THE CONCH

I had my first meeting with the 'Real Life Educators in SL' group and it was a great experience.  The meeting filled up quickly and there was no real agenda.  Various threads in conversation opened up and one topic that caught most of the avatars attention was 'what is appropriate dress?' for both RLstudents and for their avatars.  Most agreed that naked is inappropriate, but everything else is creative and up for discussion. 



During this meeting I revealed the project titled THE CONCH.  One of the things I find hinders most people from using SL, aside from the name, is the interface.  Even most people I know who navigate Web 2.0 tools with ease are still confused once you add depth and flying into their World.  My original idea was sparked by recent obsession with the Harry Potter books and how I had been programming a wand to react to voice commands.   I wondered if some things that educators do (blog, teleporting, email, etc) could benefit from a device that also works on voice commands.  The object could be anything you want it's just the code attached to it that matters.  A prototype is being developed that hopefully will have several functions and will be available on IML Island.  This is an object that will be like any other open source project out there and will be FREE and a system in place for version updates and distribution. 

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Data Visualization

bzzzzrp... Readers of Gibson and Stephenson took the idea of seeing Data in 3D environments and ran with it in Second Life. I am fascinated with being able to see information from different perspectives. Best to let the examples show.

Even something as simple as changing my usual normal view of the SL experience to wireframe helps me find lost prims or invisible objects.

From IML Second Li...

3D visualization of the Stock Market...

From IML Second Li...

The Mind Map lets you navigate Subjects in Layers and shows how they are connected.

From IML Second Li...

This doesn't pull information from a Database, but is very handing in looking at how an entire building is organized. Each of the areas can be clicked to pull up more information about each floor.

From IML Second Li...

Molecule Rezzer. They gave me a free Caffeine model. bzzzzzzrp

From IML Second Li...

ChatBots. Data with a human face. This was also on the Data Visualization Island. It is connected to a database that controls and avatars responses. Second Life has been called "avatarcentric"... does this change that statement now that it cannot be assumed any longer that avatars are controlled by a person?

From IML Second Li...

Airplane Traffic in real time.

From IML Second Li...

Weather in RT.

From IML Second Li...

RESULTS!!! on x,y,z axis.....

From IML Second Li...

The above examples can be seen HERE.

One of the projects that has recently been started by the IML is an open source educators tools. The visualization below shows how another piece of open source software has been contributed to over time. It's quite stunning.


code_swarm - Eclipse (short ver.) from Michael Ogawa on Vimeo.

Showtime!

Object-Name: Blogger Tool
Region: IML (292864, 296448)
Local-Position: (118, 115, 53)

ShowTime!!

This was an exciting semester for the IML. The Honors Program had it's first round of students graduate and the buzz around the building has never been higher and the IML Second Life Island has also seen a lot of activity as well. Two Honors Students, Matt Lee and Cameron Parkins, created their projects in Second Life. Matt Lee has made a recreation of the Tempest and Cameron Parkins discusses Digital Utopianism and Cultural Imperialism in Second Life. Please come check them out on IML Island:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/IML/128/128/52

The Tempest



Digital Utopianism and Cultural Imperialism in Second Life

sending links from Second Life Blogger tool

Object-Name: Blogger Tool
Region: IML (292864, 296448)
Local-Position: (118, 115, 53)

http://slurl.com/secondlife/EdTech/109/135/24

kawaiietlyplease Yohkoh

This is Test for sending a blog post within Second Life.

Object-Name: Blogger Tool
Region: IML (292864, 296448)
Local-Position: (119, 115, 51)

This only allows for 60 seconds of type time. But I found this tool on the EdTech Island for Free. It allows me to type from within Second Life straight to Blogger. Fantastic.

kawaiietlyplease Yohkoh

This is Test for sending a blog post within Second Life.

Object-Name: Blogger Tool
Region: IML (292864, 296448)
Local-Position: (119, 115, 51)

test test test!!!

Virtual Shop Class - This is not a Chair

The IML 104 class is exploring Virtual Worlds this Semester and the past two weeks we've been exploring Second Life. The last class was dedicated to introducing the Honors students to building in Second Life which is unique compared to most Virtual Worlds where the environment is rigidly controlled by the Organizations that run them. Second Life has many places to Learn to build the most popular being the Ivory Tower of Primitive, which leads you through the many steps of learning to build, but these areas can be overwhelming to the new Avatar so I decided to make an extremely condensed crash course introduction to 3D modeling in SL. And as it turns out making a chair puts all of the basic skills into one neat little usable object. The Class learned how to create an object, copy, modify, Link, Texture, and add the Sit Script to it. At the end of the class we all Sat near each other and repositioned them to 500 meters above (something you can't do usually) and looked at the region below. Students were than asked to Share this 3D object with each other and to modify them over the weekend. In 90 minutes students with very little experience in SL and most having never created a 3D object before were able to create make not only a useful virtual item, but one that was personalized as well.