published 20.May.10 by Beth Sachtjen
NMC Virtual Worlds will be at the 2010 NMC Summer Conference in Anaheim to present our session Second Life Horizons – Catching Up with Another Year of Virtual Worlds on Thu Jun-10, 10:30 AM PDT- 11:45 AM PDT.
If you plan on attending, please feel free to say “Hi!” through our Pathable page.
20.May.10 
Blog 
Read more 
Comments (0)
published 06.May.10 by Chris Holden
If you’ve been reading Beth’s design diary you’ll already know we’re working on a new orientation island for Viewer 2 over here on the NMC Campus so I thought I’d give you a sneak peek of our progress with the Disneyland Castle (in recognition of this year’s Summer Conference venue) in the foreground and the Brussels Atomium in the background. We’re very excited by the opportunity to try and create a magical, educational and informative experience for new users here. The theme of a World’s Fair will hopefully give it a global appeal. The design concept is a simple linear path with the minimum of boring signs, to quickly teach the basics without overloading a new user, while discreet diversions will offer all the in-depth information a more experienced user or return visitor might require.
The project also offers a unique opportunity for you to visit while we work, as it’s being developed right in the heart of the NMC Campus on the sim currently named Conference Centre South. Remember it’s a work in progress, but you’ll be able to see us develop everything from the overall plan, to the largest architectural constructions, to the smallest, scripted, interactive elements. If we happen to be around we’ll also be happy to answer your questions and discuss the issues around a project such as this. Perhaps it’ll even inform or inspire your ideas for a project you’d like us to develop for you in the future!
06.May.10 Blog Read more Comments (0)
published 03.May.10 by Chris Holden
As I was recently asked the question of how to enable dynamic shadows in Viewer 2, here it is for all to use. If you didn’t even know SL had dynamic shadows, they’ve been around for at least a year now, but have remained an unsupported feature, tucked away behind a twisty path of submenu options, so use at your own risk!
1. Control-ALT-q to enable the ‘Develop’ menu
2. Develop -> Rendering -> enable ‘Framebuffer Objects’
3. Develop -> Rendering -> enable ‘Deferred Rendering’
Enjoy!
03.May.10 Blog Read more Comments (0)
published 27.Apr.10 by Beth Sachtjen
The review panel has completed its work reviewing the proposals for the NMC’s “Free Island in Second Life!” competition. We received many excellent proposals and we would have loved to have been able to fund them all!
We have awarded the use of the island to the Wired Humanities Projects and The Center for Learning in Virtual Environments at the University of Oregon for their “Virtual Oaxaca” Project:
“Virtual Oaxaca,” A Second Life Island for an NEH Summer Institute
This July, thirty stellar K-12 schoolteachers from around the United States will participate in a four-week, National Endowment for the Humanities-funded, summer institute in Oaxaca, Mexico, offered by the Wired Humanities Projects, University of Oregon. The Center for Learning in Virtual Environments will collaborate in the creation of a simulated “Virtual Oaxaca” that will enhance these experiences. The participants will anticipate their experience together by building a virtual environment between April and June. Once in the field, in July, they will use the space to capture and display the journey as it unfolds, engage students from around the world to participate, chronicle what they are learning, and represent and remix their findings with the public.
Prior to the journey to Oaxaca, they will begin by placing Flickr sets anchored to a 3-D map of the state of Oaxaca that features ancient pre-Columbian cities (such as Mitla, Monte Alban, Teposcolula, and Calixtlahuaca), living indigenous communities (homes to colorful handcarved wooden animals, shiny black pottery, or wool woven into geometric-patterned rugs), key spots in the capital city (such as the textile and art museums, the beautiful ethnobotanical garden, the chocolate mills, the open-air craft and food markets, the manuscript restoration workshop, the history museum and library in the sixteenth-century convent, contemporary art studios, the film center, and even our own classroom spaces. Classroom spaces will be the scene of many social and cultural activities, including linguistic and musical demonstrations.
The plan is to experiment in creating a contextual space for dialogue about indigenous peoples’ origins, struggles to survive in the face of conquest and colonization, language evolution, evolving art practices, and filmic portraits. The team will shape a mini-world where participants will be able to represent their Mesoamerican inquiries and interactions with indigenous collaborators and faculty, journaling the experience with wikis and other Web 2.0 media inworld and in context.
In the opinion of the reviewers, this project not only was structured in a way that made full use of both the resource and the time frame in which it was available, but also exemplified the potential of a virtual environment for sharing rich cultural experiences that can blend both the real and virtual.
We look forward to seeing what they do with the island!
27.Apr.10 Blog Read more Comment (1)
published 20.Apr.10 by Beth Sachtjen
Linden Lab has contacted us to reach out to the NMC community and find individuals that would be interested in being paid mentors for a Beta test of newcomer orientation. The Beta test will run for one week and will involve an 8 hours per day/ 40 hours per week commitment (Pick your shift between 8am and 8pm PST). The final dates of the Beta test have not yet been set.
Please let me know if you would be interested at beth@nmc.org.
20.Apr.10 Blog Read more Comments (0)
published 19.Apr.10 by Beth Sachtjen
Be of the first to join our brand new facebook fan page!
NMC Virtual Worlds | Promote Your Page Too
We’ll use this page to collect your input, find new ways to help the SL educator community, connect you to amazing Second Life stuff, facilitate virtual world discussions, and update you on NMC Campus events.
19.Apr.10 Blog Read more Comments (0)
published 19.Apr.10 by Beth Sachtjen
Over the past week I’ve been standing at the intersection of many new frontiers, all coming together in one of our next big projects: NMC Orientation 2.0. This project will involve not only the brand new Version 2.0 viewer, but also the culmination of over two years of reflecting on and updating our previous NMC Orientation. The original NMC Orientation is not only one of my favorite projects but also one of our most visited and loved locations. There will be a slight bit of sadness when it receives it’s final Bon Voyage. (Don’t worry, it is still there and we will let you know before it is cleared for new purposes.) I wanted to do a quick “Design Diary” post using the notes I’ve been capturing on this process in order to invite you to share your own thoughts and experiences on how the new NMC Orientation can best serve you.
Originally, we had discussed updating the orientation, as we had done with other client releases, to reflect the Viewer 2 changes. After spending a few months ingesting Viewer 2 and really coming to the conclusion that its newness is quite embraceable and meaningful in terms of new user experience, we are ready to embrace changes in our own Orientation and create a new one.
We’ve generally always oriented people by showing them how to do specific things or tasks through stations. The new viewer is specifically built to keep things in context and to allow a more intuitive approach. The more I use it, the more I see that things are where one would “think” they should be. I don’t say that as a Second Life user of 5 years who knows the previous navigation system like the back of my hand, but just as your average person using a viewer to access a program. The more I let go of my previous conceived notions about Second Life User Interface navigation, the more I find that this viewer makes using Second Life an easier experience for anyone.
In this respect, instead of showing people how to do specific parts of Second Life as most training was originally set up, it occurs to me that actually showing them how things work as a unit may be better. This new viewer is the first that lends itself to intuitive use and I’d love to capitalize on that.
There are a couple more examples of “changes of heart” design wise on the old orientation. While our intermediate orientation allowed for quick landmarking of information so that educators could quickly bookmark a topic and share that information with others, it was essentially just a series of non related topics for your average new person. A bulk of the really good stuff was in this section, yet it was pretty inaccessible to a new user as it did not allow them to develop the relevant context in which to mentally log the information. Since Viewer 2 makes Second Life context so much more apparent, I’d love to really establish a similar “contextual learning” in our new orientation.
If I were to summarize my goal for the new orientation it would be this: Teach new users appropriate skills in a context that allows for empowering discovery of “power user” features through meaningful tasks.
As always, I’d love your feedback. How would our brand new orientation work best for you, your students, and fellow faculty members? What issues do you face when facilitating orientation that could be solved through better design?
19.Apr.10 Blog Read more Comments (0)
published 15.Apr.10 by Chris Holden
If you didn’t already know, Open Sim is the free, open source server software based on Second Life. It enables you to run your own sims (or have someone else run them for you) anywhere you want: on your desktop, behind your firewall, at a data centre even in the cloud! These sims can be stand-alone, connected to a grid (though not Second Life itself yet) or now Hypergrid enabled, which allows them to be both stand-alone yet reachable by teleport from other sims and grids.
Although we at NMC Virtual Worlds haven’t talked much about it yet, you may not be surprised to know that we’ve been actively watching and trialling it as it developed.
Well, we’ve decided to give you the easiest peak behind the scenes we could think of in the first instance. I currently have 4 sims running open sim connected, for now, to OSgrid – the largest grid outside of SL…
So, no set up or technical expertise required by you, simply create an account & download a preconfigured viewer using the links below and you’re in!
Register with just a name and a password: register
Download a Viewer here: downloads (Windows, OSX or Linux)
Enabling Preferences -> General -> ‘Show Start Location on Login Screen’ you will be able to type in ‘NMC campus’ before you log in thus ensuring you arrive right into our welcome area. If not you can always search for NMC Campus on the map and tp there once in-world.
While the builds will be evolving and are part of our testing, you’ll find a lounge where you can meet up with people (invite them along!) and find more information about open sim, as well as a whole sim-sized sandbox where you can try building, scripting etc for yourselves to see how well open sim is running these days or whether it’s ready for your use yet. We’d also like to hear back about your experiences, ideas and interest in an NMC Virtual Worlds hosting or development service for your projects in the future.
Ok, a couple of caveats, open sim itself is still considered to be in alpha. Additionally our sims are not currently running on the fastest hardware or connected with as much bandwidth as I’d like yet, so treat them gently and don’t write performance off to the capability of open sim just yet! Certainly don’t expect to be able to use the facilities for active projects or expect content to remain indefinitely (the sandbox has a 24 hour rollover, but if you take things into your own inventory, the osgrid asset servers are pretty reliable when it comes to maintaining your stuff).
Have fun and hope to see you on the new frontier!
15.Apr.10 Blog Read more Comments (0)
published 07.Apr.10 by Beth Sachtjen
“Your NMC Campus Story” highlights the many ways in which educators are using the NMC Campus in Second Life to spark innovation, learning, and creativity. This post introduces us to Professor Jan Baum of Towson University and her Hype project as part of a Global Design Collaboration program.
I have an ongoing collaborative art and design project that utilizes digital media in several forms. This semester’s iteration is the Global Design Collaboration. I used the NMC listserv along with other professional SL listservs to put out a call for participants. The response was excellent and far ranging. I received interest from a number of US institutions as well as institutions from Scotland, Sweden, the Czech Republic and Thailand and I think a few more. The core group is Towson University, Winthrop University and the University of Dundee in Scotland. Other interested parties may join us in Second Life and participate in less central ways; the project is open for collaboration. The faculty involved in the project, myself, Kim Voigt from Towson University, Courtney Starrett from Winthrop University and Sandra Wilson from the University of Dundee, have given our students a design problem titled Hype. We ask students to examine the idea of hype and using digital design software design an object based on their design research. We are using Second Life in a number of ways. Each student has an interactive display board where they will post an image of themselves, their design research and concept sketches along with notation about their design thinking and response to the project. [Rachel Timmins’, aka Granule Admiral, display board is available.]
All participants meet in Second Life on pre-arranged dates for discussion, design reviews, and get to know each other. From this we hope students will identify peers that they are interested in collaborating with. Collaboration will consist of dialogue as well as sharing digital files and influencing each other’s designs. We are encouraging students to use all kinds of communication technology for the project: Skype, email, blogs, etc. Each student will have a version or versions of the resulting object/design digitally printed or rapid prototyped in Real Life. All of the work will be presented in a gallery format in one of the galleries on the Towson Innovation Lab.
I am cataloging the project at www.globaldesignchallenge.wordpress.com.
And we are using http://globaldesigncollaboration.ning.com as a constant interactive space.
Please share “Your NMC Campus Story†by writing beth@nmc.org.
07.Apr.10 Blog Read more Comments (0)
published 05.Apr.10 by Beth Sachtjen
Our friends Spiral Theas (Robin Heyden) and Chimera Cosmos (Liz Dorland) presented at the Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education Conference on a Continuing Medical Education event that was designed, along with John Wiecha and Elliot Sternthal, for family practice physicians and an article the team published in the Journal for Medical Internet Research.
Additional Information can be found the following places:
Presentation Slides: http://www.slideshare.net/ldorland/learning-3444153
Robin’s Blog post of the presentation: http://robinheyden.wordpress.com/2010/03/15/vwbpe-impressions-and-lessons-learned/
05.Apr.10 Blog Read more Comment (1)
RSS Feed • facebook • twitter • flickr
