technology

Linden Labs in Boston

This article details Linden Labs' recent acquisition of a Waltham, MA, company that specializes in areas of online media that will only further enhance the growth of Second Life for all of us and merge the worlds it is attempting to merge - the high-end techies and 'wanna be's" like me. :-)

Voicethread

Thanks to running into KJ Haxx last night in SL, I am learning about a tool that, at least initially, appears to have the possibility of being a very workable tool for both undergraduates, graduates, and teachers (esp. professional development) for examining photographs and other primary sources - and including audio and text and annotations . .   a step above Flickr.

KJ has already posted a link to the start of his Voicethread about his presentation in SL - another asynchronous addition to the decreasingly synchronous world. . . .

Exploring Facebook

I might have mentioned joining Facebook awhile back because Cliopatria had a group there. Well, today I received an invite from a former student who is now a teacher to be her friend and so I re-entered Facebook. It's another thing on the list to explore more (and I did find some Pitt State groups).
I also discovered that my best friend's daughter who is at my school is Facebook friends with the son of someone I work with . . . small world.

Right now, it's mainly a way to better understand my students. In real life, I know the university is concerned because some students don't realize the long-term (and not necessarily the short-term ones either) impact of posting "party pictures" shall we say that may be viewed layer but potential employers. I try, in general, to remind students that anything posted online can be found anytime anywhere. They usually mistakenly assume that if they take a photo offline, it's gone. However, I then I explain the constant back-up caches and archiving. Then, they get very interesting looks on their faces. I'm wondering about doing some research on what professors need to know about  Facebook

All of this technology simply takes a leap of faith - which isn't so simple for many people.
I was discussing Second Life with a techie today and, like other technologies, you sometimes just have to "jump in" to understand it all. On a related note, I'm not sure I would have "gotten" Second Life if I had jumped in earlier than I did - given the limited number of people there for education at that time. But, that is only hindsight, and limited hindsight at that.

More on Friday Conference

See KJ's blog for more info on the Friday Second Life conference - including a great overview article.

Follow-up on wikis

And this was found via a history-centered blog:

http://www.earlymodernweb.org.uk/emn/index.php/archives/2007/05/wikification-what-can-wiki-do-for-you/

Friday Calendar

KJ has posted a direct link to the abstracts for Friday's online SL conference.

This conference space is one of the best wiki examples I've seen - this is an easy way to "web collaborate."

I have a RL project that I have to finish before returning too much to SL so it's back to the grindstone so I can be at the conference on Friday.

Second Life Second Thoughts

Because of RL, I've taken more than 24 hours in between visits to SL. Time to get some perspective. I am Type A-enough that I need to have goals when I go into SL even when friends like Ex are talking about the fun places to go.

I need to spend some time with the Second Life book I mentioned earlier. I am finding an actual wardrobe but am still striving to enhance my avatar without spending thousands of Lindens. I need to keep thinking about how to at least get my teacher candidates into this virtual world in the fall. It appears that I know have official Angel accounts with my university and the official Angel Isle has opened up in SL. It's good to have the summer to explore. From what I've seen at least so far, Angel is a much better interface than Blackboard.

The two blogs I read most consistently to stay up with Second Life even when I'm not there are The Story of My Second Life and the Four-Eyed Technologist (sorry, I'm on my Mac which does not seem to make cutting and pasting URLs easy but doing a simple google search will get you to both quite easily and transparently.)

As I logged into this blog, the  link to my  Truman blog (note that the first part of this URL is  teachinghistory dot . . . ), maybe I should find a way to introduce ole Harry to SL. Might be an interesting approach to see what people think about him. And it's a melding of SL and RL history . . . hmmmm....

Cell Phones in Second Life

On a brief swing through SL this morning, I discovered someone (apparently European if that makes a difference) with their avatar on a cell phone. So, what does that say about them?

Normally, if you are "busy" you can set yourself to "busy" or simply fade to an 'away' designation.

I am collecting some tools to put in my apartment that I eventually want to be a teaching center.

There always seem to be more neat people to meet - ie an archivist at the USDA that works at the National Agriculture Library was one recently.

There are quite a few librarians in SL - part of what appears to be a movement for libraries themselves to move into Web 2.0. I poked around the general web for more info. And, of course, there are the folks that still just want books . .  But I can see great potential for drawing kids into reading with scenarios like this - whether it is visiting an online recreation of a book atmosphere or, creating their own. Never thought I would buy into constructivism but here I am. The key is that the student (of whatever age) has to be READY to construct!!! and have the knowledge base to do so.

Avatars as our next teachers

Our next teachers: avatar experts by ZDNet's Roland Piquepaille -- Researchers from Illinois and Florida are developing a networking system which will create virtual representations of real people to improve our knowledge. They will use artificial intelligence and natural language processing software to enable us to interact with these avatars. The goal of the project, sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF), is to give us the possibility to interact with these virtual representations as if they were the actual person, complete with the ability to understand and answer questions. We should see the results at the beginning of 2008 -- if the researchers succeed.

Teaching in Second Life

I did a general google search for teaching in second life and ran across these guidelines from the University of Texas.

Today I met with several of the brains behind the Greenbush Education Island - they have some great ideas and we are going to submit a proposal to present at the SLCC in Chicago in August. Man, this is fun!