Second Life ™

ISTE sponsored and hosted informal presentations by 5 different Education groups - Knowville, ELVEN Institute, SLolar Central, Teacher Networking Center, and of course, yours truly — DEN in SL!!! I wanted to get the pics up (thanks Rip!) and am awaiting a write-up from one of my LC colleagues — I was out of commission with food poisoning.

OK….I’m drawing a total blank here!  I THOUGHT I could upload an image from my hard drive!  Now when I click on the ‘image’ icon in the menu it’s asking me for the url?!?!?  I’ll have to come back to that.

What a great workshop!  Cel had some difficulty getting in-world (as we all have over the last couple of days) and just as I was getting ready to pull out everything I could lay my hands on on profiling she shows up!  PHEW!!!  That was a close one (it’s a good thing that sweating doesn’t show up in SL! LOL).  We hung out around a crackling fire outside and Cel proceeded to teach us a thing or two (or in my case three or four).  I just love the way she begins her workshops - she has a virtual way about her that breaks the ice and makes everyone feel comfortable.  And then it’s down to business.  It got to the point where we had a visit from the Island Manager and I can only imagine how many of us right clicked on his ‘head tag’ (I know I did)!  In fact, things were a little laggy (though I didn’t think about it at the time) and I informed him that his profile was blank and that perhaps he might want to consider joining us.  Only after I thought about it for a moment and realized that that would not be possible did I click on him again and got his full profile! LOL  I’m hoping that Cel (HINT, HINT) will put together a notecard on profiling tips and make it available in the DEN HQs.  This is DEFINITELY something that we could all improve upon and often just overlook.

Join us, this Wednesday, November 28th, when Celestia Cazalet presents ‘Profiling: It Can Be a Good Thing’.  The workshop will take a look at all the information on an avatar’s profile, how to update it, add picks, make notes about other avatars, and explore the reasons why a profile should be completed — at least a little!

Time:  5:00 p.m. SLT (8:00 p.m. SLT EST [thanks Lor for catching that!] — or as Celestia put it — 7:00 p.m. CST!)

Continuing with our Wednesday Workshop series, I want to share with you a listing of our upcoming workshops so you can put us on your ‘to do’ list.

Title:  Show & Share - Gestures 

When:  December 5th; 5:00 p.m. SLT (8:00 EST)

Presenter:  Riptide Furse

Description:  This will be a Show and Share session focusing on gestures and animations. If you want to know how to use gestures or you have a cool one you want to show off, then join us for this Wednesday Workshop. If sharing a gesture without full perms, please have the info where you purchased it ready to share with others.  Otherwise please be willing to share the gesture with other participants. This will be a voice chat enabled session.   People are not required to have a microphone or use voice but others may be speaking so computer speakers or headphones may be necessary.

Title:  Your Inventory Is NOT Your Junk Closet!

When:  December 12th, 5:00 SLT (8:00 EST)

Presenter:  Laelia Laval

Description:  Do you dread clicking on ^Inventory^ when you’re in SL?  Can’t find those shoes that went with your ‘Look At Me’ outfit?  Remember getting an educational tool, but don’t remember what it was called or where you put it?  Then this workshop is for you.  Learn some tips and tricks to manage your ^Inventory^ and actually start to organize all those objects.  This will be a ‘working’ workshop, so come prepared to dig in and get dirty!

Title:  Show & Share - Bookmarklets

When:  December 19th, 5:00 p.m. SLT (8:00 p.m. EST)

Presenter:  Riptide Furse

Description:  Bookmarklets help save you time while you’re browsing in Real Life. If you have bookmarklets you can’t live or browse without, we want you to share those with us. If you don’t know what the heck a bookmarklet is, then come and find out about these handy dandy tools.  The DEN will reimburse you if you want to upload a screenshot to go along with your Share. This will be a voice chat enabled session.  People are not required to have a microphone or use voice but others may be speaking so computer speakers or headphones may be necessary.

We hope to see many of you there!

I KNOW he’s gonna kill me when he reads this post, but too bad!!!

I’ve posted elsewhere, and I believe I might even have posted here how I believe we are no longer dealing with the ‘read/write’ web, but rather with what I’ve coined ‘Web C³‘ which is Consume, Contribute, and Collaborate.  I know that we use different tools for the collaboration portion.  We do call outs for help on Twitter, work together on VoiceThreads, etc.  Even though we’re working together we’re not always there together.  Second Life changes all of that.  Let me repeat:  SECOND LIFE CHANGES ALL OF THAT!!!

Here’s what happened…I was working on gathering some final pics to include in my presentation for the upcoming NYSCATE conference in Rochester, I logged into SL, and WHAT?????!!!!!????? every white sign had a pink tinge to it!  OH NO!!!!  It couldn’t be!  I tp.ed to ISTE and luckily RavenPhoenix was there.  She gave me some great pointers, but none helped.  I logged out, logged in, downloaded the updates, NOTHING!!!  So I put out a 411 via gmail to Riptide and within moments (literally) he was in-world.  We met at DEN HQs and he talked me through various scenarios and within minutes he narrowed it down to the fact that I had an ‘X’ in front of ‘beacons on’ (or some such thing) in my View menu.  He saved my presentation!!!  It was so much more powerful having someone actually (virtually???) there with me.  Yes, he could have e-mailed me back (and forth, and back and forth, etc.), I could have twitted my problems (though as you know, still not a Twit-fan), or we could have called, but his being there with me made all the difference and resolved my issues almost immediately.

Second Life is the PERFECT platform for ‘Web C³‘ — we consume the information others have created, we contribute to that body of knowledge with objects and notecards, and we are able to collaborate in real time.

RIP…YA THE BESTEST!!!  And I’m honored to have you on our team!!!  GO DEN IN SL LC!!!

Thanks to Riptide for leading this workshop.

First pics from the workshop
http://www.flickr.com/photos/krossbow/tags/slpostcard/

The workshop covered different options in the FILE menu and the choices in the the snapshot preview.  Participants went over managing the viewer  using different combinations of the CTRL+ALT+SHIFT keys.  Everyone learned how to send postcard snapshots using the snapshot preview and their pictures can be seen in Flickr using the tag slpostcard (see link
above).  The attendees were given hands on practice exploring a multi-sided cube end table trying to find a hidden object by using their camera/view controls to zoom and look around it without leaving their seats.

The workshop moved into more hands-on experience.  Riptide rezzed specially made backdrops with poseballs and the participants were encouraged to choose one or two and take a picture that makes them look like they were at those places in Second Life.  The backdrops included standing the at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, underwater at the The Abyss, in a hurricane at The Weather Channel HQ, a ski slope at The House of Snow, walking on The Great Wall of China and visiting a Mayan pyramid at Visit Mexico. Hopefully participants will send us some of those pictures so we can see how they did.  (HINT, HINT, HINT! LOL)

The workshop then moved on to more advance options by uncovering the hidden menus of Client and Server by typing CTRL+ALT+D on the keyboard.  They learned how to take high quality photos and also turning off the snapshot sound so you don’t disturb presentations or other events with the sound of your picture taking.  They talked about and practiced using the Disable Camera Constraints option in the Client menu.  All explored Eduisland II while remaining seated at the workshop.

The workshop ended with some more practice of the handling the viewer.  Participants were charged with the task of finding an object that Riptide had hidden on the roof of the DEN building but they had to stay on the ground.

If you weren’t able to attend the workshop, don’t worry…plans are underway to coerce Riptide to offer this workshop again.

Beth Kohnke (RL- Beth Knittle) and JuliaAnn Mills (RL- Julia Colby), who are members of the DEN is Second Life also are part of Lighthouse Learning Island.  They will be hosting a few learning opportunities on Second Life in the next couple of months. These sessions are open to all educators in Second Life. We will meet at the Lighthouse Learning Island Teleport hub, near the calendar at the Lighthouse. Please IM Beth Kohnke or JuliaAnn Mills in Second Life if you have any questions. Looking forward to seeing you there.

Getting Around in Second Life
In this session we will tour various educational venues, as well as, some places of interest. We will learn how to make landmarks so you can easily return for further exploration. We will teleport, use the map, and search tools to help us get around in SL.

Friday November 16 4 pm SLT, 7pm Eastern
Repeat on Saturday November 17 4 pm SLT, 7pm Eastern

Organization is Everything
You will quickly find that your inventory can become very unorganized and it can slow you down. In this hands on learning session we will help you clean out and organize your inventory. We will learn to make folders and rename items for easy retrieval.

Friday November 30 4 pm SLT, 7pm Eastern
Repeat on Saturday December 1 4 pm SLT, 7pm Eastern

Presenting in SL
We are members of a global network of educators and it is time we begin to share our expertise and experiences with others. In this learning experience we will look at the basics of how to present in SL and some of the options and tools to aid in presenting. We will also discuss how to find a venue to host a presentation and ways to advertise.

Friday December 14 4 pm SLT, 7pm Eastern
Repeat on Saturday December 15 4 pm SLT, 7pm Eastern

Over 20 avatars showed up for Celestia’s Digital Story Telling workshop at the DEN in SL on November 10th.  For those of you who were unable to attend, but would like to participate in the contest, here are the rules:

“The Great Digital Storytelling Experiment” Contest Rules (sponsored by the Discovery Educator Network (DEN) in SL Leadership Council)

Limitations:

The focus of this contest is to produce machinimas (videos created entirely in-world). Submissions must be completely composed of video, images, and snapshots created entirely in the world of Second Life.
The contest is intended to be an engaging way to encourage the exploration of digital storytelling as a tool in Second Life. Since we are an educational collaborative, please remember to keep contest submissions appropriate - refrain from using content which would be considered as offensive. Basically, if it is something you would not be able to show your students, then it is not appropriate for this contest.

Categories:

Best “Life in SL” video
Best Historical Reenactment
Best Content Lesson (take us on a tour of an educational place)
Best “Out-of-the-Box” (doesn’t fit into any other category)
Best Overall
Best Low Tech (using things like Animoto, Voicethread, other freebie
auto things)

Deadline to submit entries is Saturday, November 17 at midnight SLT.

Submissions should be emailed to eplybon@gmail.com and include your SL name, your RL name and state (if it is okay for us to publicize it), the program(s) you used in making your machinima, and what category you believe you are entering. By submitting a video for the contest, you are agreeing to the display of the video at the DEN in SL headquarters and on the DEN in SL blog (http://www.denblogs.com/secondlife). Entrants may submit more than one video.

Winners will be notified by email and there will be an awards ceremony on Tuesday, November 20, at 5:00 SLT (need not be present to win).

Prizes will include, but may not be limited to:
·       Best Overall winner will receive a working in-world camera helper
·       Decorative in-world cameras for first place winners
·       Camera Followers for second place winners
·       Certificates for the top two entrants in each category that you can display proudly on the wall of your SL office or home
·       All participants will receive a t-shirt commemorating their participation in the contest

But most of all - you will win recognition! Winning entries in each category will be displayed on the media player at the DEN in SL headquarters for the rest of the year!

Contest rules are also available at Google Groups HERE.

For a chat transcript of the workshop (so you can pick up all the cool tips and tricks shared by Celestia and the other participants), click HERE.

Riptide Furse will be presenting this coming Wednesday, November 14th, at 4:30 p.m. SLT (7:30 p.m. EST) as part of the continuing ‘Workshop Wednesday’ series.  His workshop is entitled, ‘Take a Picture, It Will Last Longer’ and you will explore taking screenshots using Second Life’s built in screen capture tools. Rip will show you how to unlock hidden options to use your viewer to take pictures from many angles and distances.

Make sure to send your photographic masterpieces to me, at laelia.laval@gmail.com as either jpegs or as a link to a Flickr account so that I might include them in the blog reviewing the workshop session.  Thanks.

Our first Wednesday Workshops at the DEN was held November 7th.  Our guest presenter  Thonalon Umurov planned a great session to teach the basics of building.  He started out explaining prims and the ways to edit 3D objects.  The session began with participants selecting a sphere shape, learning how to enlarge it, move it, and then hollow it out to make a vase or planter.  Thon then showed us how to change textures and gave a link a landmark to find some freebie building tools and textures.  I can’t wait to see the final planters and vases decorating offices and homes in SL that were created by our DEN in SL members last night.  In fact, I would LOVE to have you send me a picture of your creation so that I might add it to this blog.  Please send your image (preferably jpeg, or a link to the image on Flickr to me, laelial.laval@gmail.com; please list ‘Thon’s Pottery’ as your ^Subject^ — thanks!!!)  Check out ‘Basic Pottery Workshop Notes from Thonalon Umarov’ in the ^Pages^ section of our Google Groups.

Thank you Thonalon for sharing your knowledge with the DEN in SL members and for being the FIRST presenter in our ‘Wednesday Workshop’ series.

We hope to see you at our future Wednesday Workshops:

November 14 - ‘Take a Picture, It Will Last Longer’

November 28 - ‘You Are Your Profile’

December 12 - ‘Your Inventory Is NOT Your Junk Closet!’