Saturday 29 March 2008

Cherry blossom, Daffodils

Japanese sims visited: 2 (good); Cherry trees planted: 12 (approx) (v. good); Kimono bought: 1 (good, or is it)

Is start of cherry blossom in Japan, so have gone into blossom overdrive on Infolit iSchool. As well as trees from Heart garden centre have also discovered ones by 2 Japanese designers, one with drifting blossom, and both also cheap which is always advantage even though currently have oodles of Linden due to land sales. Am shown in first pic with sign have just erected outside Sakura House explaining that Sakura means cherry (blossom).

Also seemed good time to invest in yet more kimono and visit Japanese sims. Am thus shown in 2nd pic in new kimono on the machinima lot in Tennoz Isle pretending to be character in Ozu film, though hair flower is a bit flighty for that. Am currently not sure whether kimono is TOO colourful, it looked nice on the vendor.

Was checking for links to blog, on Technorati, and saw that had been linked & 2 pics on flickr used by someone else, namely the First daffodils blog. So amongst their photos of RL daffodils in various parts of the world are mine in SL. Think this is quite cool.

Wednesday 19 March 2008

PBL, PDF

Have posted chatlog of discussion that took place on 13th March 2008 on Infolit iSchool in Sakura House, on Problem Based Learning for Information Literacy at http://sleeds.org/chatlog/?c=253 There was an accompanying notecard now available thrillingly as a pdf at http://dis.shef.ac.uk/sheila/13marchnotecard.pdf. If your question is "what is PBL?" then suggest you read this first ;-))

Conference, Dancing

Workshops completed: 1 (good); Librarians carried on virtual bus tour: 16 (good); conference discos attended in RL: 1 (tiring)

Have completed 2nd workshop at LILAC conference. Seemed to go fairly well, and had extra time so was able to fit in tour of island. This was using Mystihud device where you can create chairs which follow you around (in fact can specify that they follow around anyone in vicinity so envisage some merriment in attaching sets of follow-chairs to unsuspecting friends).

Tour guide effect was heightened by fact that Pam, Ishbel and I were carrying lilac umbrellas so that could be readily identified by delegates. Anyway did indeed feel like guided tour as zoomed along towing rows of seats, and only had one real glitch when initially pressed PAGE UP when meant to press PAGE DOWN so almost got lost in stratosphere right at the start. Much jocular talk from passengers of feeling sick, can imagine might feel a bit odd. Though of course when new to SL this is probably just one more piece of oddness.

Was helped by PG student Alane inworld and was only after session was over that realised that hadn’t actually communicated to him fact that had ended. Hopefully disappearance of avatars signalled end but still was rather rude and hope has not soured good staff-student relationships etc. etc.
In session itself had usual issues of box opening, wearing carpets etc. and because of proliferation of conference boxes on ground at one point wasted some time trying to get delegate to copy someone else’s box, felt v. stupid.
At end of day lots more people signed up to Information Literacy Group, hurrah, and have promised to organise more events.

RL conference dinner on previous evening held in Liverpool City Halls, v. grand. As usual included disco after dinner and enjoyed disporting in party frock. Various pros and cons to RL vs. SL dancing.
Pros of RL dancing:
- exercising, therefore healthy;
- general enjoyment of bopping around to beat;
- can make whatever movements you want, within physical limitations, thus expressing individual creativity.
Cons of RL dancing;
- get tired when have been dancing for – well, for not very long, really;
- feet start hurting unless wearing v. sensible shoes;
- cannot adjust volume;
- no dancing and drinking at same time;
- spontaneous synchronised group dancing impossibility unless happen to REALLY be in film version of your own life.

Tuesday 18 March 2008

Conference

Conference workshop sessions delivered: 1 (good); No of platefuls of nosh eaten at RL conference reception: 2 (bad; in terms of calories consumed, that is); No of "girl next door" avatars collected on island: 10 (approx)
Am at LILAC information literacy conference at which highlight is of course series of 2 workshops on SL given by Ishbel and me. Maggie cannot be with us for RL reasons. We were lucky that Pam Ribble, all round SL librarian and SL mentor, works at the uni where conference is based. Is all v. strange in that Ishbel and Pam and I are all meeting up for first time in RL and getting used to the different coloured hair, larger waistlines etc. (ahem) of our SL friends.

Also fortunately technology works v. well with faster speed than at own desktop. Had about 22 people in session yesterday, almost all newbies and thus the proliferation of Girl Next Door avatars in original form, but soon participants were donning t-shirts, skirts, boxes, flying carpets etc. in traditional fashion.Were a couple of people who still hadn't managed to get own avatars due to various glitches, which is v. frustrating for them. One person worked somewhere where they weren't even allowed to access the Second Life website, let along SL itself.

Anyway, was v.v. exciting to see all these people on the island milling around in jocular fashion. Session was only 45 mins. in toto and flashed passed. Thus only took a few pics at end and one shows people in various stages of dress and wearing their sparklers etc., and second one shows usual litter left after the session with Conference Boxes (note attractive lilac theme) for me to clear up.

Final compilation pic is me and Ishbel attending to LILAC conference house beforehand but in fact not sure anyone got as far as stumblng into it. Thought that counts though, eh.

Sunday 16 March 2008

Um, I am interviewed

Interviews with SL TV companies published: 1 (good); No. of times say "um" in interview: numerous (bad)

Metaverse TV has published the video of me being interviewed by Dousa Dragonash. Is v. exciting to see island & also to see self, except that had not realised how often said "um". Also is unfortunate business at start when Dousa and I talk over each other. Otherwise however am v. pleased and find it entrancing although not sure any but diehard Sheila Yoshikawa/ Infolit iSchool fans will agree 100%. At any rate manage to mention university and organisation (CILASS) that is paying land costs and also feature office which looks splendid. And after start do not say um quite so much.

Metaverse TV. (2008) Out and about: interview with Sheila Yoshikawa. http://blip.tv/file/739271

Resources list for the SL session at the LILAC conference

Ribble, P. (2008) Guide to SL basics. http://infoisland.org/drupal/reference/SL_ready_ref/Guide_to_SL_basics

Kay, J and Fitzgerald, S. (2008) Second Life in Education http://sleducation.wikispaces.com/ (wiki with useful information for educators and students, and information on the authors’ own projects – they are Australian educators)

Kemp, J (Ed) (2008) Second Life Education Wiki: SimTeach http://www.simteach.com/wiki/index.php?title=Second_Life_Education_Wiki
There are further resources linked from these e.g. at http://sleducation.wikispaces.com/secondliferesources

Kirriemuir, J. (2007 & 2008) Snapshot reports of UK universities’ activities in Second Life. http://www.eduserv.org.uk/foundation/studies/slsnapshots and photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/silversprite/sets/72157603982005324/

SLED events: a calendar for Second Life events for educators http://sledevents.blogspot.com/

Blogs
Second Life Library blog http://infoisland.org/
Beth’s Second Life http://bethssecondlife.blogspot.com/ (one of the pioneer educators, who leaches literature)
Adventures of Yoshikawa http://adventuresofyoshikawa.blogspot.com/ (Sheila Yoshikawa/ Webber’s blog)
Artsplace SL http://artfossett.blogspot.com/ (Andy Powell of Eduserv)

Discussion lists
Secondlife http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/SECONDLIFE.html (UK discussion list)
Second Life Educators List (SLED). https://lists.secondlife.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/educators (Very high volume discussion list, but is an invaluable resource) Various groups on Facebook including Second Life Librarians

Videos
Infolit iSchool
Metaverse TV. (2008) Out and about: interview with Sheila Yoshikawa. http://www.metaversetv.blip.tv/#745449

Libraries
Draxtordespres. (2007) Alliance Library System Second Life. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MazAoWCKPU
Rikomatic. (2006) Tour of info island. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTQkzfz5osQ
Rowanfair (2007) SL Libraries - Info Insland Archipelago Tour. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8v3TZethQ0
Sirexkat. (2007) Murdoch Uni Library gets a Second Life. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiH7dkOVaLc
srharris19 (2008) Avatars: what should I be today. http://youtube.com/watch?v=7Hk3uiZy6zA (mostly pictures of librarians and information professionals)

Education
Crkeesey. (2007) Ohio University Second Life Campus http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFuNFRie8wA&feature=PlayList&p=96D577D877929F91&index=3
Holymeatballs (2008) NY1 on Global Kids in Second Life Jan, 2008. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxm-BaCcBJc (TV news report on the “Global kids” initiative on the teen grid of SL)
MaryAnnCLT (2007) Educational uses of Second Life. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOFU9oUF2HA
Perplexity Peccable. (2007) Science Learning Opportunities in Second Life. http://youtube.com/watch?v=EfsSGBraUhc
Secondhealth (2007) Second Health: Polyclinic Tour. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu-QNFLD1mg
SLmerryman. (2008) English Village in Second Life. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwHrjS-ENec
TessaLCooper (2007) The Nutrition Game: A Day of Food Choices http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLhNNYRJwJ4

General
Robbie Dingo (2007) Watch the World(s). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxVDVggLqsA&feature=PlayList&p=96D577D877929F91&index=2
SLSilver (2006) Second Life: Get One http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxj8RTW4ev4&feature=PlayList&p=96D577D877929F91&index=1

SL TV stations
Second Life Cable Network http://slcn.tv/
Metaverse TV http://www.metaverse-tv.com/

Wednesday 12 March 2008

Testy; Time zones; in the Black Library; LILAC

Researchers taken for balloon ride: 1 (good); Discussions facilitated in the Black Library: 1 (good); Conference houses complete with appropriate foliage created: 1 (good); Conference t-shirts created: 2 (v. good); Conference bags created: 1 (good)

Had mentioned already (I think) that had encountered researcher about to do investigation into use of information in SL, namely Testy. Arranged to meet Testy on day after Virtual Worlds conference. Was almost disaster, since Linden Labs once more showed that SL is really in the USA since I arrived inworld to find I was an hour late. Apparently SL had jumped forward an hour because that was what happened in the USA. Had this been announced on the SL blog? No.

Anyway, once we met up had interesting talk about information in SL, information behaviour, avatar identity, Voice vs Chat and so forth. Asked Testy to lead discussion later on in year and she said yes, hurrah. Mostly had conversation relaxing in bean bag chairs, but then took balloon tour.

Next day I had volunteered to facilitate the "Lessons in SL" educators discussion. This takes place in the Black Library in Hyperborea every Monday, and the usual host (Buridan Simon) was at a conference, and I had volunteered to cover. You can see me in pic with witty sign over head. Wished to keep up his tradition of having no pre-set topic, which is even scarier than facilitating the normal discussions, but seemed to go OK with about usual numbers. A few familiar faces e.g. Ladyjane, came along, which was nice. Topics covered included learning spaces, HTML on a prim and environmental exhibits. People flicked in and out, but that tends to happen, also found self drawing things to close just before an hour was up as a sort of reflex action, whereas in fact these sessions normally last 90 mins. However was OK again and in fact discussing this sparked some more conversation.

Over next past of days have been preoccupied with preparation for sessions at RL conference on information literacy, LILAC, next week. Ishbel, Maggie and I had been preparing to do a session together, and I decided to have a special conference house with lilac round it (new line at Mau and Mej) on the island. In fact the sequence of events was actually that I saw that House of Effulgence had a really lovely new house (only 300 Linden including a package of furniture!) and was hunting round for excuse to buy it. Then I thought of the excuse.

Have been preparing a conference bag, and also a library landmarks box. Last pic shows me at Amsterdam Public Library on free bicycle you can get there, in front of cool display of downloadable music.

Sunday 9 March 2008

Virtual Worlds: Libraries, Education, Museums conference: verdict

Conferences attended in SL: 1 (good)
Some overall thoughts about the Virtual Worlds: Libraries, Education, Museums conference that took place in Second Life on 8 March 2008, in the NMC conference Centre.

Firstly, it felt like a real conference.It was well organised and ran smoothly, which I know must have taken oodles of volunteers' time.

Secondly, as you can gather from my blog posts, I definitely learnt something from the conference. I also got to meet a few people I had been meaning to get in touch with, and bumped into some people I know - again just like a RL conference.

Third, again as in RL, I think there was a bit too much PowerPoint. A wider range of events would be nice, and I appreciated the discussion sessions. Not that I would want to avoid "transmissive" sessions altogether - I got some good information.

Fourth, the NMC conference centre is cool, and in a good way, not in the sense of too much air conditioning! I'd like to enjoy a conference centre like it RL, but you'd really need the ability to teleport, too, between the locations ;-)

Fifth, the timing was obviously much more geared to US time. I have suggested that they involve people from other time zones if they run the event again. It was frustrating to miss interesting-looking events taking place at 3 and 4 in the morning. However. I still felt it was worth the 8000 Linden I paid to attend ;-))

Sixth, the conference coffee was good (i.e. made by me in my own cafetierre)

Well, after these rather pedestrian conference posts I will return to the normal Yoshikawa style ;-)

Virtual Worlds: Libraries, Education, Museums : Part 3

This is the third report from the Virtual Worlds: Libraries, Education, Museums conference that took place in Second Life on 8 March 2008. I will summarise the remaining sessions I attended (I am pictured, right). For the 3rd parallel session I dipped briefly into Applying Distance Educational Theory to Virtual Worlds presented by Rebecca Hedreen (Library Coordinator for Distance Learning, Southern Connecticut University; Spiral Mandelbrot in SL). I realised after a little while that, although useful, it was not really new stuff to me. However, you may be interested in her website at http://delibrarian.googlepages.com/presentations

I was a little delayed finding an alternative session, since my 2nd choice had been cancelled, as the presenter hadn’t managed to get online: one of the hazards of a SL conference. My final choice was a session on options for young people, Virtual Worlds for Children presented by Fleet Goldenberg. He was giving the pros and cons of various virtual world s such as There, Whyville and Furcadia. The advantage that the SL teen grid has over most of these is the opportunity for original content creation, but each has their advantages.
One of the trends that Fleet saw was "Cross-compatibility of avatars between different platforms, enabling the creation of a true '3D Internet' of interlinked worlds that are linked seamlessly with the traditional 2D World Wide Web.” He also mentioned the use of virtual worlds in home schooling: not something you get much in the UK, but I think it is more common in the USA. Fleet finished by saying "In the meantime, LEM [Librarian, Educator and Museum] professionals ask only this: “Give us the tools and we will give you the world”. Some of those professionals are unwilling to passively wait for the tools they need right now to bring their ideas to life and are leading the way in designing them themselves or campaigning for their production."

Discussion afterwards focused on issues such as monitoring of access by adults and the impact of commercial interests (using virtual worlds to influence children’s “pester power” – trying to get them to want to buy things). Fleet gave out a link to his website with material, including videos, on virtual worlds: http://www.squirrelverse.com/links.html#demonstration

After this session there was a three hour break: rather irritating for me since it meant that the next session started at midnight! The first event was a “buzz” session with discussion around the kind of support that librarians wanted to give to learners and educators, and what they would like to see themselves in SL. Different perspectives emerged: with some interested in bringing in external resources, some in “standards”, some in more exploration of the affordances of SL. Personally I think it is valuable to exploit the skills of the library and information professional, focusing more on these rather than on “the library” and its RL resources. The chat transcript of this session is at http://sleeds.org/chatlog/?c=238

After this there were shorter presentations from Christi Confetti Higgins (Sun Microsystems: Violet Portola in SL; it says in her profile "I am a librarian at Sun Microsystems managing the digital library program."), Doug McDavid (Doug Mandelbrot in SL, who works in IBM), and Tom Peters (Maxito Ricardo in SL). It

I think Violet was one of the people who talked about 2008 as the year of virtual worlds. She felt that in SL relationships (with customers/ potential customers) developed more quickly. There are regular meetings within SL for Sun employees - instead of using conference calls, for example. They apparently have replicas of products in their buildings and librarians are included in staffing the Sun island, to greet and answer questions. There are going to be Digital libraries and research events in SL for employees. She said a little bit about Sun's own virtual world, Wonderland. It has a Java 3D based graphics engine an is open source, so can be downloaded from the Sun website. Relevant web addresses are: http://blogs.sun.com/vw/, https://lg3d-wonderland.dev.java.net/ and http://research.sun.com/projects/mpk20/

The final session before I left with my eyes drooping (at 3am) was a discussion about self-directed learning in Second Life, facilitated by Corwin Carillon. Apart from being interested in the topic, I was also attracted by the format: any more powerpoint and I would not have remained conscious. The chat transcript of this is at http://sleeds.org/chatlog/?c=239, though as some of this was in Voice (I was using Voice a lot of the time in this part) the transcript is rather enigmatic. One of the things that it made me reflect on were the varying terms that are used – particularly when talking to educators outside the UK – to mean similar sorts of things. Interesting to thinking about what “self-directed” really means. Issues to do with planning, supporting and student reaction were discussed. After this, I flew homewards and logged off, reluctantly missing some interesting sessions later on.

Costumes

Anime character outfits bought: 1 (good); No. of minutes spent posing avatar when dressed anime character: 20 (worrying); B5 characters created: 1 (good); B5 parties attended: 1 (good)
Have invested in a Haruhi Suzumiya outfit including Haruhi hair. Thus could be mistaken for this hit anime series' lead (a schoolgirl with unfeasibly short skirt), except have stuck to blue hair and am taller and fatter than RL Huruhi. Or I suppose isn't *RL* Haruhi actually. Is Haruhi in anime actually any more real than my SL homage to Haruhi? What can I substitute for the term "RL" in this context?

These are deep philosophical questions so will pass swiftly on to second creation.

This is a Centauri Woman a la Babylon 5, a natural for SL since they are bald, sometimes with ponytails and sometimes not. Have not yet worked out when the ponytail applies. In any case the Samurai hairdo from Mej & Mau's will do the trick and is more flattering with. Am also wearing Evie's Closet gown bought for this purpose plus a circlet from Alienbear Gupte over a headband improvised by me.

Tried this outfit for first time tonight at B5 party, on Babylon 5. Joined in the energetic dancing. Were some highly cool arrangements with iconic B5 moments recorded over trancey music. Think that was subject of friendly advances during dance. Was slightly baffled by apparent assumption that if didn't list Partner in profile was bound to be on lookout for someone to fill the Partner gap. Think this is first time have had anything approaching a Hit upon my person, must be the Centauri getup. Did abysmally in B5 trivia game, evidently need to spend more time poring over B5 scriptbooks.

Saturday 8 March 2008

Virtual Worlds: Libraries, Education, Museums : 2

This is the second post on the Virtual Worlds: Libraries, Education, Museums conference that took place in Second Life on 8 March 2008, mostly in the NMC conference Centre.
The next parallel session I chose was Whatcha Gonna Do?: An Academic Health Sciences Library in Second Life Embraces New Roles Presented by PF Anderson (Perplexity Peccable in SL); the paper was coauthored with Gillian Mayman (Gillian Oh in SL); Anne Perorazio (Kaiya Qunha in SL); and Jane Blumenthal (Wrenaissance Jewell in SL)
The whole presentation is up online at http://wwww.slideshare.net/umhealthscienceslibraries/ It has loads of slides and I think you can follow some of the main points, so I won't go over all the presentation. I did find it very interesting to see this example of how the services have developed in response to the nature of Second Life and users' interests - and to the opportunities offered.

The island (Wolverine Island) was bought by University of Michigan Medical School in Spring 2007 and students were introduced from September 2007. The island is closed to outsiders. In Summer 2007 the librarians were gaining basic skills and exploring science, health, library and education locations. However, there were a lot of technical problems, and some gave up in frustration. In addition one person had problems with a griefer and never returned to SL.

At one point before launch the team had to put together a video very quickly to help persuade senior officers, and the speakers found this ultimately a positive experience. Perplexity said "What this told me was how EMPOWERING Second Life is. That a real batch of noobs could do this just blew my mind." This video is at http://youtube.com/watch?v=EfsSGBraUhc
From September 2007 they helped out with an optional module and then had weekly brown bag sessions: SLUM - Second Life at the University of Michigan. These sounded very interesting – speakers, discussions, tours, freebie swaps and so forth. They had RL meetings when the brown bags started and email and blog were important as part of communications strategy.

They also mentioned that they have a larger proportion of distance learners participating in SL compared with the RL proportion of the population. This makes it sound useful for this purpose: keeping in touch with remote learners. They have a (private) wiki, which people asked for. Acadamics are the biggest group of users of the library in SL, however.

They went on to talk specifically about the library: the original very traditional plan had been replaced by aan open building without a roof. There were some RL activities that were unfeasible or didn't make sense in SL. However, instruction; liaison; resouce guides and troubleshooting seemed useful things in SL as well as RL.

They said how they used "vendors" (used by shops) for exhibits in the library; namely the Eatavend system. They "sell" freebies of various kinds, like shirts, food, gestures, and features of the library include game days, patient supprt group, parties, a "spirit" shop and Perplexity noted that "the LIBRARY is the current designated designer of offical UM sports wear for Second Life"! Altogether they were using new skills and going into new and unexpected areas (scripting, world tours, teaching in your (SL) underwear!). They were reaching new people as well, by the sound of it. Perplexity said "Getting a presence with the community was what has paid off the most Just BEING THERE". I have noted how useful collaboration and partinership are, and perplexity said that "No man is an island - especially in SL".

Libraries, Education, Museums conference: 1

This is the first post on the Virtual Worlds: Libraries, Education, Museums conference that took place in Second Life on 8 March 2008, mostly in the NMC conference Centre. In this post I cover the introductory session, and one on a SL class with Chinese and US students.
This event was attended by about 80 avatars. It consisted for the most part of PowerPoint presentations, although there were a couple of interesting exceptions. The opening session was Virtual Worlds: Libraries, Education, Museums, and More from Barbara Galik (Puglet Dancer in SL) and Kitty Pope (Kitty Phillip in SL).
Kitty celebrated it as the first library conference in SL. I will comment here that the conference was more focused on librarians than educators though some educators (like me) were attending or presented. Kitty highlighted library developments in SL: starting with the huge growth of librarians and info islands since the start. She gave some stats (e.g. the thousands of queries answered last year).

One of her messages was that "Collaboration is not just key but king" and she talked about collaborations with organisations and individual librarians. She mentioned the courses in virtual librarianship which are run, and felt we should be aiming to have classes on virtual librarianship as core in information and library school curricula. My comment here would have been that perhaps virtual librarianship should, in the end, permeate the whole curriculum, coming into various classes. However, as with other innovations, it may need a class of its own to start with. Of course, in the UK we only have one year for our Masters programmes, so getting something into the core curriculum is trickier than in those countries (the majority) where Masters programmes last 2 years. We are making a start with introducing SL at Sheffield this year, although more as a learning environment than a site for virtual librarianship at the moment.

Puglet Dancer when on to talk about the practical issues to do with ongoing funding of the Info islands, in particular the recurrent tier (rental) charges. They wanted to create an endowment for sustainability. Secondly they would like to be able to pay some of the volunteers. Thirdly they want to develop networking more widely - reaching out to (I think) more types of library.

Other challenges or necessary developments for SL itself included the need for a simplified introduction or interface to SL, plus the need to support larger groups. I think the latter point is an interesting one: on the one hand it is certainly necessary to make it possible to have more gathered together in one spot. On the other hand it would be a pity if this meant a move towards the ineffective large-group training sessions that you sometimes have in Real Life (400 students penned in for induction etc).

It was nice that the affective reasons for being in SL were mentioned too: "Avatars are inquisitive and they like to have fun!"
This opening session took place in the Babbage Auditorium in the New Media Consortium conference centre. One interesting thing was that the speakers were using voice, but someone was summarising in chat as they went along. I was thinking that this is something that would normally be seen as "special" for the hearing impaired, but here was being done more generally (also) to help those who weren't voice enabled.
There were then parallel sessions. I firstly went to "Preparing U.S. and Chinese Students for Collaborative Activities in Second Life" Presented by Leaunda Hemphill and Hoyet Hemphill, who are faculty in the Instructional Design and Technology Department at Western Illinois University, USA. I went along as we have a good number of Chinese students on our courses (Sheffield University, Department of Information Studies), especially in our Masters programmes. As a Department we are concerned generally about improving the experience of our international students, and also I have had some international students in my SL sessions.

The two presenters explained how they have been teaching a class of mixed Chinese and US students for the past two years. The focus of studuy is "technology integration issues and professional development of (school) teachers". Thus there were professional development aspects for the students and also the objective was that they could use these skills in helping their own students (schoolchildren) to collaborate using technology. The students were in the US (4 students, working full time whilst they studies) and in Northern China (12 students). They met with the Chinese students twice for 2 hour sessions in SL. The local (US or Chinese) faculty provide support in terms of providing extra materials, advice etc and Chinese students had some additional material in Chinese.
Part of the class this year is an activity where students investigate professional development opportunities and have to share their observations via a wiki, and Second Life is one of the professional development opportunities for study. They had used Moodle and Elluminate (conferencing) software previously – they decided this year to concentrate on the wiki and SL.
There were two two-hour sessions in SL. The 12 Chinese students had them together in a lab (which is what I have done in induction for my students), whereas the US students had inductions one-to-one. The SL sessions covered "1) introducing Second Life; 2) traveling in Second Life as a tourist and then as a student; 3) building in Second Life, and 4) teaching and researching in Second Life."
The speakers gave more information on exactly what activities they did - including orientations in basics such as notecards and movement. They seemed to have a lot of visits and tours including encouraging students to invite each other to locations
Some observations concerning Chinese students:
- They noted the need to be careful with terminology & language.
- They noted how social interactions were important to Chinese students in addition to the educational ones. The Chinese students were more interested in the personal aspects - including in interactions with lecturers - than were the US students. This fits in with things that our own international office (at Sheffield University) tell us, as well as observation of our own students. Speakers thought it also might be because the US students were working as well as studying, whereas the Chinese were just studying.

In terms of the sites the students visited "at the end of their introductory activities, they reflected together on what they had learned. What was the purpose of the site? What was its educational value? How could a teacher use these sites in her/his classroom?"

They had discussions about what the interaction was between SL and RL skills e.g. using SL for developing interviewing skills. The feeling was that there were a number of applications for teaching.

One interesting issue that came up was that when they were using Moodle the previous year the 2 groups (US/Chinese) exchanged 500 (!) messages on discussion boards in about one week - talking about various issues. This is (my observation here) in contrast to a tendency in RL to gravitate into national groups.

Bluewave Ogee raised the issue of using SL as a preparation for study abroad, and the speakers said they are going to use it to prep students who are going to Denmark. Also one can see its use in introducing students who are from another country, giving them an introduction in SL before they travel to you to study.

Friday 7 March 2008

Gowns


Gowns bought: 3 (good); No. of events where can wear gowns: 0 (bad)
Have bought some extravagent gowns recently, namely:
1) Blue shimmery gown from Evie's Closet (shown right and centre). There is marginal justification for this since intend to use it for Babylon 5 role play (Centauri Society Woman). Or perhaps that doesn't actually count as an excuse?
2) Black gown bought in sale of Annah Couture for only 100 Linden. Was not sure about this at first as seemed a bit transparent, but fine with glitch pants from another dress underneath and skirt is very frothy. Has definite princess feel to it.
3) Purple dress from Digit Darkes, which snapped up as soon as it hit the feeds, and shown here worn with purple wooly cardi. Although as not as prim-heavy as their tulle skirts, skirt still clocks in at 61 prims.

Sad thing is that any would be ideal to go swirling about at dances (like one attended tonight, see pic), or showing off at conferences, but such is their prim count that this would simply be deemed anti social. Is strange paradox. Plus, have noticed increasing sad tendency of people to wear same stuff as in RL at conferences. What is the point if cannot swoosh about in pixelated costumes unfeasible in RL (I ask).

Land, Land, Sales


Amount of land sold: 4048 m (v. good); Amount off land bought: 2048 (v. good); Amount of land to sell: approx 6000 (bad)

Am selling up in Cove (one with lots of water and beach) and consolidating in my first sim (one with various houses, grassy slopes AND beach). Above pic shows how the Cove plots look now they are bought by others. Pic ONE shows state of one of the plots 2 days ago, and pic TWO shows it yesterday when all buildings had been removed. However a few rocks have now appeared back. Buildings and land are volatile things in SL, but I sort of like it.
House shown in middle is on plot which was bought by someone for immediate resale at slightly higher price (not yet sold, tee hee). Bottom left see some more new purchasers, I imagine exclaiming what an excellent deal they got. Background is also rather bleak since nice neighbour (Van Johin) also sold up. He is shown in separate pic conversing with me before he left. Must now put up rest for sale but is all very ennervating, though exciting when you see the Linden clicking into your inventory and the odd bit of foliage winging its way into Lost & Found, indicating that the land has been sold.
In bottom right of main pic you see me celebrating since the next door neighbour who put up the brick warehouse & complained about my trees has put up his land for sale. Hurrah! Of course, whoever buys it might put in worse than a brick warehouse, but will keep my fingers crossed. Land that have bought is from another nice neighbour and is prime stuff directly overlooking ocean, so now have long stretch of beach with lagoon and infinite sea view.

Wednesday 5 March 2008

One for Dr Joolz

Graffiti walls photographed: 1 (good); Grunge building bought: 1 (good); Freebie incense stick bought: 1(good)

On eternal quest for new bangles and necklaces discovered yet another Japanese sim. To some extent had all usual suspects, but also a few new, and as ever interesting to wander round builds. This was place selling urban buildings and various other bits and pieces including free incense sticks. Also had this wall of graffiti which reminded me of excellent blog of colleague Dr Joolz. Is interesting question whether graffiti will have been created by creator of building or whether is photo of someone else's graffiti.

When got back to Infolit iSchool, put grunge building next to Nigl's tiki, will have to see whether he notices.
Realise have not mentioned actual purchase of bangles (1 set) and necklace (pretty with blue stone and key), above, but you can just take it as read that some purchasing of adornment takes place whether mentioned or not.

Tuesday 4 March 2008

ILU, Chairs

Have now put online the chatlog from the discussion on the Information Literate University held in Sakura House on Infolit iSchool on 26th Feb: it is at http://sleeds.org/chatlog/?c=236. Also put up stuff from notecard (plus diagram that had mounted on a poster, see 2nd pic) at http://dis.shef.ac.uk/sheila/ILU-SL.pdf

As can be seen in 1st photo, was nice number of people, not so few as to feel embarrassing or so many as to render chat chaotic. However, as always when went through chatlog noticed conversation that had passed me by at the time, most mortifying. In particular someone who asked 2/3rds of way through what exactly an ILU was, and the rest of us just chuntered on and the person who had asked didn't say anything else during the discussion. Argh. Feel guilty about lack of improvement in discussion-leading skills.

You will note from chatlog that 2 people commented favourably on chairs in Sakura House. Comfort of chairs mentioned by one person but not sure how to interpret this.

Should have followed up to discover whether was lack of poses in chairs that found favour.

Incidently, chair in question is the Nice Brown Chair by Sudane Erato (see 3rd pic), costing 100 Linden and comprising 4 prims. Suppose could make similar for free, but this chair does job nicely and since can modify and copy has seemed well worth the 100 Linden. Can be obtained at Cosy Cove (218, 162, 2)

The blog of Sheila Yoshikawa on her adventures in Second Life. This may be very thrilling. Or possibly not.