Last CS 855 Class Session in Second Life

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.

Think Tanks and Second Life Gestures

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.

Aug 12th CTU Class Activities - Two sessions

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!

CTU and CS 855: 1st Day of the Summer 08 Residency

Yesterday's explorations in futuring and innovation led to some interesting discussions concerning facts, truth, perceptions and general semantics. We discussed Alfred Korzybski's work in general semantics and observed that the meaning in words resides in the people who wield them. In addition, our perception of the world is influenced by our use of language to discuss it.

While this is not a philosophy or semantics class, understanding culture and how a society is influenced by language affects our ability to forecast, communicate these predictions and to achieve an uncertain future.

We examined facts and asked the question How do we know that Trinidad exists? When we make observations about facts and sociological, cultural, political or technological conditions, does our use of language affect our perception of reality?

As we explore technological innovations and predictions, we examine how futurologists predict them, how the public understands them and how scientists, engineers and economists strive to achieve them.