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.