Tom Eckersley exhibition

As a spare time activity I'm putting together an exhibition of posters by Tom Eckersley for the ArtsPlace gallery on Eduserv Island.  The posters, 24 of them, have been selected (and used with permission) from the Eckersley Archive hosted by the Visual Arts Data Service (VADS).

As with any activity like this in the UK, clearing rights over the images has taken a while but I'm grateful to staff at VADS for dealing with this side of things on my behalf.

As you can see, I've got as far as uploading the images and plonking them onto poster sized prims.  Note that I used Picnik, the online image manipulation tool, to add a frame to each poster.  Now I need to get the sizes and aspect ratios correct, position them on the walls of ArtsPlace and create a notecard for each holding VADS catalog record for each of the selected posters.  Shouldn't be too long, assuming I get my finger out.

Watch this space...

AudioStreaming Firecaster

When we hold RL events for which there is a SL audience we usually use voice-chat to carry audio from the live presentations to the SL delegates.  I've always felt uncomfortable about using Art Fossett to carry this audio, even in those cases where it is Andy Powell who is speaking but particularly so in other situations.

For tomorrow's Maximising the impact of Virtual Worlds in Teaching and Learning event in Glasgow I've created a new avatar, AudioStreaming Firecaster, just to carry the audio from the event onto Eduserv Island. AudioStreaming will be positioned just next to the slides (that Art Fossett will be displaying in-world in sync with the RL speakers' slides).  That's leaves Art Fossett free to move around the SL venue as I see fit.

Education Support Faire

Linden Lab have announced an education support faire, to run for 6 days from the 25th to the 30th January 2009:

To support the educational community, we would like to invite you to participate in and attend Linden Lab’s inaugural Education Support Faire! Over the years, Second Life has provided ways for the world of academia to put to use creativity lending to immersive education, distance learning, knowledge sharing, faculty networking–and many other ways to enhance the collective educational community’s efforts in the real world. The success of projects surrounding these efforts within Second Life can be attributed to the many innovative educators, academics, and students who have chosen to utilize Second Life for these purposes.

The main goal for the Education Support Faire is to bring together educators, academics, and students to explore the support mechanisms available to residents who use Second Life to enhance real world educational efforts.

Maximising the effectiveness of virtual worlds in teaching and learning

Those of you not attending the joint CETIS/Eduserv "Maximising the effectiveness of virtual worlds in teaching and learning" event in person next week in Glasgow may like to note that we are planning on making the audio and slides of all the presentations available in real time on Eduserv Island in Second Life.

Audio will be made available using the SL voice chat facility and copies of all the speakers' slides will be visible in-world.  We will also try and allow for questions to speakers from virtual delegates via text chat.

As virtual delegates you should make your way to the Virtual Congress Centre on Eduserv Island

Presentations start at 10.30am (2.30am SL time) though I suggest getting there a little earlier to test out audio, etc.  You are welcome to drop in for only those presentations that interest you.  The full programme is available at the first URL above.

Lively not looking so lively anymore

Lively - Google's chat room with knobs on - is to close.  I can't say I'm sorry - I didn't like it much anyway!  But I am a little surprised.  Not because I thought it was good enough to stick around but because I thought Google might have the will, and the effort, to make it better.

Object zero

Hanging around in the ReLive 08 area on Open Life where we briefly discussed object zero - the desire to tidy up your inventory such that there are no items called 'Object'.

For the record... my inventory - which is quite small I think - is nowhere near!

Notice the 'avatar wall' in the background - presumably representing all the delegates at ReLive 08.  Nice.

Would have been nice to have the video streams displayed in-world though - I don't understand why this didn't happen.  The streams were in the right format and everything.  Shame :-(  It would have made it a much more immersive experience for those of us not able to be there in person.

Voice survey

I'm not a big fan of voice in SL for various reasons.  Just about the only time I use it is if I am giving an in-world presentation (usually to a group of avatars).  Other than that I use chat.

I note that Fleep Tuque is currently running a survey about people reaction to and use of voice in Second Life:

We are inviting you to tell us about your experiences in Second Life as part of a research study. 

 

Since Linden Lab released voice communication options in August, 2007, some residents have chosen to use it and other have not.  The following survey will help us understand how you communicate with others in-world.  The results of this questionnaire will help give advice to new residents and provide a better understanding of your experiences in-world as current residents. 

 

It should only take about 10 to 15 minutes to complete.  Even if you did not use voice, please consider giving us your feedback.