconomic research leveraging virtual worlds.

• When: Monday, April 7 at 2:00pm PST (check local time)
• Where: Amphitheater on Outreach (87, 125, 34) (no group membership is required to teleport)

Charles Nesson a Harvard law professor known for teaching trial law in Second Life, will be giving a lecture in Second Life on the future of the university.

See - CyberOne: Law in the Court of Public Opinion

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.

Here’s some cool effects created by the folks at the Great Northern Way Campus in Vancouver - they are combining, even permutating, the video effects of traditional green screen techniques in real life with a virtual green screen in Second Life. In the demo video, you can see SL avatars walk across real spaces, real people walk in SL spaces, and then interesting combinations.

So, as seen in the still image, Joanna Robinson stands in the lobby of the Great Northern Way Campus interacting with her JoannaTrail Blazer SL avatar.

check out the video…

Tonight we hosted the opening recepetion for the NMC Symposium on Mashups, one of the NMC’s Online Symposia — this one itself a mashup of venues between web sessions in Adobe Connect and 3D sessions taking place at the NMC Conference Center in Second Life.

Some 25 avatars showed up to meet and talking about mashups- assembling at the Muriel Cooper Coliseum on thre NMC Conference Center sim:

(more…)

Whew, just finished watching the 2+ hour live video stream from the Congressional testimonies on Virtual Worlds. How… interesting are some of the interests and perspectives of our leadership, but it is re-assuring to know it is on their radar. For more info, see Mr Pixel Goes to Washington…

Among the speakers, it was exciting to see and listen to Philip Rosedale and NMC’s own Larry Johnson

The video should appear on the archives eventually at the Committee on Energy and Commerce website - but we snagged an audio recording if you cannot wait.

April 1, 2008 testimony to the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet [40.7 Mb PM3, 2:15:00]

Update: Meeting materials (papers) and the video archive are now available:
http://energycommerce.house.gov/cmte_mtgs/110-ti-hrg.040108.VirtualWorlds.shtml

Larry Pixel’s real live avatar, Dr. Larry Johnson, CEO of the New Media Consortium (NMC), is trekking to Washington DC April 1 (no fooling!) to present testimony on the nature and state of virtual worlds before the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet. Also presenting at the same hearing is Phillip Rosedale, founder of Linden Lab and the inventor of Second Life®. Also speaking are Susan Tenby, Senior Manager, Community Development at TechSoup and Colin J. Parris, Vice President, IBM Digital Convergence.

Witnesses will testify on the evolution, culture and future of online virtual worlds. These increasingly popular websites, such as Second Life, Zwinky and There, allow people to interact with each other over the Internet through virtual selves, or avatars. The hearing will explore safety issues and the use of real currency in virtual online worlds, as well as the growing presence of educational institutions, non-profits and other real-world organizations in online virtual worlds.

After learning of this invitation a few weeks ago, Mr Pixel solicited ideas and feedback from among NMC Members and NMC Board (and Emeritus Board members)– all of which informed his prepared remarks — which we have placed online in CommentPress form that allows visitors to attach comments to each paragraph- continue this conversation at http://wp.nmc.org/mrpixel.

You can catch the testimony live at 6:30 AM PST / 9:30 AM EST at http://tinyurl.com/2tzfup (note- the live video stream requires Windows Media Player- perhaps another hearing will enlighten our government on modern video streaming technology!).

Show your support by commenting today on “Online Virtual Worlds: Applications and Avatars in a User-Generated Medium”.

Larry Pixel’s real live avatar, Dr. Larry Johnson, CEO of the New Media Consortium (NMC), is trekking to Washington DC April 1 (no fooling!) to present testimony on the nature and state of virtual worlds before the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet. Also presenting at the same hearing is Phillip Rosedale, founder of Linden Lab and the inventor of Second Life®. Also speaking are Susan Tenby, Senior Manager, Community Development at TechSoup and Colin J. Parris, Vice President, IBM Digital Convergence.

Witnesses will testify on the evolution, culture and future of online virtual worlds. These increasingly popular websites, such as Second Life, Zwinky and There, allow people to interact with each other over the Internet through virtual selves, or avatars. The hearing will explore safety issues and the use of real currency in virtual online worlds, as well as the growing presence of educational institutions, non-profits and other real-world organizations in online virtual worlds.

After learning of this invitation a few weeks ago, Mr Pixel solicited ideas and feedback from among NMC Members and NMC Board (and Emeritus Board members)– all of which informed his prepared remarks — which we have placed online in CommentPress form that allows visitors to attach comments to each paragraph- continue this conversation at http://wp.nmc.org/mrpixel.

You can catch the testimony live at 6:30 AM PST / 9:30 AM EST at http://tinyurl.com/2tzfup (note- the live video stream requires Windows Media Player- perhaps another hearing will enlighten our government on modern video streaming technology!).

Show your support by commenting today on “Online Virtual Worlds: Applications and Avatars in a User-Generated Medium”.

An in-world meeting took place on Tuesday, March 25th at the proposed location for the new Student Center project on the NMC Orientation Island (69, 167,29).  The gathering of students, educators and NMC staff was organized and facilitated by AJ Brooks (aka AJ Kelton, Montclair University).   

 A lively discussion resulted in the identification of a number of planning considerations for the center which included purpose, activities and design possibilities.  Students attending the meeting expressed an interest in a social space that would provide music, freebies, and engaging interactive projects and activities.  The decision was made to form a small group of volunteers for investigation into the development aspects that could also serve as a steering/advisory board for the student center.

Students and educators interested in the project can email AJ Brooks at sorry.afk@gmail.com for information regarding the project or meeting times and dates for further discussions.

Transcript for March 25 2008 Meeting

Tune in to NMC Friday over on Outreach to catch a live video Metanomics Series interview with Mitch Kapor the board chair of Linden Lab. With the latest news of shuffling leadership, its going to be an important opportunity to hear what is happening at the House of Linden.

This Friday, March 28th, 2008, at 10:30AM SLT (1:30 PM EST), Robert Bloomfield and Metanomics will hold a special session of Metanomics. We will be joined by Mitch Kapor, Chairman of the Board of Linden Lab. Bloomfield reports, “We will talk about his vision for virtual worlds technology and business strategy and, of course, the future of Linden Lab and Second Life.”

Kapor is a pioneer of the personal computing revolution and has been at the forefront of information technology for 30 years as an entrepreneur, software designer, activist, and investor. He is widely known as founder of Lotus Development Corporation and the designer of Lotus 1-2-3, the “killer application” which made the personal computer ubiquitous in the business world in the 1980s. Other organizations in which Kapor has played an integral role include UUNET, The Electronic Frontier Foundation, Real Networks, the Mozilla Foundation and Linden Research.

Download the Metanomics Press Release- March 26, 2008

• When: Friday, March 28 at 10:30am 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.

The calendar link on this site has expanded from just the NMC Campus events (which is still viewable as its own calendar) to include all of the education events on the SLEDevents public calendar.

We now list now all events shared by colleagues on the Second Life Educators listserv, and we all owe Bruce Sommerville a big round of thanks for the task of keeping that calendar up to date.

So if you are looking for educational events in Second Life, you can get them right here on the NMC Campus Observer.