Virtual Worlds Blog
Jan 16, 2008 03:27pm
Today, on the anniversary of the founding of NMC Virtual Worlds, the New Media Consortium announced new directions for the NMC's special services unit in the coming year, and affirmed the continuation of the work it began a year ago and continued throughout 2007. NMC Virtual Worlds provides a full palette of support to educational institutions wishing to explore, build, or establish a presence in a range of virtual worlds. The program offers all of its services to educational institutions and museums on a simple cost-recovery basis, resulting in deeply discounted pricing for qualified institutions.
In 2007, NMC Virtual Worlds served more than eighty colleges and universities, providing services from full virtual development to special custom tools and builds to leases. As NMC CEO Dr. Larry Johnson notes, "2007 was a year in which campuses made their entries into ... more...
Nov 29, 2007 01:57pm
Next week marks another NMC Online Symposium that will take place entirely in Second Life. Following on the success of our August Symposium on Creativity in Second Life, December 3-5, 2007 will be the time for the Symposium on the Evolution of Communication.
NMC Symposium on the Evolution of Communication will explore the premise that technology has not only mediated communication in countless ways, but that the very ways we communicate—and even the ways we talk and think about communication—are changing as a result.
Added to and fueling the premise is an admittedly unscientific assessment of how we have added to those forms in recent years. A look in almost any direction will reveal patterns of communication very different than the traditional writing in which we were trained. Small bursts of information, technology-mediated for the most part, permeate our experiences, and increasingly ... more...
Oct 10, 2007 09:49pm
After collecting a long list of suggestions from our communities for what to include in an Orientation Island experience, we are ready to have some early birds test out NMC Orientation, our new entry in Second Life designed specifically for students and educators. Our use of the Second Life Registration API allows us to have our own web site for creating new accounts and when these new users first log in to Second Life, they will find themselves at the NMC Orientation Island, rather than the public one most of us experienced (and hopefully survived).
Our NMC Virtual Worlds builders went creatively way over the top in creating a build that ought to be talked about for a long time:
Photo by Torley note the WindLight sky
There are actually several orientation experiences, each one in a different themed neighborhood modeled after the ... more...
Sep 4, 2007 11:30am
NMC's Virtual worlds is starting a new project for Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that is intended to bring real world data into Second Life, to provide a place for education and public outreach-- all in the CDC's goal to "be everywhere". See "Second Life" Lets CDC Be Everywhere—All at Once
CDC´s work to advance public health means going where people are. As every virtual person represents a real person, CDC´s presence in Second Life offers yet another opportunity to learn and teach about public health. So, if there are thousands of people spending significant amounts of time online, where better to influence their health-related decision making? CDC messages of all kinds can be placed in this space for people to view passively or with which to become more actively engaged in efforts to improve their own health; and ... more...
Aug 1, 2007 03:10pm
Three educators are going to Chicago for the Second Life Community Convention.
As you know, the NMC is sponsoring three registrations from bona fide educators to attend SLCC by covering their $185 registration fee with an NMC Fellowship. Each of the awardees sent a statement explaining how attending SLCC will help further his or her professional goals in the coming year. Any bona fide educator was eligible.
It is August 1st, and as promised, we have selected the recipients of the SLCC fellowships for this year.
Please join us in congratulating the awardees!
AJ Brooks -- Montclair State University
Johnmac Maverick -- Monroe College
GrandMasterFoo Woodget -- Minneapolis Public Schools
These fellowships are part of the NMC's planned presence at SLCC in Chicago later this month, where the New Media Consortium and its Second Life unit NMC Virtual Worlds have agreed to ... more...
Jul 25, 2007 10:26pm
The New Media Consortium (NMC) and its Second Life unit NMC Virtual Worlds have agreed to serve as the lead sponsor for the Education Track at the Second Life Community Convention (SLCC) in Chicago this year, as an expression of gratitude for all the support we have received this year from the education community in Second Life.
As part of our sponsorship, we plan to sponsor three registrations from educators active in Second Life who would like to attend the conference by covering their registration fee with an NMC Fellowship.
To take advantage of this -- $185 value -- send Larry Pixel a notecard in world explaining how attending SLCC will help you further your professional goals in the coming year, along with your institutional affiliation. Any practicing educator is eligible.
We will select the entries August ... more...
Jun 8, 2007 07:19am
During the NMC Summer Conference today the New Media Consortium (NMC) announced that it has joined the Media Grid’s Immersive Education initiative to participate in the development of best practices and standards for virtual learning and game-based learning platforms. NMC is an international consortium of over 250 learning-focused organizations dedicated to the exploration and use of new media and new technologies. NMC member institutions are found in almost every state in the United States, across Canada, and in Europe, Asia and Australia. Among the consortium’s membership are an elite list of the most highly regarded colleges and universities in the world, innovative museums, research centers, foundations, and forward-thinking companies. The consortium’s collective wealth of experience in building virtual learning environments in Second Life will be applied directly to the Immersive Education initiative.
Earlier this week the Immersive Education initiative was launched ... more...
May 30, 2007 10:18pm
Colorado Technical University (CTU) is holding a grand opening party for their new sim- the party is called "Bonfire" and will take place June 1-2 (from noon on Friday PDT to noon on Saturday). You can find CTU at Colorado Tech (128,128,0).
From our colleague at CTU Lyr Lobo:
Colorado Technical University is proud to invite you to Bonfire, our Second Life grand opening party June 1st-2nd (Friday noon - Saturday noon SL Time) featuring 24 hours of live music and celebration. Many thanks to the New Media Consortium's (NMC's) Virtual Worlds team who designed Colorado Technical University's Second Life campus.
Several of my student projects from our computer science classes, including the Amusement Park and the Maze Game Traps, will be out on the Boardwalk for you to enjoy. I presented them at the Best Practices in Education in Second Life ... more...
Apr 27, 2007 08:46am
There's some exciting work underway at NMC Campus. We are working with the Linden Lab API for account generation that will allow us to host our own new user account creation form on this web site, rather than going through the form at the main Second Life web site. When the account is created, a new avatar will not be sent to the Orientation Island with every other newbie, but they will go to our own custom Orientation Island.
It means we will be able to customize the Orientation process with special resources and tips aimed at an Educational audience. We'll be able to provide landmarks to the best education destinations. And we plant to recruit a set of mentors interested in helping out those newly minted avatars.
Today, we got our registration script working (it communicates with Linden Lab to verify ... more...
Apr 19, 2007 04:05pm
We have gotten a tremendous response to our announcement earlier this month about the three Teaching sims that offer plots of land available for lease to educators. Plots are still available, and once filled, we expect to open up new sims.
If your organization is interested in applying for one of the rental areas, we have a new rental agreement form that includes all of the information you need to know, and is also the application form you can complete, and return to NMC to secure your land.
NMC Virtual Worlds Lease Agreement:
http://virtualworlds.nmc.org/docs/rental-agreement.pdf
Note that this PDF contains editable fields, so you can open it on your computer in Adobe Acrobat Reader, fill in the form fields, and print out a clean copy for sending to NMC. more...
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