Moderating

Sessions moderated: 4 (good); Percentage of speakers appearing on time to give talks: 100 (v. good); No. of pics taken during moderating: 5 (bad)
Calmed self before conference through use of tai chi (see first pic) and it had desired result since rather enjoyed moderating duties in end. Only down side was that since taking pics seemed to trigger crash computer out of SL, did not dare take any until last of 4 sessions, when had minor supporting role.
This was session about "veteran dialogues": ex soldiers in USA using SL to talk about their experiences. Jenaia was really chairing session and I was sort of backup link person. Therefore risked taking pics at that point, and duly crashed. This showed had been sensible not to try previously, but was pity since in particular session from Globalkids Bixby had been very photogenic (involved Globalkids dressed in bee costume raising teen grid avatar from coffin). Earlier in day had encouraged own students into SL and know that majority attended at least one session, after some fiddling around with headphones and audio settings. Saw various other people, including Dousa who was involved in recording some of the conference, and had some nice chitchat with Loreena.
Am wondering whether crashing thing could be avoided by some sort of computer upgrade. However, would have to be inexpensive computer upgrade, what with funding cuts to Higher Ed etc.

Attended some of a session about recording stuff, and learnt about new screenr-type app, which immediately used to record part of the session on recording stuff. Am not sure can remember what it was called exactly - screencastomatic? - something like that. Feature was that you had the opp to upload, download, whatever, and then clicked "done" and it was gone. Main disadvantage over screenr (apart from it not staying online) was that it seemed to have a rather small area for the recording screen.

After this went to session on focus groups. Quickly emerged that I WAS the session on focus groups, since only other person was presenter. He had filled in time by putting words expressing pain in having noone turn up to your session on innovative interactive board. Had interesting conversation: at least I thought it was interesting. Only thought afterwards that perhaps should have asked for a copy of innovative board as prize for being only person there.
Finished day, heady with earlier moderating success, by volunteering to moderate more sessions tomorrow. May regret this.

Awesome-ish

No of sessions am moderating at VWBPE: 4 (good) No of speakers with whom have not made contact: 1 (bad); No. times crashed out of SL in last 18 hours: more than 18, I think (v.v.bad)
Have not had serious crashing problems for a couple of years, but am currently attending the VWBPE conference and with huge crowds in first session was just like old days of no sound, greyness, bits of sim suddenly vanishing (see first pic) and sudden crashes. Sims created for conf are steampunk and awesome (see 2nd pic) but wonder if also a bit lagtastic. Particular worry as am moderating sessions shortly and do not want to crash in mid-moderate.
But enough negativity! Loads of speakers and lots of them v. interesting - and all free! And you can attend the conf in slippers.
As I am doing.
Or is that too much information.
http://vwbpe11.vwbpe.org/

Digital designing

Venues retextured for event: 1 (good); No. of items of clothing created: 7 (or 9 if you count all the bits of shoe separately) (good); Neon cherry blossom balloon dispensers deployed: 1 (good); Notecards created: 1 (good); Magic bottle created: 1 (good, if accidental); Quantity of floor mysteriously disappearing: half (bad)

In fact did all the above yesterday: today was digital literacies seminar that advertised a few days ago, where was being Chair and organising venue. Am now in brief post-event Euphoria, and chief desire is to zoom round SL acquiring new clothes and getting new Home to rights (in fact am going to have to do Emergency Marking even if it IS a Saturday night, v. depressing)
May or may not write more about the event on this blog: can legitimately put something on Serious Blog about content. Therefore on this one will mainly concentrate on fripperies i.e. clothes and decoration.
Had already retextured the venue used for ESRC conference in March, picking up colours from cute poster. Decided to push out boat with seminar memorabilia, starting with a skirt using semi-transparent textures of the poster, then to get a bit more creative did t-shirt (the well-worn template from Robin somethingorother) and Jeans (a template on some LL site), using the bluebird from the poster to create patches. Reused bolero template (bought for last event) putting said cute bluebird on the chest knot. Also found some sculpty full perm shoes on xstreetsl (I hope legit, they didn't look good enough quality to be ripoffs) and made blue shoes and stockings to match.
In fact for first time decided that could bear wearing my customised clothing for the event, though with some Shiny Things flats rather than my shoes. The Infolit Week in SL necklace and earrings rounded out the look, and also a small bluebird on my shoulder.
Before this had tinkered around with other sculpties, to make some kind of artifact to put in the pack. Ended up by stretching bottle sculpty, putting a sort of label on it with the seminar banner and "sit on me" and when you sit on it it disappears and you are sitting in a meditation pose in mid air.
This was not altogether deliberate. I WAS intending to put the pose in the bottle, and I was able to change some of the parameters, but I didn't know it was going to disappear when you sat on it (think the script must be assuming it is a pose ball, that you would want to disappear). Didn't work out how to rotate the sitter round 90 degrees either, but in the end thought it was quirky enough to pass muster. You could have a circle of them as seating, then when you all sat you would be suspended in air. Cool or what (don't answer that one)
Other disappearing thing that will mention was the floor. The venue floor is taken from the "Cercle" build that used as HQ from Infolit week in SL, rather a nice stone round. When standing about chatting afterwards noticed that half of this had vanished. Also could no longer see a variety of other things e.g. posters, Farradane Centre, half of Hobbiton. Had had a couple of people in the event who dashed around fruitlessly for most of the afternoon (and continued to do so as we stood and talked) so worried that had been griefed. Going back in later, it seems that the buildings are ok, and the posters are back, but the floor isn't. Did I delete it by mistake?

Exhibiting

Exhibits catalogued: over 40 (good); Calendars created: 1 (good);Times crashed: 2 (good, considering)
A quick post after extraordinarily long day in SL. Am at the Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education conference (http://www.vwbpe.org/), where am one of the people looking after poster area. Spent most of day creating catalogue of exhibits, taking landmarks and putting them into a notecard. Followed up this activity by taking some pics and creating a calendar using the IntelliCalendar, for promotional purposes.

Intend to distribute these 2 items in almost-spamlike way (but not quite spamlike, obviously) tomorrow, to try and boost visitors. These are the February and (I think) March pics from the calendar. As can see, February is actually my build, but, hey, I paid the 100 Linden for the IntelliCalendar blank and spent an hour making it.

Moving in circles: it's time

Educators meetings attended: lots (good, if circular); No. of these meetings starting at 10pm or later: all (bad)

Have not organised any meetings since Christmas, but have tried to get back into swing of things by attending the Virtual Worlds Educators Roundtable meeting more regularly, and also organising committee meetings for Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education.

Unfortunately former start at 10.30 pm on Tuesdays and latter start at 10pm on Weds and Thurs, so means that am getting late night habit again. Broadband reception on mobile stick has also been v. variable, so means that if want to be sure that can actually attend meeting have to go into office (rather than stay at home, attempt connection, login and rez v.v. slowly, catch a few minutes, crash, then stare at little light on mobile stick til it turns requisite blue colour again, indicating some minimal connection, so whole cycle can start over again).

First pic is from VWER meeting on 12th Jan. Unfortunately am now totally unable to remember what topic was, am sure it was riveting at the time. [Added later: I just checked. It was "The Future of SL and VW through the Eyes of M. Linden." I think my contribution consisted of suggesting making it easier to add metadata to Objects. You can't get much more riveting than metadata, can you.][Added still later: realise that had already blogged this in previous entry. But am too lazy to take it out of this one]

2nd pic is from the VWER this week (2nd Feb). This was a talk about ethical and legal isues in SL. This was also revieting, obviously, but am afraid that chief memory is that one of the speakers was wearing a demo skin. Could tell this as it had DEMO written on it in various strategic places. Was distracted into wondering whether this was a mistake (you may remember I spent some time wandering round with demo eyes without realising), or some sort of anti-consumerist statement. Anyway, you can find all the VWER transcripts here: http://vwer.podbean.com/
3rd pic is me at a VWBPE organising committee meeting. This looks v. similar to other pics, except there are less of us. The VWBPE organising committee is chaired by Zana, who is a wizard person, being hardworking, well organised and pleasant. Actual conference is 12-13 March. This pic was taken at around the point when felt compelled to volunteer to do more work, viz being one of the leaders for the poster stream. Unfortunately this has set me up for yet another post-10pm meeting tomorrow, Saturday i.e. starting at 11pm. Hey ho.

On another note, have just seen irritating new essay by Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams in which they propose doing various things that quite a lot of teachers have been doing for years, as if these were new ideas and they were lone radical voices. They include v. large number of dubious generalisations about collaboration, as if was always Good Thing That Students Love (evidently THEY haven't done much teaching). Not that am AGAINST collaboration, far from it, hasten to add, but is not solution to all world's problems, by any means. Essay is called Innovating the 21st-Century University: It's Time! Lord knows in UK can't get away without constantly Innovating, or at least producing Annual Reflections and Strategic Plans and so forth that say that you are. Perhaps is different in USA?

Was going to link to essay, but then thought, they have publicity enough, why give them another link. If you are v. keen, just copy the title in Google, and up it will pop.

Cautionary tales

No. of presentations on SL given to librarians: 2 (good); No. of times that was assured that SL would be installed and it wasn't: 2 (bad); No of people stumbling into SL demo who turn out to be audience members: 1 (bad)

Gave quite a lot of talks at conferences during the last month or so, including some on SL. Two that were just about SL provided some lessons for the future:
1) Lesson 1: When people say SL has been installed, do not believe them.
In both cases we had said that "You will need to install the Second Life browser (at the venue) and you need to test out SL to make sure it works". Have decided that people interpreted this as "You need to make sure that you can go to www.secondlife.com and log in".
Time line for first talk was:
- zero hour minus 2 hours: arrive at venue, am greeted warmly, escorted up to room. Am not able to get into networked PC since greeter does not have password to login. She disappears saying techie will be sent.
- zero hour minus 1 hour 40 mins. 2 other conference speakers have put heads round door and said they are lost and can I help them. I have established that own laptop will sort of do SL with my mobile 3G stick in a laggy kind of way, and plug into the data projector. Co-presenter (Ishbel) arrives.
- zero hour minus 1 hour 20 mins. Ishbel establishes that her laptop works with her mobile stick. Then both our mobile sticks lose signal and SL goes phut. Someone arrives with password for networked PC. We establish that it does not have SL anywhere on it and we cannot install SL since we are not admins. Ishbel phones techie help desk several times and finds that techie has gone to tea; also confirms that that network cable is too short to fix to my laptop. 2nd co-presenter (Lulu) arrives. She does not have a mobile stick, not that this matters, since we have a superfluity of non-functioning mobile sticks.
- zero hour minus 1 hour. Someone arrives with a cable. It is the wrong cable. Finally techie arrives with correct cable, joins network to laptop and We Have Liftoff.

Similar experience with 2nd talk, but in more concentrated form. Networked PC was already switched on, so was quicker job to identify that SL was completely absent from it, and also work of moment to plug my laptop into network and data projector. Also it picked up strong Eduroam wifi signal. Thus seemed all roses at point at which techie arrived: however fraught 20 mins followed as both of us completely failed to get an internet connection, even though laptop insisted it was connected. Breakthrough came 5 mins before zero hour, when one of the audience (who had seen our fumblings via the data projection) gently told us that she had noticed that the WORK OFFLINE box had been ticked. oops.

2) Lesson 2: Do not make fun of avatars.

With 2nd presentation, done jointly with Kitty Mumfuzz (a recruitment specialist in RL), had not prearranged to meet anyone in SL during the SL demo. Have got to point where there are always a couple of Friends online, so thought could probably tp someone in to show there is Life in SL etc. However, this proved needless, since when rezzed, saw that someone was already on Infolit (unknown to me, but think he was from Open University) so was able to say Please Say Hi To A Roomful of Librarians and so forth.
Then yet another person turned up. Thought name was familiar, but couldn't exactly place it. Went through the Say Hi To The Librarians bit, and then went on to do a tour of Infolit. However, the 2nd avatar kept following on behind, which was Ok, but felt a bit awkward since felt I needed to explain what I was saying in RL, but really couldn't do that AND attend to the RL audience.

Thus I resorted to cheap laughs in terms of "Oh dear, here's XXX yet again!" and generally the whole talk seemed to go pretty well and the audience went away smiling. Except that is for the person who approached us at the end and revealed himself as - the 2nd avatar. He had meant to say who he was earlier, but once I started treating him like a joke stalker he felt too embarrassed.

Obviously, felt v. embarrassed myself and was feverishly trying to remember if had said anything really rude about his avi. Was also reminded that had met avi more than once, which heightened embarrassment.

Anyway is certainly something which will bear in mind in future. So, if you happen to meet me and I tell you to Say Hello To The Librarians you can rest assured I will not be mocking your clothes, profile or demeanour, for fear that you are lurking in the audience.
Photos: I didn't take any pics of these experiences. Instead:
The first pic shows the self-affirmation bear. You click him and he gives you random self-affirming thoughts, of varying degrees of humour. I liked: You have a beautiful smile animation. Secondly you see a dance I attended at Cafe Ristretto last Thursday, with live music and benefit to supporting HIV/AIDS awareness. Finally we have a pic of the SL Educators Roundtable that took place last night.

Information Literate plans

Chatlogs edited and mounted: 1 (good); New Google calendars created: 1 (good); New wiki page created: 1 (good); Emails sent to important IL person: 1 (good); Anxieties about amount of work storing up for self: many (bad)


Have put online the transcript of the discussion on 10th June, which discussed the idea of a US Information Literacy month (see http://www.infolit.org/news/campaign.html) and the possibility of an Information Literacy Week in SL. The chatlog of our meeting is here: http://sleeds.org/chatlog/?c=437


Was a smallish meeting (boosted by a few observers to start with) but there were good ideas and people thought that an information Literacy Week in SL was feasible and worth pursuing. You can read more in the chatlog.


Have created a page on the Infolit iSchool wiki here http://infolitischool.pbworks.com/Information-Literacy-Week-in-Second-Life-2009 (please tell me if you have problems viewing it!).

Set up a calendar on Google here, which obviously doesn't have much on it at present, though there is a meeting on 9 July at noon SL time to update people - plus obviously the week istelf is already on the calendar.

Sent an email to the Vice Presidents of the National Forum on Information Literacy (which is behind the Info Literacy month initiative) and it looks like they will be supportive. Yay.

So, only oodles and oodles of work to be done to plan it .... am already getting distracted by planning the freebies, to start with, an Information Literacy calendar (using the IntelliCalendar factory ... this, of course, involved buying the factory. Will explain its working when have published the calendar).

Conference cavortings

Conferences attended in RL: 1 (good); Conferences attended in SL: 1 (good); No. of feet aching after 90 mins dancing in RL: 2 (bad); No. of feet aching in SL despite dancing in 6 inch heels: none (good)

Hmm. Yet more "doing so much have no time to blog". Spent last weekend doing moderating and other stuff at the Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education conference, which appears to have been success - must have been 200 avatars in one or other of the conference tracks at many points - in fact probably most of the time. Took zillions of photos (well, possible exaggeration, actually about 100) and so will do some sort of blog entry if mostly consists of pictures.

Am currently at RL conference (LILAC, on information literacy) and tomorrow will be presenting session on SL and information literacy with Ishbel and Pancha in RL and Maggie and Lulu in SL. Well, that's the idea. The pics show us planning for this session.

.

Spent good deal of today preparing for tomorrow and a) failing to get pc in conference room to work b) trying to get t-mobile stick to work with my laptop; c) trying to get local wifi to work with SL with anyone's laptop; e) getting Edinburgh Uni VPN to work (hurrah, it did).

In fact in end the situation will be that Pancha will be logging in to SL via Edinburgh (we are in Cardiff) and projecting to the screen, meanwhile we will also log in on the lecture room pc (which turns out to work with passwords other than the ones we've got, but is somewhat sluggish to say the least) and I can login with my 3G stick which is slowish but if I don't move around too much the graphics are OK.

Our hope is that at least one of these 3 will remain operational long enough for virtual Maggie and Lulu to wave, smile and type in their deep thoughts about information literacy and SL.

You can tell Ishbel, Pancha and I are into this type of thing since we look like a laptop convention, Ishbel's is the coolest, i.e. a mac, which is automatically cooler than anything else in the room.

Visit, learning, conference, time passes

Visitors from GFU: 6 (good); Conferences volunteered for: 1 (good - I think); GIS objects created: 4 (v.good); Dawns watched over Educational Informatics Island: 1 (at least)

Gosh, see that is nearly 2 weeks since last blogged. My how time flies when one is dashing around trying to do RL learning, teaching and assessment whilst maintaining one's SL wardrobe at the cutting edge of fashion.

Have been putting almost-finishing touches to Educational Informatics island, and one evening had to collapse exhausted into a hammock to recover a little before rising refreshed to face a new day of shopping. Island (in sky over Infolit iSchool) is for the RL class Inf6011 Educational Informatics. Idea is that each member (there are only 11 of them) will claim a house. In each house is a poster board with a landmark and notecard giver in it. People have to find an educational place in SL, take a pic of it, and also put in a landmark and write a notecard with an educational critique. They will talk about this in a Show and Tell session after Easter.

A few more of them have already been into SL, and the thing kicks of properly next Friday. In the meantime I was able to show it off as the final destination on the tour of Infolit iSchool given to educators from George Fox University, led by Robin. Maggie joined us for this last bit, and people seemed to enjoy it (2 middle photos show visit).

There is a tutor's room, where North (who is doing a session for us) will probably put up a link. Also installed Graham's Story Machine which people liked. Am sort of hoping that one of students will want to get to grips with it and do something interesting, as is embarrassingly long time ago that was given a demo by Graham.

Have drifted into organising committee for Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education conference being held in March - turned up to one meeting and was struck by lack of Europeans so felt should get involved. Have volunteered to chair one session and also suggested a couple of keynotes, one of which (Jackie) was agreed on, so that introduces a European element at least.

Also have gone to some Educators Coop meetings. With RxTopGun's CSI Austin made mistake of going home and logging in from there. Meant that couldn't see starting video properly, got stuck etc etc so didn't have full experience. Is pity, since is v. cute activity: first you enter a film theatre & see a video showing someone going to a rooftop bar and keeling over dead. Then you go THROUGH the film screen and fall down to the entrance to the building where the crime took place. You tp up to the bar where the woman died and there she is in a dramatic spotlight. Clicking on a board takes you to a website where you get different bits of info and then to have to answer some questions about what happened to her. Should have said earlier that is pharmacy course, so you can see the CSI connection.

Last meeting was more successful as logged in from work. Gadget gave demonstration of kits used in SL labs for a GIS (Geographic Information Systems) course (see picture). Very cool, and Gadget said that some students had commented about SL enabling them understand more through touching the objects they created with the kits.

Sheila Yoshikawa is, sort of, not at a conference

Conferences attended in RL: 1 (good); Conferences attendded in SL: 0 (bad)

Am in RL attending the Relive08 conference at Milton Keynes in UK. Can meditate later on differences between RL and SL conferencing. Have decided that since is not normal practice in this blog to give coherent, full and objective account of Life, then will not give full etc etc account of the conf either. So welcome to partial (in both senses) account of the Relive conf. Except suppose will edit out more critical observations in case people read blog and then come and trash my sim.
At the moment am listening about someone talking about using SL for teaching English as second language. She has interesting table comparing phsyical affordances of Skype, SL and RL compared. Must be said, most boxes are ticked in all 3. Haven't talked to people much about teaching in Skype although now use it (as evidenced by my Skyping-whilst-Voice-still-on incident blogged previously).Previous speaker (who I may blog separately) had talked about giving individual their own OpenSim islands to play in first, and speaker is now talking about teaching learners by giving them their ownl ittle mat or platform, but asking them to collaborate too. Of course, North uses dorm rooms for students to furnish, which others have taken up as idea.
Speaker (Margaret) uses the holodeck to create littlke scenes for people to practice their English in e.g. hairdresser, garage, kitchen. Apparently in hairdresser can have hairdresser conversations, something which have managed to almost avoid all my life by only going to hairdresser 3 times a year and keeping my hair long so only spend 10 mins standing up whilst hairdresser attempts to cut round me in a straight line.
"As yet little evidence of language learning communities" - despite the fact that learning environment is good for immersive language learning - is it that people just move into RL when have got enough out of SL learning? Speaker think it may be because ESOL scene is commercial dominated, with people herded in and then not particularly encouraged to stay.
OK well seem to default to trying to get down speaker's point of view at least when liveblogging. Difficult to break habits. Another issue is how to illustrate entry. Am not going to put in RL photos of people, because that just isn't right on this blog. Hmmm. In interim have a couple of pics of the conference SL cafe, including one with my poster advertising discussion session on Infolit iSchool.

Off to the conference

Conferences attending in RL: 1 (good) (I hope)

Am on way to Relive08 conf where will meet various people who only know in SL. As ever this seems a challenging business, in terms of getting used to differently-shaped people with standard hair colourings.

Have already visited SL conf centre in which there is v. artistic arrangement of avatar pictures. Such is brain degradation that had forgotten even supplying pic, but there it is simpering down from wall with everyone else's. Admire advanced photoshop use in giving different coloured backgrounds and arranging in coloured pattern.


Also admired display of customised merchandise, vis standard fare of t-shirts and less usual one of caps. In SL as in RL do not wear t shirts but does not stop me snapping them up.

Adventures in Voice

Successful uses of voice: 4 (good); Embarrassing Skype-related voice incidents: 1 (bad); Appearances in video: 1 (good)

Have been using voice bit more than usual recently, with mostly good results. Have twice made guest appearance when Bluewave was giving demo of SL to educators in RL in the USA. This involves going along for 5 mins and saying e.g. "Hi I'm from the University of Sheffield in England and it's 9 in the evening here!!!" thus showing international nature of SL etc. etc. Most recently did this last Tuesday - cannot produce pics for this at present as turned out that at some point had ticked some option to take pics in compressed format and do not yet know how to uncompress this batch
Anyway, turned up, said piece, then accepted tp to next part of Bluewave's tour which was interesting exhibit of strange mathematical forms which can also be bought as sort of scultpture for 2500 Linden. At this point seemed to get left behind, but soon anyway it was time for the SL researchers meeting, so off I went to Monash University.

This featured Sleepy Littlething talking about her research, which was v. interesting. However, was at this point that had Unfortunate Incident with Voice, since had decided to multitask and phone friend on Skype to arrange time to meet in RL later in the week. Had forgotten to turn off voice, so went through whole "Hello" "Hi, I'm phoning you on Skype" "Yes, it's raining here too" type of thing before realised that text messages were flying around inworld telling me to turn my voice off as was broadcasting this banal conversation to all assembled researchers.
Double embarrassment as
a) Was incompetent and
b) Showed that wasn't exactly giving 100% of attention to Sleepy.
Hey ho.
A couple of days before had exercised Voice more productively in Poetry Slam. Several people including Rolig Loon presented their own poetry and then others were encouraged to read from their own poetry or just poems they liked. Volunteered to read two short poems, one by Alasdair Grey and one by Thomas Hardy. Whole event was enjoyable. Interesting how much impact poetry had when it was simply typed into text (as happened for most of the poets). You really concentrated on the words and some of them were very moving.
Had volunteered to be part of panel at EDUCAUSE conference last Wednesday (important American educational conference) and whether because were not many volunteers or because added international flavour, was asked to do my bit. This consisted of talking about teaching on Infolit iSchool for 2 minutes in Voice. Useful exercise in conciseness. Lineup was described in notecard sent to panel as "impressive" but adjectives of this nature were not used in emails to SLED, so presumably "impressive" was just to make us feel special.
Arrived in good time for panel, and was unusual experience in that could see video feed from RL conference AND Voice worked fine. Robin was in audience: pleasant to see friendly face. Additionally was on second, so could sit back and relax quite quickly, and feel (of course) deep empathy when 2 of the other speakers couldn't do Voice - one was silent and the other kept cutting out. Pathfinder Linden appeared late but people tend to be rather deferential around the major Lindens so no-one made cutting remarks.

Finally, in this vein, was immortalised in another video, this from HVX, who was presenting in RL form at a conference in Singapore. She produced v, good video in which am featured twice: once talking about libraries in SL and once about the conference platform and the texture I used for the base (which was a RL photo of an aircraft vapour trail).
Here it is embedded (I hope) otherwise go to http://blip.tv/file/1375957/. Video is called "I am Library".

Interest, Talk, Recognition

People expressing interest in SL conference: 5 (good); Talks given about SL at RL conference: 1 (OK); No. of people spontaneously addressing me as Sheila Yoshikawa at RL conference: 1 (good)

Interest in conference increasing including one person who wants to do SL poster - hurrah! Suppose should put in link to info about conference so here it is: http://networked-inquiry.pbwiki.com/About-LTEA2008-in-Second-Life

At RL conf was encouraged when identified as Sheila Yoshikawa by another delegate, that not being name on RL conference badge, naturally. Also gave talk about using SL for my class and for IL generally, was bit discouraged when no questions afterwards, evidently had not presented SL as stimulating wow-factor environment - or perhaps too much so? Or perhaps simply was talking too fast.

Interesting but obvious point: when access SL from other side of world, SL is (of course) exactly the same. So not evident from above pic that was in Australia when took it.

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.

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.

SLCC conference (2)

Days of conference attended: 2 (good); Info science lecturers contacted: 1 (good); Freebie dresses picked up: about 50 (baffling); Freebie academic gowns picked up: several (v. good)

Started this post totally alone in Muriel Cooper Coliseum, on NMC (New Media Center) conference island, listening to first session in today's Second Life Community Convention conference. The slideshare tag is http://www.slideshare.net/tag/slccedu07 (though not everyone used it). Link to proceedings is http://www.simteach.com/slccedu07proceedings.pdf. There was audio-only broadcast in SL, and at least today you could hear it. Wondered if people in RL in conference centre could see me (turns out, not). ppt of 1st talk is here - experiential learning with different activities.

More people came along for 2nd session, about the Nutrition Game. People took a day's virtual meals in SL, and the food had nutritional info on it. At the end of the day the participants were told the implications of their diet and asked various questions e.g. whether they had learnt anything (answer: they thought they had). The paper is in the proceedings and there is a wiki which has info on this, and on the subject of the third session, the Appalation environmental game.

With third had curious experience of listening to a video being played to people in Chicago - some clear description but quite a few pauses while people in Chicago could watch things on screen. Quite soothing and we were given web address for the video, namely http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPcXOgANdyc. Sneblen Dagger and Desideria Stockton did a grand job of trying to find slides, web addresses etc.

"Gosh, this is cool" (I wrote at the time) "I'm listening to a transmission from Chicago sitting in my Cossack Jacket and First Blush dress with others from different parts of the world" Well, mostly different parts of the USA. An alternative view, of course, would be that I was one sad person sitting at my computer on a Bank Holiday Sunday afternoon.

The fourth speaker talked about Violence Prevention in Second Life: creating a simulation of a violent city area in the USA so that people training "violence interrupters" in RL can give these people opportunities to train without exposing themself on RL violent streets. Their SL island is CeaseFire Island. They use voice - that's probably quite important for this application. There is also a full paper from them in the proceedings.

One of the issues that was touched on in questions and backchannel was when you needed to create something tailored and contained, and when use what was there in other parts of SL already.

Crashed out a few times, including annoying interlude during question session after these 1st set of talks, when decided to log back in using computer with superior graphics card in student lab, but had (v.stupid) forgotten they have no sound at all so experience became just a bit TOO soothing i.e. sitting in virtual conference centre where is no movement or chat. Even stupider, then tried to log back in on other computer and was ejected for trying to log on from 2 places simultaneously.

When finally got back in, was talk on Salamander project (see ppt here), aiming to index educational objects, builds etc etc in SL, with people joining in on this, indicating what the objects etc. a useful for and evaluating them. It builds on Merlot which has been a project to archive, index and evaluate educational resources in the real world. In fact think that I have something nominated in Merlot, but to be honest have not used it myself. Am always a bit sceptical about this "reuse of learning objects" business. Is interesting to look at what others do, but have not found much would want to reuse directly (mean more generally, not just Merlot). The actual wiki is at http://www.eduisland.net/salamanderwiki/index.php?title=Main_Page I wondered whether library and information professionals were involved, and someone said they were.....

During questions from this session it emerged that North Lamar is also in an information Dept. He owns TWO islands and has a blog at http://educatorscoop.org/blog. I offered him Friendship and he accepted. In fact remember he presented at the conference the other day, plus I think I might have looked round one of his islands. Will make contact after conference as looks like could have common interests.

In the break I zoomed round the area near Ishbel's and Citril's looking at the possibilities and what sort of neighbours there were. Some looked promising, some ..... possibly didn't e.g. the owners who mostly seemed to belong to sex groups.

Anyway, back at the conf. it was the session on SL library and Info Island. Barbara Galik, Bradley University, US (RL name) talked about what they have done for students and staff at her university, where it was sounding like they have been pioneers in their institution & have got a Dean involved in SL. Dewey Jung (SL name) talked about his involvement including with school librarians. He mentioned the Elven Institute "The ELVEN Institute's mission is to assist preK-12 educators and librarians to envision, construct, and use engaging virtual learning environments in order to demonstrate and document their value in increasing student achievement and growth." (http://elveninstitute.org/ this didn't have anything except a home page & list of board members when I looked)

I crashed out in the final session and just came back for questions at the end. Some people in the RL conference said that the conference had seemed rather transmissive (though that not actual word used) and that interaction with SL would have been good. I said I thought that there could have been more in SL perhaps with participation from those who couldn't attend RL conf. Also thought afterwards that ideally would be reciprocal - some sessions in RL where they observe/hear SL sessions and engage us in discussion. Would have to be short "presentation" part, though. Would seem odd to be in SL conference session where can't immediately zoom off to web or indeed zoom off for coffee or a RL chat without anyone at the conf. noticing.

Apparently there was no coffee at the conference. Cannot conceive of conf. in UK being organised without tea/coffee breaks, riot would ensue. Not saying this is good thing, of course, but golden rule for organising events in UK is to make sure refreshments turn up on time and preferably exceed people's expectations.

After conf. was finished flew round NMC conference island. Interesting, lots of nice inlets and mountain paths, would like to have similar on my island. Means there is less usable land, but think make sit lot more exciting. Discovered there was the Darumi Picnic "A capella" artwork installed (see pic with coloured objects). This is the 3rd place I've seen it, it gets everywhere. Also v. good conference shop with immense no. of freebies making up for lack of SLCC conference bag. Took one item with innumerable dresses, and another which included female academic gown (see pic, think I would look cuter in academic gown if had blue hair like this). Think can only get on island if at conference, so took copies of male and female academic gowns for various Friends, can have fun parading round in them. Wonder if Ede and Ravenscroft exists yet in SL (this is UK firm with gown monopoly in RL).

Left this freebie-grabbing orgy to meet Harumi (in Luna - see 2nd-last pic- , then Bedfordia after we got trapped in the basement of a sinister looking factory) and then have chat at Ishbel's house. Ah, the social whirl.

SLCC conference (1)

Conferences with "audio streaming" attended: 1 (good); Audio streamed; practically none (bad); Games of primtionary played: 4 (good, mostly because didn't win)

Before the social visit mentioned in last post attended first full say of SL conference - education track of big SL convention being held in RL. Conference in Chicago (USA) apparently in hotel which not really geared to the needs of hundreds of bandwidth-hungry delegates, and net result was that audio streaming to SL mostly did not work on Saturday.

In fact got muddled about time so missed first inworld session, but arrived for session on disability and SL which think was put together to compensate for lack of audio streaming. In fact this turned out to be best thing of 2 days I think, probably because all inworld. Had not thought much about problems of students with special needs, but certainly need to. Up til now SL has been good for those with hearing impairments, but as voice comes in gets more problematic again. In RL group work & discussion is more of problem that "lectures", would imagine is same in SL.

Not sure about dyslexia - can see arguments both ways - will perhaps consult student who has nearly finished PhD on dyslexia and acquiring information. Here we have notetakers (usually students) for people when is identified that they have special need and can't see why you couldn't have same in SL. Full transcript of this session is up at http://sleeds.org/chatlog/?c=76

After this audio streaming resumed but only in strange muffled way, and could not understand what people saying, not even when was James Dearnley who is Brit (from Loughborough Uni) moderating session on Scilands.

Therefore was proposed that we avatars have game of primtionary. When first announced paniced, esp. as to begin with was talk of TEAMS and it brings back schooldays and no-one wanting self in their netball team, and rightly so as was rubbish at netball. And rounders. And hockey. Compounded this panic by, meaning to IM Ishbel saying something like "arghh now they are selecting teams", instead speaking out loud to conference room.

Turns out primtionary based on pictionary. Someone IMs a word to builder and then builder has to build something out of Prims to represent word, and first person guessing words is next builder. Catch was pretty easy to spot, and as am not v. good sport nor v. good builder knew better than to guess.

However not as daunting as thought, esp with easier words, one pictured is MOUTH. Last one was INTEGER though - well, I mean.

Parallel organising of RL/SL conferences seems horrendously complex and fraught. Think will continue with SL only events for now, gradually increasing their scope.

CITASA

Conferences attended: 1 (good); Times computer crashed out: 2 (could be worse); People spoken to at conference: zero (bad)

Attended the CITASA conference in Second Life. Was a 3 hour event, which started at 10pm UK time. Talks were about identity in Facebook & SL, women & gaming, teaching in SL, Facebook & surveillance and some other related topics.

Slides are going up on Slideshare at http://www.slideshare.net/citasa/ and will not attempt to summarise talks esp. as now is 1.30am (i.e. conference has just finished). The actual programme is at http://www.slideshare.net/citasa/citasa-mc-30-program/

Sussed out venue beforehand (see first pic with me wearing New Shoes That Fit), but when tried to reenter 10 mins before start, SL seemed to hang, then RL friend phoned and in end was 10.20 before arrived. However organisers still fiddling with the data projector, so lateness not a problem. Some interesting points emerged, and also (as with previous conferences) useful to attend event to learn about how events run in SL. Somewhat depressing that found once more that, as in RL, when don't know anyone, more difficult to chip into conversation.

CITASA is the Communication and Information Technologies section of the American Sociological Association and although have something in common as researcher and educator, am not sociologist. Therefore worry more about appearing idiot - also quite a few people seem to already know each other - some attending RL event in the USA. Plus side is, of course, that (like BlogHer) this is conference which couldn't attend in RL, so experience is valuable and is first contact with community that may want to get to know better.

Certainly overlap with information science/management agenda in terms of privacy issues, social networks, and very interesting to hear research approaches described by others. Magellan Egoyan said that "In the Embodied Research Group [which he's part of], we have identified at least four scientific methodologies in use by different members of the group – behavioural experiments, a quantitative means of study ; conceptual design approaches ; computer simulation studies ; and qualitative research." He noted that to get rich picture, would use all of these, so collaboration between researchers valuable.

JoannaTrail Blazer's talk on “Participatory Pedagogy: Challenging ‘Real Life’ Practices of Educational Institutions in Virtual Worlds” identified useful points about student behaviour. Since don't intend to use SL for transmissive type teaching, useful to hear from those using facilitative or challenging approaches.

Some other references etc. are the website for Educators Coop (where educators can get little plots of land) at http://educatorscoop.org/ , and a reference from Joanna, “101 Uses for Second Life in the College Classroom” (Conklin, 2007 http://facstaff.elon.edu/mconklin/pubs/glshandout.pdf). Similarly, have started to compile thoughts on things to do or avoid when organising SL conferences, but shall save those for another time. Final pic shows me in obligatory freebie t-shirt from conference bag plus badge which was originally stuck in rather unfortunate position so good that now know how to move objects about.