77 Million Paintings

Just to note the UK academia connection with Brian Eno's 77 Million Paintings SL premier (blogged here). Angrybeth Shortbread (Annabeth Robinson, Leeds College of Art and Design), who developed the 77 Million Paintings remix in SL, is being interviewed as part of tonight's events which start at 8.00pm PDT (a tad late for us UK types).

Sarah "Intellagirl" Robbins streamed onto Eduserv Island

I picked up the streaming URL for Sarah "Intellagirl" Robbins' Web 2.0 presentation to IUPUI in Indianapolis (announced yesterday on the SLED list) and plugged it into the Virtual Congress Centre on Eduserv Island.

Unfortunately, because of the lateness of my announcement back to SLED that I was doing this, not all that many avatars turned up. There were probably about 10 of us in total.

However, despite problems with the sound for the first half of the talk, it was worth sticking around - with Sarah giving a good introduction and some useful pointers to the power of Web 2.0 applications.

It's probably worth looking out for an announcement on SLED, assuming that this is going to be made available on-line somewhere in due course, particularly for those of you that are new to the concepts around Web 2.0.

Secondfest

Briefly... I note that Secondfest, organised by the Guardian and Intel, is happening this weekend.

SL and virtualisation

In discussion with Paul Walk and Liz Lyon of UKOLN after my presentation to staff at the University of Bath earlier on today we talked about the need for SL to scale rather better than it does now and wondered whether and if the SL grid architecture could be made more suitable for approaches based on virtualisation. This might allow for the capacity of a sim to grow dynamically in response to short term demands for power, e.g. when a large meeting is taking place.

Jeff Barr's report of Joe Miller's Catalyst presentation makes some similar points (see towards the end of the post) as well as providing some interesting stats about SL that I've not seen before.

Also note the positive sounding news about opening up the grid to other sim providers and references to emerging standards.

Building as pedagogy

At the session yesterday we spoke a little about the need for students (and others) to have a positive first experience of SL. This came up more than once in the discussion and I agree it is very important.

Of course... it's an easy statement to make but it does rather assume that we know what positive means in this context. I’m not convinced that we yet understand well enough what people like about SL to be able to guarantee a positive first experience.

Thinking back, my own first experience was pretty negative actually. I found Orientation Island confusing and pointless. The very first words anyone said to me in SL were "You are ugly". Don't worry, I was big enough to take it on the chin :-). Anyway, they were right, I was ugly… and I had a big chin! I’d made a bad choice of first avatar and then hit the randomise button and not known what to do to recover! :-) Finally I left Orientation Island and went to some random location where I walked around in your typical kind of SL wilderness – virtual tumbleweed being blown across the scene would have completed the experience. To make matters worse, the only person I met ran away! :-)

So what turned the experience round for me? Well, it was four things really…

Firstly, I met up with someone I knew (Paul Miller as it happens) on the then very new Cybrary City sim. We chatted for a bit, and bumped into one or two friendly librarians that I didn't know. But overall it was a very welcoming experience.

Secondly, I realised that I could make my own tee-shirts very easily. And I found that giving away the results gave a nice warm glow.

Thirdly, I discovered scripted objects, building and the joy of generally wasting time in sandboxes (even when they are empty) and then blogging about it.

Finally, I realised that I liked adopting a different character - my in-world avatar. I liked the fact that I could speak as Art Fossett rather than Andy Powell. I know this sounds weird - but for me, it is part of what makes SL work.

In the meeting yesterday I tried to push the idea of 'building as pedagogy' in Second Life. Again, I'm on very thin ice here, since I consider myself to be a lay person in these matters, but bear with me. By building I really mean doing – so 'building an object', 'scripting', 'designing and making a costume', 'creating textures', 'running an event', 'putting on a play', 'role playing', 'making a video', and umpteen other things all come under the category of building as far as I'm concerned.

For me, a positive first experience is about helping people to recognise that building in SL is a key part of its fun. I think the same applies to learning in SL – it has to be centered around 'doing', not 'receiving'. As Babbage Linden said yesterday – SL is the Chemistry Set not the chemistry lecture.

Being where the students are

One of the mini-themes that came up in the symposium follow-up session yesterday was about if and why students are already in SL. I made the point that one of the arguments quite often put forward around the importance of universities (and, for example, libraries) getting into SL is because that is where the students are.

I’m not sure I buy that argument. Are students really in SL already? My minimal experience says, no, they are not – at least not in any significant numbers. Not yet.

That leaves us, as educators (I include myself in that group very loosely!), in an odd position it seems to me. Not only have we got to be convinced that 3-D virtual worlds will allow us to impart learning better than we do now, but we also have to convince our learners that there is sufficient benefit to joining SL as well. A pretty tall order right now - or so it seems to me?

Babbage Linden made the point that only about 1 in 10 of people get SL anyway. I don’t have any reason to doubt this figure. So in a tutor group of 30, only 3 will naturally understand what SL is about - the rest will not get it, some will give up, some will persevere without really liking what they are being asked to do, some will be totally bemused... you get the picture.

Why do so few get it? I can’t answer that question... I do get it, or at least I think I do, but I can’t easily verbalise why (though I have tried) - so I’m at a loss as to why others don’t.
What are the comparable figures for other Learning 2.0 applications? How many people get blogs, or Twitter, or whatever?

I guess that is why applications like Facebook do so well currently - because the percentage of people who get what the application is all about is significantly higher.

What does this mean for educators in SL? Well firstly, it gives us a pretty steep hill to climb. No worries, I enjoy climbing - so I don’t think it is a reason to lose interest entirely, though it might make us modify our expectations a little?

I think it probably also means that we need to give up thinking about SL as an inclusive activity for all students. Instead, we should see it as one option among many - a valid way of completing an assignment, but not the only way. I think that means that we need to think quite hard about what kinds of assignments we give to people. For example, a given bit of group work might be able to be completed by using a face to face discussion, or by collaborating thru blog writing, or by an in-world activity, or by some combination of the above - with the resulting coursework being submitted as a jointly authored traditional essay, a set of blog entries, machinima, … whatever. There are, of course, significant implications for assessment - and our understanding of the expected learning outcomes of any bit of work is, as always, absolutely paramount.

Professionally, I’m out of my depth at this point. I speak only as a lay person - and I should therefore probably shut up. But the overall point is that we need to reconceptualise "being where our students are" as "engaging with out students in ways that are meaningful and useful to them" and we need to remember that SL currently only fits the bill for a small proportion – for others it will be blogs or in Facebook or...

And for some it may continue to be in the lecture theatre! :-)

Being where the students are

One of the mini-themes that came up in the symposium follow-up session yesterday was about if and why students are already in SL. I made the point that one of the arguments quite often put forward around the importance of universities (and, for example, libraries) getting into SL is because that is where the students are.

I’m not sure I buy that argument. Are students really in SL already? My minimal experience says, no, they are not – at least not in any significant numbers. Not yet.

That leaves us, as educators (I include myself in that group very loosely!), in an odd position it seems to me. Not only have we got to be convinced that 3-D virtual worlds will allow us to impart learning better than we do now, but we also have to convince our learners that there is sufficient benefit to joining SL as well. A pretty tall order right now – or so it seems to me?

Babbage Linden made the point that only about 1 in 10 of people get SL anyway. I don’t have any reason to doubt this figure. So in a tutor group of 30, only 3 will naturally understand what SL is about – the rest will not get it, some will give up, some will persevere without really liking what they are being asked to do, some will be totally bemused... you get the picture.

Why do so few get it? I can’t answer that question… I do get it, or at least I think I do, but I can’t easily verbalise why (though I have tried) – so I’m at a loss as to why others don’t.
What are the comparable figures for other Learning 2.0 applications? How many people get blogs, or Twitter, or whatever?

I guess that is why applications like Facebook do so well currently – because the percentage of people who get what the application is all about is significantly higher.

What does this mean for educators in SL? Well firstly, it gives us a pretty steep hill to climb. No worries, I enjoy climbing - so I don’t think it is a reason to lose interest entirely, though it might make us modify our expectations a little?

I think it probably also means that we need to give up thinking about SL as an inclusive activity for all students. Instead, we should see it as one option among many – a valid way of completing an assignment, but not the only way. I think that means that we need to think quite hard about what kinds of assignments we give to people. For example, a given bit of group work might be able to be completed by using a face to face discussion, or by collaborating thru blog writing, or by an in-world activity, or by some combination of the above – with the resulting coursework being submitted as a jointly authored ‘traditional’ essay, a set of blog entries, machinima, … whatever. There are, of course, significant implications for assessment – and our understanding of the expected learning outcomes of any bit of work is, as always, absolutely paramount.

Professionally, I’m out of my depth at this point. I speak only as a lay person – and I should therefore probably shut up. But the overall point is that we need to reconceptualise “being where our students are” as “engaging with out students in ways that are meaningful and useful to them” and we need to remember that SL currently only fits the bill for a small proportion – for others it will be blogs or in Facebook or ... and for some it may continue to be in the lecture theatre! :-)

Turning a near disaster into a learning experience

The symposium follow-up session on Eduserv Island went very well today, with about 34 people attending.

But it was very nearly a disaster...

I blogged earlier about the PanelPod software that I've been developing to automatically chair the session. Oh boy, how wrong was I!? I dunno how many hours I put into the PanelPod scripting, but I completely mis-read the effect that it would have on the discussion.

Not that the software crashed or anything... but by putting the chairing/queuing system in the way of people's discussion and by making people put up their hands before speaking I completely destroyed and kind of natural flow to the discussion in the room.

To be more positive, it was an interesting experiment. After about 10 minutes of very stifled discussion the talk turned to what was wrong - my queuing system! :-( I turned it off and very quickly the discussion flowed more naturally.

The result was a very interesting debate involving many of the people in the room and covering quite a wide range of topics including how to get learners engaged with SL, what makes it an exciting environment, how assessment might or might not work in SL and so on.

We'll do a longer blog entry on the eFoundations blog in due course. For now, just note that a transcript of the session is available if you want to see what went on.

TwitterBot

I spent some time over the weekend building a TwitterBot, an object that relays any chat it hears on to Twitter and that passes any tweets targeted at it back into Second Life.

You can see the resulting object in the SLashup area on Eduserv Island.

I have a couple more bits of work to do on the code, making it configure itself from a notecard and allowing people to register their Twitter account names with it, then I'll make it all freely available.

To track messages sent from the current TwitterBot on Eduserv Island, you need to follow 'eduservisland' in Twitter. Note that we'll be using this to feed out the discussion in the symposium follow-up meeting to Twitter later today. Again, this will be very experimental.

PanelPod

For the in-world symposium follow-up meeting on Eduserv Island today we are going to use an automated chairing system called PanelPod. This is an extension of my previous work on the MeetingPod, designed to virtually chair a panel session.

The system works pretty much like the MeetingPod, except that it maintains two queues of speakers, audience members and panelists, giving priority to the panelists. To take part in the session, avatars have to be seated, raising their hand (PAGE-UP) to join the queue of people waiting to speak and putting their hand down (PAGE-DOWN) after they have finished (or if they decide to leave the queue before it is their turn).

This is pretty experimental - we have only had one real test of the software so far - so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Quotes and mis-quotes

I'm quoted in an article in The Times today - Today’s tutorial will take place on the virtual beach.

This is the second time I've been quoted in the national press recently, the previous time being in the Education Guardian. Hey, I must be doing something right? Either that, or people are so desperate to get out some kind of story about SL and education that they'll talk to any old idiot! :-)

For the record, the spirit of the Times article is probably about right but the specific quote is a bit wonky. I would never say "everybody knows that it has huge potential" since I wouldn't pretend to speak for others (and I'm well aware that not everyone thinks like that).

SL spoof - lol

Found via David Davies' Weblog - very funny.

How much!?

The Achieving Product And Branding Excellence In Second Life And Other Virtual Worlds conference has been announced (London, Sept 2007). I'm sure it'll be interesting but I must confess that I did a double-take at the prices...

Day 1 (tutorial) = £500 (L$262000)
Day 2 (case studies) = £800 (L$420000)

Hey, the Eduserv Foundation Symposium was pretty good value wasn't it! ;-)

Discounts are available...

Double bollox...

Global Kids have announced their GK Lightbulb system for organising and managing meetings.

Good stuff...

I'm only slightly annoyed because it is so similar to my MeetingPod ideas, which I haven't really announced properly or made available to others.

Recently, I've been working on a PanelPod version of the MeetingPod, as system for automatically managing a Second Life panel session. We tested it yesterday in the Virtual Congress Centre on Eduserv Island and there are some glitches still to be ironed out... but the basic idea works pretty well.

Rather than a lightbulb (which I did experiment with briefly in the MeetingPod on SchomeBase) I now use different colored seats (red, amber, green) to indicate when it is OK to speak.

One major issue is that I use a system of raising your hand to join the queue. I think there are some advantages with this approach - in terms of seeing who is doing what - but one of the downsides is that avatars with animation overrides seem to cause problems for my software. I haven't worked out why.

Once I've sorted out the details, I'll make the code available... watch this space.

Bollox...

I've realised why the quality of the SL videos I've uploaded to YouTube is a bit naff. I have a widescreen laptop, which is where I've tended to do the initial capture (using FRAPS). I then edit and mix down using Audacity (for the audio) and Windows Movie Maker for the video. I save the resulting video in 4:3 aspect ratio 640x480 resolution movie file, which is what gets uploaded to YouTube.

The change in aspect ratio compresses things sideways and reduces the quality enough to make text unreadable.

I'll do better in future... by capturing on my other screen which has a 4:3 aspect ratio.

Sorry.

JISC Online Conference SL session videocast

I've made a short video summarising the Second Life showcase session at the recent JISC Online Conference. The session went pretty well, and we had some interesting discussion in the online conference forum as a result. See what you think...



I'll try and send a summary of our discussions here in due course.

JISC Online Conference Showcase session on SL

JISC asked me to coordinate a Second Life session as part of this year's JISC Online Conference, Innovating e-Learning. The session title was Barriers to mainstream adoption of Second Life for teaching, which fits well with this year's primary conference themes, institutional transformation and supporting lifelong learning.

The session has just finished. A full transcript follows. It wasn't completely without hiccups - not least because my machine crashed about 2 minutes before we were supposed to start. (Lesson: check available disk space before starting to record an hour's worth of video!). More importantly, we were a mixed group (some newbies, some more experienced) so keeping everyone informed in terms of where they were supposed to be was quite hard. With hindsight, I should have run the whole session in one place, rather than trying to move people about between different locations.

Overall it was pretty good though, and I think people got something useful out of it.

Anyway, here's the transcript if you are interested. The video will follow later on Youtube.

[6:05] Art Fossett is Online

[6:06] Art Fossett: hi, everyone

[6:06] Art Fossett: sorry about that

[6:06] lizit Cleanslate: Hi Art

[6:06] Bunyip Barbosa: Hi Art!

[6:06] Amanita Voom: Hi Art where do you want us?

[6:06] Art Fossett: i'm trying to record the video of this, but it filled my C: drive up :-(

[6:06] Art Fossett: duh... i should have checked

[6:06] Art Fossett: i'm now recording to a different drive, so we'll see how it goes

[6:06] Sumdy Bonne: are there any biscuits?

[6:07] Geoff Magellan: Great, be good to have a record.

[6:07] Art Fossett: before we get started properly i just wanted to say a few words of welcome

[6:07] Norma Demina: I really hope we het something to show the others - worth a go

[6:07] Lulu Minnelli: forget the biscuits is there any wine

[6:07] Amanita Voom: Shortbread please

[6:07] Art Fossett: and perheps everyone to just go round and say their RL names

[6:07] Art Fossett: i know that is unusual... but in this case, I think it might be helpful

[6:07] Art Fossett: just names and institution

[6:07] Geoff Magellan: I'm Geoff Minshull.

[6:07] Bunyip Barbosa: Hi I'm Nick Bunyan fromt he U of Liverpool

[6:07] Art Fossett: ok

[6:07] Longside Lane: I'm John Dermo from Bradford Uni

[6:07] lizit Cleanslate: Liz Thackray - OU

[6:08] Hilary Graves: Hilary Griffiths uni of Bristol

[6:08] Sumdy Bonne: will stewart from bradford uni

[6:08] Tess123 Bailey: Hi I'm Debbie Prescott University of Liverpool

[6:08] Chris Eggplant: Chris Swaine, Education UK Island

[6:08] Zenita Zadeh: Hi, Jane O'Neill University of Leeds

[6:08] Lulu Minnelli: im Julia gaimster from london college of fashion

[6:08] Zenita Zadeh: Hi Will

[6:08] Lonac Bade: i'm kevin brosnan, univ. of stirling

[6:08] Graham Mills: Peter Miller, also Liverpool

[6:08] Amanita Voom: Nigel Robertson UO Bradford

[6:08] Talula Nikolaidis: I'm Liz Foulis from TESEP

[6:08] Peregrine Juneau: I'm Pete Johnston and I work with Art/Andy as a Technical Researcher at the Eduserv Foundation in Bath.

[6:08] Gann McGann: mark childs - warwick

[6:08] Norma Demina: Lou McGill, JISC

[6:08] Tess123 Bailey: I'll never remember all those

[6:08] Talula Nikolaidis: !

[6:08] Longside Lane: Me neither

[6:09] Lulu Minnelli: i cant even remember who i am today

[6:09] Longside Lane: looks like I'm short sighted in SL

[6:09] Art Fossett: ok, thanks

[6:09] Art Fossett: that also gave me time to build a quick slide screen

[6:09] Art Fossett: :-)

[6:10] Art Fossett: so... welcome to the SL showcase part of the JISC Online Conference 2007

[6:10] Art Fossett: and welcome to eduserv island

[6:10] Art Fossett: can everyone see the slides?

[6:10] Art Fossett: use alt-zoom to position your cameras if you need to

[6:10] Zenita Zadeh: yes

[6:11] Amanita Voom: Use Ctl 0 to zoom

[6:11] Art Fossett: ok, so what are we trying to achieve today

[6:11] Art Fossett: ?

[6:11] Art Fossett: firstly, just the experince of having a meeting in SL

[6:11] Art Fossett: i think that will be qwuite useful in its own right

[6:12] Art Fossett: and i'd be interested afterwards in what went well and what didn't

[6:12] Art Fossett: particularly what didn't!

[6:12] Art Fossett: but hopefully we can also have some real discussion aboiut barrier to adopting SL in education

[6:12] Art Fossett: and begin to think about mitigating those barriers

[6:12] Art Fossett: as the slide says... this is all very expoerimental (hence my crash just now)

[6:13] Art Fossett: so we'll have to see how it goes

[6:13] Lulu Minnelli: well i cant get it through the uni firewall for a start that is a big barrier

[6:13] Art Fossett: i hope you find something of value in the next hour or so

[6:13] Art Fossett: i'm going to break us into two groups for the discussion

[6:13] Art Fossett: i have one repporteur so far

[6:13] Art Fossett: so if one other person could volunteer that would be good

[6:13] Art Fossett: ??

[6:13] Art Fossett: hint hint

[6:14] Art Fossett: thanks to lizit for volunteering already

[6:14] Hilary Graves: what do you need to do?

[6:14] Art Fossett: make a notecard of the 10 most significant barriers

[6:14] Art Fossett: should be pretty simple

[6:14] Art Fossett: and feed back to the main group at the end

[6:14] Hilary Graves: Im happy to do that - but am a total newbie

[6:15] Art Fossett: ok?

[6:15] Art Fossett: thanks - cool

[6:15] Art Fossett: ok, so we've got our two victims - err.. i mean volunteers

[6:15] Art Fossett: :-)

[6:15] Hilary Graves: :-)

[6:15] lizit Cleanslate:

[6:14] Art Fossett: we'll spend about 30 minutes in discussion groups

[6:15] Art Fossett: after 30 minutes or so, we'll come back together for a group discussion

[6:15] Art Fossett: ok, the groups are...

[6:16] Art Fossett: good, lizit and hilary are in different groups

[6:16] Art Fossett: the meeting places for the discussion groups are down the steps

[6:17] Art Fossett: to my right

[6:17] Tess123 Bailey: Art i'm sorry not sure what' I'm doing wrong but can't read the writing

[6:17] Art Fossett: then turn right or left

[6:17] Art Fossett: any questions

[6:17] Peregrine Juneau: Tess123: it just takes a while to come into focus, I think

[6:17] Geoff Magellan: Takes a minute or so to focus.

[6:18] Art Fossett: tess, join which ever group you like

[6:18] Geoff Magellan: Tess, go in any group, because you were a late addition, Art hasn't allocated you.

[6:18] Tess123 Bailey: Ok thanks

The meeting then broke into two discussion groups, each lasting about 30 minutes. There was some confusion in finding the location of the discussion areas and in getting people into their allocated groups.

Group 1



[6:18] Hilary Graves: Hi - how do I sit down:-)

[6:18] Bunyip Barbosa: Right click and slect sit down

[6:18] Hand-up seat: Use PAGE-UP to raise hand.

Use PAGE-DOWN to lower hand.

[6:18] Norma Demina: Hi there I'm having a bit of difficulty seeing things. right click on a chair

[6:19] Hilary Graves: thanks

[6:19] Norma Demina: I've zoomed in too much - how do I zoom out?

[6:19] Bunyip Barbosa: Use mouse wheel

[6:19] Hilary Graves: do you mind if I quickly check what the arrow keys do?

[6:19] Peregrine Juneau: I think we've lost people - I'll go to try to riund them up!

[6:20] Art Fossett: zenita... along behind me

[6:20] You shout: The "Left Group" is down the steps to the left i.e. down the side of the conference hall. I think only four people have found it so far!

[6:21] Norma Demina: not sure?

[6:21] Hand-up seat: Use PAGE-UP to raise hand.

Use PAGE-DOWN to lower hand.

[6:22] Bunyip Barbosa: Is IM just for 1 to 1 communication in SL?

[6:22] Peregrine Juneau: OK, I think we'll just have to start with the people who are here ;-)

[6:22] Hilary Graves: thanks

[6:22] Norma Demina: can you help me undo the ctr 0 as I've zoomed in too close

[6:23] Peregrine Juneau: Try Esc to restore your view

[6:23] Norma Demina: tried that but didn't work may have to leave and quickly come back

[6:23] Hilary Graves: do you mind if we start anyway norma?

[6:23] Norma Demina: no fine..

[6:24] Peregrine Juneau: OK, I think our task is to identify 10 key barriers to using SL in education. Could be technical, cultural, organisational, pedagogical, anything.

[6:24] Lulu Minnelli: finding your way around is one

[6:24] Bunyip Barbosa: Finding useful sites is hard - most I have found are from word of mouth so far.

[6:24] Graham Mills: :-)

[6:24] Lulu Minnelli: the map is a bit esoteric

[6:25] Graham Mills: Synchronising chat to question

[6:25] Bunyip Barbosa: Its too much fun - too many distractions!

[6:25] Graham Mills: Are we hand raising?

[6:25] Lulu Minnelli: is someone taking notes

[6:25] Hilary Graves: I am:-)

[6:25] Lulu Minnelli: oh good :-)

[6:25] Sumdy Bonne: Hi theresa. glad you made it

[6:26] Theresa Beattie: Hi What's going on here then?

[6:26] Hilary Graves: is there any way to save and share good education loactions?

[6:26] Lulu Minnelli: i guess through the sled

[6:26] Sumdy Bonne: discussing 10 barriers to using SL

[6:26] Theresa Beattie: OK sounds good. You making notes?

[6:26] Hilary Graves: we've got finding your way round and distraction so far...

[6:27] Theresa Beattie: Firewalls!

[6:27] Lulu Minnelli: controlling the camera and mouse are pretty trick y too i still find myself in places i dont want to be

[6:27] Bunyip Barbosa: Graphic cards issues

[6:27] Zenita Zadeh: technical stuff: bandwidth, firewalls, graphics card

[6:27] Lulu Minnelli: crashing

[6:28] Zenita Zadeh: down for maintenance

[6:28] Sumdy Bonne: Being comforatble with the environment may be an issue for some

[6:28] Graham Mills: I'm scared of bumping into people but I guess I'll get over it

[6:28] Lulu Minnelli: when i said what i was doing my family thought i was chatting up guys on the internet

[6:28] Lulu Minnelli: so there is a reputation barrier

[6:28] Peregrine Juneau: Graham: also people get used to being bumped into at an event like this ;-)

[6:28] Graham Mills: Yeh -- I wonder what people walking outside my office think?

[6:28] Bunyip Barbosa: I think it would be a very scary environment for some uses that are not used of other forms of social networking on the web.

[6:29] Lulu Minnelli: a lot of our staff are also a bit initimidated

[6:29] Graham Mills: I'm a bit intimidated (and I don't type fast enough)

[6:29] Zenita Zadeh: some of our staff our concerned about the seedier side of SL

[6:29] Lulu Minnelli: time zones are a problem for international meetings

[6:29] Hilary Graves: :-)

[6:30] Bunyip Barbosa: Is there an easy way to leave asynchronous messages in SL?

[6:30] Lulu Minnelli: yes IM

[6:30] Theresa Beattie: Some dodgy places you can end up in with 'inappropriate material'

[6:30] Sumdy Bonne: I think that we are still at the BBC micro stage. Once we get to the more sophisticated stage then more people will find it easier

[6:30] Graham Mills: Voice rather than chat will help some staff

[6:30] Norma Demina: Hi - sorry they locked me out for 5 mins!

[6:30] Bunyip Barbosa: I think voise is coming soon?

[6:31] Lulu Minnelli: having to build everything in world is an issue i could do a lot more if i could work offline

[6:31] Norma Demina: cant you make clothes outside?

[6:31] Lulu Minnelli: you can lose a lot of time in here and acheive nothing

[6:31] Lulu Minnelli: you can do a bit outside with clothes but not everything

[6:32] Norma Demina: some people have made templates available for download I noticed

[6:32] Zenita Zadeh: i think the fact that we have limited evidence that SL adds anything to a learning experience is a barrier

[6:32] Bunyip Barbosa: I spend a lot of time going up steps and stairs to get to information - moving is not that smooth.

[6:32] Lulu Minnelli: i find the powerpoint difficult to read

[6:32] Hilary Graves: so far we've got... the basics - moving etc, searhing and finding stuff, tech stuff, perceptions, intimidation, the seedier side, communication limitiations and being always in to create sound fair?

[6:32] Bunyip Barbosa: Yes

[6:32] Graham Mills: Agreed

[6:33] Lulu Minnelli: has anyone ever found evidence that a blackboard and a piece of chalk add anything to the educational experience?

[6:33] Norma Demina: ; )

[6:33] Zenita Zadeh: good point!

[6:33] Lulu Minnelli: I dont know why we have to justify everything in those terms if the students enjoy it its a good tool

[6:33] Peregrine Juneau: ;-)

[6:34] Graham Mills: Do students use SL much?

[6:34] Hilary Graves: are there cultural things about SL that a newbie should know - or is most education happening in confined spaces?

[6:34] Sumdy Bonne: I'm not sure that students use it very much - any evidence?

[6:34] Theresa Beattie: Kids don't seem to - not 15 year olds anyway

[6:34] Lulu Minnelli: mine cant get in through the college firewall yet but we have started a society and a wiki

[6:34] Norma Demina: Paul Hollis from cetis said that the averae age is 35!

[6:34] Graham Mills: I'm agreed about faux pas

[6:34] Lulu Minnelli: mature students then

[6:35] Bunyip Barbosa: I told our studetn guild about SL - they all use facebook!

[6:35] Norma Demina: I have heard it's mainly people interested in porn and librarian!

[6:35] Hilary Graves: so is sl a barrier in itself to younger students?

[6:35] Peregrine Juneau: Re age, SL is partitioned into the "main grid" (which is 18 plus, in theory at least) and Teen SL (for under 18s)

[6:35] Lulu Minnelli: i think my students will be intereseted when i tell them we have an exhibition of their work in here

[6:36] Norma Demina: yes an exhibiton is a good idea and not only for art/fashion students

[6:36] Bunyip Barbosa: I don't think the finding friends and groups is as good as facebook etc.

[6:36] Lulu Minnelli: i have the networking with other educators really useful i think the studnets might too if they have spaces they can meet in safely

[6:37] Peregrine Juneau: For serach generally, I've tended to rely quite a bit on the Web i.e. Web sites describing SL stuff. The inworld search isn't great.

[6:37] Peregrine Juneau: search

[6:37] Hilary Graves: so could we say the communications and social networking aspects could do with improving? Or do we need to know how best to use it?

[6:37] Hilary Graves: ok - search added :-)

[6:37] Theresa Beattie: There are some good SL videos on Youtube.

[6:38] Bunyip Barbosa: I think this is a good point - it takes a bit of research to get good in SL

[6:38] Graham Mills: I think there's a tendency to recreate RL features rather than new ones

[6:38] Lulu Minnelli: to really get something out of it i think you need some basic scripting skills otherwise you get a bit frustrated wanting to do things you cant

[6:38] Graham Mills: e.g. museums, galleries

[6:38] Norma Demina: I think that is a very intersting point graham

[6:38] Hilary Graves: sorry graham can you repeat?

[6:38] Bunyip Barbosa: Yes - U of Herfordshire ahas an exact campus with a car park in it!

[6:38] Norma Demina: we're not very good at thinking out of the box

[6:39] Lulu Minnelli: I also think many people try to replicate real life rather than explore new ways of doing things

[6:39] Bunyip Barbosa: I get a bit sad seeign so many replications of RL hre.

[6:39] Lulu Minnelli: here here

[6:39] Zenita Zadeh: has anyone seen any really good examples of non-replication?

[6:40] Norma Demina: people need a comfort zone when things are new to be fair...

[6:40] Graham Mills: True -- you need both

[6:40] Norma Demina: yes agreed

[6:40] Hilary Graves: I agree - somewhere safe to move out of, but isn't the community where sl's strength lies?

[6:40] Lulu Minnelli: there are some places but they are hard to find- a friend of mine reckons it is cos the first SLers were computer people not designers

[6:40] Bunyip Barbosa: Yes both, but there are other metaphors we can build on

[6:40] Peregrine Juneau: Art tells me we have about 5 mins left before going back to main group. Have we got 10 points? More or less ;-)

[6:41] Hilary Graves: we've got 11:-) Shall I summarise?

[6:41] Lulu Minnelli: linden dollars dont give you receipts so it hard to claim expenses

[6:41] Peregrine Juneau: Cool!

[6:41] Peregrine Juneau: Yes, taht would be good. Summary, I mean.

[6:41] Hilary Graves: the basics - moving, finding your way around (search and research), tech stuff

[6:41] Graham Mills: Can you control the weather? That would be cool...

[6:41] Peregrine Juneau: Lulu, you do get an emailreceipt when you buy them!

[6:41] Bunyip Barbosa: You can control the sun

[6:42] Hilary Graves: not feeling comfortable in the envirnment, perceptions of seediness and the real seedier side

[6:42] Peregrine Juneau: I think you can do stuff with weather but I'm not sure!

[6:42] Lulu Minnelli: not that i know of you can check your account online having probs wiht that at the mo though

[6:42] Hilary Graves: time zones, building stuff - always online

[6:42] Hilary Graves: thinking out of the box - not just replicating real life

[6:42] Hilary Graves: is that 10? ish;-)

[6:43] Lulu Minnelli: has anyone noticed there are no public conveniences in SL?

[6:43] Lulu Minnelli: LOL

[6:43] Hilary Graves: shame we didn't have ten good reasons to use it too:-)

[6:43] Graham Mills: I think it helps a lot to have a n experienced guide. I've learned a lot already.

[6:44] Bunyip Barbosa: Yes many good reasons!

[6:44] Hilary Graves: so you're all happy with the list?

[6:44] Bunyip Barbosa: Yes

[6:44] Graham Mills: Fine

[6:45] Peregrine Juneau: Yes, are you happy to report back? ;-)

[6:45] Hilary Graves: ok - but we'll all have time and space to chip in won't we?

[6:45] Peregrine Juneau: Oh, yes, i'm sure we will.

[6:46] Hilary Graves: excellent - thank you all for a great second visit to sl:-)

[6:46] Norma Demina: now that was wierd

[6:46] Theresa Beattie: Over here!

[6:46] Norma Demina: shartpear is not on our list

[6:46] Hilary Graves: ho Shartpear:-)

[6:46] Theresa Beattie: Over here!

[6:46] Hilary Graves: i meant hi...

[6:46] Norma Demina: no one spoke to him - did he make you feel uncomfortable?

[6:47] Hilary Graves: who keeps saying over here?

[6:47] Zenita Zadeh: are you signing theresa

[6:48] Hilary Graves: *signing*? Not sure what that means, sorry ;-)

[6:48] Zenita Zadeh: sign language - you were doing a lot of complicated looking movements

[6:48] Peregrine Juneau: Right, I think Art is asking us to stay here for a minute. And then we'll be goin inside the conference hall for the reposrt back session.

[6:49] Bunyip Barbosa: You can fly in through the roof of the hall!

[6:49] Peregrine Juneau: When you get inside sit on an "audience seat".

[6:49] Peregrine Juneau: OK, we're going back in now.

[6:49] Graham Mills: ... if you know what you're doin!

[6:49] Bunyip Barbosa: OK

[6:50] Peregrine Juneau: You need to use the "stand-up" button to get out of the chairs

Group 2



[6:18] Zenita Zadeh: is this the right group?

[6:18] Zenita Zadeh: as opposed to the left?

[6:19] Amanita Voom: This is the RIGHT group!

[6:19] lizit Cleanslate: I thought it was right

[6:19] Zenita Zadeh: whoops

[6:19] Lulu Minnelli: sorry

[6:19] Art Fossett: these seats can be used to put your hand up and down... but you may want to ignore that

[6:19] Sumdy Bonne: yes, just check. bye

[6:19] Art Fossett: hang on a minute... the other group are lost!

[6:19] Art Fossett: guys... back over this way!!

[6:20] Amanita Voom: Is that the first barrier - the geography?

[6:20] Art Fossett: zenita... along behind me

[6:20] Graham Mills: I think I'm in the wrong group too but so is everybody else

[6:21] Tess123 Bailey: Is this group 2?

[6:21] Longside Lane: Gann, your hair is blinding me!

[6:21] Art Fossett: i'm gessing that some of you should be in the other group

[6:21] Gann McGann: navigation requires switching between differnet modes - map minimap - and also visuals

[6:21] Gann McGann: sorry i'll change

[6:21] Graham Mills: I'll go too

[6:21] Geoff Magellan: This is group 2. I think.

[6:21] Art Fossett: but it doesn't matter... we'll stay where we are

[6:22] lizit Cleanslate: Is it something behind the navigation and all that - jsut the learning curve of getting ot know your way around the place

[6:22] Art Fossett: yes, this is group 2

[6:22] Longside Lane: Cool new head, Gann - thanks for that

[6:22] lizit Cleanslate: being able to walk and talk

[6:22] Geoff Magellan: I think it's just a learning curve. Familiarity would make this sort of organisation much quicker.

[6:22] Gann McGann: run??

[6:22] Art Fossett: blimey... that was more complicated than i was expecting!

[6:23] Longside Lane: That was the easy part

[6:23] Gann McGann: i've been doign this for about three weeks now and didn't find out you could run

[6:23] Tess123 Bailey: its very strange thinking you know what you're doing then finding you don't!

[6:23] Art Fossett: ok, out task is to come up with 10 key barriers

[6:23] Gann McGann: finding out the info you need seems to be another barrier

[6:23] Art Fossett: who would like to start

[6:24] Chris Eggplant: tech specs for PCs are still quite high

[6:24] Art Fossett: tes, agreed

[6:24] Tess123 Bailey: Lack of experience with SL for me

[6:24] Chris Eggplant: need broadband connectivity

[6:24] lizit Cleanslate: what's the score with Vista at the moment

[6:24] lizit Cleanslate: will SL run or not

[6:24] Gann McGann: and the constant upgrades mean that - even if youve got the right spec one month -you won;t ahve the next

[6:24] Chris Eggplant: issues with download rights for both software updates and quicktime

[6:24] Talula Nikolaidis: firewalls

[6:24] Longside Lane: One barrier could be that some teachers might find SL trivial and not suitable for education?

[6:24] Art Fossett: chris, what are those issues??

[6:24] Chris Eggplant: virtual safety

[6:25] Chris Eggplant: which one?

[6:25] Art Fossett: with download rights?

[6:25] lizit Cleanslate: lots of institutions have probs weith the reg dowl=nloads and perms

[6:25] Art Fossett: ah, ok

[6:25] Amanita Voom: if students are using machines on campus they prob have limited rights to upgrade anything

[6:25] Chris Eggplant: SL regularly has updates - many practitioners etc don't have admin rights on PCs to download and install updates etc

[6:25] Tess123 Bailey: I had the same yesterday, tried this at work and found my graphics card wasn't up to it

[6:26] Art Fossett: yes, agreed... that is a big issue

[6:26] Gann McGann: yes - i could only do this at home - my colleague has not been able to stay connected

[6:26] Talula Nikolaidis: I have to use my own laptop

[6:26] Tess123 Bailey: yes me too

[6:27] Gann McGann: snap

[6:27] Gann McGann: i mean ditto

[6:27] Amanita Voom: I'm OK here at work but a colleague isn't - she has to use machines in this office to access SL

[6:27] lizit Cleanslate: I find it bizarre that institutions will fund research in SL but prevent use as a teaching tool with firewalls and admin perms

[6:27] Art Fossett: yes, that is odd

[6:28] Talula Nikolaidis: the communication can get all mixed up....

[6:28] Geoff Magellan: There are two distinct things, I think. 1) Technical issues. 2) Pedagogical issues - i.e. how to use it effectively.

[6:28] Art Fossett: you mean within the institution... or like this? :-)

[6:28] Tess123 Bailey: I suppose Computing service departments have other agendas to stick to

[6:28] Amanita Voom: If this is a barrier, is the solution an attitudinal change in technical support?

[6:28] Chris Eggplant: ah depends on the organisation - Essex ACL have totally sorted this in there new college - access to skype and SL on all machines - so if they can do it - others can. IT departments need to move into the real world

[6:28] Tess123 Bailey: yes I agree

[6:28] Gann McGann: they need to learn what the S in ITS stands for

[6:29] Tess123 Bailey: although I can't see it happening for a while in our place

[6:29] Chris Eggplant: lol

[6:29] Lonac Bade: but what are the bandwidth implications if everybody is using SL, Skype etc?

[6:29] Gann McGann: me neither

[6:29] Chris Eggplant: I think this is where pervasive technology like this can start the learner revolution

[6:29] Teresa Arliss is Online

[6:29] Art Fossett: would it be fair to say that the policy issues around SL (firewalls, etc.) are more easily within our control?

[6:29] lizit Cleanslate: but just look at the discussion on Web 2.0 technologies annd how many sites are blockec

[6:29] Chris Eggplant: why would you faff about on a lousy 2D VLE when you can chat like this!

[6:30] Tess123 Bailey: I think this is great - just very strange

[6:30] Chris Eggplant: am I going nuts or am I conversing with a white fox [hic!]

[6:30] Art Fossett: can i try to summarise briefly?

[6:30] Chris Eggplant: :o)

[6:30] Lonac Bade: it is very easy to get distracted though - i'm surprised nobody has flown off yet!

[6:31] Tess123 Bailey: its a pity the only way to communicate is by text

[6:31] Gann McGann: actually i've found that concentration is easier in SL than in audio only meetings

[6:31] Art Fossett: on the technical front we have 2 broad barriers

[6:31] Art Fossett: the technical spec required

[6:31] Art Fossett: and the technical policies enforced by some computing services

[6:31] lizit Cleanslate: voice is coming and is available on the beta grid

[6:31] Talula Nikolaidis: it's difficult to organise this eh!

[6:31] Art Fossett: yes

[6:31] Gann McGann: or you can run skype in parallel

[6:32] Amanita Voom: Audio is meant to be coming to SL - that might channge the ambience and the tech spec

[6:32] Tess123 Bailey: oh I see thanks

[6:32] Art Fossett: presumably audio will push the tech spec even higher

[6:32] Chris Eggplant: yes u can - on education UK island - we have dedicated and password protected audio channels that run in sync with chat etc

[6:32] Longside Lane: What was the second point on your list, Art?

[6:32] lizit Cleanslate: not necessarily - its using some form of voip

[6:32] Art Fossett: that technical policies enforced by some computing services are too strict for SL

[6:33] Longside Lane: Thanks

[6:33] Art Fossett: what about pedagogy??

[6:33] Art Fossett: do we know how to use this stuff yet?

[6:33] Longside Lane: Is it just a gimmick?

[6:33] Tess123 Bailey: I'm not sure the people that work with staff in educational development do, ours don't

[6:33] Chris Eggplant: If I was honest - classes I have been to have not be that good! - It is coming, but the key I think is blended

[6:33] Tess123 Bailey: (and I'm from that dept too)

[6:33] Lonac Bade: we hardly know hoe to use PowerPoint - let alone anything like this!

[6:34] Talula Nikolaidis: It's good for letting students make their own content and role play

[6:34] Tess123 Bailey: yes might be a good place for students to share ideas

[6:34] lizit Cleanslate: are we trying to replicatre rl or do something different

[6:34] Gann McGann: i've seen interesting creative writing done in this environment

[6:34] Gann McGann: and there are simuilations that could be useful

[6:34] Amanita Voom: But how much are staff really bought into pedagogy elsewhere?

[6:34] Tess123 Bailey: how much do you think the ability to type fast hinders or helps?

[6:34] Art Fossett: a l o t . . .

[6:35] Gann McGann: its an important issue

[6:35] Gann McGann: plus the way the conversational elements interweave

[6:35] Amanita Voom: Do they mak a conscious application of pedagogy to T&L

[6:35] Gann McGann: its difficult for opel to follow

[6:35] lizit Cleanslate: just don't correct typing erroes

[6:35] Gann McGann: particularly ESL students

[6:35] Tess123 Bailey: ESL?

[6:35] lizit Cleanslate: but there are ESL classes in SL

[6:35] Gann McGann: english second language

[6:35] Art Fossett: yes... we have a virtual chairing system in the virtual congress centre

[6:35] Tess123 Bailey: ah sorry yes

[6:35] Art Fossett: to try and avoid all this cross-talking

[6:35] Chris Eggplant: SL is great for ESL as there is the international element - British Council are doing loads around this in SL

[6:36] Art Fossett: but it's not qwuite ready for prime time yet

[6:36] Gann McGann: we use a strict run taking system when we use regular chat

[6:36] Art Fossett: you are welcome to try it afterwards though

[6:36] Gann McGann: it slows it down but it gives sveryobe a chance

[6:36] lizit Cleanslate: we're all on a learning curve and unsure what to do

[6:36] Longside Lane: would the raised hand work with a grou pof this size?

[6:37] Art Fossett: so another issue is that communication rules need to be relearned? conventions or whatever

[6:37] Gann McGann: yes - but before that they need to be discovered

[6:37] Longside Lane: it must be important to set down communication rules in advance

[6:37] Art Fossett: agreed

[6:37] Amanita Voom: are you just applying RL rules to a new environment?

[6:37] Chris Eggplant: yes Lonside - shud be 2nd item after introduction 'meeting protocol'

[6:38] Art Fossett: yup, that's a good idea

[6:38] Longside Lane: maybe people who use chat more than i do would be ok

[6:38] Tess123 Bailey: I suppose the more practice the better you get (obviously)

[6:38] Sedoy Lednev: can I join the group?

[6:38] Gann McGann: but pedagogically you need to take into account the slowest typist and let them have equal partiicpation

[6:39] Art Fossett: sedoy, yes

[6:39] Tess123 Bailey: I agree

[6:39] Gann McGann: otherwise youre inadevrtently censoring them

[6:39] Talula Nikolaidis: maybe it would be good to work in really small groupds and then report back?

[6:39] Art Fossett: the virtual chairing system would help with that i think

[6:39] Chris Eggplant: that sounds like good teaching to me - equally applies to RL classroom!

[6:39] Art Fossett: :-)

[6:39] Teresa Arliss is Offline

[6:39] lizit Cleanslate: I think some people have found there is more equality in SL in contribution

[6:39] Talula Nikolaidis: 2 or 3 would be good?

[6:39] Gann McGann: yes - a lot of these issues are no different from RL

[6:40] Gann McGann: they're just foregoruded becuase its new

[6:40] lizit Cleanslate: quieter people can find it easier to participate

[6:40] Talula Nikolaidis: We'ld need to all go away somewhere

[6:40] lizit Cleanslate: the ones who don't get to speak in rl groups

[6:40] Art Fossett: NOTE: we have about 5 minutes left

[6:40] Longside Lane: we seem to be assuming that SL is mainly used for chat - I guess there are many more uses

[6:40] lizit Cleanslate: small groups can use IM

[6:40] Talula Nikolaidis: true

[6:40] lizit Cleanslate: role play

[6:40] lizit Cleanslate: exploration

[6:40] Talula Nikolaidis: could work well

[6:41] lizit Cleanslate: team building

[6:41] Art Fossett: what about shared building?

[6:41] Longside Lane: what is shared building?

[6:41] Talula Nikolaidis: I think they do that in teen SL

[6:41] Gann McGann: it can be used for selfstudy too - interact with learning objects

[6:41] Art Fossett: collaborating on art work, set design, ...

[6:41] Longside Lane: ah, thanks

[6:41] Lonac Bade: but what advantages does in SL provide in relation to each of the activities mentioned?

[6:41] Art Fossett: does that make sense?

[6:41] Talula Nikolaidis: Be Einstein for the day

[6:41] Art Fossett: e=mc2

[6:41] Longside Lane: that makes sense, thanks

[6:42] Amanita Voom: try things out that you can't in RL

[6:42] Talula Nikolaidis: right!

[6:42] Gann McGann: role play is more effective becuiase RL is less pervavise

[6:42] lizit Cleanslate: virtual fieldtrips

[6:42] Gann McGann: i'm not a white wolf in real life

[6:42] Longside Lane: yes, simulation would be a big plus of SL

[6:42] Gann McGann: and i dont smoke

[6:42] Art Fossett: is the naming issue a barrier??

[6:42] Gann McGann: naing?

[6:42] Art Fossett: avatar naming I mean

[6:42] Longside Lane: I think the naming issue is an issue

[6:42] Art Fossett: that fact that we are not using our real names

[6:42] lizit Cleanslate: in what way?

[6:43] Longside Lane: the naming and constumes can detract from what is going on

[6:43] lizit Cleanslate: I find the anonymity of SL liberating

[6:43] Amanita Voom: I think it probably helps especially with some of the earlier comments about keeping RL out

[6:43] Grey Wildcat: i think it's a reall issue - no one has put their rl identity in their profile - me included

[6:43] Geoff Magellan: Though a teacher working with students in an SL class would, presumably, need to know their real names.

[6:43] lizit Cleanslate: very few people have anything in their profiles in this group

[6:43] Gann McGann: only because i didn;t know to - i have no problem anyone knowing who i really am

[6:44] Gann McGann: although i know some people do

[6:44] Amanita Voom: Is the issue that you have nop idea whether to believe someone or not?

[6:44] Tess123 Bailey: I wasn't sure what people did in SL and how much they say who they are in RL

[6:44] Gann McGann: and some peope have an issue with not knowing who people really are

[6:44] Talula Nikolaidis: depends what youre using it for

[6:44] Gann McGann: i mean "really" are

[6:44] Talula Nikolaidis: if you know what I mean

[6:44] Art Fossett: what about even very mundane things like knowing who is in your class or not??

[6:44] Gann McGann: and it depends on the person - and so it becomes a pedagogical issue

[6:45] Lonac Bade: anonymity could be helpful for novice learners who don't want to reveal their lack of understanding in RL

[6:45] Grey Wildcat: it's related to simulation isse and appropriate use of sl

[6:45] Longside Lane: it is very hard to follow this discussion? or is it me?

[6:45] Gann McGann: mixing immersionists and disclosurists ina aclass could be a problem

[6:45] Tess123 Bailey: its the first time I've had a meeting with a white wolf

[6:45] Talula Nikolaidis: Can you use chat to tell people who you are?

[6:45] lizit Cleanslate: You can set up groups and get people to join thme

[6:45] Talula Nikolaidis: yes

[6:45] Grey Wildcat: don't mind the white wolf but have yet to see the educational advantage in this meeting

[6:45] Art Fossett: lizit, i just IM'd you

[6:45] Chris Eggplant: let's not forget that you can 'edit' your 'preferences' quite easily to remove names and that could be a decision made with the learner group

[6:46] Longside Lane: do we have alist of 10 obstacles?

[6:46] Art Fossett: i'm not sure

[6:46] Art Fossett: i would get hung up on the 10

[6:46] Grey Wildcat: why are we looking for obstacles and not advantages or is that task 2?

[6:46] Longside Lane: good point

[6:46] Talula Nikolaidis: both are important

[6:46] Gann McGann: the educatgional advantage is that it wouldn't have happned otherwise

[6:46] Art Fossett: how about we talk about opportunities in plenary??

[6:47] lizit Cleanslate: I've got 3 headings - technical, pedagociacl and the medium and about 4 points under each

[6:47] Gann McGann: i think i've learnt somewthing - but i couldn't have attneded a face-toface meeting

[6:47] Grey Wildcat: only because of the limitations of the jisc online conference software

[6:47] Longside Lane: I have learnt a lot from this experience, too

[6:47] Tess123 Bailey: it woudl be nice to be able to remember who you all are after this

[6:47] Grey Wildcat: haha

[6:47] Art Fossett: OK, guys... i'm going to draw things to a close here... just stay where you are a minute

[6:47] Csteph Submariner is Online

[6:48] Talula Nikolaidis: are we doing a group photo?

[6:48] Art Fossett: we are going to go into the virtual congress centre for the final bit

[6:48] Art Fossett: we can do a photo in there or afterwards

[6:48] Talula Nikolaidis: good

[6:48] lizit Cleanslate: If you'd like a copy of the notecard, invite me to be a friend and I'll put it in your inventory

[6:48] Art Fossett: choose an audience seat one you are in there

[6:49] Art Fossett: i'll post the notecards to the conference systme afterwards

[6:49] lizit Cleanslate: I'll do it after the sesseion

[6:49] Art Fossett: ok, please make your way into the virtual congress centre

The meeting then reconviened in the Virtual Congress Centre for clsoing discussion. Note that this part of the meeting was automatically 'chaired' by a scripted object acting as a virtual chair.

[6:51] Chris Eggplant: interesting that in SL we behave just like RL when it comes to seating - se do like a gap between oursleves lol

[6:51] Art Fossett: just wait a second until everyone is sat down

[6:51] Art Fossett: i think that is everyone

[6:51] PanelPod Virtual Chair: Art Fossett: you may now start speaking.

[6:51] Art Fossett: note that your seats are red... that means DO NOT SPEAK

[6:51] PanelPod Virtual Chair: Audience member Grey Wildcat wants to speak.

[6:52] Art Fossett: you can only speak when your own chair is green

[6:52] Grey Wildcat: no red seats left

[6:52] PanelPod Virtual Chair: Audience member Grey Wildcat has finished speaking.

[6:52] PanelPod Virtual Chair: Art Fossett: you may now start speaking.

[6:52] Art Fossett: to make your seat go green, put up your hand using page up

[6:52] Norma Demina: hi lonac

[6:52] Art Fossett: but do not speak until it is your turn

[6:52] PanelPod Virtual Chair: Panelist Art Fossett has finished speaking.

[6:52] PanelPod Virtual Chair: Art Fossett: you may now start speaking.

[6:52] Art Fossett: OK, lizit and hilary, do you want to join us at the front?

[6:52] PanelPod Virtual Chair: Panelist Art Fossett has finished speaking.

[6:53] PanelPod Virtual Chair: Art Fossett: you may now start speaking.

[6:53] Art Fossett: cool

[6:53] Art Fossett: lizit, do you want to do your feedback?

[6:53] PanelPod Virtual Chair: Panelist Art Fossett has finished speaking.

[6:54] PanelPod Virtual Chair: lizit Cleanslate: you may now start speaking.

[6:54] lizit Cleanslate: OK We had an interesting and wide ranging discussion. We have divided our points into 3 areas - Technical, Pedagogical and the SL medium itself

[6:54] lizit Cleanslate: Technical Tech specs for kit - graphics and machine spec broadband essential firewalls download and installation permissions technical policies enforced by some computing services are too strict for SL

[6:54] lizit Cleanslate: I'll stik the : in later

[6:55] lizit Cleanslate: Pedagogical Communications rules/conventions relearned - different from rl; raised hand systems; meeting protocols not just communication medium - shared activities, eg building, art work, real identity or SL identity - are av names and appearances a problem - anonymity strength or weakness

[6:55] lizit Cleanslate: The medium Learning curve; Finding information; Geography - finding your way around

[6:55] lizit Cleanslate: We could have used more time...

[6:55] PanelPod Virtual Chair: Panelist lizit Cleanslate has finished speaking.

[6:55] Art Fossett: ok, thanks

[6:56] Art Fossett: hilary?

[6:56] Hilary Graves: we started out with the basics

[6:56] Hilary Graves: moving around, finding your way round and the inworld search

[6:57] Hilary Graves: the there's the tech stuff already mentioned - graphics cards, firewall - one of us had to leave and reenter becuase of a afirewall issue

[6:57] Hilary Graves: eeling uncomfortable in the environment. Perceptions of seediness and the range in in world activities

[6:57] PanelPod Virtual Chair: Gann McGann: you may now start speaking.

[6:57] Gann McGann: seediness??

[6:57] Hilary Graves: sorry lost the start of that - this was around feeling comfortable in the world

[6:58] Hilary Graves: finally time zones and meeting up, the need to be always online, the time needed to research good sites and thinking out of the box and not just replicating real life.

[6:58] PanelPod Virtual Chair: Panelist Art Fossett wants to speak.

[6:58] Hilary Graves: But Im sure my group can express it more fully :-)

[6:58] Art Fossett: gann, you need to put your hand down

[6:58] PanelPod Virtual Chair: Audience member Gann McGann has finished speaking.

[6:58] PanelPod Virtual Chair: Art Fossett: you may now start speaking.

[6:58] Art Fossett: thanks

[6:58] Art Fossett: thanks hilary...

[6:58] Art Fossett: any comments from the floor?

[6:58] PanelPod Virtual Chair: Panelist Art Fossett has finished speaking.

[6:59] PanelPod Virtual Chair: Gann McGann: you may now start speaking.

[6:59] Gann McGann: i'm curous about the discomfort - i've never felt that - wjat's the source of it?

[6:59] PanelPod Virtual Chair: Audience member Gann McGann has finished speaking.

[6:59] PanelPod Virtual Chair: Norma Demina: you may now start speaking.

[6:59] Norma Demina: something strange happened during our discussion

[6:59] Norma Demina: this illustrated it for me

[7:00] Norma Demina: some stranger turned up and sat down

[7:00] Norma Demina: he didn't introduce himself and none of us spoke to him

[7:00] Norma Demina: i felt uncompfotable but we all just carried one

[7:00] Norma Demina: did anyone else in the goup find this odd?

[7:00] PanelPod Virtual Chair: Audience member Norma Demina has finished speaking.

[7:00] PanelPod Virtual Chair: Art Fossett: you may now start speaking.

[7:01] Art Fossett: note that you can put your hand up while someone else is speaking to get added to the queue

[7:01] PanelPod Virtual Chair: Panelist Art Fossett has finished speaking.

[7:01] PanelPod Virtual Chair: Hilary Graves: you may now start speaking.

[7:01] PanelPod Virtual Chair: Audience member Lulu Minnelli wants to speak.

[7:01] PanelPod Virtual Chair: Audience member Lonac Bade wants to speak.

[7:01] Hilary Graves: i still feel uncomfortable moving round and bumping in to people:-)

[7:01] PanelPod Virtual Chair: Panelist Hilary Graves has finished speaking.

[7:01] PanelPod Virtual Chair: Lulu Minnelli: you may now start speaking.

[7:02] Lulu Minnelli: i didn t realise he wasnt supposed to be there but if it happened in real life people woudl probably also not be too sure at least in teh UK we are all so polite

[7:02] PanelPod Virtual Chair: Audience member Lulu Minnelli has finished speaking.

[7:02] PanelPod Virtual Chair: Lonac Bade: you may now start speaking.

[7:03] PanelPod Virtual Chair: Panelist lizit Cleanslate wants to speak.

[7:03] Talula Nikolaidis: ahhhhhhh

[7:03] Talula Nikolaidis: there's a stranger next to me!

[7:04] PanelPod Virtual Chair: Panelist Art Fossett wants to speak.

[7:04] Lonac Bade: the stranger (i think it was the same one!) visited our group - i assumed they were from the other group and didn't think anything of it, but it was initilly slightly uncomfortable initially - like SL more generally!

[7:04] PanelPod Virtual Chair: Audience member Lonac Bade has finished speaking.

[7:04] PanelPod Virtual Chair: lizit Cleanslate: you may now start speaking.

[7:05] lizit Cleanslate: It's almost a feature of what happens in SL and I admit I hardly noticed

[7:05] PanelPod Virtual Chair: Panelist lizit Cleanslate has finished speaking.

[7:05] PanelPod Virtual Chair: Art Fossett: you may now start speaking.

[7:05] Art Fossett: NOTE: we need to wrap up soon

[7:05] PanelPod Virtual Chair: Audience member Graham Mills wants to speak.

[7:05] Art Fossett: i'm going to ask you all to ignore the virtual chairing thing now... what is your favorite think about SL... what do you think the big advantages are?

[7:05] Art Fossett: just shout out...

[7:05] PanelPod Virtual Chair: Panelist Art Fossett has finished speaking.

[7:05] PanelPod Virtual Chair: Graham Mills: you may now start speaking.

[7:05] Peregrine Juneau: (Lizit: Yes, I agree. I hardly noticed either!)

[7:06] Bunyip Barbosa: Fun

[7:06] Graham Mills: Genome Island was cool

[7:06] lizit Cleanslate: breaking the barriers

[7:06] Lonac Bade shouts: fun

[7:06] Talula Nikolaidis: It's really funny!

[7:06] PanelPod Virtual Chair: Audience member Graham Mills has finished speaking.

[7:06] Bunyip Barbosa: Imaginative

[7:06] Talula Nikolaidis: Lots of potential

[7:06] Lulu Minnelli: meeting people and creating things that would be impossible in real life - i love my pet dragon

[7:06] Sumdy Bonne: being bale to wear leopard skin trousers

[7:06] Bunyip Barbosa: £D web at last

[7:06] Bunyip Barbosa: 3

[7:06] Talula Nikolaidis: can't wait to use it for more conferences

[7:06] Lulu Minnelli: yeah no liposuction needed here

[7:06] Chris Eggplant: different opportunity to experience a different visual environmnet

[7:06] Lulu Minnelli: the unexpected

[7:06] Talula Nikolaidis: I can fly and transport

[7:06] Hilary Graves: the sense of the unknown:-)

[7:07] Zenita Zadeh: the visualness of it all... what people have created and chatting to people who have a visual presence

[7:07] Lulu Minnelli: its always sunny

[7:07] Norma Demina: yes experimentation

[7:07] Art Fossett: what about froma specifically learning point of view?

[7:07] Tess123 Bailey: something very new (to me) but fun

[7:07] Talula Nikolaidis: feeling a sense of space

[7:07] Sumdy Bonne: lying on the beach

[7:07] Longside Lane: The potential to simulate tasks impossible in RL

[7:07] Talula Nikolaidis: The potential for role play

[7:07] Hilary Graves: I'd like to open it up to students and ask them how they'd use it

[7:07] Chris Eggplant: opportunity for quiet learners to experiment and take on different personas - pershaps engage in ways RL doesnt affrod them

[7:08] Lulu Minnelli: i think i need more time in here with students but initally i think it a dds a deeper layer of communication than just chat

[7:08] Graham Mills: Learning-wise, seeing things in a different way, someone else's vision

[7:08] Talula Nikolaidis: yes...totally TESEP

[7:08] Art Fossett: OK... I'm going to draw the meeting to a close

[7:08] Bunyip Barbosa: Model information in 3 D -huge potential e.g. chemical molecules etc.

[7:08] Chris Eggplant: good for CPD

[7:08] Talula Nikolaidis: Can we capture all this text

[7:08] Art Fossett: I wanted to say thank you for coming

[7:08] Graham Mills: Students should design and build

[7:08] Chris Eggplant: part of blened learning

[7:08] Lulu Minnelli: you can do things that would be too expensice in rl

[7:08] Art Fossett: yes, everything is being captured

[7:08] Norma Demina: I agree Talula - totally TESEP

[7:08] Longside Lane: Thank you, Art

[7:08] lizit Cleanslate: brill

[7:08] Bunyip Barbosa: Thanks you for organising it!

[7:08] Graham Mills: Thanks, good fun

[7:08] Tess123 Bailey: Thank you!

[7:08] Art Fossett: i hope you found it useful

[7:08] Chris Eggplant: ta

[7:08] Lulu Minnelli: great stuff

[7:08] Longside Lane: Very useful

[7:08] Norma Demina: great experience for sure - thanks

[7:09] Geoff Magellan: Manyt thanks Art for organising all this! Excellent experience.

[7:09] Art Fossett: thanks particularly to hilary and lizit for reporting back

[7:09] Hilary Graves: thanks to everyone - this has been fun

[7:09] Amanita Voom: Thanks

[7:09] Talula Nikolaidis: yes learned loads

[7:09] Bunyip Barbosa: Is there a cafe on this island?!

[7:09] Norma Demina: or a bar?

[7:09] Talula Nikolaidis: a pub?

[7:09] Art Fossett: you are welcome to stick around, break into smaller groups to look arounbd SL or whatever.

[7:09] Lulu Minnelli: oops that is one downside

[7:09] Art Fossett: do we want to do a photo in here... or outside?

[7:09] Chris Eggplant: why drink tea when u can have over 1500 pints of real ale [with no hangover]

[7:09] Amanita Voom: don't let work get in the way :)

[7:09] Longside Lane: See you all on the traditional discussion board abck at the conference? How will I knwo who is who?

[7:09] Zenita Zadeh: i like the idea of the beach

[7:09] Talula Nikolaidis: I've got a bottle of whiskey in my inventory

[7:09] Norma Demina: lets do a standing up one... although that's not very out of the box; )

[7:10] Lulu Minnelli: wot no vodka

[7:10] lizit Cleanslate: I've a shedload of alcohol in mine

[7:10] Graham Mills: I picked up a coffee :-(

[7:10] Bunyip Barbosa: Do a picture flying?

[7:10] Art Fossett: OK

[7:10] PanelPod Virtual Chair: Graham Mills: you may now start speaking.

[7:10] Talula Nikolaidis: yes lonac

[7:10] PanelPod Virtual Chair: Panelist Hilary Graves wants to speak.

[7:10] PanelPod Virtual Chair: Audience member Graham Mills has finished speaking.

[7:10] PanelPod Virtual Chair: Hilary Graves: you may now start speaking.

[7:10] PanelPod Virtual Chair: Panelist Hilary Graves has finished speaking.

[7:10] PanelPod Virtual Chair: Sumdy Bonne: you may now start speaking.

[7:10] PanelPod Virtual Chair: Audience member Sumdy Bonne has finished speaking.

[7:13] Art Fossett: guys... if you fly strainght up from here and then over a bit...

[7:13] Geoff Magellan: Thanks everyone, bye.

[7:13] Art Fossett: you get to a floating eduserv logo

[7:13] lizit Cleanslate: You need a blue wolf skin Gann so you can combine both your looks!

[7:13] Bunyip Barbosa: Art - what is the best educational location you have foudn in SL?

[7:13] Art Fossett: fancy a piccie up there?

[7:14] Bunyip Barbosa: OK

[7:14] Peregrine Juneau: OK, to the logo!!

[7:14] Art Fossett shouts: fly up to the eduserv logo - straight up

[7:15] There is no suitable surface to sit on, try another spot.

[7:15] Art Fossett: could have had the meeting up here :-)

[7:16] Tess123 Bailey: sorry got lost

[7:16] Gann McGann: me too

[7:16] Graham Mills: oops

[7:17] Graham Mills: do you speak scouse by any chance?

[7:17] Art Fossett: do we want to get in a line of some kind??

[7:17] Tess123 Bailey: I wonder if the e-learning gp would go for this as a meeting type (graham and bunyip)

[7:17] Tess123 Bailey: ha ha

[7:17] Tess123 Bailey: sorry Art yes

[7:18] Art Fossett: perfeck

[7:18] Art Fossett: thanks guys

[7:18] Gann McGann: thanks

[7:18] Art Fossett: i'm off to put the video together!

[7:18] Bunyip Barbosa: Thanks Art

[7:18] Art Fossett: coming to a Youtube near you shortly

[7:19] Tess123 Bailey: thanks been a good experience

[7:19] Bunyip Barbosa: Any good islands to explore?

[7:19] lizit Cleanslate: Thanks Art - it's been good

[7:19] lizit Cleanslate: I've got a notecard of places to visit I can give you

[7:19] Gann McGann: i like the space museum - its not an idland but its an interesting sim

[7:19] Bunyip Barbosa: Yes please

[7:19] Gann McGann: the notecard would be great

[7:19] Graham Mills: Me too!

[7:20] Bunyip Barbosa: Brilliant thanks

[7:20] Art Fossett: lizit, can i have a copy...

[7:20] Art Fossett: i'll add it to the conference chat

[7:20] Graham Mills: thanks

[7:20] Peregrine Juneau: I like Svarga: has an artificial ecology thing (if it's still running - I think it is)

[7:20] Art Fossett: hi zenita

[7:20] Zenita Zadeh: phew

[7:20] Zenita Zadeh: that was hard work

[7:20] lizit Cleanslate: There's another ecology island too - it's on the notecard

[7:21] Graham Mills: yeh, I fell off the island and had a swim to get here

[7:21] Gann McGann: excellent - i'm going to check out the egyptian temple

[7:21] Peregrine Juneau: OK, bye all

Images are at http://www.flickr.com/photos/eduservfoundation/sets/72157600343823993/.

Observational Survey of Educational Institutions

Topher Zwiers on Muve Forward provides an interesting summary of Fleep Tuque presentation at SLPBE 2007 - Observational Survey of Educational Institutions.

Good stuff.

I met Fleep briefly just before the SLBPE while I was trying to put the Eduserv Foundation stand together, but she was running around like a mad thing (doing a great job as far as I can tell) with general organisational stuff so we didn't get to talk much.

I wish I'd seen the presentation (I missed it because of taking a RL holiday - shame on me!) but it would certainly be nice to see her slides (assuming that there were some).

Second Lives - BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week

Book of the Week on BBC Radio 4 this week is Second Lives by Tim Guest, which I happened to catch in the car this morning, driving back from a failed attempt to get the air con in my car fixed :-(

Very listenable (is that a word??). The are 5 daily episodes which will remain available for 7 days after broadcast.

SL numbers

Second Life Insider has regular updates about the key numbers associated with Second Life. For example, here and here are the summaries for Sunday 3rd June. I find these numbers fascinating. Are people really spending that much in Second Life every day? It doesn't seem credible to me.