Our first stop on the expedition brought us to the virtual version of the Seeley Mudd Library, which was built by CJ Carnot (Chris Holden) from NMC Virtual Worlds as a vehicle for collaboration between Librarians and other staff that share the real world space. By using a number of scripted interior elements, Chris created a place in which the individuals that would use the building after the remodel could participate in the redesign process through a simple, menu driven dialogue.

For more information on this project, check out the information for Ken and Themba’s session at the 2009 NMC Summer Conference in June.

or

Our recently published case study about the Mudd Library project in Second Life on the NMC Virtual Worlds portfolio site.

If you missed the expedition, you can still check out the space at this SLURL.

Our next stop brought us to the Elihu Paper Mill, which was built as a cost effective and safer alternative to visiting a real Paper Mill while still highlighting the different processes involved in making paper on a scale that can be related to. According to our participants, the only thing missing from the experience is the smell (which apparently is not especially pleasant, anyway!)

For more on the Elihu Paper Mill, check out the information from the aptly named Summer Conference session:

or

Our own Elihu Paper Mill case study, including a link to a machinima piece of one of the faculty lead field trips:

Also, visit the project inworld at this SLURL.

If you have any questions for Themba Flowers or Ken Panko about their projects, you can contact them at themba.flowers at yale.edu and ken.panko at yale.edu, respectively.

As always, questions, comments, and additional insights are welcome in the comments of this post or to NMC Virtual Worlds directly at chris at nmc.org or beth at nmc.org.

If you captured an images during the event, please tag them with “VWEx”! We hope to see you for future VWEx sessions on the first Wednesday of every month!

If you are interested in obtaining a chat transcript of the event, you can do so with the link below:
July VWEx Chat Transcript

Join myself and Chris for Virtual Worlds Expeditions (VWEx) that will take place the first Wednesday of each month (see below for time and place). The first few trips we have lined up include recent projects we have completed. First up, for Wednesday July 1 (check local time) we are taking a trip to Yale University, where we will visit two exciting projects- the Yale Paper Mill and the Mudd Library. Our colleagues from Yale will be present to discuss the project and how they are being used now.

cc licensed flickr photo shared by NMC Virtual Worlds

The Yale University Paper Mill was designed to give students an experience in industrial production processes at a facility that would normally be too dangerous or unfeasible to visit. he virtual paper mill serves as a substitute for student field trips and features accurate modeling of real world machinery and equipment, with all the sights and sounds (sorry no smell yet) of a paper mill.

cc licensed flickr photo shared by NMC Virtual Worlds

While the virtual Mudd Library is a replica of an existing building, it does things in Second Life you cannot do in real life. This virtual tool was created to allow people to explore ways of redesigning an existing structure that was due for renovation- All three floors are open space where you can add windows, doors, walls, and furniture to envision a new library. When done, you can generate a digital copy of the new floor plans.

To promote a participatory design process, it was proposed to create a virtual model that the future occupants could actually plan themselves, allowing for the fact that they had little or no experience in either architectural design.

If you are interested in joining this expedition, meet at 10:00 AM PT (check local time) at NMC Campus (we will leave teleporters there if you miss the start of the tour). We will likely tour for an hour.

We’re back from the 2009 NMC Conference in Monterey, California and as with every year it was an incredibly engaging experience. While every year allows us to meet individuals with Second Life projects on the horizon and those we’ve collaborated with throughout the year, it is always an extreme pleasure to see what is going on in other realms of new media education. As with the rest of NMC, the NMC Virtual Worlds project is committed to pushing the boundaries of innovative uses of technology for learners and educators and absolutely no virtual world developer on earth could have a better organization in which to feed and fuel that dedication.

A few favorite moments:

* Exploring the concept of a learner’s “suck threshold” as Kathy Sierra so eloquently outlined to us in her keynote.This concept is one that is particularly poignant and will be lasting throughout the year for me as a Virtual World Developer! I will continually be asking myself how to create virtual environments that move learners from a noobie avatar to an engaged, involved, collaborator before they feel discouraged by the sometimes complex notions of virtual spaces. We’ve often discussed how important it is to remove finer grain technical aspects from a Second Life educational experience so that the real learning is in the content, but somehow the “suck threshold” strikes a stronger more encompassing chord!
* The marachi version of Star Wars’ “Catinia Song” shared with us by Marco Torres during his keynote session, which subsequently stayed in my head the entire day!
* Meeting the Adobe Training staff and realizing what a waste of CS3 Master Collection it is that I am focusing only on Photoshop!
* The absolutely amazing pictures produced by the Point Lobos Photo Workshop lead by Bill Frakes and Don Henderson.
* A conversation with Jared Bendis of Case Western Reserve University and Ruben Puentedura of Hippasus in which a highly intriguing idea bout Second Life evolved: Would Second Life be more engaging if your presence or lack thereof effected the environment in sustained projects? I can’t wait to find a way to put this concept into action this year.
* Doug Engelbart: Inventor of the mouse! I couldn’t possibly think of a better candidate for this year’s Fellows Award.
* Bryan Alexander’s (NITLE) session on Gaming on the Liberal Arts Campus. I’ll admit it, I attended mostly for personal reasons as an active gamer, but the concepts and ideas discussed were not so far removed from things that we experience everyday in virtual worlds development. For instance, the methods of assessments being based not on how well one plays the game (interacts with the world), but based on the critical analysis of the experience within. While we’ve been saying for years now that “Second Life is not a game” (the argument even arose in this session!), I am ready to throw up a white flag and continue absorbing all the information I can in anticipation of a truce on the horizon once the two are less mistaken for each other. Another bonus to this session: I added a few new books for the summer including Bryan Alexander’s “Gaming in Education”, “Videogames and Education” by Harry J. Brown, and “Understanding Comics” by Scott Mcleod.

As soon as we have a chance to catch our barings, I’ll be posting more information on NMC Virtual World’s session, “How to do an Educational Build in Second Life”. For now, I’m happy to be back home to the good old virtual world!

I’ll say at the start, this is not a grand and exciting piece of architecture, but a simple plaza featuring some display boards with an entertaining  little secret - if you get the chance, do visit it and wander among them. It’s apt though, as I prepare for our session, because although I’m an architect, I’ll spend some time considering the appropriateness of ‘buildings’ in the virtual world, and the fact that although our first instinct is to start throwing up walls and roofs, they’re not necessarily the best solution to a problem, and with imagination and a defined goal, a ‘build’ can be almost anything you want it to be. If you’re coming to Monterey, I’m looking forward to seeing you there!

I’m Beth Sachtjen (aka Stella Costello) from NMC Virtual Worlds. You’ll be hearing a lot more from me in the future as I blog here straight from flickr or otherwise. I’m excited to be able to bring you a window into what I do with NMC Virtual Worlds and offer a “behind the scenes” look at just how it is I spend my day. While my time might not be as vast as my list of things that I’d like to share, among the things I have planned are tips, trick, and how-tos and introductions to some of the folks I meet everyday around the NMC Campus in Second Life.

As most of you know, The New Media Consortium (NMC), a non-profit consortium of learning-focused organizations founded in 1993 with nearly 300 college, university, and foundation members, has been in Second Life since 2006 and is responsible for introducing immersive learning to many of the most prestigious educational institutions in the world. Although pieces of the NMC story have been told throughout the years, it’s always interesting to take a more holistic view of the largest education project in Second Life and—for that matter any virtual world—to both understand the history of how the NMC project in Second Life came to be and glean best practices.

The case study Developing New Learning and Collaboration Environments for Educators: The New Media Consortium (NMC) in Second Life is available in English as a 548k PDF with soon to be released versions in German, French, and Japanese.

NMC CEO Larry Johnson’s quote on the cover, “I think it’s safe to say now that nearly every college and university has some sort of project in Second Life” seems to be the catch-phrase:

The NMC Campus in Second Life was originally built to provide NMC members a place to experiment in virtual space, but quickly became a conference center venue for virtual conversations, such as the MacArthur Foundation series on Digital Media and Learning and the IBM Global Innovation Jam. The original design has since evolved into a full campus with dozens of thoughtfully designed virtual facilities for meetings and learning interaction. There is a library, a fine art museum, a conference center, an orientation island, an island-sized open-content object repository and much more. Over a 100-day period in 2008, 15,518 visitors from 56 countries visited the NMC’s virtual campus for an average of 98 minutes each.

We at the NMC are proud of this work, yet much of it rests on the interests, efforts, and energy of thousands of educators that make of the NMC Campus community. And it is very fitting that this comes out just a few days before the 3rd anniversary of the April 2006 NMC Campus opening. At that time, we had no idea how far this would go, and even at this point, we don’t see any sign of an end of how far we will go.

The case study includes quotes from several key people in the evolution of the NMC Campus, such as from former NMC Board Chair Lev Gonick, CIO at Case Western Reserve University:

The NMC’s business model for virtual worlds is consistent with the mission to spark innovation and creativity,” Gonick said. “Second Life is an invitation to explore, create community, and advance common interests and purpose. This is also the core mission of most universities and colleges. The NMC Campus Project is one of the most exciting undertakings ever made by the NMC in its 15-year history.”

And we plan for the excitement to continue…

World Builder from Bruce Branit on Vimeo.

Filmmaker Bruce Branit uses this environment to tell a touching short story.

Sure enough, this looked like a class or group getting into SL for the first time, and it was fun to watch the baby avatars walk, talk, and dress themselves

Since July of 2007, the NMC has offered our own web site for creating SL accounts, where the newly created avatars end up on the Orientation Island we designed and created, rather than the crowded and often, intimidating, public ones. NMC Orientation also offers advanced orientations for people that may want to go back for a refresher (learn more…).

In that time, our site was ushered in over 7000 new avatars, and you can see the history in our tables and charts of our Registration Stats page, including a big bump in September 2008 when Robins Hermano aka Steve Hornik, accounting professor at the University of Central Florida brought more than 900 of his students in world.

NMC Orientation offers a less crowded experience for new avatars, but for one at a time newbies, it might be odd as there is often no one there. We’ve discussed about trying to organize some volunteers like the ISTE Docent program does so well. One tool we hope to finally add is similar to one we use on our NMC Conference Center Help Desk, where we can list four avatars who are available to help, displayed on a board that indicates if they are online.

If you click a panel, that person gets a message and can then come over to help (ironically, this is technology we borrowed from the escort business in SL!). We’ve been wanting to do something similar at NMC Orientation, and have some empty boards up for a while:

If you have ideas about such a program (what a nifty one it would be for experienced students to work as guides in SL?) or are interested in helping out, let us know or send CDB Barkley a message in world.

Regardless, we continue to see new people enter Second Life, and we are all (I hope) interested in doing what it takes to make their entrance a positive experience and to have them stick around.

This fourth of these online conference held completely in Second Life, Rock The Academy is intended to explore the ideas and activities that are changing/revolutionizing the shape of education today. With some meeting and greeting, NMC staff welcomed attendees from as far away as Hong Kong, Australia, and Austin and one NMC staff member stationed in Iceland.

At the reception, participants took on the challenge of our Treasure Hunt; you can try it yourself by looking for the instructions in the treasure chest placed out in the Grace Hopper Expo Center. This activity had people looking all over the Conference Center sim for the magic lamps that handed out clues to a puzzle. Top prizes (L$2500) went to Marcia Kjeller and Chimera Cosmos for getting in their answers first– and Marcia was gracious enough to turn over her prize to the avatar that was newest to Second Life- Shaffer Parx who had made his avatar at just 1:00PM yesterday.

We then went down to the Cooper Coliseum for some fabulous live music from the very talented Jean Munro:

There is just something that is so exciting and what makes Second life special to be virtually together with a live performance.

The Symposium opens today with a welcome at 10:00am PDT by NMC CEO Larry Pixel (aka Larry Johnson) and we have a great opener in Desideria Stockton (aka Beth Ritter-Guth) on “Teaching Naked: An A-Z Guide to Open Access Teaching”. Other sessions today touch on using Wikipedia and YouTube in Academic Research; Virtual Cinematography, History of Ideas via the BBC’s In Our Time. and Infrastructures and Sandboxes in Second Life.

Today we are really rocking!
http://www.nmc.org/2008-fall-virtual-symposium

And project lead Anya Ixchel (aka Angela Thomas) reports that they have done 20 tours over the last two weeks, averaging 2000 visits per day and more than double that on weekends.

But more than parties, this place is a stunning example of creating a rich immersive experience in Second Life. Learn more about the Foul Whisperings, Strange Matters project and be sure to check out the resources and educational materials on the Virtual MacBeth wiki.

Don’t just read about it (or gaze at all the photos). Go there. Get inside MacBeth’s head.