Second Life and Lunch Wrapup for 11-11-2009

It's almost 11:00 p.m. on Friday night - my apologies for not sending this wrapup out last night so you could have seen it before the weekend.

This week we visited a Thanksgiving-themed build created by doctoral Communications Media and Instructional Technology Students and their professor at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Our group was able to complete about half of the sim during the session. They rated the build pretty high overall, but not without criticisms of things they thought might have been done better. The group mentioned things such as creating a clearer path of what to do next, making it easier for a large group to go through the sim at once by adding multiple quiz boards so you don't have to wait and making the time to go through the sim an hour or less so it can be done in one classtime. These all sounded like pretty good suggestions for anyone that might want to try creating a similar sim.

By the way, the coolest thing about this build is that the professor and students that created it are offering a game-creation kit to the residents of Second Life for FREE. This kit allows you to focus on the content of your sim and not worry about needing a programmer to make your ideas come to life. If you want to get a game kit of your own to try out it's available on the same island.

You can explore the thanksgiving-themed build for yourself here:
SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Comm%20Media/230/223/21

You can get a copy of the game kit on the same island here:
SLURL:http://slurl.com/secondlife/Comm%20Media/25/30/22

We don't have any other "Second Life and Lunch" sessions this month. Our next session will be Wednesday, December 2, 2009 at 1-1:50pm Central Time (11-11:50 Second Life Time). I hope to see you in December and have a Happy Thanksgiving!

For more information about the Kirkwood Second Life Group visit http://www.kirkwood.edu/secondlife

Second Life and Lunch : Happy Thanksgiving!

Wednesday, November 11, 2009, 1-1:50 p.m.
KCELT 2097 or Join Us Virtually
SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Comm%20Media/230/223/21/?title=IUP%20-%20Interactive%20Simulation%20System%20for%20Second%20Life

You'll be happy to hear that we think that the problems we were having with Second Life are over. We will reschedule the demo of Green Phosphor with Bob Wise from West Liberty University hopefully for one of our sessions in December.

Since this week is our last "Second Life and Lunch" session before the Thanksgiving holiday, we are going to visit a Thanksgiving-themed build created by doctoral Communications Media and Instructional Technology Students at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. By creating this build, they also created a free product called the Preso-Matic Game Kit for the educational community of Second Life to quickly develop immersive simulation games in Second Life like this (a product which just might help with the development of the Plague Sim under construction on the Kirkwood island).

Here's a promotional video of this build:


We will be starting this session with a group voice chat (text chat works in the same chat box for those without microphones). A teleport to the start of this simulation will be sent as a notice before the meeting.

If you're not able to make it this week, I hope you are able to visit this build on your own. It is a good example of how to bring educational content into Second Life.

If you don't have an avatar:
You're always welcome at our Second Life and Lunch sessions. Feel free to stop by and check out what we're doing. It's a perfect time to see what Second Life is all about. Bring your lunch and bring a friend.

If you join us virtually:
We will be using voice. If you don't have a microphone, you can still communicate with the group through text.

Note to all members:
If you're a Kirkwood faculty member don't forget to sign up for this free KCELT session on the Kirkwood EagleNet whether you plan to join us in person or virtually. Faculty members receive Professional Renewal Credit for all KCELT sessions, but you have to sign up to receive credit. You can find instructions for signing up here. Just search for "second life" to find our sessions for this semester. (Members from other colleges do not need to sign up to attend.)

For more information about the Kirkwood Second Life Group visit http://www.kirkwood.edu/secondlife

Second Life and Lunch Wrapup for 11-4-2009

We continue to have multiple problems with the new Second Life client software. Still unable to call the group chat I relied on the fact that I have added members of the group as friends and was able to IM members who joined us virtually today. I hope that things will be back to normal soon. One good thing I'm able to get out of this is a laundry list of "what to do when things go wrong" that will be used for a Second Life and Lunch session in the Spring. At least there are workarounds.

This Thursday: Tell the President Your Thoughts
I want to remind you of the educational event happening this week if you are able to log into Second Life from home. An 18-person team from the federal government have taken the time to create avatars so they can log in and participate in a live event Thursday night to take place on ISTE Island in Second Life. The team is looking for input from educators to update and revise the National Educational Technology Plan (NETP). They pose the question: "If you had five minutes to tell President Obama what is most important about edtech and why, what would you say?" For more information about the event and it's location, see the earlier post on our group blog here.

Still Time to See the College Fair
There's still time to check out the booths from this year's Second Life College Fair. Find out how other colleges are using Second Life as a platform for teaching their students.  SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/International%20Schools%203/173/218/21 - this link will open a map page with a teleport button. Click the button and your avatar will be given a landmark so you can teleport to the location. The booths will be up until Friday, November 13th.

More Changes on the Kirkwood Island
The building next to the sandbox with a collection of educational locations in Second Life has been expanded to 11 floors! With this additional room added there are more locations soon to be added to the collection.

Building Contest
There's still time to enter our Build a Snowman contest and you might win 500 Lindens! Create anything you like as long as your build is a snowman. Go to the Kirkwood island and touch the sign next to the Sandbox to pick up your entry form. Turn in your completed entry form by Wednesday, December 2nd. Judging will begin on December 3rd with the prize awarded at our final Second Life and Lunch of the Fall Semester on Wednesday, December 9th.

Next Week
Next week at Second Life and Lunch we will be touring a "pilgrims coming to America" educational game created by a professor at Indiana University. Details to come.

That's it for this week's Second Life and Lunch.
I hope to see you at next week.

Second Life and Lunch : Green Phosphor Demo Postponed - Group Lab on Wednesday

Wednesday, November 4, 2009, 1-1:50 p.m.
KCELT 2097 or Join Us Virtually
SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Kirkwood%20College/184/51/25

We're still experiencing problems in Second Life since the last upgrade. There's a debate as to whether this is due to what Linden Labs has added to it's software, a problem with bandwidth or maybe a little of both. Either way, with the problems we're experiencing I am unable to call the group chat or even to hear voice chat in-world and we cannot teleport, so we are postponing our demo of the "Green Phosphor" software with Bob Wise from West Liberty University until these problems are resolved.

Instead, this week we will have a lab for working on note cards for the group project. You can also use this time for a building project you're working on. If you're working on a note card, you might need to log in to the location you're reviewing to avoid crashing when you try to teleport there.

SNOWMAN BUILDING CONTEST
Don't forget we have a Snowman Building Contest in progress. Pick up your entry form next to the sandbox on the Kirkwood island. Entries are due Wednesday, December 2nd with the award for best build given on Wednesday, December 9th. The winner will receive 500 Lindens. That's enough to load 50 textures for a Powerpoint slide show!

NOTE TO ALL MEMBERS:
If you're a Kirkwood faculty member don't forget to sign up for this free KCELT session on the Kirkwood EagleNet whether you plan to join us in person or virtually. Faculty members receive Professional Renewal Credit for all KCELT sessions, but you have to sign up to receive credit. You can find instructions for signing up here. Just search for "second life" to find our sessions for this semester. (Members from other colleges do not need to sign up to attend.) Since I will probably be unable to start a group chat, please IM me if you join us virtually so I will be able to count you as "present" on the attendance sheet. If you're planning to build in a sandbox other than on the Kirkwood island please IM me also for the same reason.

I hope to see you there.  : )

For more information about the Kirkwood Second Life Group visit http://www.kirkwood.edu/secondlife