Emerging Media and Innovation

EM 210 Lava Lamp in Second LIfe

2012-02-04T13:58:00.000-07:00

From Dr. AlSaeed's EM 210 class, here is a video from Brutus's lava lamp project.

Brutus created the lamp after taking a 5.5 week course with Dr. AlSaeed.

Malphite Once More

2011-08-15T22:22:00.002-06:00

Malphite Once More

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Shark Attack

2011-08-15T03:06:00.000-06:00

Shark Attack!

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Second Life Museum by Serelinde

2011-08-12T14:48:00.001-06:00

Serelinde's Second Life Museum

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Second Life Art Gallery by Mandt

2011-08-12T12:21:00.003-06:00

Mandt's Art Gallery

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Ghostbuster Tribute

2011-08-07T00:44:00.000-06:00

Rainsake's Ghostbuster Tribute

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Pochowired's Newsroom in Second Life

2011-08-04T23:29:00.003-06:00

Pochowired's Newsroom in Second Life

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Skewer's Police Cart

2011-08-01T23:29:00.001-06:00

Skewer's EM 210 Creation in Second Life

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Futurist Larry Johnson visits CS855

2011-05-16T10:48:00.015-06:00

In February 2011, we were fortunate to have Dr. Larry Johnson, CEO of the New Media Consortium, join us in Second Life just prior to the launch of the NMC's Horizon Report on innovation and the future of technology in education.

A Human Barometer for the Future

In a lively game show style, Larry asked the students to vote for the next five year's top technologies. During our human barometer exercise, the class and guests from CTU's emerging media doctoral program, via their avatars in Second Life, took a stand and voted with their feet as they stood by the areas that represented each of the technologies.

Visit the Horizon Report Wiki

This was my first opportunity to narrate and simulcast to an Adobe Connect session. I was repeating Larry's wonderful narrative style like a United Nations translator, and let me tell you, I have a great respect for them. *cheers* It is not easy to listen and repeat the content while participating during the session as an avatar.

QR codes are hot and are part of the augmented reality technology featured in the Horizon Report. To the right is a QR code from the Horizon Report wiki - scroll down their page to see the QR code on the bottom left!

Many thanks to Larry Johnson, CS855 and the emerging media students who shared their ideas and participated in this lively session!

Maps of the Internet

2011-01-15T15:29:00.005-07:00

These maps of the Internet offer a different perspective on how we are all connected. One map is the work of a PhD student. Visit the site where they are displayed for more information.

Our Shared Knowledge

2010-11-18T16:28:00.001-07:00

Greetings to CS 855 Futuring and Innovation! *cheers*

Don't forget - when you post your explorations in the future, analyze them through two of the forces that may facilitate or impede its success.

These include the words ending in -al, such as technological, cultural, global, ethical, legal, political and temporal. Some ideas are before their time... *grins*

Above all, have fun setting up your blogs and post them in our blog roll on Moodle.

Have a great week! *waves*

Where Else Will Kids Think to Put the Web in the World

2010-10-13T01:24:00.000-06:00

Latitude 42 Study Findings: Where Else Will Kids Think to Put the Web in the World? from latddotcom on Vimeo.

About this study:

"Children's 'Future Requests' for Computers and the Internet" (with ReadWriteWeb) is one installment in an ongoing series of open innovation research studies which Latitude publishes in the spirit of knowledge-sharing and opportunity discovery. Unified by a common digital thread, the Latitude 42s explore a range of everyday human experiences most likely to shape the future of commerce, communication, and civic life, from food information access to the new sharing economy to the Internet of Things.

Download a PDF summary of study findings: http://bit.ly/abhP4s

About Latitude:

Latitude is an international research consultancy exploring how new information and communications technologies can enhance human experiences. Latitude’s user-centered research approach unites generative, media-based methods with robust quantitative analysis to identify concrete opportunities for Web-based innovation. To work with Latitude: http://latd.com

Kick Ball at Air University in Second Life

2010-09-10T11:54:00.002-06:00

Today at the Air University Innovations and Integrations Division Lunch and Learn, we played kick ball.

Brad Aldridge provided blue and red hats as props and led today's activity. Visit the activity site to view the introductory videos and see the playing field and activity description.

It's a great way to build skill in 10-20 minutes.

Slide 3 features a Torley Linden video on how to use the Second Life Viewer 2 to look around using the camera presets. Slide 4 demonstrates the basics of moving and flying with your avatar.

We used a ball with physics enabled and divided into two teams to kick the ball around the obstacles while aiming for the goals. It was such fun and a great way to build motor skills in a virtual world.

Many thanks to the AU Innovations and Integrations team for hosting a fun event!

Sample podcast for GC

2010-09-04T13:32:00.001-06:00

Gabcast! Futuring and innovation class examples #1 - Summer 2010 Demo Podcast

We used a cell phone in class to create a quick podcast. Many thanks to everyone for participating!

Electronic Textbooks Anyone?

2010-08-26T17:18:00.002-06:00

Want a portable color display that receives inputs from my smart objects and is as thin as cardboard? Watch the end of this video as it demonstrates how thin. From CES 2009:

Our class podcast using Gabcast

2010-07-17T16:50:00.008-06:00

Futuring and Innovation class examples #1 - Summer 2010 Demo Podcast

We used a cell phone in class to create a quick podcast. Many thanks to everyone for participating!

How to access the file and player html:
http://gabcast.com/gc1/index.php?a=pub&id=35436#

Animoto Video of the Hostage Rescue Game

2010-07-15T14:11:00.002-06:00

Kevin Kelly on the Next 5000 Days of the Web

2010-07-14T00:07:00.004-06:00

Gazing into the future with one eye on the past...

Cloud Computing Video by CNN

2010-07-08T01:23:00.000-06:00

Mars Expedition Strategy Challenge

2010-01-29T10:22:00.014-07:00

The Mars Expedition Strategy Challenge: a Federal Virtual Worlds Challenge contest entry

Research title: Expedition Challenge-Based Learning: an Immersive Reality Challenge to Explore Strategies for Human Spaceflight Beyond Low-Earth Orbit

Tours:
The Mars Expedition Strategy Challenge learning simulation is private. FVWC reviewers may contact Apollo Segall, Spinoza Quinnell or Lyr Lobo to request a guided tour during the evenings or on weekends.

Location in Second Life:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Huffman%20Prairie%20Sigma/126/147/29

Details:

The Mars Expedition Strategy Challenge begins at the Learning Center with stations on each side that:

Introduces the strategy challenge
Displays the self-assessment trivia game -- completed at the end of the simulation
Provides copies of two ThinC books that review the learning content, a NASA space suit and videos with simulation information.
Directs the user to take the elevator to the Second Floor

The simulation features a rocket launch on the Second Floor and a flight to the deep space explorer where users review the expedition strategy alternatives. Upon arrival, they disembark on Mars Colony to explore the mining station and return to the start -- the Learning Center -- to complete a survey and to complete the Expedition Strategy Challenge Trivia Game.

How to access the rocket, the deep space explorer and Mars colony

Take the elevator across from the Learning Center to the Second Life On the Second Floor, you see a rocket launch area with another elevator for boarding the rocket. For added realism, you can push the elevator button and head to the Second Floor and click on the rocket to board it. Traveling up the launch pad is not required.

Inside the Orion, you are seated looking upward as you prepare to launch. A voice describes your experience as the rocket launches, flies upward, and separates into three stages as it leaves Earth's orbit and nears the deep space explorer.

Inside the Huffman Prairie Red Lion Deep Space Explorer, you can sit at one of four consoles and review 30 minutes of videos that explore the strategies for deep space exploration and interact with the on board equipment.

Some of the videos are still under development, so sit back and enjoy the flight!

On arrival, you will disembark through one of the wings and walk through the hatch to explore Mars colony. At the end of the simulation, users participate in a Mars Expedition Strategy Challenge Trivia Game at the starting location and complete a survey.

Contributors:

Dr. Andrew Stricker, Mr. Mike McCrocklin, Jeanne Holm and Dr. Cynthia Calongne (POC).

Disclaimer:

The opinions and viewpoints expressed in this paper are solely those of the authors and do not reflect official policy or position of the US government or the Department of Defense (DoD), NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Colorado Technical University, the United States Air Force, or Air University.

Winter 2010

2010-01-21T02:12:00.001-07:00

Greetings from Baltimore and the University of Maryland at Baltimore County (UMBC). Later today, I'm giving a workshop on Teaching and Learning in Virtual Environments.

The past few weeks have been invigorating, thanks to the Doctor of Computer Science Symposium, numerous research meetings and the many opportunities to share the excitement of emerging media. I'm posting a few quick notes while overlooking the lovely Baltimore Harbor by night and will add details later.

CS 820 Usability and Interaction Class

Winter 2010 term began and our CS 820 class completed the residency activities and our first Second Life (SL) class session. Our next residency makeup session is Saturday, January 23rd at Noon Mountain time in Second Life.

Our Book is in Print!

Many thanks to Sharon Tettegah for her work on our book entitled Identity, Learning and Support in Virtual Environments and to our contributing authors: Grant Kien, Al Weiss, Lisa Perez, Rhonda Trueman, Jase Teoh, Arlene de Strulle, Lori Bell, Virgil Varvel and Eun Won Whang, Kona Taylor & Timothy Cash.

In Memoriam for Scott Swanson

Last night, we held a memorial tribute in Second Life on the ISTE island for our dear friend and colleague, Scott Swanson, who died on January 11, 2010. Scott served as an ISTE docent under his Second Life persona, Kyle Thorn, and was a beloved leader in the World of Warcraft (WoW) guilds of Cognitive Dissonance and in Ethereal Synergy as Kylthorne and Neruun on the Sisters of Elune server.

Check out the photos, videos and voice threads about Scott Swanson and feel welcome to post your own Voice Thread and to view and add multimedia content about Scott to the collection.

In his professional life, Scott was the Strategic Technology Coordinator for the Illinois Math and Science Academy (IMSA). He was an inspiration to his students and never failed to answer numerous messages from students, even while we battled extraordinary foes.

As a pioneer and technology evangelist, he inspired us to greatness and a part of him remains within us and permeates the Web.

Space, the Final Frontier

2009-12-10T09:14:00.007-07:00

We submitted four entries into the Federal Virtual Worlds Challenge (FVWC), an event led by the U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command, Simulation and Training Technology Center.

Over the next few days, we will be reviewing our submissions with the FVWC reviewers in Second Life. The goal spans far more than the contest and focuses on building a repository of simulations and modules for learning.

Our four entries include:

The Mars Expedition Strategy Challenge -- a space simulation and collaboration with the Global Learning Forum
A Lamp to a Stool -- a 3D object design class
Dances with Wolves -- an animation device class
Scripting Magic -- a programming for non-programmer's class

The first image features the avatars of design masterminds Dr. Andrew Stricker (right) and Mr. Mike McCrocklin (center back) traveling through space in the Deep Space Explorer with my avatar, Lyr Lobo (left). As a self-assessment tool for participants, I designed a Mars Expedition Strategy trivia game for individuals and teams to enjoy. Andy and Mike from Air University invited Jeanne Holm, Chief Knowledge Architect from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and me to collaborate on a paper for the 2010 Military Modeling and Simulation Symposium that describes Expedition Strategy Challenge.

The second image shows the Huffman Prairie Red Lion Deep Space Explorer in flight. Participants board the Orion rocket with its three-stage rocket design. As it leaves Earth's orbit, the rocket approaches the Huffman Prairie Deep Space Explorer, the spaceship that will make the journey to a space station on Mars.

On board, participants study three planning strategies for deep space exploration while Hal, the on-board computer, regales them with his suggestions. As the team disembarks on Mars, the observation deck features the Mars Expedition Strategy Trivia game and a tour of the mining station.

The three simulation modules use a mix of visual, verbal/analytic and kinesthetic interactive information to help participants learn basic-to-intermediate 3D object creation skills, animation device creation skills and scripted device creation skills.

For images from additional research and classes in virtual worlds and emerging media, visit Lyr Lobo's Slideshare presentations.

NMC Future Symposium video

2009-11-05T09:16:00.005-07:00

The New Media Consortium's Symposium for the Future was a delighted experience and highlights from it are depicted in my Animoto video. During some sessions, I was so engrossed in the content that I forgot to snap a shot, so I recommend using the search tag #nmcfuture to view the rest of the sessions.

NMC Symposium for the Future

2009-11-02T10:48:00.022-07:00

The amazing series of New Media Consortium (NMC) Symposium for the Future sessions and discussions demonstrated the creativity of the presenters and the NMC design team.

Hakone, the NMC Virtual Worlds Conference Server

It was held on the Hakone Server, a stand alone version of the Second Life virtual world server developed by Linden Lab. Many thanks to Beth Sachtjen and Chris Holden for their excellent virtual world designs!

Be sure to visit the NMC Symposium for the Future conference program for a list of the audio recordings, slides, PDFs and urls from each session. Click on the image to enlarge them.

NMC Symposium for the Future - Keynote Addresses

Featured to the left is Beth Kanter's inspiring session on The Networked Nonprofit. She dazzled the audience by arriving as a Jetson, flying inside a spaceship with her dog Astro nearby!

She built on the metaphor offered by Robert Frost's The Wall to show how walls that are intended to protect can also be barriers when it comes to the non-profit use of social media and social networks.

Larry Johnson, in his closing address, noted that her insights into the use of social media and social networks may "offer the greatest impact on solving the challenges of our time."

Gardner Campbell in his Two Painters, One Poet, and Some Sweet Soul Music keynote address took us on a journey through sight and sound, worthy of Rod Serling, and as we toured the twilight zone of the future, he reminded us of the cautions from the past.

One illustration included the M5, the Ultimate Computer from the Star Trek series. Far be it for me to let an opportunity pass to interact with some of my favorite Star Trek content! *chuckles*

The film clip from the Portrait of Jennie was especially moving, as I agree with Ethel Barrymore's character when she scans the artwork, noting that there was not an ounce of love anywhere in them.

The references to ethical and safety concerns as well as the passion that fires the creative genius is especially important as we gaze into the future.

NMC Symposium for the Future - Day One!

Bryan Alexander dazzled us with the responsibilities of futuring and highlighted the Horizon Report, a five-year look into the future published by the NMC in his Catching the Future Before it Catches You session.

Between sessions, Bryan Alexander and Peter Shoemaker discussed Peter's session near his image of an urban horizon that reminded us that we are Separate, Equal, Powerful.

National Geographic offered a visual feast in the form of our planet, with the speakers seated on a rotating platform.

Their moving presentation on Media for Inspiring People to Understand and Care about the Planet encouraged a love for life on earth and its sustainability. Many thanks to Ford Cochran and Anne Heywood at the National Geographic for drawing us into this wonder of life!

Stay tuned for more highlights from Day One as we tour the future, NMC style! @nmcfuture

College Fair 2009 in Second Life

2009-10-25T04:55:00.012-06:00

The College Fair 2009 in Second Life opened to a packed region of dedicated educators and enthusiasts.

I had a blast meeting educators new to Second Life and seeing some old friends at the Colorado Technical University exhibit booth.

On Sunday, I'm giving a presentation on Designing Games and Learning Activities at 6:15 AM Pacific time, which is also Second Life time.

And now, back to the news...

Saturday's sessions were lively as Claudia Linden opened with information about the educational opportunities, wikis, and resources available in Second Life.

In addition, she requested that educators send her updates each week of their activities in Second Life. This information will help her write additional case studies and to understand the state of virtual world education.

Her session was followed by Vic Michalak as he presented his research on Teaching International Courses in Second Life. He and Hopalong Oh, with his presentation entitled Why Second Life??? offered excellent information, tools and techniques.

Vic recommended the Universal Translator, which now supports 35+ languages, including Asian languages. Hopalong spoke about scavenger games and other stimulating activities in Second Life.

During the break before the Marcia Kloepper's Using Second Life for Agriculture, Animal and Poultry Science Instruction session, I toured the Front Range Community College's fantasy build. Their World of Warcraft image of an undead rogue wearing a pirate's hat in Booty Bay caught my attention. *grins*

I spent the next session listening to it from amid the flames from the Operation Afterlife (image on the left).

The evening ended with Krystine and Remington dropping by from a Caledon event. Krystine talked to Katie at CTU Online earlier in the day about Colorado Technical University's MBA program.

There are five speakers on Sunday with sessions running from 6:15 AM to 10:00 AM.

See you at the College Fair 2009 in Second Life!

2009-10-25T04:49:00.003-06:00

Many thanks to our intrepid new Second Life students! Between the two classes, 20 students participated in our course discussion and Second Life skills activities on Tuesday and Wednesday nights.

In CS 855 Futuring and Innovation, we continued our discussion of The Fortune Sellers book by William Sherdan. The discussion centered on the differences between futuring and innovation research programs and their funding in Japan and the United States.

We also discussed the student blog posts. When you introduce your blog in our Moodle discussions, please include the url for your blog post.

In CS 820, we focused our attention on building some Second Life camera skills and building a simple shape, stretching it, texturing it, copying it and linking it with a second object.

We will prototype the projects in Second Life and conduct usability tests near the end of the course.

Our class times are the same for next week. Check the Calendar on Moodle for the latest information! *waves*

Second Life Classes

2009-10-13T00:21:00.005-06:00

You are welcome to join us during our class sessions in Second Life. While they are optional, they enhance your learning experience and give you real-time access to ask questions and discuss the course concepts and your research.

Please scan these instructions before creating your account and you will find it easier to join us for classes in Second Life.

Creating Your Second Life Account
For tips on how to create your free account and join us for class in Second Life, Visit my TCC 2009 Getting Started in Second Life Wiki at:

http://tcc2009.wikispaces.com/Getting+Started+in+Second+Life

Visit the NMC SL creation site (publishers of the Horizon Report) at: http://sl.nmc.org/join to create a new account.

Select a less common first name and choose a last name from the drop down list.

Don't remember your account information and can't get your old password for it? You can create a new free account for a different email address.

Accessing Second Life:
First you create an account, and then you download the SL software so you can access the 3D websites. You can log into SecondLife.com to check your account and access their tutorials, but this does not give you access to the virtual world. *smiles* You need the Second Life software, and it takes a couple of minutes to download and a couple of minutes to install it.

At first, you may get a message about your graphics card not being compatible. Even with the latest graphics cards, I get the same message and can use it. *smiles*

I've also included some short educational videos at the beginning of the TCC 2009 Getting Started in Second Life Wiki that offer tips on how to use the technology. For those new to it, do not worry if you do not have time to view them. We will cover these concepts as we conduct our class sessions in SL.

See you in Second Life! *cheers*

Back to the Future

2009-10-12T11:52:00.001-06:00

It is great to see you again during our Fall term at Colorado Technical University. Thank you for posting your research plans and accomplishments in your class introductions.

On Saturday, October 10th, I gave a workshop on Emerging Media as a Mind Amplifier at the Doctor of Management Symposium. I'll be holding an abbreviated version of it during the DCS Symposium this week. The photo shows William Kamkwamba demonstrating a windmill that he created out of a bicycle as noted in one of the Ted Talks videos.

During this Fall 09 term, I am teaching two of my favorite classes, CS 820 Usability and Interaction and CS 855 Futuring and Innovation.

CS 820 uses an empirical testing approach to identify how to understand and support people and their interaction with systems better.

CS 855 examines the future by reviewing past forecasts and predictions, examining think tank processes, and studying what scholars use today to strategize and impact the future.

I'll post notes on this blog for both classes and highlights from my research for you to enjoy.

Our Second Life sessions include 30 minutes of course content, 20 minutes of Second Life skills and 10 minutes for research discussions and tips. If you wish to meet after our sessions, let me know.

And now, back to the future! *cheers*

How Music Changes a Video

2009-10-09T15:43:00.005-06:00

Here is a version set to contemporary music of our Constitution Day and Colorado Technical University Class of 2009's Graduation Party footage, held in Second Life. Many thanks to our guests from the DM and DCS degree programs for playing the trivia game and helping us celebrate!

The slogan for the day, featured on one student's shirt, reads:

Come to the Dark Side
We have cookies!

Congratulations to our graduates! *cheers*

Constitution Day and Graduation Party

2009-09-22T08:06:00.004-06:00

Our last Futuring and Innovation class featured a trivia game designed to celebrate Constitution Day and a party to honor our graduates.

Congratulations to our Colorado Technical University graduates! *cheers*

Game Simulation Tour in Second Life

2009-09-11T07:35:00.007-06:00

As part of the Think Balm Innovation Community's Un-Lecture series, game design masterminds Mike McCrocklin and Dr. Andy Stricker in addition to the talented Toni Scribner and I will give a tour of their game simulation kit in Second Life for our LinkedIn Group attendees at 08:00 Pacific time today.

I created a third Animoto video to commemorate today's tour called A Game Simulation Kit in Second Life.

Speakers for the Un-Lecture Series No. 4

1. Charlie Herbek of CSC, http://tinyurl.com/n5a3r7

2. Leon Cych of Learn 4 Life, http://tinyurl.com/kqjo4e

3. Janalee Redmond of IMMERSION: tools.jam, http://www.linkedin.com/in/janred

4. Cynthia Calongne of Colorado Technical University, http://tinyurl.com/5uqgga

For more information about the game simulation at MyBase Zeta, visit my Slideshare presentation entitled Evaluating a Game Simulation Kit in Second Life. It features scenes from the game, rubrics for evaluating it, and a summary of student feedback after play testing the game in March 2009.

See you in Second Life! *waves*

Preparing for Graduation - Second Life Style!

2009-09-10T11:43:00.009-06:00

In our CS 855 Futuring and Innovation class, we discussed the Animoto class activity and took a field trip to the NMC Orientation island's Educator Freebie Center to check out the tools, toys and avatar content.

We used the Game Design group voice channel so we could hear everyone even while traveling around Second Life.

Animoto is a fun, easy to use tool that takes your images, sets them to music and animates them. The free account allows you to create 30-second videos out of 8-15 slides.

While animated slides set to music may be foreign to some of us, the class found the Animoto videos stimulating and interesting.

At the end of class, one student modeled the NMC's regalia, and looked fine in his graduation cap and gown. This is our class's last doctoral course and we are looking forward to graduation. *cheers*

Our next class features a discussion of the final projects and observations from Technology's Promise by Dr. William Halal.

During our Second Life skills session, we will discuss presentation styles and tips for hosting conferences and seminars in Second Life.

Global Learning Forum Event Tour

2009-09-03T03:39:00.011-06:00

Greetings! In ten minutes, I uploaded my photos and created a 30-second Animoto video from our Global Learning Forum tour of the VR Innovation Design Studio in Second Life, held August 20, 2009, for you to enjoy. My embedded video has a 640 x 360 player size and is set to normal quality. It features music from the repository of music on Animoto's site by Patrick Lentz entitled "It's Alright."

To avoid knocking your socks off, I recommend lowering the volume if you are in a public place. *grins* The controls are on the lower right corner of the video.

These scenes include the machinima studio and learning center on Huffman Prairie region and the game simulation at MyBase Zeta in Second Life.

Many thanks to Apollo Segall and Spinoza Quinnell, the masterminds behind the Global Learning Forum, for their delightful content and support.

Animoto Video - Second Life Summer 09 Classes

2009-09-02T08:34:00.011-06:00

Our Week 8 class focused on analyzing alternatives for a modified Delphi process and a review of how Christakis' Energy Efficiency case study employed group work in their voting process. Our virtual world content creation activity examined how to create a heads up display (HUD) device.

As a retrospective from our CS 855 Summer 2009 classes held in Second Life, I created this 30 second CS 855 Summer 2009 Animoto video. The images highlight the discussions and virtual world building sessions held on Acheron LV426.

With Animoto, you can upload your images, drag and organize them, add text, set them to music and add a title and description before finalizing your video.

Creating a Heads Up Display Device

When creating a 3D HUD, the root prim may need to be rotated. Our sample HUD, the Boracay Hitchhiker's Guide to Second Life distributed by Corwin Carillon, had a 270 degree rotation on the y axis. This HUD uses images, landmarks, scripts and a notecard for associating the images with a category on the menu.

When editing the tour HUD, use Edit Linked Parts, a command on the upper right corner of the object edit menu, below the radio menu buttons. Edit Linked Parts allows you to edit a single prim within an linked object, in this case, the images and landmarks within the Contents tab.

Social Media's Impact on a Modified Delphi Process

While some modifications to the Delphi process reduce the number of iterations while preserving anonymity between respondents, Christakis used mixed methods with face-to-face participants, small groups and dialogue during a later iteration's voting process.

Our discussion focused on whether today's collaborative tools offer opportunities for tailoring and using the Delphi method. The class noted excellent reasons for using private responses vs. open collaboration, yet remarked on how online collaboration may encourage increased participation from the contributors who are less outspoken.

See you in Second Life! *waves*

Second Life Class on Campfire and Genie Chair Rezzers

2009-08-25T09:38:00.012-06:00

This week's CS 855 Rezzer 2 Class featured using and creating a rezzer with one linked object.

Each student received a folder with sample rezzers for a campfire meeting and for a genie chair rezzer and a second folder with instructions on how to make a campfire meeting rezzer.

The genie chair's instructions were designed by Vanilla Jessop and the chair depicted at the left was created by Lyr Lobo. When you move the rezzer box, the chair moves with it.

The campfire meeting object was designed by Lyr Lobo.

The class discussions included the Delphi wiki activity, comments on the student blogs, the Structured Design Process and the August's Global Learning Forum event.

How to make a campfire meeting rezzer

By Lyr Lobo, a.k.a. Dr. Cynthia Calongne
Seating animation scripts by Lyr Lobo
Builder's Buddy Scripts created by Newfie Pendragon

1. Click the Build button on the bottom of your display window.

2. Rez a box (a cube - click the first icon on the Build menu and drop your cursor to the ground). Name your box Campfire rezzer on the General tab. Check the permissions at the bottom of the General tab to Modify and Copy.

3. Click the following Campfire rezzer texture and copy it to your inventory.

(a campfire rezzer texture is visible in Second Life)

Next, you will texture your cube with the Campfire rezzer texture.

4. Select the texture tab and select the big woodgrain texture box in the center left.

5. Look for your Campfire rezzer in your Textures folder or search for the texture Campfire rezzer, highlight it and press the Select button.

6. Select the Contents tab and drag the Builder's Buddy Base Script into your Campfire Rezzer box. It is located in your folder, but if you misplace it, click this Base script to copy it to your Scripts folder.

(a script called the Builder's Buddy Base Script is visible in Second Life)

Next, we will stop working on the rezzer box and rez the campfire meeting object in step 7.

7. Drag the object called Lyr's Campfire Meeting - no script from the folder (provided in class or available from Lyr Lobo) and drop it on the ground from your How to make a campfire rezzer folder.

8. Move the campfire meeting object about 1-2 meters from the rezzer box. Use the General tab and rename your campfire meeting object, removing "no script" from the title.

9. Drag the Builder's Buddy Component Script into the campfire object's Contents tab.

(a script called the Builder's Buddy Component Script is visible in Second Life)

10. When your campfire is in the right position and elevation, stop editing your project. Click the Campfire Rezzer box that has the base script inside it and click the Record button on the menu at the upper right of your display. It records the current position of the campfire from the box.

11. Take the campfire into your inventory (right click it and Take). Edit your Campfire Rezzer box that has the base script in it.

12. Drag the campfire meeting object into the Contents tab of your box. You should see the Base script and the campfire meeting object in your box.

13. Take your box into your inventory. Nothing should remain on the ground.

To use your Campfire Rezzer:

14. Drag the Campfire Meeting Rezzer to the ground (the base box).

15. Click the box and select the Build command.

16. The campfire appears and relocates itself to your recorded position.

To remove your campfire:

17. Click the box and select the Clean button. The copy of your campfire is deleted.

Enjoy your new campfire rezzer. If you make changes to it, repeat the earlier steps and record the new location. *smiles* Be sure to put a new version of your campfire inside the control box and delete any older versions after making changes.

You could make a rezzable environment with several objects each with a component script inside it. Once it is ready, click the Record button to record the locations, take all of the objects into your inventory and drag them into your base object for use.

Lastly, if you do not change the primchannel in both the base object and every component script that is used in the project, you may find that a similar base object deletes your objects. Use different primchannels inside your script (near the top of it) to avoid communication conflicts between objects.

Have fun! *waves*

Lyr Lobo, a.k.a. Dr. Cynthia Calongne
Colorado Technical University
August 19, 2009

Learning in Immersive Reality: What is Social Reality?

2009-08-20T07:24:00.016-06:00

Today's Global Learning Forum event features Dr. Jeremy Bailenson, Founding Director of Stanford University's Virtual Human Interaction Lab, and Dr. David Jonassen, Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of Missouri. The session begins at at 5:00 PM Central, 3:00 PM Pacific time on the Huffman Prairie Chi island in Second Life.

After the Distinguished Speakers session, Dr. Andrew Stricker (Spinoza Quinnell) and Mike McCrocklin (Apollo Seagel) will provide an update on the use of virtual agents in the multiplayer game simulation on interdependent leadership. Dr. Cynthia Calongne (Lyr Lobo) will discuss the assessment of interdependent leadership and transactive memory.

At the end of the session, they will host a tour that features a dozen immersive learning design examples.

GLF registration will be available at the event location (in the newly completed GLF Event Hall located on the Second Life region called Huffman Prairie Chi. (See the image to the right for the location).

Click on the images to enlarge them.

20 Aug 2009 GLF Event Agenda:

5:00-5:10 Opening Remarks

5:10-5:30 Dr. David Jonassen, (University of Missouri) Building Blocks and Cognitive Processes for Learning to Solve Problems

5:30-6:30 Dr. Jeremy Bailenson, (Stanford University) The Use of Immersive Virtual Reality in the Learning Sciences: Digital Transformations of Teachers, Students, and Social Context

6:30-6:50 Dr. Andrew Stricker, Dr. Cynthia Calongne and Mike McCrocklin: Introduction of new overview video and description of 12 learning environment design prototypes; also, an update on the use of virtual co-player agents in the multiplayer game simulation on interdependent leadership

6:50-7:00 Break to prepare for the learning environment prototype tour. We ask tour participants to meet at the north-entrance (facing the lagoon) of the GLF Event Hall at 7:00pm CST. Dr. Andrew Stricker (Spinoza Quinnell) and Mike McCrocklin (Apollo Segal) will host the tour. Participants can also take a self-directed tour using the provided tour note card or teleport board.

About the Global Learning Forum

Global Learning Forum (GLF) members critique researching, learning, instruction, and assessment approaches that underline effective cyber-scholarship, advanced distributed learning (ADL) course design, teaching practices, and innovations made possible by educational technologies. A desired outcome of GLF is for members to help scan, focus, and act on promising cyber-scholarship innovations, including the methods and assumptions used when applying learning science theory to instructional design. GLF members collaborate to harness the power of virtual communities to innovatively transform ways to learn, instruct, and discover. Many of the innovations and research work of our GLF members can be seen at the Huffman Prairie region in the Virtual Educational Technology Support Center (VETSC) building. You can freely join the GLF within Second Life (use the search tool to find the GLF group).

The GLF event brochure and agenda was produced by Dr. Andrew Stricker and Mike McCrocklin. Many thanks to Andy and Mike for hosting this exciting event.

Is that a Holodeck in your pocket? An introduction to rezzers

2009-08-13T21:07:00.008-06:00

Tonight's class in Second Life included Second Life rezzer tips and an introduction to Christakis's case studies.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could create content that appeared when requested and disappeared when it is no longer needed?

To understand how rezzers work, we examined a simple rezzer, an object that copies and renders new objects when touched, and how rezzers work. Our example uses the Builder's Buddy rezzer design by Newfie Pendragon with its base and component scripts.

We rezzed and tested the Builder's Buddy interface, building and cleaning up our component objects, then discussed the primchannel variable in the Builder's Buddy program.

A primitive is a basic shape and the channel is a communication path. Prim = a primitive shape. A primchannel is a channel that the object uses to communicate with other objects. It is a variable name in this program.

Objects communicate over negative or positive channels. Avatars only use positive channels. The local chat, our default text chat channel, is channel 0 (zero) and does not require specifying the channel number to use it.

When objects are communicating only with other objects and not receiving instructions from a user over a channel, then use a negative primchannel (a negative number).

Our first task is to ensure that the base and component scripts use the same prim channel. You want to reset it to a matching number in both scripts so your object is not sending instructions and listening over the same channel as other objects.

When we did not reset the prim channel number, one student could request his rezzer to clean or delete his component object and everyone's component objects were deleted.

Next, we linked the primitive shapes into an object by editing a prim, holding the shift key, selecting the remaining objects and using the ctrl+L command to link them into a single linked object.

The four prims in the image to the left are linked. The prim with the yellow outline is the parent object. Child objects have a blue outline around them in edit mode.

After a brief study of rezzers and linked objects, we tore down the tree house with a single command and rebuilt it with a second command.

Next, we discussed a review of the Christakis' case study from Chapter 14 on how to get a drug developed and to market faster [1]. In addition to being an excellent example of using SDP to facilitate change, the case studies also illustrate alternative research methods using an action research approach.

Rather than read the case studies passively, we urge scholars to consider how to employ the method as a catalyst for social change.

As we shift to online collaboration, we recognize that document management may be insufficient for stimulating effective communication and rapid change. Christakis' observes that the 3-6 days of dedicated workshops accomplished the tasks that would normally take weeks or months to complete [1].

Next week, we will continue our discussion of Christakis' research and develop some new Second Life skills. To obtain a copy of the rezzer exercise folder, send an instant message in Second Life to Lyr Lobo.

References
[1] A. N. Christakis and K. C. Bausch, How People Harness their Collective Wisdom and Power to Construct the Future in Co-Laboratories of Democracy, 1 ed. Greenwich, Connecticut: Information Age Publishing, 2006, pages 93-98.

Great Thoughts - The Futurists

2009-08-10T16:32:00.008-06:00

In our Week 5 class, we discussed the following thoughts about the future. This extends last week's discussion, when we observed that there is no single method for predicting the future.

“We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” (Albert Einstein)

"Any useful idea about the future should appear to be ridiculous." (Jim Dator)

"A part of our future appears to be evolutionary and unpredictable, and another part looks developmental and predictable. Our challenge is to invent the first and discover the second." (John Smart)

“Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.” (Albert Einstein)

“Forecasting is not a respectable human activity.” (Peter Drucker)

After discussing the semantics and how we would re-phrase them, one student closed our session with the following quote.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." (Arthur C. Clarke, "Profiles of the Future" - Clarke's third law).

Next week, we will examine how Christakis describes the SDP method and discuss a case study from his book during our Second Life class session.

Visit the CS 855 Summer 2009 list of blogs to the right to view the student discussions each week. The topics range from inspiring videos from Ted Talks, our opinions about the Horizon Report's predictions, the use of collaborative Web tools and our reflections on the future.

CS 855 Week 4 Classes in Second Life

2009-07-31T08:29:00.013-06:00

We gathered twice this week to discuss our perceptions of the myths and truths that are associated with creativity and innovation.

Does creativity require creative people? Bill Breen raises the question in The 6 Myths of Creativity. Our responses ranged from no, anyone can have creative ideas to yes, when they are stimulated by necessity (a requirement) or executed by talented individuals who have the tools and skills to envision these ideas.

Each of us has the opportunity to meet the creative challenge.

Does technological innovation have a method? Scott Berkun, in the interview about his book The Myths of Innovation, notes that in retrospect, the stories of how certain innovations evolved may seem as if they were derived from a logical progression of steps. Yet, if the creators of each incremental development were interviewed, the failures and uncertainty associated with evaluating and rejecting alternative approaches would surface. There is no single method.

While we did not constrain our discussion of creativity and innovation to technology, one of our focal points in this course is to understand how new ideas become future technologies.

Near the end of class, we created content in Second Life, using the building tool to develop a one prim design that began as a tube, evolved into a 1) one prim stool, 2) twisted into a fountain and 3) rotated, stretched and textured into a Tiffany lamp.

The term prim is describes a single primitive shape, one of the beginning shapes offered in the Second Life building tool. These shapes a cube, prism, sphere, cylinder, torus, tube and ring. There are also modifications to these basic shapes and a sculpted shape available in the SL building tool.

Next week, we will meet on Thursday (August 6th) from 7:30 PM to 9:00 PM Mountain time. The first and last half hour will include some Second Life content and skills while the middle of the class will explore futuring and innovation concepts.

CTU Doctoral Defense News

2009-07-22T23:09:00.026-06:00

Congratulations are extended to Matthew Purkeypile for his research on Quantum Computing, Paul Yanzick for his research on Web Services for Embedded Devices, Brent Wilson for his research on Distributed Networks and Neighborhoods and David Graves for his research on IT Service Management. They successfully defended their doctoral research and presented it to the Institute for Advanced Studies during our Doctoral Symposium last week.

In addition to our formal graduation ceremony, we held a ceremony during our Doctoral Symposium to share the celebration with the Doctor of Computer Science students and faculty.

Dawn Frankovich and Will Henry presented their research during the Spring Doctoral Symposium and are also graduating this Summer. *cheers*

The graduation photos depicted in this post were taken by the friends and family of Paul Yanzick and Matt Purkeypile, and are hosted on Matt, Paul and Brent's Facebook sites.

Maurice Dawson's doctoral defense is scheduled for Friday, July 24, 2009 at 1:00 Mountain in our Adobe Acrobat Connect meeting room. As future defenses are scheduled, I will also announce them in Twitter.

Congratulations to our Colorado Technical University graduates! *cheers*

Second Life Relay for Life 09 Totals

2009-07-22T22:39:00.007-06:00

Due to the hard work of the volunteers, organizers and participants during the Second Life Relay for Life 2009, we raised $271,277.00 for cancer research.

Many thanks to the wonderful team members from team Circle of Life, Blynn Heron and Erielle Clary, our co-captains and our many friends in Elf Circle. You led dozens of events and designed magnificent gardens that served as an inspiration to us all. It has been a privilege to serve as your team captain.

Tim Harrison, my brother in spirit, died just prior to our Relay for Life.

I was so thankful to be able to honor him in addition to the many loved ones that we have lost to this terrible disease.

Our struggle is not in vain; Cindy, a dear friend who shared her journey through Stage Four cancer with me in 2006, survived, and at last account, is enjoying a very full life. We are quite powerful when we work together! #slrfl #slrfl09

Second Life Relay for Life - One World, One Hope

2009-07-18T01:40:00.012-06:00

The Second Life Relay for Life begins July 18th, 2009 at noon, followed by the moving cancer survivor's and caregiver's lap at 1:00. This year, residents from over 20 countries are expected to participate, reminding me of my first SL relay for life in 2006.

See the schedule later in this post for more lap information. I will be unable to walk for much of the day while teaching at Colorado Technical University's doctoral symposium, so I took a few photos so I could enjoy the lovely Circle of Life fantasy gardens at RFL An Iema.

Many thanks to the wonderful Elf Circle designers who crafted a lovely setting for our celebration of life.

As you walk a lap, take a moment to stop and dance with the elves on a dance floor that floats above the water amid finely crafted bardic instruments as a dolphin that swims around you.

Every hour during the SL Relay for Life, the residents of Second Life will walk through the campsites and learn more about the strength and courage of cancer survivors and the people who love them. Many of the walks are themed and the schedule includes the following themed laps:

Saturday, July 28, 2009 (All times are Pacific/SLT)

Noon - Opening Ceremonies
1pm - Survivor/Caregiver Lap
2pm - Team Spirit Lap - Team Shirts & Banners
3pm - One World - International Outfits Lap
4pm - One Hope - Rainbos Lap - The Hope of a New Day...The Promise of Calm after the Storm. Wear all the colors of the rainbow and celebrate One HOPE
5pm - Flower Power Hour Lap - 60's outfits
6pm - Tackle It - football, rugby or any sports clothing. Let's tackle cancer together - united, we can beat this.
7pm - Western Theme Lap
8pm - Bald is Beautiful Lap (Fay, this one's for you)
9pm - Luminaria Ceremony (please no events during this time)
10pm - Magic Lap - Wizzards, Magicians, Fairies, etc.
11pm - Tacky Tourist Lap

Sunday, July 19, 2009 (All times are Pacific/SLT)

12am - Midnight Masquerade
1am - Health Matters - Maybe you are a banana, or an orange, or a carrot. Live a healthy life - we can all make a small change that improves our life.
2am - Crazy Shoes Lap
3am - Meet a New Friend Lap
4am - Silly Hats Lap
5am - Tinies, Furries, Tails & Wings
6am - Fight Back Ceremony
7am - Caring & Curing Lap - Dr., Nurse, Scientist - Working together to beat cancer
8am - Coffee Curlers, Slippers & PJ's
9am - Here Comes the Sun - Dress for a day at the beach. Always remember to protect yourself from the sun on land and sea, even on a cloudy day.
10am - Formal Wear Lap
11am - Closing Ceremonies (Teams Lap to follow)

Come enjoy the live music throughout the festival and help us fight cancer. If you are using the Map within Second Life, visit the RFL An Iema region. #slrfl09

Go Relay! *cheers* #slrfl

Futuring and Innovation: The next 5,000 days of the Web

2009-07-06T11:08:00.018-06:00

Kevin Kelly discusses the next 5,000 days of the Web on Ted Talks

Imagine for a moment that you summarized the Web's development as the first 5,000 days (13.7 years) that led to the Web as we know it today. Travel back in your mind 13-14 years. What were you doing prior to the Web?

In 1986, my family and I ran a BBS for 150 Mac users out of our home. Sending email messages in 1988 across a defense network required long email addresses that identified the machines en route.

What will the next 5,000 days of the Web offer in terms of capability and use? Kevin Kelly compares what we know today to what it will be like in 13.7 years.

The statistics from today's Internet use help us to put our experience into perspective.

The Web 2.0 has provided us with a wealth of free collaboration, broadcasting and social tools. In the future, Kelly's notes that your identity and your ability to find friends across future social sites will be consistent as you travel between tools.

For the Semantic Web, Web 3.0 and the giant global graph to be effective, we need to be open to sharing our data in addition to sharing web pages and our computers. I can see a few barriers to open access when it comes to private and sensitive data.

Moving to a world with the easy retrieval of data will require a culture shift from today's compliance and control to an effective information accountability system that supports the fair use of data. How we feel about web privacy and the protection of data limits what we share today.

Linking things between the Web and the real world, as noted by Kelly's observation about the Internet of Things helps us to experience a seat on the plane or to reserve a table at a restaurant, as I proposed in my Futuring and Innovation course introduction.

I wrote my introduction before watching his video and am gratified to see that his vision of the future aligns with mine. *chuckles*

Will we become co-dependent on the future Web as Kelly suggests? *grins* His summary notes that We are the Web and we will become the machine. What do you think?

He concludes by observing that the result from the next 5,000 days (13.7 years) won't be the Web that we know today, only better. It will offer a smarter, more personalized and ubiquitous experience.

I am ready for it! Are you?

Freedom Writers' Diaries - Erin Gruwell at ISTE NECC 09

2009-07-06T10:31:00.002-06:00

Erin Gruwell shared her inspiring story and the stories from her students as they learned a love of literature and to develop their voices. She showed several video clips that were heartbreaking in their honesty and empowerment.

We left NECC 09 energized and ready to develop the stories of our students. Her work with the 150 teachers across the country on the use of technology reminded me that despite our level of technological sophistication, we all have hurdles and challenges to overcome.

If they can do it, we can do it! *cheers*

I had a grand time working at the Second Life Playground and want to thank Lisa Linn, Scott Merrick, Susan Toth-Cohen, Peggy Sheehy, Bernajean Porter, Marianne Malstrom, Lloyd, Laura Sheehy, Pamela and our wonderful Second Life educators!

See you at ISTE 2010 in Denver! *waves*

ISTE NECC 2009 - Malcolm Gladwell

2009-06-29T02:56:00.015-06:00

Malcolm Gladwell's keynote address at the ISTE NECC 2009 conference began with an analogy of Fleetwood Mac's success with the album Rumors and how the band struggled to perfect their music over the 16 albums that preceded it. #necc09mg

Without 10+ years of hard work, it is hard to achieve mastery. The live blog and discussions over twitter reflected on this thought. Some felt that it did not account for the creative genius of the talented educators who are new to the practice of teaching.

My thoughts? Practice makes perfect is not always the outcome, despite how long some folks practice their craft. Learning from experience and creating knowledge from it aligns with my constructivist philosophy. One of my favorite quotes comes to mind.

Good judgment comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgment.

(attributed to Will Rogers and Barry LePatner)

We need opportunities to fail and to learn from failure in order to appreciate and achieve success. #necc2009mg

I enjoyed last year's keynote address and the reflections on the wisdom of crowds. This year, I'm humming "Rock on, Gold Dust Woman" and looking forward to tomorrow's sessions. *grins* #necc09 #necc09mg

Conferences for May - June

2009-05-01T01:01:00.008-06:00

For the Global Learning Forum event in May, Andy Stricker, Mike McCrocklin and I are working on a paper that analyzes the benefits of collaboration in the game simulation. The measurements include interdependent group decisions and how the leadership role transfers within virtual teams. It builds on John Bransford's research on anchored-modular inquiry.

It also reminds me of Dr. Bransford's 2006 presentation on collaboration and cooperation. In Second Life, we floated on red seats above his maze where the participants needed to work together to open and navigate through each room. The ceiling was cut away so we could observe the action and video screens lowered around us so we could see video examples from the experiment.

After the presentation, we were able to wear a device as we entered the experiment during an informal tour. A copy of his transcript is available from SimTeach.

I am hosting the Mystical Festival on Acheron LV426 May 15-17 to benefit the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life. It is sponsored by Elf Circle's RFL team, Circle of Life.

The Mystical Festival includes crafts, concerts, dances, fashion shows, Second Life classes, fortune telling and Elven magic in a Tolkienesque setting.

Check back for a listing of events and times. We have a series of events from March - June followed by the design of the campsites and run through the Second Life Relay for Life.

June 28 - July 2, I'll be in Washington, DC for the ISTE NECC conference. Many thanks to Lisa Linn for inviting me to participate in the Second Life Playground and workshops. The SL playground will run for three days this year.

CS 820 Week 3 in Second Life

2009-05-01T00:26:00.009-06:00

On Thursday, April 30, we held two sessions in Breeze and created recordings of the following topics: selecting measurement attributes, setting goals, creating the usability specification and designing the test procedure, test plan and experimental design.

In Second Life, we gathered to discuss building techniques and created a stool, fountain head and lamp. For those who missed it, the notes are in a notecard giver within the lamp sculpture in front of the building information signs. (See the example at the top left). Click the lamp to get a copy of the notecard. It has instructions, textures and a sample of the finished product.

We also distributed texture folders (through stone), four sound folders, vehicles and the Lyr scripts folder. In the scripts, the tip jar/genie bottle script has examples of how objects can interact with the local chat log or via instant message.

If you did not want the chat log to spam the data collected to the test subject, you could have the object instant message the test conductor privately with the data collected. This is not required for our projects, but good to know. Another method is the llOwnerSay() function. Objects then communicate only with the owner or avatar that rezzed the object.

We are going to hold another Second Life class on Saturday, May 9, 2009, so look for it on the Calendar. The Breeze recordings will be posted on Moodle on Friday.

Have a great weekend!

CS 820 Spring 2009 - Classes 1 and 2

2009-04-22T00:35:00.015-06:00

Greetings to our CS 820 Usability and Interaction class. Paul Thor and I are delighted to share this class with you.

We have met twice using Adobe Acrobat Connect (Breeze) and Second Life in April 2009. Our second SL class session was smooth as we moved from our Breeze discussion to building skills in Second Life.

Our first class focused on these Second Life skills:

creating a Second Life account
using voice in Second Life
movement and camera controls
introduction to the build menu
introduction to sitting on objects (right click and sit/relax)
tour of a device that rezzes new scenes (like a holodeck)

During our tour, we visited a coffee shop, the solar system, a Japanese tea room and we returned to the ground to remove and rebuild the castle in about 15 seconds or less. The tour device kept removing content too fast for comfort. *blinks and grins* I need to reset the scripts before we use it again.

During our second class, we used the Build button in the bottom center of the display to learn how to rez or create a primitive shape (called a prim), name our box, set the permissions for it, create a simple script, color it and take it into the inventory. We also noted how content that is returned to us is returned to the Lost and Found folder in the Inventory.

Our class building activities included:

create a box
name it using the General tab
set the permissions to copy/mod/transfer
used the Contents tab to create a New Script
used the Texture Tab and color white icon to color the box
copied our box using the shift key and one of the green, red or blue arrows
used the shift key to left click both boxes
used control L to link both boxes into a single object

Once we were finished editing the box, we clicked it and noted that it stated in the local chat log that the box was touched. This feature is handy for collecting automated measurements during usability tests.

With this script, we can collect a log that lists the interaction objects that are touched. In the preferences menu (ctrl P), and the Communicate tab, you can display the time in the chat log and store it for later use.

We also tested a student project from a past class. Students received a copy of the procedure for the test plan by touching a box that gave them a notecard with the test cases and instructions on it.

Notecards are Second Life content files that allow us to add text, and drag objects, images, landmarks and other content from the Inventory to the card for easy distribution.

As time progresses, we will examine different types of interfaces, how to texture your creations, how to prototype your class project and conduct usability tests with our class. In addition, you will receive freebie folders of content, including vehicles, tools, a touring HUD, a notecard with landmarks for visiting other sites, more texture folders, scripts, sounds and access to an online tool that writes scripts for you.

See you at the residency and online! *cheers*

HASTAC III Traversing Digital Boundaries

2009-04-21T23:46:00.007-06:00

Dr. Sharon Tettegah and I, as editors of a book on Identity, Learning and Support in Virtual Worlds, introduced it at the HASTAC III conference on Traversing Digital Boundaries.

What was unusual about the session was that I gave my presentation from Second Life, using an impromptu feed over Sharon's laptop into the live conference session. After all, we were traversing digital boundaries and what better way to do it than through a spontaneous connection?

Blended reality conferences are not new; we have been conducting mixed avatar and live conference sessions since 2006, but with a lot of prior planning. The photo on the right is from the October 2006 NMC Symposium with the MacArthur Foundation.

Our HASTAC III panel discussion was spontaneous, did not require advance technological planning and was designed to support a variety of delivery models.

As a presenter in Second Life, we had no audio or video feed back into Second Life, so I could not hear or see the live conference attendees nor could I hear my co-presenter. When she appeared, typed a welcome note, asked me to introduce myself, we were on our way to hosting a fun session on identity and learning. It reminded me of being a newscaster in the field, waiting for the cue to begin.

The night before the conference, I ripped my custom-created gazebo apart and into a stage, hoisted my slide viewer against the castle, and let the castle and garden plants form a backdrop for the session.

We had a great time and would like to thank the organizers of HASTAC III and the participants for such a warm welcome!

TCC 2009 Worldwide Online Conference presentations

2009-04-17T13:55:00.006-06:00

Greetings! The TCC 2009 Worldwide Online Conference is a great opportunity to explore the content and share ideas with over 1300 educators in 90+ international presentations and keynote addresses on education, technology and tools.

While the live conference sessions have ended, each Eluminate session was recorded and remains in the archives. In this post are images from the Second Life sessions that were either held synchronously in Eluminate or only held in Second Life, including Melita Farley's Using Blended Learning to Increase Skills in the Workplace (video recording) and Media Rich Intake Environments for Learning in Virtual Worlds by Annie Jeffrey, Scott Grant and Emily East, held solely in Second Life.

Both of these sessions featured gardens and elegant learning spaces that are designed to relax the mind and invigorate the spirit. The Media Rich session also included tours of a Music Garden and a Chinese College.

It is not too late to enjoy the sessions and discuss the topics with educators, instructional designers and administrators from around the world. Join the TCC conference 'OHANA (a Hawaiian word for family) and participate in future TCC conferences.

On April 2, Nick Noakes, Jeff Hiles and I hosted a TCC pre-conference session in Second Life. The slides from that session are embedded on this blog and available at Lyr Lobo's Slideshare under the title Poised at the Edge of the Unknown: Surviving and Thriving in Second Life.

To my great delight, my Tuesday, April 14, 2009 presentation on Digital Learning Environments Context Sensitive and Imaginative Classes in Second Life was full of new SL users. The slides are available under Lyr Lobo's Slideshare and I'll add content from this session in a later update to this post. Racing to get to a meeting. *laughs*

Defense GameTech User's Conference

2009-04-09T13:17:00.009-06:00

Many thanks to Peter Marion, Director, Kent Fowler, Karen Cooper and the Defense GameTech User's Conference team for inviting me to give a presentation and two tutorials at their conference.

The Defense GameTech Users' Conference was held 9-12 March, in Orlando, Florida. The conference plays a key role in enhancing the training of Warfighters. The topics were excellent and both keynote luncheons featured fascinating content.

John Gresham, (spelled with an 'e') is a renowned scholar, game designer and researcher of content for Tom Clancy. He presented a historical retrospective that made the international state of affairs come to life. What an eye opener!

Maj. Gen. Lessel, a visionary force in the Global Learning Forum and Air Force game simulation activities in Second Life, gave a keynote address that made me feel as if he had taken me by the hand and we were touring the Air Force virtual world activities and game simulation research together. It was an amazing journey.

Another conference highlight were the talks given by Dr. Andrew Stricker on the Global Learning Forum's Game Simulation Kit and Erica and Sam Driver's virtual session on the interactive tools and mind mapping capabilities of Second Life. They presented from within Second Life. Check out their document on How to Give New Users a Good First Experience on how to foster great immersive Internet experiences.

After enjoying Erica and Sam's session, I left the auditorium and ran back to my hotel room to present my session on Teaching in an Avatar World as my avatar Lyr Lobo in Second Life. By presenting it virtually, I could rez demonstrate some tools, give meeting spaces and related content to the SL participants and interact with both the live and virtual audience comfortably.

Earlier in the conference, I offered two tutorials that featured basic Second Life skills, designing content and creating activities.

My compliments to the Defense GameTech 2009 team for hosting an excellent conference!

CS 820 Spring 09 Begins

2009-04-06T19:44:00.015-06:00

Greetings to CTU's CS 820 Spring 2009 class on Usability and Interaction!

You've heard of the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition? No? Well, for those who are not fans of Star Trek Deep Space Nine, they are a humorous set of rules that offer bits of wisdom. I jotted down a few to guide our discussions early in the course.

Calongne's Rules
(for Usability and Interaction)

Rule 1: Uncertainty is not our friend.
(or the user's friend, for that matter!)

Rule 2: The "change your mind task" is the most commonly performed task. We should see a "change your mind" task in each usability test and final project.

Rule 3: Save time and number your discussion contributions. It is easier to tell when content is missing.

Rule 4: When in doubt, the general rule for every assignment is to "describe 3-5 of ...."

Exceptions include the number of user classes in your user profiles activity (2) and the number of pages required for your informal lessons learned paper (2-3).

Rule 5: We get very excited when a student makes a mistake or demonstrates a lack of understanding. It is an opportunity for learning. Points are not deducted until the activity is complete (or we grow tired and the course ends).

Rule 6: Learning comes first. It just looks like rule 6.

Rule 7: Check back for more rules! Don't hesitate to propose new rules. *grins*

TCC Pre-conference Session in Second Life

2009-04-06T17:50:00.009-06:00

Poised at the Edge of the Unknown...

Aloha from the TCC Pre-conference session!

Nick Noakes, Jeff Hiles and I (Cynthia Calongne), hosted a humorous presentation on the challenges that perplex educators who are new to using virtual worlds called Poised at the Edge of the Unknown: Surviving and Thriving in Second Life.

The content ranged from simple to controversial topics, drawn from our experiences and insights from the past three years.

Featured here are a couple of pics taken after the session (click to enlarge them). We had 27-50 attendees join us during the course of the evening. *cheers* See you at the TCC Worldwide Online Conference, April 14-16, 2009!

You're a SlideShare RockStar!

2009-04-01T06:23:00.010-06:00

Wow, many thanks to the SlideShare Team and the Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education 2009 (VWBPE09) for hosting my presentation on Teaching in Virtual Worlds: Identity and Culture!

Punk'd, doh! *laughs*

Well, despite the grand April Fool's joke, the session was full and we had a grand time playing a trivia game while exploring identity and culture during the conference session.

During the session, an enthusiastic group of educators answered trivia questions while the presentation viewer tracked their responses and provided feedback in whispers. I created the game using Sendao Goodman's 2007 trivia viewer for several presentations this month, including the Game Simulation Kit presentation for the New Media Consortium Symposium on New Media and Learning.

Visit Lyr Lobo's SlideShare area to see my other presentations and visit the SlideShare Education page to enjoy more educational content. I have also embedded a Slideshare viewer on my site for easy access to the Game Simulation Kit content and notes below from the Teaching in Virtual Worlds: Identity and Culture session.

Identity and Culture in Virtual Worlds

View more slideshows from Cynthia Calongne.

Slideshow Notes

Slide 1 An avatar dances with a robot that looks like her avatar on the first two slides, representing the freedom of the curious mind.

Slide 5 depicts Eric McLuhan on his first day in a virtual world, presenting his research on hieroglyphics as an early form of animation. He presented it in context, dressed as a pharaoh. Eric McLuhan in Second Life - Playing Media Ecology.

Slides 8 and 10 depict Sarah Robbins-Bell (Intellagirl Tully), AJ Brooks, and the Linden Lab educational representatives, Claudia Linden (teen grid) and Pathfinder Linden (main grid, SLED).

While anonymity offers great potential for roleplay and self expression, students and educators need to recognize each other, especially when recognizing accomplishments via end of term grades.

Slide 11 sets the scene for situated learning, diversity and how we articulate and share our thoughts and opinions during knowledge construction in a virtual world.

Through audience interaction, we learned that a sophisticated virtual world avatar is not required to implement change in a virtual world.

Slide 12 adds Seifert Surface, famous for his Crooked House and mathematics sculptures, and Peggy Sheehy (Maggie Marat of Ramapo), known for pioneering the first middle school in a virtual world (Suffern Middle School in NY).

The human barometer activity featured on slide 13 was adapted from the GlobalKids demonstration of it on slide 12.

Slide 14 refers to how simple avatars can influence growth in a virtual world. Pictured is the former CEO of Linden Lab Philip Rosedale and his avatar.

Slide 15 notes that virtual worlds are on the rise, and with it is avatar creation, identity and self-expression in virtual worlds.

Slide 17 looks inside two avatars to the wireframe view, noting that we meet minds in a virtual space. Avatar development, movement and gesture can be quite sophisticated, as noted on Slide 18.

Slide 19 Alan Levine (CDB Barkley) of the New Media Consortium and formerly with the Maricopa Learning eXchange is featured in his furry avatar amid a community of librarians, educators, administrators and instructional designers.

Slide 20 Only one avatar is seen, but three of the robots could be worn as an avatar. The name over an avatar is how we distinguish real people from objects, as evidenced by Slide 21 at the Life20.net conference sponsored by Dr. Dobbs Journal, Sun and IBM.

Slide 23 refers to the fantasy subculture (Middle Earth).

On slide 24, the lady on the right by Daden Limited is not real. She is a bot and can interact with avatars via a text-based conversation.

Slide 25 Howard Rheingold is a well-known educator and author on social media. This session is his first Second Life session at the New Media Consortium (NMC) in October 2006.

Slide 26 A Colorado Technical University (CTU) class interacts with content and creates 3D objects. On the right, the book that is floating in front of Lyr holds course content and moves with her avatar as she interacts with the class. Not all of the class members look human, noted by the charming box bot on the left.

We can experience life from the perspective of others, as noted during the usability tests conducted in class in Slide 27.

NOAA's Eric Hackathorn has dressed his avatar, Hackshaven Harford, as Grace Hopper in Slide 28 for a presentation to the NMC Symposium on New Media and Learning, March 25, 2009. He also disguised his voice using a voice changer, and then demonstrated the difference to the delight of the session's participants.

Slide 29 in Lyr Lobo on the far left and Slide 30 features Virtual Worlds designer Stella Costello of the NMC on the far right.

Slide 31 shows how graduate students set their appearance at the start of an MBA class in Second Life.

Slide 32 CTU students meet for the first time to roleplay as CEOs in a case study and problem-based learning activity.

Slide 34 offers links to additional content.

I'm off to work on the next project!

#bestofslideshare
April Fool's!

Last day of the VWBPE 09 Conference

2009-03-29T19:30:00.009-06:00

Due to the phenomenal efforts of the Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education Committee, this year's conference was a great experience.

I was delighted with this year's conference. The huge turnout resulted in full sims and great conversation.
Lag happens, and still people connect, meet minds, share ideas and establish strong social networks. Highlights for me were Kim Pasturnak's session on Process Drama and my trivia game session on Identity and Culture.

See the Selkie in the photo on the left? Kim blends storytelling with generative drama to evoke strong opinions from each participant.

Both Kim Flintoff's slides and my Identity and Culture game slides are available on Slideshare. I'd like to say that I took a host of lovely photos, but I was preoccupied while chatting with the game participants. I had as much fun as they did! *grins*

Zana Kohime's tireless efforts during the conference were recognized at the Closing Ceremonies. A limited number of residents are seen on screen to increase performance, so you cannot tell from the photo that the sims were full.

Afterwards, we attended the closing ceremonies and a party. Again, thanks to LoriVonne, Phelan, Pooky and Marty as well as the many other conference staff who made this year a success. See you next year at Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education 2010! *cheers*

More information on my conference session follows in the next post.

Saturday at the VWBPE 2009 Conference

2009-03-28T18:10:00.002-06:00

Carolyn Carillon asked if I was liveblogging the Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education conference (VWBPE) in Second Life this weekend. Ack, I must confess. I've been participating, listening and jotting down dozens of ideas for future research.

*chuckles* I'm having a blast at this conference, sharing insights and gaining so many new strategies from a wealth of educators and new friends.

Classroom on Demand?

Earlier, the session on using the Builder's Buddy to create learning spaces that render a temporary learning scene was a fun, productive session. Yes, I've used the tool before, but enjoyed seeing how Bonbon, Alpha and Cvetka made it easy for educators to use it to create two projects in 40 minutes.

The educators' group session with Maggie Marat (Peggy Sheehy), Pathfinder Linden, Claudia Linden, George Linden, Stella Costello, Pipsqueak Fiddlesticks, Carl Metropolitan and Saxet Uralia was excellent. I must confess; I don't always enjoy panel discussions, especially when the topic wanders or is too general to be useful.

In their session, they posted web links for getting more information (that's liquid gold during a conference!) and important tips. For the folks who cannot join one more group (25 is the maximum), but want to know about group events and activities.

Subscribe-o-matic is now free for groups under 500 users. See the post from September 2008 for more information.

The Immediacy of Online Communications - Instant Feedback

Ted William Gross (RL), also known as Kitviel Silberberg in Second Life, is discussing the history of online communications.

Oddly enough, the more immersed we become in online tools, the less time we have for responding to the hundreds of messages we receive each day.

Twitter is not a favorite of the speaker's, yet I find it useful for lurking at the back of a real life conference session, listening to others offer insights to the speaker's research and cool tools. That insider view of the researcher's work offers an intimacy with the conference audience and I miss it when access to Twitter is unavailable.

I know what you are thinking. Second Life has it all built within it. Twitter offers a favorites feature that allows me to remember people and their links in the context of time and what we were doing when they posted it. This is very useful, but again, I not use my Twitter account mostly for research collaborations and sharing the state of the research from my small end of the world.

Loved the audience discussion during this session. Silent sessions set to a presenter's monologue makes me restless. All this discussion and controversy is exciting and makes us think. What a wonderful meeting of minds!

Thanks for a great day of sessions! More to come. Visit the VWBPE schedule for more information on the remaining events for Saturday and Sunday.

VWBPE.org Conference 2009

2009-03-28T17:30:00.008-06:00

Friday at the Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education conference was excellent. I must confess to some cognitive overload due to attending Pathfinder Linden's keynote at the VWBPE and the New Media Consortium's TCC Worldwide Online Conference special event on their Horizon Report 2009. *eyes spin in her head*

Both sessions were excellent and no one noticed a momentary delay in my responses in the various chat logs. *grins* Yes, the storytelling, creativity and Vogon poetry sessions were fantastic, too. In fact, I may have to weave some comic books into my future lessons. Won't that be fun? *laughs*

Throughout the day, I found myself racing to gather the chat logs, links, take photos, click on content givers, and study the presenter's content to digest it all. The remaining sessions, such as Dr. David Gibson's session on game assessment, kept me so busy that I am still digesting the content.

Some ask what attendees get out of an online conference. Aside from attending vicariously in your jammies, you can share ideas, collect information, photos, notes, research for additional content on the web, meet old friends, make new friends and twitter about the session to your colleagues.

Not a Twit?

You don't use Twitter? I did not for the longest time until I saw the value in it at an NMC conference session two years ago. While listening to unfamiliar content in the presenter's research, I surreptitiously glanced at my neighbor's twitter and was fascinated with the purposeful, condensed content.

He posted several links and some insider information about the presenter's research that made me feel as if I had assumed a spirit form and stepped into the lab to witness it firsthand.

Want to know more? Visit the sessions and papers that are being published in the Journal of Virtual Studies after the conference. Many thanks to the organizers of the VWBPE 2009 and their commitment to great educational experiences in virtual worlds.

Games, conferences and a keynote address

2009-03-25T10:32:00.003-06:00

My, how fast time flies! After hurting my hand, I took a break from blogging and now have so much information to share.

Over the past four months, CS 820 in Fall 2008 ended, CS 820 in Winter 2009 began, and between those experiences, the Global Learning Forum welcomed me warmly to their educational game simulation activities.

In November of 2008, I presented at my first Global learning Forum and learned that an old friend is part of a team that designed a rather cool game simulation and their first game is Operation Relief Worker Rescue Challenge.

January 25-30, 2009 featured the Second Life Education Support Faire with over 3785 unique visitors from over 93 countries. Visit my presentation on Using Second Life in Your Online and Campus Classes for more information.

February 19, 2009, the Association for Information Technology Professionals (AITP) invited me to give a keynote address on the IT implications of virtual world use. Visit the AITP Keynote Address on Virtual Worlds for more information on the issues that challenge IT professionals. It includes a comparison of some popular virtual worlds and statistics that include the fact that there are over 200 teen appropriate virtual worlds that are active or in development.

In February 2009, the design team performed an alpha test of it after Judy Brown and I gave a session on the Current and Future of Mobile Learning. I'll cover the highlights from these sessions visually in my next post.

Images and briefing notes from the game and the results of an alpha test that my CS 820 doctoral students conducted on March 9, 2009 are included my presentation Evaluating a Game Simulation Kit in Second Life on Slideshare.

Will continue with more examples in the next post and highlights from the NMC Symposium. *waves* It is time to give my presentation!

DCS Winter 09 Residency

2009-01-15T06:10:00.002-07:00

Greetings! After a fall and recovery from a hand and wrist injury, I'm delighted to be reporting from the Winter 09 Residency. *cheers*

This week, we have a variety of workshops, featuring Second Life, Mind Tools, Cool Tech, Action Research, Dr. Stout's workshop and Greg Hoglund on Rootkit Analysis.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2008-11-27T13:42:00.003-07:00

Just a short note to wish everyone an excellent holiday!

Soon to come: posts on the Global Learning Forum in Second Life and our last CS 820 class. *smiles and waves*

CS 820 - First Practice Project

2008-11-19T18:27:00.002-07:00

During our Week 6 session, we discussed interface metaphors, learned how to build an intermediate project and discussed linking primitives into a single object.

For the class project, we created a stool, fountain and lamp from a tube. Using a few simple steps, we shaped, twisted, turned, and textured our tubes to demonstrate Second Life building capabilities.

The goal was to learn a few new Second Life building skills while gaining familiarity with the build/edit menu's interface. It takes practice to grow accustomed to unfamiliar terminology, and next week, we will reinforce what we learned as we model our low fidelity prototypes and discuss how to transform our use case scenarios into usability test cases. See you in Second Life!

NMC Rock the Academy Fall Symposium

2008-11-19T17:03:00.030-07:00

If you missed out on the NMC's Rock the Academy Fall Symposium, check out the latest tools, techniques and strategies at the NMC website. The conference program includes chat transcripts and content from the sessions.

Here is the new Tardis by the NMC, where visitors can enter and be swept away as they navigate to other NMC research sites in Second Life.

For you Dr. Who fans, the room is much larger inside the Tardis (depicted on the right). A large wall map on the wall opposite the door shows the growing archipelago of the NMC's education grid.

Our imaginations were stimulated by novel techniques and tools, including Voice Threads, Open Access courses and Gardner Campbell's session on using the BBC and new media, as well as the later sessions on using wikis and YouTube effectively. Some of the presentations were larger than life (pictured on the right).

My Back to the Backchannel presentation (available on Slideshare) included how to weave cell phone podcasts and back channel microblogging tools, like Twitter, into our course designs.

Beth's wonderful Open Access strategies are seen flowing around the edges of my exhibit booth at the NMC. If you get a chance, check out the Literature Alive! booth with its wonderful Pete the spider.

The program ended with a fun demonstration of survivalist performance art. The scene was set by glasses that when worn, allowed the attendees to see zombies lurch after the crowd. Fortunately, the presenters came prepared to thwart the threat and to demonstrate their point in a most picturesque manner.

Want to know more about it? Visit the NMC Rock the Academy content and the NMC!

CS 820 Class, Nov. 5th

2008-11-11T18:33:00.007-07:00

After a wild week of classes, conferences and cool tools, I'm back online! *grins* This post serves as a record of this week's Second Life accomplishments in CS 820 and the plans for our next class.

Our Week 5 class began with a discussion of research and our analysis of the IAS Moodle. For Second Life skills, we studied camera controls and avatar movement. In addition to moving on ground, the class learned to fly and land!

We discussed the range of the text chat log (20-40 meters from your avatar) and the concept of spatialized voice over IP in Second Life.

Next, we reviewed virtual world physics via a simple collaboration activity. The students created spheres, enlarged them, made them physical and learned to pass objects between avatars.

To learn new 3D modeling skills in a virtual world, each student rendered a tube and learned to change its shape to create a one-prim stool, fountain and lamp. We learned to texture a single face of the project by using the Select Texture radio menu in the upper left corner of the build/edit menu.

Texturing the lamp led to a discussion of alternatives for horizontal and vertical repeats, a subject that we will reinforce in a later lesson. *grins* If you would like a copy of the lamp project, textures and instructions, left click the lamp sculpture at Acheron LV426 on the grass next to the castle.

We ended the class with a quick discussion of how to prototype our initial project ideas. My rough draft of the Security Control Interface Portal (SCIP) took about 5 minutes to model. The strength of 3D prototyping is that it gave the class a context for discussing alternative features, styles and behaviors.

For tomorrow's class, we are going to take student project ideas and model them, examining alternatives and planning textures. Our new virtual world building skills will include:

Linking Objects
Editing Linked Parts
Setting Permissions
Transfering objects

See you online! *waves*

CS 820 Class 2 - Moodle Analysis and Camera Control

2008-11-01T12:53:00.005-06:00

Wednesday's CS 820 class in Second Life was great fun as we shared our research and writing topics, discussed the analysis of Moodle and learned to use Second Life.

If you have issues running Second Life smoothly after touring in it, your cache may be congested. Use the ctrl key + p to access the preferences (under the Edit menu), select the Network tab and the Clear Cache button. Quit Second Life and restart the software. It will take a minute to clear the cache.

Initial Recommendations from the Moodle Analysis:

Need for consistency
Location of assignments and handouts
Integrate with campus email
Embed a link to Outlook access for MyCampus
Schedule sensitivity for full-time working students

Second Life Camera Control:

Lock your camera on an object or avatar with the Alt key + left click
To circle around the object or avatar, use the View menu, Camera Controls and the left-hand wheel - can also do it by holding down the ctrl key + alt key + left mouse button and moving the hand slowly.

Building Content in Second Life: First Activity

Click the Build button
Select a shape (we used spheres)
While in edit mode, hold the shift key and drag an arrow to copy the sphere
Stretch the sphere by selecting the Stretch radio menu in the top left corner
Drag on one of the white, green, red or blue boxes. White is proportional; Green, red and blue stretch in a single direction (x,y, or z - left-right, forward-back, up-down)

Student Project Ideas:

SCIP - Security Check-in Point
Digital Dashboard
Moodle

Next Wednesday at 7:00 PM Mountain time, we will discuss how to leverage our interface metaphors in the low fidelity prototypes, learn a few more Second Life building skills, and discuss the next assignment. See you online!

CS 820 Residency Makeup Sessions

2008-10-23T12:18:00.004-06:00

Many thanks to those who attended our Residency Makeup sessions last night. The Adobe Acrobat Connect session was recorded and offered examples of how to complete the activities. Visit the link posted in our News Forum under A Chipmunk's Guide...to access this 58-minute recording.

The Second Life session included the same concepts, but instead of looking at the documents, it offered more interaction and discussion.

We reviewed:

Interface metaphors - users understand the interface as it models real world tasks
User profiles - identifying user classes
Use case scenarios - preconditions, actors, main scenario, alternate scenario and postconditions
Usability specification - identifying usability attributes and setting a range of goals
Usability tests - empirical testing using 3D interface prototypes in Second Life

Next week, we will meet in Second Life at 7:00 PM Mountain to discuss project ideas and how to get the most out of Second Life as we weave the course concepts into our 3D modeling activities.

Future classes will weave our project topics and choice of usability criteria into each incremental deliverable. Adobe Acrobat Connect (Breeze) sessions will be scheduled upon request.

Nifty Assignments and the ACM Digital Library

2008-10-18T11:42:00.004-06:00

The last Rocky Mountain CCSC presentation demonstrated the use of games and creative solutions in Nifty Assignments.

Are you interested in how students solve problems using a variety of games? Visit the ACM Digital Library. to read how they used Hunt the Wumpus (updated to Hunt-the-Terrorist), football scores, maze creation, anagrams, stable pairings and Missile Command for class assignments. The Rocky Mountain CCSC has offered Nifty Assignments for the past few conferences and this year, offers a paper for those who were unable to attend.

Due to the multiple conference tracks, I missed some wonderful presentations and workshops. For more information, use the titles listed in the CCSC Rocky Mountain Conference program and visit the ACM Digital Library.

jGRASP: Teaching Hard Concepts with Intuitive Visualizations at the CCSC

2008-10-18T10:04:00.009-06:00

Dr. James Cross presented jGRASP, the Java virtual machine version of the Graphical Representations of Algorithms, Structures and Processes in his workshop jGRASP: Teaching Hard Concepts with Intuitive Visualizations at the CCSC Rocky Mountain Conference held at Colorado Technical University (CTU).

jGRASP is funded by a National Science Foundation grant. Previous research on GRASP was supported by NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, the Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), the Defense Information Systems Agency DISA) and Lockheed Martin.

Download and use a free copy of jGRASP and the tutorials in Windows, Mac or Linus formats. This visual tool is easy to use by dragging and dropping program elements into a viewer window.

CCSC Workshop on Animated Database Courseware and Gamemaker for Game Development

2008-10-18T09:15:00.006-06:00

Yesterday at the CCSC Rocky Mountain Conference at CTU, Dr. Mario Guimaraes led a riveting presentation of how they use the 2D game design tool Gamemaker in An Exploratory Overview of Teaching Computer Game Development. He noted that Gamemaker is available by a free download. It is easy for students to use and best for designing 2D games.

Today, his workshop on Incorporating Animation Courseware into the Teaching of Complex Database Concepts: Conference Workshop demonstrated how to integrate Flash and Java to animate the entity-relationship notations to depict various ways of learning how to model and understand a relational database design. Visit the Animated DataBase Courseware research site to experience animated instruction and the assessment of advanced database concepts.

CCSC Rocky Mountain Conference 2008 at Colorado Technical University

2008-10-18T00:57:00.020-06:00

Papers from the Seventeenth Annual Consortium for Computing Sciences in Colleges Rocky Mountain Conference were presented October 17-18, 2008 at Colorado Technical University in Colorado Springs. The CCSC conference was hosted in conjunction with the Institute for Advanced Studies' doctoral residency at Colorado Technical University.

The subjects ranged from the use of games in education, such as Neverwinter Nights in Learn These Sums or Die, Using the Ancient Game of Rogue in CS1 and Alice to accessibility tools for blind students and ethics in technology.

Congratulations to my co-authors Steven Endorf, Dawn Frankovich and Johnny Sandaire for their work on our paper entitled A Virtual Environment for Designing User Interface Prototypes. Our presentation on Slideshare was lively as we integrated slides and a Second Life (SL) session to demonstrate the class projects and SL's powerful project creation tool.

It was a great opportunity to demonstrate the accomplishments of CTU students who studied and created projects within the virtual world of Second Life during the Winter 2008 offering of CS 820 Usability and Interaction. Many thanks to Dawn and Steven for presenting their work at the conference as they were not required to attend this term's doctoral residency.

Our Keynote speaker, Kevin Cox, from Microsoft's SQL Server Product Group, discussed the Technology for Very Large Databses, citing his case study for the Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System (Pan-Starrs) project.

James Morgan's presentation of statistics from a study he conducted on The Development of Student Perceptions of Ethical Issues in the Use of IS segued nicely into our banquet presentation.

Keynote speaker Dr. David Teneyuca, Dean of Information Technology at CTU Online, discussed Ethics and Technology. He offered riveting examples of inappropriate use that ranged from robot sex to how technology may be influencing a shift in ethics and values.

We appreciated Site Chair Dr. Bruce Harmon's efforts in hosting the conference at CTU and the CCSC Rocky Mountain Steering Committee's hard work in organizing the papers, publication, sessions and future events. Attendees enjoyed the generous donations from the vendors and sponsors who distributed Cenage canvas bags, Pearson Education textbooks, literature from Colorado Technical University and made this wonderful learning experience possible.

My loot bag included two new books on usability and interaction! *grins*

For more information on tomorrow's conference sessions, visit the CCSC 17th Annual Rocky Mountain Conference.

If there are papers that you would like to read from this conference, use the session names from the CCSC program to review them in the ACM Digital Library.

Note: The images included in this post are by C. Calongne. The first four depict the projects from Winter 2008 CS 820 in Second Life and the last photo includes projects from several classes in Second Life.

Keynote Address for the Online Teaching and Learning Conference

2008-10-06T08:11:00.005-06:00

On Tuesday, October 7, 2008 at 2:00 Eastern, I'll give a keynote address on Second Life: Teaching Tips from the Virtual Frontier for the Jossey-Bass Online Teaching and Learning Conference.

The title is similar to my presentation at the TCC conference in April 2008, but I've updated the examples and references. See you at the conference!

Welcome to CS 820!

2008-10-02T11:22:00.002-06:00

Welcome to our Fall offering of CS 820 Usability and Interaction!

As you progress through this course, you will explore the process of interface design, usability testing and explore new ways to design usable interfaces.

Innovation Week in Second Life

2008-10-01T08:25:00.006-06:00

Visit Orange Island to see a schedule of events for their presentation of Innovation Week in Second Life! I was fortunate to attend Monday's fun presentation by the bantering duo Gwynneth Llewellyn and Jade Lily as they looked Back to the Future.

Monday also featured a special Metanomics panel discussion stimulated by the recent interview with Philip Rosedale, Founder of Second Life.

After the Metanomics session, Malburns Writer led a fun tour of innovations and quizzed participants using an audience participation Human Barometer exercise. In response to his questions about innovative products and technologies, the guests stood on signs to Agree, Disagree or be Unsure.

My favorite was the demonstration of Second Life on a Samsung cell phone using gesture-based recognition that reminded me of using the Wii. To look down at the ground in Second Life, the user tilts the cell phone to pan the camera down.

The Sims 2 representation of the future of eCommerce with avatars examining real life products appealed to me, too. While a few items, like shoes, benefit from trying them on before buying, a virtual shopping mall for real life goods is appealing for interacting with products and browsing for gift ideas.

Would I buy from a virtual shopping mall? If the products are interactive, well-organized and delivered within two days, you bet!

Spirit Dance at Burning Life

2008-09-27T13:46:00.008-06:00

The 6th Annual Burning Life celebration for the arts and creativity runs September 27 - October 5, 2008. Over 600 Burning Life events are scheduled amid a host of campsites, exhibits and free items.

Join me (Lyr Lobo) in a discussion of movement and dance in Second Life on Monday at 9AM SLT (Pacific), 10AM Mountain at Spirit Dance in Tigris and receive some lovely free items.

Serious SL Meetup #18 - Virtual Worlds, Business, and the Law

2008-09-24T13:31:00.003-06:00

If you are in the Boulder area Thursday, September 25th at 6:00PM, check out the next Serious Second Life Meeting where Dr. Lindsay Moore, CEO, President and Founder of KLM, Inc. will speak on intellectual properties rights for virtual products and services.

Location:
Univ of Colorado, Boulder
Classroom 104
1125 18th Street Boulder, CO 80309

For more information or to RSVP, visit the Serious Second Life Meetup site.

Closing Thoughts on Socio-technical Futuring and Innovation

2008-09-23T15:31:00.005-06:00

Thank you for making CS 855 such an invigorating exploration in predictions, forecasting and Web 2.0 Tools. Final grades are posted on the Student Portal. Feel welcome to contact me if you have questions.

As you reflect back on the term...

Did you try any tools that were unfamiliar to you?

Did you learn new information (or a new way of categorizing it) from the textbooks and discussions?

Can you identify the differences between creativity and innovation?

Did you explore the techniques employed by think tanks and a research consortium to identify and forecast innovation?

Despite the challenges and risks associated with long-range forecasts, there is a reason why we do it. No, it is not simply to torture you! *chuckles*

We need a vision of the future, even one that is subject to change, and a strategy for achieving it. We need tactics that help us plan and strive for it, and tools that help us to make better estimates and manage risks.

We need to be aware of many considerations that may impact the success of our predicted innovations:

1. Technological capability - can we do it?
2. Social impacts - people and how they collaborate and feel
3. Cultural issues - groups and their subcultural influences
4. Political issues - without political support, hard to foster innovation
5. Financial - few good ideas thrive without financial support
6. Legal - avoid litigation and protect innovation
7. Ethical - do no harm, respect others, respect their values

As time passes, these influences need to be reassessed to see if the need for the innovation has declined, if the technological capability has redirected future paths, or if the political or social climate has changed dramatically, making it less viable.

Despite the likelihood that our prediction will need to change, our leadership employs good practices to forecast the future and to strategize for it.

As doctoral students and soon to be graduates, many of you are poised on the brink of becoming leaders, if you are not already performing these tasks. How you retain your credibility while planning innovation for your company depends on you.

Please keep in touch and let me know how you are doing... As the Future Catches You! I will miss you and hearing your wonderful thoughts in your posts, comments and Second Life discussions. *smiles*

Have a wonderful break, and if you are graduating, an excellent future! *grins*
Cynthia / Dr. C.
a.k.a. Lyr Lobo in Second Life

Educause Review's Back to (Virtual) School Edition

2008-09-23T11:57:00.017-06:00

If you are unfamiliar with the Educause Review, the award-winning magazine for the higher education IT community, check out this month's Back to (Virtual) School edition. Editor Teddy Diggs has gathered the featured articles and virtual worlds research from a dozen educational institutions in the web-bonus section.

These articles discuss the future of virtual worlds and the viewpoint ranges from the institution, teaching in a virtual world, student learning, the workplace of the future and an examination of the issues that impact the use of a virtual learning environment.

Back to (Virtual) School

Virtual Worlds? “Outlook Good” by AJ Kelton
Higher Education as Virtual Conversation by Sarah Robbins-Bell
Educational Frontiers: Learning in a Virtual World by Cynthia Calongne
Looking to the Future: Higher Education in the Metaverse by Chris Collins
Drawing a Roadmap: Barriers and Challenges to Designing the Ideal Virtual World for Higher Education by Chris Johnson

Many thanks to Teddy Diggs for her exercising her vision and creativity with editorial zeal. She gathered us into a virtual community to discuss virtual worlds and the journal reflects it.

Educause Review, Volume 43, Number 5, September/October 2008

Prototyping 3D Designs in Second Life

2008-09-17T07:46:00.011-06:00

Our last class was a blast as we explored how to model our ideas using Second Life's built-in creation tool.

Our goal was to review everyone's project ideas, identify the desired behaviors for these models, study examples of analogous problems and identify how to blend what we know into a prototype that analyzes one or more properties of the innovation design.

Our activities included:

Build and deform some primitive shapes
Texture
Adjust the shiny, transparency and glow settings
Modify a particle script

As a warm up exercise, everyone created a sphere, cut it in half, hollowed it, and studied how to set one facet or side of it to glow.

Student project ideas focused primarily on two categories: hovercraft and the future of medicine. For hovercraft, we discussed the requirements for simulating movement, noting the 31-primitive (prim) limit for objects that use Second Life's Havok 4 physics system. If a vehicle can carry 5 passengers, it can have no more than 26 linked primitives or shapes - each avatar that sits on it counts as one primitive.

As we began to plan a hover car prototype, we considered how avatars would sit in them and how to design it to support the behavior of novice users. This led to a discussion of shape and common vehicle characteristics. Rather than develop a new paradigm for hover craft travel and traffic patterns, we elected to preserve the behavior of today's motor vehicles in this design.

Next, we explored sample vehicles, discussing how avatars sit in them and how to plan the orientation of each avatar. The class tested various poses for orienting the driver and passengers in the vehicle.

As we discussed the link order of the hovercraft, the students debated the usefulness of making the passenger or the driver the root prim.

Several students demonstrated hovercraft using one of the sample vehicles from an earlier class. At this point, several students flew off into the sunset and two students remained to complete their prototypes.

We modeled different designs for a medical device and discussed how nanoparticles might look as they moved through it. Our prototype featured a laproscopic surgical tool with particles flowing through it to simulate the nanoparticles.

The final prototype was modeled over two sessions and used some evolutionary designs. It began as an encompassing medical diagnostic tube derived from Vanilla Jessop's Genie Chair design and it evolved into a futuristic diagnostic and treatment center.

As we examined how it would be used, the integrated entertainment center concept came to mind. One day, a family might watch television from within the entertainment center. As the program is projected around their bodies, the medical diagnostic system would analyze their health and offer diagnostic advice. Advanced models would include treatment for minor ailments.

This has been a wonderful class and I will miss you! Share your research with the world and do not forget to keep in touch. *smiles and waves* Congratulations to the students who are graduating! Live long and live well.

CS 855 Assessment Checklist

2008-09-13T17:44:00.008-06:00

Thank you for working so hard on your blog assignments, Second Life activities and projects! To reduce the need for rework, please check your CS 855 activities using the following requirements checklist:

Five Web 2.0 Tools:
***********************

Blog - done!
Web 2.0 Tool
Web 2.0 Tool
Podcast
Web 2.0 Tool or Second Life activity

Includes a name and description of the tool, a url for it, and an illustration or example of its use. The blog activity is already complete and needs no additional work. If your example is in text and not visual, note it to ensure that it receives credit.

Your analysis of a:
**********************

Failed Prediction
Successful Prediction

Includes a description of the prediction, a url for it, an illustration, model or example of it. In some cases, the posts do not state failure or success, making assessment difficult.

Your Innovation Prediction:
********************************

Description and analysis - 1 or more blog posts
Discussion of risk
2-3 models that depict it and analyze risk
Examination of the technological, social, cultural, political, financial, ethical and legal issues
2-3 citations (your choice of format)

Final Project:
****************
Gather all of your blog posts, the analysis of each prediction and your innovation posts into a Final Project document (.doc or .pdf format). Include any information that helps it to connect and flow well, demonstrating your research this term. Include your illustrations and models. You do not need to include your podcast, but do add a url for it. See the rubrics posted in the News forum.

Post your final project in the Week 11 forum on the IAS website. The file size limitation is 24MB in the Week 11 forum.

Feel welcome to edit your original post and add information or an image as needed. Note the source of your information if it is not original content. Tip: it is easier to upload .jpgs to Blogger than to point to a Flickr photo until permission is given using Blogger's Help instructions.

Writing feedback is time consuming. Make it easy to evaluate your work by using good labels and checking each assignment. Send me an email message if you are still working on an activity.

Tuesday night's classes at 6PM Mountain and 8PM Mountain will cover prototyping in Second Life. These are working sessions and do not include lecture material on Futuring and Innovation.

Have a great week! *waves*

Last CS 855 Class Session in Second Life

2008-09-09T22:28:00.009-06:00

Tonight's CTU doctoral classes wove a discussion of innovation prediction techniques with an overview of expert systems, risk assessment, and the technological, social, cultural, ethical and legal issues that affect the success of a socio-technical innovation plan.

We reviewed the requirements for the project, including 2-3 models, 2-3 citations, good coverage of the risks and a discussion of one or more of the issues that affect success.

Our Second Life activities focused on testing how to improve voice interaction, using the physics system and setting physical, phantom and temporary properties on our objects. The class worked on a collaboration activity and discuss when to use phantom and the physical settings.

As we turned our attention to the recent activity for Burning Life, the second class session analyzed how to simulate a fire that consumes a sculpture. We rezzed particle and textured fires, blended them, then discussed the alternatives for simulating it.

For the final project, document your ideas on your blogs, then continue it by gathering your entire blog into a document and weaving it into a coherent story. Look at the News forum for additional requirements and feedback throughout the next two weeks.

Class concluded with a discussion of how to find attachments using the Edit menubar and Detach object listing, then searching the inventory. Cheers to the student who discovered and reattached his head!

Next week's classes are informal prototyping sessions where we will build models for our projects and discuss alternatives for simulating behavior. These prototypes include data visualization models and medical diagnostic systems. These sessions are optional and some students are scheduling them at alternative times.

CS 855 Feedback and SL Skills Class

2008-09-08T22:47:00.002-06:00

It's Week 10 and Tuesday's class features a discussion of our last two weeks of course activities, questions about your research and a new Second Life skill for you to enjoy.

We will hold sessions at 6PM Mountain and at 8PM Mountain - same time, same place. If you need a teleport, look for Lyr Lobo in the Second Life by using the Search button and People tab, and send me an instant message.

Grades and feedback reports will be available and if you have questions, do not hesitate to call or write me at calongne@pcisys.net

Have a great week! *waves*

SLEDcc 2008 Best Practices in Education exhibit

2008-09-06T20:31:00.015-06:00

Greetings from the Second Life Education Track at the SL Community Convention, held in Tampa, FL and in Second Life. The posters were excellent and as Lyr Lobo, I had a blast setting up our Colorado Technical University in Second Life booth and chatting with the educators, researchers and visionaries who made it possible for us teach and learn in a virtual world!

Sloan Skjellerup of SL's Rockcliffe University and I observed that Second Life changes rapidly, making it a challenge to stay current with the growing number of universities and educators teaching in a virtual world. Ellie Brewster shared her research in Women's Studies at Ohio State University and noted that Virtual Praxis: A Conference on Women's Community will be held in SL on Minerva island in November.

Tab Scott and Troy McLuhan came by to share their research activities in Second Life. Troy McLuhan was active with the International Spaceflight Museum in Second Life and is now prototyping several science exhibits and museum collections in Second Life. Tab's research at Montana State University blends student culture, architecture, art and music into a learning mashup that extends beyond the classroom to promote sustainable community.

Featured in this image is a panorama of educational highlights in Second Life, including the NMC Symposium, the Testis exhibit and much more. These research highlights were included in last week's Tour of Second Life landmarks.

While most of the exhibits focused on tools and SL education at universities, the K-12 community recognizes that the future is here. The USDLC offers teacher conferences, curriculum and content development in Second Life.

Interested in cool rezzers and science in education? Be sure to check out the StoryMachine and other data visualization tools by Graham Mills (scripts by Troy McLuhan). Graham distributed a copy of it and offered a session during SLEDcc on the Worlds within Worlds.

Due to the wonderful educational discussions, I did not get a photo of every exhibit, and recommend that you visit the SLEDcc 2008 wiki to see the podcasts, Flickr photos, blogs and other media that depicts the state of education in Second Life.

Rezzers, a HUD and Innovation Project Discussions

2008-09-03T03:01:00.011-06:00

Our CTU Week 9 class activity explored scenes that render at the touch of an object, a Second Life tour HUD, and how to complete the socio-technical innovation projects.

As the class began, we tested rezzing the Mahjong tiles on this game table in SL. We also removed and rezzed the island's castle within 10 seconds, showing the speed and power of larger virtual world rezzers and visited a variety of context-sensitive scenes that appeared around us.

If you missed class, be sure to visit and pick up your copy of the Touring Second Life folder. Inside are two notecards, one that organizes a set of landmarks and the other features touring information and a copy of the Boracay Hitchhiker's Guide to SL Heads-up Display (HUD) device. The HUD is included both in the folder and on the touring notecard.

While we were wearing the HUD and testing its interface, I quickly demonstrated how to create a similar prototype and link it.

During our socio-technical project discussion, we explored space travel and hovercraft vehicles as project topics. Both topics may require long-range projections beyond our 10-15 years for non-research topics and 15-30 years for topics within our research areas.

For space travel, the ideas ranged from exploration to a trucking system in space. Naturally, that led to a review of the technological, social, cultural, financial and political influences that need to be considered.

Related technologies may also be needed, such as a mid-air traffic control system for hovercraft vehicles. While it is challenging to consider everything that will be needed, discuss the influences and how they may impact success within the socio-technical plan.

The projects need to include 2-3 models that analyze it and address risk. For Second Life prototypes, one is sufficient. Types of models for the projects include physical (in SL), analogue (on paper or in SL), mathematical and schematic.

During the second class session, we explored a variety of prototypes and particle emitters for project ideas from the residency session, including the diagnostic and treatment medical system.

How will it look, how confident will we feel using it and how will we get feedback from it? Aside from technological capability, how secure, safe and ethical will this system be?

While we will not be able to address every contingency, as we explore an uncertain future, keep in mind the influences that support and hinder your innovation plan.

Next week, we will continue our discussion of the socio-technical innovation plan and summarize the course content. If you plan to design a project prototype in Second Life, contact me for design ideas, textures and scripts.

If you want to hold a graduation ceremony in Second Life during the last week of class, let me know.

Touring Second Life Guide

2008-09-02T16:17:00.013-06:00

Want to know how to tour Second Life, use a heads up display device and return to your current location?

Create a landmark - save your current location for returning later.

Under the World menu on the menubar, select Create a Landmark. Close the landmark that appears. It is filed in the Landmarks folder in your inventory.

Using the Tour Notecard

To teleport to a new location, you can open the tour notecard in your Notecards folder and click on a landmark (has a push pin symbol) to open it.
Select teleport to visit it.

Don't have a Touring Second Life kit? Send a message in SL to Lyr Lobo to request it.

Boracay Hitchhiker's Guide to Second Life

Concept by Roger Thunders, Editorial Team: Bibi Book and Sun Hainsworth
License: Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike
Distributed by Nick Noakes (Corwin Carillon in SL)

Click the Hitchhiker's device to copy it to your inventory from your Lyr Lobo's Touring in Second Life notecard. Skip this step if you already have a copy.

When you have the Boracay Hitchhiker's Guide to SL in your inventory:

In your objects folder, right click and wear the Boracay Hitchhiker's Guide to SL.
A Heads-up Display (HUD) device appears on your display and a Travel HUD requests permission to act on your control inputs in the upper right corner of your display.
Select the Accept button in the upper left corner of your display.

See an example of the HUD in the following image:

Using the Boracay Hitchhiker's Guide to Second Life

Menu and Help:

On the HUD, click the upper left green button of your HUD for a Help notecard or the upper right button to see a menu of options.

The tour categories include Art, Museums, Learning, Exploring, Shopping, SLeducator and Newbies. Select a tour category and wait a moment for it to load.

Use the arrow keys to cycle through a series of locations and click on the image to teleport to that location.
Select the green circle to minimize the HUD and the red circle to maximize it.

Questions? Contact Lyr Lobo in Second Life. Have fun touring!

Socio-technical Diversity

2008-08-26T19:53:00.013-06:00

Tonight's CTU class discussion focused on how companies strategize, evaluate new endeavors and plan for the future. These socio-technical systems included Media Bars at Starbucks and third-party partnerships at Amazon.

Some of the Media Bars are gone now, yet a handful remain scattered around the country. My family and I visited one in San Antonio during the recent ISTE NECC conference and remarked at how cool it was to browse and enjoy tunes while socializing over a favorite beverage. We proudly brought home a souvenir CD that included our favorite tunes.

Now, we have iPODs and iTunes, but the convenience, coupled with browsing while socializing, was fun. The lack of widespread adoption was attributed to iPODs and competing technologies. I was surprised and gratified to visit one, as there are only four remaining sites (according to a Starbucks' employee).

Tonight's Second Life skills included avatar customization and shopping. Prior to touring, several students demonstrated their diversity by changing into Batman, Mr. KoolAid, different genders and robots.

Some were new to setting up a folder for our avatar's normal shape, skin, hair, eyes and clothing. Two students lost their hair, skin and shapes, but after searching for a few moments, were restored.

IF you misplaced your body or hair, do not despair! We will find them. *grins*

One class took a field trip to the NMC Orientation site. After moving through the tutorials and past the trolley car, we flew over to the southeast corner to visit the Educational Center. We picked up a set of academic robes, thanks to the New Media Consortium (NMC) and Stella Costella.

What a great place! Inside, we were able to buy for $0 a host of great educator free items, including educational tools, builder's toolkits, clothing, books and custom looks. We even picked up academic robes in preparation for graduation.

We used the game design group's instant message window to communicate while touring. While voice was successful, mine disconnected for a few minutes, while I continued to chatter. *grins* Note to self: Make sure the Talk Button is lit when traveling.

The second class wove Desire2Learn's conflict with Blackboard and a recent decision by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office.

We discussed OpenGrid architecture and OpenSim, then speculated on the barriers to operating a virtual world server on a home PC and connecting it to a worldwide grid. The ensuing discussion ranged from system requirements to the issues associated with digital rights for virtual world content.

We ended the night by rezzing some of the NMC Games, then set up a mahjong table to discuss rezzable game pieces in preparation for next week's class.

We will meet again next week to continue reviewing the class content, play with rezzers, and distribute a guide to exploring Second Life.

Think Tanks and Second Life Gestures

2008-08-20T16:39:00.015-06:00

In Tuesday's CS 855 Futuring and Innovation classes, we explored the similarities between our think tank activities and the innovations predicted in Technology's Promise. After reflecting on the technique that we used to identify likely innovations, we asked how our results differed from other think tanks?

For Second Life skills, we activated a set of speech gestures and inserted slides into a preloading slide viewer for giving presentations in Second Life.

In both CTU classes, we discussed the podcast assignment, noting that some students used their podcasts to talk about predictions while others evaluated the podcast technology. For using open source or custom-created mp3 content, embed it with a photo into a video and upload it to your blog.

Congratulations go out to the one-month-old birthday of our newest class member and his proud papa (depicted in this photo).

Both class sessions stated that the use of Second Life helped them to connect, share ideas and learn virtual world concepts in a relaxed setting. Students who are graduating this term asked us to hold a virtual graduation in Second Life as many of them will not be attending the next residency. I'll contact Stella Costello from the NMC Virtual Worlds team to see if we can use the NMC cap and gowns. *grins*

Next week, we'll continue our discussions on futuring and innovation, and take our first virtual field trip.

CS 855 Next Class

2008-08-18T09:57:00.004-06:00

On August 19th, we will examine the advances and trends from Technology's Promise, continue our discussion of socio-technical futuring and learn a few more virtual world concepts. Class times:

6:00PM Mountain, 7:00PM Central, 8:00PM Eastern
7:00PM Pacific, 8:00PM Mountain, 9:00PM Central

Aug 12th CTU Class Activities - Two sessions

2008-08-12T21:47:00.009-06:00

Technology, tools and the risks associated with making predictions were among Tuesday's class discussion topics.

We tested our knowledge about entrepreneurs and demographics in the U.S., then looked at how our textbooks Technology's Promise and The Fortune Sellers organize and discuss trends and innovations.

At the end of each session, we examined a variety of free Second Life technologies. The early class studied aircraft and vehicles, learning to render and use their objects.

One aircraft worked beautifully for demonstration purposes, but did not cooperate for students. In the hour between classes, another student joined us and we studied cooperative movement in a UFO multi-person vehicle (depicted in this photo).

The last class discussed the course concepts, then looked at particle scripts, some devices that use them and the castle rezzer. Students received an additional staff with particles and an animation override on it. Check with Lyr Lobo to get her staff and a UFO vehicle.

For next week, grab your Technology's Promise book by William Halal and we will discuss Chapters 4 and 5. Focus greater attention on pp. 45-52 - Online Societies, pp. 53-56 - Virtual Reality and on the advances and trends listed on pp. 57-62, 66 and 72-78. Note how this content compares to the results from our technological forecasting activity during the residency. We will also weave more Second Life concepts into our activities.

See you in Second Life!

CS 855 Classes on Tuesday

2008-08-11T11:10:00.003-06:00

Second Life Class Sessions

8/12/08 at 6PM Mountain, 7PM Central, 8PM Eastern
and an encore session at:
8/12/08 at 7PM Pacific, 8PM Mountain, 9PM Central

Agenda: Modeling Tools and Technologies, Gadgets in SL

Science Friday in Second Life

2008-08-07T20:18:00.005-06:00

August 8, 2008  Topics: Pacific Time = Second Life Time (SLT)

11 AM SLT: WATER ON MARS! SOLAR SYSTEMS AND COSMIC GHOSTS, DRUG TESTING EXAMINED
NOON: KISS MY MATH! WITH DANICA McKELLAR, TRAFFIC PATTERNS: WHY WE DRIVE THE WAY WE DO

Join Ira Flatow of National Public Radio's SCIENCE FRIDAY in Second Life, for a lively two hour discussion of cutting-edge science. Ira will be taking questions from Second Life avatars during the show.

Location:  http://slurl.com/secondlife/Science%20Friday/220/192/28

Missed the show? Visit SCIENCE FRIDAY to enjoy the podcasts from the show.

MGM 845's Week 5 Class in Second Life

2008-08-07T18:49:00.009-06:00

The MGM 845 Strategic Thinking class met in Second Life to discuss the BSG, decision making concepts and the class activities listed on Moodle. Delft Andel led the session with facilitation and notetaking by Lyr Lobo. *waves her magic pen*

Observations and Questions During Class

Fear is a barrier to creativity.
This is your opportunity to "run" a multi-national retail company.
Enjoy the roleplay activities and envision what it takes to be successful.
Does everyone feel comfortable with the rotating CEO perspective?
Are there other roleplay games like this one used in classes for electronic negotiation?

People will imitate your success!

Creativity vs. Innovation in Second Life

2008-08-05T21:59:00.014-06:00

CS 855 held two excellent class sessions in Second Life tonight. We borrowed the Take a Position concept from Global Kids and examined some common myths about innovation from the books The Myths of Innovation and Ban the Humorous Bazooka: And Other Roadblocks and Speed Bumps Along the Innovation Highway ("Ban" is available from Books 24x7 at the CTU Library).

Students discussed the concepts and myths associated with creativity and innovation while standing on platforms that represented Myth or Truth. After examining nine myths, the class observed that the definitions tend to blur as a series of small creative efforts contribute to innovation.

Both classes ended with a short building session that covered intermediate building skills. Next week's classes (at the same time and location) continue to weave the class concepts with social media experiences in a virtual world.

Check out the Week 5 News forum post for more information on how your futuring and innovation assignments are being evaluated.

Let me know if you are interested in prototyping your class project or need a Second Life session at another time.

How to use voice in Second Life

2008-08-05T16:22:00.009-06:00

Tip: You can hear others speak even if you do not have a microphone and you can continue to hear and speak even if you lose connection so long as you do not close your SL software.

Select:

ctrl + P for preferences
Voice Chat tab
Enable Voice Chat
Check the box for voice from the avatar position - to hear around your body
Push-to-talk mode and toggle
Select the Apply button and Ok at the bottom of the Preferences window

Look at the bottom right of your display screen.

Click the Talk button if you have a microphone enabled and wish to talk.

If you have problems, revisit the Voice Chat tab in the Preferences at ctrl P and check your Device Settings and Voice Chat Settings.

To hear other speakers better:

Click the Active Speaker List (the button to the left of the Talk button). Highlight a name on it and use the slider at the bottom of the window to turn them up or down. Move the speaker window up if you do not see it. Only the names in this list can hear the Voice chat.

Tip: If you do not see names in the Active Speaker List, you are not connected to the voice server. If you Enabled Voice Chat in Preferences and you have a working microphone, headset or speakers, then log off and reconnect to Second Life.

See you in Second Life! *waves*

Futuring and Innovation: Myths, Metanomics and Social Media

2008-08-04T17:48:00.006-06:00

While preparing for this week's Second Life class sessions, I flagged a few topics worthy of further discussion. Don't forget to check out Howard Rheingold's video at http://tinyurl.com/6ymbnr

The Myths of Innovation
http://www.theagitator.net/creativity/how-does-innovation-occur/

Futuring for visual/spatial learners
http://www.slideshare.net/tag/futuring

Futuring and innovation in a virtual world
Metanomics in Second Life
http://www.metanomics.net/pastevent
http://metanomics.net/futuring-and-innovation-center

Futuring and innovation - cancer research towards 2015
http://labs.cancer.org/FIC.asp

Futuring and innovation for non-profits - social media
http://www.fispace.org/

Second Life Getting Started Guide

2008-08-04T14:58:00.032-06:00

Use this guide to learn to Move, Look Around, Use Objects, Teleport or Change your Appearance.

Moving Your Avatar - Navigation

Move your avatar by using the arrow keys on your keyboard. Up = forward, Down = back, Left = turn left, Right = turn right

Looking Around - Camera Controls

Lock your camera on an object by holding the Alt button and left clicking it. (Mac users: Option key + Mouse click).

Hold down the Ctrl + Alt + left mouse button (all 3 together) and move your hand slowly to the left, right, forward or back. While you hold all 3 down, your camera moves around the object.

Return your camera to your avatar - press the Escape key twice.

Interacting with Objects

Touch or left click an object to use it. Not all objects are usable.

Right click and select the Sit option in the pie menu - Sit is located at the 10:00 location on a clock).

Tip: Sometimes the name of the Sit option is redefined by a script to another name, such as Relax, Pose or Up. "Sit" means "attach the avatar to an object and use it."

To Stand: right click the object and select Stand or use the Stand button in the bottom center of your display.

Teleport - Navigation between Regions or Sims

You can teleport using the Map button, a landmark, a teleport request from a friend, or by clicking a slurl (SL url web address). Second Life is a grid of 3D graphical websites that your avatar can visit.

Map: click the Map button at the bottom of your display. On the map menu: enter the name of the region (sim or island) that you wish to visit and click the button to the right to load it. Use the Teleport button in the menu or double click on the map to move to that location.

Landmark: click your Inventory button and open the MyInventory and Landmarks folders. Double click the landmark to teleport to that location.

Want a friend to join you? - Teleport a Friend

Click your communicate button in the lower right corner, the Contacts tab and the Friends tab. If online, highlight your friend's name and select Teleport on the right or Profile, then Teleport.

Appearance - Change Clothes via the Inventory Menu

Your clothes, body shape, skin, hair and eyes are in your Inventory under several folders. At first, you are wearing a new avatar look in your Clothing folder.

To change your look or clothing, you can wear it or add new pieces to your outfit.

Right click clothing, hair, skin, shape or eyes and select Wear.

Right click a folder name that has wearable items in it and select ADD TO OUTFIT.

Tip: You could Remove clothing or Replace clothing, but both of these options bare your avatar, then add only the new items, leaving the body parts that are missing from this folder bare.

Tip: To reduce the likelihood of being without clothing or hair, use ADD TO Outfit to replace only the items that are in the folder. You can manually remove any excess items.

Appearance - Customize Your Avatar - the Appearance Menu

From the Edit menu on the menubar, select Appearance -or -

Right click your avatar and select Appearance

In the Appearance Menu, you can make a new look, create new items of clothing, customize the color and texture of clothing, change your shape, skin, hair and eyes. The new items you are create are storied in either the Body folder or the Clothing folder of your Inventory.

Tip: Create a folder for your normal look.

Make a new Inventory folder - right click on a folder and select New Folder.
Rename it and move your inventory items into that folder or copy/paste them.
To restore your normal look, right click the folder and use ADD TO OUTFIT.

Tip: Purchased items are often no modify.

Look for items that allow you to modify them.
Make a copy of our item before customizing your look so you have an unaltered original.

Learning to fly!

2008-08-01T17:44:00.006-06:00

The third CS 855 class session in Second Life was such fun as students learned to fly!

Aside from reviewing SL basics, we discussed research in SL and evaluating alternatives for simulating the class project.

Who said SL is only for techies? An MGM 845 student installed the software and set up his voice, practiced a few camera and motor skills, then took off flying in his newly rezzed airship. Fast work!

By popular request, we will hold two one-hour class sessions on Tuesday, Aug. 5th at 6:00 PM Mountain, 8:00 PM Eastern and an encore session (same day, same agenda) at 7:00 PM Pacific, 8:00 PM Mountain. See you on Tuesday!

The figure depicts Lyr Lobo demonstrating Percival Ogg's Airship in Second Life.

Second Life Futuring and Innovation Class

2008-07-30T04:56:00.018-06:00

Nine CS 855 students valiantly navigated Tuesday night's class in Second Life, studying camera controls, the profile, how to use Voice over IP, chat logs, sharing content, gestures and drinking hot cocoa.

*makes a note to add more gadgets to the next class*

The discussion shifted from SL mechanics to reflect on social media and how people collaborate online. Our use of the Web 2.0 tools and Second Life helps us to understand today's capabilities and to envision what will be needed in 10-15 years.

With a nod to famous futurists, Winston Churchill's observation that the future was "one damn thing after another" [1] made us ask why anyone would pursue a career in forecasting. Yet, given the $200 billion spent annually on predictions, it is no small wonder that many feel that the 85% (or higher) failure rate is well worth the risk.

Weather forecasting was noted as one of the more successful prediction systems in W. Sherdan's The Fortune Sellers. Why is the weather important to technological innovation? Its direct influence on the physical environment affects other systems and their outcomes.

Upcoming assignment: As you start to design an audio podcast, two presentation styles that came to mind were Ask Dr. Science and Bill Nye The Science Guy. In your podcast, tell us about your favorite futurist (real or fictional), or share tips about a Web 2.0 tool.

Tip: Keep it short, offer new information and have a great time sharing your ideas!

Don't forget to post feedback about Dr. Rheingold's video from Monday's discussion.

Class ended with a description of the Programmatic Research paper and information regarding the final doctoral defense. Next week, we will continue our discussion of socio-technical futuring and discuss additional virtual world capabilities.

[1] Sherdan, W. A. (1998). The Fortune Sellers: The Big Business of Buying and Selling Predictions. John Wiley & Sons, New York, p.7.

CTU Second Life Classes for July 29-31, 2008

2008-07-28T19:32:00.006-06:00

We will hold a CS 855 session in Second Life (SL) on Tuesday, July 29, 2008 at 6PM Mountain/7PM Central time, recapping the 2nd set of residency content. Attendance is optional.

We also have a 30-minute SL introduction on Thursday, July 31, 2008 at 6 PM Mountain/7PM Central time. MGM 845 also meets in Second Life for their strategic thinking activities. Depending on how many students arrive, we may use opposite sides of the island. After logging into Second Life, visit Acheron LV426 and click the Teleport Now button to teleport to class.

1st CS 855 class in Second Life: Sunday, July 27th's session was a blend of first time SL usage and socio-technical futuring concepts. We only skimmed the highlights of the history of futuring, various prediction techniques and Herman Kahn's predictions. We stopped far short of creative destruction.

Howard Rheingold on Why use forums?

2008-07-28T18:52:00.006-06:00

Howard Rheingold's latest video reminds me of the cognitive overload associated with subscribing to forums. It also explains why my replies answer a variety of questions in a single message.

If you are new to embedding media in posts, checkout his video called the Social Media Classroom: Why use forums?

In addition to his videos, he has a historical perspective on the future of the Web as it was envisioned in 1996. Intriguing and fresh, Dr. Rheingold's explorations are well worth reviewing and he offers glimpses into his current research at hrheingold over Twitter.

Talking cash registers - a socio-technical tale

2008-07-26T18:17:00.010-06:00

Around 1980-81, my high tech supermarket installed talking cash registers at the checkout stands. The store sold a wide selection of grocery and pharmacy products and at first, the introduction of new technology was just like stepping into the Space age.

That is, until we noticed that a computerized voice was announcing everything that we purchased by name, size, quantity and price. To help us hear over the sounds of people shopping, the voice was loud and could be heard in nearby checkout lanes.

Photo courtesy of Kanesue
I noticed that I started shopping in the wee hours of the morning to get privacy, and when others would loom near, I'd make snappy comments about my purchases.

Breaking a hundred-dollar bill by buying a pack of gum no longer seemed like a good idea. While the voice was very polite, shoppers reacted as if someone had hollered over a loudspeaker. "She's leaving the building with $97.25 in change!"

How people feel about technology and the tasks that they are performing influences their widespread adoption and use. For cool new technologies to be successful, we need to identify and understand their social implications and how they will impact growth and innovation.

Web 2.0 Collaboration Tools

2008-07-18T06:42:00.005-06:00

As we reflect on the future, we are examining Web 2.0 collaboration tools, such as blogs, wikis, and shared information spaces. Highlighst from yesterday's discussion of tools included Slideshare, Flickr, Gabcast and Google Docs. We also examined research and the business use of Second Life.

Visit my Slideshare content to review how we can share presentations and use tags to help find and retrieve content.

Share images by first posting them in Flickr, create a podcast using your cell phone and collaborate on your innovation forecasts using Google Docs.