The Freedom Project: How Artistic Expression Transcends Real Life Challenges

This panel was talking about a project used for people with disabilities through a project called "The Freedom Project." People with varying disabilities would express themselves through art in second life as well as outside. It was mentioned that art ha the power to decrease recovery time from any sort of illness, in fact, it was stated that the person did not even have to author any work, just enjoy artwork while they are infirmed, or if it is permanent just incorporate it into their lives to give them more meaning. It is therapeutic for the individuals doing the work. The project culminated in a finished show in second life of the artists work, and the project thankfully had enough funding to create a printed book containing all the work to be sent to each individual involved as a memory of the project. The speakers said they were worried at the start that they would not be able to find enough people with disabilities to participate, or that the work at the end would have to be viewed through a lens that disabled people made it. In the end it was a great, and high quality work was presented. Unfortunately, I did not go to the event after the panel, and figured I could just go see it myself on my own, but it was not available through the website, and if it is available at all I can't find it (it lists on the website that it ran through February so I think I missed the boat tonight when they left.) It's great learning about new things possible in second life. Previously in the business program I was in, I took a class entirely on the economics/business of second life, and I didn't venture out or even really think there was much more. I'm glad I heard that there are projects like this one around, and that people are doing good things with second life that are very creative. They read a fair amount of quotes from those in the project,a dn many said it saved their lives, whether it be in the literal sense or in that it gave them happiness and meaning again.

Machinima 2

I had no idea what Machinima was this morning, I've been to two conference events about it, and it opened my eyes a lot to it.

The event was a panel who spoke about their use of machinima in education. Machinima is typically for instruction, but one panelist really stuck out to me. He spoke about how he learned FROM machinima. He and his group tried to make comedy videos. He discussed how it opened his eyes to creativity, and gave him a reason to be creative, and helped him broaden his skills. In one video, he added a dancing avatar to  real video, and in another he was part of a team making a comedy video. I really thought that was out of the box, to venture out into other ideas, and to flip it by having the learner on the creating side of it. Another panelist I liked spoke about her experience being a hybrid course professor in Venezuela, and how it brought the language barrier down a good amount because in that area there is a diverse language difference.

These are links to the machinima comedies:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k93vcqwbdNQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUJXUahrOnI

Nursing informatics

A nursing informatics instructor from Devry who uses secondlife for her class gave a workshop showing some of the simulations she made for the students and spoke about her class.

There were a couple of obstacles getting the students to use secondlife. Part of an eight hour orientation was used to get the users into secondlife. None of the users, CIS undergraduates and Nursing Graduate students who were taking the course had any experience in secondlife. The nursing students had a barrier in rezing and using the advanced features of secondlife, while her CIS students, they had a barrier for the nursing content.

The users are students of the class- they have to do a practicum, and students have the option to do their practicum in secondlife. This started out as something for users who could not find or were unable to find somewhere to do a practicum, or they had one lined up and then the rug was pulled underneath them, like in the example we had with the border patrol, where they lost their ability to have a place to do their "on-the-ground" activity.

I thought this was a cool idea and had a lot to do with my final project, and I got a lot of ideas for it. I even copied some stuff from here to save to use later for it (:

This is a long one.....gonna go about this with bullets with what I found most interesting from this panel.

Things we thought of a long time ago haven't been achieved yet-

There are things we thought of in 1980 that we thought would be available in 1985, we have to realize this and see that our ideas that secondlife is going to be in amazing hd in five years (we said this in 2008) didn't materialize, or even see ANY progress. Everything is dynamic and we need to make sure we don't try and "predict" the future.

They talked about worlds that have came and went, and how secondlife has emerged as the most used one.

On marketing (paraphrasing, only slghtly)

"breast physics and monster movement, two things that weren't even on the radar before are way more important, we see now."
   
      This was said when talking about what we are trying to head toward, and what has been popular n the past and why secondlife has been sputtering instead of exploding.


Comparison to photoshop/adobe development

New versions of photoshop were more moving tools around and small improvements, which made it worse temporarily for users. Same things might be true here, if a new version came out the old users might be turned off, they might have a temporary loss of legacy users.

Mention of Warcraft!

Warcraft starts users off with one button, and small achievements.

Ipods/phones have one button, and an immediate gratification.

Throwing everything at the user at once with secondlife with no gratification is suicide, new users will immediately leave, as I was compelled to (my first time was for a class, so I had to power through it.)

"I hate to use the word quest........but the curve needs to be fun.......There needs to be a blend of learning and questing."



Next 12-18 months forward questions-

Public perception of slgo- sl is passing the buck to third party- but their brand name is on it, a bad move to push off blame, and a bad culture. A must- have to improve to stay alive, mobile is very important.

Revenue model for linden labs- let creative communities, users, take control, then it will be a healthier environment.

Game development- They suggest that people should be able to create games in secondlife, which would give people motivation to enter as developers, and as users, as well as open up a new dimension for secondlife.

Machinima

Machinima is a term used for using "cinema" by making videos of immersive environments, like this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=uxgx9ie1TJ0. The camelot project (camelotproject.eu) gave a presentation on their use of machinima in learning language. They have a lot of good videos for learning language, and it's great because people can make their own without high technical expertise, even though there's really (as far as I can tell) no one specific software to record videos for learning purposes. The one flaw I see with this is that there are already a lot of these in existence. After watching videos on camelotproject, I was just thinking that you could just find a movie to show students, find resources out there that already exist, books, videos, etc. I don't see how we could connect actually using secondlife with these videos. In fact, I think it would be better for students to visit secondlife to talk live with instructors and others. While I think it's useful that instructors can create their own videos, I find it hard to think thi is evolutionary.

Game Design Keynote Speech

David Gibson from Curtin University gave a keynote speech on Game Design at the VWBPE. Though I was excited from the title, it ended up being very technical. He mentioned that the results were from a MOOC, and that there were over 300 gigabytes of data collected, but even from intent listening and rereading the t2speech, I couldn't follow as deeply as I wanted. Maybe my solution should be to attend more of these so I can learn how to follow better and be able to scratch the surface. Really interesting things were mentioned, like eye tracking, that I wished he went into more. Overall, it was a good experience, I think the language might be a little above my level (also, WAY above my statistics level) I definitely flexed my brain a little being there and trying to follow along with the data. His wording was very technical, and I'm going to look him up and try to find more on his research because I would love to know the method used to study a MOOC.

WoW Presentation

I loved the WoW presentation! It really brought everything full circle. I feel like we've been only scratching the surface with WoW, questing and leveling up and not really connecting it to education. Yes, we touched the obvious ones, economics and writing about it, but the presentation brought in the social skills aspect. I was especially intrigued about the management style portion. The fact that you could use it as a workplace social area and for mentorship is really a great idea. I would disagree on one thing, however. I don't think it would be easy to get grants, I think it would be extremely difficult. I don't think anything but an economics class would be able to. The fact that the reading level is at 7th grade, and that the game is based on violence and adult themes are a terrible combination. For older students that would arguably be able to handle the violence, the world is not mature enough to be challenging for them  socially, arguably, and where it would be socially appropriate, the violence would be too high. All in all I thought it was  great presentation, obviously well rehearsed by good speakers, and it covered a broad range of topics.

I recorded the event for everyone to see, sorry the beginning was a little cut off, my trial was expired for the program I planned to use so I had to rush to download a new one. About a minute of the beginning was cut.

Here you go: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGMIHNdXJtU&feature=youtube_gdata

Jazz Club

I found the jazz club rather boring, people were very upset that I wasn't dancing and in formal wear, and that was the only interaction I got out of them. I eventually got some dance things going on, and was very unimpressed by the recordings. I know it is a challenge to do a live performance with multiple people, especially in a virtual world, but I was hoping for maybe a soloist playing over a jam track or piece, so at least one of the instruments was live. I could see something like this being a networking event, maybe practice for the feel of online interactions and discuss music, maybe practice some conversational english/language, and mask that you are not a native speaker, and just try to keep the face straight as long as possible, or even fool people into not even noticing that you are not a native speaker of the language you are speaking, which would build an enormous amount of confidence, I believe. Sadly, this event was a bunch of stiffs, but gladly so, because it made me think outside the box a little bit, it forced me to come up with ways it could be educational because.....well, there was nothing else to do except watch my avatar dance

THE STAR TREK MUSEUM IS THE BEST THING EVER

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/New%20Eridani/118/120/1442

Star Trek museum was awesome. Did not expect the depth. I started off in a tour group but ultimately, I was too interested in the "star trek and real science" section, and ventured out of the tour group. I thought it was a good approach- take "lite" science, the cool stuff that makes you interested, doesn't contain technical stuff and appears to be fit for a 5th grade classroom, and use it in conjunction with Star Trek, something people can relate to, to increase willingness to learn (and perhaps not know they are learning!) It's something I'm very interested in because my focus recently has been corporate/professional development curriculum, and desire to learn something and perceived learning are a much different take on education, where the motivations are a whole other world from the classroom. Here are pics, I highly suggest going there!

Love Discussion

I attended a discussion on "What is that thing called Love?" at http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Blue%20Moon/103/233/23. It is a fair sized group, I have been to a couple of poetry readings, misc events, and the turnout was me, that;s it, just me. It is exciting to see a group at all, but this one actually has 20+ people. The lecturer showed some videos of thing that had to do with love, like the jubilee project and some movie trailers. What this ended up being was more a philosophy lecture and discussion, or maybe that was intended from the start, but it wasn't clear to me. I think that this type of forum, sitting in a secondlife "lecture hall," has more value for education than the content he was talking about. A professor can give a lecture remotely to students not in the same place as each other. I had an odd nostalgic feeling attending this, like I was in a classroom again, something I haven't done in about two years.

Below is the quote that got me started thinking of it as a philosophy lecture.


"Diotima  taught in Plato's Symposium  that love is a ladder . . . the ladder of learning. And while our souls climb that ladder they will learn the secret of eternal beauty.
 A universal  beauty that is deep beneath all layers of appearance."

Also, the speaker mentioned universal love, as well as romantic love, and focused on that for a little bit.

Paris art exhibit/talk

A woman who is a painter had a talk/art exhibit today, and it also happened to be in Paris 1900. She gave us a tour of her gallery, and spoke abut what inspires her to paint, the amount of time she has been painting, projects she is working on, as well as showing off some things she made for second life, like the dress she was wearing, and gave a little deeper meaning to each painting, that was "hung" in the gallery.This is a good idea for exposure to fine arts and would be a good educational experience for an art class. In fact, it said something about Hunter College in the description, but I couldn't figure out exactly how it was affiliated. Anyway, it was a great experience, there were a lot of nice paintings, and I got something out of it I wouldn't have if I only saw the paintings. She also gave a lengthy part of the discussion to the history (Caribbean islands) that is the focus of her paintings.

Concert!

I went to http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Vahalla%20Island/235/59/15, a music venue. I saw an event in progress and an artist on afterwards, so I figured I would go hang out there, and focus on the second event because that would be the one I stayed the whole hour for. Well, we make plans and God laughs…… I got the bulk of the interesting “wow” moments in the first twenty minutes, the tail end of cletis carr. (http://www.cletis.com/) I loved the music, but I was EXTREMELY upset that it was recorded and just played back, I felt like it was cheap and a bad idea…...I heard applause in the background, very clearly a recording. I voiced how I thought it was lame, or something to that effect. AT THE END OF THE SONG, HE SAID “PETAGNA, THIS ISN’T A RECORDING BY THE WAY, I’M GLAD YOU LIKE THE QUALITY.” I did like the quality. I was very stunned, as well as embarrassed. I later learned that the applause that nailed the idea down for me that it was a recording, and perhaps not even his song, was a stock sound either played by the venue or someone in the audience. I got a couple more shoutouts, mostly for having an odd avatar and shamelessly being the closest to the stage I can get away with. I was surprised at the friendliness and closeness you are able to get- the “intimacy” with the artist that is possible. This is a live performance, I feel just as good, if not better than going to a bar to see a band.

What I really want to know is if anyone is making music remotely on secondlife, and that is what I’ll hunt down next. I want to know if two avatars can get up there, not be in the same room, and just hear eachother and make music with good enough accuracy. Maybe even jamming or collaborative songwriting, or instruction for an instrument, maybe even online music program where performance requirements are done in secondlife. Anyway, that is for another time that is not 2 AM and when I don’t forget to get coffe on the way home from work. BTW here is his site: http://www.cletis.com/

Andrew and George's Secondlife Stop 3

It feels awesome to be immersed- we can have such a huge disconnect between what we read in a history book and the real world. This is a really good bridge for that. The tram ride is very immersive, there’s some cool facts, and it just feels like If I was reading about the arc de triumph, seeing it here would give it a little more meaning. This could even be used as a virtual field trip for a history class and be useful. In this case, the "virtual field trip" is to somewhere that it would be cost/ time prohibitive to go to, but also adds another dimension to it by adding time to the mix. I could see myself going on a tour of a few more countries (:

George and Andrew's secondlife stop 2

Even though its under construction, it seems like its just an information center shape like a cylinder. Still, I thought it was very informative and awesome, even though I didn’t really learn anything because I’m obsessed with LHC and have probably read more about it than is healthy.

Oh wait! an elevator! There is a lot going on up here, still a lot under construction, but good visuals, low level science stuff that is interesting I think is really good because it increases student willingness to learn by having these interactive visuals. As I think more and more about education in SL, What keeps coming up, and seems pretty universal, is the ability to take a "virtual field trip" which is actually very meaningful.

George and Andrew's secondlife stop 1

virtual hallucinations-

This is a huge educational experience- you can learn how people with these issues actually feel, you can actually sympathize with them on a deeper level. I think that it does a world of wonders for those in the psychology field, we can understand someone with a bruise, a cut, and treat them, understand, Those with mental illness, however, can be written off as crazy, and we can’t relate to them. The viewer or doctor might be detached even if they are open minded. This can help that a lot, bridging the gap a little bit can make the difference in patient treatment. Me and buzzy couldn’t figure out how to get the voices to stop though, as this was our first stop.

Visiting the superhero world in SL

I found an abandoned town in SL....but it really was home to a superhero base! I thought it was really cool. My first impression was that the town looked like a level from the "Left 4 Dead" series. I then poked around and found a secret cave! Inside were a bunch of superhero costumes disguised as a comic book shop, and a meeting room complete with pictures of the heroes and such. Here are some pics!

HEY! Who put that there?

Jokaydia is pretty good. I like the true second life a little more because it seems a little less buggy and there are more people on it. Some bugs I had were movement related, often during flying it would work well for about a minute then I would fly in one direction and lose control until I quit and came back. I was unable to see some avatars, and my character kept changing back to female and adjusting a few things on its own, which ultimately led me to give up on trying to make an interesting avatar. I made my hair long to cover my face so I wouldn't have to change the features on my face back to male. I was ultimately going for a "cousin it" look but I wasn't able to get the hair to go down far enough. Pictures to follow, I'm on my computer at work which, if you could see it, your first thought would be to find a museum to put it in.